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 I avoid both of them, but usually I avoid situations where both or either would be needed (being out during the high hours, etc.) It’s so hot and muggy here that you can’t even walk down the road early in the morning to get breakfast without breaking a sweat. I look forward to re-entering my air conditioned world where I go from my air conditioned house to my air conditioned car to my air conditioned office. No comment on the ozone layer, I am quite aware.

Presently I am sitting at the blue pumpkin again, on a comfy couch with a teapot of earl grey. I am recovering from two days at the Angkor temples. A great way to get heat exhaustion, that is. I felt like crap both of those days and as I am feeling better presently I think that that’s what was up with my cranky body that is seemingly never satisfied no matter how much water I drink. Anyway. So, Angkor.

First of all, while Angkor Wat was impressive (probably more impressive in retrospect) it was not my favorite. Ta Prom was, though I would probably like it better without the pushy obnoxious tour groups (side note: you can’t experience anything in a tour group larger than like, fifteen, so you thirty something tour groups need to freaking suck it up and split up). Ta Prom is the temple with the unfortunate distinction of being the temple where they filmed Tomb Raider.

The entire time I was wandering around the temples I wished I had my medium format camera with me, and a holga. I am determined to come back to Angkor, particularly Ta Prom, with a holga and oodles of film, because I think that that would be an amazing way to capture the temples and the lightening. Next time. Because it is not like this is my last time in Southeast Asia. It won’t be.

Even after three months in Vietnam, I wouldn’t be able to tell you why I came here. My general reasoning is that I wanted “to be out of my element.” Which is true, that was a motivating factor. But really, I did the equivalent of looking at a map of Asia, closing my eyes, and pointing. And somehow I ended up in Southeast Asia. It was a decision that was made on impulse after I had thrown out all the carefully made plans to travel to China and study there (wasted quite a bit of money on Chinese language books, too). This seems to be how all of my major life decisions are made, and so far it’s worked out for me pretty well.
At some point during my wanderings the first day, I realized that this was why I did the program. Not for Angkor, specifically. For the ancient history and culture that I knew nothing about, for the Buddhist monks that are such a daily sight that I hardly note them anymore, for the pagodas and wats in every neighborhood, for the jungle, for learning that monkeys are indeed fuckers, for the communist political culture, for the experience of living [mostly] on my own in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language whose culture is so different from my own that even the westernization couldn’t be described as truly “west.” So yes, I came here to get out of my element.
And now I could tell you what that means.

I have over 450 pictures from the last two days. Ah, the power of digital. I would probably have taken as much with a film camera, but can you imagine how expensive that’d be to develop? It is going to take me awhile to sort through them all and figure out which twenty or so I am going to resize and post. I did change my header image to a Cambodian one – a picture of an apsara relief that I took at one of the temples. I also posted one of myself at Angkor Wat with a sign for my graduating folks back at Hollins. The fact that they’re graduating soon and the fact that I have exactly a year before I graduate is a fact that I’m ignoring.
EVERYTHING WILL BE EXACTLY THE SAME WHEN I GO HOME. Only not. At all.

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 to Saigon) that is nonetheless bustling with foreigners and locals alike. It’s called the blue pumpkin and is on the same street that CKS is on – between my hotel and CKS, less than a five minute walk from my hotel which is apparently very conveniently located. (Picture)

There are a lot of bugs here, more than in Vietnam. After three months in Vietnam I had maybe three bug bites. After three days here I have four times that and have actually considered using my bugscreen.
To give you an idea of how many bugs of all sorts of kinds floating around:
When I took my laptop out there was a grasshopper/locust squished in between the edge of my monitor and the edge of my keyboard (though not my monitor or my keyboard, thankfully) with its legs poking out the side of my closed laptop. I hadn’t even noticed it when I closed it. Nothing like cleaning locust guts off of your macintosh to tell you that you’re in Southeast Asia.

Tomorrow, Ankor Wat. Pictures eventually. Now, chai and reading a book.

On a U.S. Related Note, “Rest in peace, you blowhard.” Wonder what its like to die having so many people hating you?

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 that brothel is on it) and it has wireless, which is why I am here as I am drinking Chamomile tea. I have also purchased (and am wearing) The Stereotypical Backpackers pants (those things that look like pjs and tie in the front and the back). The problem with it is that despite the fact that they’re more airy than my jeans, I feel like I am about to flash some thigh on a pretty regular basis and thus the design is rendered impractical because stairs are impossible as is sitting cross legged on this comfy couch. This is rather disappointing because jeans are ridiculous in this weather and if I cut the jeans out of my wardrobe I have a sum total of one pair of pants. This could be difficult.

So we got into Siem Reap late last afternoon – 31 C. Cambodia is flat and despite being pretty green, is missing a lot of much needed trees.¹ My very first impression, you know, five minutes in was: HOLY SHIT the KHMER ARE HOT. I’m sure that my mother appreciates that side comment, but really. Both the men and the women have been crazy attractive with very few exceptions. Lots of big gorgeous smiles, even when you’re telling a tuk-tuk driver that no, you don’t need a ride.
Actually, I guess that’s my second impression. First impression? Hot as hell. More hot than Vietnam. Sweat dripping down your face hot. Yea. Ick.

There are a lot of Westerners here. I would hazard a guess that its about a 50-50 ratio of foreigner to Khmer. Many of the foreigners are all the same lot. It feels like there are only four cookie cutter backpacker looks, and while many seem rather cool, it gets rather tiresome. I mean, how many Swedish blondes with their hair pulled back wearing a tanktop and too short-shorts can you handle at once? I suppose I can’t speak, what with my pants and all. And my chacos. Let’s not forget my bootleg Northface.
The street children are more prevalent here. Maybe because it’s a smaller town (emphasis on the town aspect) than HCMC, but they’re seemingly everywhere. They will follow you for a block, tugging on your arm, holding a younger child, mumbling in khmer. They’re really less heartbreaking than obnoxious as already there’s been a few times where I have nearly missed vehicles on the road when I was trying to avoid a street kid (yea, Mom, I’m being careful).

The US dollar here is a switch. It’s really hard to think in dollars again, and to have it register that I am spending all that money. I went from a country where my coffee cost at the most, $1 (usually $0.30) to a country catering to westerners where my coffee costs $1.50-$3. It’s just frustrating. Less of a shock than going from Vietnam to Washington DC, I suppose.
On the money note: So many people I know have this impression that they can’t afford to travel. It is really a lot cheaper than anyone thinks it is, especially if you don’t get one of those package deals.

So the Center for Khmer Studies, where our classes are being held, is beautiful. Lush, green, and very Cambodian. It is so much more attractive (it should be, sharing grounds with a Wat) than the VNU campus, which was honestly the ugliest campus I have ever seen. Ever. CKS is going to be a great place to study this month. I am looking forward to spending a month splitting my time between the beautiful CKS and coffee shops (with a book). I am hoping to sort of just relax and be more of myself – less concerned with adapting and dealing with all those things that you need to deal with when you are consciously trying to Not Be a Tourist.

I am going to miss Vietnam. Already I am frustrated with not being able to haggle in the language, my first inclination is still to ask in Vietnamese how much things are and bring the price down using my awesome language numbers. Oh – did I mention I’m taking Khmer lessons? This means that I will be able to speak basic Spanish, French, Vietnamese, and Khmer and no competency? This is a problem and is unacceptable in my book. I should pick up one of them again when I get back to the states.

In Southeast Asia for only a month and a day more. Have I really been here for three months already?

¹ History Lesson! Pol Pot traded timber for guns with China = less trees and more guns than there should be.

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 to “the family that feeds me:” <$1 xe om ride

Doing all of the above, running around downtown, packing, and checking out still drunk from last night: priceless.

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 not fixed and is connected to particular situations.
• That is not who I am.
• I don’t know who I am.
• Nor do I know what I want to do. I came here to use Vietnam as help figuring out what focus I wanted for History. Perhaps if I still can’t figure that out, I’m not destined to go to graduate school for history and should pursue other options. Once I figure those other options out.
• I lost the skills I have taken so much pride in. I have been so completely dissatisfied with my photography (I think I know why, I haven’t been comfortable or taking any risks in asking people if they will let me take their pictures. My landscapes are okay, but it’s my people that are worth doing) and my writing/researching/academic skills, both of which I have considered among my strengths in the past. I still haven’t figured out what that means (that I have to use them or loose them?) and I am hoping it is mostly temporary.
• I am a lot more scatterbrained than I ever thought possible. Enough where I have considered getting it checked out when I get back to the states.
• My friends are important to me. I mean, I knew this, but this was a good exercise in the obvious.
• I can handle living in a random city completely different from what I am used to and without speaking the language.
• I have become more conservative than I once was. (Shh don’t tell Dad) Though really in the scheme of things – did I become more liberal? It all loops around anyway.
• Grass is never greener! In fact, it might be polluted and brown.
• My culture has shaped me more than I had thought. Also, prior to this trip I would have never given American culture any thought. Go abroad to learn about your own culture, eh?
• I am a lot more laid back. When it comes to service, people, time, food – I get a lot less irritated. Or fearful. Sure, I still think about the probability of Hep A being all over the dishes I am eating off of, I still think about the fact that there is no soap in the bathroom and no one who has been in here has washed their hands so using hand sanitizer seems almost like a moot point… and I still notice the cat-sized rats at restaurants, but it doesn’t bother me anymore. (Okay. The lack of soap still does.)
• I still can’t do: squat toilets.
• I still can’t speak Vietnamese.
• I’m still not entirely comfortable bargaining. Mostly because it’s usually over pennies for me and frankly, even if they are ripping me off, they need it more than I do.

Cambodia, soon. Revising my econ paper, the “last lunch” shindig, mailing some shit off that will get to the United States around the time I’m ready to start school again, packing and somehow making 48lbs on my way here into under 40lbs. Oyi.

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 the city and its quiet and not as busy as the ones I normally go to. I’ve become quite the regular, I don’t even really order anymore they just bring me my food. The past two days I’ve come in at 7am (meaning I wake up before 6 to get downtown) and stay as long as I can stand it (anywhere between 2pm and 5pm).

I have a paper due at 5pm today. I have a good chunk of it done, but I am frustrated because it is not on the level of writing that I want it to be but difficulty finding sources combined with the fact that my brain is at the point where it is complaining that I am making it function. I have read so much and I can no longer keep it straight in my head (subsequently I’ve been searching for this one chapter that I know I read, but where it is I don’t know) and my brain is starting to ooze out my ear. As long as the ooze eventually makes its way over to the paper I am attempting, I can work with it. It’s just a matter of corralling the ooze. Oyi. I just want Cambodia to happen already. I want to be home working on my thesis (which is what? I don’t know) and generally just working.

(Leave for Cambodia on Sunday)

Edit: Holy crap I think I forgot how to write. This is unfortunate as for the current paper that is in front of me and the thesis I mentioned previously. I wonder if this is a temporary state.

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, which is the only place open after like, 11pm. Bars, clubs, etc. Lots of obnoxious drunk Westerners, for the most part.
To the right and up one block is the Highlands Coffee I go to, though recently I’ve started going to the one up three blocks.
If you go to the right and follow that road (Le Loi) all the way down to the opera house, that’s where you’ll find a lot of the expensive stores and swanky ritzy hotels. Go a little further and there’s a lot of brothels. I make no suggestions on why they are so close. (There’s also another Highlands Coffee on the back of the opera house. A note on the proximity: it’s maybe a three minute walk from Ben Tanh to the first Highlands, a five minute walk to the second one, and a seven or eight minute walk to the third one. Past the third one if you go a few more blocks to the intersection with the cathedral, there’s another one there. Like I’ve said: The Starbucks of Vietnam).

In other randomness:
I have less than a week to madly write two papers.
I leave for Cambodia next Sunday (5/13).
When the sun sets here in Saigon you can really tell how smoggy it is. I’m surprised the birds don’t develop a severe case of bird-asthma. I mean, the sky is flat out grey even at its sunniest.

I have stopped telling people I’m from Virginia because then a ten to twenty minute conversation about the Blacksburg Killings ensues.

032 – Buôn Ma Thuột, Picture Entry

So the following will be a picture entry because I think that’s the best way to describe the past weekend. Before I get into it, a few things to note:
Today (4/30) is a National Holiday. Quick – history buffs, guess why.

This evening a bunch of us went out for pizza at one of the two Pizza Huts in all of Vietnam (both of which are in District 1 of HCMC). The pizza was amazing, but the real kicker about this whole dinner was that: Pizza Hut is fancy here. You won’t believe it, but put it into perspective: 50,000 VND for a small personal pan pizza is out of reach of most Saigonese who could eat a filling meal for 10,000 VND or less. It is so fancy and popular that the waitress asked us why we didn’t make a reservation.
Uh, maybe because it’s Pizza Hut?

So, pictures. We went to Buôn Ma Thuột to learn about the Hmong, ride elephants, and visit a coffee plantation. After a very long, occasionally terrifying drive on Friday (picture speeding through the curvy highland roads where people don’t decide to move the extra foot needed to pass each other until this last minute), we went to Buôn Ma Thuột National Park on Saturday. The Vietnamese idea of a National Park is quite different from mine. To me, National Park = Yellowstone. Or Arcadia. To the Vietnamese, it means “kitschy touristy place with a man-made lake.” But, there were elephants, wine, and dancing, so I suppose it fulfilled expectations in some way.

This girl was right next to the bathroom at the park. Wonder if she took the toilet paper.

031 – Rice Overdose

I am quite sick of rice, rice noodles, rice-based meals, rice, rice, rice. Rice at every meal. Every. Meal.
Rice coming out of my ears. Anyone tries to feed me rice back in the states and I will dump it on your head.
To be fair, how much of the world lives on only a bowl of rice a day?
It is not enough.
ONE CAN NOT LIVE ON RICE ALONE.

This brief update is brought to you from the middle of nowhere, Vietnam. Sponsors include this internet cafe, the generator that keeps this internet cafe open, the boy next to me who doesn’t understand English but is seemingly facinated by my going-ons on this computer, the ice cream I had earlier that was durrian flavored (which is the. worst. idea. ever.), the 8 hour bus ride to get here, and the 8 hours again tomorrow.

A real entry tomorrow evening, I promise. With pictures. Then, I will retreat into school work and get so much freaking work done in the next few weeks that I’ll even impress myself.

A

P.S. Since I got here, my life plans have changed at least four times (aka I’m pulling a Becky a lot more here). What the hell, I mean really. I went from Knowing that I wanted to be a History Professor to Knowing that I wanted to go to law school to Knowing that I wanted to do foreign service to Knowing that I wanted to go to the Peace Corps to thinking that maybe I’ll just take some time to add to my education that doesn’t include classes – travel, working, etc. Doing what? I don’t know yet. Whatever can get me out of the United States, I guess. That doesn’t involve rice. For at least a few years.

030 – Xe buýt Pride!

I am absurdly proud of my new-found ability to get on and off the bus (xe buýt) with some grace – while it is still moving.

A month and a half ago I was still scared of taking the bus and getting lost in the sprawl of Ho Chi Minh City. Man, I wish I could tell myself one month ago to take the damned bus earlier, it would have saved me a lot of money (taxi = about $7 each way; bus = $0.19 each way).

I am also absurdly proud of understanding the woman who talked to me at the bus stop. All she asked me where I was going and why my white ass was in Thu Duc (that’s a rough translation).