We've Seen Avatar In A Way None Of You Have.

All I can say is that until you've seen Avatar on a pirate DVD with Cambodian subtitles on a small TV monitor at the front of a bus from the back of said bus as it speeds from Phnom Penh to HCMC, you haven't experienced the true magnificence of this immersive, uh, experience.

Little did we know when we chose our seat that we would be in for such a treat.
On other legs of our bus trips, we've endured blaring Vietnamese and Cambodian
sit-coms, sappy pop music videos and murky transfers of old Jean Claude Van Damme
movies. Since I'd missed the first 20 minutes of the film when we saw it in Hanoi
(an omission since rectified), I didn't recognize what we were watching at first.
I just thought, "Pretty good FX for a cheesy old movie." After a couple minutes,
though, I recognized the landscape.

Waiting for the ferry across the Mekong, every vehicle is swarmed by
vendors selling snacks and drinks.

We'd hoped for a crunchy lunch of fried beetles, but they were
nowhere to be found. Instead we had to settle for more standard
fare. I visited the toilet after lunch and the bus almost left
without me. Apparently they don't count heads before pulling out.
O. was able to slow them long enough for me to leap aboard.

What sweet P. (get it? Sweet Pea.) fails to mention is that, I not only ran to the front of the bus asking the driver to stop as it was pulling out without P., but the driver repeatedly honked the horn at P. who was meandering around taking pictures and not realizing that we were leaving without him. True to his easy nonplussed manner, P. casually looked up, took one more picture and hopped on the bus!

P.