Folks have been asking for pictures, here's round one, Greg's pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/retsinas/Cambodia
My pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=329053&id=570535129
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Why I Don't Do This Very Often
Monday AM in Singapore, I get on a flight to Seoul Korea. Now we're back on Singapore Airlines, so yay, great food, tons of movies and TV shows. Got sucked into Glee AGAIN and again found myself saying "what a stupid show" while I kept watching and watching. I find all the main characters super irritating, and their lives/problems seem so artificial. But I love the bad guys. The cheerleading coach (Sue?) is great. But my I really love Brit and Santana, the two evil cheerleaders who are part of the glee club. They get some of the best lines (Santana to waitress: "You have to do what we say". Brit to no one in particular: "Did you know that dolphins are just gay sharks? It's true..")
Short layover in Seoul, long flight from Seoul to San Francisco. This is where things started to fall apart. I couldn't sleep at all and I just got more and more grouchy. Just existing felt painful. And for breakfast when I thought I was asking for "Chicken" fried rice it was actually "Kim chee" fried rice (Korea, go figure). I'm not sure it was the rice, but while I was eating it I started to feel sick to my stomach, which just got worse and worse.
We land, we get corralled into the extra-harrassment line in customs, I guess because coming from Cambodia makes us suspect. Shouldn't have been a big deal but when I am tired and stomach-flu-ey it felt like a big deal, I just wanted to hit someone. The line management wasn't so great, so people who came later than us were getting served first, I was simmering.
Mom and Dad were waiting for us, that was great. Got home, went right to bed. The stomach flu business got worse, I was basically laid up all day Monday and all of Tuesday. Nausea, vomiting, other delights. Just thinking about eating made me gag. Especially thinking about "Kim chee fried rice". Like serious pain just to consider it.
I can't blame the stomach flu on the flight, necessarily, but the whole experience of being sleepless for that long, feeling sick, disoriented, etc., is just so miserable. I love the idea of seeing the world but the travel is so, so, so awful.
Short layover in Seoul, long flight from Seoul to San Francisco. This is where things started to fall apart. I couldn't sleep at all and I just got more and more grouchy. Just existing felt painful. And for breakfast when I thought I was asking for "Chicken" fried rice it was actually "Kim chee" fried rice (Korea, go figure). I'm not sure it was the rice, but while I was eating it I started to feel sick to my stomach, which just got worse and worse.
We land, we get corralled into the extra-harrassment line in customs, I guess because coming from Cambodia makes us suspect. Shouldn't have been a big deal but when I am tired and stomach-flu-ey it felt like a big deal, I just wanted to hit someone. The line management wasn't so great, so people who came later than us were getting served first, I was simmering.
Mom and Dad were waiting for us, that was great. Got home, went right to bed. The stomach flu business got worse, I was basically laid up all day Monday and all of Tuesday. Nausea, vomiting, other delights. Just thinking about eating made me gag. Especially thinking about "Kim chee fried rice". Like serious pain just to consider it.
I can't blame the stomach flu on the flight, necessarily, but the whole experience of being sleepless for that long, feeling sick, disoriented, etc., is just so miserable. I love the idea of seeing the world but the travel is so, so, so awful.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Heading home
Sunday we had brunch at Raffles. Same awesome spread as before but since I was still mad at them about the business yesterday I was just extra crabby. There was supposed to be a guy manning the waffle bar, he wasn't around. I was getting really, really bent about that. What is their PROBLEM, where is my WAFFLE! Then I realized I probably should not stay in nice hotels any more.
Went to church, a smaller service this time because a lot of people went to Vietnam for a big hoe-down with the church there, complete with some sports tournaments that everyone was taking very seriously.
After lunch Greg and I went to lunch with Gerlinda, Chen-da, and a sister named Danay who may be coming to the Bay Area for law school. We went to an Italian place. All week long I'd had my eye on chocolate mousse (relic of French influence) but I'd never get one because I was always too full. I was determined to get one. I did, it was awesome, and large, and I ate the whole thing, which I really regretted because I was way too full to start with.
I got another massage (12 bucks, it would be immoral not to), and went to Gerlinda's to wait for the flight. We did a bit more Karaoke. I finally found the pitch control, which would have been really really helpful for Total Eclipse of the Heart. And I learned that I can't sing "Foolish Games". I know the song well, sing it all the time in the car, but in like 5 tries I could not find the starting note.
I had gotten a chocolate macaron in Siem Reap and left it there by accident (my favorite cookie, they look like little hamburgers, hard to find in the state). I made a big enough stink about it that Greg got me one when he saw it in a cafe on Sunday. I had that, along with some cookies leftover from the party, in a styrofoam container. I accidentally left it on the floor for a few seconds, and someone accidentally ran it over with their luggage cart. When they saw what they had done, they kicked it. Grr.
Landed in Singapore about 10PM. A good friend from college, Lily, met me in the airport there. I was very flattered, she actually flew in from Indonesia just to meet me in the airport so we could hang out a bit (I have a 10 hour layover). We went out and bummed around Singapore for a while. Got some street food (no major downsides yet but I do seem to have some... digestive quirks today). We went to the Sands, a huge and posh hotel/casino. Like nothing I have ever seen before. 3 curved skyscrapers next to eachother, with what looks like a giant deflated blimp lying across the top of all 3. We took an elevator up to the blimp part. There's a pool and nightclup up there, pretty amazing.
I went back to the airport at 1 and thought about getting a hotel room, my next flight would be at 8 AM. I tried the adjoining Crowne Plaza. $350 a night. Oh HECK no. I found what I thought was the transit hotel in the airport. I had stayed at one in 2001 when I went to india, a tiny but complete little hotel room in the airport. Turns out it was the travel *lounge*. What's the difference, you ask? The travel lounge has "nap rooms" that are just beds in cubicles separated by walls that don't even reach the ceiling. So you can hear everything. Like the old lady vacuuming at 2 AM. Or the guy next to me arriving, talking loud, undressing, and snoring. I went and complained at about 3:30 (I have been complaining a lot this trip). They made a bed for me on a massage table and I slept-ish there for a few hours (I have also been on masssage tables a lot this trip).
Went to church, a smaller service this time because a lot of people went to Vietnam for a big hoe-down with the church there, complete with some sports tournaments that everyone was taking very seriously.
After lunch Greg and I went to lunch with Gerlinda, Chen-da, and a sister named Danay who may be coming to the Bay Area for law school. We went to an Italian place. All week long I'd had my eye on chocolate mousse (relic of French influence) but I'd never get one because I was always too full. I was determined to get one. I did, it was awesome, and large, and I ate the whole thing, which I really regretted because I was way too full to start with.
I got another massage (12 bucks, it would be immoral not to), and went to Gerlinda's to wait for the flight. We did a bit more Karaoke. I finally found the pitch control, which would have been really really helpful for Total Eclipse of the Heart. And I learned that I can't sing "Foolish Games". I know the song well, sing it all the time in the car, but in like 5 tries I could not find the starting note.
I had gotten a chocolate macaron in Siem Reap and left it there by accident (my favorite cookie, they look like little hamburgers, hard to find in the state). I made a big enough stink about it that Greg got me one when he saw it in a cafe on Sunday. I had that, along with some cookies leftover from the party, in a styrofoam container. I accidentally left it on the floor for a few seconds, and someone accidentally ran it over with their luggage cart. When they saw what they had done, they kicked it. Grr.
Landed in Singapore about 10PM. A good friend from college, Lily, met me in the airport there. I was very flattered, she actually flew in from Indonesia just to meet me in the airport so we could hang out a bit (I have a 10 hour layover). We went out and bummed around Singapore for a while. Got some street food (no major downsides yet but I do seem to have some... digestive quirks today). We went to the Sands, a huge and posh hotel/casino. Like nothing I have ever seen before. 3 curved skyscrapers next to eachother, with what looks like a giant deflated blimp lying across the top of all 3. We took an elevator up to the blimp part. There's a pool and nightclup up there, pretty amazing.
I went back to the airport at 1 and thought about getting a hotel room, my next flight would be at 8 AM. I tried the adjoining Crowne Plaza. $350 a night. Oh HECK no. I found what I thought was the transit hotel in the airport. I had stayed at one in 2001 when I went to india, a tiny but complete little hotel room in the airport. Turns out it was the travel *lounge*. What's the difference, you ask? The travel lounge has "nap rooms" that are just beds in cubicles separated by walls that don't even reach the ceiling. So you can hear everything. Like the old lady vacuuming at 2 AM. Or the guy next to me arriving, talking loud, undressing, and snoring. I went and complained at about 3:30 (I have been complaining a lot this trip). They made a bed for me on a massage table and I slept-ish there for a few hours (I have also been on masssage tables a lot this trip).
Saturday, October 30, 2010
900,000 slaves, 37 years
On Friday we had the breakfast buffet at Angkor Miracle. Not as nice as the one at Raffles but still pretty awesome. We were the only white folks around. The place was jam packed, like every table taken, by a giant tour group, I am 90% sure from Korea.
A brother from the church in Siem Reap, Phirun, is a tuk-tuk driver and is familiar with the temples, so we hired him to take us around. First you go get a pass to get into the large "park" where all the temples are, $20.
We went to Angkor Tom first (kept sounding like "Uncle Tom" when people said it). It's a large complex of walks, ruins, etc., and at the center is this giant pyramid-shaped building, all stone. Filled with hidden staircases, little tunnels and nooks and so forth. And covered, all over, with intricate carvings. Just beautiful. But jam-packed with people, like a crowded shopping mall, so that kinda took away from it a bit. Greg and I had tour guide envy: we realized that the fellow we hired was a driver but would not be going through the temples with us. Other people had these tan-shirted guides, looking all formal, describing everything. I tried to just eavesdrop. It reminded me of the Simpsons where the kids peek into the civil war park ("Hey, they're learning for free!" "We can use these fake muskets to bludgeon them!")
Next was a temple I forget the name of. it was another pyramid, super-steep, like 65 degrees or so. You basically have to climb up a series of 3 real steep staircases, using hands and feet, to get to the top, where there's an awesome view. This was my favorite, because it was pretty deserted, the climb was exciting and good exercise, and the whole thing was still so beautiful. Greg had best line of the day. When he finally got to the little room at the top he called down to me "Guess what's up here! A Starbucks!".
Next was ??? (forgot the name again). This one was more flat and spread out and had a lot more the feeling of a ruin. The cool thing for this one is that the jungle had overtaken it, and there were trees growing up through and over the rocks. It is really cool to see a tree perched on a ruined temple with the roots snaking down to the ground. I overheard that they shot some of the Tomb Raider movie there, I believe it.
Last was Angkor Wat, the big daddy. We finally found and hired our own guide, he was awesome. This had a lot more the feeling of a single large complex: a moat, a wall inside the moat, a giant walkway inside the wall leading to giant 3-tiered temple with towers, swimming pools, etc. The guide said it took 900,000 slaves 37 years to build it. And if they chipped or wrecked a stone carving, they were killed.
It just boggled the mind. When they did renovations on the SF airport I was just blown away at the scope of the operation, so many people all doing their little job and it is supposed to fit together into a cohesive whole. This is like that to the nth power. What artist designs the plan for the 100-yard wide stone carving of thousands of monkeys battling thousands of demons? How do you put all this together without modern computers, communication, etc.
There are a lot of pushy vendors in the park. Sadly a lot of kids, hawking bracelets and stuff. And they are crafty. One got my name out of me on the way into Angkor Wat. When we came out an hour later there she was, only now it was "Doug, Doug, Doug!!!"
Lunch back at the hotel, bummed around there for a while. We went to pub street for dinner again. I actually ate leftovers for dinner, I had some from the night before and lunch. So yay me being thrifty. Greg got some pizza, it was decent but meh.
The evangelist for the church in Siem Reap met us at dinner and we went and did some shopping and dessert together. Blady is such a cool guy, very mellow and relaxed and friendly. Amazing life too: became a Christian as a student in the Philippines. After just 5 months moved to Cambodia to lead a church there. Later moved to Korea, then back to the Philippines, then back to Cambodia again. He has seem Siem Reap change from a dark muddy backwater to the vacation resort it is today.
He took us to a very very posh hotel (nicer than ours) called Hotel de la Paix, evidently owned by a member of our church in Taiwan. Blady seemed to know everyone there, and he speaks fluent Khmer, so he was very at home. We got some ice cream and sat in the courtyard, alight with torches and fountains, and talked for a bit. And something about him really struck me. I tend to think of evangelists as kind of type-A personalities, very go-go, action, driven, etc. And kind of martyr-y, like I'm not being a good servant of Christ unless I'm pushing myself super hard. Blady was so so far from that. Here he is chilling in this nice hotel in a vacation paradise, where he lives, and he is just totally relaxed. Not to say he's not making sacrifices, and for sure he loves the people here and works hard for them. But he is also genuinely enjoying himself, which is very cool.
A brother from the church in Siem Reap, Phirun, is a tuk-tuk driver and is familiar with the temples, so we hired him to take us around. First you go get a pass to get into the large "park" where all the temples are, $20.
We went to Angkor Tom first (kept sounding like "Uncle Tom" when people said it). It's a large complex of walks, ruins, etc., and at the center is this giant pyramid-shaped building, all stone. Filled with hidden staircases, little tunnels and nooks and so forth. And covered, all over, with intricate carvings. Just beautiful. But jam-packed with people, like a crowded shopping mall, so that kinda took away from it a bit. Greg and I had tour guide envy: we realized that the fellow we hired was a driver but would not be going through the temples with us. Other people had these tan-shirted guides, looking all formal, describing everything. I tried to just eavesdrop. It reminded me of the Simpsons where the kids peek into the civil war park ("Hey, they're learning for free!" "We can use these fake muskets to bludgeon them!")
Next was a temple I forget the name of. it was another pyramid, super-steep, like 65 degrees or so. You basically have to climb up a series of 3 real steep staircases, using hands and feet, to get to the top, where there's an awesome view. This was my favorite, because it was pretty deserted, the climb was exciting and good exercise, and the whole thing was still so beautiful. Greg had best line of the day. When he finally got to the little room at the top he called down to me "Guess what's up here! A Starbucks!".
Next was ??? (forgot the name again). This one was more flat and spread out and had a lot more the feeling of a ruin. The cool thing for this one is that the jungle had overtaken it, and there were trees growing up through and over the rocks. It is really cool to see a tree perched on a ruined temple with the roots snaking down to the ground. I overheard that they shot some of the Tomb Raider movie there, I believe it.
Last was Angkor Wat, the big daddy. We finally found and hired our own guide, he was awesome. This had a lot more the feeling of a single large complex: a moat, a wall inside the moat, a giant walkway inside the wall leading to giant 3-tiered temple with towers, swimming pools, etc. The guide said it took 900,000 slaves 37 years to build it. And if they chipped or wrecked a stone carving, they were killed.
It just boggled the mind. When they did renovations on the SF airport I was just blown away at the scope of the operation, so many people all doing their little job and it is supposed to fit together into a cohesive whole. This is like that to the nth power. What artist designs the plan for the 100-yard wide stone carving of thousands of monkeys battling thousands of demons? How do you put all this together without modern computers, communication, etc.
There are a lot of pushy vendors in the park. Sadly a lot of kids, hawking bracelets and stuff. And they are crafty. One got my name out of me on the way into Angkor Wat. When we came out an hour later there she was, only now it was "Doug, Doug, Doug!!!"
Lunch back at the hotel, bummed around there for a while. We went to pub street for dinner again. I actually ate leftovers for dinner, I had some from the night before and lunch. So yay me being thrifty. Greg got some pizza, it was decent but meh.
The evangelist for the church in Siem Reap met us at dinner and we went and did some shopping and dessert together. Blady is such a cool guy, very mellow and relaxed and friendly. Amazing life too: became a Christian as a student in the Philippines. After just 5 months moved to Cambodia to lead a church there. Later moved to Korea, then back to the Philippines, then back to Cambodia again. He has seem Siem Reap change from a dark muddy backwater to the vacation resort it is today.
He took us to a very very posh hotel (nicer than ours) called Hotel de la Paix, evidently owned by a member of our church in Taiwan. Blady seemed to know everyone there, and he speaks fluent Khmer, so he was very at home. We got some ice cream and sat in the courtyard, alight with torches and fountains, and talked for a bit. And something about him really struck me. I tend to think of evangelists as kind of type-A personalities, very go-go, action, driven, etc. And kind of martyr-y, like I'm not being a good servant of Christ unless I'm pushing myself super hard. Blady was so so far from that. Here he is chilling in this nice hotel in a vacation paradise, where he lives, and he is just totally relaxed. Not to say he's not making sacrifices, and for sure he loves the people here and works hard for them. But he is also genuinely enjoying himself, which is very cool.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Siem Reap
On Thursday morning we took a bus to Siem Reap. There was a bit of back and forth about how to get there: boat or bus. Either way it's a six hour trip. When I first heard "bus" I imagined a stereotypical developing nation bus: jam-packed with people, folks literally hanging out the window and sitting on the roof. 6 hours? No ha-way. So boat, right? It's supposed to be very scenic and pretty. But the consensus among people we met in Phnom Penh was strongly pro-bus. The bus is more like a Greyhound, individual seats, a bathroom, a TV, air conditioning. The boat is evidently not that scenic and more uncomfortable. Bus it is.
We check out of Feeling Home, get to the bus station at 7:30. We were going to take the 8:30 but we talked our way onto the 7:30 instead since we're so early.
This is one of the boondockiest drives I have ever been on. Most of what we're driving past is just farms. The houses are a mix of styles, but plenty are straight up huts, palm-leaf walls and tin roofs.
Halfway we stop at this little town, I never got the name. There's a hotel, a bunch of vendors and beggars. I sat in the hotel lobby and tried to get online, I could never get it to work. In the meantime I am distracted by this Chinese soap opera on TV. Like all soap operas it is terribly melodramatic: the crying worried lady, her cute son, the mean pretty lady. But what made this entertaining/awful was the dubbing. Clearly all the voices were dubbed, and some were just awful, like someone trying to make fun of the character instead of trying to be the character. Worst was the son. I think it was his voice that made me start watching because he seriously sounded like a cat. I swear some of his lines were "meow". It was a guy's voice, speaking falsetto and as nasal as possible.
Used the bathroom, bonked my head hard on the very very low door into the bathroom. Tried to get back on the bus, wading through a crowd of beggars: no, no, no, BONK, bonked my head again, in front of all the beggars, on the rearview mirror of the bus. And I couldn't even escape into the bus, it was locked. So I got to walk back through all the beggars who just got to enjoy watching me bonk my head.
I hated that town.
About an hour down the road the bus starts to smoke and we pull over and get out. That was a crazy feeling. I start doing my normal "I can get myself out of this" checklist:
* Can I call someone? No. All the numbers I have are for people 4 hours away.
* Can I buy some other form of transportation? No. We are in the middle of a country road, there are no services nearby.
* Can I trust that the bus company will work this out somehow if their bus is broken? Who knows. What can they do? They can't magically make another bus show up. The 8:30 is coming along but it will be full. If they had another bus come now it'd be 4 hours until they get here.
* Can I make myself comfortable here while we wait? Not really. There's like a tree to sit under. That's it.
This was a pretty scary realization. Got me praying for sure. They fixed things up and we got going in like 5 minutes, thank you God.
Got to Siem Reap, a car from the Angkor Miracle (our hotel in town) was waiting for us. Siem Reap seemed to be a series of hotels, gradually getting more and more posh and humungous (like going around a monopoly board). Angkor Miracle has to be on Park Place or Broadway, it is AMAZING. I think the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in (I am scanning memory to see if that's true and I think it is). We were greeted at reception with cool towels and lemongrass juice (never had that before, really good). The place is beautiful, all dark hard wood and high ceilings.
We spent a while just bumming around. I got room service for maybe the first time in my life ($4 bowl of pho, a bit more expensive than I've seen elsewhere here but still cheap compared to US). Greg took a swim in their giant beautiful saltwater pool (which our room overlooks). I tried out the gym, which was kinda disappointing. A bunch of home exercise equipment in an overly hot room. First time I used a weight machine that bent/flexed/vibrated when you use it, not a good sign. Also there was no water fountain. I went out to the pool by the bar to get water. I got a bottle and then the guy said he'd come by the gym later with a beer. I was like "no thanks". Then he said it again. I tried to make it more clear, I don't want a beer after I work out. Finally just left. In a while he comes into the gym with my *bill*. Whoops.
We were tempted to just laze around in the hotel but we decided to go check out the town. We wound up on "Pub street", a short alley full of restaurants and businesses. The whole area was HIGHLY tourist. Just about everyone walking around eating and buying was not Cambodian. It felt almost like Disneyland: all the businesses were very nice, but there was a sameness to the menus and stores and outfits that had me thinking all the "different" restaurants were backed by one large kitchen behind them all. We ate at this place (Le Papier Tigre) which had Khmer, Indian, Italian, and burgers. The "Disney" theory was confirmed when our waitress took Greg's credit card, headed to the back of the restaurant, took forever to come back, and finally came back from across the street.
We bummed around the market area for a while, people were super-agressive selling stuff. Massage, trinkets, etc. One oddity was "fish massage". There were tons of these, all the same (like same setup, same t-shirts). You stick your feet in a fish tank and they nibble at your feet eating away dead skin cells. Mmmm yeah. There was one of these about every 30 feet, no exaggeration.
We got dessert at a place run by a French guy, first time I'd seen a non-Khmer working at a restaurant. All these restaurants, I should say, were beautiful. Reminded me some of New Orleans: old French mansions, balconies and iron grillwork, open air dining, decorated with while Christmas lights.
The signs for businesses here have been awesome (as was the case in India). We found a 6-11 mini mart, a 7-quick mini mart, the Pyongyang Friendship Korean Restaurant (my favorite, it's hard to imagine how that would go down in the states), signs for Girled meat, etc.
The plan for today is to go see some of the temples, and while that sounds interesting, I am feeling tempted to keep that short so I can come back and be lazy in this awesome hotel for a while.
We check out of Feeling Home, get to the bus station at 7:30. We were going to take the 8:30 but we talked our way onto the 7:30 instead since we're so early.
This is one of the boondockiest drives I have ever been on. Most of what we're driving past is just farms. The houses are a mix of styles, but plenty are straight up huts, palm-leaf walls and tin roofs.
Halfway we stop at this little town, I never got the name. There's a hotel, a bunch of vendors and beggars. I sat in the hotel lobby and tried to get online, I could never get it to work. In the meantime I am distracted by this Chinese soap opera on TV. Like all soap operas it is terribly melodramatic: the crying worried lady, her cute son, the mean pretty lady. But what made this entertaining/awful was the dubbing. Clearly all the voices were dubbed, and some were just awful, like someone trying to make fun of the character instead of trying to be the character. Worst was the son. I think it was his voice that made me start watching because he seriously sounded like a cat. I swear some of his lines were "meow". It was a guy's voice, speaking falsetto and as nasal as possible.
Used the bathroom, bonked my head hard on the very very low door into the bathroom. Tried to get back on the bus, wading through a crowd of beggars: no, no, no, BONK, bonked my head again, in front of all the beggars, on the rearview mirror of the bus. And I couldn't even escape into the bus, it was locked. So I got to walk back through all the beggars who just got to enjoy watching me bonk my head.
I hated that town.
About an hour down the road the bus starts to smoke and we pull over and get out. That was a crazy feeling. I start doing my normal "I can get myself out of this" checklist:
* Can I call someone? No. All the numbers I have are for people 4 hours away.
* Can I buy some other form of transportation? No. We are in the middle of a country road, there are no services nearby.
* Can I trust that the bus company will work this out somehow if their bus is broken? Who knows. What can they do? They can't magically make another bus show up. The 8:30 is coming along but it will be full. If they had another bus come now it'd be 4 hours until they get here.
* Can I make myself comfortable here while we wait? Not really. There's like a tree to sit under. That's it.
This was a pretty scary realization. Got me praying for sure. They fixed things up and we got going in like 5 minutes, thank you God.
Got to Siem Reap, a car from the Angkor Miracle (our hotel in town) was waiting for us. Siem Reap seemed to be a series of hotels, gradually getting more and more posh and humungous (like going around a monopoly board). Angkor Miracle has to be on Park Place or Broadway, it is AMAZING. I think the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in (I am scanning memory to see if that's true and I think it is). We were greeted at reception with cool towels and lemongrass juice (never had that before, really good). The place is beautiful, all dark hard wood and high ceilings.
We spent a while just bumming around. I got room service for maybe the first time in my life ($4 bowl of pho, a bit more expensive than I've seen elsewhere here but still cheap compared to US). Greg took a swim in their giant beautiful saltwater pool (which our room overlooks). I tried out the gym, which was kinda disappointing. A bunch of home exercise equipment in an overly hot room. First time I used a weight machine that bent/flexed/vibrated when you use it, not a good sign. Also there was no water fountain. I went out to the pool by the bar to get water. I got a bottle and then the guy said he'd come by the gym later with a beer. I was like "no thanks". Then he said it again. I tried to make it more clear, I don't want a beer after I work out. Finally just left. In a while he comes into the gym with my *bill*. Whoops.
We were tempted to just laze around in the hotel but we decided to go check out the town. We wound up on "Pub street", a short alley full of restaurants and businesses. The whole area was HIGHLY tourist. Just about everyone walking around eating and buying was not Cambodian. It felt almost like Disneyland: all the businesses were very nice, but there was a sameness to the menus and stores and outfits that had me thinking all the "different" restaurants were backed by one large kitchen behind them all. We ate at this place (Le Papier Tigre) which had Khmer, Indian, Italian, and burgers. The "Disney" theory was confirmed when our waitress took Greg's credit card, headed to the back of the restaurant, took forever to come back, and finally came back from across the street.
We bummed around the market area for a while, people were super-agressive selling stuff. Massage, trinkets, etc. One oddity was "fish massage". There were tons of these, all the same (like same setup, same t-shirts). You stick your feet in a fish tank and they nibble at your feet eating away dead skin cells. Mmmm yeah. There was one of these about every 30 feet, no exaggeration.
We got dessert at a place run by a French guy, first time I'd seen a non-Khmer working at a restaurant. All these restaurants, I should say, were beautiful. Reminded me some of New Orleans: old French mansions, balconies and iron grillwork, open air dining, decorated with while Christmas lights.
The signs for businesses here have been awesome (as was the case in India). We found a 6-11 mini mart, a 7-quick mini mart, the Pyongyang Friendship Korean Restaurant (my favorite, it's hard to imagine how that would go down in the states), signs for Girled meat, etc.
The plan for today is to go see some of the temples, and while that sounds interesting, I am feeling tempted to keep that short so I can come back and be lazy in this awesome hotel for a while.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Halfway
Yesterday marked the halfway point of our trip (somewhere in there. I did the math and it was sometime Weds but I may have screwed it up due to time change).
We have been getting breakfast every day at the cafe under the hotel. Greg is a creature of habit. Same breafast every day: continental breakfast. The highlight, from his POV, is the dragonfruit and the chocolate croissants. We have already discussed the chocolate croissants... mmm chocolate croissants. Dragonfruit reminds me a little of kiwi taste and texture-wise (dotted with little black seeds), but the flesh is white, kinda like the consistency of melon.
And every day *I* can't decide what to get. I realized it is better to get their pre-rolled breakfasts (e.g. the Cambodian breakfast) because I can't communicate with the waitress very well so a la carte ordering is confusing. Yesterday I got "Cambodian Rice" which I thought would be like fried rice with stuff in it but was actually a pile or rice with two (very tasty) pork spareribs on top.
We went to see the Goldstone School, another HOPE-related project. Grades K-10. The 10th graders are the pioneers for the school so next year it'll be K-11, etc. It's in an old house where they basically use every available space for classroom and it's about what you'd expect. Imagine a big old country house where they set up a classroom in the living room, one in the garage, one in the upstairs hallway, etc. Tiny, cramped, packed with kids. Super hot (our host, Molly, kept referring to 'the hot season', which I am really glad I missed). The kids are all great, wearing their uniforms, super cheerful and energetic.
I got to teach them some improv games, which was *so cool*. First a group of 16 9th graders, then 24 5th graders. I had to adjust the games a bit to deal with language (they speak english but not well), and for age (5th graders are not mature enough to do some of the things without getting completely overstimulated and going buck wild). But they got it, and had fun. And it was especially rewarding because the culture there is very buttoned-down for the kids: they are used to school being a place where you sit still, say nothing, learn by rote, etc. Molly has been working hard, with both the kids and the staff, to help them operate more through relationships, to express themselves, etc. So they were so delighted with all these games that were just completely silly and creative. One of the games has each person, in turn, make up some silly action and sound, then we all do it together. One little 5th grade boy had us all swearing in Khmer, I suspect, because I know the look of a little kid doing something ribald, and I know the reaction of said kid's flunkies being delighted with his antics, and that was what I was seeing.
Went out to lunch afterwards. Kinda surreal experience, this one. A beautiful home, recently remodeled, all hardword and stuff, ponds and waterfalls outside, giant shuttered windows open to the breeze. A bunch of guys who looked like construction guys hanging out and doing not much. But no customers, no restaurant staff. We finally had one guy show up, and that was the only guy we saw. Menu was really small, but we all got something to eat. It just felt like I was eating in a restaurant that hadn't even opened to the public yet, but when they saw us wander in they were just like "why not feed them?"
Gerlinda took us to the Russian Market. I am not one for shopping, and was kinda dragging my heels at this one, but Oh My God. It has to be seen to be believed. Imagine a little kiosk stuffed with piles, literally piles, of merchandise (shirts, trinkets, whatever). Now imagine thousands of these kiosks all pushed together so they're flush up against each other on the sides, with like a 2.5 foot space in between to walk through. Now fill up a large city block with that. Now put a tin roof on top of that. So you're walking through a shopping mall, but hot and sweaty and cramped. But just like a mall there's everything in there (clothes, electronics, food). And so much more. Like feral cats.
But the other thing is the prices. Insanely low. One there's just the exchange rate (I have been eating like a king here for no more than $5 per meal). But also, many things we like in the states (e.g. Abercrombie and Fitch, Gap, Polo, etc) are made in Cambodia. So things were dirt cheap, literally 10x less than what you'd pay in the states. At first I suspected they were just knockoffs, but no it's the real deal. It's not in a swanky store staffed by sullen teens in an air conditioned mall. It's in a wrinkled pile under garbage bags full of other clothes run by what looks like a 12 year old.
AND you can bargain. I was going to spend $38 on something, Gerlinda talked them down to $30. Greg was determined to get a hiking hat that would go for ~40 in the states for 2 dollars. He and Gerlinda tried some ruse where they both went by the booth, pretending not to know each other (not sure how that was supposed to help), but the lady wouldn't budge. So he got it for $3, boo hoo.
After that Greg got a shampoo/massage from some salon run for women who are coming out of bad situations (sex trade) to learn legit skills. He seemed a little traumatized afterwards. Evidently a mix of very nice massage and very awkward pounding/poking. And it was all only a dollar.
I got to see Gerlinda's house, it's a beautiful 3 story French Villa, gated and all. She lives there with 3 other sisters from church. Pretty but it did not feel home-like to me. I find that in a lot of the residences here (and India too). Home to me is about soft stuff: carpeting, a big fluffy couch, comfy chairs. These houses, even the very nice ones, all have stone/marble floors, and most furniture is pretty-but-uncomfortable wooden chairs.
We went to a midweek service in the evening. Cesar Lopez spoke, did a great job. They were singing this song in the beginning in Khmer, I could not recognize it at all. I decided this was some new song I had never heard before. But then the singer switched to English and it was "Take the Lord With You", a song I have known for years. The timing was just so different I couldn't hear it, at all, without the words. I gave Cesar the blender I had dragged halfway around the world, very glad to be rid of that blender.
Cesar took Greg and I out to dinner after, Kevin O'Brien also came (director of the hospital here). Indian food, same place we ate the first night. I expected to get the hard sell about moving to Cambodia. Yes that was on their mind but no it was not pushy or all we talked about or Amway Sales-ish.
We have been getting breakfast every day at the cafe under the hotel. Greg is a creature of habit. Same breafast every day: continental breakfast. The highlight, from his POV, is the dragonfruit and the chocolate croissants. We have already discussed the chocolate croissants... mmm chocolate croissants. Dragonfruit reminds me a little of kiwi taste and texture-wise (dotted with little black seeds), but the flesh is white, kinda like the consistency of melon.
And every day *I* can't decide what to get. I realized it is better to get their pre-rolled breakfasts (e.g. the Cambodian breakfast) because I can't communicate with the waitress very well so a la carte ordering is confusing. Yesterday I got "Cambodian Rice" which I thought would be like fried rice with stuff in it but was actually a pile or rice with two (very tasty) pork spareribs on top.
We went to see the Goldstone School, another HOPE-related project. Grades K-10. The 10th graders are the pioneers for the school so next year it'll be K-11, etc. It's in an old house where they basically use every available space for classroom and it's about what you'd expect. Imagine a big old country house where they set up a classroom in the living room, one in the garage, one in the upstairs hallway, etc. Tiny, cramped, packed with kids. Super hot (our host, Molly, kept referring to 'the hot season', which I am really glad I missed). The kids are all great, wearing their uniforms, super cheerful and energetic.
I got to teach them some improv games, which was *so cool*. First a group of 16 9th graders, then 24 5th graders. I had to adjust the games a bit to deal with language (they speak english but not well), and for age (5th graders are not mature enough to do some of the things without getting completely overstimulated and going buck wild). But they got it, and had fun. And it was especially rewarding because the culture there is very buttoned-down for the kids: they are used to school being a place where you sit still, say nothing, learn by rote, etc. Molly has been working hard, with both the kids and the staff, to help them operate more through relationships, to express themselves, etc. So they were so delighted with all these games that were just completely silly and creative. One of the games has each person, in turn, make up some silly action and sound, then we all do it together. One little 5th grade boy had us all swearing in Khmer, I suspect, because I know the look of a little kid doing something ribald, and I know the reaction of said kid's flunkies being delighted with his antics, and that was what I was seeing.
Went out to lunch afterwards. Kinda surreal experience, this one. A beautiful home, recently remodeled, all hardword and stuff, ponds and waterfalls outside, giant shuttered windows open to the breeze. A bunch of guys who looked like construction guys hanging out and doing not much. But no customers, no restaurant staff. We finally had one guy show up, and that was the only guy we saw. Menu was really small, but we all got something to eat. It just felt like I was eating in a restaurant that hadn't even opened to the public yet, but when they saw us wander in they were just like "why not feed them?"
Gerlinda took us to the Russian Market. I am not one for shopping, and was kinda dragging my heels at this one, but Oh My God. It has to be seen to be believed. Imagine a little kiosk stuffed with piles, literally piles, of merchandise (shirts, trinkets, whatever). Now imagine thousands of these kiosks all pushed together so they're flush up against each other on the sides, with like a 2.5 foot space in between to walk through. Now fill up a large city block with that. Now put a tin roof on top of that. So you're walking through a shopping mall, but hot and sweaty and cramped. But just like a mall there's everything in there (clothes, electronics, food). And so much more. Like feral cats.
But the other thing is the prices. Insanely low. One there's just the exchange rate (I have been eating like a king here for no more than $5 per meal). But also, many things we like in the states (e.g. Abercrombie and Fitch, Gap, Polo, etc) are made in Cambodia. So things were dirt cheap, literally 10x less than what you'd pay in the states. At first I suspected they were just knockoffs, but no it's the real deal. It's not in a swanky store staffed by sullen teens in an air conditioned mall. It's in a wrinkled pile under garbage bags full of other clothes run by what looks like a 12 year old.
AND you can bargain. I was going to spend $38 on something, Gerlinda talked them down to $30. Greg was determined to get a hiking hat that would go for ~40 in the states for 2 dollars. He and Gerlinda tried some ruse where they both went by the booth, pretending not to know each other (not sure how that was supposed to help), but the lady wouldn't budge. So he got it for $3, boo hoo.
After that Greg got a shampoo/massage from some salon run for women who are coming out of bad situations (sex trade) to learn legit skills. He seemed a little traumatized afterwards. Evidently a mix of very nice massage and very awkward pounding/poking. And it was all only a dollar.
I got to see Gerlinda's house, it's a beautiful 3 story French Villa, gated and all. She lives there with 3 other sisters from church. Pretty but it did not feel home-like to me. I find that in a lot of the residences here (and India too). Home to me is about soft stuff: carpeting, a big fluffy couch, comfy chairs. These houses, even the very nice ones, all have stone/marble floors, and most furniture is pretty-but-uncomfortable wooden chairs.
We went to a midweek service in the evening. Cesar Lopez spoke, did a great job. They were singing this song in the beginning in Khmer, I could not recognize it at all. I decided this was some new song I had never heard before. But then the singer switched to English and it was "Take the Lord With You", a song I have known for years. The timing was just so different I couldn't hear it, at all, without the words. I gave Cesar the blender I had dragged halfway around the world, very glad to be rid of that blender.
Cesar took Greg and I out to dinner after, Kevin O'Brien also came (director of the hospital here). Indian food, same place we ate the first night. I expected to get the hard sell about moving to Cambodia. Yes that was on their mind but no it was not pushy or all we talked about or Amway Sales-ish.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
The Good, the Bad, and the Awkward
Another night of not-so-much sleep. My body still thinks it'd day when it's night, so even when I am tired it's hard to sleep.
There was a huge thunder/lightning storm Monday night, very impressive. The cafe downstairs, where we get a free breakfast (free with room) was flooded (it's below ground level). There's a little grate in front that's almost cute in it's complete powerlessness to deal with with a storm like we had. They had mopped up most of the water by the time I went down but it was still wet and smelly.
The smell. One of the hardest thing to deal with. Sometimes better sometimes worse. Not at all in my hotel room (thank God) but definitely in the hall outside the room and almost everywhere outside. Some mix of sewage, garbage, old meat, exhaust. Just super nasty. It hurts to imagine living in it, just growing up with it. Although perhaps if you grow up with it you don't smell it.
Breakfast was some Cambodian noodle dish (chow mein-y) and a chocolate croissant. The chocolate croissants here are so, so, so very good. They heat it up a little so the butter is a bit melty and WOW is it good. I don't know if all croissants are this good (I rarely eat them in the states and the ones I do definitely are not this good). But the ones here are amazing. Flaky, buttery, crispy, soft...mmm.
After breakfast we took a tuk tuk out to the killing fields. Pretty intense, sad thing to see. We got a guide who did a really good job explaining the whole thing, the rise and regime of Pol Pot, what he did, etc. The tour is not graphic visually (lotta bones I guess but no blood and guts) but very disturbing. Mass graves, a tree used to smash babies to death, etc. It was rainy and cloudy out, which was good because it matched the sentiment of the place.
Then we went to Toul Sleng, a high school used by Pol Pot as a prison and now converted to a museum. Again, pretty disturbing. Torture implements, row upon row of mugshots of the victims, so many people, women, little children.
As I was going through there I asked myself "Why do I do this?". Most normal people go on vacation to have fun, they go to a resort or someplace beautiful and just chill. This is the 3 trip I've done to a developing nation where I wind up spending time seeing sad/depressing things. On a practical side it gets me motivated to help somehow, and it makes me very very grateful for what I have, and puts a new, humbling perspective on the things I normally complain about. But I don't know, it just suddenly felt weird. Like why I am spending time focusing on something so grim?
Lunch at a place across the street. It's a fun game here to try to use a credit card. Basically you can't except for hotels. Some places have signs claiming you can but then for this or that reason you can't. It reminds me of the Cheese Shop Monty Python sketch, where the game is to come up with a different reason each time: the machine is broken, you didn't spend enough, etc.
Back to the hotel. After a bit of bumming around I went and got a massage. Gerlinda had recommended a reputable place: when I think "Southeast Asian Massage Parlor" some very unsavory things come to mind. Good recommendation, this place was awesome. 1 hour massage (and ginger ale!) for $13. Not a lot of English there, I had to resort to a kind of hokey-pokey pantomime to get them to understand what I wanted (Head? Out. Back? In. Shoulders? In).
When I got back from the massage I sat down and accidentally fell asleep, Greg did too. I bolted up at like 7 from with the classic nap-nesia: where am I? Who am I? What time is it?
We met with a fellow named Brad for dinner, went out for Pho (very good here). He is originally from Texas, came to Cambodia by way of Taiwan. After dinner we met up with some of the sisters from church and went to this lounge at a very swanky hotel (Hotel Cambodiana) where a Filipio cover band was playing. They were really, *really* good, amazing singers. When we first came in we were the only people there (they had been singing to the bar staff). I jokingly told Gerlinda that I wanted to get up there and sing.
She told the band, and after a few sets they called me up there in their heavily accented English. Then I realized I'm in trouble. I do like to sing, but:
1. Most of the songs I know by heart are church songs, done a cappella in parts, and
2. I generally bring an improv-y sensibility to any kind of performance thing, like let's just wing it and mistakes are gonna happen, that's cool.
I quickly realized that
1. The band did not know any church songs.
2. They were very uncomfortable doing anything they were unfamiliar with (I would get no support if I went off their playlist).
I finally settled on "Lean on Me" because I thought everyone knows that. The bassist didn't (I thought it was like one of the most recognizable bass lines in the world, guess no in the Philippines). That threw me. The key they chose threw me. And I forgot the words. Totally, completely, utterly awkward. Got thru a verse and a chorus, did the classic songleading hand thing of "it's OVER!", and sat myself down. I am pretty hard to embarrass but that did it, I was totally squirming. People were nice though. The salt on the wound, some OTHER guy from the audience got up right after and did it the right way: he knew some songs they knew (Just Once, Everything I Do I Do it for YOU), and he was more of classic soul soloist (not my style at all). So yay for him, and ouch.
Home fairly late, bed.
There was a huge thunder/lightning storm Monday night, very impressive. The cafe downstairs, where we get a free breakfast (free with room) was flooded (it's below ground level). There's a little grate in front that's almost cute in it's complete powerlessness to deal with with a storm like we had. They had mopped up most of the water by the time I went down but it was still wet and smelly.
The smell. One of the hardest thing to deal with. Sometimes better sometimes worse. Not at all in my hotel room (thank God) but definitely in the hall outside the room and almost everywhere outside. Some mix of sewage, garbage, old meat, exhaust. Just super nasty. It hurts to imagine living in it, just growing up with it. Although perhaps if you grow up with it you don't smell it.
Breakfast was some Cambodian noodle dish (chow mein-y) and a chocolate croissant. The chocolate croissants here are so, so, so very good. They heat it up a little so the butter is a bit melty and WOW is it good. I don't know if all croissants are this good (I rarely eat them in the states and the ones I do definitely are not this good). But the ones here are amazing. Flaky, buttery, crispy, soft...mmm.
After breakfast we took a tuk tuk out to the killing fields. Pretty intense, sad thing to see. We got a guide who did a really good job explaining the whole thing, the rise and regime of Pol Pot, what he did, etc. The tour is not graphic visually (lotta bones I guess but no blood and guts) but very disturbing. Mass graves, a tree used to smash babies to death, etc. It was rainy and cloudy out, which was good because it matched the sentiment of the place.
Then we went to Toul Sleng, a high school used by Pol Pot as a prison and now converted to a museum. Again, pretty disturbing. Torture implements, row upon row of mugshots of the victims, so many people, women, little children.
As I was going through there I asked myself "Why do I do this?". Most normal people go on vacation to have fun, they go to a resort or someplace beautiful and just chill. This is the 3 trip I've done to a developing nation where I wind up spending time seeing sad/depressing things. On a practical side it gets me motivated to help somehow, and it makes me very very grateful for what I have, and puts a new, humbling perspective on the things I normally complain about. But I don't know, it just suddenly felt weird. Like why I am spending time focusing on something so grim?
Lunch at a place across the street. It's a fun game here to try to use a credit card. Basically you can't except for hotels. Some places have signs claiming you can but then for this or that reason you can't. It reminds me of the Cheese Shop Monty Python sketch, where the game is to come up with a different reason each time: the machine is broken, you didn't spend enough, etc.
Back to the hotel. After a bit of bumming around I went and got a massage. Gerlinda had recommended a reputable place: when I think "Southeast Asian Massage Parlor" some very unsavory things come to mind. Good recommendation, this place was awesome. 1 hour massage (and ginger ale!) for $13. Not a lot of English there, I had to resort to a kind of hokey-pokey pantomime to get them to understand what I wanted (Head? Out. Back? In. Shoulders? In).
When I got back from the massage I sat down and accidentally fell asleep, Greg did too. I bolted up at like 7 from with the classic nap-nesia: where am I? Who am I? What time is it?
We met with a fellow named Brad for dinner, went out for Pho (very good here). He is originally from Texas, came to Cambodia by way of Taiwan. After dinner we met up with some of the sisters from church and went to this lounge at a very swanky hotel (Hotel Cambodiana) where a Filipio cover band was playing. They were really, *really* good, amazing singers. When we first came in we were the only people there (they had been singing to the bar staff). I jokingly told Gerlinda that I wanted to get up there and sing.
She told the band, and after a few sets they called me up there in their heavily accented English. Then I realized I'm in trouble. I do like to sing, but:
1. Most of the songs I know by heart are church songs, done a cappella in parts, and
2. I generally bring an improv-y sensibility to any kind of performance thing, like let's just wing it and mistakes are gonna happen, that's cool.
I quickly realized that
1. The band did not know any church songs.
2. They were very uncomfortable doing anything they were unfamiliar with (I would get no support if I went off their playlist).
I finally settled on "Lean on Me" because I thought everyone knows that. The bassist didn't (I thought it was like one of the most recognizable bass lines in the world, guess no in the Philippines). That threw me. The key they chose threw me. And I forgot the words. Totally, completely, utterly awkward. Got thru a verse and a chorus, did the classic songleading hand thing of "it's OVER!", and sat myself down. I am pretty hard to embarrass but that did it, I was totally squirming. People were nice though. The salt on the wound, some OTHER guy from the audience got up right after and did it the right way: he knew some songs they knew (Just Once, Everything I Do I Do it for YOU), and he was more of classic soul soloist (not my style at all). So yay for him, and ouch.
Home fairly late, bed.
Monday, October 25, 2010
The Hospital
Monday morning we went to visit the Sihanouk Hospital. It's was founded in 1997, offering free medical care to anyone who needs it. I have heard about the place for years, as my church has contributed to the founding and staffing of the hospital, so it was pretty cool to see it live.
There's a complex of buildings, offering all kinds of services: pharmacy, in-patient care, surgery, emergency care, x-rays, etc. It was a bit uncomfortable going through the place. I don't like hospitals in general, and this had all the scary bits and then some: crowds of very sick-looking people all over, a bit dark and run down in places (compared to the slick shiny hospitals we're used to). But overall very inspiring to consider all the help that has been given and all the hard work and sacrifice of the doctors, nurses, and admins.
Across the street there's a new medical center, slightly more modern and polished, where they charge for services on a sliding scale based on the patient's ability to pay. They found, over the years, that many of their patients could afford to pay a little, and really wanted to. This should help their operating expenses a lot.
Finally we went on some "home visits", taking a van around town to visit some families with one or more HIV positive people, just checking to see how they're doing, are they taking their meds, etc. This was really, really rough. The first house was down a twisty alley, so narrow at parts you had to walk sideways. Up a ricketly ladder (I am much bigger than most people here and I thought I might break it) into a few tiny rooms in a suspended wooden shack where ~6 people live. The youngest was a girl who couldn't have been more than 2, no clothes at all, not even old enough to talk much. At one point she starts sliding down the ladder, totally freaked me and Greg out (we think she's gonna fall).
Next was a guy who's pretty sick with AIDS, body all wasted, and also depressed/mentally ill. This one was up like 5 flights of stairs, through someone's apartment out to the roof, and into a little shack on the roof. The guy was just sitting in a chair staring into space, barely moving. The room is filthy, there's some kittens in there and what looks like cat feces all over, just really bad. Long conversation between our hosts and this guy and his relatives. They are trying to persuade him to leave and enter a hospice, he keeps changing his mind.
I think at that point I just shut down, compassion fatigue or whatever. Greg was able to stay a lot more engaged, I was just shuffling around for the last two. The third was a family of 9 living in a one-room apartment, 2 members of the family HIV positive. Says something that this was the most encouraging visit. The last was a family that just lived under a tree, no home at all. I am thinking about them now because there was a major thunderstorm last night.
Greg, Gerlinda (right spelling) and I went to lunch at Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC) which is evidently something of a landmark for expats, like all kinds of cool people (Hemingway) went there. Really nice classy place, 360 degree view of the river, dark wood, ceiling fans. Like Elephant Bar, but for real.
Home, rested a bit. A fellow named Brad at the hospital had invited us to go play basketball. I was thinking no, way too hot, but Greg wanted to go so we did. We got a ride out to the outskirts of town, there's a very nice Christian International School with a basketball court where expats regularly meet for bball. When we arrive, 4 PM, the kids are in the middle of some kind of gym class, running laps, which seemed horribly mean to me, it is so ridiculously hot.
So we play basketball. I am 1) not used to the heat 2) slow and 3) terrible at basketball. Greg and I both last half a game before we have to sit out. This wounded my male pride so I made myself play 2 more full games but I was dragging.
We hadn't really made plans on how to get home. One of the guys gave us a ride back into town to a busy corner and helped us get a tuk-tuk, a kind of open air cab/bike thing. Our basketball friend speaks Khmer and we think we communicated where to go. But as he's driving me and Greg are more and more convinced he's going totally the wrong way. We try to talk to him but we don't speak Khmer and he doesn't speak English so he just keeps driving. Finally Greg had the bright idea to call the hotel (we'd gotten a cell phone earlier) and have the driver talk to hotel guy. And indeed once they talk the tuk tuk guy turns the cab around. I think we drove in a giant letter P, starting from the base, up, take a right, all the way around and back.
Dinner at a highly recommended Khmer place right near the hotel. Honestly didn't do much for either of us.
Last night a thunderstorm came up and it was no joke. They don't really have thunderstorms in the Bay Area, I'd forgotten how intense they can be. It'll be interesting to see what that does to the city, I hear the drainage is not so good.
There's a complex of buildings, offering all kinds of services: pharmacy, in-patient care, surgery, emergency care, x-rays, etc. It was a bit uncomfortable going through the place. I don't like hospitals in general, and this had all the scary bits and then some: crowds of very sick-looking people all over, a bit dark and run down in places (compared to the slick shiny hospitals we're used to). But overall very inspiring to consider all the help that has been given and all the hard work and sacrifice of the doctors, nurses, and admins.
Across the street there's a new medical center, slightly more modern and polished, where they charge for services on a sliding scale based on the patient's ability to pay. They found, over the years, that many of their patients could afford to pay a little, and really wanted to. This should help their operating expenses a lot.
Finally we went on some "home visits", taking a van around town to visit some families with one or more HIV positive people, just checking to see how they're doing, are they taking their meds, etc. This was really, really rough. The first house was down a twisty alley, so narrow at parts you had to walk sideways. Up a ricketly ladder (I am much bigger than most people here and I thought I might break it) into a few tiny rooms in a suspended wooden shack where ~6 people live. The youngest was a girl who couldn't have been more than 2, no clothes at all, not even old enough to talk much. At one point she starts sliding down the ladder, totally freaked me and Greg out (we think she's gonna fall).
Next was a guy who's pretty sick with AIDS, body all wasted, and also depressed/mentally ill. This one was up like 5 flights of stairs, through someone's apartment out to the roof, and into a little shack on the roof. The guy was just sitting in a chair staring into space, barely moving. The room is filthy, there's some kittens in there and what looks like cat feces all over, just really bad. Long conversation between our hosts and this guy and his relatives. They are trying to persuade him to leave and enter a hospice, he keeps changing his mind.
I think at that point I just shut down, compassion fatigue or whatever. Greg was able to stay a lot more engaged, I was just shuffling around for the last two. The third was a family of 9 living in a one-room apartment, 2 members of the family HIV positive. Says something that this was the most encouraging visit. The last was a family that just lived under a tree, no home at all. I am thinking about them now because there was a major thunderstorm last night.
Greg, Gerlinda (right spelling) and I went to lunch at Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC) which is evidently something of a landmark for expats, like all kinds of cool people (Hemingway) went there. Really nice classy place, 360 degree view of the river, dark wood, ceiling fans. Like Elephant Bar, but for real.
Home, rested a bit. A fellow named Brad at the hospital had invited us to go play basketball. I was thinking no, way too hot, but Greg wanted to go so we did. We got a ride out to the outskirts of town, there's a very nice Christian International School with a basketball court where expats regularly meet for bball. When we arrive, 4 PM, the kids are in the middle of some kind of gym class, running laps, which seemed horribly mean to me, it is so ridiculously hot.
So we play basketball. I am 1) not used to the heat 2) slow and 3) terrible at basketball. Greg and I both last half a game before we have to sit out. This wounded my male pride so I made myself play 2 more full games but I was dragging.
We hadn't really made plans on how to get home. One of the guys gave us a ride back into town to a busy corner and helped us get a tuk-tuk, a kind of open air cab/bike thing. Our basketball friend speaks Khmer and we think we communicated where to go. But as he's driving me and Greg are more and more convinced he's going totally the wrong way. We try to talk to him but we don't speak Khmer and he doesn't speak English so he just keeps driving. Finally Greg had the bright idea to call the hotel (we'd gotten a cell phone earlier) and have the driver talk to hotel guy. And indeed once they talk the tuk tuk guy turns the cab around. I think we drove in a giant letter P, starting from the base, up, take a right, all the way around and back.
Dinner at a highly recommended Khmer place right near the hotel. Honestly didn't do much for either of us.
Last night a thunderstorm came up and it was no joke. They don't really have thunderstorms in the Bay Area, I'd forgotten how intense they can be. It'll be interesting to see what that does to the city, I hear the drainage is not so good.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Day 1
Sunday morning we woke up 6:30ish. Did a little reading/prayer, and we went over to the Raffles Le Royale Hotel to meet with Bob and Pat Gempel for breakfast. The Gempels work for HOPE, the charitable organization running the projects I am going to visit. I had met up with them last time I was in India.
The Royale hotel is SUPER super nice. Giant French Colonial building, all kinds of cool artifacts and furniture inside. Amazing huge breakfast buffet. I tried to pace myself but I got full before I got to eat everything I wanted to eat. Best was this spicy beef/noodle/vegetable soup.
Went to church with them. Church was very cool, ~300 people, almost all of the service in Khmer. First time I had to do a service with the headphones where they translate. Singing was interesting: same songs I am used to but different pace, different style, and different words (Khmer). The really odd thing was the clapping. For a song in 4/4 I am used to clapping on the 2 and 4. They clap on the 1 and 3. For a song in 3/4 (To God Be The Glory) I don't clap. They clap on the 1, the 3, and then the 2 of the next measure.
Went to lunch with a bunch of ex-pats. There are a lot of people here from other countries working for HOPE, as teachers in schools or as admins or Drs with the hospital. This one sister, Gurlinda (sp?) had a very interesting background. Born in the Phillipines, sent to study Russian in Russia by her communist grandparents at 16, med school in Moscow, worked as a doctor in Dubai and Afghanistan before coming to Cambodia. Fluent in English, Tagalog, Russian, and Khmer.
After lunch Greg and I went to see the palace, which basically amounted to a tour of a bunch of nice gardens with beautiful wooden and stone pagodas. If there was an actual palace in there somewhere we missed it, but I didn't care because I was super-fried by then. It was HOT. And crowded. Some interesting interactions with the locals. As I was walking through this one really crowded hall, where people basically walk in a circuit looking at different artifacts in cases, people are so jammed up against each other, like really tight. I kept feeling this fist in my back and I turned around kinda peeved, and it's this old Khmer lady, looking right at me. So funny to me. In America you walk up and poke a stranger in the back, repeatedly, you're going to hear about it. Here I guess that's just how they roll. Or she was a mean old lady.
Greg and I are both tall (over 6 feet). One group of tourists decided we were the most interesting thing there, and basically came over one by one to get a picture with us. Arms around us posing and all. Without asking or communicating or anything. So I will show up on some Khmer Facebook page "Look at these freaky tall people!"
We came home to nap. Greg successfully pulled that off, I got distracted with a computer game (whoops) and didn't nap.
Dinner with Gurlinda and two other sisters: Cornelia (a surgeon from Switzerland) and XXX (name forgot), a local. We went to the Titanic restaurant, which I thought was hilarious (who names a restaurant after a notorious disaster). Good food (chicken Amok, also hilarious). There was talk of going out dancing after but I was the killjoy, I was too tired.
The Royale hotel is SUPER super nice. Giant French Colonial building, all kinds of cool artifacts and furniture inside. Amazing huge breakfast buffet. I tried to pace myself but I got full before I got to eat everything I wanted to eat. Best was this spicy beef/noodle/vegetable soup.
Went to church with them. Church was very cool, ~300 people, almost all of the service in Khmer. First time I had to do a service with the headphones where they translate. Singing was interesting: same songs I am used to but different pace, different style, and different words (Khmer). The really odd thing was the clapping. For a song in 4/4 I am used to clapping on the 2 and 4. They clap on the 1 and 3. For a song in 3/4 (To God Be The Glory) I don't clap. They clap on the 1, the 3, and then the 2 of the next measure.
Went to lunch with a bunch of ex-pats. There are a lot of people here from other countries working for HOPE, as teachers in schools or as admins or Drs with the hospital. This one sister, Gurlinda (sp?) had a very interesting background. Born in the Phillipines, sent to study Russian in Russia by her communist grandparents at 16, med school in Moscow, worked as a doctor in Dubai and Afghanistan before coming to Cambodia. Fluent in English, Tagalog, Russian, and Khmer.
After lunch Greg and I went to see the palace, which basically amounted to a tour of a bunch of nice gardens with beautiful wooden and stone pagodas. If there was an actual palace in there somewhere we missed it, but I didn't care because I was super-fried by then. It was HOT. And crowded. Some interesting interactions with the locals. As I was walking through this one really crowded hall, where people basically walk in a circuit looking at different artifacts in cases, people are so jammed up against each other, like really tight. I kept feeling this fist in my back and I turned around kinda peeved, and it's this old Khmer lady, looking right at me. So funny to me. In America you walk up and poke a stranger in the back, repeatedly, you're going to hear about it. Here I guess that's just how they roll. Or she was a mean old lady.
Greg and I are both tall (over 6 feet). One group of tourists decided we were the most interesting thing there, and basically came over one by one to get a picture with us. Arms around us posing and all. Without asking or communicating or anything. So I will show up on some Khmer Facebook page "Look at these freaky tall people!"
We came home to nap. Greg successfully pulled that off, I got distracted with a computer game (whoops) and didn't nap.
Dinner with Gurlinda and two other sisters: Cornelia (a surgeon from Switzerland) and XXX (name forgot), a local. We went to the Titanic restaurant, which I thought was hilarious (who names a restaurant after a notorious disaster). Good food (chicken Amok, also hilarious). There was talk of going out dancing after but I was the killjoy, I was too tired.
Flight
The trip over was long long long. First leg is ~13 hours from SF to Hong Kong. ~1 hour layover in Hong Kong. ~4 hours to Singapore. ~4 hour layover in Singapore. ~2 hours to Phnom Penh.
Good news: we're on Singapore Airlines which is AWESOME. Tasty food, lots of it. Excellent service. In-flight entertainment is this personal TV set stocked with hundreds of on-demand TV shows, movies, and computer games. I watched the Office (yay), Parks and Recreation (meh), new Karate Kid (what I expected), Twilight:Eclipse (do any real teenagers act that way? I am not talking about turning into werewolves, I'm talking about how deadly serious they are about everything), and lots and lots of Glee. That show. Love the music. But everything else is so ridiculous. Soap-opera convoluted plots, characters making abrupt about-faces just to serve the plot, everyone learns their lesson in the learn-your-lesson part of the show. And the completely, wildly inappropriate relationships between students and teachers.
Anyway.
Bad news: I don't fit in airplane seats. I took a sleeping pill at the beginning of the first flight so there was some groggy up and down there, and I tried sleeping on the clean clean floors of the Singapore airport, but in general it was all day Thurs until 1 AM, then however many hours of flying, all without sleeping, and without changing clothes (yuk).
Bought some chocolate at Singapore airport with some leftover Singapore currency. The lady was really funny. I'd picked out a few chocolates. The lady at the store comes up behind me, takes the chocolates, takes *all* the money out of my hand, walks back to the cash register. I expect her to ring me up. Instead she picks out a few smaller chocolates from this canister and just hands me all the chocolates. No cash register, no receipt.
When we landed in Phnom Penh two brothers from the church here were waiting for us (yay, church). Thy and Sophan (I think). They drove us into town. First impressions, it reminded me of India. Some really run-down old stuff right next to new shiny stuff. Crazy traffic, just insane, motorbikes all over with like whole families on them. You just stop watching after a while because it makes you too nervous. But, unlike India, NO HONKING. In India they honk contantly (the cars, not the people).
Took us to our hotel, "Feeling Home" (hee hee). They had totally lost our reservation, in spite of several email exchanges with manager of the hotel in the weeks before. Got that sorted out, got to our room, very nice. Greg and I walked around and found an Indian food place. I was in such a weird state of fatigue that meat didn't sound good (those who know me know this is very very odd). Good food, home, bed.
Good news: we're on Singapore Airlines which is AWESOME. Tasty food, lots of it. Excellent service. In-flight entertainment is this personal TV set stocked with hundreds of on-demand TV shows, movies, and computer games. I watched the Office (yay), Parks and Recreation (meh), new Karate Kid (what I expected), Twilight:Eclipse (do any real teenagers act that way? I am not talking about turning into werewolves, I'm talking about how deadly serious they are about everything), and lots and lots of Glee. That show. Love the music. But everything else is so ridiculous. Soap-opera convoluted plots, characters making abrupt about-faces just to serve the plot, everyone learns their lesson in the learn-your-lesson part of the show. And the completely, wildly inappropriate relationships between students and teachers.
Anyway.
Bad news: I don't fit in airplane seats. I took a sleeping pill at the beginning of the first flight so there was some groggy up and down there, and I tried sleeping on the clean clean floors of the Singapore airport, but in general it was all day Thurs until 1 AM, then however many hours of flying, all without sleeping, and without changing clothes (yuk).
Bought some chocolate at Singapore airport with some leftover Singapore currency. The lady was really funny. I'd picked out a few chocolates. The lady at the store comes up behind me, takes the chocolates, takes *all* the money out of my hand, walks back to the cash register. I expect her to ring me up. Instead she picks out a few smaller chocolates from this canister and just hands me all the chocolates. No cash register, no receipt.
When we landed in Phnom Penh two brothers from the church here were waiting for us (yay, church). Thy and Sophan (I think). They drove us into town. First impressions, it reminded me of India. Some really run-down old stuff right next to new shiny stuff. Crazy traffic, just insane, motorbikes all over with like whole families on them. You just stop watching after a while because it makes you too nervous. But, unlike India, NO HONKING. In India they honk contantly (the cars, not the people).
Took us to our hotel, "Feeling Home" (hee hee). They had totally lost our reservation, in spite of several email exchanges with manager of the hotel in the weeks before. Got that sorted out, got to our room, very nice. Greg and I walked around and found an Indian food place. I was in such a weird state of fatigue that meat didn't sound good (those who know me know this is very very odd). Good food, home, bed.
Background
I figured it'd be easier/less intrusive to do a daily blog update than to send out mass unsolicited emails. So here goes....
1 AM Friday 10/22, Greg Restinas and I boarded a plane to Hong Kong on the first leg of our trip to Cambodia.
It'd started a few months earlier, we were having dinner and got to talking about travel, we agreed we should plan a trip somewhere. I had recently done a brainstorming session with my small group at church about things we could do together, and I had suggested a trip, like a for real go-somewhere-cool trip. So when this idea came up with Greg I wanted to follow through on it. Plus I hate statements like "let's do lunch" when you really have no intention of doing it. When we both agreed we should do it I was committed to follow through.
That same dinner we discussed where would be cool, and we agreed that somewhere in Asia would be good.
Last piece, I had recently met someone who was working at a school in Cambodia for a year or two, and my church contributed to some interesting charitable projects in Cambodia in the past. The last two times I'd gone to a developing country I'd organized the trips around visiting charitable projects out of my church and I'd really enjoyed that: inspiring, get to meet the locals, etc.
So boom, trip to Cambodia.
1 AM Friday 10/22, Greg Restinas and I boarded a plane to Hong Kong on the first leg of our trip to Cambodia.
It'd started a few months earlier, we were having dinner and got to talking about travel, we agreed we should plan a trip somewhere. I had recently done a brainstorming session with my small group at church about things we could do together, and I had suggested a trip, like a for real go-somewhere-cool trip. So when this idea came up with Greg I wanted to follow through on it. Plus I hate statements like "let's do lunch" when you really have no intention of doing it. When we both agreed we should do it I was committed to follow through.
That same dinner we discussed where would be cool, and we agreed that somewhere in Asia would be good.
Last piece, I had recently met someone who was working at a school in Cambodia for a year or two, and my church contributed to some interesting charitable projects in Cambodia in the past. The last two times I'd gone to a developing country I'd organized the trips around visiting charitable projects out of my church and I'd really enjoyed that: inspiring, get to meet the locals, etc.
So boom, trip to Cambodia.
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