049 – A Picture Guide of Cambodia and Thailand

So in addition to changing my header to something suitably thai, I finally uploaded all of my pictures from Cambodia, plus the pictures I’ve taken here in Thailand. Here’s a guide a la the wonderful concept of tags:

Cambodia (all of Cambodia, here):
Angkor Temples
Tonle Sap
S21
Killing Fields

Thailand (all of Thailand)
Grand Palace Complex
Wat Pho

You can browse through all of my tags here.

048 – Where She Throws a Tantrum and Falls In Love

Of sorts.

Today I was supposed to go to Ayutthaya. And by supposed to I mean I’ve been planning on going to Ayutthaya since before I left for Vietnam.
I had previously refused to go with a tour group. My loath of tour groups has done nothing but increase since I came here. However, last night (after it was too late to suck it up and join a $70 tour group) I was doing the math and figuring out the logistics. Basically, as a day trip, it costs almost as much and is such a damned hassle to get out there that it was stressing me out. This is supposed to be my damned decompress time. Plus, I was grumpy (female moment: blame it on the hormones) and I didn’t relish the idea of spending all day in the heat.
So I didn’t! I played hookie from tourism! You can not make me submit to any more damned temples, this is supposed to be my vacation between school and work!
So I went to (one of the many) mall(s) to see a movie (Pirates of a Caribbean).
Before you yell at me for doing something I could do in the States, it was so anthropologically interesting and I relaxed so much and ate so much random Thai junk food that I feel so much better now. I might do it again tomorrow, only see the Thai indie film I saw advertised.

The mall, first of all, is seven stories high and generally huge. It is connected to the sky train, which enters on floor 2 (to get there I took the water ferry to Central Station and then got on a Sky Train to National Stadium for a total of a little more than a dollar) There’s an international food court on floor 5, a random street-like-market (with AC!) on floor 6, and floor 7 where the cinema was.
A few things that I found interesting:

- The Starbucks serves “Azuti Frappes” and “Bean Croissants.” I was tempted to order the Azuti Frappe only because I had no idea what it was.
- The McDonalds has a Ronald McDonald statue in the Wai position.
- I ordered a Mango Blizzard from DQ.
- I had a duck noodle lunch at the food court.
- My theater tickets were only about $3. My popcorn and soda, $2. For a posh and spacious theater. Seats are assigned. They have English showings (with subtitles) and Thai-dubbed showings of English-language films.
- They sell Poky at the theater concession stand.
- The national anthem is played between the twenty minutes of previews and the movie, while a clip plays of Thailand in the background to images of the King. Theater goers are expected to stand with respect.
- the advertising and music industry contains a lot of Thai/Caucasian hybrid models.
- the order and priority of books in the bookstores, and which signs were in English and which weren’t. Which books were in English and which weren’t.
- the pleathora of teenagers that arrived around quarter to four pm. That, at least, is cross cultural.
- Oh. And I would have never guessed that Auntie Anne’s Pretzels was universal.  For you Bostonians out there, they had a Dunkin’ Doughnuts, too.

I am in love with this city. It has all the things I like about Washington DC and all the things I like about Boston and it’s cheap and the people are just great…
Saigon was a city that grew on me. Its chaotic streets and smiling people latched itself onto me like a barnacle that isn’t ever going to leave. My love of Bangkok happened much more quickly, because within just the past few days I can already picture myself living and working here, heat and all.
I love the markets and the food stands, the dozens of different forms of transportation. The obnoxious tuk-tuk and motorbike drivers are only found in the backpacker district – otherwise, you say no, they don’t follow you for three blocks harassing you. The people are so diverse. While the Vietnamese have a very homogeneous, respectable and conservative style the people of Bangkok are like “why can’t I have piercings and spikey hair?” Even the school kids, in their uniforms, find a way to make their uniforms stand out – funky shoes, wearing their belt a certain way, hair, jewelry, etc. Also, there are men and women who are not a size 0, who see no reason to starve themselves (as so many Vietnamese women do) when there is so much good food around! There are the curvy, the chunky and the holy-cow you’re the fattest Asian man I’ve ever seen in person! (Vietnamese too obsessed with being Chinese, Cambodians just don’t have the money to get fat)
The queers – gay men! toms and dees (lesbians)! transvestites serving your meal! transsexuals! – and bohemians, the amazing art, the feeling of quiet acceptance – no one stares at you while you walk down the street because you’re white/black/Indian/whatever. They don’t get (visibly) impatient with you when you’re momentarily confused by the various boats at the dock. They offer you fruit when they’re standing next to you on the ferry.

I enjoyed just wandering around the city, popping into the occasional air conditioned building, so much more than I would have enjoyed the bloody temples. Another trip. At this point, I have seen so many bloody temples and pagodas/wats that it’s like when you’re in Europe – Oh! Look! Another ruin! – at this point I’m going to get back to the states and the sight of Christian churches is going to seem exotic.

In short, I absolutely love this city and I can’t wait to come back as soon as possible after I graduate. Doing whatever, I don’t care. I just know I want to come back here.
Don’t worry Mom – think of me wanting to live here as an excuse to take a vacation to Bangkok with an extended stay on the tropical beaches that are only a few hours away.

On a last random note, I walked into a 7-11 the other day – they’re on every street corner here, think Dunkin’ Doughnuts in Boston – and there was an Indian man behind the counter. I had a moment of – wait, am I in the right country? Did I get back to the DC Metro area without my knowledge? Is the stereotype universal? Oyi.

Tomorrow I wake up, pack/etc., and leave here at 3am Friday (no sleep! Wow, jet lag is going to be awful this way around) to get to the airport by 4am in order to catch a flight that *leaves* at 6:50am.

047 – Life is Hard in the Tropics

You know how they always speak of the seven levels of hell?

Well, if they were to level heaven level 7 would be “Having a bustling food market with stall after stall of tasty Thai street food a block away.”
And level 6 would be “Paying $6 for an hour long  full body massage.”

I debated skipping out on the sights and just lying about getting body massages and gorging myself on street food. The woman who does massages is this wizened old Thai lady who maneuvered and moved me into positions I did not know my body could go into until I was just a puddle on the mat.
While I could manage doing that all day, and I don’t plan on this being the only time I am in Thailand, I probably should see things while I am here.
I love Bangkok. It’s so diverse, the people are really friendly, the food is of course amazing, and I could live here and still not see all the amazing things there are to see. I could live here, actually. Such a great change from Cambodia.
I have managed to figure out the water ferry system but not the regular taxis – all the ones I’ve had so far have not spoken enough English to get me to anyplace that I did not have written out in Thai and finding the Thai version of places in my guidebook is impossible because they don’t exist. Its alright, most of the places I want to go are within walking distance from ferry stops and the river air adds a built in air conditioning. Not to mention that it is like, 13 bht to take a river ferry and 60bht to go the same distance via taxi.
This morning I headed out around eight and hit up the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew. Which is huge and just littered with tourists. The parts that are less tourist dense were really peaceful, but for the most part I was fighting off a very international blend of tourists in order to get a good picture (and for some reason if you have an SLR people always ask you to take pictures of them). Hot and sweaty and tired I debated if I should head on to Wat Pho (the one with the giant reclining Buddha,. which is around the corner. I sucked up the late morning heat and wandered a few blocks around the giant grand palace complex to where the Wat was. I don’t know what I was expecting, except it wasn’t that. It was huge. Massive. Even after four months of temples I was impressed.

So that is my morning. I think I’m going to eat lunch and take a nap. Then maybe hit up some shops before dinner and perhaps another massage?
Why pass up the $6/hr while it’s still available?

046 – My Lips Are On Fire

Well, hello from Bangkok. I am sitting in the little internet cafe at my guest house waiting for my friend Erin to come (that and I am not exploring a southeast asian city at 1 in the afternoon). It’s just as hot here as it is in Cambodia, (pilot quoted 34C) but it is not nearly as humid, so I’ve been okay with it for the past hour or so. It is as flat as Cambodia.

Being in the Kansas of Southeast Asia for the past month or so has really emphasized how important the mountains are to me. I’ve never lived more than an hour from mountains and a few hours from the ocean, and living in the middle of bloody nowhere where the horizon line goes on forever with nothing but heat and palm trees… Oyi. Give me the Appalachians any day.

Well, I came to Thailand for the food (seriously, I had no other interest in Thailand other than its amazing food. I mean, while I am here I will do more than eat, but really I’m just intent on spoiling American-style Thai forever) and I have already enjoyed some Phad Thai – could have used some more vegetables but damn fifteen minutes later and my lips are still burning from the chili powder and I’m sure it’ll act up my indigestion and burn on its way back up too.

I really wish I had not bought an airplane ticket so long ago for Siem Reap to Bangkok. I did it for the security of knowing I had a way to get from Siem Reap to Bangkok (and, as a comfort to my mother who is undoubtedly trying to pretend that I am anywhere but in The Major city in Southeast Asia of all places. You know, that ambiguous Asian city that Nightline does specials on prostitution and corruption). But what I should have done is just waited and split the five hour taxi ride with Erin and David, making it a really cheap taxi ride. It’s like $40 total for them and you do not want to know what I paid (airplane ticket + exit tax thats only if you’re leaving by airport + overpriced airport taxi). I feel like I was financially gouged, and I was. Plus, I hate the whole hurry up and wait behind airport travel. I’d much rather be in a car going somewhere than sitting in an airport for an hour fidgeting. For some reason I fidget less in a car or bus.
So! For future knowledge, anyone going to Bangkok from Siem Reap should hire a Cambodian taxi and go that way. Skip the bus, apparently it breaks down a lot and only takes you to the border. Skip the airplane ride, it’s ridiculously short and very expensive.

I am staying in a little ramshackle bohemian place. I share a bathroom (wasn’t going to pay an extra 200bht for my own, but I was willing to pay an extra 200bht for AC) and this whole weird structure has a restaurant, a little internet cafe, and a shop.

Four whole days here before going home.

I miss Vietnam.

(Oh and re pictures. I lied. They’ll go up when I get home.)

045 – Done.

I hate written exams. I don’t have the attention span to sit for three hours and pull four essays out of my ass, especially after the electricity goes out and I’m doing this in the heat of the day. Blahhh. I had to get out of there.

They were still (mostly) better written than they could be, and I feel like at the very least I proved that I did not sleep through class and actually did all of the readings (which is a first for any class, honestly).

As I walked down the road to get food I realized that HOLY CRAP I’m done with my classes for this semester.
Which means that (!) I am officially a senior* and I graduate college in 11 months.

Bangkok in two days. Home in a week. Back to Hollins in almost three months. Graduation in 11 months.

My life is apparently series of countdowns but I don’t know what I’m counting down to.

*Technically I was a senior at the beginning of this semester, but that doesn’t move me any closer to graduation, really.

044 – Fuck.

Yes, I know. I’m such a potty mouth. It’s justified though, stay with me for just a bit.

I’m also a diligent procrastinator who will do things like, oh plan out next week to make sure that The Things I Know I Want to Do get done instead of studying for my exam this Friday.

When I came to next Friday, the morning of which I fly out of Bangkok and head home the first fuck arrived:
It takes 45minutes-2 hours to get to the airport from central Bangkok, depending on traffic. I am flying out internationally so I should be there at least 2, probably 2.5 hours ahead of time. That puts my departure from the hotel at sometime around 3am.

Alright, whatever. I just won’t sleep.

The second and larger fuck came when I was checking up on the airport I am transfering at, the Ginormous Monstrosity of Tokyo Narita. I have a very good feeling that Narita and I are not going to be friends. Previous to my little research, I was all like – oh, I’m transfering within the same terminal the one hour I have between one flight landing and the other flight taking off is not a problem. No biggie.
Oh, no. Narita’s Terminal 1 is six floors.
When I get into Tokyo at 3:00pm (barring any delays – and let’s not choke on our laughter regarding that one) I will be on the first floor. I will have to go up to the third floor, go through security, and then go up to the fourth floor and find my gate before my flight leaving at 4:00pm.
Yes. So. Fuck.

043 – Travel Plans and Genocide

(A rather long entry)
I’m not even back in the states yet and I’m already frustrated with how difficult and expensive it is to get from point A to point B. Planning a trip up from Washington DC to Maine is going to involve five different kinds of transportation – plane, metro, train, car, and a bus on the way back. The United States was not designed for travel that is not done by personal car – and we wonder why we have such a hard time getting people to use our public transportation. In Southeast Asia I’d just hop on a bus that would more or less take me straight there, perhaps with a transfer if its a more rural area. Or I could rent myself a car and a driver for the kind of money I’ll be spending on a brief trip up North in the states.
In another logistics type problem, I am attempting to find a room in Bangkok for at least the first night. What I don’t want to do is show up in Bangkok with my unwieldy monster of a suitcase (that did not seem quite so unwieldy prior to this trip), my laptop, and four months of my consumerist shit weighing it all down – without a room to drop it all off in. I just want to go straight to a place and drop it off. I’m not too picky, really. Under $20/night. AC would be nice. Oh yea, and a bed with linens.
1 online reservation, 2 phone calls, and 3 emails later and I still do not have a room. I will get a room, there is no shortage of hotels and (haha I accidentally wrote hostages. Unconscious developing country joke!) hostels in Bangkok. It’s just a matter of what I’m willing to settle for.

In less trivial matters (maybe).
I spent the last week in Phnom Penh (south-eastern Cambodia, the capitol city), mostly being depressed and sick. Depressed because you know, S-21 and the Killing Fields will do that to you. Sick because I’m in Southeast Asia and that will do that to you.
Basically, possibly as a result of eating curry for a straight week, my stomach and large intestine went on strike. The small intestine went along for the ride because of peer pressure, putting my entire gastro intestinal system into abject misery. I spent several days shitting water, drinking electrolyte packets, and curled up in bed clutching my stomach and whining to my roommate. A week later, my stomach is still kind of messed up – I’ve been getting indigestion at the drop of a hat. It’s funny because I just suck up the diarrhea. You know, whatever. I’m lactose intolerant but I eat cheese and ice cream regularly, not to mention living here for the amount of time I have – having shit that’s the wrong consistency is nothing new. But the indigestion has me whining for pepto bismol. This is coming in the form of Thai-produced Gastro bismol, which sounds much more like a superhero but tastes just ass bad if not worse
If I have learned anything this semester I have learned that I am a pansy. A pansy that will suck it up and do what needs to be done, but still a pansy. I love living in my little air-conditioned world and never valued that until I was in an environment with minimal air conditioning (and in some cases, electricity) and maximum heat and humidity. When I am sick, I just want to curl up on the couch, watch endless mind numbing hours of Law and Order, and eat chicken soup and cream of wheat, none of which can be found in Cambodia. And I want the food delivered to me or a kitchen with a microwave to be within sight of this mythical couch.
That’s not exactly the situation when you’re living in a hotel on your own in a country where I would get chicken feet in my chicken noodle soup, if I could find it at all.

S-21 and the Killing Fields were a sobering, mentally exhausting way to spend the day. I saw both of them back to back, which is not how I would have chosen it if I had made the plans but I suppose it was the most convenient. I really meant to write a reflective entry on the whole experience but wireless was scarce and the internet cafes stifling hot.

042 – Monks on street corners

Four months ago I never would have thought I’d be standing on a street corner in Siem Reap, Cambodia having a conversation with a Theravada Buddhist monk not much older than I am.

Today I treated it as ordinary until I was walking away and I realized that that would never happen in suburban Virginia.

Apparently a lot has happened in four months.

041 – Western Sleep

I have not gotten a full nights sleep since I came to Siem Reap. This is due mainly to the fact that my sleep schedule is out of sync with the locals.
I generally fall asleep anywhere between 11 and 2am. I wake up around 8 for class.

Last night, for example:
3am: air conditioner starts to leak profusely. All over my stuff, my books, and our drinking water (that I was hoping would last until we left for Phnom Penh at least). I turn off the air conditioner.
5am: It’s too damn hot. Screw it. AC goes back on.
6am: Giggling, yelling children run up and down the hallway. They’ve done this for two days in a row now.
6:20am: The house next to us, whose window is directly across from ours, starts BLARING Khmer music. For the next forty minutes.
6:51am: The AC, inevitably, starts leaking again. I ignore it and hide under my pillow.
8:00am: My alarm goes off. I ignore it and hope that my roommate set her alarm. But really, I don’t care anymore.
8:20am: My roommate’s alarm goes off. A very grumpy me drags my ass out of bed and eventually downstairs to spend five minutes explaining to the manager why the AC isn’t working right.

I am almost positive that it is his wife playing the music really loudly and his children running through the hallways. I want to point this out. I want to complain about the music and the children and the leak in the bathroom that drips on me when I’m trying to shower and the fact that they never refill the toilet paper and I’m always down there asking for more. But I can’t.
Who am I to bitch about the fact that the Cambodia day starts at 6am? I’m the visitor, the interloper in this culture. By all rights I should adjust to their schedule, not them to mine (which I would, if I was living and working here. I’m not).
I realize that in the scheme of things I am so ridiculously spoiled and privileged – it’s not the end of the world that my eight odd hours of sleep was interrupted by someone who was probably doing the laundry for the whole hotel while listening to music? Or the children who see this as their home?

Despite realizing this, I would still like a good night’s sleep.

Presently longing for the cushy days of my previous existence: days without being coated in sweat, my air conditioned basement cave of a bedroom. Parents cooking food/having food available so I don’t have to pay for every damned meal at the eating out rate. Wifi in my room. Friends. Easy access to the books I want to read *at a public library* and not just the books available in the (over priced) used bookstore. Endless shows of Law and Order on one of three channels, so there’s always something on besides bad boxing movies, The Justice League, and 24 hours of non stop Khmer Karaoke.

(I did, however, spend my evening yesterday sitting in a cafe, drinking a glass of Argentina Red and reading. Life isn’t all bad, in fact, it’s not bad at all. I’m just sleep deprived and grumpy.)

040 – Downfalls of Money and Language

I have been here in Siem Reap for a week and I have identified the following as what will be my monetary downfalls here in Cambodia:

1.) The blue pumpkin. It is still cheap compared to the US, has wireless, good food, and most importantly it is one of the few coffee shops within walking distance that is air conditioned * so on those really hot days I might actually leave my room before 3pm.

2.) The used bookstore down the road that I have to pass to get to school, the blue pumpkin, and home from both of these places. Prices are comparable to the US. One of my favorite things to do is wander around thinking about the kind of travelers that abandoned these books. Abandoning books happens a lot to a traveling bookworm. It’s no less painful than you’d think, but I almost wish that I could have taken the books I left in HCMC with me so I could trade them in at this bookstore and save some money.

3.) Food. It’s hotter here. The street stalls are hotter than the fan powered restarunts. Will pay an extra dollar or two for a fan.

Conclusion: The heat, the higher prices, and books, will be the downfall of my budget. It doesn’t help that you can only take money out of your checking account in multiples of 50USD. What kind of bank does that? Not only that but they give you a 50USD bill. That’s hard enough to break in the states, what the fuck am I going to do with it here? I don’t even think my hotel can break that. I shouldn’t have to go some place fancy and spend money just so I can break their damned 50. Given the choices (multiples of 50 with just a little over 100 in my account), I had to choose 50. If I had chosen 100USD, would they give me a 100 bill? In fucking CAMBODIA? I mean. Really.

The following is an example of the two block walk between my hotel and blue pumpkin, or anywhere for that matter. This takes place as I am walking brisk-American city style “I know where I am going” walk, it is also after half a dozen similar encounters that would just sound repetitive if I transcribed them all:

Street-hawker-child: Lay-DEE you buy book?
Me: No, thank you.
Street-hawker-child: You buy bracelet?
Me: No.
Street-hawker-child: Where you from?
Me: (I’ll either ignore him at this point or…) The US.
Street-hawker-child: Capital is Washington DC.
Me: That’s right.
Street-hawker-child: You buy postcard?
Me: No.
Street-hawker-child: You help me out, you buy postcard?
Me: No.
Street-hawker-child: You buy book?
Me: No.
Street-hawker-child: Why not?
Me: Because I don’t want a book, a bracelet, or a postcard.
Street-hawker-child: *looks confused for a moment, then sees another group of tourists and runs their way*
Tuk-tuk driver #5 (there were more before the street-hawkers, this just gets repetitive.): Lay-DEE you want tuk-tuk?
Me: No. (shakes head and makes the hand gesture that means No that I got in the habit of doing in Vietnam).
Tuk-tuk driver 6 (who is standing right next to #5): Tuk-tuk, Lay-DEE?
Me: (shakes head)
Tuk-tuk 6: I take you temples?
Me: No.
Tuk-tuk 7 (who is standing in front of my destination, where I am obviously going because I am walking past him): Tuk-tuk, Lay-DEE?

I guess Lay-DEE is better than the Vietnamese “MAH-DAM,” though it irritates some of the girls here more. I am not a Madame, if you’re going to go French on me, call me Mademoiselle. Madame would be like if I walked around calling a twenty year old Vietnamese woman by the wrong personal pronoun that addresses her as an old woman. Or in Khmer, if I addressed an old man that I should call ‘grandfather’ by ‘child.’ If you’re going to use English to address me, use Miss.
Or don’t call me anything because I’m still not interested. I’m not really irritated by the use of Lay-DEE or Mah-dam, it’s just when you hear so many times every day it gets a little wearisome. Its not like I know the nuances of my foreign languages, I can’t expect people who don’t speak much more than “Lady, you buy book?” to know the nuances of mine.

As for the beggers and the landmine victims that I pass every day, no, I’m not heartless. I also can’t afford to give them money every day. I think I’ve reached a compromise where I’m going to buy one of the landmine victim musician CDs (because they’re good and I like their music in addition to helping them out), try to shop at the various NGO-sponsored shops around town for my gifts, and find an NGO in town that caters to the poor and/or something along those lines and make a donation. My plans of a new iPod ($249, which I could swing when I get back to the states) to replace my four year old one that is starting to sputter and shut off randomly seems supremely insignificant and selfish in the face of people who might make that in a year. Not to say that I won’t eventually get a new iPod. I just can’t look the mother and her three children who beg on the corner I live on every day in the eye and tell her that.

* I am aware that I am a pansy assed westerner. I’m French Canadian, British, and German, for Christ’s sake. I was built for snow, rain, and beer, not tropical climates.