A day of highs and lows

The day started a bit low with Kenny and I finally getting on each others' nerves (but you gotta hand it to us, living in such close quarters, we do quite well) so we took the day to hang out on our own and made plans to meet up at dinner. A little bit sad, but knowing it was the best idea, I headed off to the temples for one last dose of ancient history mixed with plenty of scorching sun and dust. I biked around behind some of the temples that had no crowds (I had at least two of them completely to myself) while listening to Etta Baker blues songs. Finally the bike pains in my neck drove me back through the gates and towards the landmine museum, which was probably the most interesting, best put together "museum" I've ever been to: it's a guy's house, this man who is barely ten years older than myself, named Aki Ra, who lives there with his wife and about a dozen kids and teenagers, all victims of landmine accidents. The kids live and work there and in turn, visitors are inspired to pledge money for their university educations if they can get themselves through high school (and these are some really smart, clever kids-- all learning English quickly via tourists who visit the museum). Aki Ra and his wife basically go out on trips to the Cambodian countryside and dismantle live mines with sticks and knives. They take pictures, get friends to write up English and Japanese captions explaining what's going on, and hen they post them all over the walls of their barn-meets-car port thing that they use for the main museum. So it's pictures, informative papers, and a tone of dismantled explosive devices, just piles of them. Pretty amazing, and just so homemade looking that I found myself absorbed for much longer than is customary in big citified air-con museums back home. Aki Ra has been in so many newspapers all over the world, I'm sure you can find more info if you google him.

Then I changed dollars to Baht to prepare for tomorrow's loooong bus ride across the border to Thailand. It's supposed to be 10-14 hours, not counting the stop at the border. We got the earliest bus we could, leaving at 7am, but it looks like we're going to be getting in in the middle of the night. Blechh. Guess we better figure out where we're heading once we reach Bangkok. I'm a little intimidated by the idea of Bangkok, but as our friend Erik said, "if you can live in Saigon, you can definitely do Bangkok." I certainly hope so.

The high point of the day for me was once we had met up and headed out for dinner, looking for cheap eats: we're walking down Bar Street (the nicely lit, not-really-Cambodia part of town) and we come across a troupe of Korean percussion artists, who look like they could be a high school drum corp except for the amazing headgear and funky costumes. These kids were rocking out with hand drums, drums with sticks, silvery gong things, and long white tassels attached to their hats that somehow they managed to swing around their heads in perfect synchronicity. Way cool.

Oh yeah: pictures are up at Flickr! Check out the temples and our random snaps of Phnom Penh.

Oh, my aching everything.

That was one of the longest and most rewarding days in the history of me. The fact that it was all done in the Cambodian dry-season heat makes it on the top ten list of most exhausting but important days ever. We started around 7am after a really great night's sleep (nothing like a long bus ride and clean sheets to make you sleep like the dead) and packed our bags and made coffee. We're doing the instant thing, since it's really the ritual that's important at this point, not the quality. Plus, hot water is free in most places. Aughh, I know, we're awful. But it's gotta be this way or we couldn't travel for 8 weeks. Anyway, today we knew where we were going so we hit the road on our squeaky, creaky bikes. Last night my knee was really sore, so I did some experimenting to see if I could use the three gears more efficiently. Turns out all I had to do was shift into the middle gear, meaning I couldn't go as fast unless I wanted to pedal like a maniac. Oh well. So we started at Angkor Wat and spent the whole morning there, acclimatizing ourselves to the museum-meets-Disneyland feel of the place. I actually really like these kinds of places, where you hear dozens of different languages and accents go by you. Pretty fun. The morning was spent climbing crazily steep sets of ancient stone stairs, walking around oohing and ahhing and taking pictures, and trying to imagine what the place would have been like throughout the centuries. Angkor Wat was built in 1191, if I remember correctly, but I probably don't. My brain is sort of cooked right now. At noon we hid ourselves in a shady alcove near the steps of the inner wall and ate our cheapskate lunch: we got 4 apples and 5 baguettes for $2.25, which had to get us through breakfast and lunch and any snacks we might want. It actually wasn't a bad system: the bread here is the same as the Vietnamese banh mi style, medium sized squishy white bread with a good flaky crust, made fresh all over the city every morning. After lunch we got back on the bikes and went up the road to Angkor Thom, the great city of yestercentury, which has many ruins and even more trails going all over the place for miles. We were digging the breeze and the fun of making our peasant bikes do mountainbike things, so we spent a good long while just traversing the dusty trails, winding around beautiful temples and wilderness Buddhas wrapped in orange and saffron cloths. It was truly the high point of this year so far. Maybe it was all the carbs from the brad, but I felt this exhileration (don't laugh) in my soul. I was so grateful to be exactly where I was, and I felt to lucky to be able to see one of the wonders of the world for myself. Cause yeah, there are pictures of all this stuff online already, and I could stay home and read a book. But the smells of the temples, all the incense and old sandstone and that cool dark smell of high ceilings-- now I *know* what it's like to be here. And if anyone's thinking of going, bicycles are the way to go. Maybe not the oldschool $1.50 a day bikes that are more dust than cushion, but biking it is the most fun way to see this place, I guarantee.

After Angkor Thom, we left the city walls and proceeded north to Preah Khan, which turned out to be Kenny's favorite temple so far (mine is Bayon). It was a lot of walking, a lot of stepping up and over things at just about shin height, and then a long ride back in the sunset. Right now, my neck and shoulders ache from the not-quite-right lengths of the bike and handlebars, my toe aches from where I dropped the bike on it, and my scalp itches from sweating and then getting covered in road dust, then sweating again.

But you know what? I'm in Cambodia! This is awesome!

In Siem Reap!

After a long bus ride over incredibly bumpy roads, we finally hit our Northernmost point so far, Siem Reap, Cambodia. Better known as the town outside Angkor Wat and the other heavyweight temples, it's a major artery on the tourist trail, and we knew we would be broadsided with motorbike offers, tuk-tuk toters, and all kinds of beggar children, so we were sort of prepared. We accepted the classic "free ride" to a guesthouse, but it was kind of in the middle of nowhere plus it had no internet cafes, so we gave the guy a dollar (standard rate) and despite his protestations that there were No guesthouses available for our desired rate (under $5) and there was NO way we could ride bicycles to the temples (he wanted us to go in his tuk tuk), we took off walking, which is sort of becoming a theme. After getting slightly confused and a bit snippy, we finally found a really cute little wooden guesthouse right off the main drag but miraculously very quiet for $3 a night. Sweet! And they have a porch with hammocks. Rock on. So. We rented bikes from the guy next door for $1.50 a day and took off towards the temples to buy our season pass. I mean our 3-day pass. It just felt so much like going to Carowinds or Six Flags! Looooong roads with signs that were probably saying things like, "hey, you're almost there!" and "don't forget to stop by the ticket booth, now, or we'll throw you in jail." Or something. It was awesome! We felt like such glorious cheap-skates, especially as tuk-tuk after tuk-tuk passed us by with sweaty travellers in tow, baking in the sun to the sounds of "ca-ching!" coming ominously from the wheels below. Hmm, maybe I'm over exaggerating the expensiveness of this town, but honestly: it seems like if you wanted to, you could have a real luxury experience here in the middle of the freaking jungle. So the deal is, when you buy your pass after 5pm, it starts the following day, which lets you in for a free sunset, or at least until they close the place down around 6. So we biked up the path, feeling delirious from having just parted with $80, and suddenly we're seeing some ancient moat action and there it is: Angkor Wat. In all it's big old carved stone Hindu-then-Buddhist glory. The sun set, and it was gorgeous, and then the moon rose, which was even better. And the best part is, our pass starts tomorrow, so we got a glimpse and a practice bike ride before the value for money even begins. Muahahah!! We are budget travellers, watch us re-total our spendings so far! Ha!

Ok, one thing of note: the baby riding in the seat behind us on the bus today suddenly had no pants on when I looked back for like the millionth time to see what the heck all the fuss was about. Sure enough, upon reaching our final destination, it exploded in a green poopy mess, somehow coating the entire back of the bus. "Go, go go! Get off the bus NOW!"

Life on the road.

(Laos_inter@hotmail.com)

Thoughts on Cambodia (so far)

I'm really sleepy from a filling but forgettable meal, so bullet points it is.

Thoughts on Cambodia, So Far:
-people are darker and broader. In Vietnam everyone was bleaching their skin and dressing to the nines but here, it's a little more of a natural look. Guys are buffer. Girls are rounder. And skin colors are a gorgeous range of bronzy browns.

-being a backpacker is weird... it's really convenient (cheap prices, lots of English spoken) and a neat little mini-society (everything is so close together!), but also kinda disgusting (blatant hooker activity and their mangy customers; cafeteria food at cafeteria prices).

- the Boeng Kak lakeside area in Phnom Penh is fun. Our room, though right on the street, was quiet enough last night for *really* good sleep. Heavy, dark, dead-to-the-world sleep. Nice.

-the Tuol Sleng Museum is Cambodia's answer to Europe's Holocaust museum. It was gruesome but really well done. Very respectful to the victims of the Khmer Rouge. But it was a little much to see the torture photos and to look down and realize that we were standing on the same tiled floor that the killing took place on. Yikes.

-it's really freaking hot and dusty here. Also, when choosing from a myriad of bathroom options, with toilet paper is better than with bidet (just my preference), but "squatty potties" are preferable to regular sit down toilets because let's face it, if you're not keen to touch your skin to a surface, squatting low is more comfy than doing the "thighs of steel" hover.

-buses are plentiful on the tourist trail. There are so, so many ways to get from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, and I'm willing to bet that there are just as many (maybe more) to get us from Siem Reap to Bangkok. In this way, being prepared can be nice but you can also just show up and there will be many guys with motorbikes and tuk-tuks (these guys are called touts) ready to take you somewhere you didn't know about before.

-and despite it all, I still really like Lonely Planet. People like to turn up their noses and say it's too touristy, too mainstream, blah blah and sure, they're right: if you live your life out of a lonely planet book you'll be sure to feel like a tourist all the time. But I've found it really helpful when you don't want to carry a map, a language guide, a list of attractions, and a description of local foods around with you. So far, so good.

-catching the bus at 6:50 am tomorrow! gotta go snooze.

In Phnom Penh, Cambodia

New year, new country:

The beach was amazing. It really did feel like living in a postcard, but in such a comfortable way. I wrote a little while I was there, but that's all on Kenny's computer, so I'll post them here later. The particular part of the island that we were on, Sao Beach, was far away from the crowds, incredibly cheap to live on, and the ocean was perfect for walking out really, really far before the water rose over your head. So many pictures taken, so much to say about the place... how can I sum it up? I guess I really liked that we were staying in a little beach bungalow run by a seafood restaurant ("My Lan"). They didn't really speak much English, and they never came in our hut to do typical hotel stuff (sheets, trash, cleaning) but that turned out to be why we liked it so much. Really rustic and easy. The bungalow had a bed with a mosquito net and a cabinet for our clothes and not really much else, and that was perfect. The floor was just smooth beach boards and so we swept the sand away easily (the sand that gets everywhere is always my least favorite part of the beach). We woke up at sunrise every morning, pulled on our bathing suits, and walked the 20 feet or so to the ocean, and usually I went on a walk in the early morning waves and Kenny went for a run up and down the beach. We would come back to our little hut, shower off and pull on some shorts or something, and have breakfast of fresh fruit cut up for us by the staff. Pineapple, watermelon, baby oranges... yum. Then it was up to us to decide in which order we wanted to do our things that we do: going somewhere on the motorbike (that we rented for $5 a day and which Kenny bravely drove), swimming, sunning, reading, and of course eating seafood. The restaurant had some fisherboys (they looked really young, like 15) that came up every evening at sunset and sold them what they had caught. The specialties were great hotpots, squid, scallops, giGANtic prawns, and for some reason chicken. We had all of these things in soups, grilled in front of us on a grill, stir-fried, and deep fried at least once. It was SO good. So fresh. And (you knew this was coming) so cheap. I'll just say that meals in the restaurant a few times a day plus fruit from the market came to a grand total of about $90 for the whole week (for two of us). And we shared a lot of our fruit. Oh, man. It was good stuff.

So we took a day in Saigon to do last minute errands, getting ready for the big trip. Getting money out of the ATMs, changing it to dollars, buying more floss, picking up stuff from various places, and (for Kenny) spending lots of time running around to various internet cafes to do law school application tasks. We went to Pham Ngu Lau for New Years Eve but to be honest it was pretty boring. There was fistfuls of glitter being thrown on our heads (and down our shirts, and in our eyes) and beers were 60,000 ($4, which is outrageous for Saigon). We stayed for the countdown, hollered for a minute, sand Auld Lang Syn, and then crashed like the tired kids we were (thanks, Mike, for lending us your room!).

Early this morning, January 1, we caught a bus to Phnom Penh. The border crossing was simply amazing: it was my first time seeing bribes in action from government officials. The best part was seeing a uniformed Cambodian official stick a stack of Vietnamese passports down the back of his pants and run off, coming back a few minutes later with (apparently) the paperwork done and the passports stamped, which he gave to a group of Vietnamese men who then motioned their wives excitedly out of the queue. "Lets go! We're done!" Things like this were happening all around us. Finally, though, we got to Phnom Penh and had a nice walk from the Capitol area to the Boeng Kak Lake area, which felt almost exactly like walking in Saigon, except that I felt even more illiterate. The Cambodian/Khmer script is beautiful, and to me it looks like Georgian tried to eat Hebrew and took a Saudi Arabian digestive. It's square but twisty, with lots of neat tails and holes.

We arrived to find a trash-strewn but appealing backpacker street, much like Saigon' but smaller, with less right angles, and more Indian restaurants. It's pretty charming so far, but it's just now getting dark and I'm not sure how loud our $3 room will be. We had some vegetarian stir fry dishes at a cute little place that drew us with with the promise of a free beer with every meal (which turned out to mean one per table), and the food was salty but the veggies were fresh. Now we're tapping it up in one of the kazillion internet cafes, and I'm ready to read in bed, while Kenny will probably be here for quite awhile. Tonight he's applying to William and Mary and Duke. Cool, huh?

Next up: a day full of Phnom Penh, one more cheap night, and then a bus to Angkor Wat, where the real reason for Cambodia lies (for us, at least. For now).

Much much more later.

For the Birds!

Oh, man!

Yesterday I get out of the shower and Kenny is staring at the computer screen with a funny look on his face. The headline on the BBC World page is :

"New Birdflu Outbreak in the Mekong Delta!"

We looked at the article, we looked at the map. Are we going near where the outbreak is? Um, yes. We'll be in the boardering province. Crap. Should we still go? Part of our tour is to the floating markets, which means a good possibility of bird fecal matter. Plus, the article said that farmers have been dumping the dead birds into the water, which is everywhere...

So, after thinking it through, we decided that since the Mekong is not going anywhere, we can wait to do a little tour through it until March, when we'll be back down south, and who knows, maybe the outbreak will have petered out by then. We are probably being overly cautious. But it doesn't make too much of a difference if we go now or later, so why risk it?

We cancelled the tour, and will be taking a bus straight down to Rach Gia. This means we get to spend one extra day in the city, which is good, since I had forgotten to do going-to-the-beach things such as buy a giant bottle of sunblock and towels and get money out of the the bank and stuff like that. So while Kenny finishes his law school applications, so as not to have to think about them while we're cruising around the forests on rented motorbikes, I will go take care of errandy things.

Also, yesterday was my last day of tutoring. I handed the job over to Ciarna, who instantly wowed the kids with her cool games and funny faces. They're in great hands. And now I have two little pen-pals. :)

Argh, Packing

The snake pictures are online, buuut the video's not. We move out of our room in 48 hours and our days have mostly been spent doing practice packings and making give-away piles, during which we each open our suitcases and hop gingerly around each other in the teeny tiny amount of floorspace, and attempt to fit lots of stuff into our (suddenly too) small backpacks. I will definitely be needing to pay for an extra piece of baggage. Le sigh.

Quick news of note, each of which deserves a blog of its own, which just might happen: tonight the bus tried to race a dump truck full of gravel, which was surprisingly speedy. The other week we went to see the water puppet show and the best part was the full-on yowling cat fight taking place on the think plastic ceiling above us, climaxing when one of the toms, a scrappy-looking black and white cat, actually fell through the ceiling and into an empty chair in the audience. Wow. Also, my tutoring job ends this week, and along with it, any last source of income, which I think makes me a real backpacker, and no longer "cooler than a backpacker because um, I *live* here." Ah, well.

We leave on Friday morning (Thursday night for those in the states) for a two-day tour through the Mekong, which will land us in the little coastal town from which we catch our flight to Phu Quoc Island. Sunrises and freshly caught shrimp with limes squeezed on top. Hammocks. Novels. Long sandy walks. And motorbikes. Merry Christmas!

Baby on the bus

This little cutie was sitting in front of me on the ride home tonight, which was great, because 40 minutes of toddler giggles sure do drown out the constantly blaring bus horn. We played classic bilingual games such as "wiggle the fingers" and "no, you can't have the iPod!" I think his Mom was glad to have a break. He was pretty high energy. I taught him to say bye-bye.



So! Tonight we went to the snake resteraunt. I've got some really great pictures and videos documenting the adventure, so I'll make sure that tomorrow's blog tells the full story, but for now let me tell it in brief:

order the kind of snake you want (we went for the cobra), they bring it out to you and let it wriggle around by your feet, then they break the jaw and slit it open, squeezing the blood into one bottle of homemade rice liquor and the bile (yes, the bile!) into another. Then they cook the snake meat and you eat it while you take shots of blood and bile. Pictures coming soon.

Place Orders Here

Handwoven Material from Northern Vietnam

My Aunt Jane had a suggestion: that for any friends and/or family who may be reading my blog, I create a little online opportunity to have me bring home some of the great deals on beautiful handmade things that I can get so easily where I am.

[Since I don't really want to start up a comprehensive online store right now, I'm going to stick to one item: the handwoven pieces of material that are made up North. Since they have already sold this material to stall-owners in the markets here in Saigon, I will not have the chance to meet the actual creators of the material; if this kind of thing bothers you and feels exploitative, I understand. Shop here instead. But I figure I'm not too far from the source--I'm paying tourist prices, which guessing from the smiles I get at the markets will help to feed the families of the stall owners I'm buying from.]

So, basically what this is for is if you look at the material below and think, "hey, that looks great! I want Jess to bring back a few of those for me!" you can let me know how many you want and what sort of colors I should aim for, and I'll gather 'em all up and put them in a box before I fly home.

You won't get the material until March, because I don't want to risk your order getting lost in the Vietnamese postal system. Sometimes it's reliable and sometimes it can take months. So... to cover the excess baggage costs, let's say each piece of material will be $8.00. I'm guesstimating but I think that will cover my costs as well as be a good deal for you guys. And hey, no hard feelings if you decline. I'm putting my feelers out there, seeing if this would be welcome to anyone. So here goes!

THE MATERIAL:

Here's an overview of what the material looks like when folded up. Keep in mind that while I haven't altered the pictures in any way, I was taking the snaps in fluorescent light. This means that the colors, while true enough, are a lot less grainy and more vibrant than it looks like here.

THE SIZE OF THE PIECES:

Roughly 2' by 5'. These are handmade, so the size varies by a few centimeters from piece to piece. You can definitely make a blouse or skirt with one piece, though. The Vietnamese make them into handbags, camera cases, waterbottle holders, you name it.

THE COLORS!
Ok, here's the fun part. They're always different from one piece to the next, but I've noticed a pattern in similar color schemes. Here's what I've picked out as example pallets:

1. The Standard (orange, red, purple-- the most commonly found)


2. The Pastel (beautiful ashy pinks and lavenders)


3. The Christmas (forest green and red- made even more wintery by the snowflaky pattern woven into all of the pieces)


4. The Maroon (this one is like the standard but with a deep red instead of the firey orange)


5. The Purple (seem to be woven a little thicker; more indigo hues)


THE DETAILS:
Here are some macro shots of the woven bands of pattern that separate the main blocks of color.




HERE'S HOW IT WORKS!
Click the "add a comment" link below. In the name box, you can choose anonymous or type in your name, but either way please fill out the commentbox like this:
-YOUR NAME
-HOW MANY PIECES YOU WANT ME TO BUY FOR YOU
-WHICH COLORS YOU WOULD LIKE
and ANYTHING ELSE YOU WANT TO TELL ME!

**Payment:
I think we'll either do checks written to me, COD. Unless I can figure out my Paypal account before then! I'll work on it.

This entry will continue to be online. I'll write other journal entries, but you can navigate back to this one by using the archives on the right side of the page. In March, right before I leave, I will hit the markets and collect as close to what you would like as possible (keeping in mind that since these things aren't produced through a company, they're going to vary a little bit). When I arrive back in the states, I'll mail them to you (or if I'm lucky, I'll bring 'em to you myself).

Hope this doesn't come off as too enterprising. And now, back to your regularly scheduled travel blog. :)

playing poke 'er

It started a few mornings ago. I woke up suddenly because (I thought) my nose was bleeding. It was dark so I couldn't tell, but there was definitely a nose gushing feeling so I stumbled into the bathroom with my hand cupped under my nostrils to make clean up easier. But when I turned on the light, all I had was a cold. Since that morning, my throat has been scratchy and raw and my head has felt full of concrete. Blowing my nose is just wishful thinking. So my yoga teacher Suzanne has given me the name of her acupuncturist, and I'm going to call him this morning. Apparently he's this sweet old doctor who makes house calls and uses new needles for every patient and only charges 50,000 (currently $3.09). So far the acu-sciences seem to be spot on here, but I've only tried acupressure during a foot massage and some crazy "hurts so good" points along my neck. Whether proper needles will expedite my sinuses clearing out, we shall soon see.

Yesterday we went down to Pham Ngu Lao, known as the backpacker's district. Really it's only a few streets, not a whole district by any stretch of the imagination, but one can easily spend hours there, stopping by the little cafes, the touring companies that offer one to three day sightseeing trips (the mekong delta, the cu chi tunnels, etc), the big travel agent places where you can arrange your flights home, and of course the souvenir shops. I guess it's because I've got my plane ticket home that my mind has been suddenly switched into "collect" mode: whereas before I could walk right past a little shop full of beautiful carvings and silk shoes and handwoven tapestries, now I have this personal shopper in my brain going, "ooh, Mom would like that. Gotta remember to get those Tintin shirts. Those are Lauren's size. Find silver earrings for Jules" and so on. There are so many beautiful things here and they're really not too pricey. I know that I should wait, though, until we're on the road, because if they're affordable in Saigon they must be cheaper closer to the source (wherever that is). I know my Dad wants a silk bathrobe with a dragon on the back. What do you guys want?

Anyway, we went down there in order to check out a rumour that Kenny had heard, and it turned out to be very true. There is a store (well, there are probably many) that has oodles of copies of popular software titles and sells them for pennies on the dollar (dong on the dollar?). For example, we got Finale 2005 and Apple Soundtrack and some games and the newest Office suite for about $15 total (Ken says this would have cost about a thousand at home). So, here's to saving over nine hundred bucks via blatant copyright infringement! Can we console our guilty consciences with how much these companies are making? I don't know, we'll debate it later. As for now, though, I'm having so much fun playing You Don't Know Jack, my favorite trivia game from when I was a kid. It's like, if Wait Wait was a computer game with a really juvenile host. And a inexplicable pirate theme. With extra points if you 'screw' your opponent by forcing them to answer when they're unsure. And not about current events. It's like that.

So we bought our illegal software and got some breakfast at Allez Boo cause Kenny hadn't been there yet. Really what we were doing was pretending we're tourists. Trying to get a feel for what it will be like next month. There seems to be a pretty amiable atmosphere between backpackers, and we were hoping to run into someone who would just start rattling off great places to go to in CTandL (I'm tired of typing out Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos... oops) and we could pick their brains and work on our itinerary. But no one made a move, so we ate breakfast and bought cookies from the place where they take in people from the streets and help them learn how to make cookies and then tourists by them and it's better than begging. And then we went backpack shopping. We both needed something bigger than a regular backpack but something smaller than the huge internal frame packs we already have. Kenny needed one with a built in hard case for his camera. We found what we were looking for (mine is small on purpose to encourage myself not to overpack) and headed home, secure in the knowledge that even if we're not sure where we're going or if we can afford to stay away as long as we want to, at least we have good backpacks. P.s., not sure if I've mentioned it, but since Northface and Spyder and Colombia, etc all have their factories in Vietnam, you can find reeeeally cheap packs and winter jackets and ski suits and fleeces here. Before we come home we're doing winter jacket shopping in a big way. It's hard to believe that before I came over I was excited that I found a good breathable rain jacket for only $98. Laughable. And so sad to know that I have to get used to American prices again. Alas.