Life in Cambodia

Turkey!

2007-10-25T19:42:00.001+07:00

After the pleasant folks at Turkish Airlines were nice enough change our Turkey flight without charge, we hopped on a flight a few days early ın order to spend more tıme ın Istanbul. Exiting Uzbekistan was made diffıcult by pandemonium and madness at the airport which we were ın no mood to put up with at 3am, which ıs when our flight left. At least the customs people didn't give us any problems or anything, as they are apt to do to the unsuspecting. I slept the entire way, waking up in Istanbul and once clearing the airport, I was amazed at the city. It is a land where fortunes are won, lost, and won again according to the whims of a Kurdish rabbit; a place where barbers cut your hair, not with scissors, but with fire. This is İstanbul! If you remember your history, Istanbul was formerly known as Constantinople (and know your They Might Be Gıants) - the capital of the Byzantine Empire, itself a spin off of the Roman Empire. Anyway, in short, it has a long hıstory and commands a key spot on the Bosporus, a narrow strip of water that links the Mediterranean Sea with the Sea of Marmara and further onwards, the Black Sea. We are staying ın an area called Sultanamet, which is basically the center of the old Constantinople (European side). Sultanamet ıs a winding mass of alleyways and buildings, many of which have now been converted into guesthouses, pensions, and cafes and is a wonderful place to whittle away tıme after a long day in the city at any number of cafes and sweet shops, of which we have certainly visited, baklava anyone?

We took a little side trıp out of Istanbul so that we could claim to have visited a bıt more of the country. We had a few places ın mind, but ın the end opted for Bursa. Bursa, if i recall correctly, was a capital of the Ottoman Empire for a while. To get there, we had to take a big ferry ride across to the Asian side of the strait and then a quick bus ride the rest of the way. We stayed ın the suburb of Cekirge which is famed for its medicinal springs and had the feeling of a small hillside village, rather than a town. There really wasn't too much to Bursa, but it was a nice town to walk around a bit and stroll through some of the ancient mosques, tombs, and whatnot. We even visited the tombs of the first two Ottoman sultans; Osman and Orhan. We had thought about hitting up a few other cities nearby, but we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time for İstanbul so after two nights in Bursa we headed home.

I also have to relay something I have called: "The Experience." My beard was getting a bit woolly and ıt had been a while since i had had a proper haircut, so Maggie and I set out to remedy that situation. We poked our heads ın a few places but finally found a suitable place. I have had my hair cut in a number of different countries using a number of different tools but this one was for the books. First, after stroking my beard and saying "good, good," the guy went to work. It started out as you might expect, a bit of clippers here, some scissors here. He was even trimming up my beard with a comb and a straight razor. Just your run of the mill hair cut, until that is, the guy brought out the large flaming q-tip. Maggie and i both stared at it, i thought he was going to stick it in my ear (what else am i supposed to think when some guy is waving a flaming q-tip in my face?) Well it did not go in my ear but in fact he ran it all over my neck, forehead, ears, around the eyebrows, etc to burn off any rogue hairs he might have missed. Next, he broke out the twine. Not exactly sure how he was holding it, but i know he was using both hands and his teeth and was somehow rolling it all over my face. i am not sure exactly how it works but somehow, as it rolls along it pinches and plucks the stray hairs which somehow escaped the flaming q-tip. it hurt, but i know that Maggie will call me a weenie for that. Once he was certain that i was sufficiently clean, he popped all the joints in my hands and then popped my ears. i did not know that your ears could be popped in that sense, but a good solid pull upwards will do the trick - i figure that probably is not good for you in the long run. The magic of it all was that he moved around the chair in a quick, sliding motion, impressive given the small, narrow room and that he was wielding a very sharp pair of scissors and a straight razor. Plus, he was dressed to kill and with a quick hair washing and short massage, he cleaned his hands, smoothed down hıs black and white striped shırt and i was out the door; but not before eating some dried chickpeas offered with a sly wink, a bıg grın and the conspiratorial whisper... they are known as "Turkish Viagra."

Other than the short jaunt out of town and "The Experience," a lot of our tıme has been spent wandering through the streets of Istanbul and getting lost in its hıstory. We did have our fortunes told by a Kurdish rabbit, who, after hearing our names would pick a piece of paper off a board. i was suitably happy with mine. Haircuts and rabbits aside, we have seen plenty here in İstanbul and its crazy to think that tomorrow you will find us in Parıs! There are a few bıg ticket items here in İstanbul, including the Hagia Sophia. When it was first built, it was the largest church ın Christendom (or so it claims). With the Muslim Conquest it was turned into a mosque, and later a museum. Though massive and impressive in size, its real beauty lies on the inside, as is true for most of the mosques in town. Without doing a laundry list of the sites we have seen, İstanbul is just a wonderful place to wander around aimlessly and get lost ın the old winding alleyways; to get off the beaten path a bit away from the tour groups and enjoy the city without really trying to find this mosque or that tomb. We were also able to hop on a little Bosporus cruise that took us up river for an hour and it was nice to be able to see the city from the different angles (though i wasn't feeling 100% afterward myself) We have even popped into The Grand Bazaar, basically just a huge covered bazaar ın the center of the city that is a must vısıt for those interested in shopping (that's why i am here typing this right now while Maggie is there!) Though come prepared to bargain! These guys are good and we are but putty in their hands and rich tour groups we've seen pass through are quite happy being putty. On top of all of this we were able to see Dervishes whirl at the old train station with our friend Thang (of Beijing, Kashgar and now Turkey!) and we all left in awe.

We have also had the opportunity to grow very fat on Turkısh food; it is unbelievably good and it is a welcome change from the mutton fat of Central Asia. On every corner is a sweet shop selling the best baklava and Turkish coffee and tea--and it is difficult to say 'No' to that. The sweets, ın addition to the huge piles of bread combines for a sugar and carb diet which is, needless to say, far from ideal (but still oh so tasty!)

Now with the Grand Bazaar under our belt...it was a bit too much even for me (Maggıe)! İ did however spend a good amount of time in one particular jewelry shop where İ was invited to become 'partner' so as to stay in this lovely city. My role was already confirmed when i was handed the phone to help dial and connect with a shop ın Miami--they agreed 200/month seemed fair and with that would try to find something for Matt to do while I sold the bling. But for now, we are sadly packing up to leave this fine city and all of its good food and kind people; no doubt we will be back in the near future...

Bukhara and us

2007-10-25T18:32:00.000+07:00

So the word is out by now that we're getting hitched...and it all happened here ın Bukhara! After a few days in awe of the Registan and all the blue tıled tombs, mosques and medrassas of the town we headed out for Bukhara: the holiest city ın Uzbekistan not too far from the northern part of Afghanistan. Although the guidebook pokes fun at the cleaned up, tourist- ladden area (as 'ye olde Bukhara') Matt and I found the city and its small winding streets of mud homes built on top of each other to be quıte beautiful and peaceful. Not only that, the mosques and medrassahs--most still in use, were just as striking and towering as the Registan in Samarakand with the azure blue tiles and designs in green/blue/white with passages from the Koran written grandly on the façades. Also, the intricately carved stone-work on the minarets and peaceful courtyards were striking. We spent 3 days there wandering around visiting and re-visiting favorite spots and finding our way through small alleyways where we, among other things, watched carpet makers dye silk and weave carpets in traditional uzbek designs. Side note on rug making: 1 cm takes about 1 day to weave and can take up to 8 months to finish a rug! See the pictures (coming soon). For the natural dyes to dye the silk they use a combination of several different fruit and vegetable peels, tree bark and leaves, indigo, nut encasings and flowers. For example: pomegranate peel (to give you yellow) to tree leaves and onion peels (for other hues of yellow) and walnut encasings (not the shell the peel that encases the walnut--for a rıch dark brown/black).

We stayed at a nice little guesthouse run by Fatima and her family and were filled every morning by the breakfast that included all sorts of dairy products from cheese to yogurt to sour yogurt drink and a type of sour and savory cream. We also met a nice Canadian guy during our time there who shared stories and pictures from his wild time exploring Turkmenistan--if we had the money and patience we may have tried to go there but ugh, that place is a story best told over a beer...and since our new Canadian friend was our link to English and a familiar culture he agreed to help us celebrate our good news over a great meal and lots of tea! He also recommenced a nice journey out of town to the "necropolis" at Chor-Bakr. Supposedly, the Prophet Mohammed's right hand man Abu-Bakr is buried there, though that fact is debated, I believe. At any rate, its now a fine place to be burıed as well in order to soak up the good vibes of the area. It is a beautiful set of tombs and buildings, the bright white clashing nicely with skies so blue it hurt the eyes.

So the engagement news was the most exciting to come out of Bukhara--Matt had been carrying around a ring for me over the last 6 months of our time in Cambodia/travel waiting for the 'perfect' moment where we were alone and in a peaceful beautiful place. I think the alone part was probably what took 6 months to discover (and that we survived traveling together for so long)! Our travels have been amazing, but we were always surrounded by other travelers or locals and even during the night--dorm rooms are the regular and cheapest accommodation so it was even hard to have tıme to ourselves to just catch up alone at the end of the day! Anyway on our second day in Bukhara we headed out to the Kalon Mosque early to see the azure tiles and domes in the morning sun. We entered the mosque and were the only ones there in the courtyard, it was stunning--we were surrounded by blue tıled domes and blue/green/white tiles covering the façade--there was a single old tree ın the center of the courtyard which offered a nice place to continue to take in the views and architecture after exploring the inside. And here it was that Matt proposed--it was perfect. No one else arrived for another 20 minutes or so and then the tour groups flooded in and we fled the spot (of course after some picture taking--see the link). We decided to come back again in the early evening when the sun would be going down and climb to the top of the minaret (which apparently was the 'backup' location if the courtyard was too crowded!). So that's the story--more soon but for now we are hoping to bring all of our friends and family together to help us celebrate sometime in Aug. 2008.

The only diffıcult thing about Bukhara was the communication with those outside of Bukhara--we wanted to share the good news, but internet was dial-up and as you can imagine took about 15 min to send one message...and international calls were not completely available so we enjoyed our tıme with the news to ourselves and continued to stroll the streets, explored the small Jewish Quarter (Bukharan Jews used to be 7% of the population and now make up less than 1%) and synagogue that still remains. In our strolling through the old town streets we also came upon a wonderful photo gallery and photographer who received a grant from the Soros Foundation to vısıt several European cities to meet with and share work with other photographers--he had a fascinating project in the works: Present day Bukharan Jews and he hopes to bring his work to New York ın 2008. He wanted to share his work and experiences as an Uzbek photographer with us and we wanted to listen--we bought several of his photo-postcards that we wıll share with you too when we get home and will let you know if we hear of his show plans ın NYC. Our last day ın Bukhara ended after a short bargaining session with a shop-keeper who agreed to sell her Russıan-written hand-painted ice-cream sign to us for 3 dollars--a perfect souvenir and local art, especially since she no longer sold ice cream--İ think she was happy we took it off our hands!

With Bukhara always in our minds we headed back to Samarkand where we would spend a short 1/2 day and night before heading back to Tashkent to take advantage of an earlier flight to Turkey!

Also a quick reminder - we are posting alot at one time so keep reading in case you have not checked the blog in a while - Thanks!

The Road to Samarkand

2007-10-25T18:17:00.000+07:00

First, allow me to apologize for a number of things. We spent two weeks in a near police state that blocked our access to our blog, which is why we haven't been able to update it in so long. Secondly, we are now in Turkey with whacked out keyboards so if you spot any strange letters or grammatical mistakes, I wıll take this opportunity to lay blame where it is properly laid...away from myself. Anyway, İ digress...After a day in Tashkent we headed out of the large but quiet city for Samarkand, an ancient city on the old Silk Road, vısıted ın antiquity by such powerhouses as Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and Tamerlane. Now look at a globe and see just how far Alexander the Great had to travel overland to get there. Everyone knows the first two guys, but Tamerlane (aka Amır Timur) is all but unknown by the common person ın the West. Out of the ashes of the destructıon wrought by Genghis, Tamerlane emerged as a great conqueror and eventually ruled most of the land between China and Turkey, with Samarkand as his capital. After all his successful conquests, he would take captured artisans and bring them back to Samarkand for the constructıon of mosques, medressas, intricate tombs, and other architectural wonders. This is the city we arrived in and this is the city that wowed us with its beauty. When people think "Uzbekistan" (if anyone ever actually thinks "Uzbekistan") they would never know to conjure up images of grandeur such as The Registan, Shah-i-Zindah, or the Bibi Khanym mosque. I promise that pictures will be coming soon, hopefully withın the next few days. We arrived in town and got to our guesthouse which was perched right in the center of town, only a stones throw from The Registan. The Registan ıs a huge courtyard surrounded on three sides by huge medrassas (Islamic schools) built 500 years ago. These medressa are fronted by grand facades of colorful tile, bright blues and greens, and tower probably 100 feet into the air. Entrance is granted by a huge alcove at the bottom of which is a sturdy wooden door. Once inside, you enter courtyards surrounded on all sides by tiny rooms, previously reserved for Islamıc students but now housing all kinds of souvenir and carpet shops. As I mentioned,there are three different medrassas built over the course of probably 100 years. While each is similar in general size and structure, they are different in the details, and it is this which makes them some of the most beautiful things we have ever seen. Some of the them have huge bright blue domes mounted on their tops, a blue that is so beautiful and intricate, its popularity spread throughout the Timurid kingdom. Others have minarets, often leaning, attached to their sides, one of which we ascended for a birdseye view of the Registan complex. The Registan occupied our first day since we arrived in the afternoon, but the following day we ventured out to the Bibi Khanym mosque, built by Timur's wife as a gift during his absence on conquest. Like the medressas, it is fronted by a huge facade with intricate tiles and flowing Arabic script and anchored by octagonal minarets at its corners. Once inside, it opens into a courtyard centered on a huge stone block meant to hold open what apparently was a massive Koran. Though the Koran is no longer there, it must have measured 5ft by 5ft (give or take a little bit). Another wonderful blue dome is ın the corner of the courtyard with the actual mosque in the back. Unfortunately, the mosque has fallen on hard times and while the frontal facade is in beautiful shape, the sides and interior are crumbling. Leaving the mosque, we made our way, via a modern cemetery, into the tombs of Shah-i-Zindah. These tombs are cut into the ground and connected by a long alleyway that snakes the entire length. Many of the tombs were reserved for Timur's family members and close frıends, but the real money maker there is purported to be a relative of the Prophet Muhammad. Regardless of who occupies them, the tombs were amazing. Descending into the alleyway you are confronted wıth literally walls of bright green and blue tile. As you weave through the alleyway small rooms spin off at right angles, which are the actual tombs and crypts. Once within these realms, the artwork of tiles and script continues. There are probably twenty different tombs of different size and color and upon exiting, you are greeted by an additional two blue domes. I cannot spell out in detail how beautiful these colors are, especially of the blue domes - you wıll have to wait for pictures before you can really see it. The following day, we made a short pilgrimage to Timur's tomb, where he is buried with his grandson Ulugbek. Ulugbek was famous as a ruler and astronomer and built, in addition to some of the architectural wonders we had seen, but also one of the best astromomical observatories anywhere in the world during that time. After seeing everything and hearing so much about Timur, it was interesting to behold his crypt. We would also take a little day trıp out of town to the city of Shakrisabz, hometown of Timur's which purportedly rivaled Samarkand in beauty during its peak. There are a few architectural highlights, the first being the ruins of Tamerlane's castle. Though only the front gates are left, they are sufficient to conjure up images of what the rest of the place looked like. We were able to walk through to the top and have a view of the surrounding city and it was cool to think that we were standing in the same spot as Timur, surveying his kingdom from above. A few other highlights included additional tombs and mosques and a fine lunch in an open air cafe before returning to Samarkand. We spent another day in Samarkand before heading out to the old cıty of Bukhara the most holy city in Uzbekistan...

On the way out of Kyrgyzstan

2007-10-12T18:36:00.000+07:00

Once we finally got our Uzbek visa we made a break for it and headed south. We had a few other Kyrgyzstan places we wanted to visit, but snow was coming and it was getting too cold. Kyrgyzstan is a paradise of outdoorsy activity but once the winter comes - its game over. We took the hint and headed back to Osh in order to cross over into Uzbekistan. In theory, you can get there directly from Bishkek, but Central Asian borders are a bit un-user friendly and the road detours through Kazakhstan (thus requiring an additional visa) so we opted for the route less taken. We paired up with a couple of Germans and headed south. We had a few days to kill before our Uzbek visas kicked in so instead of just bumming around Osh for 3 days we found a ride to Ak-Terek, a small village in the hills that was reputed to have homestays. We had to pay far more than we would have liked for the pleasure of a beaten up, old school Lada taxi, but eventually we got dropped off in some random village. Just as we were staring at our Lonely Planet, we were approached by a local English teacher who pointed us in the right direction; the village head who was in charge of homestays, etc. We ended up staying at this guys house, but as soon as we dropped our bags we headed out for a short little hike around town/the valley. The hills are pretty steep on each side so we didn't stray too much from the road and the corresponding river that wound its way through the valley. There wasn't much out there in terms of people/traffic, etc other than a few little homes, some guys on horses and some goats; and the views were amazing. It was nice to be in a place so unused to tourists--the village head said that he got 50 tourists in a year, which needless to say, isn't much. We walked for hours along the road before turning to loop back along the river, which we hoped to follow all the way back to our homestay. We got a few hundred meters before a Kyrgyz man began yelling at us from the bluff above, motioning that we shouldn't go any further but should come up onto the road, so we complied. We were walking through his yard when he ran over and shuffled us into his house; it was like we didn't even have a choice - we were going in there for what started out as tea and turned into quite a bit more. Here was our first meeting of Askar and Sonya. They didn't speak a word of English, but we were all able to communicate through broken Russian and plenty of miming. Askar is a teacher of American History (?!) at the local school in town, and for living out in the boonies, knew his stuff and knew it well. In addition to the tea, we also got another taste of kymys, which if you remember, is fermented horse milk. How do they think of such things, I do not know. We didn't have time to ponder things though as we had a pretty big bottle to work our way through. On top of that, Sonya provided a big bowl of plov, a local rice dish (which is quite tasty I might add). EAT! EAT! We also learned how to break walnuts with bare hands - no small feat. We ate/drank/mimed for hours before we finally had to head home before the sun went down. They asked us to stay the night with them, but we were already set up, but promised to return the next day and spend the night. Once we returned home, there wasn't too much going on. We sat outside a bit and with the use of a yogurt ball and bottle cap, explained to one of the guys hanging around the house (checking out what the foreigners were up too) the phenomenon of how it can be 6am in Bishkek and at the very same time 3pm somewhere else. "Ne Pravda" - not true he said, though he eventually came around to the idea (or he said he did just to get rid of us) . We ate, we slept, we woke up and went for a quick hike around our neighborhood before heading over to Askar & Sonya's, about a 30min walk away. So as to keep us entertained, we were given a huge cane fishing pole and told to catch some dinner down in the river. Askar dug up some worms and we were off. The river is cold and fast and the cane pole long and if I squinted my eyes just right, I could imagine that we were fly fishing in northern Vermont (or something like that)... We were all excited, getting ready for all the fish we were going to catch and all that. And then we waited...and talked about how fishing takes patience and then waited...discussed if fish could live in such cold water (because of course if they aren't biting means they must all be dead) and waited. Askar came down to laugh at us, but he didn't do any better. We got the hook stuck in some rocks though and Askar dove in, a feat that I would repeat about 30 mins later. Needless to say, the water was cold and it sapped my desire to catch fish and we all headed in. Askar declared that we would, in fact, have fish to eat and broke open a can of sardines to snack on. And then we drank a bit more kymys to wash it down, and then we had a bit more kymys to wash down the first bit. Dinner came early and we were force-fed until we couldn't possibly eat anymore. After dinner, we were presented with some gifts, a kalpak (traditional hat) for me and a scarf and handmade pillow cases for Maggie. From there, we were split up with Askar and I going to visit his father and Maggie and Sonya off in the other direction to visit neighbors and other family members. At his father's place we drank more tea and ate more manty until I physically couldn't have eaten any more. We sat there for hours waiting on Maggie and Sonya to arrive, but they were waiting for us at other houses. The long and short of it is that we both got put through the feeding wringer in different locations (though Maggie got it worse than I did--3 dinners in one night!) . Maggie here, yes, Sonya and I, as usual, were waiting on the men per the designated plan, that they, uh, I guess just decided to forget. Sonya and I, after waiting at the house, went to a neighbors place where we chatted, drank more tea and I was forced to eat more plov and bread. Then we decided to head over to the brother's house to find the men. This was also a bit risky, as we had no flashlights (they were locked in the house, of which Askar had the key) and well, wild or semi-wild or just crazy dogs were roaming the streets. Sonya motioned as we got onto the road that we should take a big stick to fend off the dogs, if needed. We found suitably big and pointy sticks and headed out, calling the name of Askar's brother all the way, until he heard us and came out to scare off the dogs. We got into the brother's house and of course the men weren't there, but Askar's sister-in-law was sure preparing the manty, which I was to later find out, would be my 3rd dinner of the night. Anyway, after waiting for awhile, I asked where the men were and we were lead outside and next-door to pop's house where we found Matt and Askar lounging lazily amidst candy, tea and bread...waiting on the manty. ANYWAY, we ate our required portions of manty, dutifully thanked the family members, who of course pressed more candy in my hand for the road. We headed back home and had some tea and hot water (nursed our aching bellies), while Askar prepared his lesson for the next day, Sonya prepared soup for breakfast and Askar insisted we watch the Fashion Channel on his satellite TV (this was strange, but the only English language channel they had, so Askar was convinced we would love it...). We now know all about Paris fashion week 2007. As to be expected, we rolled into bed and woke to the chickens squawking and Sonya's soup simmering. We made a quick visit to Askar's school, met the teachers, took pictures and wished them well. It was the best way we could have closed out our Kyrgyzstan visit: so hospitable, warm despite the cold weather outside and we met friends we know we can consider family--we always have a home away from home in Kyrgyzstan.

The next morning, Sonya took off early and Maggie and I went out for a quick visit to Askar's school. We were afraid that we might get recruited into a bit of song and dance for the kids, but other than showing us his office and meeting some other teachers, we got off the hook in terms of classtime. Askar had to get to his kids and Maggie and I had to return to Ak-Terek to catch our ride and we were sorry to have to say goodbye, though we left with the promise that we would return someday when the weather was warmer and we'd go up into the hills to hunt/camp/fish.

After the last night in Osh, we caught an early ride the next morning into Uzbekistan. The Uzbek border is only some 10km away from Osh and other than some guy in line making a scene "America Bad! America Bad!" it was an uneventful crossing. A bit bureaucratic, but what borders aren't these days (especially for the Evil Americans!)? From there it was a straight shot into Tashkent, though we did have to navigate about 50 roadblocks (though we only have to cough up our passports once). Tashkent is a much bigger city than Bishkek (the biggest in Central Asia) but truthfully that's not saying much and Maggie and I walked just about all of it in a day.

Bishkek and the surrounding hills

2007-10-04T20:19:00.000+07:00

We've been slaves to Bishkek for the past few days as we wait for our Uzbek visas, which hopefully will be sorted out before the week is out. Despite this, we've managed to see what we've wanted to see and generally have had a good time. Bishkek is not a bad place to be holed up for a few days (though admittedly we've been here longer than both of us would have liked). Our first plan was to do day trips out of the city, returning each night. We didn't dare wander too far from the internet because we were waiting on the Letter of Invitation (via email) that would allow us to begin the Uzbek visa process. One of the places we had planned on going was to Ala-Archa Canyon (over the weekend), just south of Bishkek which is supposed to be a beautiful place to camp, trek, hike, and basically just get outside. Maggie got a bit under the weather so we decided it best for her to take it easy and we hung around Bishkek while she recuperated. Luckily, the place we are staying in Bishkek is a pretty cool place with some interesting folks in the dorm room. At any given time, there are 5 or 6 nationalities represented in the 12 bed dorm room, Korean, Japanese, Polish, Hungarian, Iranian, Spanish, Israeli, I could go on. Anyway, my point is that at least its not some boring little hovel of a hotel. Being in Bishkek though, sick or not, we have managed to eat quite well. To those not in the know, one would assume Bishkek to be some provincial Central Asian backwater with only bread and mutton. Thankfully, one could not be further from the truth. We've been gorging ourselves on Turkish pide, salads, and Kyrgyz attempts at burritos. In addition to the little bug, the weather has also been keeping us in the hut. Every day gets colder and colder, dipping well below freezing at night, though the day time is quite nice. After a few days, we managed to make a break out of town to the Issik-Ata Hot Springs, about an hour and a half away. The weather was bad, a heavy fog, but we wanted to get out of town, if only for a day. Issik-Ata is a strange place. When I lived here back in the day, we used to visit a different hot springs site, so I was interested to check out another place. As we got dropped off, we got pointed up the hill and off we went. I don't know what we were expecting, but it definitely didn't fit with what we found. As we were walking up the hill, tens of 100s of old folks are lumbering down the hill and silently filing into this decrepit old building. We asked around for the hotel or room rental (anything) and got pointed in 4 different directions; basically we went building to building asking for a place to sleep. Alas, we were unsuccessful and were wandering around aimlessly (in the very cold) until an English speaking Kyrgyz woman found us and helped us locate lodging. The place was filled up because everyone comes from Bishkek for the healing powers of the medicinal waters of Issik-Ata (which explains the old farts wandering around) . Of course, there was only one room left in the entire place (10+ buildings) and it happened to be something like $40, which is, by far, the most we've paid for lodging since we began the trip. Admittedly, it was a nice place with meals included, but there for a bit (as the large old woman in 'reservations' wasn't pleased at our attempts to discuss the price); I was seriously thinking about heading back to Bishkek, though in hindsight, am glad we didn't. We dropped our bags and headed out for a walk, though we couldn't stay out too long since it was mid-afternoon and starting to snow. We wandered around looking for the hot springs, and after motioning swimming for the 5th time, we finally found it. At first glance, one sees a big empty swimming pool, so we had to ask "vada yest?" Do you have water? The man assured us there was water and pointed to a tiny little kiddy pool in the back, which proved to be quite toasty (we only stuck our hands in) . We agreed we would return the following morning for an early dip and headed back to our place for dinner. After we were completely sated, the Kyrgyz woman who helped us earlier in the day stopped by to check that we were doing OK. Even nicer than that, she knew that we were headed to Istanbul and brought over (and gave us) a pretty hefty city guidebook to all of Istanbul. We spent the rest of the evening fighting over who got to read the book first.

It snowed throughout the night and by morning, about a few inches or so had accumulated through the valley. And needless to say, it was cold. As soon as we ate our breakfast, we walked down to the Hot Springs, only to find it closed, for reason unknown, perhaps the snow. After the requisite staring forlornly and whining, we went for a little hike into the valley behind our cottage. As mentioned, there was snow on the ground and more coming down. With the crunch of snow underfoot, we discussed just how far we'd come since we left Cambodia. We hiked along for a bit, but weather not permitting, we really couldn't see much and turned back at the thought of a hot bath in our huge bathtub before returning to Bishkek. So, back in Bishkek, medicinal waters only from our bathtub and frozen fingers and toes from the snow...we hastily jumped on the bus to the internet cafe and anticipated a nice LOI from the government of Uzbekistan...wrong. Still nothing save for a nice email from our coordinator, apologizing for the extra long wait, after all there were several unexpected public holidays and blah, blah...so we waited. Holed up in our little room, shivering as the sun went down, but kept company by the steady stream of other (freezing) travelers willing to brave the weather with us for a beer at a local spot.

AND THEN, we received the LOI on Oct. 3 in the wee hours of the night! First thing the next day, we had our guest house owner call the Uzbek embassy to make an appoint for later that day...no luck, but not bad, we were told to show on Oct. 5 at 10am and don't be late! Things are finally moving and now we'll be able to move on and see more of the beautiful country of Kyrgyzstan...with our LOI ready and appointment waiting, Oct. 4 was left open, so we headed for the hills outside of town with our French compatriots--we were 7 total and followed Matt's lead out of the city. We arrived at the foothills and started our climb to find hundreds of grazing sheep and goats, horses and a few Islamic cemeteries. More hiking further into the hills revealed the peaks of the mountains beyond, which were beautiful on this (finally!) sunny day. We pealed off the layers of jackets, sweaters and turtlenecks and kept hiking uphill until we reached a nice spot to stop for an hour of snacks and water. Matt kept up with the French speaking and we lolled around on the grass (see pictures). I headed back down for an interview (yes, job searching!) over the phone and the others hiked until you could hike no more. Weary but refreshed, we all returned feeling warmer and happier for the day out of the city. We patiently wait for our opportunity at the Uzbek Embassy and pray the woman is in a nice, kind mood and gladly hands us our visas, sans problems! more updates soon...

Issyk-Kul Lake

2007-09-30T16:18:00.000+07:00

Getting out of Jala-bad was a little adventure in itself: dealing with back-alley taxi drivers, hotly discussing in broken Russian (Matt) and wild hand gestures (Maggie), trying to convince them to take us to Kazerman (a no-man's land type place, halfway to Naryn, our intended destination) in their dilapidated looking Ladas and Volgas for a decent price...you can imagine that didn't work out well. So, we ran through a number of other ideas of onward travel after our loss with the Kazerman drivers before settling on striking towards Bishkek; where we presumed to eventually get our Uzbek visa (which is a whole 'nother story!). So we asked around and tracked down a shared taxi headed that way the following day and made preparations for him to pick us up at the hotel. Being two, we made it clear to him that we wanted to pick up two more folks to fill the car and cut our costs. We showed up with an empty car and I was a bit worried he was just going to try and sluff the entire costs on to us. We drove around for a bit before stopping at what turned out to be his buddy's house where we got invited in to eat quite a tasty breakfast and drink tea while everyone in the house practiced their little bit of English on us. I knew it would only be time before they figured out that we didn't have any children, and shortly thereafter, mock us for that. "But you are so old, it is now too late!" and that. Anyway, turns out that we were waiting on the buddy's father and once he arrived, we were off. The driver was like a madman, squealing tires through the mountain passes; overtaking that which could be overtaken, which by and large was anything else on the road. Everyone in the car was quite pleasant, curious to know how much mutton cost in the States and tsk-tsked at the unforgivable expense of apples. The views were nice, but in short, it was a long car ride through the mountains and we were happy to arrive in Bishkek by late afternoon. We were waiting on a letter of invitation (LOI) which is basically just another bureaucratic hoop we have to jump through to get an Uzbek visa (and of course, monetary dispense). We knew it wouldn't be ready yet, so our plan was to fly past Bishkek and head out to Issyk-Kul lake for a few days before returning (when our letter was promised to arrive). As a former Bishkek-ois, I will give my thoughts on the city later in the blog, but for now, you only need to know that we stayed one night and headed out to the lake. After being cheated out of a few more bucks by the taxi driver, we arrived at the lakeside resort town of Cholpon-Ata. During the summer that place is probably rocking, but here in early Fall, it was as good as a ghost town. There are a few hotels in town, but the usual style there is to stay in a house so we just cruised around town, popping our heads in places and enquiring of prices. Some places were dirty and cheap, some were dirty and expensive, but finally we found a nice place that was willing to bargain a bit. Though we weren't right on the beach, it really didn't matter too much since it was way too cold to even think about swimming. The best we got was dipping our toes in the water. It was cool to stand there on the beach, bright blue lake in front with huge mountains towering in the distance and to think just how far away from the ocean we actually were (just about as far as you can possibly get in the world!) That didn't stop a few hardy Russians from attempting a swim; though they didn't look like they were enjoying themselves too much. It was already late afternoon by the time we settled in, so the rest of that day was kinda just checking out the town, playing cards, and basically just lolling about the rest of the day. The next day was a big hike up in the hills outside of town in search of the elusive Cholpon-Ata petroglyphs. Supposedly, the ancients had been living in the area for centuries and left behind a little something for the future tourists to oogle at (or sadly, deface.) We knew the 'glyphs were north of town, but there was a hell of a lot else north of town and its not easy looking for a little goat scratched on a rock; so we wandered about for hours, which was OK because the glyphs were secondary to just getting out and seeing a bit of the area. We knew we were getting close when a few street kids came up and offered to guide us the rest of the way (for the right price, of course). The problem was that it quickly became obvious they really didn't know where the glyphs were either; one pointing this way, one pointing that way, which degraded into a heated discussion of where exactly we were heading. After we made it quite clear we weren't paying for the service, one kid agreed to lead us part of the way and off we went into the hills. Eventually, we stumbled upon a few little petroglyps (as seen in the photos) We found about 10 little animals, and happy with that headed back down to the beach, swung through an empty resort, through the forests and back to our little home for a quick rest.

The following day, for a change of scenery, we hopped over a few towns to the village of Tamchy. If Cholpon-Ata is considered "bustling," Tamchy is rightly described as "dead," and that is just what we were looking for. Since it is only 30km away from Cholpon-Ata we arrived by mid-morning and got put up in a home stay known as the "museum." We dropped our bags, grabbed some sausage and cheese, and headed out into the town for a long hike. As soon as we stepped out, we were intercepted by a little dog short on love who would follow us around for the next five hours, almost like we were renting it for the day. We hiked through fields, apple orchards and along the water, stopped for lunch and fed our little friend. After about 3 hours we headed back and found a German guy and a French couple also staying with our sweet old lady in her 'museum-like' house. The French, Brice & Elise had been cycling for two years, covering most everything in between France & China, over 25,000km! Needless to say, we were inspired. We all had a nice (cold) night out drinking cheap beer and eating good food. Winter is definitely coming in Kyrgyzstan and we all froze our pattooties off that night but enjoyed whiling away the evening with good food, fresh bread and lots of local beer.

We all split up the next day, Brice and Elise biking to their next stop, Marco staying put and us, on the road to find a bus back to Bishkek to check on that blasted LOI for Uzbekistan. Oh, and the 'inspired' part is that Brice and Elise really have convinced us traveling by bike is the answer (they also started off as cycling novices, so we know it can be done!) and gave us all sorts of tips and info...so, get ready for Maggie and Matt by bike... our next adventure maybe in 2011 or 2012!

Over the Irkeshtam and into Kyrgyzstan

2007-09-20T12:33:00.000+07:00

Heading out of Kashgar and fending off a cheating taxi driver, we found ourself at the China/Kyrgyzstan border crossing of the Irkestam Pass. The terrain between the two places was quite bleak and desert-esque; not the place you would want to call home. The border crossing formalities, though uneventful, took far longer than we had expected. The distance between the Chinese customs post and the Kyrgyz customs post was unwalkable and there is no real transport that runs back and forth since most of the traffic are buses and trucks. Luckily, the Chinese official was extremely nice and tracked down a ride for us. That, however, only got us to another Chinese checkpoint within the "no-man's land." As if we sneaked in without first stopping at the custom's post. From there, it was a 15 min walk across the border to a tiny Kyrgyz checkpoint. Here, my 10 words of Russian came in handy with the border guard as we became buddy-buddy. As he took our passports into his office, he turned around like he had forgotten something and yelled, "Welcome to Kyrgyzstan!" to us before stepping inside. We officially felt welcomed. Afterwards, he, in turn, found us a ride to the final, offical Kyrgyz border check point, where we hoped to find transport onto Osh. Here, we got lucky. We got on a little mini-bus that was just disgorging a flock of French tourists going into China. Their Kyrgyz guide, who was returning into Kyrgyzstan was also continuning onward to Osh and asked if we wanted to ride in the mini-bus with him. Opting for the ride in hand instead of two in the bush, we agreed. Turns out that this guide, Kanat, is not only a professor of French in Osh and spoke it quite fluently, he also knew his way around English, Uzbek, Kyrgyz and of course, Russian. Following the border/passport check and a quick bite to eat (minced lamb and onions wrapped in a thin dumpling cover (called 'Mante', yum) we were off. We had heard the road was bad and that it took a long time to get between the border and Osh (despite a relatively small distance) but we were unprepared for what we would come up against. As soon as we got out of town, the road literally disappeared and became nothing more than a dirt track into the mountains beyond. And this is one of the major transport corridors for goods between China and Kyrgyzstan. To make a horribley bumpy road worse was the tons of fine dust that filled the air, coating everything in and outside the mini-bus. Needless to say, it was an unpleasant ride. Luckily, there were only four of us in the mini-bus so I had space to lay out across the seats. By the end, everything we owned would be coated in dust and grime. During the ride, Kanat also asked us if we wanted to stay with his family; we had previously planned on a hotel in Osh. We agreed, and I think Maggie will agree that it was a wonderful decision, but more on that later. Somewhere about the 534th choking cough, we stopped for a sip of kymys, a national drink of fermented horse milk. I was unable to rouse myself from my little seat, but Maggie went out for a taste and came back a kymys convert (as everyone does!...ahem, not quite, Maggie says) . Forget the eggnog this Christmas! Since Kanat doesn't have shower/bathing facilities at his house, he reccomended that we stop at a Banya (Bath house) in the forest a few hours before Osh. Afterward, he said, the road to Osh is good so we won't have to worry about getting dirty again. Kanat must be a practiced liar, but that road was just as bad, if not worse and we were soon dirty again. The bath, however, felt nice as it was from a natural hot springs and included pool, sauna, and shower. I opted only for the shower, which was plenty nice for me, but Maggie took advantage of the sauna as well. We also had a little bite to eat at the bath house as well with an entourage of folks that the other van in the group had been picking up along the way: 2 truck drivers caught without proper paperwork, random teenagers making their way to the big city etc. All wanting to know about how much bread costs in the US, what the monthly salary is, all the important questions...we finished our meal and trudged the final few hours to Osh.

Kanat's house was quite nice, though we didn't really get much of a tour as all of us were ready to just fall into bed, as the entire trip from Kashgar to Osh was probably a 16 hour nightmare (and that is considered a quick journey; many people do not make it in one day!) . A quick hello to his wife and mother and we called it a night around 1am. We couldn't get out of bed until someting like 9am, and even then we were dragging butts. During our stay at Kanat's, we would also be getting breakfast and dinner. How nice that first breakfast was of warm bread, sweet pomegranate jam and all the coffee you could handle. We finally rolled into town with the goals of checking out the bazaar, finding some internet, and climbing Soloman's Thone, a large hill smack in the middle of town. Well, two out of three ain't bad. We cruised around the bazaar for a little bit, oohing and ahhing at the sausage, cheese, and other goodies that are uniformly unavailable in China. After a snack of dried apricots and walk through the park, we found ourselves an internet cafe whose seats would have molded to our butts had we stayed a bit longer. "We'll do Soloman's Throne tomorrow," we said. Yeah right. That night at the house, I got drummed by Kanat's father in chess. Without going into details, it was embarrasing. I was on the defense from the beginning and his father had everything planned out; he knew my moves before I did. The next night I would redeem myself with a faux victory, though (and I am hesitant to admit this) he removed his queen and one rook from the board before we even began playing. Even then, I think he just wanted to humor me. Dinner at Kanat's was fit for kings and kings we were. Plov (Kyrgyz rice pilaf with lamb), mante, breads...if you can cook it, we probably ate it. All the time, Kanat's mother, "Eat! Eat!" How could we say no? Maggie asked about vodka, and vodka appeared. No one in the family, save for Kanat's mother drank and drink she did. Luckily, vodka only appeared at dinner time. Once, when I was first in Kyrgyzstan, I had to weather two shots of vodka before breakfast before having to wave a third one off. The next day was day off for Kanat so Maggie and I accompanied him to the "Car Bazaar" where is father was trying to sell their Audi. It was a strange place, just a huge area filled with cars. From cheapy little Russian Ladas that probably cost $100 to legitamite BMWs and Mercedes Benz costing god only knows what. After hanging out there a bit we made our way back to the regular bazaar for a little gift buying; a quick stop at the bank; a Soloman's Throne pointing and eventual dismissal of a hike and we were back at the house for tea. After another wonderful dinner, we all loaded up in the yet unsold Audi and tackled Soloman's Thone the way it is meant to be done, by automobile. The hill afforded a wonderful view of nighttime Osh.

The following day, we set off towards the town of Arslanbob, in the mountains a few hours north of the city. Luckily, Kanat's father did a portion of this run in his Audi and took us a bit of the way and helped us locate transport for the next leg. A few taxi hops and we quickly found ourselves in the town of Arslanbob. I visited here in 2004 and as expected, things hadn't changed much. Arslanbob is a little, mainly Uzbek, town of dirt paths and old, mud brick homes. It is home to a Community Based Tourism (CBT) office. The CBT, as you might have figured out is an organization that specializes in local homestays and tourism events that supports individual, local families. Upon arrival, you select a homestay and are taken there to live with the family during your stay in Arslanbob. We stayed at the same place where I stayed in 2004; its a nice place, friendly and warm. From the town center, its only a little jump into the walnut forests that surround the town. Our first day there we cruised around the forest and watched people getting ready for the walnut harvest. Looks like family members move out into the forests for days at a time and collect walnuts until, well, there just aren't anymore to collect. Arslanbob is a wonderfully quiet place; in stark contrast to China, where a similar town would have tour groups with megaphones, people dressing up in "traditional" Uzbek garb, and basically a Disney atmosphere to the whole place. It was nice to just walk into the forests and find a nice rock to sit on for a while. The next day, we opted for a bit more: horseback riding! The horses here were a bit larger than the ones we rode in China and our butts seemed to fit nicely on their backs. It was a pretty long day of riding/walking, though it was broken up with a nice picnic lunch in the mountains. Our first stop was the "small waterfall," which is actually a single river that gets split into two waterfalls right at its top. Via a panaromic view of the valley and some shortcuts through town, we dismounted in a shaded grove surrounded by mountain streams near the base of the "big waterfall." Here we met up with the cook, who had been preparing a meal of breads, teas, & kebabs. We would need to get a bit of rest because the hike up to Big Waterfall is short, but grueling. Anyway, we slept a little bit, ate our fill of kebabs, and slept a bit before making for the waterfall, 30 mins uphill. About halfway up; whezzing and coughing, we came across a group of little old ladies who had made the climb, thus shaming us into a quick ascent to the top. The Big Waterfall is (I think) considered holy and the old fence is covered with prayer cloths and whatnot. Its big (hence its name) and luckily had a nice place to rest at the top where we could catch our breaths. At the top, we met an American family which included a former Kyrgyzstan Peace Corps volunteer who we shook down for some extra traveling info. After the descent from the falls and a hour ride back into town, we finally left the horses behind and walked around like old Russian babushkas for a bit before getting our land legs back and cruising through "downtown" for some juice. That night, we had some tasty treats for dinner called galupsi, basically a large red pepper stuffed with mutton, rice, and onions. We'll see if we can't search some more of those out in the coming weeks! The next day, sans horses, we took to the town ourselves, retracing partial routes from the day before, but also getting lost in the hills beyond town. We picked our way through an old Soviet turbanza, basically a Soviet fun park that now has the run down, sad feel of an abandoned amusement park. We packed our own little picnic of dried fruit and sausage and found a nice tree by the river to sit under for a while. That night, with a few more galuspis under our belts we packed for our immenient departure from Arslanbob; and now, on this fine cool evening find ourselves back in Jala-bad and awaiting transport to places north.

On the edge of the Middle Kingdom

2007-09-13T11:11:00.000+07:00

From Urumqi we hopped a nice train to Kashgar, the farthest city west you can get and still be in China proper. It was our last train ride in China (woo-hoo!) and it was a nice double decker train with only 4 bunks per room instead of the usual 6! Even better, we lucked out with some decently cool locals who never drank, smoked, played cards, or hooted and hollered all night. Its the little things that make the rides go smoothly. We had assumed the terrain outside would be forbidding and arid because we were skirting the Taklamakan Desert, but it was actually beautiful countryside full of valleys and mountain streams. Kashgar is an ancient staging point on the Silk Road and despite the influx of Chinese, has managed to keep a bit of the town locked in the past. Much of the town is newish and of little interest, but right in the middle of the city is the Old City, anchored by the Id Khah Mosque, which has been calling the faithful since the 1400s. The old town is bustling, not unlike other Chinese cities, but decidedly not Chinese. It felt as if we were in central Asia or the middle east already: bread bakers at every turn, mosques, long bearded men, women covered from head to toe and nary a sight of typical Chinese food or the sound of Chinese being spoken. It was a strange combination of cultures I had not expected but also loved that we still had access to both. Rugs for sale, scarves, skull caps, Kyrgyz kolpaks (traditional Kyrgyz hats), Kazakh and Tajik traditional head-wear and knives...yes, knives, everywhere. Knives are a staple of Uygher life--practically every man we saw in the old town had one strapped to his belt. Never being one for weapons of any kind (yes, this has been Maggie writing), I thought to accompany our friend Ben to the market for his knife search on our last day in town. My goal was to search for last minute trinkets and souvenirs...but during that 3 hours I became somehow transformed, ahem, a little obsessed with finding a knife...there were so many to choose from and with such alarmingly beautiful carved handles, engraved with traditional designs and the maker's name written in Arabic script--the handles and blades are expertly crafted and come in a variety of curved shapes: extremely small, small, medium, large and yes, extra large...it was a bit infectious. I bought one, a small to medium sized with a black goat horn carved handle, with small blue and red stone dots inlaid at the base of the blade. Sharp. Very sharp, but small, with a slight upturn at the end of blade that makes it look a little more ornate. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this knife, but it was something I had to have. At least I snapped out of my momentary obsession, whereas Ben couldn't seem to stop: he purchased 5 all together and returned later thinking he might use 4 of the 5 as steak knives. Maybe you'll see ours as a nice (super sharp) cheese knife...

Kashgar is also famous for its Sunday Market, one of the biggest and liveliest in Central Asia, so we just had to check that out. The market again, was a mix of old and new and East and West; everybody and their brother, and sister, and mom and dad were out for the big day and we also made it out. Matt and I arrived from the Animal Market with our Canadian friend Thang (the one we met in Beijing--we found each other again in Kashgar) and a French cyclist, Sebastian. I quickly stated that there was no way I was going to do the market with 3 guys in tow, so we made a plan to split up and meet back at the hotel. That was a good idea since the best part of the market was just wandering the aisles people watching and sort of "window shopping". I did however buy several scarves, which just couldn't be helped because well, if you know me, it just couldn't be helped...especially because they were so darn cheap! Anyway, I found myself wandering behind the market, laughing and bargaining for a new ski hat with an old woman who knitted it herself. The old clothes market was fun and if we were headed home anytime early than 3 months from now, I would have stocked up on a number of things...but alas, it was good to know that I had to carry all of my crap, thus I refrained from going crazy on the silk road. After street snacks and a trip back through the old market, I headed back with my scarves and our group met up to share stories of the day.

One of the other highlights of Kashgar though is the oft-overlooked Animal Market also held on Sunday outside of town. We woke up early to head out there and arrived just as things were getting started. We knew we were going to see some good stuff before we even arrived. The road leading up to the market was filled with donkey carts carrying goats and huge trucks overflowing with sheep, donkeys, and cows. The market was actually just a huge empty field filled with thousands of animals and ringed with food stalls and locals selling anything from lengths of rope to traditional Uygher knives. We then ran into some of our friends we had been hanging out with from our trip to Tian Chi--James and Graihagh, an English couple traveling around China who had been living in Thailand, had a plan; James really wanted to buy and sell a sheep during the market, to, you know, get the feel for the age-old, silk road reality in Kashgar. We met up with them just after James had successfully sold his sheep, a cute little bushy brown one that sadly, was sold to the butcher of a food stall...although he sold the sheep for a loss, he gained a nice new title on his CV: 'Sheep Trader' which to him was definitely worth it...pictures to come.

That weekend, a group of us wanted to head out of town. This group included Ben, an American, and Graihagh & James. It worked out that all of us were interested in a side trip down to Karakul Lake on the Karakorum Highway towards the Pakistan border. As we planned our trip, we also picked up Thang and Dee, a Dutch woman. Together with David, the Brit traveling with us (and a few other folks) we rented a mini-van, which we christened "The Fun Bus" and took off for Tashkorgan, the farthest we could get down the Karakorum Highway without having an onward visa. The Karakorum, which winds its way through soaring mountain passes (bringing with it the danger of altitude sickness, since we reached over 4,000meters), is famous for its scenery; it did not disappoint. Soon after we left Kashgar behind, we quickly dipped into the passes, stopping only at Upal to eat the fattiest samsa we've ever had. The mutton fat congealed on the roofs of our mouths and left a thin film that would accompany us for some time on our tongues. Since the scenery (snow capped mountains and streams) was new for us, we stopped every 30 minutes to get out and snap some photos (as seen on Flickr). By the time we got to Tashkorgan, we were driving past snow caps without even batting an eye and barely a yawn. I, personally, had expected a bit more out of Tashkorgan, though admittedly I should have known better (it was just a regular little city.) After an absurdly large meal and a quick tour (and dropping Rishi, an Irish guy biking down into Pakistan), we retraced our steps back to Karakul Lake, which we had passed along the way to Tashkorgan. We arrived as the sun was setting, and with it, any sense of heat or warmth. Luckily, we had been warned by an Australian guy that things got a bit nippy out there on the lake, so were remotely prepared. After a bit of accommodation price gouging and haggling, we secured ourselves a nice warm yurt to call home. We all piled in the yurt with the firing heating the place up, got settled and started talking and laughing until we all slid into sleep. The morning brought some altitude sickness for me (Maggie) but with movement, some breakfast, lots more water and a hike through the mountainous area near the lake, I felt better. Thang, Matt and I hiked around near a stream and up around some lower mountain bases while the others tried to hike toward the snow line opposite Muztagh Ata (one of the highest mountains on the highway). We got stuck around a little stream though and had to de-sock to wade our way through the extremely cold and ice-like water. We all met back at the road where the driver got us safely back to Kashgar, tired, but ready for more types of trips. We all met that night to wish Ben a happy (early) birthday and to tell tales of our plans for the next part of our trips. It was a fantastic group to travel with and sad to part ways, but such is the way of the traveler; Ben and David were off to Shanghai with separate plans, James and Graihagh were off to Tibet with a new car load of folks, Thang to Kyrgyzstan a day earlier than us and Dee back to Xi'an to get into Mongolia and onto the trans-Siberian railway. Lots of beers and well wishes were said (including an insanely huge meal at a local shmansy Uygher restaurant, replete with singers and musicians) and we all headed on our way, safe travels for all! Reunion Kashgar 2010!

Urumqi, Tian Chi-Yurt Living and Lovely Raisins in the farthest spot from the Ocean (Xinjiang Province)

2007-09-01T16:19:00.000+07:00

After the most pleasant train ride yet (a nice compartment of a college student, middle-aged woman and older grandmother-type and a businessman)--no smoke-filled nights or drunk, card game playing beneath us, but lots of little chats trying to understand each other in broken Eng and Chinese, map viewing and picture showing. We arrived in Xinjiang Province and our new friends hugged and waved us on and wished us luck. We took in the landscape and it has been like flying to the moon (Urumqi also happens to be the farthest place on earth from the ocean). We have left the old China behind us and remain in China solely in political terms. Linguistically, ethnically, culturally, we are a world away, far more Central Asian that Chinese. Xinjiang Province is the historical homeland of the Uygher, a Turkic people related to the Kyrgyz, Uzbek, etc. Formerly, the province was majority Uygher but since 1949, the area has been flooded with ethnic Han Chinese settlers to where, I believe the Uygher are no longer the majority in their own province. Many high ranking positions and business opportunities are headed by the Han Chinese and as one can assume, the relationship between the two groups is none to cordial, to say the least. However, many of the ethic Chinese are centrally located in Urumqi (the capital) and surrounding areas and many of the cities in the south are completely Uygher populated and not yet wrought with (noticeable) air pollution, although we have heard that China tests it's nuclear weapons and radioactive materials in the desert of Xinjiang...

We've been able to see a bit of the area and want to give a little update now because we are soon headed to Kashgar and that will be a whole story in and of itself. We hung out in Urumqi for a few days, though the only real thing of note that we saw were some mummies in the museum, which, of all things, are of Indo-European descent. Thousands of years old. Otherwise, in Urumqi, our time was spent eating kebabs, samsas (mutton-filled baked bread dumplings), and plenty of tasty flat bread. We've also had some really good tea, often flavored with nutmeg and cloves.

From there, we jumped out to Turpan for a night. Turpan is only about 2 hrs east of Urumqi but it is the hottest place in China (record of 130 degrees) and also the lowest point in China, supposedly only second to the Dead Sea. Turpan is famous for its grapes, which rumor has it have the highest sugar content in the world. In Urumqi, we picked up a lone British guy, David who has been traveling around with us for a few days and will continue onto Kashgar with us. Anyway, we made it out to Turpan, checked in, and despite the heat, headed right out. Admittedly, there isn't too much to do in Turpan, but it was a nice break from Urumqi, something different. David and Maggie seemed unimpressed with our first stop, the ruined city of Jiaohe, though the heat kinda put a damper on most things (and its not even the hottest season now!) Jiaohe was kinda just some old mud brick houses that you couldn't even explore, but had to look at them from a distance, which looking back, wasn't too terribly interesting. Our next stop though, the Emin Minaret was really cool--it is mud brick through and through, clean right angles and large and cool inside. Set amongst rows and rows of grape vines and mud houses, the Minaret was a calming and refreshing breath from the heat outside. We opted to walk back to our place from the Minaret and loved the neighborhood, where we could peak into household compounds and courtyards where racks and racks of grapes were hanging to dry to become delicious raisins (the best we've had! forget Sunkist, Turpan grapes are where its at!). We also had kids running around, asking for our names and shouting 'Hello' as we walked past.

Back at our hotel room, which was more like an old boiler room in the basement that they turned into a dorm room, we relaxed and David and Maggie went swimming at the 'pool'. The downside of the hotel (other than being in a basement boiler room) was the fact we were no where near a bathroom and were only allotted one shower each a day. The upside? The pool. After our allotted showers and pool time, we popped into the Turpan Bazaar, but it was closing down (Friday night) and we were there only long enough to grab a Uygher hat and some eats before calling it a day.

After another lay over in Urumqi, we headed north to Tian Chi, or Heavenly Lake, only a few hours outside of Urumqi. We had thought about heading to the far north of Kanas Lake, but it was far away and opted for the closer lake. The arrival at the lake was met with the typical Chinese tourism sites: music, cable cars, tourist crap, and anything else that would turn it into a carnival atmosphere, including the ability to dress up in faux "traditional" local outfits and have your picture taken. We were looking for a man named Rashit, who had some yurts on the back side of the lake that took boarders. Needless to say, he found us and we knew he was a keeper when he came up and asked, "do you want to get away from all the tourists?" We said - "lead the way!" The lake is not huge, but with about a 30 min walk we were away from everything and made it to "Rashit's Yurt" on the south end of the lake. Rashit is a local Kazakh who apparently has been renting out yurts for years and seems to know what foreigners are looking for in their Tian Chi experience. For 50yuan a night, you get to sleep in a yurt and are provided 3 meals. 50yuan is about 7 or 8 dollars and is what we are paying in Urumqi for a single dorm bed. Regardless, the yurts are set up right on the lake in a beautiful grassy semi-cleared valley. At first arrival it was Maggie, David, myself, and another American, Ben, and we set off for a quick hike before dinner. Off in the distance were a few snow covered peaks and for a while there was talk of trying to reach the snow line, but a two hour hike that brought us no closer kinda put an end to that talk. That first day, the weather was cool, very crisp, almost like a fall day, though it would get much colder at night (as well as during the following days). That first night, Rashit's wife lit up the little iron stove in the yurt so it was nice and toasty and we all got under our own huge felt blankets (amazingly warm) and whiled away an hour talking before we drifted off to sleep.

The following morning found Maggie and I on horseback and Ben and David making another half-hearted attempt to the snow line (which foundered). On horseback, we went straight up into the mountains through some pretty rocky terrain and made it to the top of some smaller hills which opened up into grassy pastures that afforded beautiful panoramic views of the lake below. We rested up there for a bit before descending back into the camp and being greeted with handmade noodles, mutton and carrots. The rest of the afternoon we headed out for some snacks and a quick hike and then were greeted by the arrival of 3 more couples: a Dutch diplomat from Shanghai and his wife, a young traveling couple from England and a New Zealander and his wife from Beijing. We all spent the rest of the evening and into the night eating good food, drinking beer and building a great bon fire down by the lake. As the fire died down and the cold started creeping back into our tired bones and muscles, we headed for the yurts and curled up for another night. We headed out the next morning after much picture taking and thanking to Rahit, his wife and daughter (see pictures) and got back to Urumqi where we showered for the first time in 3 days, relaxed and (gasp!) ate some KFC...ahem, that will be a discussion for another time, but it left us less than fulfilled!

Tomorrow, we are on an overnight train to Kashgar and will be over in Western Xinjiang for 10 days or so...more stories to follow! (We also just posted the previous blog on Xi'an, don't forget to check that one out too!)

Xi'an & the Terracotta Warriors

2007-09-01T15:04:00.000+07:00

After a pleasant little night train, we arrived in Xi'an and were immediately whisked away to our hostel. We opted for a hostel in the center of town near the Islamic Quarter of the city. Xi'an was an ancient capital and is the traditional beginning of the Silk Road. Over the centuries, a number of Islamic traders and whatnot set up shop in Xi'an, so now, much of the food is Islamic influenced (with a large population of Muslims as well). We wanted to take it easy that first day and wanted to wander around town a little bit and pop into the Islamic Quarter for some good eats. We were a bit disappointed at first because as soon as you walk into the Islamic Quarter (through the main street) you are greeted by a huge sign that says "Welcome to the Islamic Street of Xi'an! Everyone dutifully wearing their Islamic garb and looking sufficiently Muslim to be working the main street. I will point out though that this street had some good food. However, once you kinda get past the main tourist drag, the Quarter turns into the Quarter that we were looking for: narrow little windy alleyways, old men in skull caps with long white wispy beards chatting in front of their homes, kids running through the streets, corner mosques, and plenty of bread and kebabs. We'd spend a lot of time over the coming days in the quarter, mostly to stuff ourselves with the tasty morsels.

After a little rest, we headed back into the Islamic Quarter to try to find the "Bird Market" which was on our maps. While we wandered and wandered around, we never found the actual Bird Market, but we did find the Cricket Market. We stumbled onto this street where the entire sidewalk was covered with these little tiny cups and we weren't sure what was going on until Maggie peeped in. Row after row of big crickets just kinda hanging out. We were really impressed though by the cages of crickets (see the photos!) that were also for sale. We never really figured out what the crickets were used for though. We don't think it was for eating because there was a lot of care going into the crickets and potential purchasers were eyeballing individual crickets with a eye for something other than a meal.

The next day was a trip out to the Terracotta Warriors, outside of town. There were a few other sights along the way, but we had heard uninspiring things about them, so skipped over them and headed straight to the Warriors. We were (naively) unprepared for the size and scope of the Terracotta Warriors area - it is seriously like a little city. As soon as you pull up, there is probably a square kilometer of shops, restaurants, gauntlets of hawkers and touts. You've got to wander around for 15 mins before you even find the warriors, whose buildings are tucked away in a large garden area. The ticket price was pretty steep, I think the most expensive that we've paid to date, but that wasn't going to faze us! Anyway, we eventually got into the buildings. And the Terracotta Warriors, well, they were the Terracotta Warriors. While it is entirely understandable, it is a shame that you can't really get that close to them. They are down in the pit and you've got to look down on them from anywhere between 10 ft plus. Its just far enough away that you can't see the detail of their faces, the exquisite painting, etc. However, all that said, it was very exciting to be looking at the warriors, to actually be there. As the pictures show, there are literally hundreds of them there and more are expected to be found (the site is not yet completely excavated). However, that also brings me to the point that the surrounding area is like a big concrete parking lot and we discussed amongst ourselves how many warriors and other relics may have been lost during the construction of the area.

The remainder of our time in Xi'an was spent walking the streets (buying and eating lots of dried fruit like apricots, dates, mangos...yum), visiting the 'The Big Wild Goose Pagoda' which was fairly large, but nary a big wild goose to be found. We did some requisite shopping: undies, socks, some warm weather wear etc...and got ready to shove off for our next stop on the train...more soon! see the pictures to the right...

Quick intro to Kyrgyzstan...

2007-08-27T20:37:00.000+07:00

We're not here yet, but here is a quick intro to Kyrgyzstan where we will be heading in about 2 weeks:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/weekinreview/26kyrgistan.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

Another reason China doesn't like our blog...

2007-08-27T20:12:00.000+07:00

This is quite a disturbing reminder why we now have constant coughs and wish we could see the sun (or even just a mile ahead of us) in the cities we've been visiting...we often do feel like we're covered in a layer of grime after a day out on the town:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=ccddc9cc346f1bfb&ex=1188878400&emc=eta1

Taiyuan and beyond

2007-08-17T16:41:00.000+07:00

With visas expiring and no available seats to Xi'an (our next destination) we could only flee to the town of Taiyuan, halfway between Beijing and Xi'an to renew our visas for another month. We sneaked in by the skin of our teeth, on the last working day before expiration. Unfortunately, the renewal costs $100 each and takes 5 working days, so we've got time to kill. We are currently in Shanxi Province, not to be confused with the much more happening Shaanxi Province. Maggie, to say the least, was a bit under the weather, but we managed to make a break for it, and though we must return to this little town to collect our passports in a week, we skipped out to the town of Pingyao for a few days. Allow me to mention that Taiyuan is a dirty little town that we were all too happy to escape. The one thing of note that we did see were tattoo artists plying their trade on the side of the (extremely dusty and dirty) road. You could hear them yelling taaaattooooo, taaaattoooo so we went over to check it out and sure enough, there they were needle in (glove-less) hand, doing a tattoo right there in the open. Anyway, onto Pingyao, which is billed as the best preserved ancient walled Han Chinese city, and whatever else you want to call it, it was a wonderful place to lay up for a few days. We'd been in ancient walled towns before, and seen Buddhist temples before, so we just hung out and took things easy. We were in a really nice guesthouse with free internet, free DVD movies, good food and cheap laundry, so we were happy to lay around and relax. The town's tourist stuff is centered on only a few buildings, but once you get off the beaten path, it was like stepping back into time. Narrow little winding alleyways that led everywhere and nowhere, and while there wasn't much to see out there, it was nice to experience a relatively authentic ancient town experience by just wandering around and noticing the little things that are so easy passed by. With days to kill yet, we booked our onward tickets to Xi'an and headed north to the city of Datong, with the idea of staying there for a few days before return to Taiyuan (for the visas) and onward to Pingyao (and Xi'an.) Though Datong is a big place, I figured there wouldn't be too much going on, but we were wrong about that. As soon as we pulled up to the hotel, foreigners were thick on the ground. We knew strange things must have been afoot. We arrived relatively late, so it wasn't until the following day that we really got out and headed first to the Yungang Caves, which, according to the guidebook, no one leaves unwowed. Luckily, it was only a short bus ride out to the caves, which are basically huge grottoes carved into a cliff face. Inside each cave (and all over the front of the cliff face) are Buddhist carvings, which date back over 1500 years. There were about 20 or so caves that were open to public viewing, and a fair number that were not. Some of the little grotto/caves were heavily damaged from any number of reasons: weathering, vandalism, the coal mine right beside it, the Cultural Revolution, etc. Some grottoes were completely empty and/or defaced, but those that remained were quite impressive. The artwork was very ornate, and where weathering had allowed it, extremely colorful. Everything ranged from tiny little inch tall Buddhas to huge 50 foot tall Buddhas and everything in between. Some of the caves you could walk into, but most of them, you had to content yourself by peering over the fence. It was, however, the most impressive were the ones that you could walk into and view the ceiling, little nooks carved out of the wall for more Buddhas, bodhi trees and other beautiful designs. We stayed for a few hours ohhh-ing and ahhhh-ing our way around and then decided to hike a bit...

We heard that there was a section of the Great Wall close by so we struck out of find it. On the ride in, we could see bits and pieces of it along the way. An old guard tower on this hill, a little stretch of wall on that hill. We walked and walked but other than cruising through some mining towns, we didn't find much. We did see a huge earthen fort that was most likely part of the wall defences, but itself was walled off and we couldn't get to it.

We thought about heading out to a further temple, but it was late (and the car was too expensive) so we hopped back into town and headed to some local sites, specifically hitting up the "Nine-Dragon Screen," basically a highly colorful and ornamental piece of the ancient city walls that is covered with...you guessed it, nine dragons. From there, we just strolled around town, checking out the pedestrian market and whatnot. On the way back, we saw some more tattoo artists and stopped by to watch, only to figure out that these particular artists were only doing temporary tattoos (as compared to the all too real ones in Taiyuan.) Being temporary, we figured we'd get some ourselves, which was kind of dorky but fun all the same--Matt got the very masculine and bad-ass like dragon on his left inner forearm and I opted for an abstract celtic-esque wrap around the right wrist. You should have seen the crowd gather to see the application, it was like we were getting real tattoos--I think we helped the guys get some extra business. Anyway, the tattoos quickly faded, but it was a good day.

From Datong, it was on to Taiyaun for the night and onward to Xi'an for a few days. Just as a quick side-note: Taiyaun has become our least favorite place in China. After arriving there Thursday night so we could get our passports on Friday morning we hardly could have predicted the annoyance the city would cause. Up early Friday morning and after a quick breakfast of Nescaffe, biscuits and juice we headed down a few doors to the ATM (one we have used many times in other cities) and no go, the machine didn't accept our card. Ok, we try another. No luck. Ok, maybe one more. Still no luck. Ugh. After (no joke) 10 ATM tries at 4 different banks and 3 hours latter, we were beside ourselves, the passport office closed from 12-3:15pm and we had to get back to Pingyao by 7 to catch an 8pm train! We had half the money to pick up our two passports. We got mine out of hock and then were making our way to the last ditch effort: Bank of China 2km down the road (through full 2 km of dust, dirt and road construction, building construction...) of course the ATM did not work for either of us there. So, I took a number (201 was my lucky number and they were serving 150 of course) to try to get an advance on one of the credit cards and sat...at 12 the guard said 'our regular 10 windows will now close to only 3 windows...' @#%&! I was prepared to wait and did for a good 40 minutes before I got up (when only 165 was called) and tried the ATM again...SUCCESS! I couldn't believe it (I had to practically squeeze out a little girl in the attempt), but I felt, yes we were now in business. I walked out of the bank elated and headed the 2 km back to our hotel to get Matt...as I walked I guess I started letting my mind drift a bit and well all of a sudden I felt a small finger at my back, I turned and gasped as I saw a young kid quickly pull his hand away, with a cigarette half hanging out of his mouth with a smirk on his face and start off in the opposite direction. Bad news. I quickly looked down at my bag and saw the zipper had been pulled back halfway and opened it expecting my wallet to be gone; thank God, it was there, with the passport just out of hock, but it could have turned out bad. My complaining came to a slight stop and I thanked God and all the good karma for looking out for me at that moment. With our cash and bags in hand, we headed for the passport office, camped out and begged them to let us in early (they didn't), but we finally got in, Matt was first in line and we grabbed the goods and ran to the bus station, got a bus with 5 min. to spare and made it back to our little Pingyao in time for a shower (much needed) and food. We got our train to Xi'an and now, after a few days in Xi'an, its west into Xinjiang, but those stories are for another day.

Beijing!

2007-08-11T16:05:00.001+07:00

After the horrendous flub that left us without tickets, the owner of the guesthouse pulled some strings and found a way to sneak us on the train to Beijing. The catch was that we would end up in a hard seat, which is the seating area directly below Purgatory. Admittedly though, for the first 25 hours, it wasn't so bad; we had our own relatively un-cramped seats and while we could have had better neighbors, the one’s we got weren’t too bad. The hardest part was just the physical sitting for hours without really moving too much. Getting up means losing your seat to the chair-less vultures who float in the aisles so there was little opportunity to walk around. The seats were cheap though and it worked it out nicely that we were on the train for two nights in a row (from 2.00am to 9.00am the following day) so we didn’t have to spend money on accommodation. The second night was tough though, old ladies and snotty kids trying to usurp our seats throughout the sleepless night and then we were running hours behind schedule, which definitely didn’t help our sanity as the ride dragged on for 3 additional hours. It was the longest and most uncomfortable train ride that we’ve ever had, and while it was nice to save a bit of money, we’ve decided that we are never going to do that again and will be taking sleepers from here on out on the longer rides. The bad train food left our bellies in a sorry state and the sleepless nights left us both in a dazy-funk, akin to jet lag and we were like zombies. We were picked up (thank god!) at the train station and taken right to our hotel: the Hutong Inn. Hutongs are narrow little alley-ways that run throughout the city, many of them are protected from bulldozing now and our place was nestled among some of them. However, many of the hutongs are being destroyed to make room for new apartment blocks or Olympic Venues while others are being so heavily renovated that they have lost their former glory. We arrived at our place around 10am or so, but wanted to take it easy and didn't get much further than a short walk around our hutong area, checking out possible grazing sites for the coming days. One little gem that we did find though was yogurt. All over our hutong area there were little stone jars for sale with straws sticking out of them and luckily we had to courage to peep into one of them and found even more courage to try a dairy product from a questionable source, but it was wonderful yogurt, and at about 10cents a jar it was definitely the right price. After a bit of that though, we settled down into our cold air-conditioned room (via the Kyrgyz Embassy) and found a bit of solace in CNN,BBC, and HBO; A month of Chinese TV long forgotten already. The next day found us sleeping in and eventually making our way to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. We are only about 30 mins walk, so we strolled through Beihai Park and made it just in time for rush hour at the Forbidden City. I knew we wouldn't just stroll on in, but the place was packed and we had to wait about 20 mins in the ticket line. Personally, I was unimpressed with the Forbidden City, though Maggie may disagree. One of my main problems was the sheer number of visitors in the city; it was like being caught up in a mob and it made it difficult to really wander around and appreciate the little details. I understand why people are there (for the same reason that we were) but it made it hard to enjoy it as much as I would have liked. Also, there was a lot of construction and renovation, so many of the temples were covered in scaffolding and those that weren't covered were restricted to staff only. The magic was though that we were actually in the Forbidden City, walking in the footsteps of emperors and thousands of years of history and if one is able to block out everything else and see it like that then it is all worth it. We strolled around the surrounding parks and had a quick lunch before heading back over to the Kyrgyzstan Embassy to drop off our visa stuff, where we met, interestingly enough, a cool group of people to pass the time with while waiting in line: two Cameroonians!--'footballer agents' very cool, had a great catch up session about Yaounde, Omni-Sport area and their bewilderment at my choice to stay in the EN of their country; we also met a cool Canadian friend, Tang who we hope to see again in the far west and then in Kyrgyzstan. Anyway, we had wanted to do Krygyz & Uzbek visas while in Beijing, but that was not going to work out. We could get the Kyrgz visa next day for a cool $165, but we frugally opted for the 4 day, $55 visa instead. Waiting on that visa kept us in Beijing for the next few days though there were plenty of things to occupy our time. ..

Day Two was spent split up: Maggie on a shopping spree (Maggie would like to note, it was not a 'spree', ahem) and myself checking out some of the smaller, lesser known sites in town such as the Bell Tower, Nuijie Mosque, and the Ancient Observatory. I also rode around on the subway, just because I could (and it was easier than walking) I limped home around 3.30/4.oo, broken, tired, chafed, and blistered.

We were also able to meet up with Rohit (and his mom) who is one of Maggie's Peace Corps friends from her time in Cameroon. Rohit is traveling around for a few months, including a few weeks in Beijing studying Mandarin, so luckily we were able to meet with him and his mother, who had come out to visit him in China for a few weeks. We were only able to meet up quickly, over dinner, but it was a good time.

We also headed over to the Temple of Heaven, the self styled "most famous temple in the world." Maybe a bit of a stretch, but it was pretty cool. We had a little map and were supposed to have read up on things a bit more, but we took the opportunity to just wander around a bit as the area is very spacious and park-like. I may be completely off the mark, but I think walking through the park is supposed to represent the different levels as you pass through towards Heaven. Again, that may be completely off the mark. At any rate, we wandered around, but the most impressive thing was the actual Temple of Heaven itself (as seen in the pictures). Its just a shame that we couldn't climb up in it, though I guess everyone would have wanted to and that would have been mass chaos and not so good for restoration and the like...

On Maggie's Birthday, we headed out to the Summer Palace, which I believe was a summer retreat of the Emperor's. Its only about 15km outside of town, so it was fairly easy to get to, just a bus ride or so, but once getting there, the place opened up into a huge park. Its not much a palace as just a huge estate, filled with temples, lakes, and ringed by stout hills. The place was packed, but it was easy to wander about and get lost. Although, in the Temple of Harmonious Thoughts, which was very beautiful, there was a loud karaoke sing-off which well, made it difficult to have harmonious thoughts. However, the whole place was beautiful and could be peaceful enough to wander around the myriad of trails through the hills and rocks...

For Maggie's Birthday dinner, we went out to have Peking Duck. Neither of us had ever had it, and what better place to have it than in Beijing itself? We located a suitably fancy place, and though there was a wait to get in, they thoughtfully provided free wine while you waited. Neither of us were too good to turn our noses up at free wine, even if it did come from a box. The place was pretty hoppin' with tourists and well-to-do-Beijingers and had a wonderful menu--we ordered a bunch of little nibbles in addition to the "half-duck" (notice the quotation marks...). The chef brought out the cooked duck for our viewing pleasure and we ommed and awwed over it suitability before it was taken away to be cut up. I'm not entirely sure what they did with the half-duck that we ordered, but they sure didn't give it to us. For $10 we got a little pile of duck skin and enough duck meat to fill a thimble or two. Granted, it was tasty, but then we waited and waited, asked after our duck and were rebuffed with the fact that we had already received our "half-duck." I'm not sure if that is the normal portion of Peking Duck or what, but what ever it is, at least we can say we've had Peking Duck in Peking!

We also decided that since we are in China, we might as well check out this Great Wall. The place where we are staying runs a few tours out to some of the sections, but for a bit of a price so we opted for our own route through public transport. We woke up early and long story short, made it to the Jinshanling (sp?) section of the wall by 10am or so. This is one of the further sections away from Beijing (110km out) and it is the starting point for a Great Wall day hike to the Samatai section, 4hrs away. It was nice because since this section of the Wall is considerably far out of Beijing, there were very few tourists and for most of the hike, we actually had the Great Wall all to ourselves (see the photos!) The hike was tough and the sun was beating down, especially since there is no shade along the Wall except for the guard towers. It was amazing though to walk along the Wall; not only to walk along, but to hike a 10km section of the Wall nearly alone.

We slept in the next day...I didn't get up until 9am, though Maggie did a lot better than me. We kinda took it easy, running a few mindless errands on my side and Maggie heading over to the 798/Dashanzi contemporary art area (see: http://www.798space.com/index_en.asp and http://www.artbook.com/9889726238.html). Maggie here: I will highly recommend this 'off the beaten path' gem of an area. over 500+(or more??) galleries, artist residences, studios, music spaces and cool little cafes and bookshops are nestled into a maze of about 1.5km x 2km (give or take) which used to be military warehouses. It was fascinating to take the entire day to just wander through this area and see the movement of contemporary art in Beijing, China and West/East collaborations--everything from paintings to resin sculptures of Chinese miners and young women looking in the mirror...and then 100s of miniature replicas of the Terracotta Warriors painted with the solar system, KFC logos and other influential (?) pieces of Chinese life and fast-paced modernization (this is just how I saw it)...around another corner, slipping into a different gallery seeing photo exhibits of the hutongs in huge wall sized panoramas and so much more. It was a wondrous treasure to find such an outlet after having been a bit of a slave to the tourist attractions--I quickly passed 5 hours without realizing it and had only covered 4 blocks!

Our last night in town we decided to check out Tim's Texas Roadhouse...how could we pass up a place like that? Especially after their little flyer mentions free buffett with the purchase of any drink from the bar. So we buddied up with a Canadian guy we met in line at the Kyrgyz Embassy and headed out there. It was down a shady little alley way of sorts and when we finally located it, we were the only folks in there. They hadn't even put out any food, I guess they figured no one would show up anyway. We didn't have high hopes for the buffet, but it was actually pretty good: stuffed peppers, chips and salsa, potato skins and the like. Free pool and darts on top of it all. They were even playing good Texas-esque music, I heard some Robert Earl Keen and Johnny Cash in there. Despite the empty warehouse-like space, the walls were decorated with Texas and US-paraphernalia. Although I will say (Maggie here again) that it did seem a bit odd that there were fliers all over the women's bathroom advertising 'free drinks for any woman who donates her bra to the walls of restaurant as they are still looking a bit bare'...hmmm, wasn't about to give up mine. The food was greasy and good, the beer was flowing and it was cheap--we had good company and since we were the only ones in the place, full attention of the staff and lots of buffet on the cheap.

With the close of the night at Tim's we said goodbye to our Canadian friend and headed off to pack our bags and head out of Beijing--was a good break in the city and good to catch up with old friends (in person, on the phone and high speed internet!) , make new ones and discover some truly amazing things we expected and others we didn't...we jumped on a train to Taiyuan to take care of our Chinese visa renewal. More soon! Check out the pictures!

Mt. Qingcheng & Yangshou

2007-08-05T17:57:00.000+07:00

Before we headed out of Sichuan Province, we decided to escape the craziness of Chengdu and seek solice in the Taoist temples on the nearby Mt. Qingcheng. We had previously thought to stop over at a bigger mountain called Mt. Emei, but reading more about it, it became to sound a bit too touristy for us so we opted for the smaller version. I thought it was going to be a nice little stroll through the mountains, but it turned into a tough, sweaty uphill slog (we opted out of the ubiquitous cable car ride!) We passed quite a few Chinese tourists dressed up in nice clothes and high heels, cruising up the mountain and we are convinced that the Chinese do not sweat. Whereas you could have floated a boat in the amount of sweat that came off us, ner a drop was seen on anyone else. Anyway, the mountain is dotted with bunches of little Taoist temples and pavilions, good resting stops as you make your way to the summit. At the temples there were no shortages of little shops selling water, drinks, and really anything else you might (or might not) want. While it may seem a bit of a sell-out to turn these religious temples into convenience stores, its real nice to have ice cold water waiting for you at every turn. The views were amazing as we trudged up the mountain, and after a few hours huffing and puffing, we made it up to the monastery that we would call home. We dropped our bags to lighten our load and continued up to the summit where we found a huge gold-plated statue of a guy sitting on a water buffalo (our ignorance leads us to believe that it was a Taoist deity of some kind) At any rate, we climbed to the top of the temple on the summit and had some really amazing views of the surrounding country-side; wonderful mountains. After a quick beer, we descended to "our" temple to check out our digs for the night. Despite being a working monastery, it was a bit of a strange place. Altars were neck-n-neck with little shops selling tourist stuff and the cafeteria sold grossly over-priced mediocre food. Epcot Taoist Temple. It also had the foulest smelling bathrooms that I had been in for some time. I seriously had to run out and nearly gagged (and I think I have a pretty high tolerance when it comes to dirty bathrooms). In the end, we can say that we slept in a Taoist monastery on the top of a sacred mountain, but in reality we slept in a dirty hostel on top of a formerly sacred mountain that has sold its soul to the tourist dollar. After one night, we hiked down and immediately made it back to Chengdu and onward to Guilin in Guangxi Province. The train ride was unpleasant, if only because we were surrounded by loud, smoking fiends who played cards all night and all day. It might have been interesting to watch had it been poker or something, but it looked like War or something equally thoughtless and boring; though every other occupant on the train thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread and came over to watch and cheer. "Ohhh look! he played a 5 on that 3! Wow, what strategy!" Needless to say, we were quite happy to divest ourselves of those characters. A quick night in Guilin and short ride the next morning and we have found ourselves in the little town of Yangshuo, on the Li River. Yangshuo is a little, backpacker-esque town and admittedly I was a bit worried about hippies and whatnot, but it has turned out to be a really nice place. Most of the city is just a regular looking town, but there is a main pedistrain drag full of guesthouses, restaurants, etc were we've spent some time. The first day we just cruised around, felt the lay of the land, etc. We are in a nice, cheap place with free internet (and A/C! - its damn hot here!) The city is surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of huge limestone karsts that jut out of the countryside (see the photos) and the next day, went kayaking down the river. Despite being obscenely hot, we kayaked for nearly 3 hours down the Li amongst the karsts and had some wonderful views, passing by plenty of local fisherman out there on the river doing their thing.

After kayaking, we took a little break before renting some bikes and taking a bit of a ride. Its only a few kilometers, but the heat was enough to fry us in our seats, so we crept along at an easy pace. We headed up to Moon Hill, a karst with a half moon shaped hole gouged out of the middle. It was quite a steep vertical hike upwards, but we were rewarded with wonderful views of the surrounding country-side.

We managed to find some good food in town as well. One place had hummus and pita bread, though, ahem, Maggie and I have made better. One woman was also making strange little burritos that were hard to pass up (especially since they were cheap cheap cheap) --a strange little concoction of some sort of pancake-type batter smoothed over what looked like a crepe griddle, then an egg broken over that and cooked on it, then a layer of some brown savory sauce, chilli pepper, crispy flat wantons, then lettuce and top it off a thin hotdog split in half. Hmmm, curious but amazingly good--the woman making them was so quick and skilled with her hands, once all of the goods were in place, with a quick flick of her wrist and what looked like a paint scraper, folder it over, cut in half and steaming handed it over to her husband waiting with a bag. We ate this a lot, probably too much. We also passed some nice restaurants, but we could only afford to peer in the windows and reminisce about in Cambodia how we could afford to eat anything/anywhere we wanted...those days are gone for sure.

We had an afternoon to kill, so we decided to take a little day trip to a place called XingPing, described in the booklets as a "Photographer's Paradise." We had to check it out! After an easy little ride, we found ourselves in a dirty little town without much charm and attached ourselves to a boat trip through the karsts (as that is what one does in XingPing). It started out nice enough, nice boat plying the river though after a bit we pulled over to visit a "model village". Well, the model village had sold its soul long ago and the once proud streets were lined with kitsch and whatnot. By the time we got back to the boat, it looked as if the entire Chinese Navy was passing down the river. There is a bunch of tourist traffic on the river between Guilin and Yangshuo--continual boats going back and forth. By the end of the day, they were all headed back up to Guilin and we probably watched 30 go by before our little boat got in line. The river is only wide enough for a single file line; so a bit of peacefulness was lost in the fact that we were one of probably 100 boats on this tiny river.

After a bit of discussion, we decided to go straight from Yangshuo to Beijing; skipping over Hunan Province, where we had originally planned on stopping. The new route would allow us to get our visas (Kyrgyz) in Beijing, do the Beijing things and be in Xi'an in time to renew our Chinese visa, thus giving us plenty of time to explore Xinjiang Province in the extreme Wild West. Anyway, this is a heavy travel season so we knew we'd have some problems getting a ticket for Beijing, especially a sleeper (its 25+ hrs!) so we turned to our guesthouse for help booking the ticket. Long story short is that they said they booked the ticket when they actually did not so we ended up sitting around Yangshou for an extra day waiting on a ticket that wasn't there. They kept saying, "please just wait a little longer, its coming" and all that. Anyway, under the cover of the 2am darkness, we eventually got on a train, after paying some middleman (arranged by the owner of the guesthouse) 60 quai to shuffle us onto the dining car and beg the conductor to give us a ticket. We did get a ticket, but it was for a 'hard seat'...meaning we would sit on a bench (OK, it was cushioned) for the whole ride with 4 others surrounding us. We both thought we could handle it, but after the 24 hour mark (we ended up being on the train for 30 hours...really.) I was really about ready to lose it--I won't even get into the madness of the dudes sitting across from us, but I wouldn't recommend this 3 rd class travel for anyone who can avoid it...we spent an entire day recuperating in our hotel room.

On a happier and well rested note, we're now in Beijing!...we're not really bitter travelers, it just seems that some of our most disgruntled moments are are the funniest tales for you all to enjoy ;-) Anyway, all is well in Beijing and we've been having a fantastic time exploring hutongs, shopping (me-Maggie, at least) and the big sights; feels like we're almost in NYC. More on Beijing in the next entry...

Tiger Leaping Gorge

2007-07-31T20:07:00.000+07:00

After a bit of a scare, meaning all that I had been waiting for in Yunnan Province: hiking 'Tiger Leaping Gorge', 2 hours outside of Lijiang, the 3rd largest (we also heard 1st largest!) gorge in the world, twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, about 2 vertical miles with the winding Yangtze River below and the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the sky, I was told 'the hike is closed due to landslides'. Ugh. No way!? I had seen Matt's pictures, talked with friends, looked it up online, in the guidebooks and chatted other travelers up about this place and now I had come all this way to have it cut off by landslides...oh, no, not gonna' happen. We decided the folks in Lijiang couldn't be believed, which we learned was right--the gorge was open, the upper path, just for hikers was welcoming; the bottom road for cars was the one closed. Excellent. We got our bus tickets, left our big packs at the guesthouse and hit the road. Although, before actually hitting the road by bus, we had to take care of a nasty in-grown toenail infection of mine--I'll leave the details at that, but let me just tell you that the medical facilities in Lijiang are lacking...we first tried a local clinic in the old town--we waited for the doctor (who was eating breakfast) in his 'office/operating room' where the table was covered in newspaper, cigarettes, medical scissors, cotton, tea cups and a plastic bag of morning warm bread. Hmm. We also noticed the newspaper was a frightening rust color...use your imagination. A single wooden leg rest (ahem, chopping block) was standing in the middle of the room, looking just as uh, stained. The doctor came in and lunged at me with some utensils and Q-tips and I called it quits, we quickly hit the road for the main hospital. This experience was a little better, however, no less stomach turning (I didn't need the winding roads for that, I had the 'surgery room' where they took me to wait and eventually have my toe cleaned, however, I was a bit nervous given the open bucket next to me...I'll spare the details, I'm sure you can imagine; plus the ever present latrine-is-right-next-door-down-wind smell coming through the open windows. Ok, so in the end it worked out, they cleaned me up (as I inspected each cotton swab and tool they picked up and made them keep the alcohol and iodine solutions close, use those rubber gloves!). Enough about that...we made it to the bus station around 10:30 and were on the next bus to the little town of Qiaotou to start our trek.

Matt claimed that the hike was 'easy, mostly flat, with a few steep points only'--ha! We started uphill, of course, I expected this as we were going to reach 2,000-some meters, but nothing quite prepared us for the '28 Bends'! 28 steep, rock-strewn switches back and forth for a good 2.5 hours. Despite the difficulty of the hike in some parts, the views were breath-taking, black, jagged mountains with snow tops across the Yangtze and rolling grass covered mountains where we were hiking across waterfalls, reaching for our lives and spotting billy goats meters above us, only noticed by their ‘bleats’ every so often and their shepherd approaching us from the trail…I was beat. The first night, only after a short 2 hour hike, we made it to the Naxi Family Guesthouse, which was quite welcoming. The mom of the house was used to so many travelers charging through her house, she seemed to not mind our muddy shoes, smelly feet and tired looks. She took us all in, cooked up a good dinner, had cold beers on hand and waved us off the next morning, walking us down part of the trail to make sure we took the correct turn--not only for us, for all of the travelers! We hiked a good 6-7 hours the second day and amidst the rain made it down to Sean's Guesthouse in Walnut Grove, the last little town of the gorge. Sean greeted us with excitement and shared some stories from his 26-odd years owning a guesthouse here...lots of stories to be told. He was the first to start taking hikers through the gorge in 1996, through landslides and government disputes (they are threatening to build a dam in the gorge) he's been through it all and still fighting (you might be able to check out www.tigerleapinggorge.com which I think is his site...we can't access it as China has blocked this website, including our blog). We met a bunch of other hikers from Michigan (!), the UK, Israel and Korea and enjoyed beers and chatting into the night, resting our tired bodies. The next morning we latched on to a tour group to help us get through the landslides on the road back--3 total, which took out good chunks of the road and was a bit treacherous climbing over huge boulders that were just dislodged from their 1000+ year dwellings and could tumble again at any moment...yes there were no railings left on the road from the slides and it was just you staring down at the gorge trying to get over the mounds of rock and dirt from the slides...anyway, Matt got some good shots of this and if not posted yet, will be soon. Once over the landslide area, and back in the small town where we started, we headed back to Lijiang for one more night and to flee to Sichuan for some good hot and spicy food and more hiking. More soon!

Lijiang to Chengdu (Sichuan Province)

2007-07-31T19:31:00.001+07:00

So getting out of Lijiang was logistically easy, but painfully sickening for a lot of people on the bus ride. It was something like a 7 hour ride over extremely winding mountain roads and about 5 or 6 folks vomited up their breakfasts and many others were felled with ashen faces. I, luckily, took a bit of motion sickness medicine, so I got through; meanwhile, Maggie is reading away, looking out the window, oblivious to any mere sickness. We ran into a few accidents along the way, both of them forcing a delay. The second accident was a four car pile up than caused us nearly a two hour delay. Eventually, we made it to a sorry little town called Panzhihua where we hoped on a night train to Chengdu. We rode in a hard sleeper, which is basically a train car lined with triple bunk beds. We boarded the train halfway through its route (at midnight), so we didn't get the pick of the litter in terms of bedding, but we went right to sleep and after an uneventful 6 hours awake in the morning, we rolled into Chengdu around noon. So far, in our Sichuan experience, we've checked off two of the "must-dos". First, we ate a "Hot-Pot" which is basically a huge boiling vat of oil that you cook kebabs in. Meat, fish, veggie kebabs, basically anything you want. Each table has its individual burners and the waiters come by and set the vat in the middle; you go pick out all your kebabs and then go to town. The oil vat is a deep, dark red and filled with spicy chilis, a food additive that Sichuan is famous for. It wasn't the healthiest meal around for sure. After your kebab is fried in the chili-oil, you pull it out and soak it in peanut oil to cool off and then - chomp away. Afterward, Maggie and I both felt a bit sluggish after ingesting so much oil and in the end, weren't terribly impressed with the hot-pot, but you can't say we didn't try. The second must-do is to go see the Panda Bears at the research and breeding center north of town. We kinda got trapped in a little tour, which we weren't planning for, but the important part is that we got to see the bears. The research center is actually really well done. The bears seem to have huge tracts of land to cruise about on, and while I am sure its a bit more liberating living in the wild, their life didn't look too bad. Apparently, about 50 percent of a panda bears day is spent sleeping and when awake they are usually eating, which sounded eerily similar to my four years in college, though unfortunately no one brought me my food, unless of course you count the pizza man. Anyway, we wandered around the center and saw probably 20 bears, many sleeping, but quite a few were up and about. Despite the signs to speak quietly and not make noise, more than a handful of tourists were yelling at the pandas and waving things, just to get the panda to look their way for that perfect photo shot. We even got to go into the Panda nursery and saw a wee little fella, still pink and tiny, squirming away. We found ourselves in the Panda Museum, which was more interesting than you might think. I was most interested in the War Panda painting. Apparently, if the painting is to be believed, these cute cuddly bears were once trained as war machines. The picture beside it showed pandas fleeing a horde of woolly mammoths, which seemed a bit of a juxtaposition, but who knows. The rest of the day was spent creeping about town and hanging out in a Taoist temple, though truthfully I am a bit templed-out if you ask me (which you didn't). I also want to mention that I was impressed with the fact that nearly every motorcycle in Chengdu (and there are alot of them!) are electric/battery and not gasoline. Its nice that you can see a who gang of motos glide by and you can't even hear them (though it makes crossing the road a bit dangerous because you can't hear them sneaking up on you!) Maybe the Chinese government is trying to clean up their image a bit; especially since supposedly 7 out of the 10 most polluted cities in the world is in China (unverified fact!)

Does Yunnan Province have a soul?

2007-07-18T08:48:00.000+07:00

We took a very long 9+ hour bus ride out of Luang Prabang heading up to the Chinese Border, though stopping over at Luang Nam Tha, just shy of the border to try and sneak in one last day of trekking or kayaking, but was spoiled by the rain (none of the guides would go out). The ride wasn't too bad, though it was long the bus was only half full, so everyone got to lounge around with plenty of space. The only thing of note is that at the place we stopped for lunch, I saw the largest rat I've ever seen. The store next to us had a big crate of them, for sale I guess, and from a distance, I thought they were puppies (I know, I know!). We were hoping to do some trekking or kayaking or something in town, but it rained all day and we had to be happy with walking around town or looking at the China guidebook, plotting for the coming weeks. Eventually, we managed to get on a bus out of town and thus began the story for the next three days...bus bus and more bus. Without going into too much detail, we were basically on the bus for three days, and the long winding roads meant it was taking 10 hours to cover 300 miles or so. Needless to say it was not fine. Though, on one day we did manage to snag a sleeper bus and thus passed a 1o hour day in the comfort of tiny little 2ft by 5ft beds. Most everything was uneventful except for the fact that Maggie almost got turned away at the Chinese border, though managed to sweet talk her way in. A little batting of the eyelashes even works on Chinese border guards! During our time on the sleeper bus it rained and despite our stuff being in the cargo hold, it all got soaked. And not just a little wet, soaked, and everything in it. To top off the wet bag upon arrival in Kunming, we exited the train with the equivalent of 75 cents in Chinese yuan, but $300 USD (though no banks were open to exchange it) and all of the ATMs were rejecting our cards. We went store to store begging someone to change the money, but no one would touch our Yankee Dollars with a stick, they even seemed a bit scared when I started waving it around. We were hoping to immediately get some yuan and catch another bus to Dali (our first real destination) but with the cash flow problem we had to stay over in Kunming for a night (at oddly enough the same little hotel I stayed at 3 years ago). After a bit (and a different part of town), for whatever reason the ATMs started working and we were on our way to Dali the next day. Allow me to switch gears here, since we are back on internet after a few days. We passed through Dali and are currently in Lijiang, both towns that I visited way back when in 2003. They were remotely cool back then, little old cities, preserved to keep the traditional architecture of the minority tribes (Bai & Naxi, respectively). Now, I would recommend to anyone not to come here if you want to see anything remotely traditional or authentic. Dali had one or two streets that were touristy, but if you really tried, you could wander off the path and really get a sense of the old city. McLijiang (old town) however is like a Disneyland theme park - Epcot Yunnan Province or something and after 30 minutes here, Maggie and I are already plotting our escape. I feel like a chump, because I picked these places and can only take heart from the fact we can rent bikes and head out of town, and that within days we will be hiking in Tiger Leaping Gorge, away from all the crowds. The little windy streets would be wonderful to wander through, but everything has been converted into a shop or restaurant, and I mean literally everything. There is no getting away from it, no escaping it, nor the hordes of tourists. 99% of the tourists here are Chinese and I guess driving the Disneyification of this place (and Dali on a lesser scale); its a shame to see, especially because it seems really fake and contrived but most of the people here seem to be happy with that, so ok. We've seen multiple groups being lead around by folks dressed up in "traditional" Bai or Naxi outfits and lead around the city with a bright orange flag. There is a time and place for Disney World, I went and had a good time there, but it is a shame when Disney is passed off as the real thing.

Maggie here, I will say though that Dali was a nice little place--the two tourist-y streets were that, but had some cool little shops and good little dumpling places that were excellent (we ate about 20 for the equivalent of .90cents!) and other local restaurants, markets and shops. We did a great hike into the mountains around Dali a few days ago and took a ski lift up one side, hiked and saw some lovely waterfalls and covered about 12km, then took a breath-taking gondola ride back down (from much higher up and covered more of the mountain across). Matt and I spit up yesterday in Dali, me for biking and he crept around taking pictures. I covered a good 20km and visited a bunch of small villages just off the main road that weren't listed on the maps or in the guide book. I couldn't communicate at all with the folks I came across but had some sweet interactions with old ladies and the kids got a good laugh at the crazy white lady riding around their town on a bike. I happened upon a Bai funeral ceremony and stood a distance away, just to understand first what was going on and then continued on my way (many people were clad in all white with white head scarves/covers, carrying colorful paper banners/kites of many levels high on wooden sticks, walking the body to the mountain to bury). I also encountered an old man playing a traditional guitar/banjo and chatted with kids while buying some candy (their favorite or maybe only English words were 'Hello!' and 'I love you!'). We were both pretty exhausted last night from our day and finished off the afternoon with a stroll into town and visited a tea shop. The tea shop visit proved to be a lesson for both of us--a very chatty and eclectic woman who owned the place set us up with a rightful tea-tasting experience. It was a PuEr (region of Yunnan Province) tea shop so only carried this kind of tea (which we were told is highly sought after in other provinces and into Tibet). Some fast facts for you (from our tea connoisseur):
-Fermented tea is smoother and better to drink after 3-4 years; it is also good for the stomach and to drink in the winter
-Non-fermented tea is better after 8years; green non-fermented is good for the day and summer...
-A tea tree is sweeter the older and bigger it is (some we saw in her pictures were 400 years old!)
-PuEr tea is all black tea
anyway, we enjoyed talking with her and her friends over SEVERAL cups of tea (both fermented and non) and was a fantastic end of our stay in Dali. What was even better was that she just sort of had friends stopping by and they all sat down with us for tea and chatting and never did she make any suggestion or push us to buy, or for that matter pay for all of our tasting...she even shared some special green tea given to her by a friend, which was packed tightly around a rose bud; it was beautiful once it opened into a clear, small teapot of hot water. As our friendly tea drinking brought us into the early evening, we really wanted to buy a little from our friend and so chose some fermented and non to take us through our journey and said good-bye.

We headed to a Uygher (pronounced We-ger) restaurant that Matt spotted the day before (Uyghers are Muslim ethnic minority in China, and live in the farthest western province, which will be our last province to visit in China before crossing the border into Kyrgyzstan). We headed down a short alley where we were hit by the wonderful smell of roasting goat meat, chicken and beef kebabs and fresh bread. We ordered a specialty Matt knew of called 'lagman' which were thick egg (?) noodles covered in a stew of goat, chillies, onions, tomatoes, green peppers and other spices. Amazing and hearty. We of course also took some goat kebabs and a large round of doughy homemade bread. We weren't left wanting! We got some tips on places to visit while in the west from the chef. A local beer to finish off the night and we were lazily walking back to our guest house and pretty much just fell into sleep.

Matt has filled you in on our latest stop, so I'll leave it at that, but we can't wait to get into the mountains in the next few days to trek around some more. We'll add pictures over the next few days.

Northern Laos (July 10th - July 15th) or Luang Prabang, the 51st State

2007-07-16T16:05:00.000+07:00

So, after a few days in Luang Prabang, we head out tomorrow for the Chinese border, though we won't cross for a few more days. We've spent the past 4 or so days in Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Northern Laos that has been billed as the "best-preserved city in South East Asia." The architecture of the city is mostly early French colonial (at least that is what is looks like to me) and it is, in fact, well preserved...as hundreds and hundreds of guesthouses and restaurants, which will explain the title of this entry. While it is nice to wander around the winding little streets, get lost in the old city feel, and drop in on any of the 50-odd Buddhist wats in town, Luang Prabang's population is probably roughly half Laos and half foreign, and this is the "low" season! I would hate to see the High Season and am thankful that I am not here for that! Its a bit of a shame because it is such a nice town, but other than architecturally, it has sold out to the tourist market. The Night Market, for example, might as well be called the Tourist Market. Maggie and I were hoping the night market was actually going to be a quasi-traditional Lao market being held at night but we were disappointed. There were a few nice things, but overall a lot of it was tourist kitsch. However, once you kinda get past the touristicality (?) of things, Luang Prabang is not a bad place to hang out for a while. We've done a bit of trekking in the surrounding mountains, a little boat riding, and more than our fair share of sweating. During our hike today, our guide was Hmong, and Maggie and I discussed the fact that we've never actually spoken to a Hmong before (see "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" for more Hmong insights.) Actually, a lot of this area is "Hill Tribe" people, which is kinda a blanket name for non-Lao minorities who, as you guessed, live in the Highlands. Maggie has gotten to see a bit more of the town than I have, due to a spot of random illness that has felled yours truly. Without going into too many detailed symptoms, in my expert opinion it feels like a muscle strain in my upper abdomen. This may come as a surprise to you (it did me!) that I, in fact, actually do have a muscle in my abdomen...somewhere. Anyway, it was enough to take me down once in Vientiane and once in Luang Prabang, so I've been taking it easy and it seems to be OK. I did go to the local Laos-China Friendship Hospital in town, but I am probably more qualified than those "doctors" there. I got diagnosed with "Common Cold" just so you know. Speaking of failures and shortcomings, Maggie and I wanted to try and eat local Lao food, seeking out Laap, a traditional Lao dish. WAWa. I bet Laap tastes great if you like raw minced fish! We didn't get much past pushing it around on the plate, hiding it under some veggies, and eventually throwing some money down and making a break for it. Lastly, I just want to mention that we've got new link over there to your right for Our Travel Photos to kinda give you guys an idea of what things look like. Get to the Flickr site and click on the Laos set and enjoy!

Southern Laos (July 4th-9th)

2007-07-09T18:28:00.000+07:00

Hey guys, I know its been a long time since we've updated the blog, but now we've got some better stories to tell than dead geckos and what not! We've finally begun our much vaunted and highly hyped trip and the first stop is Laos. But wait, first we had to get out of Phnom Penh, which proved to me a much more difficult task than either Maggie or I were expecting. Work, shipping, etc woes, and after a bit of sickness delay, we were off. First though, the night before we left town, we wanted to have a few drinks with some friends, but that turned into an all night drinking party fest which lasted much later than it should have, knowing that we had a 7am bus ride the next morning. We played (and won!) the little trivia game, though admittedly we had to cheat and steal answers off some Aussies the next table over. Our first leg was PNP to Stung Treng, kinda the last Cambodian city before the border and what a jewel of a town that was! The bus ride was punishing, though nothing that Maggie or I haven't seen before. But you guys don't want to hear about Cambodia, so I'll fast forward to the Laos border crossing, where we had to bribe this border guard to stamp our passports. The entire time this guy was whining "I want a receipt, I want a receipt!" meanwhile I am praying that I get my passport stamp before this guy pisses the border guard off too much. Hey man, I don't like corruption any more than the next man, but I am also not going to stand there and cry on a border guard's shoulder to get my dollar back either. If this guy wants to see corruption, he should go to Africa! Anyway, one passport stamp heavier and one dollar lighter, we were across and on our way to the sunny 4000 Islands of southern Laos in the Mekong River. Billed as a must see by many a traveller, we decided to "must see" it ourselves. A little boat ride took us to our new home of Don Det and never in my life had I seen sooooo many dirty wanna-be hippies crawling all over the place like vermin. "Dude, you mean you've only sat here in this hammock doing nothing for only 3 days man, I've been here wasting My Life for nearly 3 weeks, Dude." " Hey man, I don't want to visit Vientiane, too boring, too much actual culture yeah." And the like. I have little tolerance for this, I taboo them and speak poorly of them publicly, but admittedly, when eavesdropping on some, I heard one or two practical or interesting comments. Hippies aside, the little island was really nice once you got out of the ghetto. Our little bungalow wasn't conducive for hanging out, so we spend most of our free time wandering around the island, hiking among the rice paddies, along old railway tracks and found an abandoned steam locomotive along the trail. It was nice because though our island was flat, it was surrounded by mountains on other close islands, which gave it a bit of a tropical island-esque look. The Laos people seem quite friendly in that just about everyone you pass will greet you with a smiling "Sabaydee!" Anyway, we crept around the island, fending off Sabaydee's and giving them as good as we got and generally had a good time. We came across far better guesthouses and bungalows and we felt bad because we were staying in a dirty shack. Off all things though, we found an Australian man who baked bread and donuts, and he was good...real good. I wondered how an Aussie ended up on some little island with his serious baking oven, making donuts for tourists and I decided I was jealous of this man. Had we not been staying in The Ghetto, the island would be a nice place to hang out, but admittedly, a bit too much for us. Not that we were looking to live with the locals and eat crickets or whatever, but at any rate, we headed out. Our next stop was a place called Champasak, just south of Pakse, which is kinda the southern transport hub. Anyway, just outside Champasak is a Angkor-era temple that apparently is the jewel in the crown of many folks' Laos trip, so we had to see for ourselves. We thought about biking since it was 8km out of town, but decided the Moto was more our style (we would be proven wrong here)...especially since I (now it's me, Maggie writing) was elected to drive because of my fine moto-driving skillz (that's right, with a 'z', uh). We made it to the ruins, enjoyed an hour of so of hiking around, discovering a carved Buddha foot in the base of a cliff, babbling brooks around the top of the ruins and an amazing number of butterflies resting around the moss covered rocks. After our hearty hike up the steep steps of the temple we headed down, deciding to go to another temple just down the road. I reved up and "POP!" I thought it was a little glitch in the moto, so Matt jumped on the back and we were off...only to quickly discover a flat. We pushed the moto with long faces, then mimed and signed our way through a few shop keepers to find the 'moto-tire-flat-repair man' who saw our weary faces in the heat of the afternoon and hooked us up for only a small 5000 kip fee ($ .40). We weren't but 5 km down the road when we started wobbling again, facing a similar glitch...repeat above situation (and same price!), but now Matt was driving and we looked a bit more down for the count...OK, not so interesting anymore right? Well things did slow down a notch. We hit the road by foot, sampled some nice street food in our little Champasak and headed to the bar just above the Mekong on bamboo stilts for a beer Lao and grilled chicken.

We headed out of Champasak the next day for Pakse, a larger town, with not much happening except a brusque business in transport; although a large man wearing a ten gallon hat with rubber galoshes was spotted milling about the market, surely with a southern drawl. Anyway, the hub of transport offered us many options: mini buses, 18-wheelers, pick-up trucks, mini-trucks, tuk-tuks, motos, VIPs and our final choice (cause we feel we've earned our crappy-transport-experience stripes long ago), the lovely 'KING OF BUS'...no joke, airbrushed in blue, hot pink and yellow on the front of the most souped-up double-decker touring bus I've ever seen; we were riding in luxury for $13.50 and it felt right. The 'King' included a bathroom, rice and pork snack, a wet nap, A/C and a blanket, oh and of course the requisite Laos karaoke, but that was easily blocked out. They even washed the windows before we got in and I think the blankets were clean. After chatting up a local monk and his novice in tow, also heading out on the 'KING OF BUS' (see, we up there with the monks now) we shared our 'Off' (they loved the 'fresh scent') and some snacks with them and got settled in our seats. 9.5 hours and we would be in Vientiane. Lovely. No chickens or chicken poop, mud, hacking and spitting or smoke in your face or intermittent rain to give you a chill. 8:30 pm we were off and made it, although a bit groggy, but to another hole in the wall guest house by the morning. More to come on the standard of tourism in Laos and some other strange things seen after only 5 days out of Cambodia.

The Life, Times, and Painful Death of The Gecko

2007-06-02T09:26:00.000+07:00

Maggie:
Did you ever see a gecko go through a printer and make it out alive? No likely. Sounds like the beginning of a story for an 8 year old boy, but no no my friends, this is life in Svay Rieng. Said gecko did not make it out alive; in fact, bones and all were strewn across the 25 pages I had to print out after the mishap to clear the printer of the mess. Now before the animal rights activists get on my case, its not liked I crammed the little fella in there; I meant no harm I had no idea the poor little guy was in the printer sniffin’ around, trying to find bugs. I did what all of us do when we arrive at work on a Friday morning: start up the computer, then the printer, check emails and get down to business, which included printing out my expense report from a field visit the previous 2 days. And much to my surprise, when I took out my printed spreadsheet, it was covered in slimy goo…only after I opened the paper drawer did I find a small gecko tail, no other remains; however, it was enough to make a positive ID; DOA. I thought to myself: ‘Ah, Another day in Zamunda’ as a good friend from the Cameroon days used to say, referring to those key moments when you can’t believe what has just happened actually happened, and then you remember that you’re in the bush and well, it’s all relative. That one statement, often prefaced with a sigh (maybe a ‘gross’ thrown in depending on the situation) captures all the feelings: the annoyance, the amazement or disbelief that it could happen, the curiosity and then the realization that yeah, I am in the middle of nowhere and things like this happen… (yeah, yeah, it’s a quote from the Eddie Murphy flick ‘Coming to America’ but I still like it). Anyway, I’m likely to utter that phrase at least once a week here in Svay Rieng (actually, even more in Cameroon and not surprisingly, less in Thailand). Other examples of ‘Another day in Zamunda’ reflections were my first experience seeing my Khmer friends voraciously devouring half developed chicken fetuses from the egg and high level officials taking phone calls and yapping for a good amount of time in the middle of delivering an important speech in front of a crowd. I owe a shout out to Robert for this continually relevant, appropriate, and highly versatile phrase which will continue to serve me well and sounds a helluva’ lot nicer than ‘Oh, #%&@’.

I will however, leave you with those thoughts to update you on our coming plans, which are shaping up nicely. We’ve just received the 1st of 3 Japanese Encephilitis shots…no, we’re not going to Japan, but yes, we will be in the bush of Laos and southern China near Laos where this nasty disease can be found lurking in mosquitoes that will probably bite us as we trek around and sleep in pagodas and monasteries in the middle of nowhere. Moms, we’re all up to date now with our vaccines. Although I’m dealing with a bad cold right now, we’re doing ok. So, the trip! We’re heading north out of Cambodia on July 1 or 2 and might stop halfway to the border in Kratie, along the Mekong to see the rare Irrawady Dolphins living in the river—the pictures I’ve seen of them are really quite beautiful and they are endangered, only hundreds remain. We’ll then travel to Steung Treng where we cross the water into Laos and make our way from south to north taking in the countryside, cities and local food. Ok, I won’t run through the whole itinerary, I’m sure your eyes are glazing over by now…so quickly: after Laos we head to China (overland as well) and head east then north, visit with our dear friend Rohit in Beijing and hope to travel with him and make our way west, all the way to Kyrgyzstan, then Uzbekistan, Turkey and in to Europe (France, England) and NYC! So, this is the official shout out! : PLEASE let us know if you want to meet us in one of these places, we would love to travel with you. We are only held to a few flights, the first leaving Tashkent to Istanbul around October 27, Istanbul to Paris on Oct 31 and Paris to NYC on Nov. 14. Otherwise we’re open, let us know.

Matt:
Allow me first to mention that recently the Spanish NGO Whose Name We Dare Not Mention has finally paid up on their agreement, so for the first time since December of last year the staff are finally getting paid salaries. It’s been like Christmas all over again, and the Project Manager got a good laugh out of me fanning myself with $100 bills, a little joke that probably would have fallen pretty flat there in the West, especially since I was fanning myself with $400; not exactly an indecent amount to be flaunting. However, allow me to point out that this is not, in fact, the West and it got a good laugh (though admittedly he could have just been laughing at any number of my faults (rare though they may be), just as I am prone to laugh at him for his various shortcomings; I like to think that it was the joke). Milk and Honey, if they existed here in Cambodia would be flowing through the streets; and while you’re at it, I wouldn’t have minded a nibble of cheese, thank you very much. At any rate, this injection of cash has finally kick-started CCPCR and I regret that this wasn’t able to happen six months ago. However, so as not to mindlessly waste time during the slow months, I committed myself to mastering Minesweeper (I managed to complete the “Expert” Level; how many folks can lay claim to that gem? Not too many I’ll tell you that much.) This week has been particularly busy at the shelter; a bunch of visitors from Phnom Penh to help out with some stuff and I feel like its been really beneficial. Two folks wanted to come down and do a jewelry making class and I said sure. I figured it would be some string, a handful of beads, maybe some New Age music, candles and incense; but turned out to be a legitimate operation that I was excluded from since this was an activity for The Girls, and I, alas, was turned away. I could only look mournfully through my little window as The Girls swam in piles of beads, like piles of leaves during the Fall, of all different shapes, colors, creeds, national origins, and sexual orientations (all beads welcome) Big string, small string, leather string, copper wire, some kind of silver wire, all the requisite cutting and bending tools, and even coconuts that were cut into pieces and sanded into different shapes. No beads were harmed in the making of the jewelry, though some string, wire and the coconuts suffered greatly. Wednesday afternoon, one of the smaller children came in with a nice necklace she had made; solemnly placing it in my outstretched hands, me looking away so as not to show the tear welling up in my little eye, pondering the meaning and weight behind this token of appreciation, finally gathering my inner strength, looking her in the eye with accolades on my tongue, songs of gratitude in the air, thoughts of the high esteem I must be held in, visions of my people chanting my name (My people:) “Matt, Matt, Matt” (Me:) “Yes, Yes My People, I am here to serve you, oh yes, this is too much, thank you, thank you.” Or something of the like, only to have that vision trampled on like George Bush on the Constitution. “For Maggie.” “What my child, maybe there is some mistake.” “For Maggie.” Deflated like an old balloon, I consoled myself as has been done through the ages, “I didn’t want it anyway.”

A nurse from New Zealand also came into Svay Rieng to help us formulate a better “Health Policy” for the kids at the shelter. It recently came to light that the current “medical care” provided consisted of quite a few inadequate methodologies. You would not think that questions such as 1) Can you hear me? 2) Can you see me? 3) Can you breathe OK? 4) Give me an estimate of your blood pressure 5) Do you have HIV would be enough to diagnose the complete health of a patient, but here according to the leading medical professionals of Svay Rieng, you would be wrong. Anyway, so we made the rounds among the hospitals and clinics to see who would offer actual physical exams (and actually do the tests) to our kids when they first arrived at the shelter. “Why would you bring a kid here who wasn’t sick” was the question we got at every place. The idea of annual physical exams has not, understandably, cracked the hard candy shell of Cambodia. The visits became a laundry list of medical misadventures, laughable follies and disheartening inadequacies. Specific examples of what I heard may be in bad taste, but wrap this little point up and keep it safe with you: I could aimlessly flip through a Red Cross First Aid booklet over the course of a few hours and by the end of the day, be just as qualified as the guys we saw. Or I can just pay the going rate of $1,200 to buy my doctor’s license and necessary degrees. What makes change so hard is that this is the type of medical care that the Cambodian staff are used to getting and don’t really know any better. They cannot see that it is wrong and don’t understand our frustration with it. They see the child going to the doctor and getting a clean bill of health, why should we change that which, on the outside, seems to be working? The emphasis has been on the little stamp that signifies “good health,” which is often required for employment and education and the actual physical health of the patient has been relegated to a little song and dance that must be done to give the examination a veneer of legitimacy. A veneer which many Cambodians seem quite unable to pierce while many others mock it as we would a Soviet era election. We can come and build hospitals or schools and feel good about ourselves, but what good are they if they aren’t properly staffed? Children learn things by rote memory alone; can tell you 4 times 5 is 20, but can’t tell you what 5 times 4 is. Doctors whose physical exam is based on the single question “Are you sick?” We are, one little bit at a time, trying to break that and hopefully it will bear some fruit. Over the coming days, we’re having some (highly supervised) physical exams done on some kids and I hope that these kids will get to experience the first physical exam of their lives.

Which allows me to segue into my recent falling in with the medicos in Phnom Penh. As you know, we are headed out of here in a few weeks, and since I haven’t had a decent physical since 2000, Maggie figured I should start making it a habit; we had a little medical checkup date. Maggie went first at the Western run clinic in Phnom Penh and I followed right afterward. As the Doc was trying to shake me down for my medical history, I heeed and hawed, ummed and aahhed about how I hadn’t been to a doctor in years and wasn’t really sure what to expect. Wasn’t she supposed to put her hand on my forehead and yell out “Demons Out!” or something like that? Anyway, she saw right through me, “Maggie made you come didn’t she,” she asked. I could only look away sheepishly; beaten. Anyway, other than being declared obese by an unjustifiably strict interpretation of the Body Mass Index quackery, I was pronounced a Healthy Boy, though my request for a lollipop was turned down (see the aforementioned “obesity.”) We also got conned into getting the Japanese Elephantitis (whatever) shots. They suckered us like used car salesmen, “this shot’s a beauty” “you’ll love it” “yeah, that’s an authentic 8 track deck.” I’m a cost-benefit man myself, and thrifty as well; qualities I would think appealing in a mate. Maggie, however, sees me more as being anal and miserly. I don’t particularly care for paying hundreds of dollars for a vaccine that I don’t expect to need; similar to my distaste for insurance (like to live on the edge you know.) We got the 3rd world price of $100/each for the vaccine instead of the $500 or so it costs in the States. We were warned of adverse reactions to the vaccine, and while my rock hard abs, oh! I mean rock hard immune system fought off the poison; Maggie was felled. The vaccine probably made her sicker than she would have ever gotten without it; and we got to pay for the pleasure as well! This weekend, we go for Round 2 of 3. Thank you, the first one was great, can I please have another?

Paradise Lost

2007-05-06T21:01:00.000+07:00

It was a dark and stormy night, um….Ok, so it was neither dark nor stormy, more akin to something like full-mooned and waterless, but that just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? Ok, I’ll try since you asked, ahem. It was a full-mooned and waterless night when we fled Svay Rieng Town for the comfort of the coast. In the midst of the Cambodians ushering in their Year of the Pig (not be confused with the Vietnamese Year of the Golden Pig, which began in Feb), Maggie and I took the opportunity to seek out new corners of the country and headed to the city of Kampot. We had originally planned on staying the entire week, but work schedules and whatnot unashamedly got in the way and it turned into a longish weekend. Down on the coast, east of Sihanoukville, which is Cambodia’s main (and perhaps only) deep water port, is the tourist trifecta of Kampot/Kep/Bokor Mountain. Figured we’d try to save a bit of money, so on the way south, we took The Bus, which, needless to say, we didn’t take on the return trip north. Mind you, it was no African bus ride for sure; no goat was peeing on me from the roof, not a single 300 lb market lady to be seen, much less so any one of them taking up their seat, and mine along with it. We did however, like the days of yore, stop every 25ft to either drop someone off or pick someone up. The Cambodians, seemingly without a sense of time, seemed happy with this protracted Saturday drive; we, however, had places to be and sweating on a slow bus was not one of them. Praise be to Buddha, in time, as all things, this too had passed and we arrived in Kampot. What are my initial impressions of Kampot you may ask? Ok, even if you didn’t ask, I’ll tell you anyway. One word: “cooler.” And that adjective is applicable to many things: temperature-wise, scenery-wise, in fact, everything-wise, but these tales are for later. We trundled our way to our guesthouse and despite making a reservation and arriving late, still had to wait over an hour until they cleaned out 10ftx10ft room. “Its Khmer New Year” was a common excuse for things happening even slower than usual. Fine, I said, but does Khmer New Year mean that the maid gets to sit and watch Cambodian pop music videos at the table next to use while we wait? Well, in fact yes, apparently it does. Once the dead bugs were swept off the bed and the hairball in the bathroom hygienically removed, we moved in, sat in the AC for a bit, gathered our wits about us, and sallied forth into the relative unknown of Kampot Town. Kampot is not directly on the coast, so there is no beach, but it is split in half by a large river running through it towards the sea, which is only a few kilometers away. Unlike Svay Rieng, Kampot is quite hilly-ish (I hesitate to call them mountains, so as not to provoke “Rocky Mountain” thoughts, which these are far from, though to sate my sloth-like tendencies, I will refer to them as mountains from now on, so as to make it easier on myself.) The majority of the town itself is relatively unimpressive, something like a little bit bigger version of Svay Rieng’s “Main Street.” Needless to say though, that did not stop us from renting a little moto and cruising around. I also want to quickly point out that we found a little shop selling damn fine carrot cake, not your usual Cambodian staple. Admittedly, a lot of the buildings seemed a little bit older and had some character to them, but the real deal was the stretch of stuff along the River Front. It had character, actual character, had a cool breeze coming off the water, had a good view of the mountains in the distance, and it was even clean! In short, a little piece of paradise if I should be so bold. We sat at a little café, watching the boats scurry along the river as the sun slowly lost its battle with the night and descended into the mountains, giving the clouds and river below a ruddy glow; debating whether to eat the $9.95 all you can eat BBQ at this particular café. Just then, however, from across the road came our friend Irad. Allow me first to say that Irad is the unnamed Algerian doctor we ate Thanksgiving Dinner with way back when. If you recall, he was the one that was barred entry into Cambodia, despite having a legitimate visa because he is Arab and the US Embassy warned the Cambodians to be on the lookout for those Arabs. So instead of “Thank you Dr. Irad for offering your services to the people of Cambodia free of charge for two years,” it was deportation to Thailand and subsequent arrest. Regardless, his winds of fortune have shifted, as the now the lucky guy lives in Kampot. Irad, however, was not interested in the aforementioned BBQ (“how could you not be,” I cried. I’ve seen people in Texas get shot for turning down a $9.95 all you can eat BBQ,…really. The sweet tangy sauce, I already even had my bib on, gazing lovingly at the various hunks of meat, salivating, wondering how far I could make it if I grabbed the pig off the spit and made a break for it since these blue-bloods seemed to have no interest.) Alas, we deferred to Irad to find our dining locale, who located a suitable culinary experience just down the road, and as tasty as it may have been, let me mention that it was also no $9.95 all you can eat BBQ. Afterward, we made plans for meeting up soon in a few days with Irad and called it a night.

The following morning, we tackled that which I wanted to see most on this trip; Bokor Mountain. Now a national park, the top of the mountain is an abandoned French city. People lived up there, but I think it was actually less of a city and more like a large villa/resort/playground of the French elite. At its heyday, it had shops, a church, post office, police station, houses, and a large and imposing hotel/casino, which was definitely something in its day. Built in the 1930s, it was abandoned during WWII and again during the Khmer Rouge (after which it never recovered). The road to the top of the mountain is billed as one of the worst in Cambodia, and I’d believe it. Way back when, it was a paved road, but over the course of 50 years without repairs, it is in a sorry, sorry state. Maggie and I shared a ride up with two Estonians; I had never met an Estonian person before. Turns out they are regular people just like me and you. Anyway, we left Kampot around 8.30 or so, but we took time. I kinda wanted to go straight to the top, but unbeknownst to me, our ticket up included an hour long hike through the forest. Unbeknownst to me apparently meant unbeknownst to everyone because we were with some other folks who were in no condition to hike for an hour up a mountain. It was a nice hike though. We arrived at the top around lunch time and I am happy that Maggie and I decided to spend the night on the top (there is a small ranger station/guesthouse there) as we do not particularly enjoy the tour-group mentality. “You have 30 minutes to visit the abandoned Hotel/Casino.” No-no, I said. “Time up, go to the Church, you have 20 minutes.” “Ok, lets go back down.” If it took me 4 hours to get to the top, I sure am not turning right back around, especially when there is a whole ghost town to explore. We tried to get one or two other folks to stay, but alas (for them at least), they had unfounded and misplaced priorities. Once we shed the debilitating weight of our tour group and dropped our bags at the ranger station, we went back into the ghost town. There were a few other day trippers and what not, but as the afternoon wore on, their numbers dwindled until, for the most part Maggie and I had the entire place to ourselves. Allow me first to comment on the Hotel/Casino, as it is the Bokor showpiece. If you ever happen to see the movie “City of Ghosts,” the final scenes happen there, though trust me, unlike Matt Dillon, you cannot walk there. It is completely in shambles, yet still retains its magnificence and splendor. It is often compared to the hotel in “The Shining,” and rightfully so I say. It is shamelessly gutted in every way, but as you walk in, you can still easily imagine how it once was. There is a huge ballroom open to the distant sea, with huge winding staircases spinning off in many directions to the floors and rooms above. Smaller, almost secret staircases twirl upwards into hidden balconies and alcoves, or downwards into dark cellars. Everything of value has been stripped, including the copper wire from the walls, leaving huge gashes running along the wall as they chipped away the concrete. Beautiful tile work on the floors remains though, often differing room by room, giving a sense of how things must have once been. The hotel is on the edge of a sheer cliff, with the sea in the distance. An eerie fog continually rolls through the hotel, curling into every room as with a life of its own, filling the room, and cooling the temperature considerably. And that which you see now will be enveloped by the haze; lost. In the back, along the stone wall that runs along the cliff, there is a silence as the earth gives way to the sea. Leaning over the edge though, you can hear the cacophony of sounds coming from the huge forest below, yet in leaning back again, you return to silence as apparently the sheerness of the cliff directs the sound above your head. As the hotel rested in the afternoon light, I ventured back in alone once everyone else had gone; Maggie sat outside on the back wall. I crept deep into the rooms; fog rolling in. The red moss on the walls grows in a direction that looks like blood splatter. The breeze whispering through the broken windows, the cool gust of the fog as it took me in. The feeling that if I turned around, someone would be there, watching me from the corner. I spun around, only to see “REDRUM” “REDRUM” written on all the walls; I tried to walk away, but knowingly felt something would grab me from behind; the walk turned into a trot, which turned into a run, bursting through the ballroom and out the back door. “Did you see something cool?” asked Maggie, to whereas I recounted my little story, and rightfully, was mocked. From there, we moved around, popping into any building we pleased; the King’s former villa, the post office, the old police station, some old houses. Behind the church is an equally abandoned Vietnamese gun emplacement. When the Vietnamese invaded in 1979 to knock out the Khmer Rouge, there was apparently some pretty tough fighting up here, as apparent by the bullet pockmarks and damage to many of the buildings. As the sun faded and darkness neared, we headed back to the ranger station. We had read and been warned that sleeping conditions at the ranger station were bare bones. “They don’t have water to drink or food to eat.” “You sleep on a cot.” “They beat you in the night with sticks.” And anything else that makes it sound horrible. Not only did they have food, we ate spaghetti. I saw they sold cokes and beers. “I’ll have a beer,” I said. “Do you want a cold one?” they replied. “Do I want a cold one? Come here and give me a hug.” We were sitting outside talking to another American, who wanted to take a chance with a bottle of Cambodian wine, and let me tell you Cambodia is not exactly a vintner’s paradise, but we went ahead anyway. We should have given up when the wine foamed up like a beer poured too quickly when we poured it into our glasses. For whatever reason, we drank that vile sauce, though it took the three of us two hours to get through it by sheer strength of will alone. None of us were feeling all that well by the time we went to sleep.

We woke up early to watch the sun rise, and walked over to an old yet operational pagoda about a half mile away. The pagoda wasn’t too exciting, but the view was amazing. You could climb down a bit on the cliff and basically look up at the hotel on the horizon. It would have been a nice place to sit and relax in the shade of the rocks, but our taxi was waiting for us and we headed back down. I had mentally prepared myself for a long ride down, but our driver was a Man of Men and we got down in an hour or so and immediately met up with Irad. He took us to a few places where he worked, including a strange and unfortunate AIDS village. A few years ago, some quack was selling a traditional AIDS “cure”, so a lot of villagers sold off all their property to come here, only to find it not working and having no way to go back, so they stayed and have been fed since then by various NGOs and organizations. Some moved home, but Irad says they’ve grown accustomed to this assisted living and seem to have no desire to move on, so he does what he can do. He took us to Kep, which is the old seaside resort, which was basically destroyed and never really bounced back completely. The coastal road is littered with old gutted homes and formerly stately villas from a more affluent time. Now, its beaches draw the common man (which was packed for Khmer New Year). We ate really good seafood and while I slept on the beach, Maggie and Irad went swimming. That evening, we slept at Irad’s compound. He is somehow affiliated with the Catholic Church, so stays with them. They have a really nice set up and we chose (poorly, time would show) to stay in the empty dorm room. There were enough mosquitoes to have carried us off, had there been any windows for ventilation. I’m a bit surprised they didn’t drown in my sweat when they came to bite me. Maggie fled outside only to be pooped on by geckos in the night.

Since then, things haven’t been too exciting. A lot of work on both our ends, but not for too much longer! Maggie gave her resignation, I passed my word along as well, so it’s official, we’re shooting for a June 15th heading out date – Laos here we come! Still a lot of work to be done, but June 15th is coming up quick, and we are both excited for what the future will bring. We’re hosting a few parties in Svay Rieng over the next few weeks, so those should be fun—drinking, merrymaking and whatnot. There is more to say, but I have grown weary, perhaps as you have, so I will call it a day.

Matzah Balls and the Cambodian People’s Party

2007-04-05T14:24:00.000+07:00

Matt
Last week, I was an election observer for the Cambodian Commune Council elections, which would probably be equivalent to roughly a city council election, though larger cities have multiple communes. At any rate, I was an observer and spent all of last Sunday tracking down voting fraud and ballot-box stuffing. Ok, so I didn’t see any of that and things (in my part of the world) seemed free and fair. I did get to stand around all day with my baby blue shirt and bright red hat and put on the air of someone far more important than I really was. Watching with a discerning eye from the corner and nodding my head thoughtfully as I doodled on my notepad. In all actuality, it was pretty interesting to see Cambodian democracy at work and things seemed to run quite smoothly. It was a long day though; I got up at 4.30am and was at our starting point by 5.30am and didn’t get home until nearly 6.00pm. I, like most everyone else, was stationed in Phnom Penh and my starting point was the Toul Sleng Museum. This museum, also known as S-21 is the old high school that the Khmer Rouge turned into an interrogation/execution prison. Inmates here were taken to the more infamous Killing Fields outside of town, executed, and interred in mass graves. Anyway, it’s an eerie place during the day, even more so as I stood outside it at 5.30am. It was still dark, but light enough to see the buildings and the rooms where torture and executions took place. I was the first one there that morning and just kinda’ peered over the wall at the museum and thought to myself how far Cambodians have come. 30 years ago, the city of Phnom Penh was emptied of nearly all inhabitants and people were tortured and killed inside the very building I stood in front of. And now, from here I went to a peaceful local election. For the most part, Cambodia has been able to put its past behind it and moved forward. It was good to see a building known as a place of horror and death be turned into a polling station; where people went to chose their leaders, and not be killed by them. I got paired up with an Australian doctor and two translators and we headed off to a nearby school that included several polling stations. The stations officially opened for voters at 7.00am, but we had to be there early to watch all the opening formalities. In addition to the electoral staff, each polling station also had partisan observers from the major political parties who just keep an eye on things. There are a few main parties here in Cambodia, the biggest one being the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) which is the ruling party that evolved from the transitional government put in place by the Vietnamese once they toppled the Khmer Rouge in 1979. Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) is the main opposition party and the FUNCINPEC and Norodom Rannadinh Party are both parties made up of Royalists. CPP is a populist party with a lot of support, but I am a Sam Rainsy man myself. SRP supporters are often more educated, younger, etc. This can be seen in the party agents who observe the elections. The CPP agents were all older men while SRP agents where all younger, early 20s or so. Anyway, there was a song and dance in the beginning where everyone peered into the ballot box and agreed that it was indeed empty before it was shut and sealed. We all paced around the room making sure it was suitably private and that voters could vote without someone hovering over their shoulders. Slowly, quite a crowd was brewing outside and at 7.00am the party got started. Things were pretty straight forward. You walk in, show your ID card and get a ballot. Go vote, put your ballot in the box, and stick your finger into the indelible ink and be on your way. There was a pretty steady stream of folks throughout the polling stations for a few hours, but it began to drop off by mid-morning. We strolled around to a few other stations and everything seemed to be going pretty well. I think the actual elections were a free process, but it’s the intimidation and pressures in the days/weeks leading up to the elections are what skew things. After a while things began to get really slow, so much so we took a quick coffee break across the road and eventually took an hour lunch break. At some stations, my translator and I sat there for over 30 minutes in between voters, just sweating and cursing ourselves for picking a slow station. I am thankful that my translator was at least an interesting person to talk to, but the Australian’s was like talking to a stump. At one point in the afternoon, a pair of cars pulled up outside with 6 or 8 physically handicapped young women. Some of them could walk well enough to come in on their own, but some were unable. Amongst them, they only had one wheelchair, so while one woman was being pushed in to vote, the others would wait outside. Once one finished, they would be picked up, put back into the car, while another woman was put into the chair and pushed in to vote. It shamed my translator (who wasn’t registered to vote). She said, “I feel bad, I have a body that works and I made up an excuse for not voting. Their problems haven’t stopped them from coming and I admire them.” I will admit, a little tear welled up in my eye. The women looked young enough to be voting for the first time in their lives and nothing was going to stop them. They were smiling and laughing and enjoying themselves. It’s easy for us to make excuses for not voting; “oh, it is only a local election,” “one party is the same as the other,” “its too hot outside.” I feel honored to have seen people, especially those who can’t simply walk up, vote, and walk out, make an effort to cast a vote; people who felt like they were part of something bigger. We take elections for granted; as it is the way it has always been, but these people have known little but hardship and suffering on a scale that we cannot possibly imagine. This morning the paper noted how “only” 65% of registered voters showed up at the polls. It complained about the low turnout since it was only a local election. I thought about writing in and asking if they really wanted to see a low turnout, they should look at American local elections! Anyway, we stayed for the counting process, and in the end, alas, CPP won and won big; something like 95% of the 1000+ communes. The actually voting process was fair, but unfortunately, for now, it’s a one-party democracy.

The night previous to the election was Cambodian Expat Passover and while neither Maggie nor myself are Jewish, we were invited along. It was a big get together, probably 30 folks or so and probably only three of us were not Jewish. There was a fair amount of Hebrew being sung/spoken, but luckily we had our little booklets of English translation, so we could at least follow along. We drank the wine, broke the matzo, ate the bitter herb and it was interesting to be apart of such a ceremony, and I was even given a little skullcap (aka Yarmulke) to wear. I can’t say I understood everything that was going on, but it was good to be exposed to such remarkable things. After the official opening and ceremony, the food brought out was a mixture of traditional Passover food and Russian food (it was being held in a Russian restaurant). I ate and ate until my belly hurt, and would have liked to drink a bit more wine (and vodka!) if I knew I wasn’t getting up at 4.30am the next morning.

Other than that, things have been sloooowwww here on my end. Still no money yet from the Spaniards (patience), which makes it over 3 months of living on borrowed money. It’s the Khmer New Year coming up soon, so folks have started to call in their debts, so looks like its going to be up to me to do some financial wizardry. We’ve gotten a bit of funding from another unnamed donor (Maggie says not to write their name) for some other work, so we find ourselves in a strange situation of having $20,000 in the bank, but theoretically not being able to use it (and thus continue borrowing to cover the cost of shelter operations). Things will hopefully work out sooner rather than later. As meager as my salary may be, I haven’t been paid since December and am looking forward to getting all my back pay soon enough. Once things finally come through, I have $800 coming my way, which may not seem like much to you, but that is a wealth beyond my largest dream here in the village. I’ll be so well off that I’m considering using a bit of it as toilet paper for no other reason than that I can. Other than that, it’s been a bit of hanging out, reading, writing my graduate school essays, and basically just keepin’ it real out here in Svay Rieng. While things have been a bit slow, I have managed to avert a major crisis or two at work. One for example – the project manager (aka: PM) wanted to open a restaurant with his personal money down near the market, so I told him I would go check it out with him and see what I thought. Anyway, it looked like a good building and a relatively good location, here’s a little sample of our conversation:

Matt: “It will cost $4000 to get started and we haven’t been paid in months, where will you get that type of money?”

PM: “I’ll just borrow it from the “unidentified large donor” funding and pay it back with my profits.”

Matt : pursing my lips, looking at the ground and shaking my head silently for a moment. “What if you don’t make a profit?”

PM: “Oh, it will be a very good restaurant; of course I’ll make money!”

Matt: “Humor me a moment, what if you don’t? How will you pay back the money?

PM: “aaaaa….ummmm…eeeeee….I didn’t think about that……oh.”

Crisis averted.

Supposedly, the Peace Corps have arrived in the province, and while none of them are actually in Svay Rieng Town, some of them are not too far away. I want to try to harness some of that-new-to-development-work energy towards some work at my little NGO. They (the volunteers) are all English teachers, and while I can think of things more urgently needed than English teachers, I hope one or two of them is interested in dropping by the shelter every so often to help out.

A few weeks ago we were able to convince Madhavi and Nima to come out to Svay Rieng for a couple days. If you remember from the last entry, Madhavi and Maggie are old high school buddies and Nima is Madhavi’s husband. Anyway, after meeting up with them in Phnom Penh, they came out to the village for a long weekend, and I like to think they had a good time. While there isn’t much to see here in terms of….well, anything, it is a bit of an authentic taste of Cambodia, away from the foreigner-ville of Phnom Penh or Siem Reap. It was also really nice to have some visitors out here, as not surprisingly, we don’t get them often. They biked around, went to the market, and generally just kinda’ hung out for a few days. They’ve had quite trip around the world and Maggie and I are jealous of their adventures, but take heart in the fact that soon enough we’ll be having our own.

Maggie
Yes, all the excitement has me loopy—elections, Passover, frenzied proposal writing and mid-fiscal year reports, assessments, ‘success stories’, ‘best practices’ and realigned budgets…I really could do without April, oh, and tax season too…although I will say the best part of April was the Cambodian-Expat Passover dinner-party and (in March) having Madhavi and Nima in country. You know when you meet someone and instantly you click or feel comfortable or just at ease? Well, that’s how it was with Madhavi and Nima; I hadn’t seen them in 3+years and before that 5+some years, but their warmth and adventurous spirit made it a wonderful time to catch up and learn from each other’s experiences over the last several years. We of course had to fondly remember our overseas experience without the parents, our senior year of high school (thanks to the parents, Karuna and all), but fell back in step as old friends with new adventures. We were thrilled they actually accepted to come to our little Svay Rieng and we’re pretty sure they enjoyed it…tukaluk by the ‘river’, bike rides and Svay Rieng Restaurant…and an upright fan and mosquito net to make up for the flat mattress and chronic electric and plumbing problems in the guest bathroom—it was the highlight of our month! We wish them well on their continued journey around the world; check out their blog link to the right…

Sadly that’s all the news I can muster tonight—I’m afraid the month of April has got me down and instead of turning to cheap DVDs or a nice game of chess/scrabble/crosswords etc…I’m turning to spreadsheets and data that I’m turning into a nice little report. We hope to make it to Bokor Mountain this coming holiday—Khmer New Year in just 1.5 weeks so we will have adventures to share from that trip soon. Keep checkin’ and send us some love! Trashy magazines (i.e. People, In Touch, UsWeekly…) are always welcome!

What is this work you speak of...

2007-03-11T12:42:00.000+07:00

Matt: So we’ve been gone awhile and you’re expecting exciting stories of adventure, mystery, and intrigue, right? Well, if that is the case, prepare to be disappointed. As you lower your expectations, please be aware that the past couple months have been extremely slow and unexciting for the most part. Things were kinda dead for a while, picked up a bit and were really busy, and now, despite being in the office the entire week, I’ve worked the equivalent of maybe 10 minutes.

It’s actually been a bit tough because the organization I work for hasn’t received the funding we were promised for quite some time. We are currently being “funded” by a Spanish NGO (funding insomuch as they haven’t yet given us any money though we officially began on Jan. 1st). It will eventually get here, but in the meantime, we’ve used up all our money and are kinda subsisting on IOUs. Without any money we haven’t been able to do a single thing for the past two months. During January, “work” consisted of trying to explain to the Project Manager the difference between goal and objective or what “a bird in hand is worth two in the bush” actually meant. The Spaniards continually thank us for our patience, but they don’t seem to realize that patience doesn’t feed the kids (nor me!). However, we’re about to double our budget with a big injection of cash from Asia Foundation, opening up a shelter for boys and improving the shelter for women/girls. It was busy last week writing the proposal for that, but now…..

This past week a team has come from Phnom Penh for a week long assessment of the shelter. They are not here to say we are right or we are wrong, but to identify the gaps, weaknesses, etc so that we can fix them. I explained to the Project Manager that it is an assessment which the sole purpose is to find our faults and identify our mistakes to become stronger and well, to ensure he doesn’t fib (as he is sometimes apt to do). For the past 3 days the team has sat with the Program Manager and basically grilled him about our activities—from how often we clean the toilets to our procedures for counseling rape victims at the shelter. I know he’ll be happy when they are gone. I know its for the better good and nothing but healthy improvements will come out of it, but no one likes having a horde of folks passing judgment and pointing out your faults for 3 days. I’m just glad it’s him and not me!

Old news, but the GRE is out of the way. Let me first mention that the test was a lot longer than I expected it to be. I was in there from 9am to 1pm testing, with all of a 10min break at about 10.30. I think I did OK, and I feel really confident about the verbal section, but feel like the Math could go either way. I think I should get the scores in a few weeks, so we’ll see what happens. Speaking of that, we got to spend the entire weekend in Ho Chi Minh City while I was there for the test. If HCMC is New York, Phnom Penh is Detroit. HCMC was crazy, motos everywhere and just a lot of folks crammed in, but it has some nice restaurants and if Maggie is to be believed, nice shopping as well. Maggie and I even got to have lunch with a friend of mine that I knew in Ghana and hadn’t seen for over 2 years. I never thought I would say this though, even after only a weekend, I was ready to get back to Svay Rieng (though that feeling didn’t last too long once we returned!)

Now I’ve moved on to writing my application essays and what not, though that’s not been too difficult. I finally have time to read some good books. I know I am a bit behind the times, but I just finished “Freakonomics” this afternoon and was quite impressed with it. Also, check out “The Tender Bar” for those of you interested in beer drinking or “Papillion” for a good escape. Used book are surprisingly expensive here so I am not sure what to start next.

It rained for the first time in a long time yesterday. It’s been teasing rain for quite some time and I’m not sure if this heralds the beginning of the rainy season or not, but regardless, quite welcome. The heat is coming on strong and April/May is supposed to be a scorcher.

Maggie: It is not yet the rainy season so don’t expect stories of mud-drenched moto rides and flooded rice paddies, but we were pleasantly surprised by two days of misting and overcast sky; it was a nice change that actually brought a smile to my face because I wasn’t drenched in sweat just sitting at my desk.

As Matt mentioned it’s been relatively quiet on the home front here, but work is busy for me too—we’ve had an advisor from East Africa region here for the last two weeks to train us and help us adapt an HIV prevention and community mobilization method using SARAR methodology, which was really exciting. Any of you in the international public health community will probably know SARAR not by name, but by the first method/module developed using it called PHAST—an exceptionally well received and effective participatory hygiene education series put out by WHO several years ago. Anyway, the woman who came to work with us on the HIV module was the one who developed PHAST, so that was very exciting and a great learning experience for me and my colleagues. We’re excited to adapt, test and implement the HIV module here in Cambodia and that’s what we’ll be working on for the next several months, with other mid-year reviews, reports and planning. Additionally, I’ve been working reconnaissance with some team members, ah, just working...we're looking for more funding; I’m writing concept paper to get prepared so we can diversify. The two weeks of training and work on our HIV module ended with a big ‘ole party in SVR—we rented tables and brought food in from our favorite (read: ONLY) Khmer home-cookin’ restaurant to cater the informal event and had about 30 people—lots of Anchor beer with ice and all of our male colleagues bought all of us women in the office little gifts for International Women’s Day—a nice effort and a good time had by all. Although one of the best discoveries of the evening was after everyone left; during the party our colleague from East Africa gave a slide show of her travels through Ethiopia and we had the computer set up with the LCD and a nice big screen from the office…the party ended, everyone went home and thanks to our friend Michelle’s advice we decided it would be a perfect screening for our many DVDs we have accumulated. Good idea Michelle. We sat up and watched two episodes of Heroes on the big screen. (the first two; yes, we’re behind, no TV and well, we waited to get the DVD hand-me-down from Michelle) Very cool, it was much better than hunched over and hovering around our laptop screen.

We did have a great time in HCMC, once Matt was relieved of the test-taking. I had to take care of him a bit after the testing episode, it was intense. All hand-written! Plus he took the new version which includes 2 essays…pencil on A4 paper?! That’s crazy. But he did it and I know he rocked it, so top schools here we come! As for the rest of HCMC, I agree, we were ready to head back to the peace and quiet of our little SVR. HCMC is just like no escape, you’re in the middle of it and it won’t let you go. But the shopping was quite good and the food was excellent—we celebrated Valentine’s Day at a really nice Mid-eastern place after which we had drinks on top of a fancy hotel and posed with the Vietnamese New Year life-sized pigs stationed all over in preparation for the big two week festival. We also caught some dragon parades down small streets and in the market.

The next few weeks will bring more travel between PP and SVR, but I’m also heading up to Battambang for the first time for work next week. The best part of this past weekend and coming week is that we have two great friends in town visiting—Madhavi, a dear friend from Mercy HS days and her husband Nima are stopping by on their fantastic around the world trip, of which we are about a mid-point stop. We’ve had a great time catching up and they even put up with going out for cheese-y dance toons last night and danced away with our PP friends. We’re trying to convince them to come out to SVR and we think we’ve almost got them fooled into thinking it’s a cultural Mecca that can’t be missed, so it’s looking good for us. We’re still waiting for the rest of you!

Time is flying by and it has already been a year here in Cambodia for me and 8 months for Matt. Life is pretty good to us here but we miss you all! Mostly we miss being able to call you, go out and meet for a beer and be a part of exciting events like weddings and welcoming babies, but we hope you know that you’re all in our thoughts and hearts. More to come in the next few weeks—Khmer New Year celebrations await as well as our upcoming vacation to Kep and Kampot over Khmer New Year.

Oh Bangkok!

2007-01-28T20:40:00.000+07:00

Compliments of the US Government I got to spend the past week in Bangkok, doing a short consultancy for my old employer. For my troubles, I was put up in the Conrad Hilton, quite possibly one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever stayed in so I dare you to check out its website. Bangkok is a city alive; an actual city, and compared to it I am hesitant to even label Phnom Penh a backwater, as I doubt it is even that. I was on the 17the floor and had a view of the entire downtown. In the room, there was even a “pillow menu” that lists 10 or so pillows of different shape, stuffing, smell, etc. that you can order from the front desk if the provided pillows do not suit you. The bathroom, though, is my favorite. The walls of it are all glass and set up in a way so that you can sit on the toilet and see downtown; though of course that means downtown can see you sitting on a toilet. The water of the shower comes not from the shower head but from a hole in the ceiling and comes down in a flood (and hot as hell) “Rain” setting as they called it. Being the Conrad though, you can use a shower head if you want and can have it dribble out cold if you’d like. There is a really big tub and they even provide a rubber ducky (yours to keep!) that I soaked in for a little while before I got bored of it. They also provided a number of big furry robes that I was content to lounge around in when I was in the room. The Conrad is attached to a fancy mall that just could have easily been transplanted from the states, complete with large Christmas tree and fountains. Among the many stores, it has a Starbucks, a Burger King, Auntie Anne’s Pretzels, and a Sizzler. I know that probably doesn’t mean much to you, but it does to me, since I’ve been eating rice and living in a shack for the past few months. The Thais and the Cambodians are like night and day. Not so different deep down in who they are, as they are similar peoples, but there is development and education here that you do not find in Phnom Penh. I know there are parts of Thailand racked by poverty and people living in thatch huts, but Bangkok is a world unto itself. As I people-watched downtown, it could easily be the US, which is a stark contrast from Phnom Penh. Regardless of where you are, despite how nice it may be, there is no mistaking the fact that you are in Cambodia.

I think you can tell a lot about a country by the size of its middle class. In Cambodia, I can count on one hand how many people would be considered middle class – hell, I don’t even need one hand – Zero! You are either dirt poor or driving Lexus and Land Cruisers. That’s what is hard for me here – all the foreigner NGO workers are living the good life here while right outside the hotel room in Phnom Penh there is a ghetto where people are subsisting on far less than the cost of my morning coffee. I am also the first to admit that I partake of “the life” and it’s a good one indeed. There will always be poverty, I understand that, but here the divide between rich and poor amongst Cambodians is so large and sometimes I doubt whether our presence here helps close it at all. In fact, we give rise to places like I am sitting right now. I like it here, but the only Cambodians I see are the wait staff and the moto driver outside waiting for a rich foreigner to come out. But why would any Cambodian come in here? The ice coffee right around the corner in PP costs 50 cents, here its probably 3 bucks. I have seen nothing that leads me to believe that the playing field is being leveled. Whereas in Thailand (at least Bangkok) there were middle class folks all over the place, left and right. I know it is difficult to compare the two as Thailand hasn’t been through anything like Cambodia has in recent past, but Bangkok was an amazing place and I am hesitant to call Phnom Penh anything put a dirty little town with a few nice enclaves. I really don’t like living in a place driven by a tourist economy. I know that you could say Thailand is tourist driven, but it also seems to have its own things going on. I never got waved at by a moto driver or chased around by a guy in a tuk-tuk. Bangkok even has a downtown, a business district occupied by Thais and not foreigners. Sometimes I think Cambodia is run by NGOs (and doing a poor job of it!), but Thailand! Oh Bangkok, an island of development in a sea of poverty.

Anyway, I digress. The consultancy was good, but admittedly it should have been a little bit longer. I’m not saying that just because I would like more money (I would), but I kinda’ had to stop half way through and pass it on to an actual employee to finish up, where it would have been far easier to give me 3 or 4 more days. Anyway, was a good time and I enjoyed its benefits and it’s another country to tack onto the ole’ resume. I’m counting on the resume to pull me through the graduate school applications as the math section of the GRE…….well….guess we’ll see how that goes in a few weeks.

Oh Wedding Season!

And just before the GRE madness falls upon us, wedding madness has come in full force in Svay Rieng. Matt and I are being dragged into the thick of the loud-speaker-stereo-system-louder-than-your-neighbor’s (and proud of it!) season from early Dec. through May…this is prime time for weddings, which are rare and I think, often frowned upon from June-October when everyone is (literally) knee deep in water from the rains and planting/harvesting rice. Matt declined an offer to join me in the wedding of a sister of the guard at the office (the whole office trekked over together, very important…) and today, the sister of one of my staff is getting hitched…so we’ll join together in this venture, but of course Matt asked this morning “and how long will we need to stay…?” Of course through the first rice wine toasts (this is a real sight…I wish I could explain it…old small water bottles filled with the stuff, boxes and boxes bought for the occasion, passed out to each table—2-3-4 bottles at a time and then the host comes around toasting and you can’t say no, so down 1, down 2, 3,…8,…11 and then well, you’re done for, making wildly silly gestures on the dirt dance floor, pretending like you know what you’re doing (actually just trying to keep up with and copy what the others are doing in front of you) and everyone loving it and asking the ‘barang’ (foreigner) to stay longer. All this means is that I’ve got to keep Matt away from the rice wine and we’ll be fine. As you may have remembered from my blog last year on the subject of weddings, the bride is the worst off, with like 20 outfits to change into and lots of fake hair and ornaments on her head. It’s hot for the rest of us too, but I’ve gotten smart and now wear the fancy cotton outfits instead of the heavy silk or polyester. Poor Matt has a really nice traditional shirt but it’s of the polyester variety. Anyway, we’re off to get ready for the festivities as we deal with the onslaught of weddings every weekend!

Notes of a Bored Man in Svay Rieng

2006-12-23T21:34:00.000+07:00

The GRE studies continue, especially the oh-so relevant Math section, so if anyone has any questions about the circumference of Circle P with a radius of N, let me know. The Project Manager is out of town today, so I’m at home trying to convince myself to do some work, but Spider Solitaire on my computer is addicting. And why should I work when I can sit here and watch the chickens in our yard. Recently, I have begun taking the fight to the ants, who have occupied our yard and seem unwilling to be leveraged out. Raid and a plethora of other chemicals were doing the work, but I promised Maggie that I would refrain, so now I am reduced to poking in their nests with a stick and getting them stirred up, only to sic the chickens on them. I spent this afternoon watching them devour a dead house gecko, was even in the holiday spirit and pushed it closer to their little nest. There seems to be an unusual amount of butterflies out and about these days. Last week, when I was sitting outside, a whole….herd?….swarm?....gaggle? went by, and I promise you, it took 10 minutes for all of them to get past. Mind you, they were moving pretty quick like as well. Well, as many of you know, Maggie is currently sunning herself in Detroit and I have remained behind to watch over our affairs here. And those affairs would include….hold on let me think….ok, never mind, forget to affairs part, I’ve just remained behind. There is actually a bit of work at the shelter, but that will be next week. Mostly making sure they don’t overspend on their budget, which I am almost certain they will. The PM has a way of doing exactly what I told him not to do. “oh you brought a printer for the office?.....how are we going to feed the children this month?” Ok, he’s not quite that bad, but sometimes drives me crazy. We’re having a Christmas party at the shelter, despite being all Buddhists. You would be surprised the number of Christmas trees and Santas you can see around Phnom Penh, and not only in the tourist driven places. One of the fanciest hotels even had a huge Santa in an equally large sleigh full of gifts. Its another gem of American export – the commercialization of a holiday of a religion that most people here do not follow. At least the weather is cooler now, for “winter.” The days are still hot, though not obscenely, but the nights and early mornings are quite cool. The other day, sitting outside to have my coffee, around 6.30am I had to wrap a little blanket about myself. May not seem like much, but it’s a far cry from the 6.00am sweating of old. I’ll also mention in passing that the other day I killed the largest spider yet. I thought I had finished them off, but when this fella made his debut I doubted my shoe would be enough, as it was (and I won’t be exaggerate) about 6 inches in diameter. I am glad Maggie is gone because I squealed like a little girl when it made its move to finish me off once and for all. Luckily, I prevailed.

Random Stories of Cambodia and Other Tales

2006-12-10T14:23:00.000+07:00

Why does the world hate us (i.e. the US)? I have the answer – allow me to enlighten you with the story of the doctor who had the ill-fated luck to be born Algerian and have the unbelieving audacity to volunteer his services in Cambodia. To set the tone, we were all having a Thanksgiving dinner (a damn fine one I must say as well), four Americans, a Haitian-Canadian, a Lebanese, and an Algerian. The Algerian doctor had only been in Cambodia for about 3 weeks or so and was recounting the story of his arrival in the country. Unfortunately, I forget the Algerian doctor’s name, but his story is a sad tale and made us sorry to be Americans. So he gets his Cambodian visa in France and flies out here via Bangkok, only to arrive at the airport in Phnom Penh and be pulled aside once they see his Algerian passport. Discussion ensues amongst the Cambodian customs officials about what to do with him and they decide to bar him entry and send him back to Bangkok. When he asked why, the customs officials said that the American Embassy told them to be on the watch for Arabs and those of Middle East descent coming in Cambodia. So, being deported to Bangkok, where he has no visa, he is arrested and sent to prison. Luckily, en route to prison, he was able to borrow a cell phone and quickly called his office to tell them what happened and where he was. Once in the Bangkok prison, the officials took most of his money (though he had the foresight to hide most of it on his body during the plane ride to Bangkok) and did not allow him to make a phone call or receive any visitors, so there he sat for the next 24 hours. Eventually, his organization was able to spring him from jail, but not before he had to pay off some prison thug who threatened to beat him up. On the way out, he even had to pay the prison authorities for the food he ate and the electricity that lit his cell. He was able to laugh about the story as I guess you’d have to be able to eventually, but if this is what happens to a doctor with an Algerian passport and legitimate visa, I can only imagine what happens to some hapless farmer they picked up in Afghanistan and is now sitting in Guantanamo.

Now, I just want to dispel any lingering myths that we are suffering in Cambodia. Ok, Svay Rieng, is another story, but in Phnom Penh there is no suffering. Last weekend, we met up with a bunch of folks and took a river cruise. The boat, though decrepit, was nonetheless stocked with cold beer, mixed drinks, a whole bunch of crabs being boiled, corn on the cob, and the best sausage I’ve had here – our own little booze cruise. We just floated around drinking beer and eating crabs for the next 3 hours, watching the sun set behind us. We had a radio, playing anything from Hendrix to Buffett and as we cruised near the shoreline, I found myself wondering what a sight we must have been to the Cambodians on shore.

I also want to quickly mention that I found a dead chicken in our yard yesterday evening. Voodoo ritual? Mafia warning? Bird flu? You make the call.

Saturday was “Dessert Day” at the house and a whole bunch of local staff from Maggie's office came over to make Cambodian desserts. All I knew is that we were making some kind of cake. Everyone came over with all their ingredients and we had ourselves a little cooking station in our kitchen. Granted, there were a lot of folks there (6 or so) so we were making desserts aplenty, but I spied with my little eye no less than 3 lbs of sugar going into the mixtures – and no telling how much they slipped past me when I wasn’t looking. The vanilla flavoring came as white powder in little vials and Maggie and I laughed about how it looked like cocaine or crack or definitely something illegal. No doubt the Cambodians couldn’t figure out why we were laughing at the vanilla, much less taking pictures with it. Anyway, the sugar concoctions were mixed, put in little bowls and steamed until they solidified into small cakes. While tasty and sweet they were like rocks in my belly and only after two or three I was already done with them (they probably made something like 50 of these little guys). After regaining my composure, I dove into the madness of the banana pie that I will swear on something you consider holy that it was little more than 20 bananas and a pound of sugar swirled together. In case you haven’t figured it out, the Cambodians like it sweet – anything from sweet coffee to sweet sandwich bread to sweet rice with pork bits (for breakfast – yum!)

That reminds me…..What do crushed up snail shells and cow poop have in common? They are both food! Ok, not exactly food but old village women put them in their mouths, so close enough. You cruise around long enough and you’ll see them rubbing a pink paste onto a leaf, rolling it up and putting it in their mouths, kinda between their lips and gums. In a country were anything is fair game in terms of eating – sometimes you just shouldn’t ask. I also want to mention that we’ve only got these ingredients confirmed from one person, but I believe it. Take little snail shells and crush them up into very small bits and add a little dabble of cow poop. Heat, burn and stir, add a little water and stir until the desired consistency is reached (whatever consistency that may be). Next add the “I don’t know the English word for it” chemical or some sort of traditional ingredient which somehow turns this vile goo pink. Wrap that little tasty nugget in a tobacco leaf small like and pop it in and enjoy. Ugh, this tastes like shit – literally! Is that why those little old ladies all have black teeth?

Maggie and I were foolish enough to go to a concert in Svay Rieng this past weekend. We thought it was going to be a bunch of local yokels, but figured we’d check it out anyway. There were plenty of yokels for sure, but they weren’t in the band, they were in the mob of folks we got caught up in. It was actually a legit concert, stage, lighting, etc being held in the Svay Rieng “stadium” which is nothing more than a big field with a wall around it, with, of course, cows still grazing unaware of the ‘pop-stars’ preparing to perform. So we breezed up with our tickets in hand, ready to go through the gates, only to be met by a throng of people clustered at the entrance. Unbeknownst to Maggie and myself, the group that was playing is apparently “the” group in Cambodia at the moment – a must see event for, I dare say, every man, woman, and child in the province. The gates were locked so people were surging up against them, shaking them, climbing over them until somehow they threw them open and everyone began flooding into the field. This of course was a no-no, since for the thousands of people trying to get in, there was one poor sap collecting tickets. So that’s when Cambodia’s Finest, power tripping police, moved in. Pushing, shoving, threatening, somehow they managed to close the gate and refused to open it again. Of course, for those who had tasted the prospect of entering the open field (devoid of any musicians yet) the idea of being closed out, if only for a minute longer was unforgivable. It became a swelling swirling mass of people and I am confident that I could have picked both my feet up off the ground and just been carried around by the mob. Another attack on the gate and they forced it open so that people could enter one by one. Not being people who put much stock in lines and order, it was a rush. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if small children where trampled – it was madness. Even if they were handing out free tickets to the Super Bowl or Game 7 of the World Series, it wouldn’t compare. Whereas standing in line and filing through, everyone could have gotten in within 20 minutes, it took us 45 and we were fairly close to the front. Everything slowly funneled down to the bottleneck of the gate, like a whirlpool. The closer you got the more dangerous it became. Then, finally squeezing through the hole, it was like “pop” and you came out into the open field. We stood and watched in awe as small children were passed overhead to avoid the crush. The funny part was that we were with some Cambodian folks we know, a friend and his fiancée, and her brothers & sisters. Our friend, figuring he would have better luck on his own, ditches his fiancée in the melee, as well as her 10 year old sister. They wouldn’t get in for nearly another hour. True love, eh? We had a talking about that one. The concert, as we figured, was a wash. Bad lip syncing, unsynchronized dancing, and horrible screeching, high-pitched techno-pop music. We had to leave by a back entrance since the main gate was still impassable with the hordes of people still trying to push their way through and the power-tripping police, still shaking their billy-clubs and the poor guy who was the sole ticket taker, still trying to come up for air…having taken longer to get in than the time we actually stayed, we were happy to ditch out early. Next time we'll rent a mini-van, climb on top and watch the show from a much better and quieter place.

Angkor Wat, Silk Worms, and the Slow Boat to Siem Reap

2006-11-19T12:31:00.000+07:00

Angkor Wat, Silk Worms, and the Slow Boat to Siem Reap

Last week was the Water Festival here in Cambodia when apparently millions of people descend on Phnom Penh to watch dragon boat races in the river. Maggie and I did the wise thing and avoided the town like the plague. There is nothing like a city, overcrowded with
the million inhabitants it already has, that swells to some three million in a matter of days.
So we headed northwest in the (foolishly naïve) hope that everyone would be headed to
Phnom Penh so the temples at Angkor would be ours for the taking. The road from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, the town closest to Angkor Wat, is supposed to be really nice, but we figured why pay $5 to take the bus when we can pay $25 to take a boat. I took the boat
when I last traveled between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh in 2002 and I remember it
being far cooler and more exciting. Memory does that I guess. It’s a long thin fast (fast in relative Cambodian terms) boat with seats so narrow it’s laughable; so many people take refuge on the roof, where Maggie and I spent the entire ride. We shared our corner of
the roof with a bunch of Germans who were more interested in wallowing and slowly encroaching on our turf to where, by the end of the trip, I was trapped between to hefty
Helga types and would have been smothered had the ride lasted only a few more minutes.
The boat ride was a bit over 5 hours long, and it was cool for about 30 minutes (ok, this is Maggie, it was cool for about 3 hours I thought!). Passing little villages, kids waving, the
wind in my hair (ok, the wind in Maggie’s hair), for a time it was even cool. And then the
sun came up….I felt like an ant being burned by some pimply faced high school science nerd with a magnifying glass. Squirming in the sun, hiding amongst the Helgas, and eventually
just getting really burned and complaining the latter half of the trip. Luckily we eventually made it and got to our hotel, which was really nice. Little bungalows set amongst a little forested courtyard, swimming pool and pretty good food. The weather was amazingly cool,
and we didn’t even have to sleep with fans or AC. As soon as we got there, we inquired
about flights back to Phnom Penh, since they are relatively cheap, but it soon became
apparent that that was not an option, since I forgot to bring my passport or any other
kind of identification for that matter. A man of the world, unencumbered by mere
papers or identification, but also not allowed on any plane (I had to roll my eyes at
that one…-Maggie).

Despite having a fair amount of time in Siem Reap, we headed right to the temples. A lot
of folks head out there in the evenings to watch the sunset, so we figured we’d tag along,
which turned out to be a fairly big waste of our time. The sun slowly descended into a
colorless blur, or at least I think it did, since I was too busy being swallowed up by the
crowd of foreigners fighting to take pictures of a small ball of red haze.

While I am mentioning our first day, let me also mention this. If you think that America has sold its soul to Big Oil & Big Government, stop by Angkor Wat some day. These numbers I mention may not be exact, but they are the most up to date I have: a three day pass to Angkor is $40, which is no problem and well worth it (Cambodians are free). If you think
most of that $40 goes to restoration of the temples – you’re more the fool. The Apsara Authority, which is the agency in charge of restoration and repairs, upkeep, maintenance, etc receives all of $4 out of my $40. Sokimex, an oil company that somehow finagled a cut gets
$6, and the Ministry of Finance (see also: Prime Minster’s front right pocket) gets the rest. It’s apparent by the state of repairs and downtroddenness of many of the temples that very little works its way back out of the Ministry. The province of Siem Reap, which by all means should be the richest province, is instead one of the poorest. Squalor and poverty run
rampant while rich tourists stay in big hotels, some of which have rooms for $2,000/night, none of which trickles down. At least our government doesn’t steal from the poor and give to the rich.…uh…oh, well…..I digress.

The next day we hit the temples pretty hard and spent the entire day on foot. The complex
is quite large, but many of the big temples are within walking distance to one another, and it also gives you the opportunity to stop along the way at the smaller random temples that are behind every tree or around every corner. They are often the best ones to check out. They might not be as big or as fancy as Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm or the Bayon, but whereas these temples have thousands of tourists, the smaller temples might have two or three folks, and that’s including Maggie, myself, and some kid trying to help me part with a couple bucks so as to buy his: (insert random Angkor kitsch item here). You gotta start with the big daddy though, so we went right to Angkor Wat. A random unverified fact I once saw claimed that Angkor Wat was the largest religious structure in the world, though I am not sure if that refers to Angkor Wat only or the huge wall and grounds around it. Regardless, it is breathtaking, but unfortunately a combination of obscenely slow internet and my obscene laziness prevents me from attaching a picture. Even in Cambodia, my time is money….ok its not, I am just lazy. Without describing in too much detail, the walls around the temple are filled with intricate bas-reliefs outlining the history of Angkorian Cambodia, reliefs which
must have taken a lifetime to complete. But there is nothing like entering the main courtyard of the temple, and climbing to the top. The stairs are quite steep and treacherous, and no doubt many a bumbling tourists have fallen off. You quite literally have to climb hand over hand to get up, but thankfully it’s not too high, and when you get to the top you are rewarded with quite a view of the surrounding countryside. The top is kinda’ split into four smaller courtyards, which are comparably empty since the stairs tend to weed out the young, weak and infirm. When we were up there, there were a large number of Buddhist nuns in their white robes cruising around and doing whatever it is Buddhist nuns do. A lot of nuns, monks, and Buddhists in general come to Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples to pray, as there
is no lack of Buddhist statues and alcoves, so when the nuns showed up, it was the Cambodian equivalent of a media frenzy. The nuns and monks make ideal photographs, being that it is after all Angkor Wat, and the colors they wear, the bright whites and oranges, clash nicely
with the surrounding grey stone. I may have a low moral fiber about myself, but I respect someone when they are praying and at most will try to sneak a photograph as I hide behind a pillar or something. The Cambodians, despite most likely being Buddhist themselves, had no such scruples, and proceeded to all but climb on the Buddha statue the nuns were praying to, knocking over candles and whatnot to try and get a photograph. The equivalent would be me climbing on to the altar during Mass to take a picture of the congregation. I could only shake my head and found myself thinking, “at least it’s not an American.” Anyway, we bummed around there for a bit longer, but eventually made our way to Angkor Thom, via any number of smaller, lesser known temples, which as I’ve mentioned before were devoid of people.

Angkor Thom is basically a “walled city” without too much of a city to it. It’s quite large,
and the gates are impressive, as are the temples inside, there is just a lot of grass to cross as well. The money maker of Angkor Thom is the Bayon, which is a temple topped with large stone columns, and faces on four sides of the columns. To give you an idea, the faces are probably 5ft or so from forehead to chin and they are all over the place. As impressive as
they are, the better part of the Bayon is what I will call the basement, though it’s just like a lower courtyard. Here, Maggie wandered off and got anointed in holy water by some monk without bothering to come find me. My soul needs cleansing too! The basement has any number of passage ways running around, and despite the 200 people one floor up, you can
sit there as if you’ve got the entire temple to yourself. Anyway, add Bayon to your ‘to Google’ list and check it out. On the way out, I threw a couple cents Buddha’s way, figuring if I
wasn’t getting anointed in holy water, perhaps I could buy off the Enlightened. And before
you start thinking monks are all living ascetic lives and have no need for material goods, try telling that to the monks smoking cigarettes as they walk around with their cell phones and video cameras.

From Bayon, we checked out a few other places, but I’ll refrain from anything specific and
near the setting sun, eventually made our way back to the hotel. I only want to quickly mention that that night we went out to “Bar Street,” where I drank probably the only Guinness in Cambodia. No draft mind you, that would be asking too much, but at least it was one of the fancy nitrous cans, the “widget” for those in the know. Only cost a cool $6.50, but I’ll venture to say it was worth it.

Day Two and we opted for bikes. At $3/day I was pretty sure we weren’t getting anything fancy, and as is often not the case, I was right. Mine was circa 1950 and probably ideal for
a 12 yr old in terms of size, with a rock of a seat. The tires had air and the chain wasn’t too rusty, so, despite looking like clowns on miniature tricycles, we were off. We started off at
Ta Prohm, the jungle temple of “Tomb Raider” fame. When Angkor was discovered in the 1860s (“discovered” by Europeans – the Cambodians were already here and had been doing their thing for some time before the Europeans came). Anyway, when the Europeans
showed up in the 1860s, many of the temples had been reclaimed by the jungle, which was eventually cleared and the temples restored. Ta Prohm was left, to some extent, as the
way it was found. Now, as you walk around the temple, there are huge trees, hundreds of years old that have wrapped themselves around the temples, breaking down walls, and probably to some degree, holding the place together. Since it’s on “Matt’s Three Must See List” (and everyone elses) it was packed with folks. By the way 1) Angkor Wat 2) Bayon 3)
Ta Prohm. It is hard to really appreciate something when you can’t have a moment to really enjoy it. Chinese pushing the Japanese, who are blaming the Australians, who are probably drunk and hooting and hollering anyway. In a perfect world, I could have stayed there quite a while, because it is legitimately beautiful and amazing, but it is not a perfect world, and after a quick run-through, we saddled up and headed off into the sun rise. We rode around a fair amount and my butt hurt. If you travel around Europe and see all the monasteries, they all start to look the same right? I mean, how different can St. Paul’s in Nice be then St. Mary’s
in Bremen? You get the idea. Angkor is very impressive, but it’s easy to have one temple
run into the other. We saw many things that second day, but I will proceed to different adventures.

On our third day, we chose yet another mode of transportation and rented a taxi to ferry us further afield. First stop was a smaller temple which is famous for its intricate carvings that have somehow survived the years. Small, but as a “Lonely Planet must see” was packed
with folks. I can only assume that such artwork once adorned all the Angkorian temples,
which would have been a sight to see. The next stop, quite a ways away was a place called
Kbal Spean. Here, they carved sculptures and other designs into the bedrock of a stream – ranging from little circles to nearly life sized figures. This was quite a hike up into the hills, scrambling up rocks, and not for the faint of heart. That doesn’t stop enterprising Cambodians from lugging “cold drink” up the hill, so should you be parched from the walk, a cold Coke awaits. It was nice to be out in the woods, practically alone with the stone carvings, away
from the teeming masses below. The highlight of Day Three came with the next stop, the so called “Silk Farm.” This place was no two-bit operation and had their stuff together. A tour guide popped out as soon as we pulled up and took us around. We saw the mulberry fields, which the worms eat, and we saw the little fellas munching away in the “Cocoon Room.” The cocoons they spin are bright yellow and once they are finished spinning their cocoons, most of the poor buggers are boiled to death. So next time you are running your hands over some
silk, oohing and aaahing, think of all the little people that had to be sacrificed for it, worm
killer. Long story short is that the cocoon is the silk and it starts out no thicker than a barely perceptible hair that is eventually combined with others, and then others, and others until
you get silk thread. Some magic ensues in terms of color, feel, etc, but the real action is the weaving. There were a number of weaving looms set up for our benefit, some folks doing
basic silk work, one or two colors and some folks doing more intricate designs that required quite a bit more work. Our guide said that work on the more complex designs progressed at something like a foot and a half a day. But I guess when you are basically hand weaving strands of silk together, it does take a while. No wonder it’s so damn expensive! There was
a giftshop as well, the bane of any man who is traveling with his wife/girlfriend. I will admit that they had some nice stuff in there, actually really beautiful stuff, but a quick run through was all I needed to decide I couldn’t afford anything. And if you’re not going to buy anything, why even look, right? Right? (Wrong! You touch the material, think about how you can afford it, walk through again, rationalize, think about credit card access, think about how nice that would look on you/your friend/mom/sister etc…you get the picture, then voila, you need to buy something! After all, how could you not after seeing the process, work and beautiful outcome! -Maggie) I found comfort in a grossly overpriced iced coffee at the snack bar while Maggie splurged inside (rather enjoyed myself, thank you ;). And there, at least for the most part, our trip was over. We would still have a long day again the next day, all the way from Siem Reap to Svay Rieng, which was probably 8 hours in the car, and probably 12 hours total.

We’ve been in Svay Rieng since then, and things have been unsurprisingly quiet. The spiders have been beaten, the ants still run the place, we saw a curiously large egg in the market and I have some kind of rash on my arm that won’t go away; and for the upcoming festivities for all of you at home, I made inquires about a turkey I saw gobbling around. Happy Turkey Day!

First a dead Ho Chi Minh, now a real life King

2006-10-23T07:42:00.000+07:00

Just when I was beginning to think there was nothing cooler than an old waxy body of Ho Chi Minh, Maggie and I got to see the King of Cambodia (and yes, there really is such a thing!) His name eludes me at present, so I will henceforth refer to him as The King, because I am admittedly to lazy to look it up on the internet, but that doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact we were in the presence of royalty. A mere 75 feet separated us and The King, and while I spent most of the time staring at the back of his head, it was a quite stately, monarchical back of a head. There was the oh-so-infrequent (foreign) cultural event this past weekend that could not be missed. It was an American dance company performing in Cambodia, so that Americans and Cambodians could experience each others culture. For the most part though, the place was packed for foreigners hungry for anything familiar, with the odd Cambodian sprinkled here and there. It was my first foray into modern dance, and it was….um,..how to say….interesting. Afterward though, we dropped in on the swankiest hotel in town to see a Cuban band, who were really good. So you see, there is not suffering in Phnom Penh, watching dance, hanging out with The King, eating good Spanish tapas and watching Latin Americans getting down to a Cuban band. This to can be yours!

The rainy season is (or so I am told) puttering out, but you wouldn’t believe it. Its been raining hard, so much so that most of the neighboring province is underwater, and has been for sometime now. When we drive from Svay Rieng to Phnom Penh, what used to be miles and miles of rice paddies is just one very large lake, and I can only imagine what that does to people’s livelihoods out here. Once the rains stop, I think it is going to cool down, but its still pretty hot here. I want to go to a place where I do not sweat. When I wake up and look outside my door, only look mind you, I start to sweat, as if the heat had been patiently waiting for me to awake. At least it gave me that much. It is a thick, stifling heat that you cannot really escape, though admittedly sometimes it seems as if it has actually gotten a little cooler…only a little. Even sitting motionless in the shade, you cannot help but to sweat for no other reason then the fact that you’re in Cambodia, and that is what you do here. In Svay Rieng, there are two things you will do everyday….sweat and eat rice.

And while I have only been here a few months, I miss the winter that has not yet come. Perhaps I mourn something that I know I will miss; like knowing you will not see an old friend for a long time. You think of him often, of the times you had and of that day you shall meet again. How nice it will be to feel the chill in my bones, to see my breath, the falling leaves, snow, the air so crisp it crunches underfoot. When will that be? I do not know. But oh, how I love the changing seasons. Perhaps it is not yet cold there, but soon enough, with the coming of fall, the leaves will change, and there will be days of the falling snow, sitting near fires with your friends and talking of things past and things present. I, here, will sweat, as I did yesterday, and as I will do again tomorrow and the next. My experience here in Cambodia is that we have two seasons, hot and wet, and hot and dry. Such is life so near the equator, as they do not call it the tropics for nothing. I should be grateful though, that our house has fans, and our bedroom even has A/C, though there are times I cannot decide if that is a blessing or a curse. Is it a refuge from the beating sun or does it only serve to remind us of colder climates that seem now, to be but dreams? Regardless, it is nice, and if these fans and A/C force the heat to wait patiently outside my door for me to awake, than I am truly thankful.

Everyone should be happy to know that I have finally gotten paid at my job, and while it is but a drop in the bucket, at least now I can buy my own beer. Our little moped/motorcycle, “The Green Vegetable” continues to run, and I wait patiently for the day when one of two things will happen 1) it dies 2) I get run over by a Cambodian. The driving in Cambodia is awful, and I’ve seen my fair share of bad driving in this world. Even the short morning drive from our home to the office is like running a gauntlet. Sometimes I really think people here have a death wish. Maybe its Buddhism, karma, or something. You walk/play/stand/ in the roads, figuring if you get run over, its for sins in a past life or something. I don’t know, but I’ve come pretty close to sending a few folks over (not to mention any number of animals), and quite a few Cambodians have gotten close to finishing off yours truly as well. Perhaps it is karma (and the fact I am still alive shows what an exemplary life I lived in the past, perhaps I will achieve Enlightenment in this life or the next).

While I have your rapt attention, I wish to break into song/poem. Ahem,……

My Svay Rieng, oh my Svay Rieng, so peaceful and serene
My Svay Rieng, oh my Svay Rieng, ‘ner a foreigner to be seen

You have nice fruit and good vegetables too
But no milk and no cheese, oh boo-hoo, boo-hoo

We eat rice every day in the only restaurant
There is nothing we can’t have, except that which we want

The iced coffee is good, so sweet it hurts the teeth
Like a single coffee bean with a pound of sugar beneath

The beer is expensive and they drink it with ice
So for a man with no salary, an unattainable vice

I dream of college football and the Aggies on TV
But small boys kicking a ball is the only sport to see

The sun is so very hot, it beats me down
Once was so white, now so very brown

I sweat all day and into the night
And the mosquitoes are vicious, oh how they bite

Of big nasty spiders, oh our house was full
They had to die the slow death, Maggie calls me cruel

But with their big beady eyes watching from the wall
Ready to pounce no doubt, I couldn’t sleep at all

The ants raid the house and make it there own
And could carry off a small child if I left them alone

But with the ants, spiders and skeeters I do battle
And with the grasshoppers so big, they could no doubt wear a saddle

But along the rice paddies, our bikes we now ride
For in Svay Rieng, our time we must bide

Next time – the Temples of Angkor, as quoted by Matt Lucas, “one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.” Stay tuned!

Memoirs of the Socialist Republic

2006-09-30T15:15:00.000+07:00

Vietnam….A country so burned into the American psyche, that generations of us who were not alive to remember it, seem not to be able to forget it. We are taught to think of it as a war and not a country, and while it is a defining moment in American history, The American War as it is called there, was but the final act in the struggle for independence that lasted over thirty years, culminating in the Communist victory in late April, 1975. Skip forty years ahead and again, you’ll find the Americans there, and looking closer, you’ll see two more wandering across the border at Moc Bai. For the Pchum Ben holiday here in Cambodia, Maggie and I figuring that we didn’t have any Buddhist ancestors to pray to, decided to skip out all together and headed east to the Land of Ho. And while it was a noble effort, the Vietnamese border’s impressive display of bureaucracy was still not quite up to Chinese immigration standards. To go 25 feet through the crossing, we only had to show our passports to three individuals and get recorded in a handwritten ledger, which is no doubt the most inefficient way to record things as possible. On first glance, the Vietnamese countryside seemed awfully similar to the Cambodian….rice paddies and buffaloes. But we didn’t have long to ponder as we hopped in a taxi for Ho Chi Minh City, and after a quick stop there, were bound for Hanoi via Pacific Airlines. Despite being a thin, elongated country, it is quite large and the flight from HCMC to Hanoi takes just under two hours. Maybe not much by American standards, but longer than I had expected. We arrived after sunset, so didn’t get to see much in the way of Hanoi that night as we made our way into the Old Quarter, where we could call home for the next few days. Hanoi is a city of lakes, with maybe twenty scattered around the city, measuring from small ponds, to sizable bodies of water. The Old Quarter is just as its name implies and is situated just north of one of the larger lakes in Hanoi. Long ago, the ancient trade guilds divvied up the quarter amongst themselves, meaning if you wanted silk you went to Hang Gai, those shopping for wooden bowls went to Bat Dan, Hang Bac traded in silver work, you get the point. And while this roughly holds true today, some of the commodities have changed. Perhaps armor has been replaced with rip off North Face backpacks, and plastic Tupperware has taken the place of the goldsmiths, though many of the old things remain. Spices so colorful and aromatic, and so exotic that we’ve no knowledge of saturate the streets, woodworkers hand carving intricate stamps and metal workers inlaying gems into gold jewelry. The Old Quarter is comprised of narrow, winding, tree lined streets that were definitely laid out before the advent of motorized transport. Everyone in Hanoi owns at least a motorcycle and a cell phone, and are no doubt often using them at the same time. When not dodging the motorcycles, the Old Quarter is the perfect place to wander and get lost, and get lost you shall. Standing at any given four way intersection, you’ll be faced with four different street names, and following one, will find it to changes its name at the next intersection. Maggie says that Hanoi reminds her of Paris, and never having been there, I’ll have to take her word for it. Despite being a poverty-stricken country, Hanoi is very nice and very clean. Getting out of the Old Quarter, the streets widen into bigger avenues, but are no less tree lined, and you get the sense that its more like a large park with a city in it, instead of vice versa. And so began our adventure – Day One – Ho. Ho Chi Minh, despite his wishes is embalmed and on display in Hanoi, not unlike Lenin in Moscow. His mausoleum is only open in the mornings, so we ate breakfast and headed over. The line was absurdly long, but moved quickly, as there is no stopping and you only get to file past. Guards in crisp white uniforms are stationed throughout the mausoleum, randomly checking bags, and ensuring that people are sufficiently reverent within. Maggie gave the ultimate insult to Uncle Ho by daring to enter his mausoleum with her arms crossed, and speaking as well. Actions which got her an arm slap, and me a manhandling from the guards. I feel like the guard gave me a look like “control your woman,” and I just shrugged and gave him back the look like, “Her? Yea Right, Why don’t you try.” The inner room where Ho Chi Minh is placed is a small rectangular room with four motionless guards at each corner of his coffin/case/glass tomb. So strange to see him, like the past come alive almost. To see him as he once was, he looked like he was sleeping. I wonder what thoughts were going through the heads of the Vietnamese filing past, as he is like their George Washington. And whether you think him an evil communist lackey of the Soviet Union or a good nationalist who threw off the colonial yoke, it was impressive to see. The entire grounds is park with the old Presidential Palace, Ho Chi Minh’s house, a museum, and a lake full of carp which he was famous for and we wandered around for the rest of the morning. The afternoon was spent in town checking out some of the random temples and pagodas throughout the city, of which there are probably thousands. One of the temples is called Ngoc Son, and it sits on an island in Hoan Kiem Lake (near the Old Quarter). Legend has it that long ago, Heaven sent down a mythical sword to the then Emperor, who used it to drive the Chinese out of Vietnam. The following day, a giant golden tortoise in Hoan Kiem Lake grabbed the sword back and returned it to its divine owners. A wonderfully bright red bridge connects the island to the shore, and they had on display a tortoise from the lake which reputedly weighted over 500lbs. I also want to mention that night I ate the best hamburger I’d eaten in months. Granted, it was also the first burger I’d eaten in months, but it was legitimately tasty. Day Two was spent on our own, Maggie shopping and getting her nails done, and I off on more manly pursuits. Random temples and pagodas were the goal, but it was the journey which made things interesting. The Vietnamese smoke a kind of waterpipe made of a large piece of bamboo, which is best described as a bong. Sitting in a little pagoda in a tiny alleyway, far away from anything most tourists are interested in, I feel prey to it. I thought it was laced with some kind drug, alas, it was merely tobacco. You only put a little tobacco in a little tube that sticks out the side, light that baby and heave on it as much as you can, before blowing a little gust of air back into the pipe that blows the tobacco out, and then take a big drag again, which in my case was followed by a fit of coughing, choking, burning chest, extreme thirst, teary eyes, stumbling to escape, and echoing laughter at my back. It felt as if I had smoked ten cigarettes at one time, with a can full of Skoal under my lip. I walked the walk of a man who knows he’s drunk, but tries not to show it, which in turn only makes him look drunker to those who are sober. On my way out, I wanted to do a good deed and give to the women who were begging near the pagoda gates. Fishing around for some coinage, and dropping it in, and though I did not recognize it at the time, the looks I got were of scorn and disgust and not that of thanks. I guess I would be disgusted as well if I was begging and someone gave me 3 cents, which is the equivalent that I parted with. Hey, at least I gave 3 cents to both of them. As soon as I got into the alleyway, I began to feel much better and decided it was tobacco after all, and only made it so far before I was invited to sit and drink tea. The fact that I didn’t speak a word of Vietnamese didn’t seem to matter to my host one bit, who preceded to talk at me at length. Meanwhile the best I could come up with is to make “Uuummm” noises as I drink his tea and eat his peanut brittle. I found, without exception, that the Vietnamese were very hospitable and seem more likely to engage you than Cambodians. The fact that I was American mattered not, and no one seems to harbor any ill feelings. In fact, I think they are happy to see us return, as if fences, to some degree, have been mended, and that there is no reason to let our collective pasts get in the way of a future relationship. That, and I am sure they are more than happy to help us part with our Yankee Dollars. I found myself thinking, in forty years, will we be able to travel in Baghdad or Kabul like this? I think not, but I would have said the same thing about Hanoi in 1975. One man, trying to sell us books, when learning that we lived in Cambodia, told us that he had spent some time there and lifted his shirt to show a bullet wound. How far the country has come, but unfortunately not all the people have come with it. A soldier, who most likely had the ill fortune to have fought for the losing side is reduced to selling books to tourists on the street. Day Three took us to the Temple of Literature, which is roughly the first university in Vietnam, its founding dating back to approximately 1070, and existing as a university until 1802, when the capital was moved to Hue. And while not an impressive structure in height or size, it has a certain aura to it. Ringing one of the courtyards are 82 stelae, which look like large tombstones set atop a large stone tortoise. These stelae record the tales of students who passed their examinations and were awarded doctorates, some of them dating back to 1442. Exams were held only once every three years, until 1778, when the practice was discontinued. Following the Temple of Literature, much ice-coffee drinking, walking, shopping, and gnashing of teeth ensued. We were beat down, tired, and took a much needed rest in the afternoon to gain strength for the excitement that the Vietnamese know as “Water Puppets.” We decided to splurge for the $3 first class seats to the show, and I will admit was mighty impressed. The water puppets are puppets that are not controlled by strings from above, but float on the water and are manipulated by tubes and strings running beneath the water by puppeteers behind a screen who must wear waders, since they are in the water as well. The control and motions of the puppets was quite spectacular, and not knowing, one would be forgiven to think some of the animals were actually there. It is a national troupe that performs all over the world, and the performances seemed to be sold out often (we had to buy our tickets one day in advance). The following day was our much unanticipated return back to Svay Rieng, as neither of us were terribly excited about the prospect after such a good time in Hanoi, but I’ll save the debate of the merits of Svay Rieng for another day (pending identification of said merits of Svay Rieng.)

Training the herd of monkeys?

2006-09-07T18:32:00.000+07:00

Where might we have been you may ask? Traipsing around the luscious Cambodian rainforests? Touring the ancient temples at Angkor ? Perhaps training the herd of monkeys? Alas, it is not so. For the most part, the past month has been spent plotting and scheming in Svay Rieng, and enjoying the fruits of our little village. Though, as I write this, Maggie is down on the coast sunning herself on the beach, though I know she will come back claiming it was more work than play. Why are you not there as well, you may wonder? Well, since you ask, I’ve found myself a little job here in Svay Rieng, though admittedly it is more like Peace Corps...but without the monthly stipend. I currently volunteer as the proposal writer and “Project Management Advisor” to a small organization called The Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights (CCPCR). I’ve weaseled myself into the upcoming funding though, and if Buddha wills it, we’ll get the new cycle of funding in October. And that’s when the cash starts rolling in! Do I hear $300?.... In fact I do. Oh yea, with all my back-patting, I forgot to mention that that gets you a month of my time; I come pretty cheap. But at least I get to be in Svay Rieng with Maggie, which is more important than making more money in Phnom Penh (cue the “Aaaaaawwwww”). Anyway, I digress. CCPCR, in a nutshell, is an organization that rehabilitates and reintegrates children who have been forced into prostitution, trafficked, sexually abused or exploited, or who are at risk. We hold trainings and workshops, but the bulk of our work is running a shelter that houses the children for anywhere between six months and a year. At the shelter, they receive an education, vocational training, food, medical care, and reintegration assistance. The office and shelter are one and the same, so its nice to be there with the children, to actually see the people that I get to help. The proposal that I finished tonight, assuming we are funded, is enough to operate the shelter for the next year. $35,000 gets you a year, housing 60 children for six months apiece, feeding them three meals a day, and providing them with an education and vocational skills. I chuckle to myself because at my old job, I would have spent $35,000 without thinking twice, or for that matter, even once. Ain’t no money like Gov’t money! Ok, so you're thinking: quit babbling and tell me why you’re not in Sihanoukville with Maggie! Two of the three organizations that we are requesting funding from are visiting our office this week, and I have to be on hand to show my face. Anyway, enough about me….Svay Rieng Town was rocked last week by a near doubling of foreigners in town with the arrival of Beth and Jessie (for my people – Maggie’s sister and sister’s friend respectively). It was good to see them, always nice to have visitors and we had a good time, especially with all the goodies they brought from the states. We got to spend some days in Phnom Penh when they arrived, and they got a good taste of that, but the real excitement began in Svay Rieng. Ok….not really, but it was a good time. Maggie had to work during the days, so I entertained them. We took a couple of bike rides, wandered the market, and drank a fair amount of iced coffee under an awning in a field near the market. Nothing like coffee with half a can of sweet condensed milk-syrup to rot your teeth, but ummm-umm they are good. I took them out to a place across the river, which I will henceforth call The Spot. Svay Rieng is a town, albeit a small one, and one does not have to go far to get out of it. But if you cross the river on the small footbridge, take the first right and then the first left, and go for about a kilometer, you’ll get to The Spot. A place where you can park your bike, walk out into the rice paddies, and sit below the palm trees sprinkled amongst the fields. A place where the growing rice is so green it hurts your eyes, where you couldn’t imagine a bluer sky, where the wind blows the rice fields, sending little waves rippling across the paddies. Svay Rieng may not have much to offer, but it has peace and it has quiet, and there are times when that is enough. Beth and Jessie have left us, and I expect them to be wandering the temples of Angkor now, which, if I may, in my mind, are one of the most spectacular things I’ve ever seen, and I feel like I have seen a lot. So here I am in Svay Rieng, killing time until Maggie returns, though with luck and a bit of skill, I’ll get down to Sihanoukville by the end of this week, or at least meet Maggie in Phnom Penh this weekend.

Marvelous Mangosteens

2006-08-10T09:14:00.000+07:00

Just thought you might like to see one of our favorite local fruits here, highlighted and coming to a Whole Foods or the like near you, very soon...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/dining/09mang.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Mini-Safari Adventure

2006-08-07T19:34:00.000+07:00

Only weeks after my arrival in Cambodia, and Maggie was about to jet-set off to Kenya for a conference. She invited me to come along, and with a little requisite arm twisting, I tagged along, for who I am to turn down a triumphant return to the Continent? So after getting to sit in a lounge far nicer than we deserved, and having a far longer and uncomfortable flight than I had expected, we arrived in Nairobi. It was almost too easy for Africa – the passport check guy smiled at me and even said “enjoy your stay” in a way that he genuinely seemed to mean it. I was only accosted by a single taxi driver, and he even gave up when I told him no thanks the first time. It was something like 4am when we arrived, so as soon as we got the hotel, we were out – it was Sunday morning.

We woke up in the late morning and wanted to take advantage of our first free day in Kenya, so headed out of town to a giraffe sanctuary. As we pulled in, the sign at the front of the sanctuary said “no hooting,” as if that might have been a common problem in the past. I don’t know about Maggie, but damn that sign, because I could barely hold back from hooting at the giraffes myself. They have free rein to roam around as they like, but I don’t know how far they wander due to the likes of Maggie, myself and plenty of other folks wishing to feed them. When you get there, they give you a handful of quarter-sized pellets that are apparently pretty tasty to your typical giraffe. You stand up on a balcony eye level when them, they open up, and never have I seen a longer tongue in my life, its like that lead-singer from KISS. The giraffes stick out their tongue, you put the pellet there and it slurps it up. Repeat until you run out, which coincidentally is the same time the giraffe loses interest in you. While you distract them with the tasty pellet, you can even pet the savage beasts, which eerily feel like any other animal with fur, though cool to say I’ve pet a giraffe.

While Maggie was in her meetings, I spent most of my time cruising around town. I spent all day on foot, so I covered a pretty limited area, but I think I got a pretty good idea of what it was all about. The rest of what we saw in the city was from the back of a taxi as we went out to dinner, went to the sanctuaries, etc. We got the whirlwind tour of downtown, saw the tomb of Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya, as well as the second-largest shanty town in Africa, though I forget the name, second only to Soweto in South Africa. On my walks around town, I didn’t see anything too outrageous or of note, though I did get my hair cut by a nice man from India. Nairobi, while nice, was not as cosmopolitan as I had expected it to be. However, it was relatively clean, hardly anyone stared at me, had good food, and nicest of all, it was cold. Cold, of course, being a relative term for those of us living in the tropics. Days might have broken 85 degrees, and nights probably got down to 55, so much so that one morning, I could even see my breath at breakfast. As former West Africans ourselves, I think Maggie and I were both surprised by the weather, even though we were prepared for it.

On Thursday, we headed a few hours north to Nakuru National Park. We booked the tour through one of the thousand agencies in town, and ended up having the entire trip to ourselves, which was definitely better than having to fight some chubby pimply faced little kid with a camera just to get a glimpse of the rhino. It was a pretty sweet ride, your usual bush taxi body, but with all the seats ripped out and individual captain chairs installed, with the ominous warning “do not stand in chairs” written on the wall. Another disruptive urge spoiled by a random sign. For the first hour or so, we were cruising along a pretty good road, but soon ran into some pretty bad stuff. Bumpy I can do, but the dust was suffocating, and we finally got the park feeling like I had smoked a pack of Marlboro Reds, and probably would have been better off with the cigarettes as well. Before we got into the park we came across one of those huge trans-africa buses. Its just a big open 4x4 bus that transverse the continent with a whole bunch of scared teenage kids in it. That’s just a joke of a way to see Africa. Granted, I’ll give it up that they were there, but to travel like that, you’d be better off staying home and watching National Geographic. What fun is traveling completely as a spectator? Travel shouldn’t be easy; travel is speaking to locals, travel is trying to figure out how to say “rice” in Hausa, its wondering what kind of meat is on your plate and eating it anyway. It’s too easy to drive by in your big car, point at the locals doing their thing, and go home “a traveler,” but hey, to each their own. So into the park and our driver/guide stops the car, climbs back with us and proceeds to pop the roof up, so that it ends up extending two or so feet above the body of the car, so that we could stand (hence the warning) and see the animals without anything blocking the view. And since it was only Maggie and I, we had free range to move about at will, without the aforementioned pimply faced kid in the way. Camera poised, free arm ready to shield Maggie from potential attack (hey, I’ve seen “When Animals Attack”; and I heard that zebras can get pretty vicious).

I don’t know what I was expecting from the park, but we were definitely not disappointed. We broke through the wood line and descended into the open areas around the lake, and it was literally full of animals. The lake might have well been pink, there were so many flamingos. We heard it was one of the biggest collections of flamingos in Africa, but that stat hasn’t been Googled yet--seeing what we saw then, I might believe it. We never got close enough to take good pictures of the flamingos, so they show up as a pink glob in the water, so you’ll just have to take our word for it that they are birds. As we got closer to the shore, we had zebras practically climbing in with us. Ok, not really, but we could drive up to within a few feet of them. I’d never really seen any of these animals before in my life, so it was awe-inspiring to see them so close, could almost touch them. For a split second, I thought about pulling that move you see in the Westerns, where I would jump off the roof onto the zebra. And as cool as that story would be, but though not posted with a sign specifically forbidding that, I erred on the side of caution and figured it was against park rules, and that I would no longer be welcome. The zebra were everywhere, and I mean everywhere, and after a while, it was “oh, another zebra.” But that’s definitely not to say I wasn’t impressed with them. As we drove through the park, we had antelope bouncing around us, jackals eyeing us from the bushes, and warthogs wandering around, doing whatever warthogs do. We later ran into a gaggle (or whatever) of giraffe munching away on some unappealing looking bristly plant. We had previously fed them at the giraffe sanctuary in Nairobi, so we were old-hat, but awed none the less. They seem to exude a stately manner, what with their heads held high, and seeming to care little of the teeming masses (including Maggie and myself) below. We saw a whole bunch of yung’ins as well, some no more than four or five feet tall all lounging in the shade of some trees, though we couldn’t get too close, as no doubt the mother wasn’t too far away. Upon leaving our long-necked friends we happened across a number of rhino (both black and white) as well. Most of the ones we were wallowing in the coolness of a big shade tree, and they looked more like boulders than rhino. One though was lumbering through an open field as we drove up, and was no more than 15/20 ft away. Those things are built like tanks and woe be the creature that steps in his way.

Enter Maggie: So what Matt forgot to mention were the band of monkeys and chimps that were ever-present and literally climbing on cars, jumping through windows and running across the entrance to the park. Crazy little things, staring right into the camera, not afraid to get close at all. Our driver had to remind us to close the windows when we stopped to pay the park entrance fee. Although we didn’t see any lions or leopards, I think we still had a really impressive introduction to East African wildlife…next time in the region we hit the big time: Serengeti and Masai Mara. We were sad to leave the park at 3:30 when it was time to get back on the road to Nairobi. We of course hit massive traffic due to a jack-knifed semi blocking the entire road. This presented several problems for not only us but other semis, bush taxis, bikers, cars etc. as everyone was trying to veer off the road onto a small hill next to the road, which had many large rocks, prickly bushes and well, most importantly, no clear road. Which also led to more traffic jams because cars/trucks etc. were coming from both directions on one side and causing grid-lock. Our driver wasn’t taking this easy and took his chance at one small opening, corralling over a steep hump, muddied by rain, but pushed our Toyota mini-bus over the top and we were just about home free. Sadly though, as we neared the Great Rift Valley, we had high hopes to get out and take a look but the fog was just as thick at 5pm as it was at 8am that morning, so we had to forgo that photo-op. Hope you can take a look at some of the pictures, we’ll post the link soon.

Our last day was spent relaxing somewhat at the hotel and going to the Masai market, which was interestingly held in a swanky mall parking garage. Curious. We of course had to sample the street food local women were preparing for the vendors out front: rices, beef, spicy red sauce and some light green ‘fou fou’ as we call it in West Africa. Good stuff. Once we entered the ‘market’ it was clear that it would be the usual tourist littered spot with the first row of vendors giving you a preview of what was to be found in the next 15 rows, so we spent a short time there, loaded up on some loot and headed back to the hotel. After packing up and heading out the airport, we were almost turned away at the ticket counter, as our flight was ‘extremely sold out’…we convinced her it was important we get back to Asia and we got on. Made it back to our dear Cambodia in one piece, feeling happy to be warm again, all the while planning our next trip to East Africa.

Long time...

2006-07-19T13:44:00.000+07:00

No writing. Yup, I’ve gotten caught up in the la vida loca here in Svay Rieng. Not only is work keeping me preoccupied (but I’m getting better with that) but I’ve had an honestly fantastic reason why I haven’t been writing, my man arrived! He up and moved here last week and well, we’ve been exploring all things Cambodian and discovering new places I hadn’t imagined yet. Mostly have to do with food of course, but that’s the way we roll, you know. Although, we did do some tourism finally…I’ve been here for 3.5 months and hadn’t yet visited The Killing Fields or the Genocide Museum/Prison, which were both trying places to visit. I was glad to have done this part of Phnom Penh with him, as to go through those places without an outlet or person to reflect on it with would be fairly tortuous for me. They are as disturbing as they sound, although, quite disturbing as well is how they are overrun and have garnered the attention of every hawker and large tourist-shop establishment in the area. I won’t go into it, but rent the DVD or read one of these books:
-The Quality of Mercy
-The Gate
-Sideshow
etc…

On to a lighter note: life is getting more normal here in Svay Rieng. Really. Settling in, buying porch chairs and kitchen supplies; I’m trying to figure out things still but I wake up, go to work, come home and have my honey here with me. Life is good. He’s heading out job hunting tomorrow, maybe some leads at the local university so we’ll see. Plus, we’ve got a nice trip to Kenya coming up in just one week. My organization is hosting a conference and I was asked to attend. Don’t know how I won that, but I’m not complaining. So, I convinced (wasn’t hard) my man to join me and we’ll have two days together to explore a bit of Nairobi and it’s outskirts. Neither of us have been to Kenya so send your suggestions if you have. Even though our time is short, we’re still going to try to see some wildlife—I hear there is a giraffe park/sanctuary-type place, which I would love to see.

We also hosted a bit of a welcome party for his arrival (see picture attached) with some friends and ate quite well at the Svay Rieng Restaurant, only the best: deep fried pork, seared beef salad, tomato-coconut soup, beef and vegetable stir fry, whole fried fish and rambutan and bananas for desert. Not too bad, plus, of course, several cans of Anchor beer, lots of ice and then a gathering at our place where our Khmer friends were convinced that Champagne has more alcohol content than rice wine (no way) as they oogled the trashy US Weekly magazines we just received. Angelina was a highlight—“ooooohhhh, she has come to Cambodia, her son….” Yeah, yeah, we had heard it all. Anyway, the party went late for Svay Rieng (10pm) and everyone started to get worried they wouldn’t make it home unless they had one or two more beers. We said enjoy it at home and sent them on their way with unopened cans to enjoy upon their arrival. I think they were all quite happy and most happy that there is now another strange, kind barang to visit, practice English with and with whom to share their culture. We are taken care of here, it is a good place.

So, with that, we send our greetings and love and more stories (probably from our Kenya experience) to come…

Crazy Times

2006-07-02T11:33:00.000+07:00

It's been a long while since I've written and I don't like it that way. I've been swamped with a capital "S" my friends and haven't been able to dig myself out of the work yet. I finally said, forget it, I've got to reach out to at least the one person who checks on my blog daily/weekly...MOM! Shout out to Mom for keeping me going ;) No really, I think Blogazonia checks in a lot and Mary is a good trooper too. Thanks all.

Anyway, nothing earthshattering to report, but I guess my blog really isn't about earthshattering news anyway, just the lazy, daily life in one small town in Cambodia. Although I would like to draw your attention to my links listed on the right hand side as I've added a few recently. My friend owns a really lovely photo gallery in PNP: le popil, please check out the website, his photos and those he exhibits, they are marvelous. I really like the ants and fish series by a Cambodian photographer--I saw one of his shows recently and it's amazing how he positioned the ants and fish and leaves and water...peaceful and striking.

Also to check out is Miss Caterwauler, she'll answer your deepest, darkest, most ridiculous questions straight on, no BS.

Actually, there is some significant goings on about town here because my dear man will arrive in only 3 more days! I can't believe it's been 3 months--way too long, but he's on his way on 4 July and I am so thrilled he's actually coming...so, now you have two reasons to visit Cambodia and the guest room is getting all ready to welcome my sister in August, so jump on the bandwagon and see the sights, sounds and wonders of Cambodia! Nice pitch, huh?

So, enjoy your 4th of July BBQs, beach days, camping and vacation days from work! I'm thinking of you here in Cambodia. Oh, and one more thing: I passed the driving tests, and I'm sure, succumbed to some sort of shady money deal/corruption, but hey, I got my Cambodian license! It may not be a real deal, but it looks good--Steer clear of Route 1 and the 11 year old Landcruiser, here I come! More to come soon...

Nirvana lives in Cambodia

2006-06-11T18:39:00.000+07:00

It’s true, I was taken back to 1991, was that the year? Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was the only thing they were playing on the radio, in Detroit that was 89X, to be exact (with a little Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Jane’s Addiction). Were we at St. Andrew’s Hall or at the Shelter in the mosh pit (or trying to get in the mosh pit…or maybe just standing around the periphery, wishing we were in the mosh pit…)? Regardless, it was the time of ‘Lollapalooza’ and all that good stuff—summer concerts at Pine Knob where you got dropped off by your friend’s mom, then eventually, got to take the Oldsmobile or minivan yourself— the night was filled with your friends, dancing in place, bobbing your head, smoking a lot and pretty much trying to look damn cool.

I was reminded of those times on Friday night when I went to meet some friends at a bar called Zepplin’s (again, we didn’t grow up in the 70’s but remember how Led Zepplin IV was another one of those had-to-haves in the tape player all the time? It all comes around) to hear an acquaintance’s band play. I walked in just as the opening band was warming up; low lights, lots of people milling around, chatting and drinking cans of $1 Anchor beer waiting for the show to start. There was even a loft area like a mini St. Andrew’s or 9:30 Club. I immediately felt like I should be wearing my doc marten’s and a flannel shirt wrapped around my waist. The opening band was taking the small stage set up in the corner of the main floor—they were like 16 or 17 years old wearing Vans, doc marten’s, second-hand shirts—old-man checker-style buttoned to the top, various punk band t-shirts and black pants or long shorts. The guitars were getting tuned up, the drummer was arranging his stool, twirling the drum sticks; one of the kids was checking the amp, another testing the mic and then a just-turned-mature voice cracked as it said ‘How’s everyone doing tonight?!’…the audience of 17 year olds crowded close together up front, started to yell and clap and the boys on stage strummed a few cords and then I immediately recognized the unforgettable lyrics of Kurt Cobain: “…here we are now entertain us…I feel stupid and contagious, here we are now…” Man. I settled in with my cold Anchor next to another young fan who was beginning to jump up and down… “these guys are great, yeah?!” another one yelled over the guitar riffs: “I love these guys!” I couldn’t help bobbing my head and letting a big smile open up across my face—I would need another beer for this. After 3 beers and a few more Nirvana, Jane’s Addiction and other very familiar 90’s ‘alternative’ music hits the whole crowd was bobbing their heads and air-fisting towards the group; there was even a pack of 16 year old girls starting their own little mosh pit in front of the boys who were playing their hearts out.

My friends and I marveled at how times come and go, and then come around again; we all had been here before—of course not in Phnom Penh, but in a very similar place, not far from our parents’ homes about 10-15 years ago. Their short, but no less charged set ended and they got the praise they were hoping for—girls ogling, other guys high-fiving and of course, I can imagine one major highlight for the rock-stars-in the making: the next band, made up of 30-40 year old rockers who had seen the same early-gig-days just as the Nirvana-covering 17 year olds—congratulated the opening act for their skills and yelled “this is the future of Cambodian Rock ‘n Roll!!” and the small crowd erupted into more whooping and high fives.

I realized that I needed this—when was the last time I was at a show like this? Despite the amateur sound and the small venue in PNP, I was transported back to some of the most vivid memories I have from high school, where all that mattered was your group of friends gathered on a blanket from your mom’s trunk, drinking huge stadium-sized cokes, smoking a lot of cigarettes and bobbing your heads back and forth as you mouthed every lyric, hoping the band would play for hours more; you hoped that the warm summer night on the hill at Pine Knob would never end, but at least you had the ticket stub secure in your back pocket to display proudly on your bedroom mirror or bulletin board the next day—ears ringing, knowing you would never forget that night and feeling like the coolest kids at the show. My friend’s band started—more mature, few covers, still loud and with their own style…I stayed for a few, but with the strong smell of smoked cigarettes on my clothes, sweaty shirt and ringing ears, I called a it a night at 11:45pm, just making that universal curfew I remember so well from the summer of 1991, was that it?…still smiling and head bobbing, sneaked out among the 16 year olds and got a moto taxi who safely delivered me home.

No Blinker Required

2006-06-06T19:30:00.000+07:00

Not when you’re changing lanes. No, don’t turn that blinker on when you’re turning off a roundabout and please swerve around those speed bumps! I knew this is what my driving teacher, Mr., um, what-was- his-name-again would definitely be saying to me if he and I could communicate in the same language. Instead, we use a variety of non-verbal signals that include uh-huhs, hand gestures (him) and nodding. He is also prone to grabbing my arm, hand or pulling my pant-leg to really get his point across. This most often occurs when he doesn’t want me to use the turn signal, especially when changing lanes, passing or turning most corners. He just reaches across the steering wheel and clicks it off, as if he doesn’t quite trust me with this responsibility in only my second class. Svay Rieng Driving School has proven to be fairly ineffectual and by most accounts, requires you to not follow the international driving regulations. Just as I expected.

Despite this, I decided it was necessary for me to get some driving time in over the next few weeks before I take on the challenge of driving the 10+ year-old land cruiser that I’ve been offered until our nice Mitsubishi Pajero arrives (I’ve been told it might take anywhere from 4-10 months for it to roll off the boat). Since the old hoopty land cruiser is quite temperamental and has a tricky ignition and clutch, my limited skills in driving a manual were becoming more apparent, so my Khmer tutor suggested I check out the driving school; he said: ‘they’ll fix you up and they’ve got a janky old camry you can practice on—might be similar to the bad-start-clutch problem of the hoopty at the office.’ So that’s how I ended up in the driving school/ice cream parlor, sipping Cambodian’s answer to bubble tea (sweet milk with ice and fluorescent colored tapioca balls) last Saturday morning while waiting for my instructor. I tried to get my tutor to go along for the ride, but he sheepishly bowed out, using his girlfriend as a likely excuse. I kept saying, ‘I do know how to drive, really, my license is just in Phnom Penh getting approved for a Cambodian license…’ he wasn’t buying it. I thought, well, this is going to be difficult; taking a driving lesson where the student and driver don’t speak the same language. Hmm. Then it also occurred to me that I was going to be really driving in Cambodia and what with all the activity on the road (and my tendency to have a bit of a ‘lead-foot’) I could very well hit a small child, cow, pig or swerve off into a rice paddy or fish pond. Ok, check insurance. Insurance? It seems even ridiculous to ask. I know the answer will be no, but I ask anyway, and to my surprise, they say ‘Yes, in fact we do have insurance and if you hit something while the teacher is in the car, then no problem.’ Ok, but again, what does ‘no problem’ mean? I get the feeling they don’t want to say no as I might leave, so I get it in writing. Easy, they just rip a page out of a kid’s school notebook and write something in Khmer I can not read…for all I know it could say ‘this foreign lady is nuts, we wouldn’t insure her for anything in South Eastern Cambodia, especially since she’ll be in that jacked-up Camry…’. But what else to do but trust ‘em. Never mind that they haven’t asked for any ID like my passport, ID card or a permit (I don’t think they have those here though…). So, with my notebook-paper insurance card (the owner’s (?) thumb print for authenticity) and only my office ID card in my wallet, I get into the driver’s seat.

The driver and I start the mime routine: he motions for me to step on the clutch, then brake then release the parking break, then practice shifting 1-2-3-4-5-R, back to N…before we actually pull out onto the street. I notice at this point that he’s got one of those safety breaks on his side—sweet, I’m really protected, we can both slam on the breaks if a herd of buffalo run across the street and I panic. So we set out, slowly around the town. I can handle this, piece of cake; it’s coming back to me now. I think: let’s open her up, get this old camry going…but he’s already putting on the break, not the balls-out attitude I expect from my Cambodian driving instructor. But then we get on the main road and he lets me get going—oh, and did I mention the speedometer is broken? Yeah, I have no idea how fast I’m traveling and he motions that it doesn’t really matter anyway (true, I guess, as I’ve only seen one speed limit sign since I’ve been in country, it’s somewhere close to Phnom Penh on route 1…Anyway, I make my way, he teaches me the subtle nuances of the horn. Yes, this is quite important. Not just for anything, but for most things—children, bikers, intersections, motos, cows, ducks, buffalo etc…but not for other cars. No, not sure why but he didn’t want any of that honking to fellow drivers.

The best part of the drive was when we were coming to the end of the class, making our way back to the driving school/ice cream parlor and we came to the corner (after I was non-verbally scolded for stopping at an intersection to let three high school kids cross…) and I realized there were several downed wires across the road. Ugh, I thought “looks like I’ll have to turn around.” I begin to reverse and my instructor gets all bent-out-of-shape and motions to keep going. “What?!” I’m thinking, “um, downed wires my friend, I’m not going across that.” At the same time, a little boy on the sidelines notices my hesitation and wants good karma for the day—he walks over to the wires and just as I’m about to scream at him ‘DON’T TOUCH THE WIRES!’ he’s already hoisted them above his head and is making an arch for us to travel under. Amazing. Damn, when will it cease to amaze me? Oh, yes, only when at that point I go under the wires, automatically switch the turn signal and, denied! My silent passenger reaches over and hits my hand away—DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH THAT BLINKER!’ I pulled the car into the lot as my instructor motioned towards his watch and ‘the future’—same time next week, same place? I nod accordingly and wave good-bye.

Anyway, I was now seemingly out of danger, out of the driver’s seat and walking back home…but back to the danger of downed wires: clearly kids here aren’t taught to not touch wires that are dangling from the electricity posts, trees or laying on the ground. In fact, they’re encouraged to help clear the situation. I notice there are hordes of kids gathered around several electricity posts holding a lot of random, dangling wires as a few older men look on at the technicians tinkering away at some ball of tangled wires above them. It’s like they’ve been recruited as free labor to help install the new Vietnamese electricity that is supposedly going to save SVR lots of money and dark nights. I’m still waiting to see this happen. Anyway, I guess the kids have hope. More than I can say for the driving school.

Home

2006-05-28T12:29:00.000+07:00

I woke up feeling soggy; sort of like after a long walk in the summer time, when the air hasn’t moved at all, it’s sort of heavy and you’re just starting to sweat; clothes a little damp, face somewhat greasy. Yeah. That’s how I felt. I’ve been sleeping with my A/C off because I think the filter is about 10 years old or something…I end up feeling like I have a serious respiratory infection when I wake up in the morning after having slept with it on all night. It also gives me this false sense of being cold—but then I walk out of my bedroom and start melting again, so what’s the point really? In the end I’m going to be hot, let’s just get used to it and move along. Except at work, of course. I will not give back the A/C rights there—I’ve become 150% more productive since it was installed 2 weeks ago.

ANYWAY, not only did I wake up with that soggy, sluggish, sloppy feeling, but I was stressed, never a good way to start the day. What better way to get over that feeling than procrastinate. Right. So, after a nice cold bucket bath, I hopped on my bike to make my way to the one internet phone in town, and then straight to the office, yes, indeed. But as usual, the power was out and they didn’t have a generator, so no luck to talk to my man today. Humf. I called him anyway on my cell phone (like $10/minute) but you know when you’ve built up the excitement for something and just don’t want to let it go? Yeah, it’s the little things like that that make my days here, so I called him anyway and woke him up (sorry). Just enough though to make me smile for the day and considerably lift my mood. Although my mood was improving already as I had been flagged down by a colleague who was sitting at the favorite coffee shop in town, on my way to the internet phone; I couldn’t refuse since I hadn’t had my coffee yet and so I was happy to stop. Plus, I really love just sitting in the open-air coffee place shootin’ the shit with the guys from the office (I’m one of 4 women in the whole place). We all order the typical: Iced Vietnamese coffee (extra dark) with sweetened condensed milk. It’s really quite good and my favorite way to have it here. We chatted for a good 2 hours about a variety of topic that interest the guys I work with/know here: whether or not I think my boyfriend has another girlfriend on the side since we’ve been apart for 2 months already and he isn’t coming here until July (‘you know, it’s like that sometimes in Cambodia…’), what the agriculture outputs are for different states in America, if Alaskans speak a different language, drinking beer vs. drinking wine, the Chinatown phenomena, Cambodian lack of interest in latrines, the boxing (read: kick-boxing, take-no-prisoners-style, ouch) tournament that’s been in town for the last week and American football vs. rugby vs. soccer…really good stuff. Made me also feel like all was good and right in the world. More procrastination.

We’re planning a big workshop in a few weeks and some folks from Phnom Penh are coming to town, so I went to check out my friend’s parents guest house—Apsara Guest House in Svay Rieng town, definitely a good place if you ever find yourself in town and I’m not around. $10 for an A/C room, $5 for a fan…clean, super friendly with a lovely little terrace. Anyway, this is the same friend of the wedding report a few weeks earlier and the picture albums and DVDs (yes, several of each) were in and I realized quickly how little of the whole sha-bang I participated in. For two days straight this poor woman and her fiancé were covered in silk, gold and sweat. Yes, they looked like they were having fun for a little while, but most of the time the looks on their faces were strained and seemingly screaming “let us out! We want jeans, t-shirts and cake in our room! No more pictures and no more bowing at our parents’ feet! (this happens a lot during the DVD…)”. But we looked through the albums, watched the DVDs and it was good. Then her mom invited me for lunch—which I must say was fantastic because my friend’s husband made it! Apparently he cooks for her and her family a few times a week…this is not the norm. No, not at all, but props to this man; clearly the ladies do love him. He made a solid chicken soup, with lotus flower stems, other greens, pineapples (it worked!) and tomatoes. Rice of course, and a sort of grilled, candied pork skin meat, sliced thin. Fresh mangos for dessert, nice and sweet.

Thoroughly full, I thought why spoil this nice day by going to the office (plus the electricity is probably still out…). So, naturally, as a true daughter of Judy, I decided to go shopping. Although not clothes shopping, but house shopping. With Matt coming soon, my sister planning her trip here and others promising visits (I hope) I figured it was time to get the house a little more comfortable and feeling like home. This considerably lifted my spirits and has indeed made me feel more at home, but of course I never made it to the office.

Anyway, long story short is that sheets are damn expensive here. It reminded me of my US-sheet-buying-experience: I really almost fell over in the US when I finally stopped stealing old sheets from my parents and decided to buy my own (ok, this was only last year, but hey)—I thought Ikea, Target and the like would give me nice cheap sheets in the $15 range for the set. Oh, no, not even at these discount places—upwards of $30 and more?! I never realized that bedding could be so expensive. It’s just cotton, right? I settled for the cheapest variety at Ikea that did feel a little like sandpaper, but I got the set for $20. So, I was not as surprised as I should have been when I went to buy sheets in the market here in Svay Rieng and the woman started at $36 for two sets?! OMG!? What is this, I’m in CAMBODIA! How can sheets still be so expensive? I will fully admit it; I’m a cheapskate when it comes to stuff like this. I bargained and bargained (and all you who lived with me in Cameroon know I’m a fast talker and hard bargainer) and this woman barely budged. In Cambodia this is when the price is actually the going price, as opposed to Cameroon where you have to walk away, come back, make a lot of hissing noises and teeth sucking, play angry, etc. and then the price starts to go down (this can take close to an hour). Anyway, Cambodia is considerably easier; they’re very honest people in the market, no poker faces. Ok, back to the sheets—I really must have looked peeved because she turned to her friend who also said, ‘yeah lady, this is it, the real price; you want the cotton ones, you gotta’ pay for it’. And I did want the cotton ones. The friendly business woman offered me an alternative: if I didn’t want to pay the high-roller price, I could buy, no joke, hot pink nylon-polyester blend, $5 for a set. Hmmm, that didn’t take long. I’ll take the cotton high-grade variety please. I walked away feeling a little lame, but I got cotton sheets at least. Come to visit and you’ll see the lovely designs (think white doves and deep red hearts) and interesting narrative that covers them (‘love forever’). Well, at least I also made off with a good deal on a free-standing Vietnamese hammock I bargained in there! Sweet, this thing is the best—I didn’t want to get out of it once I set it up. I stayed in it for a few hours on the porch after it rained, it was almost cool.

But that wasn’t the end of my shopping spree. Nope. I of course needed cat food (read: sardines in fancy tomato sauce, yeah it’s spoiled) and came upon the jewelry row. Dangerous. Especially since the Cambodians don’t mess around with jewelry. It’s gold. Beautiful handmade gold. Hmmm. Not too expensive. Yeah, so I bought a pair of small hoops with a filigree ball delicately hanging from the middle. Time to head home. Except I have to pass the 4 furniture makers in town to get home. I just wanted to check out how much a desk and a wardrobe might be. The first place was giving serious mark-up for the barang…so I moved on to the next spot. Here I found just what I wanted (and wasn’t looking for, of course)—a Cambodian raised, lounge table. One that all Cambodian families have—coffee table height, double bed size, beautifully carved around the base and good for lounging, sleeping, eating, relaxing…it raises you off the floor but doesn’t feel hot and sticky like your bed. Perfect. It was even stained the same color as my living room furniture. They started at a hefty price. I knew it wasn’t going to be cheap as I had done some homework on this piece. But I got ‘em down $10 and then picked up a half-sized wardrobe for the bedroom. And, it only cost $1 to have it all delivered and moved in! But for real, it was time to stop. I will say though, after having it all in place now, I feel like I’m home. Never made it in to the office because I was too busy finally getting settled in. Come visit!

Next Career?

2006-05-24T20:25:00.000+07:00

Ok, so I've already chosen my next career, which will begin in approximately 4-5 years ;) Well, who knows, what what I want to know is how did this guy get such a sweet gig, check out his 'Frugal Traveler' article in the NYT every Wednesday: http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/travel/24frugal.html?th&emc=th
...Man, I could show him a thing or two about truly frugal traveling. Anyway, if you have any ideas how I can transition into this gig let me know, I'm on the plane...

Phnom Penh wonders

2006-05-22T19:29:00.001+07:00

So, I’ve finally taken the time to discover a bit of Phnom Penh, the wondrous capital, that seems to be both sleepy at times and quite happening at others. I came in for numerous meetings on Friday and then spent the rest of the weekend thinking I should be working, but just couldn’t seem to slow down long enough to start.

Friday night I discovered the VIP Sports Club. Yes, this is the Cambodian upper class retreat and sports center, which has pretty good facilities. A nice big pool, sauna, steam room, snack bar, tennis courts, boxing area and machines, weights and aerobics classes (with posters around the room reminiscent of the 80s aerobics craze/Olivia Newton John style and un-natural looking body-builder types). Anyway, I had a great swim and observed the local sports club culture…lots of young men, oogling girls in bathing suites, joking around, dunking each other; families with the kids with water wings; and the older men walking around in towels settling in to the sauna. What better way to end a productive exercise routine then to hop on a moto and meet a friend for burritos and margaritas! Guacamole, sour cream, cheese, it was all there and I was sitting on the riverfront in Phnom Penh. Crazy. Although, for my first burrito experience in SE Asia, I would say I’ve had better, but this was just right for the time and place. The riverfront was breezy, cool and the action was all over the street—young people hand in hand, kids running around screaming and an alarming amount of foreigners. Maybe I just haven’t spent enough time in PP, but every other person on the street was not Cambodian or Asian. Maybe it’s keen time to travel here? Not sure, but I enjoyed sipping the margarita and talking with my friend.

Saturday morning I rose with the rain. It started around 6am and I laid around in bed until about 7am thinking it might slow down. I dashed out of the hotel to find a spot to eat and found the most lovely little restaurant right next to the hotel where I always stay. It’s called Near and Far—I had the place almost to myself, but got the prime spot: a raised, large Cambodian style table that people sit on, with a mat and lots of pillows. A smaller table on it, in the middle to hold my coffee, crepe and fruit salad. Perfect. I lounged around there, waiting for the rain to die down and decided it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon, so I bolted for a tuk tuk and headed to the Russian Market.

I’ve now realized I won’t need to worry about stocking up on ANYTHING when I come home to visit. Thanks to the Gap, Old Navy and H&M sweat-shops running in Cambodia (ok, not thanks, I’m not endorsing the sweat-shops here, but sad to say this is where I shopped while living in the states and well, same stuff available in the market here). It’s plentiful, although the pants were a problem, they didn’t really have much for women larger than a size 4…so the tailor will help me with this. But tops, shoes (Puma, Adidas, Birkenstocks…these, I think are rip offs, but they’re good enough rip offs to me…). I didn’t go crazy in the clothes department, just checked-out the miles, upon miles, upon stacks of t-shirts, tank tops, polo shirts…and then decided it was too much to sort through at this time. I headed for the crafts and material. This was my weakness…lots of ‘antiques’ that looked like real antiques, unbelievable amounts of gorgeous richly colored textiles—all silk. Carved dark wooden pieces, pottery with deep colored gloss and whimsical Cambodian designs. I’m sort of glad my house is 2.5 hours away from here, as I would buy up a good amount of this stuff for my place, but I’m scared it would crack in transport. Anyway, I bought some good gifts and some material for myself to settle up with the tailor. It was a marathon day, but there was no way to do it in less than 3 hours. I still didn’t see the whole place.

After settling down in the food area for some noodles and a coke, I made my way home to drop my loot and headed to a usually expat crowded spa for a thai massage and pedicure. I figured it was cheap enough and well, it was time to get the sore muscles worked a bit. And that they did, a woman half my size, worked my arms, legs head, back for a good 2 hours—as I’ve said before, Thai massage is like contact yoga. It was great. Came out feeling relaxed and the muscles were all stretched out; the mind was at ease. I had dinner with a friend and some of his friends and then headed home where I crashed close to 11.

Sundays always end up feeling rushed, with a sense of urgency or worry about all the things that should have been done over the weekend, but you know you didn’t want to tackle, because, well, it was the weekend. Anyway, here I am, in my hotel room, procrastinating some more as I wait for the taxi to pick me up to return home.

Hot Dogs and French Fries

2006-05-22T19:24:00.000+07:00

Last night was a hot dogs, french fries and a coke kind of night; tonight was a
giant burger night (you know those nights growing up when you knew you were
getting the worst of your Mom’s Betty Crocker cookbook recipes? Giant burger is
the worst of the worst. Really). The first (hot dogs, french fries and coke) being
one of great joy, elation possibly, almost like a reward for doing something good,
finishing something big on time, it’s off your shoulders/mind/plate…you’re feeling
home free. The later? Well, it’s been one of those days where nothing seems to go
right and you’re backed up against the wall and then to top it all off, you can’t even
take pleasure in the dinner planned or divert your mind to an enjoyable eating
experience once in the calm and safety of your own home (maybe there’s a warped
food relationship here, but we’ve all got issues). But nope, this day, it just follows you
all the way to the dinner table and then after dinner the only thing you think you’re
capable of is settling in for a nice mindless, but funny TV show, one that will take
your mind off of everything (you know, like Law and Order, Sex and the City,
Seinfeld and the like); but the only thing showing is something like the Nanny
or reruns of Doogie Houser, MD or the worst of all, a long run movie like Back to
the Future II. Then there is really no escape from the crappiness of your day.

Well, I’m not saying I had a total ‘giant burger day’ but the other day was so nice…
we actually got some things done, someone came back with the right answer.
The sun was out but it was still somewhat overcast, there was a nice breeze in
the air, I didn’t melt from the heat when I walked outside or have a constant row
of sweat beads lining my upper lip…things just felt good. So, what left to do but
finish it off with the perfect celebration meal that kids from PA to Cali know means,
yeah! It’s all good, mom and dad are in a good mood, it’s almost the weekend, they’re
letting us drink Coke, let’s jump on the beds and slide down the stairs in sleeping bags!
That’s what yesterday felt like, so naturally, I had to find the equivalent of good ‘ole
American celebration food: hot dogs and french fries and the market delivered. Nice,
fresh, worm-free red skin potatoes and a variety of sausage links—homemade, all my
choice just dangling in sets of four from the market rafters. Perfect. Even a nice mini-Cambodian-style baguette to stand in for a bun. I even had mustard in my fridge thanks
to the previous tenant who left me some western goods (and if you know me, you know mustard is an important condiment to have). The guard and I ate well and we were
happy. We smiled, we laughed and he shared with me the Khmer words for the American
feast we were partaking in…although, he was really confused by the mustard and why
I would want that on the ‘dog. So after my enjoyment yesterday, I thought it might
continue in the next day, but no, I walked in the office and it started hitting the fan and
didn’t quite stop. Everything kind of got ‘piled on’, where you’re desperately trying to
pull yourself out from under it all, but whatever you do you just keep getting buried
deeper, sort of like quick sand. And then, to top it off, you come home and have to deal
with something equivalent to giant burger which makes the whole day just seem like a
waste. ON A BRIGHTER NOTE: I did get to commiserate with a friend a bit, who helped
me process some of this crappiness (but he couldn’t do anything about the giant burger
thing—you can only expect so much when the day went as it did…).

But don’t feel sorry for me. I’ve made my bed and I’m sure enough sleeping in it, but
man, I just wish things had looked up a bit and ended with pizza or something. Next time.

Drought? Let's Hope Not...

2006-05-17T07:44:00.000+07:00

The Royal Ploughing Ceremony got underway and showed some disheartening predictions:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/4986680.stm

We only hope that the predictions are off this year (although last year they were apparently spot on). I sadly missed the ceremony, working hard here in the province, but got the news from a text message from a friend as he watched...anyway, a lot of people just took the rest of the week off for the King's birthday which was over the weekend and through Monday and then for the Ploughing Ceremony. Heading to the big city tomorrow night to stock up on milk and other things. More blogging coming soon...

HperMart and Dinner with Friends

2006-05-08T18:33:00.000+07:00

Since my Cambodian Visa was still an issue and two times prior going through the Vietnamese border didn’t fix this problem, I thought I would try again today, right? 3rd time’s a charm?—I was hoping my luck would lead me since I was holding a coveted ‘blue letter’ from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs…if this didn’t work, nothin’ would. I breezed through to Vietnam, had the requisite iced coffee, 15 minute stay over and made my way back through to Cambodia to give it all a shot at the border again. Ahhh, but first, what was this curious huge blue building called the “HyperMart Duty Free” partially hidden by the new Vietnamese immigration office? Hmmm, I could only imagine, so of course I needed to check it out. Well, it turns out I’ve got a Costco less than 45Km away from me. Truly, they had Kirkland brand stuff, Target brand clothes—actually the exact black pants I bought for work a few months ago, sure enough, right there, my size even…for a 3rd of the price. Strange. All of the junk food comforts of home in super size (!) just like Costco: Doritos, Corona bottles in a case, Motts Apple Juice, Zest soap…it was too much, I almost felt like I was at home, except I was surrounded by Vietnamese people and the only one staring longingly at the Doritos. Don’t forget all of the standard duty free items that were also stockpiled: liquor, cigarettes, chocolate. The place even had microwaves, toaster ovens, blenders etc and a huge restaurant, but no hotdogs or pizza, it’s standard Vietnamese fare only; fine with me. Anyway, was just a really weird thing to discover in this corner of the world where everything seems so foreign, except now the border has Target clothes and Kirkland brand products--it’s like I wanted to run in the other direction because it just didn’t fit into the picture. So I figured, I knew this scenario in another world, why not blow a little Vietnamese Dong here and get some TP, other paper products and some requisite junk food: I crumbled for the small bag of Doritos, which tasted the same. Didn’t need ‘em. Although my friend who brought me to the border on his motorcycle was so impressed (nothing quite like it in Cambodia, especially to find it around Svay Rieng) he asked me to take his picture in front of the place. Yes, important and prestigious.

How could I top that for a Sunday you might ask? Well, I got to eat some darn good Khmer food at the moto friend’s fiancée’s parent’s house (got that?) that evening. She cooked up some really good food and interesting too—remember the frogs? Well, they were here tonight and cooked up on the grill. Aside from the odd presentation: completely flattened, but otherwise in-tact (resembling the just-run-over-by-a-car squashed variety) I felt a bit bad gnawing at its legs to get some meat. But it was darn good meat—as they all say: a little bit like chicken… but just enough, not too much. Of course, Pork was the other white meat on the menu, which was good but it was hard to stomach some of the innards this time for some reason. I won’t go into details as some of you may have weaker stomachs than others, but let’s say there was nothing left to the imagination or of the poor pig, inside and out. I ate a lot but went light on the innards and the silhouette of the poor frog on the road soon passed as I continued to enjoy the smoked sweetness of the full frog, yes indeed. Good food, lots of rice, as is the standard. Since my two friends are getting married and having their engagement party on Saturday, this was one last time for their parents to get together to plan for Saturday, so a special time to celebrate and eat like there’s not tomorrow...

Weddings...

2006-05-08T18:23:00.000+07:00

So, you thought your wedding was a logistical nightmare? Maybe you were exhausted by greeting 180 or so guests and couldn’t wait to take off that heavy, uncomfortable dress? And, just couldn’t find a moment to steal a snack from the buffet or another kiss from your newly wedded partner as your guests dined on 3 courses? Well, you didn’t have it that bad, after all, your wedding, or the one you attended most recently, probably wasn’t in Cambodia. I tell you people, this wedding of a colleague’s that I attended tonight was, well, really nice and easy for me…but for the poor bride and groom and their families? Let’s say they’ll need a few weeks to recover. Imagine setting up two days before the actual party (ok so this is pretty standard but it’s all you, your family and close peeps), but your setting up into the street over about 4 blocks in one direction and 3 blocks in the opposite direction (block party!), leaving only about a two-foot-wide path for cars/trucks/motos/bikes/small children walking/horse-drawn carts etc. to get past. Then, how to start cooking? Preparing for a 1000 of your closest friends and family? Really. Coming from Phnom Penh, three other provinces in Cambodia, special invitees (Director of the Hospital, Director of the Public Health Dept, Police Chief etc.)…yes, this takes then an additional 8 blocks closed off, plus the payment and payoff of the local police to help guard the whole mess and you know, keep things in order without incident for people to gossip about (plus you’ve got to guard all the mad amounts of gold flashing everywhere…).

Cooking ensues for the night prior and day of (most of the time by 45 hired locals from the next town over), tents of orange and fuscia, with satin cloth wrapped around the poles are erected into the street—tables, chairs covered in traditional Khmer silk patterns, family-style turnstiles on the tables (similar to the Chinese restaurant style)…16 huge speakers stacked on top of each other, stage, mics etc. Then the big evening comes and you’re greeting 1000 people, have to change clothes 10 times (really, the bride told me she had 10 outfits she had to wear throughout the 4-11pm event). These outfits are seriously down to business, not your run-of-the-mill bridal wear, no, these are silk, traditionally wrapped skirts, gold belts, gold ankle cuffs, heals, sequined adorned and embroidered tops, several gold wrist cuffs, serious earrings, necklaces, hair-up-to-there, gold and diamond crown, sequined sash and pieces of silk folded specially and tucked into the belt to hang a certain way…no joke, this takes more than a 10min. switch-a-roo (and this is only the bride I tell you…the groom has got it easy, change of jacket/shirt/flower on the lapel, that’s it). Anyway, enough to make me want to run far away (but they have to stand at the entrance until just about all 1000 people have come through!) We, the guests, are the lucky ones (Although the ‘cards’ that are expected as gifts, also expect a ‘gift’ of at least $20US per couple or guest, the bride and groom are actually the lucky ones here…). We’re received at the grand, flowered entrance way by the lovely couple, picture-taking begins, including video and interview style and then we’re greeted by the wedding party and are given a lovely jasmine ring of flowers, which is one of my favorite scents, it’s almost like instant, low impact perfume. perfect. Then we sit down immediately to await the food (which will only be served once you have all 9 people at your table completely seated). Once we have the magic number, beers are cracked open (along with the ‘weak’ drinks of water and soda, as I’m informed by my table-mates), several rounds of ‘cheers!’ clanking of the glasses and shouts for more ice are heard from every table.

Quick Cambodian Fact: Beer is not proper without two huge hunks of ice floating in it at all times.

Since I’m the token foreigner in the party, everyone wants to share their beer with me, ‘cheers’ with me and all the rest. It’s a bit tiring and soon I have to pretend to be drinking my beer after each raucous clank!--as we haven’t eaten yet, I’m a bit dehydrated from wearing this seriously heavy silk full-length skirt and we’re packed in like sardines and I’ll be under the table before the food comes (as many of you know my tolerance level). Ha, but I’m not alone! My new friends at the table I’m finding drink like mad and get pretty drunk pretty fast, so soon, I don’t even have to worry, these two insistent men at the table trying to get me to go head-to-head in drinking of the Angkor beer are almost over the top and don’t realize I’m ‘cheering’ them with my 7Up. Good escape.

So, the food begins to arrive—5 types of deep fried appetizers: shrimp, pork egg rolls, fish, fish balls, pork, pork rinds (you know the special Chinese restaurant variety in white and pink colors, like puffed up wafers resembling Styrofoam?), plus pickled shallots, roasted cashews and dried, shredded and pounded fish. Yummy stuff. Next courses include, one-by-one: more fried fish, then grilled beef, pork, then seafood noodle green papaya/mango/cabbage salad, then a HUGE steamed fish, Thom Yum Seafood Soup—served in a bundt-pan type sterno warmer/boiler that’s already bubbling as it is placed on the table, then the fried rice and white rice and more if we wanted! Final course—Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum packs and big boxes of raisons for everyone to take home. Man, it was an eating frenzy. Then the bride’s father continues to make the rounds toasting more beer, bringing over bottles of Johnny Walker to special tables (the bottles are gone in minutes)…my table-mates and I are done for; we’re full, bloated, a bit drunk, sweating like mad—still packed like sardines, still 90degrees with 90% humidity and still in full length heavy silk skirts. Every part of my body was sweating. We slip out from our table finally and make our way to the big heart box waiting for our card ‘gifts’. I asked a friend if I could give some nice bowls I bought in Vietnam to the bride and groom instead of giving money (I hate just giving money for weddings…)—anyway, I got a funny look and was told that’s just not cool. Ok, so I slipped ‘em my cash.

As we were walking towards the door ready to call it a night, we noticed some colleagues trying to call us over to their table. Happily we joined them, but then, the clanking and toasting and more beer with ice followed—actually forced upon us (lovingly of course ;) before we headed out. Just as we were really ready to leave this time, the bride caught us—she was clearly upset we hadn’t made it to the dance floor, so as good guests, we headed back for a round on the dance floor, her leading me step-by-step, by hand…I looked pretty silly trying to attempt traditional Khmer dancing, but I gave it a shot. Everyone got a good laugh but that’s cool, most people were pretty tipsy at the point anyway! After two songs, the bride felt for us and ushered us to the exit and onto our motos, waving us good-bye and with thanks. I know the girl musta’ been thinking, thank God, push the rest of these folks out now too! I know I woulda’ been…

"How to Drive in Indonesia"/Cameroon/possibly Cambodia...other favorite developing country

2006-04-28T18:17:00.000+07:00

Well, I was unpacking more of my goods in the house and came across this hysterical article that was given to me in Peace Corps--I wanted to find the original to give due credit to the master who wrote this fantastic piece, so I would like to share it with you. Please read and have a good laugh, you'll LOVE it, especially if you've been to any country where driving rules, regulations, street lights, stop signs, actual roads, speed limits, driver's ed etc. DO NOT EXIST!

"How to Drive in Indonesia"
Jon Carroll:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/20/DDGO453EOE1.DTL

Ants and Frogs

2006-04-27T10:08:00.000+07:00

Ok, the ants in this country are serious, organized and ready to strike at any notion, however slight, that food will be, has been, or is in the process of falling to the counter, ground, desk, computer key board, etc. Never have I quite experienced their madness like here in Cambodia. Really. I know this may sound kind of typical to some of you, but damn, nothing can be sealed tight enough. Worse than Cameroon. They are even in my refrigerator (while it’s running, not only when the electricity is out!) climbing up the side, inside around the mustard jar and sniffin’ out my UHT sealed-tight milk. Don’t even get me started on the soda/beer can candle holders I’ve made—the candle light attracts the bugs, fire kills ‘em, they drop inside the candle holder and within seconds the ants are all over the dead stuff. Madness I tell you. The poor project officer who works with me must have dropped some crumbs next to his printer, it was covered, swarmed even, the guy had to finally remove himself and his cell phone, jump drive and planner as they were over-running his desk-top area. And, my favorite, in the middle of the kitchen floor a nice large flying roach has been killed and well, I just have to wait about 24 hours and I’ll find the thing more than half way across the kitchen on its way to the small crevasse between the molding on the door and the wall—save for the mighty stream of ant-workers, nothing is left behind. Ok, so they’re good for some things.

Anyway, there are a lot of interesting creatures and critters here (these crazy spiders I’ll report on at a different point)—frogs like you wouldn’t believe. I had a really cute small one jumping around my house and several taking up residence on the porch the other night after a good 30 min. rain. I actually learned about how useful frogs can be in providing sustainable support for vulnerable households here…guess? Yes, they’re easy to produce and they’re healthy and nutritious too! One of the other CBOs we work with here is piloting a project where they have introduced this new, big, hearty version of frogs from Thailand and are harvesting tadpoles and training community members on small scale, sustainable production for households. It takes very little input—just some water (clearly there’s plenty of it in the rainy season, even fairly accessible in the dry season), a net and some careful watching and a little shade. Presto, those bad-boys produce like no tomorrow and keep producing. I was pretty impressed and people love to eat frog here so it’s not even an issue about introducing a different, unaccepted type of food. We’re going to invite these folks to talk about this and their other very appropriate interventions to our workshop in June for our partners.

Otherwise, work is keeping me quite busy and I don’t see any break in the near future…however, I just found out today that I’ll be going to Zambia in July for about 4 days for an Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) project technical conference for the organization. Very cool. I’ve never been to Zambia and I’m really excited to learn about new and different approaches to support OVC in more sustainable and practical ways so this should be good.

Other things that I’m learning about:
-Avian flu and how to set up a rapid response system if an outbreak occurs (and if it spreads to humans);
-Integrated Farming Management Systems; Farming techniques that use the whole farm/household to sustain and provide inputs (chicken coops over fish ponds, production of liquid fertilizer (I know, very cool), well, the frog production of course and wild fish preservation (one intervention protects them in a pond near a pagoda in the dry season and then in the rainy season release them into the rice paddies to help the whole fertilization, growing process--fish eat good stuff, release good stuff and the farmers can fish traditionally/naturally to keep 'em in check—the whole process is connected so the fish remaining actually make their way back to the pagoda—it’s amazing);
-The health system, referral system, home-based care services and the operational district (Ministry of Agriculture uses this) vs the health center coverage areas (Provincial Health Department and Provincial AIDS Authority use this) in Svay Rieng province, which overlap somewhat since our project works in agriculture defined target areas but we work through the PHD/PAA and health center coverage areas;
-Low input gardening
-And Khmer—Good night=Rea (roll the ‘r’ a little) tri (like ‘try’) souah s-dey (like sa+‘die’); mango=svay (as in 'Svay' Rieng--we have lots of mangos here--lucky for me ;)

Pictures of Svay Rieng

2006-04-24T13:41:00.000+07:00

An elephant walking down the river front in Phnom Penh...

Also, driving to Phnom Penh, a bit overloaded and...

See some pictures of Svay Rieng: Favorite Restaurant (with my blue bike in front ;) ...

More to come and Vietnamese pics on the way!

Vietnam Get Away...

2006-04-24T12:42:00.000+07:00

Some things about Vietnam that struck me as interesting:
-Despite the 100+F temperature, women wear jackets, long pants and socks with their cute kitten-heeled sandals, and the best part: full length, past the elbow evening-type gloves. Really. Plus cute gardening hats, sunglasses and full on burqua-esque face covers (although for quite different reasons)—ladies, this is what we call serious protection from the sun, smog, exhaust, fumes and overall dirtiness of the city. I was in a shoe shop in HCMC on the main shopping drag and YES!—They had my size in a nice slip-on flat sandal in black. Perfect. Plus they were only $15, a steal for leather sandals. Anyway, I realize that my ragged-y a**, dirty, sweaty American sized clodhopper feet (compared to the Vietnamese ladies…) go to try on these cute little shoes, next to an oh-so-stylish, petite, non-sweaty and perfectly clean-footed Vietnamese woman who just pulled up on a moto in the same 100+F weather I did, (no doubt after whizzing through the same smog and mad traffic, just as I had done) and she’s all pulled together—and those feet! Nice. After slipping my sandals off and gasping at my feet, the kind shoe-sales woman helped me buckle the shoes, but I quickly felt REALLY BAD and decided I needed to give this woman a break and head back to the guesthouse to wash my feet before shopping any longer. But this woman next to me in the shoe shop wasn’t the only one looking perfect. No, almost all the women do. The visions of completely covered women on motos struck me. That’s it girls, they just completely cover themselves, literally from head to toe when they leave the house. Once reaching their destination, they don’t remove the first layer until safely inside or in a garden or restaurant somewhere protected from the elements...hmmm, not so easy, I think. Anyway, it’s a funny sight, I wasn’t sure what to think at first with the long gloves and all, but hey, it works. You just might see me with some socks and my cute little sandals on sometime soon. But there was more to take in in Vietnam than how-to keep-clean-in-the-heat.

No problems from the border to HCMC, but once in this bustling town, the driver of the 25 or so person bus I was in became a bit distracted or something and ended up hitting the taxi in front of us, who then of course hit the taxi in front of him. I’m surprised we actually hit another car/bus/large vehicle, as the streets are almost entirely filled/overflowing/over-run by motos and bikes. Anyway, no one was hurt, but the taxi drivers who were hit were really pissed off and lots of yelling, screaming, pointing and running around ensued. I decided not to wait around for another bus or more of a scene (as they were trying to keep us all on the broken down one while another arrived, yeah right)—it was 5:30pm, universal time for rush hour and I would have been there for hours. I hoped off and found another taxi to take me to my guesthouse.

I arrived and relaxed on the top floor room, across from the rooftop terrace with a lovely breeze (!) and overflowing flower pots—it was a nice $10/night with A/C and hot water. Cute place, the woman had lived in France for sometime and was very accommodating, loaning me Vietnamese Dong to pay for the taxi, chatting me up etc. I quickly left the hotel though in search for some snacks and found some good Pho (beef noodle soup with your choice to add whatever you like—sugar, MSG, salt, soy sauce, hot peppers, lime, fresh basil leaves, bamboo shoots) and of course, really good Vietnamese iced coffee (I love this stuff! The French passed this nice thing along…).

Friday morning I hit the street early to walk around the neighborhoods a bit and then went to a few pagodas. Both were Chinese influenced and the first one was a Taoist pagoda—lots of turtles in the pond as well. Beautiful, quite old (was first built in 1780s) and peaceful. This was a good way to start the day. The second spanned across about 5-6 blocks and I did happen upon the monks just as they were sitting down to eat; I milled around a bit until they finished, and lucky to be around to hear them chanting after their meal and watched them as they filed out of one of the buildings. At the same time, a man sitting in one of the courtyards began playing a traditional wood-carved flute. It was a mental reprieve from the heat and thoughts of work.

My afternoon consisted of typical sports fare in HCMC for all good barang (foreigners): shopping, eating more in the market, exploring the food section and trying to figure out what was in the bins, barrels, sliced open on the tables, and being lead away from the stench. Someone had cracked open a durian. Ugh. Bad smell, bad taste (in my opinion at least). With my arms weighted down, I figured why stop now? I headed to the supermarket! I really needed some milk (yup, the nice stuff you don’t have to refrigerate…), cereal, nutella (!) and other goods that I can’t buy in Svay Rieng…The last part of my day consisted of weaving in and out of the mad hoard of tourists (yes, me among them) through the “Russian Market” section of town—lots of little stalls, somewhat reminiscent of Chinatown NY where you can buy the BEST (or worst…depending) rip-off North Face, Alpine Lowe, LL Bean etc. backpacks, duffel bags and all the Fendi/Gucci/Prada rip-offs you could ever hope for; most under $7-8, cheap! Bangkok, Phnom Penh and other SE Asian cities have the same, so this was no surprise, but the quality seemed superior here in Uncle Ho land…the handmade paper and stationary shops also happen to be in this area and I was loving that.

I ended up ducking in and out of my neighborhood (backpacker haven, yes indeed) for the rest of the night, window/stall shopping and well, yes, broke down and ordered a cheese burger and fries. I was noodle-d and rice-d out…that’s it here in Svay Rieng, so ‘eh, I splurged $2 and I was full.

My morning was rushed to try to get out of town as I was really lucky to use one of the webcam-stocked internet cafes to reach my dear friends and loved ones: Matt, Mary, Laura, Pat, Betsy and Chris, having quite a Friday night at Silver Spring Towers, apartment 601 dart championship (and unofficial, drink till you pass out party). It was great to see everyone, although with somewhat of a lag, but I think that represented well their state of mind by the time I called them. I can’t wait to get back on the ‘cam (let me know if you have access!)…after an hour of laughing, IM-ing and making faces into the ‘cam, I said good-bye and picked up my nice traditional Vietnamese long silk top with pants—tres chic…but the rest of my day wasn’t so chic…I ended up sitting at the bus station for an hour or so trying not to gag on the fumes in the mid-day heat. Getting to the border then wasn’t the tough part, crossing back into Cambodia became an issue, as the Phnom Penh office assured me their paperwork would do the trick. Well, not quite and after trying to communicate with the border police (calling in a Khmer NGO friend who gives HIV/AIDS workshops to the border police was also a worthy try but yielded no results…) I just gave up and took another month-long business visa. We’ll see what happens when I go to PP and enter the annals of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to try to resolve it…

Finally made it home after swerving in and out of teenagers running on the street and others 5 (!) to a moto, throwing baby powder and water on each other to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Somewhat eventful trip, but I returned home and had electricity for the whole night! Perfect…

Other favorite things in Vietnam:
-Construction helmets/hard hats are just as useful as motorcycle helmets;
-Being labeled ‘big-girl size’ (repeated to me about 4 times over the course of 2 hours of shopping—apparently anyone above a size 8…);
-Every internet café in HCMC has webcams!
-There is a lot of green space that people actually use here—fierce games of badminton (really) and the -Vietnamese version of hacky-sack played by all ages;
-Rooftop patios (although these are a must in Phnom Penh as well);
-Did I mention the really good iced coffee????;
-Hour long massages by the blind masseuses at the Traditional Vietnamese Medicine Hospital;
-Pho (soup, see above) and Bun (noodles, room temp, little spring rolls cut up, chicken/pork/beef, vinegar and fish sauce, lettuce, fresh basil, bamboo shoots, carrots, hot pepper, tamarind sauce and hot sauce if you like, all mixed up together);
-Really good coffee, teas and all types of teapots and cups you could ever hope for;
-Propaganda posters all over the place in the typical pop-art-esque style…
**pictures coming soon**

Happy Khmer New Year!

2006-04-13T10:24:00.000+07:00

Well, Khmer New Year is in full swing in Svay Rieng Town, the market is packed with flowers, bread (!), fruit (apples from China even) and people, plus I finally moved into my house! I'm out of the rat-running Wai Ko Hotel! That place had A/C and a generator all the time, but I'm not interested in going back unless the power is out and it gets above 120F. I don't mind bugs, ants, even spiders (if I know they're harmless) but rats kinda' get to me and the Wai Ko delivered with a nice big one sneaking under my door at night to rustle through my garbage. Ugh. Anyway, on to more interesting things...I'm off of work for 3 days to celebrate the new year (see office to the left, HIV/AIDS unit on the first floor) and I'm going to Vietnam today around 2pm to get my visa straightened out and to check out Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon...I hear Hanoi is a better get away, but I'm excited to check it out and do a little shopping of course, to stock up on supplies like milk and veggie cleaner (yeah, yeah, I know all of you PC people are scoffing at me, but hey, Bird Flu is here, gots to be careful ;)

Other things: Khmer New Year party at the office was rockin'! I learned how to dance to Cambodian pop music, some traditional music and some really bad electro-pop junk sampled from Australia or something, but hey, the meat was grillin' and the beer was flowing. Everyone thought it would be funny to see the two 'barang' (foreigners) play games with the kids (but man the adults were all over the games too!) so I batted around with a blindfold to hit a clay pot jammed with baby powder (not so cool), down from a string dangling it from the rafters. Their version of a pinata...not sure if the Mexicans or the Cambodians got that one first...Anyway, I wish it had been filled with candy. So, onto musical chairs, which ended up being a bit more of a contact sport since the kids pulled up their chairs to make a nice audience for the adults who pushed them out of the way to play! They love this game! Anyway, games were for the afternoon, meat grilling (pork, beef and some sort of wild deer?) and dancing for the night. See some pictures attached.

Otherwise, life has been busy, meeting with our partners who we are funding for the project to figure out how we will move forward, planning, budgeting, more budgeting and sweating it out in the office (we don't have A/C yet). I'll add pics and more talk about my house in a bit.

So, Happy year of the Dog to you all! And I wanted to include some Khmer script for you to read but my computer doesn't support it and it's quite large in terms of space...more soon!

Arrival in Cambodia

2006-04-08T15:45:00.000+07:00

There is a lot to share here and I'm way behind, but it's Khmer New Year! Year of the Dog and the office party is rockin'...the sounds system is set up, food is cookin' and kids are running around. I hear there will be lots of beer and rice wine, so pictures and a report soon...

2006-04-08T15:13:00.000+07:00

PIP!

More from Texarkana and Michigan Visits

2006-04-08T14:33:00.000+07:00

So, a little trouble posting pictures last time, sorry about that. Please see now the lovely pics of Texarkana and some from Michigan where I had a great time seeing friends and family, eating lots of good food and hanging out (also getting a little stressed about leaving, but that's typical). Highlights from Michigan: seeing Mim and Pip, playing a serious game of BINGO, seeing the new babies and connecting with friends and family from long ago and not-so-long ago.

I was really lucky to spend a few days with Mim and Pip--it had only been since Christmas but seemed like a long time. It was special to be able to catch up with them, hear them laugh and hear Mim wishing and praying for BINGO! Pip told me about going to Lowe's and buying supplies to fix up the garage/tool shed/hide out in the back and that he was planning to make a new bench. His sweet smile and hearty laugh made me believe he would be out there this spring getting things in order and making his way outback each day to think up new projects (and take his beloved scooter out for a spin). I cherish the few days I had with him, slept on the couch (as BINGO downriver goes on late!), saw him in the morning and one more day and then a week later he passed away. He lived a long and full 90 years--I'm lucky to have been with him just a week before...I think a lot of you met him and know what a sweet, caring man he was and how much he loved and cared for his family. I think Matt can attest to that at Christmas when he got the introduction: "You take care of my girl or else I'll call my boys up down at the KofC hall..." He was serious! He's in a better place now, but we miss him so much.

Life before Cambodia

2006-03-19T03:37:00.000+07:00

Sitting in borders, taxes done.....still in DC, but getting anxious to go! It was a strange week filled with good-byes and excitement and uncertainty. But movies were watched, dinners were had and drinking was done ;) Thanks to everyone for sending me off so well! It still felt rushed but nothing could have changed that.

The few weeks off of work were great--visiting family and friends and new babies in Michigan, Matt's family and friends in Texas (love Freebirds!). Eating soul food to 'thicken' the thighs' as Vern likes to say, raiding the Self magazine beauty closet with the help of Beth and her colleagues and strolling (the cold) NYC was well worth the first portion of the trip had in a Uhaul by myself from DC to NY. See some pictures from the adventures: Mary, Laura and Matt eating and drinking it up! Vern, Rohit and Dom enjoying the eatin' in NY and me lovin' burritos at Freebirds.

Texas was a trip and thanks to Jeremy and Kendall who took us in for a few nights, Lura for taking us to a real Mexican breakfast spot and driving us to the airport and for Matt's family for taking us in for a few days--his brother-in-law definitely kept things exciting and we even got to see a few (yes, more than one) bar room brawl at the favorite Texarkana hang out. It was dang bueno. Also, you can see the nice picture of me in two states at once (I know you're really thrilled, but it was cool!) Matt's parents went above and beyond, putting up with us, feeding us and even driving ALL over town to find me the coolest Texarkana t-shirt "Texarkana Twice as Nice"...awe yeah, you wish you had one. The little old lady in the shop would be real pleased if you wanted one too, let us know and we'll hook you up on the next trip.