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.
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