Shocked and Disgusted- Seriously, Don't Read This

4/2

As I may have said before, I'm not easily impressed.  The flip side of this is that I'm also not easily shocked, but today I saw something that really did shock me and almost made me throw up.

I'm staying one extra day in Siem Reap to get caught up on some writing and do some planning and errands.  I dropped off my laundry ($3 at $1/kilo), arranged a massage for tonight by Souk and went to the Old Market to get something to eat and buy a bus ticket  I was slowly looking around, found a place with noodles that looked good, ate some with a fried egg on top for $0.75 and started looking around at the other food, still a little bit hungry.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS A VERY GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF A FISH BEING KILLED QUITE GRUESOMELY.  READ AT YOUR OWN RISK WITH A PLASTIC BAG NEARBY.

Past the vegetables, rice, cicadas and grasshoppers (?) available for sale by the kilo, were the stalls either built into the market walls or set up on the long metal cafeteria-style table.  Filled with chickens, live crabs, giant prawns, fish and women shelling thumbnail sized shrimp, it was interesting to look at, but I'd seen those all when I'd been there the day before.

What I hadn't seen before was the people with stalls set up on the ground.  Their food was kept in, and separated by, large metal sheets, the kind you'd find in an industrial kitchen.  Only one woman here, in between two other women selling vegetables, sold fish.  Nothing extraordinary about that until I noticed that they were still alive.  I don't know how, since there didn't seem to be any bucket nearby that they could have just been dumped from, nor were they in water, but somehow they were definitely still breathing.  You could watch their gills flare out and in as they gasped for water but remained dry.

One brave fish attempted escape and flopped about 10 inches into the air and over into the green leaves of a vegetable sellers tray.  Unfortunately for the fish, the woman just picked up its squirming body and threw it back into the sheet with the rest of the writhing black fish.

A shopper came up and must have asked for a fish just as I was passing by and I saw the fishmonger grab one at random.  It was also still wriggling but she held it tightly in her left hand, obviously practiced.  She then quickly brought the flat side of a small meat cleaver down hard on the fish's head with a dull "Thwack."  A second later, she did it again.  "Thwack."

It convulsed as if having a seizure with larger twitches.  Back and forth it vibrated rapidly for several seconds.  This wasn't the flopping of a fish out of water but something far worse and just so obviously unnatural.

I could not look away.  I'd always thought that was a silly phrase, cliched and overused, especially accompanied by the words car crash or train wreck.  I don't know that I've ever seen a train wreck, but I've seen crashes and have always been able to look away easily if I wanted to.  With this fish, I could not stand to watch but I'd simply lost the ability to move any part of my body.  It was horrifying.  Just writing about it makes me feel nauseous all over again.

This part was the worst, though it was over after about 3-5 seconds; as soon as the woman held the fish up at an angle and used the blade to cut halfway into its head behind its cheek, it stopped moving.  Hopefully it was fully dead as the woman cut into it's head on the other side, a bit of bright red blood contrasting with the bright white meat of its muscles, and began to descale its carcass.

Finally I could go, which was fortunate as I was worried I was going to throw up.  As I got out of the market into the street I felt a bit better, though my appetite was gone and my stomach continued to feel slightly strange for hours.  Then I began to wonder why it had bothered me as much as it did.  It was certainly disgusting but I'd seen gross things before, including animals killed in front of me.  I decided that this had upset me so much because it was so unnatural and made so little sense.  Why hadn't the fish all died out of water?  Why couldn't she have just chopped the head off in one go?  And why, why, why did it have to quiver like that- that was truly creepy.

Okay, though, enough of that, I'm off to my massage.

Sunrise: It's NEVER Worth It

4/1/2010

Because I'm the most incredible person who's ever existed, I woke up and got up at 4:30 a.m. this morning, just to see the damn sunrise over Angkor Wat.  Everyone told me "Oh- it's incredible- all reds and oranges," and "I'm really not a morning person, but it was awesome and totally worth it."  Everyone lies.  It was okay once I got to the right spot, the sun did look kind of cool half yellow and half red, but it didn't illuminate the clouds or sky around it with any color and it was not even remotely, slightly worth waking up that early for.

A bit annoyed, I headed out for the other temples I wanted to see.  First I went into the huge Angkor Thom complex.  This is the gate I passed through:

You may not be able to see it well here, but those are good soldiers pulling a snake.  Around a mountain.  In order to churn butter to make a god or demon immortal, but Vishnu intercedes, and some apsara dancers (nymphs) appear.  It's a long, convuluted story but it is interesting, so if you happen to have a lot of time, here's the wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samudra_manthan

Past the South Gate, I rode on to Bayon, a large temple.  When I got there there was one tourist couple taking photographs but it was otherwise empty.  They left shortly after and from about 6:30 to 7, I only had to share the temple with a man praying in front of Buddha.  This was even more exciting because this is one of the important "must-see" temples and I was worried it would be overrun with tourists.  It was also awesome; walls of four to five foot faces looked down at me with empty eyes and smiles crooked from centuries of abandonment and vandalism.

Eventually, the hoards of tourists did come to Bayon so I left to see the next temple, Baphoun.  It's been described as the world's largest jigsaw puzzle because when they rediscovered Baphoun, it was mostly in pieces and it's still under serious construction today.  Around the back, once I could actually figure out where it was, a giant reclining Buddha was built as one of the walls of the temple, which was kind of cool to see.

From there, I went to the Terrace of the Elephants, which was just adorable.

Then the Terrace of the Leper King (great name, no real story):

Then Phimeanakas, which was not particularly interesting and full of rude Western European tourists.

I was starting to get really grouchy and exhausted and decided that I really needed something to eat and drink so I looked at the nearby tents and didn't see any set up as restaurants and was just about to give up when one of the several people shouting "Cold Drink?" at me, added in "Something to Eat?"  I stopped and looked again at her tent area.  There was no kitchen or restaurant and definitely no menu.  She offered noodles and I asked for rice, upon which she offered to make fried rice.  She only had beef, not chicken, but it was good enough. 

After I'd eaten most of it and downed a Coke Light and half of a giant water, she started asking me questions.  I gave a few basic answers and she started telling me about her life.  She had seven brothers and sisters, was married with one year old son and was 23.  One of her brothers had died and her mother had died three months later.  I asked her if she thought that her mother had died of a broken heart, hoping that she'd understand that I didn't mean it literally.  She did, and nodded.  She told me all about the upcoming Khmer New Year and what people did for that: esentially ate a lot and spent a bunch of time with family and friends.  Unfortunately, as she explained to me, it was a big holiday, but a private one (like Christmas or Thanksgiving) so I probably wouldn't see much.  Later she told me about Khmer weddings; she said that they were very colorful and lasted at least two days.  I can't remember everything now, I can't even remember her name, but she was very interesting to talk to.

In my former bad mood, I'd considered skipping Preah Khan, a temple that was supposed to be very interesting, but was somewhat far away, and in the opposite direction of town and the way I wanted to go.  Now refreshed, I decided I could do it so I set off.  As I said previously, I didn't feel hot when I was actually on the bike so it was a lovely ride out.

On my way to Preah Khan, I passed South Kleang, North Kleang, Tep Pranam and the Preah Pithu Group but just rode up to or by them without stopping or taking any pictures because they just weren't that exciting.

Preah Khan was another huge complex but it was originally set up as more of a village with a temple inside and a sort of minor fortress wall around.  It was cool, though the only really interesting thing about it was its size.  But wait, actually, there was one other really cool thing about it and that it had a double storied library (I think?).  Many of the temples are tiered but this was the only one I saw with two usable floors.  Anyway, there was a ladder on the ground next to it- just a simple, metal construction ladder, but it looked good enough for me so even though I knew it was foolish, I propped it up against the second level and went up and walked around the old columns.

Baksei Chamkrong was another of those random temples that isn't supposed to be anything special, but just happens to be on the way to/from something else.  It was nearly noon by this time so most of the tourists were gone for the time being because it was just too hot for them and no one was at this particular temple.  It had a ton of steps to climb up to the top, which I always like because it makes me feel adventerous and like I'm doing something cool and different, even though I realize I'm actually not.  I found a slightly shady spot at the top and sat there for a while.  I meditated briefly, mostly because I felt like my intuition hadn't been as strong as usual lately and meditation is supposed to help.  It was okay (the meditation, not the temple- which I thought was really neat).

The last temple I wanted to see was Phnom Bakheng, which has a great view of the city and some of the other temples and is supposed to be a great spot to watch the sunset, but you have to walk up a very steep 2-3 km hill/mini-mountain.  At sunset they have elephants available to rent to take you up there which I would've done but they weren't there at the time so I had to walk/climb.  At 12:30, it was so freaking hot I almost died, and I was sweating like crazy- it was hard work, though I did better than I would've expected, especially since I haven't been running or exercising as much as I usually do.  Once I finally got up the mountain, I had to climb a series of steep stairs, though the view and the complete lack of tourists made it worth it.

I stopped and got a coconut milkshake and it was so good that I had another.  Enjoying my bicycle ride on the way back into town, I passed these kids and I just had to take a picture because even though it's hard to see, that's the moat around Angkor Wat but they're just having fun splashing around.

That afternoon, I did a few errands and then went to Seeing Hands, an NGO supported massage parlor where the masseurs are blind, to get an hour-long massage for $5, plus a $2 tip for Souk, my masseuse and said I'd come back the next day.

P.S. I saw something today that was described as a "Stretchy Fur Preventing Nipple," What was it really?
A baby bottle top.

Temples, Temples and more Temples

3/31

Today I did actually manage to get up at 6 a.m. and ride my bike through town and out to the temples.  The traffic in Cambodia is odd.  It's not so horribly busy, and surprisingly, most people do seem to actually pay attention to the traffic lights BUT they drive in whatever direction they want to.  People are generally supposed to drive on the right here, but motorcyclists, who are the worst drivers here anyway, seem to ignore this and drive into oncoming traffic whenever it suits them.

Once I got out of town onto the road towards Angkor Wat, however, the trip became quite enjoyable.  It was already pretty hot out (85* or so) but as long as I was riding, the heat didn't bother me, likely because of the wind.  Whenever I stopped to look at a temple though, I just started dripping liters of sweat.  I started at Prasat Kravan, a relatively uninteresting but often visited temple with carvings of Vishu and Lakshami (sp?) in the brick walls:

Then I headed over to Bat Chum, which was quite cool, and since it was slightly out of the way there were no other tourists there so it seemed much better than it was.

On my ride back to the main road, I passed tons of rice paddies, a family with a small daughter who waved enthusiastically, a few people also riding bicycles carrying straw brooms into town, and a group of maybe 20 elementary school aged boys in school uniforms, also all on bikes, who seemed thrilled to see me and shouted and waved until I passed.  It was an odd little experience, like being in a somewhat rural part of Cambodia, yet while inside their foremost tourist attraction.

Next, I went to Banteay Kdei which was especially neat as it was done in the Bayon style of temple, which I hadn't seen yet.  As I walked in I was accosted by several people, mostly women and children, trying to sell me postcards, guidebooks, handmade jewelry and scarves.  I ignored them, which really is the best thing to do, even though it sounds mean, but one of the girls, Tong, followed me this time, and I'm not quite so rude that I can ignore someone trying to have a one on one conversation with me.  She asked where I was from and I told her the United States.  Proudly she told me that Washington D.C. was the capital.  I later discovered that this is what every child in Cambodia will tell you when you say that's where you're from and one little boy even asked my state and knew Sacramento was the capital!  Regardless, I started chatting with her a bit, because she was charming and I couldn't quite help it.  She told me she wanted to give me one of the handmade bracelets for free and I told her "No thank you," so many times that I started to feel bad so eventually I took it.  I knew this was a scam and that my guilt would force me to buy an overpriced postcard from her on the way out, and she knew this, but for this one time, I just couldn't help myself.  So I did take the bracelet, which was probably worth about ten cents, and on my way out, I did buy a postcard from her for $1.  It was okay though, because she knew, and I knew, and she knew that I knew, and I knew that she knew that I knew that it was all a scam and that I just felt guilty and wanted to help her out, irresponsible as helping children in this way really is.

 

Right across the street was Sras Srang, so I went over and took a few pictures but it was extremely boring as most of the temple was underwater.

I bicycled over to Pre Rup which was a "temple-mountain," which is a temple that's built upward.  These type of temples sound like a pain in the ass, and they are; tons of steps so steep your pants will split, but the reason is that it's supposed to remind you of the mountain the guy had to climb in their branch of Hinduism.  (Can you tell I'm getting lazier and lazier and more forgetful with this blog?)  Anyway, this was yet another style of temple and the interesting thing about it was that it was made of three different types of rock: brick, sandstone (which is much harder than our or Australian sandstone, by the way) and lava rock.

The next temple was East Mebon which is very similar to Pre Rup:

Across the road from East Mebon were several tented shops and restaurants.  Even though it was only a bit after 10 a.m., I'd been bicycling and climbing temples for four hours already in the heat, which by now was extremely hot, so I decided to take a break of sorts.  I wanted to go out to Banteay Srei because Chris and Amarita and all the guidebooks said that even though it was much father away (something like 25 km from East Mebon, 37 km from the city of Siem Reap,) it was fantastic and amazing.  So I planned to take a tuk tuk out there and on the way back, see Banteay Samre which wasn't supposed to be that fantastic but wasn't too far out of the way from the road.

Unfortunately, all the tuk tuks (meaning all three of them) in front of East Mebon were already in use by visitors so I asked around and finally made a deal with a woman to get a motorbike ride roundtrip for $7.  The only catch was that I had to wait for her brother to get back, as he was the one who would be driving me since he was a cop so he wouldn't be stopped and asked to pay the extra fee.  That was fine, so I bought a water, waited about 10-15 minutes and then we set off.  We had to stop to get gas, which most motorcyclists buy from the side of the road where vendors keep the gas in various one liter bottles: liquor bottles, water bottles, Pepsi, Coke and Sprite bottles.  There are normal gas stations here, mostly used by cars, and the prices aren't that different, but this is just how it's done.  I actually took this picture in Phnom Penh, but it's the same thing.

Banteay Srei was different from the other temples, for one thing, it was quite pink.  More importantly, its carving were more detailed and better preserved than any other temples in the area.  There were many tourists there, which was annoying, but it was still nice to look at.  Overall, though, I didn't care for it that much.  I could see its value and admit it was exquisitely done, but for whatever reason it didn't do anything for me, though retrospectively it does seem pretty incredible.

Banteay Samre, however, was awesome.  I was the only tourist there, save one British couple who asked me to take their picture and took mine in exchange.  It wasn't just its emptiness that was cool, but it had walls so high you could actually feel lost or like you really were exploring without even the temple itself as a guide.  I really did feel like Lara Croft now, so I had to jump down from steps unnecessarily and slow- fake run through part of the inner portico.  It was stupid, but fun and it made me laugh.  At myself.  By myself.  In an ancient, empty temple.

So after all that templing, I was rather tired but as I bicycled the 45 (or was it an hour?) back into town, I got some of my energy back.  I went to the phone shop and while the guy was trying to make it work, I watched his two year old son eat duck embryo.  I wish I'd gotten a picture and had even considered it at the time, but was too embarrassed.  It was very strange to watch, not just because of what he was eating, but because of the meticulousness that he ate it with.  Using a tiny spoon, he'd scrape a bit out of the egg and move it from the egg holder dish to a plate with pepper and pepper and basil, then combine variations of the three.  It was simply a bizarre thing to watch, especially because I think he was trying to engage me in a water drinking competition- I won because I finished my bottle.

After getting my phone working and relaxing at my hostel for a while, I rode out to my Aunt's hotel and from there we took a van out to the dock to go to Chong Kneas, the floating village.

From the first view of the latte-colored lake, I knew it was a bad idea, the $15 charge for a boat, that went directly to a corporation (as even shown on the ticket) just confirmed that.  $15 is a lot of money in Cambodia, especially for a crappy should-be-15 minute boat ride.  Had I not been with my Aunt and her friend, I would have simply turned around and gone back, but as it was, I got on the tiny boat with the loud engine on the coffee colored water. 

As if I needed any confirmation of my previous judgments, the faces of returning tourists we passed were proof enough- of several boats we passed, I only saw one person smiling.  There was none of the happy chatter you usually hear on tours, just depressed silence.

After about seven minutes on the sputtering boat, we stopped.  Our inept Captain had steered us into the bottom of the river.  To be fair, it was very shallow and quite narrow, but none of the other boats had any problems.  Amarita later said that she'd noticed that he had bloodshot eyes and liquor or beer bottles under the seat, but I didn't see these.  We had to get on another boat with other tourists to go around, and when we finally got to the village, it was deeply, horribly depressing.

It was interesting, in a way.  I can't deny that, it's just that it was interesting in the worst, most horrible, disgusting way ever.  Being in Cambodia, with the extreme poverty and landmine victims, is difficult enough, but this was even worse.  Things you didn't ever want to think about, and didn't ever want to be true (like the fact that they drink, cook with, bathe and defecate all in the same water) were true.  Ethnically Vietnamese, the people of these floating villages seemed stuck in a disgusting type of poverty, the disparity of which I'd never quite seen.

Getting to their tourist point and reading the information signs just made it worse.  They were communes with literacy levels much lower than equivalent groups on land, desperately poor and dying at every moment.

After all that, we didn't feel terribly happy and managed to just walk around the Old Market for a bit longer before saying good-bye as they were leaving for Phnom Penh the next morning.

Gourmet Vegetarian Food in Cambodia- Who Knew?

3/30

I meant to get up at 6 a.m. to start going around to the temples by bicycle early in the day but didn't even hear my alarm.  I still got up early, about 8:20 a.m., because I couldn't go back to sleep even though I was still tired.  After a Coke Light to wake me up, I wrote and messed around online for several hours.  Heading out, I ate lunch and bought a Cambodian SIM card so I could call my Mom. 

At 4 p.m. I met Chris and Amarita at their hotel to go out to Chong Kneas, a floating village on the Tonle Sap Lake.  We were driving out in the van they rented with their guide when it broke down.  By the time the guide- who laughs creepily, especially when he doesn't know something or have a good answer for why he screwed up- got another car to come pick us up (about 25 minutes), Amarita and Chris didn't want to go because they would miss the sunset so we just went into the Old Market area to look around and have dinner at the vegetarian restaurant, Chamkar.

It was actually really, really good.  It was definitely gourmet food, but cheap.  Mains were around $5-6.  The spring rolls and sauce were particularly fresh and tasty- I think it was the basil that made it so light.  All the flavors were expertly combined and innovative.  My Aunt asked to buy a copy of the menu since it was so interesting so the owner, a Frenchman who was no longer the chef but had created the dishes, came out and talked with us for a while all about Cambodian ingredients and told us a good restaurant to go to in Phnom Penh.  He also made us a dish that wasn't on the menu but was better than any of the mains we had ordered: sauteed Cambodian spinach with soy sauce and a bit of garlic.  I don't even like spinach, but this kind tasted a bit different, and somehow just felt comforting and homey. 

From Old Market, we went back to their hotel, and then their guide drove me and my bicycle back into town, as I was uncomfortable bicycling back in the dark along one stretch of empty road, and dropped me off at the Night Market.  I'd been by it before and had thought it looked slightly interesting but I now realized it wasn't.  It was a crappy, overpriced souvenir bazaar.  The part of it and reason I'd thought it would be good was just a smaller food area next door, which was mostly closed at night.

Playing La(u)ra Croft

3/29

Amazingly, I actually managed to wake up around 6 a.m., get up by 6:20 a.m. and arrived at Chris' hotel at 7 a.m. on the dot.  Since she's usually very punctual, I was surprised she wasn't waiting for me with a scowl, but the people at the front desk told me she was still in her room.  I told them not to call her and I'd just wait.  I sat down to wait, but got up again almost immediately when I noticed the breakfast buffet Chris had told me came with their hotel.  It looked so good so I went over, hoping they wouldn't charge me since I was a guest of a guest, but thinking that even if they did, it would be worth it.  It's very rare for me to eat breakfast, but for whatever reason, I was really hungry and it just looked so scrumptious.  So I ate a lot.  Three glasses of orange juice, two croissants, an omelette with onions, tomatoes, sausage and carrots (sadly, since I hate them, Southeast Asians seem obsessed with carrots and throw them in everything for no reason,) probably 3/4ths of a dragon fruit, a bit of pineapple and a few slices of a baguette with different jams or butter.  I also took an apple and a piece of their brownie-like chocolate bread with me for later.  Unsurprisingly, they did charge me, but it still only came out to $5.50 and I was so satisfied with it, that seemed like a bargain.

Chris came out eventually and joined me for breakfast.
"Oh good, you're here early," she said.
"I thought you said to meet at 7," I replied.
"Yes, we're meeting the driver here at 7."
"But it's 7:21 already."
"No sweetie, it's 6:20."
"Oh."

Crap.  That's when I realized that I hadn't ever changed my phone or computer or pedometer clock to Cambodian time, which is one hour behind Malaysian time.  I think this is due to Daylight Savings Time because otherwise it makes absolutely no sense since time gets earlier as you go West, and Malaysia is West of Cambodia.  I had to think about this for a while, so for comparison's sake, I'll tell you that it's currently 11:10 p.m. in Sydney, 8:10 p.m. in Cambodia, and 9:10 p.m. in Malaysia (in East to West order).

Anyway, that meant I'd really gotten up at 5 a.m.  As soon as I realized this and thought about the long day ahead, I immediately felt exhausted.  We did leave at around 7 a.m. after all and headed off in a blessedly air-conditioned van to Angkor Wat.

Even with less than ideal lighting conditions, since we were there just an hour after sunrise and Angkor Wat is West facing, an oddity among the temples in that sense, creating a block of darkness and shadows against a bright sky, it was still brilliant.  The huge complex looked both ancient and yet had an bit of regality in it's finely chiseled sandstone bricks and rectangular columns.  It also reminded me of Versailles; the detailing, architecture and large garden spaces.

Afterwards, Chris and Amarita said they wanted a coffee break, which turned into a lunch break, at 10:40 a.m.  I was still full from breakfast, but since I had no idea how long we'd be gone, I ordered a plate of plain rice and a coconut milkshake.  Coconut milkshakes are both completely obvious, completely ignored in the Western world, and freaking amazing.  The coconut milk is thrown in a blender with some of the coconut meat and a bunch of ice.  Some places seem to use simple sugar to make it sweeter, others use a thickener, but that's the basic recipe.

Chris ordered frogs legs in a green pepper sauce and since I couldn't remember if I'd ever tried them or not, I asked her for a bite just to be sure.  The sauce was pretty good but the meat was bland and a bit stringy.

After lunch, we headed off to our next temple, Ta Prohm.  You may know this as the Tomb Raider temple; it was here that they filmed part of the movie.  Very cool.

My Aunt Chris, Me and Amarita

 

Yes, that is possibly a Stegosaurus on the temple wall.

Even though we'd only seen two temples, they were some of the most important ones, so we called it a day and they went back to their hotel and I rode my bike home.  At 5:20 we met at the Old Market and walked around.  Markets may all be nearly the same, with just slight variations, but I still love them and this one was rather interesting to see as it didn't seem particularly tourist oriented.  I found two pairs of very thin cotton/linen pants, which were just what I was looking for, though pockets would've been nice.  I got one long pair in dark green and one capri length pair in black.  For both, I paid $11, which was too much, especially for what they were, but I am enjoying them.

Next we went to Koulen for a Cambodian buffet and to watch apsara (traditional Khmer) dancers.  It was overpriced, the food was subpar, the atmosphere touristy, and the dancers obviously were not very good; horribly unsynchronized, but we probably wouldn't have gotten to see them otherwise so it was worth it.  I also forgot my camera for this, so I have a few crappy cell phone pics, but nothing good.  Sorry.

I had another few Angkor beers for 50 cents at my hostel's rooftop bar, talked to a couple of German guys who were actually getting the government to pay for their trip by taking advantage of a program to help unemployed people start their own businesses, so their business was building a blog about having sex and traveling the world, and trying to make money off of it, and then, after listening to one of them tell me that sex was the only thing he cared about in the world, I went to bed (ALONE- just to clarify).

As Easy As...Hard

3/28

Though I would've gone eventually, the specific reason I'm in Siem Reap right now is because my Aunt Chris is vacationing here for a week with a friend of hers so I wanted to meet them.  I asked the people at the front desk how much it would cost to get a tuk tuk to their hotel, and once they agreed where it was generally, they said $3.  I thought this was excessive since it was still a short trip and a couple nearby mentioned that I could probably rent a bicycle for $1 for the day and go out there.  This sounded like a good idea to me, despite the fact that I hadn't ridden a bicycle since I was about 16, and even then just once or twice when my mom decided to torture us with a "family activity," which almost always meant time spent hiking or bicycling or climbing lighthouses in Nature, who I just don't get along with.  I hadn't regularly bicycled or just gone out for a joyride since I was, oh, maybe 10. 

Regardless, I didn't even consider the idea that I'd have trouble.  It didn't even occur to me as a thought to brush off.  If it had, I know I wouldn't have been bothered anyway because there are so many cliches about riding bicycles: "It's just like riding a bike," "You never forget how to ride a bicycle," "Easy as riding a bike," "If you fall down, you just get back on the bike," etc.

So I walked down the road a bit, saw a sign, "Bike $1" written in black sharpie on a square of brown cardboard and rented a bicycle with a $10 deposit.  I thought the seat looked high, but what did I know? so I got on, managed to catch the pedals and force them into motion and wobbled away.  I realized that while I could technically ride a bicycle, I couldn't ride it well.  My balance was off and instead of traveling in a straight line, my front tire seemed to keep moving sideways so I was going in the right direction, but taking a decidedly unscenic route since I couldn't keep the bike steady.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I made this drawing for you:

You now know how well I was doing, but I was progressing.  At least until I saw an ATM.  I needed to get money so I pointed the tough, sticky handlebars in that direction.  I didn't notice the little trough in between the road and the sidewalk until just before I got there.  I had time to stop, and started to brake slightly, but then decided to go for it.  Obviously this was a stupid thing to do and had I simply committed to going over it and not braking, or had I fully stopped and walked it over, I'm sure I would have been fine.  This inbetweenness, though, did not work, and I realized that about two seconds before it happened.  I fell down, but since I was expecting it, I like to think I fell quite gracefully, though it may not have appeared that way to the untrained eye.  Or eyes, of everyone nearby; the British couple who stopped to see if I was okay, the tuk tuk driver, the motorcyclist and the bank guard.  I was fine, dirty since I toppled over onto the filthy street, but not even scratched.

Moral of the story: You can forget how to ride a bike, it's not that easy, but fortunately, you can get right back on (and speed away from those looking at you pitifully).

I bicycled around the Independence Gardens, by the Royal Residence, went into a temple, then continued through the town in general and the Old Market area, stopping at the Central Market to get some weird egg/fish (paste?)/vegetable pancake thing and a dragonfruit, which I'm starting to love.  Most of the food and things in the market were no stranger than anything else I'd seen, except for the crickets and cicadas which looked like they'd been baked, and could be bought by the kilo to snack on.  I passed. 

In the afternoon I relaxed at the hostel for a while before heading out to meet Chris for dinner at her hotel, where I'd left a note for her earlier.  On my way I accidentally passed through a Buddhist monk village place because I had to escape a creepy guy on a motorcycle who was following me, but it was okay, because even just passing though, the compound was quite interesting, and I successfully lost the jerk.

I had a nice dinner with Chris and her friend, Amarita, who lived in Qatar (which is apparently pronounced "Cutter" interestingly enough) and went back to the hostel, had a 50 cent Angkor draft beer at the rooftop bar and set my alarm before going to bed in preparation for an early, very early, day tomorrow.

End of an "Epic" Journey

3/27

My Lonely Planet calls the journey from Bangkok to Siem Reap "epic".  If that's an epic, then I'm Odysseus and despite appearances, I am not actually an ancient Greek King.  It was actually a long, reasonably hard trip, I just thought that description was a bit extreme.  I got up at 10, went to the train station and bought my ticket (3rd class only, 48 baht- $1.50 USD) then bought a bag of steamed rice for breakfast.  I know that sounds weird, but it was really good and just exactly what I wanted so I was happy.  Since my train didn't leave until 1:05 p.m. I watched another two episodes of The Inbetweeners before heading out to get supplies for the train ride: Diet Coke, water, candied peanuts and a strange Kit-Kat-like thing and lunch at a restaurant right across the street from the train station.

The train was packed, hot and uncomfortable but I'd only be on it for, oh wait, five hours to Aranyaprathet.  Oh well.  The seats were hard, like the kind you'd find on a subway so I just got up every once in a while to make sure my limbs didn't go numb.  Mostly I worked on my beading- I'm almost done.

Eventually though, we arrived at the border town to Cambodia.  I hired a tuk tuk (a motorbike pulling a carriage) to take me to the border, then walked across the border into Poipet.  This was actually way over-complicated and a big deal because the visa was more expensive than it should have been, the border guard was super creepy and it was basically a miserable time.  I met up with an American couple who had been way WAY overcharged for a cab to Siem Reap; they should have paid $12 per person maximum but had paid $25 each, so basically they let me join them and I only had to pay $3.  We had to take a shuttle bus to get to the taxi station, then wait for a taxi, then wait for them to get gas.  Two hours later we arrived in the town of Siem Reap but for whatever reason the taxi wouldn't take us to our hotels, they had prepaid tuk tuks take us.  Finally, at about 9:30 at night I got to my hostel, Garden Village.  I didn't have a reservation so I had to accept their seemingly sketchy dorm option (normally I think dorms are fine, just this one was sketchy) though it ended up being fine and it only cost $1.  For the next night though, I moved into a single for $3.

All in all I'd traveled through three real sized countries, unlike some of the baby countries in Europe (cough, Benelux, cough) in 30 hours so I crashed into bed.

Passing Through Bangkok

3/26/2010

I woke up the next morning still on the train, watched the scenery until I realized it was ALL rice paddies, houses on stilts and a few temples, and started talking to Angie, the Malaysian woman I'd met the night before.  Graciously, she offered me some of her snacks for breakfast since I didn't have anything to eat, and the food vendors who came on the train came along only rarely.  I had some pastry thing with a strange hard jelly type filling and one small pastry with what Angie said was bean curd inside.  I believe her, it just didn't taste like it- it tasted like almond meal.  She was from Penang and was shocked when I said I hadn't been impressed with the food there, despite the great food in the rest of Malaysia.  Oh well.

I worked on my beading for a bit longer and eventually we made it into Bangkok.  Since I was leaving by train for Siem Reap the next day I wanted to stay near the train station, so I looked up a hostel in my guide and wandered over slowly.  Baan Hua Lamphong was actually a pretty decent place, all plants and wood in the middle of a dirty city.  I splurged and got a single room ($2 dollars more than a dorm room for a total of $8) since I'd spent some much time around people lately, much as I'd enjoyed that.  I was hungry, but even more tired so I took a nap from about 2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.  It was nice but I was even more hungry when I woke up so I went out and got a Diet Coke, two satays of flavored meat (chicken? pork?- I don't know) and rice.  I gobbled them down, ignoring the scratchiness of the skewer at the back of my throat, and was still hungry. 

Nearby was a little restaurant advertising odd combinations of noodles, crab meat- real crab meat, I checked, pork and dumplings.  I got a smallish portion of all four together for 50 baht ($1.50).  On my table were several sauces and condiments to add to the food.  I tasted all the ones I didn't recognize and decided that I really liked the deer head sauce.  I'm not sure that's what it's really called, but it had a picture of a deer's head on it.  It tasted kind of like a heavy soy sauce, almost like a non-smoked steak sauce, but still very liquid.  I was very happy with my choice overall and wanted to walk around Bangkok for a bit, but while my area was safe and well lit, the areas around it, which I'd have to go through, weren't great so I didn't want to take the risk, and again, I was tired. 

Instead, I used my time wisely to finish Season Two of The Inbetweeners.  I've been watching it out of order for no discernible reason, so I watched an episode in the middle of Season Two first, then went back to Episodes 1-6 of Season Two and now I'm going through Season One in order, from Episodes 1-6.  Sometimes I think this blog makes it seem like I spend a lot of time doing nothing, so I just wanted to clarify with this achievement that I really am accomplishing a great deal: I've finished three books and an entire season of a tv show in three weeks!  That's efficiency in action.

Leaving Lovely, Lazy Langkawi

3/24

Decided that I'll actually leave tomorrow, so I spent most of today writing, planning, organizing things, replying to emails, taking pictures, and a bit of beach time. I spent part of the afternoon talking to Matt because, again, he really is an interesting person to talk to.  It might seem strange but I was really impressed with his knowledge of football, simply because I don't have that depth of knowledge on any topic.  I get bored too easily and move onto something new so I have quite a wide breadth of knowledge, but it's fairly superficial in a way.

Anyway, I wanted a quiet night and I did not want to go to Sunbar again, so after dinner I went with Matt and a different Dutch girl, whose name I can't recall, to a fairly low key Irish bar for a pint of Guiness that tasted particularly delicious since I hadn't had one in a very long time.  We were all just hanging out and convinced the bartender to play more upbeat music instead of the vaguely depressing love songs he was listening to and then Lady Gaga came on.  I missed her, even though I have her album on my netbook, I hadn't played it in several days, so I was really excited when she came on.  I was so excited in fact that I got the bartender to play nearly her entire album.

We all went back to the hostel to hang out with the others and the newest new arrivals, but they were all going out to Sunbar later and I was not going to go (and they were drinking some disgusting booze and playing Kings without Never Have I Ever) so I went back to the Irish bar, and, somewhat ironically, considering that I was in Malaysia, met an Irish couple who I talked to until the bar closed.  It doesn't sound exciting but it was a nice, calm evening out that was exactly what I wanted then.

3/25

I finally made it off the island!  Woke up, packed, got some lunch and then split a cab with another woman who was leaving from the hostel to Kuah, the town on the island the ferries depart from.  I took an hour long ferry ride to Kuala Perlis, on which I spoke to a Malaysian woman, probably in her late 40s, who had studied in the U.S.  She'd been in New York City and said she'd had a great time there, but didn't wear her hijab at the time, which she was wearing now.  I asked if that was because she'd become more religious since returning home and she thought about it for a bit before replying that it wasn't that exactly, but that it made her more aware of (and I'm obviously paraphrasing here) who she was and standards she should live up to.  I'm afraid that I'm making it sound oppressive and sinister here, but the way she described it wasn't.  My understanding of it was more like something you wear to remind yourself to be a better person and remain true to yourself.

After disembarking from the ferry I had a maybe 50 minute (?) cab ride to Arau, then got on the overnight train to Bankok for RM 105 ($34 USD).  It was supposed to leave at 5:30 but didn't arrive at the station until 6- it was just like being on Amtrack!  Before we'd been on the train for even an hour we had to get off, go through immigration to get into Thailand, which was an absolute breeze, despite what I'd heard previously, get some food and get back on. 

I'd gotten a bunk on the lower level ocean side specifically so I might see a bit of the sea as the tracks run  nearby, but it got dark even earlier than I'd expected and I couldn't see anything.  I spent a bit of time talking to a group of Malaysian guys who seemed quite normal, and a Malaysian woman who was very nice and interested in my Indian bead loom work (I'm just trying to finish making a belt so I can stop lugging the damn thing around,) then went to bed.  The bed was fine, nothing special or impressive, fairly similar to overnight trains I'd taken in Europe.  All of this is to say: I'm still not impressed.  I don't know why but I think I just don't like trains.  Maybe it's the lack of control or that your path is already so set.  If an emergency ever happened on a bus, the driver would divert to a hospital.  On a train, all they can do is stop it. 

I also wanted to mention here how much I hate Islamic (squat) toilets but normally I don't complain too much or have much real trouble with them.  But squat toilets on a moving train is another issue altogether.  It was not fun and what made it worse was the later realization that they actually had Western toilets, just in another area of the train.