Cambodia: Confusion, Temples, Elections

Arrived in Cambodia on Halloween, by way of a very un-used, backwater border post with Thailand, called Psar Pruhm. We were the only non- Thai/Cambodians at the border crossing and we had to rouse the Cambodian visa official from a nap in his hammock to issue us a visa. From that point forward, communication got very difficult. In the touristy parts of Thailand, English is spoken and written a lot. In Psar Pruhm, there were few signs in a non-Cambodian alphabet and NO ONE spoke English. We struck out, several times, when attempting to find out about transportation options to the city, Battambang, about four hours away, that was our first over-night destination in Cambodia. People just kept telling us "take taxi." When we asked about busses (we're on a budget!), we received blank stares. At the first intermediate-sized town we visited, one taxi driver pulled up to another taxi driver on the dirt road (all roads in this part of Cambodia are dirt- and in very bumpy shape!)and tried to hand us off for the next portion of our trip. Again, we tried to ask about busses or a bus station. Nothing. Finally, Joe asked if we could be taken to the hotel in town, which was in our guide book; we hoped someone there would speak English or know how we could get a bus to Battambang. The taxi drivers got very excited when they understood we wanted to go to the hotel- it was the first thing they understood us say at all! We pulled up to the hotel and the proprietess, who spoke some English, offered to help us communicate...She confirmed that the only way to get to Battambang was by taxi, the road was too bad for busses, and she walked us out to the street to find a taxi: it was the one and only taxi in town, who we had just had drop us off at the hotel 20 minutes ago! Confusion all around...Everyone laughed and we got in the taxi for a 4-hour ride to Battambang (which was a great introduction to Cambodia: a chill town on a pretty river, with wonderful food, friendly people, etc).
From Battambang, we took a 7 hour boat ride with 30 other tourists to the major tourist destination of Siem Reap, where the ancient temples of Angkor Wat (sometimes referred to as the 8th Wonder of the World, but I wonder how many other places are called that, too?) are located. The boat ride was amazing! Least of all because it started at 7 a.m. and a friendly tourist from England who we had met the night before wanted to start drinking his good birthday bottle of whiskey with Joe and I and others- at 7 a.m. It was a really fun day, involved a 2nd bottle of local (horrible) alcohol purchased en route before 9 a.m. and great scenery: bright green rice paddies, wide open skies, and wooden houses, and villages built on stilts, populated by fishermen/women, who basically live on water...
Angkor Wat is amazing, even though I am sort of "templed out" (so many temples here in Asia!). Spread out over 20 miles, and built by Khmer (the ethnicity of Cambodia) rulers from the 11-14th centuries, are tens and tens of temples, both Buddhist and Hindu. The surroundings are lush, jungly, wet, and the temples are in various states of ruin or restoration...We rented bicycles and biked all over, getting there (with 100s of other tourists) in time for sunrise at the major temple complex: Angkor Wat. I enjoyed biking through the exotic landscape as much as actually getting off our bikes and walking into and around the different temples, but I didn't tell Joe that - turns out he's a temple freak and can't get enough of this ancient, religious architecture!
We are really enjoying our time here. The people are great and friendly, the scenery is superb, and we have enjoyed every meal we've eaten (one highlight was when we went to a casual restaurant near our guest house in Siem Reap, where we were the only foreigners and there was no menu and almost no English spoken. All the staff gathered around us and used their combined efforts to help us order one beef and one vegetable rice and they all laughed hysterically when we had been presented with our food and utensils, which included different empty bowls, and sauces, chillies, a huge array of raw vegetables on ice, a pot of rice and we began trying different things and putting them in our bowls; we were obviously doing something VERY wrong and funny but we had no idea what it was), and the scenery is superb. But Cambodia has a very, very painful recent history. Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were killed during and right after the U.S. war with Vietnam, when the brutal Khmer Rouge took power here. The country lost more than 10% of its population and it is still recovering, obviously.
It is election day morning in the U.S. and I am in a high state of excitement and anticipation, here in Phnomh Penh (the capital of Cambodia). I want to wake up tomorrow at a.m. our time (6 p.m. Eastern time) and begin to watch the election coverage, before meeting up at a Democrats Abroad party here...