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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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039 – Angkor

I think that the one thing I have hated the most about Southeast Asia is the constant state of sweating. This isn’t just me being gross, everyone but the locals sweat here. It’s worse when I wear sunscreen / bugscreen lotion as the sweat beads up differently and just coats every inch of skin. Subsequently [...]

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038 – Settling In

I am sitting in the blue pumpkin, which quite possibly might become my favorite foreigner-coffee-shop-hang out. I’ve already been here twice today. They have good chai and as I have gone several months without chai I am making up for it now.
I am on the second floor, by the window overlooking the sleepy street (compared [...]

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037 – Siem Reap, First Impressions

I am presently sitting in an Irish bar (it doesn’t really deserve the term “pub”) in Siem Reap, Cambodia. This bar is down the road from my hotel (to get to my hotel you need to pass the brothel and go almost to the end of a little side street that is only known because [...]

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036 – Last Day in Vietnam

Last night dinner, taxi, and drinks: $25 (fancy spanish tapas, including amazing Iberian ham and a split liter of sangria… and maybe some tequila)
Shipping a box and a poster home: $27 (by sea. It’ll be there in like, late July.)
Last minute spending to get rid of VND: $20
Bill for laundry: $5
Giving book from DC [...]

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035 – Looking Back Part I.

On a more serious note.
I have learned a lot of things in my time in Vietnam. I could list them all, but as I presently have other things to do, instead I am going to go with what is on my mind right now.

I learned that I depend a lot on an identity that is [...]

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034 – Ooze

I must have spent about $70 these past few weeks on my daily Highlands Coffee visits alone. There is simply nowhere else to study or do work (that I’ve found anyway) and I am incapable of working in my room. I finally found a Highlands that I really like, it has a great view of [...]

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033 – Daily Randomness

This is Ben Thanh market. Directly across from it is the bus station I get off at. That green thing is your typical city bus in Saigon.
To the left of this is the Pho 24 place I eat lunch at a lot. If you go really far to the left there is the backpacker district, [...]

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