Sarah: People travel for all different sorts of reasons, and with any number of interests. There are photography buffs, who spend much of their trip looking at the world through the viewfinder of their camera; beach bums, recognized by their leathery, hot-pink or nut-brown skin, extra-large sunglasses, and extra-small bathing suits; adventurers, with their zip-off pants and penchant for rock-climbing, paragliding, scuba diving. There are the partiers, the amateur anthropologists, the enlightenment seekers. We’ve met examples of all of these throughout our trip.

But the (probably true) cliché about travel is that the thing it teaches you the most about is yourself. And on that front, Patrick and I have come to a realization about what kind of travelers we are: shameless foodies.

Sarah: Happy (belated) Thanksgiving to those of you in the states. Patrick and I survived our first big holiday away from family, and had a delicious dinner Thursday night at the Foreign Correspondents' Club here in Phnom Penh. There was no turkey or cranberry sauce on the menu, but the chewy herbed focaccia bread with pesto dip was drool-inducingly good, and we even managed an apple crumble for dessert. The next morning, while we ate breakfast at a little Khmer restaurant near our guesthouse, our parents and families passed the phone around the dining room table (it was still Thursday night back in DeKalb) and we got to say a quick hello to loved ones.

Sarah: We've been travelling for long enough now that the things that seemed exotic or exciting, alienating or just plain weird, when we first started, have now become completely normal. Families of five on a motorcycle, water buffalo grazing on the side of the highway, footprints on the toilet seat -- these things don't phase us anymore. But every once in a while, something will still happen that's surprising enough to make us giggle. Like the new phrase we've coined for those times when you have to use a bathroom you'd really prefer not to. "Okay, I'm going to step over the crocodile." Allow me to explain.