I thought I would take the time to finish the blogging adventure now that I am home and settled.
I last left you in Sihonoukville, after having way too much sun and looking like a piglet. Fortunately, no one mistook us for bacon and we arrived safely back in Phnom Penh, looking a little less English Tourist Lobster and a little more Sun Kissed Aussie. We decided to take the cheaper bus this time, the difference was about $3 and the cheaper bus had no toilet (considering I avoided the toilet on the more expensive bus like the plague (it was really, really tiny and smelled of urine and farts) there really wasn't much difference). It turns out the cheap bus driver thought he was a rally driver, and manoeuvred that sucker like Meatloaf did in the Spice Girls Movie when they thought there was a bomb on their double decker bus. Fortunately, there was no bomb or Spice Girls (I would have had to kick Posh Spice in the skinny little shins), and we got to Phnom Penh in record time, 4 hours on the dot.
We checked into the Waterview and then into Bogie and Bacall's, making sure they had space for us to head to the Dump again the next day. John went to the Psar to get some soccer balls and I headed back to the Waterview to indulge in some quiet time, watching a movie (there was a channel on cable that was the "DVD Channel" and it consistently just played random DVD's). It was here that a movie called Americano came on. It's about a 22 year old guy holidaying in Spain, he becomes fascinated by Spanish culture and wants to stay however he as a great career waiting for him at home. Therein lies his personal dilemma, should he follow the beaten path and head back to his promising career and "Live the Dream", or stay in Spain and experience adventure by following the road less travelled?
The next morning it was time to visit Beautiful Dump Kids again. With soccer balls in hand, we eagerly jumped in the back of the truck for another rewarding and grounding day. This time I was on first aid duty, however, someone forgot the gloves. Here lies Shannon's moral dilemma: "Do I risk my health and possibly my life to administer first aid without gloves to these amazing children who just need to be cared for?" or "Do I refuse to administer first aid and attempt to help in other ways so I can protect myself?" Taking into consideration that these children are exposed to medical waste (used swabs, syringes, used gloves and other surgical paraphernalia) on a regular basis, I decided to protect myself and be the first aid assistant. Someone did have to administer first aid that day, the adorable little faces already lining up to have someone look at their scraped knee, administer a bandaid and let them know that someone cares. So Richard took the bullet, ensuring that he first did not have any cuts or abrasions on his own hands, then making sure he thoroughly washed and disinfected his hands after every patient. Fortunately that day there were no serious injuries to attend to, just some minor cuts and abrasions.
Being the first aid assistant meant I got to distract a few of the patients in pain by singing songs with them, handed out iodine, gauze, tape and bandaids. A couple of the little girls were fascinated with what was going on and decided to become the assistants assistant. They learnt very quickly what items were needed for what type of injury, made sure the patients were comfortable, stroked their hair if they were crying and also sung songs with them. These kids are truly beautiful.
Once all the food had been handed out, it was time to hang out with the friends we made last time and hand out the soccer balls (which went down a treat!). I gave out a couple of bamboo bracelets I had picked up in Angkor Wat to a few of my friends, they loved them and there were a couple of unhappy faces for those who had missed out. As David was saying goodbye, I noticed that the little girls were handing him some bracelets to say thankyou, they were the same ones I had just given them! These girls had absolutely nothing and were more than happy to give away what they did have to say thank you. The situation these kids are in truly breaks my heart. Their attitudes are an inspiration.
We said our goodbyes and when they said "We'll see you soon" I really, honestly hoped I would be back again soon.
Back at Bogie and Bacall's it was time to drown our sorrows at having to leave soon. David invited us to dinner with himself and his girlfriend Allie at his favourite pizza place. We met them out the front at 6pm and headed into "NGO Land". NGO Land stands out from the rest of Phnom Penh, in NGO Land, there are no street side food stalls, no rubbish on the side of the road and no Khmer people. NGO's are Non Government Organisations, basically charities who are based in Cambodia to help the less fortunate. Unfortunately, when travelling through NGO Land, you notice that their offices are quite luxurious, the 3 Hummers, 4 Lexus's and 2 Security Guards parked out the front are where your donations are going.
The pizza place was called Freebirds, and although quite nice, the food was double what you would pay in Phnom Penh. David informed us that it was frequented by NGO Staff. This was evident by the Lexus's parked out the front. Corruption isn't just rife within Cambodia's government, it's also rife within the "Not for Profit" organisations who are stealing donation money and attributing their gratuitous spending to "Administration Fees". Disgusting.
Even though Cambodia is a victim of corruption, there is some unbelievable good within the country. David and Allie are some of that good. While chatting to Allie over dinner (she is still learning English) she told me about how she had to drop out of school early so she could get a job and earn money. Even though she didn't attend school she managed to learn to speak Korean and Chinese fluently! She wanted John and I to come with her to visit her family back in Kom Pong Thom Province for Khmer New Year, unfortunately, Khmer New Year isn't until April and we would be back in Australia.
Allie decided over dinner that John and I were "good people" and that she would be very sad when we left. She gave me a photo of her to have so I wouldn't forget her. She's the same age as John and I but has this beautiful childish sweetness about her. David and Allie were heading to Sihonoukville the next day to check out the Rubbish Dump situation there. It's David's hope that he can find someone to set up the same project that he has going on in Phnom Penh. I hope he can find someone.
We decided to have a quiet last day in Cambodia, John and I were both not feeling 100%, starting to get runny noses and praying we hadn't caught Bird Flu! We had grand plans to visit an orphanage on the outskirts of Phnom Penh but the kids were at school so our plan was foiled. Mr Thai suggested the Russian Psar and then beers at a great bar he knew of (his payment would be in beers).
Mr Thai is a great Tuk Tuk driver in Phnom Penh, recommended to us by Richard. You can't miss him on the corner of St. 136 and Sisowath Quay, he has a Thai made tuk tuk (instead of a trailer in the back of a motorbike, Thai tuk tuk's are more like a golf cart, the driver sits behind a window on a bench and it has gears on the dash). He has adorned the front of his tuk tuk with some very fashionable bull horns. We did some last minute souvenir shopping at the Russian Psar, scoring cinematic brilliance with the likes of Eagle vs Sharks (The plural must mean it's a sequel, or Cambodilish), Burn After Reading, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Valkyrie and Slumdog Millionaire. Brilliant.
From there it was off to Maxine's, on the other side of the Tong Le Sap, run by an Australian Expat called Snowy. We were immediately greeted by the melodic tunes of The John Butler Trio and sat down to watch the sunset over the Tong Le Sap. Mr Thai is an incredibly interesting man. His English is great and his sense of humour event greater. He had some T-Shirts made up, the front saying "Tuk Tuk Driver Phnom Penh", with the Cambodian flag on the front. The back reads: "Not tonight ladies, I'm just here for a drink" it then has a picture of the bull horns from the front of his tuk tuk and the words "Oh Ok, Why not!!!"
The next morning it was off to the airport, chauffeured by none other than Mr Thai. He gave me a present just before we left, a black cotton handbag with gold elephants stitched around it.
I was feeling pretty ordinary that day, my nose was running like a tap and my head was aching terribly. Mr Thai made me promise I would get checked out by a doctor at home to make sure I hadn't picked up anything serious.By the time we got to Kuala Lumpur I had a fever. It turns out that not just KL airport smells like a musty cupboard crossed with urine, the bus we were transferred to our hotel smelled and then our hotel also smelled. The Concorde Hotel was a bit of a cultural "Melting Pot" which funnily enough was the name of the hotel restaurant that served "Beef Bacon" instead of real bacon. I found it very amusing that they were being culturally sensitive to the Muslim community by not serving pork, yet not to the very prevalent Hindi community who believe that cows are sacred? Just a sidenote: Beef bacon is terrible. Don't do it to yourself. It's just wrong.
Back in Brisvegus, it turns out I don't have bird flu, just some regular sniffles and some heart sickness for the amazing people we met.
Since then I have had the pleasure of getting stuck back into work. Part of this was a casual leasing gig at a local shopping centre for my work. While handing out free balloons to kids passing by, we ran out of the clips that go on the bottom of the balloons to help attach them to the sticks. In a sheer stroke of genius, and finger dexterity to rival that of a brain surgeon, I managed to tie a balloon onto the end of the stick. A small boy came up to ask for a free balloon, I happily handed him my invention, in which he promptly proceeded to turn his nose up at, make horrible squawking noises and convey through these noises that this balloon was not good enough for him. He wanted one that has a plastic connector. Resiting the urge to shove the balloon, stick and all down his throat sideways. I handed him another balloon, this one with our last plastic connector. As I handed it over, I thought back to the little kids at the dump, who were happy even though they had absolutely nothing. I wish I could have sent them all the balloons.
Love, hugs and a million balloons,
Shanngelina.
Saturday 21 March 2009
Saturday 14 March 2009
Its coming to a close.. the final hoorah.
Since we talked last.
We headed back from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh. This time we took the $5 shitheap bus and it took 4 hours.Go figure. The bus barely had brakes, but really, I think that made hills much more interesting and a little intriguing, not to mention full of suspense. Everyone loves a bit of edge and mystery, I hear thats why the girls love Johnny Depp. So I guess the bus was a lot like Johnny Depp.
We arrived back in at midday and back to our hotel, the Waterview. We dropped our stuff off and decided to go for a stroll. We strolled all about Phnom Penh, before heading to Bogey and Bacalls to see if they were still having a dump run on friday. Luckily for us they were, and we stayed there for a few hours, drinking 65c beers before heading off.
As we were heading out the next day, I headed down to the Russian Markets on the back of a moto to buy some soccer balls for the kids. When we got to the market and I went to give the driver a dollar he said
Moto: "Where are you staying?
Me: Paragon ( a devious lie so he wouldnt try and mug me or something equally as lame )
Moto: I know a hotel that has free accomodation
Me: I bet it does
Moto: And girls. Sexy girls. All the girls you want. I will take you there.
Me: GFY.
So I met a pimp who moonlights on a motorbike. This place is full of surprises. Haha. I grabbed the soccer balls, and headed home, then later on we went for some beers.
The dump was good yesterday, a really rewarding day. This time we were accompanied by a couple of Germans, a couple of Brits and an Irish guy. The dump smelled a lot worse this time, like really really fucking reeked. I had the job this time of distributing the food in the boys line. So each little tacker came up, grabbed 2 apples, a loaf of bread, an orange and 2 bananas. Absolutely amazing that for $150, 450 kids can get a decent vitamin-packed meal.
While we were up there, a couple of Japanese tourists came up in a tuktuk and started taking photos. Didn't even get out of the tuktuk. Its quite disheartening to see that there are some people who think some good holiday snaps are those containing 450 kids living on a rubbish dump.
After we handed out the food, we distributed the soccer balls. One word only can desribe it: SHITSTORM. Haha. The kids went mental for them. We only took 10 so we made sure to remind them to share them, but even if they get a bit of fun out of them, then thats ok by us.
From there we had the obligatory 10 beers at Bogey and Bacalls, and as we were leaving, David, the owner of Bogeys and the Founder of the Dump Run invited us to dinner at his favourite pizza parlour with his lovely girlfriend Allie. So we agreed to that, came home, showered and met them there at 6. We all took a tuktuk took a took down, had some pizza, laughs, etc before bidding adieu to them both as we won't get a chance to see them before we leave.
We then headed back to Bogeys where we met Richard (the barmy English guy who accompanies David on most of the dump runs). Richard insisted on taking us on a walking tour of the Riverside bars, so off we went. Stopped in a few bars, had a few ales, before heading to the pontoon. The Pontoon is a bar, thats on an actual Pontoon. Its got a fullsize lounge, a fullsize dance floor, a fullsize bar.. and its actually a really cool place to hang out. Unfortunately for us, we'd been in the sun all day, were tired (Shannon was recovering from her delhi belly the night before) and we bailed at about 10pm.
Today we rose late, and then headed for some soup at our favourite little place on the corner of 136 St, opposite Huxleys. After breaky we headed to the markets with our main man Mr Thai, bought some cheap DVD's, thongs etc, and made plans to meet Mr Thai for a drink this afternoon, which is where I am headed now. Obviously won't get a blog out before our pretty uneventful flight home, maybe after if something slightly entertaining popped up.. We've certainly had a great time, and until the next trip, thanks for reading.
Cheers
John.
We headed back from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh. This time we took the $5 shitheap bus and it took 4 hours.Go figure. The bus barely had brakes, but really, I think that made hills much more interesting and a little intriguing, not to mention full of suspense. Everyone loves a bit of edge and mystery, I hear thats why the girls love Johnny Depp. So I guess the bus was a lot like Johnny Depp.
We arrived back in at midday and back to our hotel, the Waterview. We dropped our stuff off and decided to go for a stroll. We strolled all about Phnom Penh, before heading to Bogey and Bacalls to see if they were still having a dump run on friday. Luckily for us they were, and we stayed there for a few hours, drinking 65c beers before heading off.
As we were heading out the next day, I headed down to the Russian Markets on the back of a moto to buy some soccer balls for the kids. When we got to the market and I went to give the driver a dollar he said
Moto: "Where are you staying?
Me: Paragon ( a devious lie so he wouldnt try and mug me or something equally as lame )
Moto: I know a hotel that has free accomodation
Me: I bet it does
Moto: And girls. Sexy girls. All the girls you want. I will take you there.
Me: GFY.
So I met a pimp who moonlights on a motorbike. This place is full of surprises. Haha. I grabbed the soccer balls, and headed home, then later on we went for some beers.
The dump was good yesterday, a really rewarding day. This time we were accompanied by a couple of Germans, a couple of Brits and an Irish guy. The dump smelled a lot worse this time, like really really fucking reeked. I had the job this time of distributing the food in the boys line. So each little tacker came up, grabbed 2 apples, a loaf of bread, an orange and 2 bananas. Absolutely amazing that for $150, 450 kids can get a decent vitamin-packed meal.
While we were up there, a couple of Japanese tourists came up in a tuktuk and started taking photos. Didn't even get out of the tuktuk. Its quite disheartening to see that there are some people who think some good holiday snaps are those containing 450 kids living on a rubbish dump.
After we handed out the food, we distributed the soccer balls. One word only can desribe it: SHITSTORM. Haha. The kids went mental for them. We only took 10 so we made sure to remind them to share them, but even if they get a bit of fun out of them, then thats ok by us.
From there we had the obligatory 10 beers at Bogey and Bacalls, and as we were leaving, David, the owner of Bogeys and the Founder of the Dump Run invited us to dinner at his favourite pizza parlour with his lovely girlfriend Allie. So we agreed to that, came home, showered and met them there at 6. We all took a tuktuk took a took down, had some pizza, laughs, etc before bidding adieu to them both as we won't get a chance to see them before we leave.
We then headed back to Bogeys where we met Richard (the barmy English guy who accompanies David on most of the dump runs). Richard insisted on taking us on a walking tour of the Riverside bars, so off we went. Stopped in a few bars, had a few ales, before heading to the pontoon. The Pontoon is a bar, thats on an actual Pontoon. Its got a fullsize lounge, a fullsize dance floor, a fullsize bar.. and its actually a really cool place to hang out. Unfortunately for us, we'd been in the sun all day, were tired (Shannon was recovering from her delhi belly the night before) and we bailed at about 10pm.
Today we rose late, and then headed for some soup at our favourite little place on the corner of 136 St, opposite Huxleys. After breaky we headed to the markets with our main man Mr Thai, bought some cheap DVD's, thongs etc, and made plans to meet Mr Thai for a drink this afternoon, which is where I am headed now. Obviously won't get a blog out before our pretty uneventful flight home, maybe after if something slightly entertaining popped up.. We've certainly had a great time, and until the next trip, thanks for reading.
Cheers
John.
Wednesday 11 March 2009
This little piggy went to Sihonoukville
Chum reap sua from Snooky!
After finding a bar on the beach yesterday afternoon, there were a few lady's on the beach (and even a ladyboy) touting manicure's, pedicure's, sarongs, bracelets, bleached decorative coral, shells, massages and a thing called "Threading" (You may have heard of Threading before, I think it may originally have come from India, but it has found its way to Cambodia, on the beaches of Snooky. Threading is a form of hair removal, using a piece of string, formed into a loop, the string is twisted, and it then pulls hair out by the root, usually quite a few hairs at a time). So there, at the beach bar, we met Mom (one of the touts, not the ladyboy), who kindly pointed out that my legs were looking a bit shabby and she had the answer to my problem. So for $15 for both legs, I got Threaded. It is then that I learnt the words Choo (pain, or ouch!) and Tik Tik (a little), I also learnt the word for a lot, but I forgot (stupid brain only has the capacity for 2 or 3 Khmer words or sentences a day).Mom was fabulous, teaching me some more Khmer and being very chatty and friendly (I have arranged to call her when I get home so she can teach me more Khmer and I can help her with her English). She also suggested a tour company do do our Bamboo Island Tour with and she negotiated $2 off the price for us. I love Mom :)
Today we headed across to Bamboo Island on the BICAT (no, this is not a sexually confused feline), it is the Bamboo Island Catamaran (when I say catamaran, I really mean a single hulled wooden boat that looked like it should be smuggling us from Indonesia to Australia, possibly with a Children Overboard scandal involved).
There weren't any children thrown overboard today, but I wanted to throw a couple of pommy girls over, along with an American lady (who was the spitting image of Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) from Australia, goggle type glasses, stupid hat and nose stuck up in the air. I didn't have the heart to tell her that we were indeed not heading to Australia to drove 1500 head of cattle. She would also not find love in the Outback from a previously heartbroken drover who was tough on the outside but kind hearted on the inside, or a surrogate child, a half cast aboriginal child on the run from the authorities who were trying to place him in a mission. We were in fact just heading to Bamboo Island to do a spot of snorkelling and lazing around the beach.
We were picked up from Makara (our hotel in Snooky, $9, clean, about 100m from the beach - but no air con, tv or fridge - how rude of you SE Asia!) and dropped about 400m down the road. Had I have known it was this close, we would have walked. We were treated to breakfast, really strong coffee, a freshly baked bread roll and some jam, then we headed off to the boat. A very rickety old thing, and as I mentioned above, it looked more like it should be smuggling us back to Australia then taking us on a snorkelling tour. Needless to say, we were a bit apprehensive, especially when I saw the amount of water in the bottom that they were bailing out!
However, I am in it for the adventure, I have travel insurance (for my camera), memory cards can dry out and there was a handful of life jackets. The plan was to punch Lady Sarah Ashley and the pommy girls should they try and reach them in the case of an emergency. Luckily, operation "Australia", never came to fruition. We made it to the snorkelling area just fine - I was perhaps a little green around the gills. Yes, I work for a boat and yes I do get sea sick, I think this is because I am not a Pirate. The snorkelling areas was not the best choice, it was a bit choppy and the viability not good. I gave it a quick go, Andrew from Get Wet would have an absolute heart attack if he saw their safety measures. No wet suit, no instructions just, "Here's your snorkel now jump off the boat. Oh, and by the way, don't stand on the coral, there are sea urchins". After floating around in the water for a few minutes and getting smashed in the face by waves, I decided that it was enough adventure for me out there, in the ocean, with the sea urchins, and promptly hopped back to safety in the rickety boat (the boat was actually quite good and speedy considering the size of the motor, we didn't have any trouble with it at all).
At Bamboo Island, John and I frolicked in the waves, like whales (occasionally breaching and blowing water into the air) and ran into some lovely Khmer people we had met the night before. The frolicking was the best part of my day. I much preferred to frolic in water than to lurch, roll and pitch on the water. We had another quick snorkelling stop off on the way back to Sihonoukville and John tried his hand at fishing (which was really just an exercise in fish feeding, resulting in him covering the white hotel towel in squid ink and making himself smell like fish BAHAHAHAH). John is not the new Rex Hunt.
We resemble piglets at the moment though, with very pink skin and curly tails.
Tomorrow, the piglets are heading back to Phnom Penh. This little piglet will be crying (yom) all the way home.
Oink.
Shanngelina
After finding a bar on the beach yesterday afternoon, there were a few lady's on the beach (and even a ladyboy) touting manicure's, pedicure's, sarongs, bracelets, bleached decorative coral, shells, massages and a thing called "Threading" (You may have heard of Threading before, I think it may originally have come from India, but it has found its way to Cambodia, on the beaches of Snooky. Threading is a form of hair removal, using a piece of string, formed into a loop, the string is twisted, and it then pulls hair out by the root, usually quite a few hairs at a time). So there, at the beach bar, we met Mom (one of the touts, not the ladyboy), who kindly pointed out that my legs were looking a bit shabby and she had the answer to my problem. So for $15 for both legs, I got Threaded. It is then that I learnt the words Choo (pain, or ouch!) and Tik Tik (a little), I also learnt the word for a lot, but I forgot (stupid brain only has the capacity for 2 or 3 Khmer words or sentences a day).Mom was fabulous, teaching me some more Khmer and being very chatty and friendly (I have arranged to call her when I get home so she can teach me more Khmer and I can help her with her English). She also suggested a tour company do do our Bamboo Island Tour with and she negotiated $2 off the price for us. I love Mom :)
Today we headed across to Bamboo Island on the BICAT (no, this is not a sexually confused feline), it is the Bamboo Island Catamaran (when I say catamaran, I really mean a single hulled wooden boat that looked like it should be smuggling us from Indonesia to Australia, possibly with a Children Overboard scandal involved).
There weren't any children thrown overboard today, but I wanted to throw a couple of pommy girls over, along with an American lady (who was the spitting image of Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) from Australia, goggle type glasses, stupid hat and nose stuck up in the air. I didn't have the heart to tell her that we were indeed not heading to Australia to drove 1500 head of cattle. She would also not find love in the Outback from a previously heartbroken drover who was tough on the outside but kind hearted on the inside, or a surrogate child, a half cast aboriginal child on the run from the authorities who were trying to place him in a mission. We were in fact just heading to Bamboo Island to do a spot of snorkelling and lazing around the beach.
We were picked up from Makara (our hotel in Snooky, $9, clean, about 100m from the beach - but no air con, tv or fridge - how rude of you SE Asia!) and dropped about 400m down the road. Had I have known it was this close, we would have walked. We were treated to breakfast, really strong coffee, a freshly baked bread roll and some jam, then we headed off to the boat. A very rickety old thing, and as I mentioned above, it looked more like it should be smuggling us back to Australia then taking us on a snorkelling tour. Needless to say, we were a bit apprehensive, especially when I saw the amount of water in the bottom that they were bailing out!
However, I am in it for the adventure, I have travel insurance (for my camera), memory cards can dry out and there was a handful of life jackets. The plan was to punch Lady Sarah Ashley and the pommy girls should they try and reach them in the case of an emergency. Luckily, operation "Australia", never came to fruition. We made it to the snorkelling area just fine - I was perhaps a little green around the gills. Yes, I work for a boat and yes I do get sea sick, I think this is because I am not a Pirate. The snorkelling areas was not the best choice, it was a bit choppy and the viability not good. I gave it a quick go, Andrew from Get Wet would have an absolute heart attack if he saw their safety measures. No wet suit, no instructions just, "Here's your snorkel now jump off the boat. Oh, and by the way, don't stand on the coral, there are sea urchins". After floating around in the water for a few minutes and getting smashed in the face by waves, I decided that it was enough adventure for me out there, in the ocean, with the sea urchins, and promptly hopped back to safety in the rickety boat (the boat was actually quite good and speedy considering the size of the motor, we didn't have any trouble with it at all).
At Bamboo Island, John and I frolicked in the waves, like whales (occasionally breaching and blowing water into the air) and ran into some lovely Khmer people we had met the night before. The frolicking was the best part of my day. I much preferred to frolic in water than to lurch, roll and pitch on the water. We had another quick snorkelling stop off on the way back to Sihonoukville and John tried his hand at fishing (which was really just an exercise in fish feeding, resulting in him covering the white hotel towel in squid ink and making himself smell like fish BAHAHAHAH). John is not the new Rex Hunt.
We resemble piglets at the moment though, with very pink skin and curly tails.
Tomorrow, the piglets are heading back to Phnom Penh. This little piglet will be crying (yom) all the way home.
Oink.
Shanngelina
John in Cambodia.
From Phnom Penh we headed to Sihanoukville. Luckily we paid the extra $3 for the $9 express bus, and it only took 5 1/2hours to travel the 250km to Sihanoukville.
We got here, and with nowhere to stay, had a look at the trusty Lonely Planet, no help there... So we enlisted the services of a tuktuk driver. His name was Doctor Raymond. Doc took us to his favourite guesthouse (the one he gets a commission from), the Markara Guesthouse, right on the beach at Occhueatal. We grabbed a double room with cold water only, and two fans for $9 a night.. although we're not really pinching pennies, everyone loves a bargain.
Shannon wanted to hit the sand, so we walked down to the 999 Bar and Bungalow, pulled up a seat and had a few beers. A few touts came past, including one selling lobster. We bought 10 lobsters for $4, absolutely delicious and fresh, and drank some more beers. A lady named Mom came past, selling sarongs. After telling Mom we had no sarongs, she offered to give Shannon the "threading of a lifetime". Basically its a form of hair removal for the legs using only string. As you can imagine while Shannon was having her minute leg hairs pulled out by string, and chatting with Mom (who is the nicest woman EVER, better than my own mother) I drank more beers.
I turned around as there were some local Cambodians at the table behind us making a ruccus. I waved and said "Sues day" which is hello. Because of my elite Cambodian language skills, the ringleader, a man named Vun asked if I would like to drink some wine with them.
So I ditched Shannon and Mom, and took two steps to their table, and sat down. Vun introduced me to his family... his wife, his uncle and aunt, his sister in law, and her husband. He told me that his uncle was visiting from France and they were down from Phnom Penh to celebrate. As I love a tipple, and a yarn, I decided to settle in for the evening.
Turns out the wine he was drinking, was actually Hennessey VSOP. Partial to a good cognac, my christmas's had all come at once. We sat there talking the usual shit making sure that we never experienced "Chui Ah" (empty glass), when Shannon joined us. We all sat around a table, eating barbequed fish, mango with some kind of salty paste, and drinking cognac and beer, for a while, all talking about everyday life, Vun's recent wedding, Claude's (Vuns uncle from France) recent trip back to Cambodia, only the 4th in 30 years and they helped us with learning more Khmer. Many more "Chui Moi" (cheers) were done, the Cambodians we have found love to Cheers. They will even Cheers a cheersing. And so on.
We drunk, got drunk, and when I put my head through the wooden part of the chair, and broke it, I knew it was time to head home. Not just that, but we had been drinking non-stop for 6 hours, in the sun, and had to get up at 7am to catch the boat to BAMBOO ISLAND to see pandas*.
At about 1am, Shannon and I both woke up to very pasty mouths, and a hot, hot bedroom. No worries, we'll just grab water.
WRONG DUMBASS TRY AGAIN.
No water. Thats ok, we'll go get some from reception. Shut. Can't drink from the tap, the water is not potable. Ask the security guard... can't speak english. So John grabs a shirt, jumps on the back of a seedy guys motorbike and says "STORE". Off we go, from Occheutal Beach, towards the Sihanoukville CBD. Seedy guy says "Chicken farm, chicken farm" whilst taking one hand off his handlebars to point at a casino. Tired, drunk, and thirsty I tell him to shush and we pull up beside a stall.
I get 6 Litres of drinking water for $2, and we head back. Halfway back a massive dog runs out of a vacant lot and towards the moto. The dog is gaining on us, so I tell the seedy guy to step on it. We finally get back to the hotel where Shannon meets me and sculls 2 L of water.
Woke up this morning, seedy and pasty and ready to go out into the Gulf of Thailand. We get to the boat.. which can only be described as .. a people smuggling vessel. As Cambodia is a standout for human trafficking, I wonder where we will end up. But all is ok and we end up chugging out to a small island, where they throw us some snorkels, a coral reef, say "watch out for urchins" and everyone jumps in. The sea was a bit rough, and being seedy, tired and lazy I jumped in and then pretty much back onto the boat. From there we headed to Bamboo Island. At Bamboo Island we lazed, drank some beer, swam and relaxed while our crew made us a delicious barbeque fish lunch. We ate that and then headed back towards the mainland, stopping once to snorkel and fish.
As we were in the open sea, most people will assume a small boat (15 passengers) will experience some kind of motion. There were these whingy English girls who were like:
"Oh me, oh my, I do say this water is awful rough. Jeeves, can you make the water calm? Pip pip hoorah"
We got back to the beach, disembarked, and went down to Bar RU for a beer, where Shannon met Mom. We had some more lobster (the same woman as yesterday sold us 16 for $4 today) and chatted to Mom. Some kids came up and had a chat, we gave them some lobster (everybody had matching towels), as well as a black cat that jumped in my lap, meowed and laid down. I fed the cat some lobster and we chilled out, talking to Mom and the kids. Haha.
Eventually we made tracks back here to our hotel, where we are writing this blog right now. This one here. That's the one.
Tomorrow morning back to Phnom Penh at 8am.. and then Friday we have another appointment at the Phnom Penh rubbish dump.
That's the haps.
Johncrest out.
* there were no pandas at bamboo island. there was also no bamboo. weird.
We got here, and with nowhere to stay, had a look at the trusty Lonely Planet, no help there... So we enlisted the services of a tuktuk driver. His name was Doctor Raymond. Doc took us to his favourite guesthouse (the one he gets a commission from), the Markara Guesthouse, right on the beach at Occhueatal. We grabbed a double room with cold water only, and two fans for $9 a night.. although we're not really pinching pennies, everyone loves a bargain.
Shannon wanted to hit the sand, so we walked down to the 999 Bar and Bungalow, pulled up a seat and had a few beers. A few touts came past, including one selling lobster. We bought 10 lobsters for $4, absolutely delicious and fresh, and drank some more beers. A lady named Mom came past, selling sarongs. After telling Mom we had no sarongs, she offered to give Shannon the "threading of a lifetime". Basically its a form of hair removal for the legs using only string. As you can imagine while Shannon was having her minute leg hairs pulled out by string, and chatting with Mom (who is the nicest woman EVER, better than my own mother) I drank more beers.
I turned around as there were some local Cambodians at the table behind us making a ruccus. I waved and said "Sues day" which is hello. Because of my elite Cambodian language skills, the ringleader, a man named Vun asked if I would like to drink some wine with them.
So I ditched Shannon and Mom, and took two steps to their table, and sat down. Vun introduced me to his family... his wife, his uncle and aunt, his sister in law, and her husband. He told me that his uncle was visiting from France and they were down from Phnom Penh to celebrate. As I love a tipple, and a yarn, I decided to settle in for the evening.
Turns out the wine he was drinking, was actually Hennessey VSOP. Partial to a good cognac, my christmas's had all come at once. We sat there talking the usual shit making sure that we never experienced "Chui Ah" (empty glass), when Shannon joined us. We all sat around a table, eating barbequed fish, mango with some kind of salty paste, and drinking cognac and beer, for a while, all talking about everyday life, Vun's recent wedding, Claude's (Vuns uncle from France) recent trip back to Cambodia, only the 4th in 30 years and they helped us with learning more Khmer. Many more "Chui Moi" (cheers) were done, the Cambodians we have found love to Cheers. They will even Cheers a cheersing. And so on.
We drunk, got drunk, and when I put my head through the wooden part of the chair, and broke it, I knew it was time to head home. Not just that, but we had been drinking non-stop for 6 hours, in the sun, and had to get up at 7am to catch the boat to BAMBOO ISLAND to see pandas*.
At about 1am, Shannon and I both woke up to very pasty mouths, and a hot, hot bedroom. No worries, we'll just grab water.
WRONG DUMBASS TRY AGAIN.
No water. Thats ok, we'll go get some from reception. Shut. Can't drink from the tap, the water is not potable. Ask the security guard... can't speak english. So John grabs a shirt, jumps on the back of a seedy guys motorbike and says "STORE". Off we go, from Occheutal Beach, towards the Sihanoukville CBD. Seedy guy says "Chicken farm, chicken farm" whilst taking one hand off his handlebars to point at a casino. Tired, drunk, and thirsty I tell him to shush and we pull up beside a stall.
I get 6 Litres of drinking water for $2, and we head back. Halfway back a massive dog runs out of a vacant lot and towards the moto. The dog is gaining on us, so I tell the seedy guy to step on it. We finally get back to the hotel where Shannon meets me and sculls 2 L of water.
Woke up this morning, seedy and pasty and ready to go out into the Gulf of Thailand. We get to the boat.. which can only be described as .. a people smuggling vessel. As Cambodia is a standout for human trafficking, I wonder where we will end up. But all is ok and we end up chugging out to a small island, where they throw us some snorkels, a coral reef, say "watch out for urchins" and everyone jumps in. The sea was a bit rough, and being seedy, tired and lazy I jumped in and then pretty much back onto the boat. From there we headed to Bamboo Island. At Bamboo Island we lazed, drank some beer, swam and relaxed while our crew made us a delicious barbeque fish lunch. We ate that and then headed back towards the mainland, stopping once to snorkel and fish.
As we were in the open sea, most people will assume a small boat (15 passengers) will experience some kind of motion. There were these whingy English girls who were like:
"Oh me, oh my, I do say this water is awful rough. Jeeves, can you make the water calm? Pip pip hoorah"
We got back to the beach, disembarked, and went down to Bar RU for a beer, where Shannon met Mom. We had some more lobster (the same woman as yesterday sold us 16 for $4 today) and chatted to Mom. Some kids came up and had a chat, we gave them some lobster (everybody had matching towels), as well as a black cat that jumped in my lap, meowed and laid down. I fed the cat some lobster and we chilled out, talking to Mom and the kids. Haha.
Eventually we made tracks back here to our hotel, where we are writing this blog right now. This one here. That's the one.
Tomorrow morning back to Phnom Penh at 8am.. and then Friday we have another appointment at the Phnom Penh rubbish dump.
That's the haps.
Johncrest out.
* there were no pandas at bamboo island. there was also no bamboo. weird.
Monday 9 March 2009
A Little Khmer Goes a Long Way...
Siousdey!
So yesterday was Sunday and also International Women's Day, this meant mainly one thing - everything was shut - except the pubs (Encouraging us to drink? I think so). We had grand plans to go and visit an orphanage in Siem Reap, but it turns out the woman who runs it had taken all the kids to Snooky for the long weekend. That's OK, we'll go and visit the free silk farm instead - INCORRECT, it was shut. So, all that was left was to grab some beer from a shop around the corner, sit out the front of our guesthouse and drink it. And we did. All day.
It was so fucking hot and there was a wedding that had been going on for the past two days next door (Khmer weddings start just before dawn and finish up around midnight, they generally run for about three days straight) so we had been woken up quite early and were feeling a bit lazy. We sat around and chatted to Ly (who turned out to be the owner of MotherHome). He was a really nice Khmer gentleman who asked us if we wouldn't mind proofreading his menu for the new restaurant and bar he was putting in. As we were just sitting there, drinking beer and composing a couple of Haiku's, we didn't mind at all (as you can tell from the writing of Haiku's, we were a little on the bored side).
Haiku Number One - Entitled Chicken
Chicken's chicken's all around;
Not a one to eat;
Achoo! Bird Flu! Bless.
More to come later, I know, you're riveted. That was one of mine, a master wordsmith if I do say so myself.
Then it was time for dinner! Pit came and picked us up from MotheHome at about 6.45pm. We had bought a slab of coke cans earlier to bring as a gift (for $9.00), when he saw the slab, he nearly fell over. Hilarious. Some American man walking past the tuk tuk thought it wise to make comment, "You sure got a lot of coke there mate!" Well spotted American. Why are you using Australian colloquialism?
We headed out of town on the road to Angkor Wat, and just after all the ritzy hotel's stopped, we turned down a little dirt track (a little bit more narrow than the one our guesthouse was on). At the end of this track was a house, which is where we stopped, Pit and his wife rent one of the rooms in the house. Mrs Pit came out to meet us (she was a bit surprised, because Pit was supposed to call and let her know we were on our way- he forgot :)). She was so lovely and welcoming, they were a little bit shy about their "small room" but it was beautiful. It's true, they do just live in one bedroom (about the size of our bedroom at home), but it it lovely and cosy and they obviously take pride in their home and achievements (on the wall is a photo of Mrs Pit at her graduation from college where she studied English).
There was a little kitchen set up to one side of the room, with a gas burner and some shelves with general ingredients on them. She had laid out so many plates with different dishes for us. We all sat on the floor around the amazing food and tucked in. There was boiled rice, some catfish (which was my favourite, she's going to teach me how to cook them next time), some pork (steamed with some vegetables, like the inside of a pork bun without the bun), another pork dish, some fresh vegetables, and some mango salad. When I thought I couldn't possibly eat anymore, Mrs Pit served up some dessert, coconut milk, corn and tapioca - DELICIOUS.
They also taught us some more Khmer, so I now know how to say the following;
Hello
Greetings
Please
Thank you
No Thank you (this has helped us immensely when not wanting to buy things, it's absolute magic!)
Bye
Farewell
Sorry
Yes
No
On the bus today I also taught myself how to count from 1 - 10 Whoo hoo!
And as suggested above, a little bit of Khmer does go a long way. They really appreciate you taking the time out to learn some of their language. A lot of the sounds are similar to Japanese, so if you know some Japanese sounds, Khmer is not too difficult (I'm no expert though).
We headed back to Phnom Pehn today, the 5 hour express bus, which took 7 and a half hours! This trip we had seriously pimping seats! We must have booked early because we had seats 1 & 2, right up the front of the bus, leather (all the other seats were the normal Brisbane City Council Bus material in the blue pattern), green, with a leopard strip down the middle. Like I said - pimping. So we donned our Fedora's, white tailored suit jackets and bling to the hilt and sat down, stretching our legs out in front of us with all the extra leg room. Once again, spoilt.
It was a fairly uneventful trip sleep, look out the window, sleep, talk shit, look out the window, sleep, watch a bit of the Kung Fu movie in Khmer (I may be able to count to 10, but I definitely couldn't understand what the hell was going on in that movie). I now have a lot of respect for the bus drivers who have to navigate the National Highway, the roads are really fucking bad. So bad in in fact that as we approached Phnom Penh - I saw a dead body for the first time.
We must have arrived just after the accident happened. A woman had been riding her moto (we couldn't work out exactly what had transpired), but as we drove past, she was unfortunately dead, still in the middle of the road. A tuk tuk driver was covering her body with some leafy branches from a nearby tree, but as we drove around, her legs were splayed and her helmet was poking out the top of the leaves. It was very sad and a very real reminder that we are not here forever and we have no choice in how we leave the world.
Life unfortunately does have to go on and our bus trudged along as though nothing had happened (I'm not sure if our eyes can be stapled open anymore, but they were).
We got back to Phnom Penh and found a new Guesthouse for just $15, (instead of $17 at the Paragon) the room is slightly bigger and the bathroom laid out a little better (They don't have proper showers here, it's more of a shower head sticking straight out of the bathroom wall, without a shower curtain or glass. When you shower, the whole bathroom gets covered in water, if the toilet is sitting in an annoying spot, the seat and toilet paper gets saturated. Annoying, but definitely live able).
After dumping our bags we headed to trusty old Bogie and Bacall's to organise another Dump Run on Friday. Tomorrow though, it's off to Sihanoukville for two days, to chill out by the beach, relax and reflect on our adventures. BOOYA!
Ley Huey!
Shanngelina
So yesterday was Sunday and also International Women's Day, this meant mainly one thing - everything was shut - except the pubs (Encouraging us to drink? I think so). We had grand plans to go and visit an orphanage in Siem Reap, but it turns out the woman who runs it had taken all the kids to Snooky for the long weekend. That's OK, we'll go and visit the free silk farm instead - INCORRECT, it was shut. So, all that was left was to grab some beer from a shop around the corner, sit out the front of our guesthouse and drink it. And we did. All day.
It was so fucking hot and there was a wedding that had been going on for the past two days next door (Khmer weddings start just before dawn and finish up around midnight, they generally run for about three days straight) so we had been woken up quite early and were feeling a bit lazy. We sat around and chatted to Ly (who turned out to be the owner of MotherHome). He was a really nice Khmer gentleman who asked us if we wouldn't mind proofreading his menu for the new restaurant and bar he was putting in. As we were just sitting there, drinking beer and composing a couple of Haiku's, we didn't mind at all (as you can tell from the writing of Haiku's, we were a little on the bored side).
Haiku Number One - Entitled Chicken
Chicken's chicken's all around;
Not a one to eat;
Achoo! Bird Flu! Bless.
More to come later, I know, you're riveted. That was one of mine, a master wordsmith if I do say so myself.
Then it was time for dinner! Pit came and picked us up from MotheHome at about 6.45pm. We had bought a slab of coke cans earlier to bring as a gift (for $9.00), when he saw the slab, he nearly fell over. Hilarious. Some American man walking past the tuk tuk thought it wise to make comment, "You sure got a lot of coke there mate!" Well spotted American. Why are you using Australian colloquialism?
We headed out of town on the road to Angkor Wat, and just after all the ritzy hotel's stopped, we turned down a little dirt track (a little bit more narrow than the one our guesthouse was on). At the end of this track was a house, which is where we stopped, Pit and his wife rent one of the rooms in the house. Mrs Pit came out to meet us (she was a bit surprised, because Pit was supposed to call and let her know we were on our way- he forgot :)). She was so lovely and welcoming, they were a little bit shy about their "small room" but it was beautiful. It's true, they do just live in one bedroom (about the size of our bedroom at home), but it it lovely and cosy and they obviously take pride in their home and achievements (on the wall is a photo of Mrs Pit at her graduation from college where she studied English).
There was a little kitchen set up to one side of the room, with a gas burner and some shelves with general ingredients on them. She had laid out so many plates with different dishes for us. We all sat on the floor around the amazing food and tucked in. There was boiled rice, some catfish (which was my favourite, she's going to teach me how to cook them next time), some pork (steamed with some vegetables, like the inside of a pork bun without the bun), another pork dish, some fresh vegetables, and some mango salad. When I thought I couldn't possibly eat anymore, Mrs Pit served up some dessert, coconut milk, corn and tapioca - DELICIOUS.
They also taught us some more Khmer, so I now know how to say the following;
Hello
Greetings
Please
Thank you
No Thank you (this has helped us immensely when not wanting to buy things, it's absolute magic!)
Bye
Farewell
Sorry
Yes
No
On the bus today I also taught myself how to count from 1 - 10 Whoo hoo!
And as suggested above, a little bit of Khmer does go a long way. They really appreciate you taking the time out to learn some of their language. A lot of the sounds are similar to Japanese, so if you know some Japanese sounds, Khmer is not too difficult (I'm no expert though).
We headed back to Phnom Pehn today, the 5 hour express bus, which took 7 and a half hours! This trip we had seriously pimping seats! We must have booked early because we had seats 1 & 2, right up the front of the bus, leather (all the other seats were the normal Brisbane City Council Bus material in the blue pattern), green, with a leopard strip down the middle. Like I said - pimping. So we donned our Fedora's, white tailored suit jackets and bling to the hilt and sat down, stretching our legs out in front of us with all the extra leg room. Once again, spoilt.
It was a fairly uneventful trip sleep, look out the window, sleep, talk shit, look out the window, sleep, watch a bit of the Kung Fu movie in Khmer (I may be able to count to 10, but I definitely couldn't understand what the hell was going on in that movie). I now have a lot of respect for the bus drivers who have to navigate the National Highway, the roads are really fucking bad. So bad in in fact that as we approached Phnom Penh - I saw a dead body for the first time.
We must have arrived just after the accident happened. A woman had been riding her moto (we couldn't work out exactly what had transpired), but as we drove past, she was unfortunately dead, still in the middle of the road. A tuk tuk driver was covering her body with some leafy branches from a nearby tree, but as we drove around, her legs were splayed and her helmet was poking out the top of the leaves. It was very sad and a very real reminder that we are not here forever and we have no choice in how we leave the world.
Life unfortunately does have to go on and our bus trudged along as though nothing had happened (I'm not sure if our eyes can be stapled open anymore, but they were).
We got back to Phnom Penh and found a new Guesthouse for just $15, (instead of $17 at the Paragon) the room is slightly bigger and the bathroom laid out a little better (They don't have proper showers here, it's more of a shower head sticking straight out of the bathroom wall, without a shower curtain or glass. When you shower, the whole bathroom gets covered in water, if the toilet is sitting in an annoying spot, the seat and toilet paper gets saturated. Annoying, but definitely live able).
After dumping our bags we headed to trusty old Bogie and Bacall's to organise another Dump Run on Friday. Tomorrow though, it's off to Sihanoukville for two days, to chill out by the beach, relax and reflect on our adventures. BOOYA!
Ley Huey!
Shanngelina
Your mother has a loose tongue.
Farewell Siem Reap.
Well they say you reap what you sow, and if thats the case, I siem to have misplaced my temple seeds.
Siem Reap was amazing. Angkor Wat, Dead Fish Tower, Dr Fish and Pit, what a rad combination. As I write this, I am sitting in our new guesthouse, the Waterview in Phnom Penh. We took the Paramount Express bus today, 7.5 hrs to find ourselves back here.
Yesterday we had the misfortune of being in Siem Reap for International Womens Day (its a public holiday here) so pretty much everything was shut. We took the opportunity to chill out, relax, went for a leisurely stroll by the Stung Siem Reap (River) and wrote a collection of haiku poems, mainly for shits and giggles.
We waited the afternoon away until we finally met up with Pit, and gave him his present. 23 cans of coca-cola. It would have been 24, but one can fell out on the walk back to our hotel, hit the ground, exploded, and covered me in the delicious beverage we know as COKE.
Pit was floored by the amount of Coke, assuring us it would be more than a months supply. It was a 40minute ride north, through traffic back to Pit's home, which was actually a bedroom in a larger house.
We met his wife, whose name currently escapes me and she welcomed us into their home. She had prepared a feast for us.. consisting of:
Catfish
Steamed Pork Dumpling
Pork Rib Soup
Mango Salad
Rice
and...
Dessert.
The dessert was a mixture of tapioca, coconut milk, and sweet corn. It was absolutely delicious. The catfish was tasty- some of the best fish in my life, the mango salad was again, just amazing... and the soup, to die for.
We stuffed ourselves full and sat there for the next 3 hours chatting away like old friends. Pit's wife is an english teacher and her english is amazing. We chatted about local Khmer tradition, their culture, Khmer politics, and then Mrs Pit started to teach us some Khmer words, to make our stay easier.
We have been dropping these all day, and the Khmer's seem to be lapping it up. It also helps us build more of a rapport, and is paying dividends socially already.
We awoke early to take the 930 bus, and were quite surprised when Ly (The owner of Motherhome, our guesthouse in Siem Reap) gave us $8 off our bill. Yesterday afternoon he asked Shannon and myself to peruse and make suggestions to the menu of the new restaurant he was putting in. Obviously Shannon and I ooze culinary intellect, and we gave him back a revised edition with additions and corrected grammar.
Whilst it was our absolute pleasure to help him with this (he is a top guy) we were by no means expecting a discount (unexpected but appreciated). Ly went out of his way to make sure we were comfortable during our stay, including insisting he drive us to the bus station this morning in his own car (for free), none of this tuktuk shit for us.
It was a pretty uneventul trip (we were given seats 1 and 2 on the Paramount Express). Now for you people who are not in the know I will explain the differences between seats 1 and 2, and all the others.
Regular seat: Fabric covering. 2 air conditioning vents. 40cm seat pitch.
Seats 1 and 2: Green leather with a stripe of leopard print. 6 air conditioning vents. About 200cm seat pitch, enough room for me to lay flat and still have room.
From seat 1, and also seat 2, we had panoramic views of the countryside. We were about 1 hr from Phnom Penh when we suddenly slowed. Turns out a lady had been killed on the highway, fallen off her motorcycle. As our bus drove around the corpse, the locals were covering it (she was laying in the middle of the road) in leaves. Rest in peace lady.
From there a quick cruise into Phnom Penh where our guesthouse tuktuk was not waiting at the bus station. No biggie, we just walked. Down the riverside, through the streets, passing a policeman with a Kalashnikov, and past the Waterview. Although we'd had good experiences at the Paragon, we decided we'd have a look. At the bargain price of $15 per night we have a nice big room, air con, cable tv and a nice bathroom, right on the river.
We have booked our bus for tomorrow morning, for we are heading to Sihanoukville to relax by the beach. S Tac is hoping to get some snorkelling in, I am hoping to get some beers in. We come back Thursday (only 2 days) as on Friday we are heading to the dump again to see our little buddies.
Thats the update, thats the latest, by any rate, I am the greatest.
Rhymoceros John.
Well they say you reap what you sow, and if thats the case, I siem to have misplaced my temple seeds.
Siem Reap was amazing. Angkor Wat, Dead Fish Tower, Dr Fish and Pit, what a rad combination. As I write this, I am sitting in our new guesthouse, the Waterview in Phnom Penh. We took the Paramount Express bus today, 7.5 hrs to find ourselves back here.
Yesterday we had the misfortune of being in Siem Reap for International Womens Day (its a public holiday here) so pretty much everything was shut. We took the opportunity to chill out, relax, went for a leisurely stroll by the Stung Siem Reap (River) and wrote a collection of haiku poems, mainly for shits and giggles.
We waited the afternoon away until we finally met up with Pit, and gave him his present. 23 cans of coca-cola. It would have been 24, but one can fell out on the walk back to our hotel, hit the ground, exploded, and covered me in the delicious beverage we know as COKE.
Pit was floored by the amount of Coke, assuring us it would be more than a months supply. It was a 40minute ride north, through traffic back to Pit's home, which was actually a bedroom in a larger house.
We met his wife, whose name currently escapes me and she welcomed us into their home. She had prepared a feast for us.. consisting of:
Catfish
Steamed Pork Dumpling
Pork Rib Soup
Mango Salad
Rice
and...
Dessert.
The dessert was a mixture of tapioca, coconut milk, and sweet corn. It was absolutely delicious. The catfish was tasty- some of the best fish in my life, the mango salad was again, just amazing... and the soup, to die for.
We stuffed ourselves full and sat there for the next 3 hours chatting away like old friends. Pit's wife is an english teacher and her english is amazing. We chatted about local Khmer tradition, their culture, Khmer politics, and then Mrs Pit started to teach us some Khmer words, to make our stay easier.
We have been dropping these all day, and the Khmer's seem to be lapping it up. It also helps us build more of a rapport, and is paying dividends socially already.
We awoke early to take the 930 bus, and were quite surprised when Ly (The owner of Motherhome, our guesthouse in Siem Reap) gave us $8 off our bill. Yesterday afternoon he asked Shannon and myself to peruse and make suggestions to the menu of the new restaurant he was putting in. Obviously Shannon and I ooze culinary intellect, and we gave him back a revised edition with additions and corrected grammar.
Whilst it was our absolute pleasure to help him with this (he is a top guy) we were by no means expecting a discount (unexpected but appreciated). Ly went out of his way to make sure we were comfortable during our stay, including insisting he drive us to the bus station this morning in his own car (for free), none of this tuktuk shit for us.
It was a pretty uneventul trip (we were given seats 1 and 2 on the Paramount Express). Now for you people who are not in the know I will explain the differences between seats 1 and 2, and all the others.
Regular seat: Fabric covering. 2 air conditioning vents. 40cm seat pitch.
Seats 1 and 2: Green leather with a stripe of leopard print. 6 air conditioning vents. About 200cm seat pitch, enough room for me to lay flat and still have room.
From seat 1, and also seat 2, we had panoramic views of the countryside. We were about 1 hr from Phnom Penh when we suddenly slowed. Turns out a lady had been killed on the highway, fallen off her motorcycle. As our bus drove around the corpse, the locals were covering it (she was laying in the middle of the road) in leaves. Rest in peace lady.
From there a quick cruise into Phnom Penh where our guesthouse tuktuk was not waiting at the bus station. No biggie, we just walked. Down the riverside, through the streets, passing a policeman with a Kalashnikov, and past the Waterview. Although we'd had good experiences at the Paragon, we decided we'd have a look. At the bargain price of $15 per night we have a nice big room, air con, cable tv and a nice bathroom, right on the river.
We have booked our bus for tomorrow morning, for we are heading to Sihanoukville to relax by the beach. S Tac is hoping to get some snorkelling in, I am hoping to get some beers in. We come back Thursday (only 2 days) as on Friday we are heading to the dump again to see our little buddies.
Thats the update, thats the latest, by any rate, I am the greatest.
Rhymoceros John.
Sunday 8 March 2009
BACK TRACKING - Letters from Kampuchea 1st Post
Hello! I forgot to post my first blog on here, so I am doing a back track :)
Are you ready to Time Warp?
Time is fleeting, madness takes its hold...
So it's only 3.30pm Cambodian time (5.30pm Brisbane) on Monday afternoon and we've managed to stay up for about 36 hours now, with only 10 minute power naps to keep us going! Don't worry, the $1.00 beers have helped get us through.
We've gone from Brisbane to Kuala Lumpur and happily spent 8 hours on a Malaysian Airlines flight with a choice of 20 new release movies, tv shows and games - all accessible through a remote control - best thing since sliced bread. We then spent 4 hours in KL airport. There are three main things I noticed most about KL (airport, as I'm not fit to judge the rest of the country yet) 1. the sun didn't rise until about 7.30am 2. It smells. It's a weird sort of smell, like a cross between a cupboard at my nanna's that hasn't been opened since 1940 and urine. 3. They are the proud owner of a bar in the airport called Cheers, where everybody knows your name.
After trying to have a kip in some awesomely designed recliner chairs, it was time to leave for CAMBODIA! Or CAMBOOYA!! as I like to call it. See the clever use of Camb (the first syllable in Cambodia) and BOOYA! As in supremely awesome. I knew you would.
Malaysia Airlines have looked after us fantastically, feeding us and entertaining us at every opportunity. Unfortunately, there was a f*ckstick of a Frenchman on our flight making this strike 2 against French men when traveling abroad (see the first travel blog on Vietnam, namely in Sapa). They are extremely rude (ordering the flight attendant around like a dog, refusing to listen to the obligations of people sitting in the exit rows (thankfully he was moved because I sure didn't trust him to step up to the responsibility of saving me in an emergency!) and then cutting in front of us in the visa line - f*cker (luckily, it was the line for visa's NOT for fighting, or Chutney)).
So we made it to Kampuchea, through the visa line (we had to bribe the customs official US$1 to let us through without a pre arranged passport photo!), then through customs, which consisted of:
Customs Official with Gun: "Anything to declare?"
Us: "No"
Customs Official with a Gun": "Head straight through"
No bag search, no X-ray - nothing. I think John and I must be the luckiest people ever when it comes to customs - touch wood.
We had arranged to be picked up by our hotel - the Flamingo in central Phnom Penh. It's not too bad, comfy, clean, maybe a little bit over priced (which happens when you book before you get here) and FULL of SLEAZY Britich Expats, scamming all over the local girls (but from what I've seen, it seems to everywhere in Phnom Penh). I LOVE what I've seen of South East Asia, I mean LOVE it. The locals are fantastically friendly, the food is AMAZING (just to overuse CAPS here like a 14 year old on MSN... lyk OMG LolzorZ!) and the things to see and do are completely out of anything I would see in my normal world. There's just one thing - I HATE (there's the overuse of CAPS again) the underbelly and seediness of the older male expat community. They are vile. Like Kyle Sandilands - on crack.
Unfortunately that comes with 3rd world and developing economies, even developed economies if you look in the right places in Australia. So I'm going to continue to love South East Asia like it's my home away from home. With cheap beer & food, rich & proud culture, and interesting people - like Kim - the owner of The Flamingo who we met this afternoon.
We're heading to some touristy places tomorrow, the Killing Fields, S21, some pagoda's and the Royal Palace and Elephant rides. The day after, it's off to see the RIEL (see my pun there? No? Look it up) Kampuchea with our new friend Daka.
Peace, Love and Rainbow's.
Shanngelina.
Are you ready to Time Warp?
Time is fleeting, madness takes its hold...
So it's only 3.30pm Cambodian time (5.30pm Brisbane) on Monday afternoon and we've managed to stay up for about 36 hours now, with only 10 minute power naps to keep us going! Don't worry, the $1.00 beers have helped get us through.
We've gone from Brisbane to Kuala Lumpur and happily spent 8 hours on a Malaysian Airlines flight with a choice of 20 new release movies, tv shows and games - all accessible through a remote control - best thing since sliced bread. We then spent 4 hours in KL airport. There are three main things I noticed most about KL (airport, as I'm not fit to judge the rest of the country yet) 1. the sun didn't rise until about 7.30am 2. It smells. It's a weird sort of smell, like a cross between a cupboard at my nanna's that hasn't been opened since 1940 and urine. 3. They are the proud owner of a bar in the airport called Cheers, where everybody knows your name.
After trying to have a kip in some awesomely designed recliner chairs, it was time to leave for CAMBODIA! Or CAMBOOYA!! as I like to call it. See the clever use of Camb (the first syllable in Cambodia) and BOOYA! As in supremely awesome. I knew you would.
Malaysia Airlines have looked after us fantastically, feeding us and entertaining us at every opportunity. Unfortunately, there was a f*ckstick of a Frenchman on our flight making this strike 2 against French men when traveling abroad (see the first travel blog on Vietnam, namely in Sapa). They are extremely rude (ordering the flight attendant around like a dog, refusing to listen to the obligations of people sitting in the exit rows (thankfully he was moved because I sure didn't trust him to step up to the responsibility of saving me in an emergency!) and then cutting in front of us in the visa line - f*cker (luckily, it was the line for visa's NOT for fighting, or Chutney)).
So we made it to Kampuchea, through the visa line (we had to bribe the customs official US$1 to let us through without a pre arranged passport photo!), then through customs, which consisted of:
Customs Official with Gun: "Anything to declare?"
Us: "No"
Customs Official with a Gun": "Head straight through"
No bag search, no X-ray - nothing. I think John and I must be the luckiest people ever when it comes to customs - touch wood.
We had arranged to be picked up by our hotel - the Flamingo in central Phnom Penh. It's not too bad, comfy, clean, maybe a little bit over priced (which happens when you book before you get here) and FULL of SLEAZY Britich Expats, scamming all over the local girls (but from what I've seen, it seems to everywhere in Phnom Penh). I LOVE what I've seen of South East Asia, I mean LOVE it. The locals are fantastically friendly, the food is AMAZING (just to overuse CAPS here like a 14 year old on MSN... lyk OMG LolzorZ!) and the things to see and do are completely out of anything I would see in my normal world. There's just one thing - I HATE (there's the overuse of CAPS again) the underbelly and seediness of the older male expat community. They are vile. Like Kyle Sandilands - on crack.
Unfortunately that comes with 3rd world and developing economies, even developed economies if you look in the right places in Australia. So I'm going to continue to love South East Asia like it's my home away from home. With cheap beer & food, rich & proud culture, and interesting people - like Kim - the owner of The Flamingo who we met this afternoon.
We're heading to some touristy places tomorrow, the Killing Fields, S21, some pagoda's and the Royal Palace and Elephant rides. The day after, it's off to see the RIEL (see my pun there? No? Look it up) Kampuchea with our new friend Daka.
Peace, Love and Rainbow's.
Shanngelina.
Saturday 7 March 2009
I see the sunrise, all you see is it fall, fall, fall...
So I still have my feet, after letting the Dr. Fish piranhas eat them! HOORAY for me. They came in handy for all of the walking we have done over the past 2 days. Considering the Khmer people are so small (I am actually quite tall here, a regular Kate Moss, except not British, shorter and fatter and without the drug habit and million dollar contracts, so not like her at all really), they seem to build ridiculously high steps to their temples. These steps are about 15cm wide (small feet a pre requisite for climbing) and each step reaches my knee. As well as not being Kate Moss, I am also not a Mountain Goat. This makes it very difficult to climb the temples at a speed faster than a snail. Once at the top though, the Mountian Goat impersonation is forgotten completely, these temples truly are amazing!
Then it's time to climb down...
Many of you may not know this, (contrary to popular belief that I am so fabulously amazing that nothing scares me, unfortunately I do have just one Kryptonite) Shannon doesn't like heights. I think this comes for two reasons 1. Once again, I am not a Mountain Goat and 2. I am short, so genetically, I'm not supposed to up high.
Luckily for me a Mountain Goat lives on top of the particular temple I'm talking about and whilst giving us some brief commentary on the temple he showed us the easiest way down. For a small fee. I more than happily paid him for his services though. It only took me 10 minutes to get down instead of 5 hours!
We encountered a few little scams at the temples that day, a woman had shaved her head to look like a monk and when we got to the top of a temple she shoved incense into our hands. Standard practice when praying to Buddha is to light incense, bow your head and place your hands in the prayer position, you then move your hands 3 times in the direction of the statue. If you wish, you can give a small donation (whatever you can afford) in the donation tray. Unfortunately, all we had on us was Riel, but the woman with the incense insisted we could only place US dollars in the donation tray. Feeling a little perplexed and not sure if I had culturally offended her by not having the correct money (she wouldn't take the riel so I put it back i my pocket), I asked Pit if this was usual. He was pretty upset, he said the woman was just taking it for herself and that it shouldn't matter how much you give. I was very glad she refused the riel, I'll give to Pax on our way back to Phnom Penh.
We've come across some awesome people so far on our trip, and one of these awesome people is Pit, our new friend and tuk tuk driver. He calls himself Angkor Wat Pete, for his website angkorwattaxi.com. Pete is really very smart and funny! He wants to be a tour guide as well as a tuk tuk driver but the tour guiding licence costs US$3000! The same amount as a car here! He also doesn't think his English is very good, but he understands my sense of humour (not many people at home understand!), so it's pretty damn good. We're heading to his place tomorrow night for dinner. I'm so excited, I can't wait to see inside a Khmer home. I asked if we should bring anything with us, he said, "Just bring Coca Cola, my wife and I really like Coca Cola". Coke - it even dominates South East Asia!
Today, I saw the sunrise over Angkor Wat, and you know what, it was well worth every minute of our 5am departure. We woke up with the crow of the roosters - literally. It may be because I don't get to see the sunrise very often, but there is something brilliant about seeing a new day being born, even more so when you're sitting on a 1000 year old temple made from hand carved sandstone.
Pete, picked us up in pitch blackness to make sure we got to the temple just before sunrise. I think dawn is now my favourite time of the day, it's where the world is slightly confused about whether it is night time or day time. The sky is getting lighter, but the stars are still trying to shine. The crickets and cicadas have a moment when neither wants to give way to the other, but as the sky begins to turn from black to navy to pink, the crickets fade away and finally give in to the daylight.
This was our second day at Angkor Wat, we started exploring at 8.00am yesterday and are only going for two days. You can buy one day, three day or weekly passes, however I think you would need to spend a year there everyday to fully find all of the temples and secrets hidden in the massive grounds. Pit had a great couple of days planned for us, he has sussed out all of the "better" temples, what time of day to visit them and what order to see them in to avoid the crowds. The temples are like stepping into another world. These places are massive, each stone carefully carved with Hindi or Buddhist deities and placed to create intricate hallways, and giant towers. The detail is breathtaking.
You can tell the difference between the rebuilt temples (destroyed by the Khmer Rouge or just by time and nature) and the original temples as soon as you take a step inside. It's like the original temples, dedicated to kings and religion, with carefully carved blocks, each hoisted into place by hand have a 'life' to them. These temples are so old, massive trees (that look like Moreton Bay Figs) have taken hold and grown in and around the doorways. I find the walk ways fascinating. I wonder how many people had walked through here before me?
I'd say about 100,000,000 (half of those would be Korean tourists travelling in groups of 100 or more, clogging the walk ways and stair wells).
Outside the temples the stall areas have a bit of a "Dreamworld" feel to them, like most places heavily frequented by tourists. There are LOTS of souvenir stores, and the food is a bit more expensive inside the gate then out. We ordered noodle soup this morning for breakfast - and we seriously got 2 Minute Noodles! The best version of 2 Minute Noodles I've ever had!
Speaking of food, we ate dinner at a place called Deadfish last night. It is like a warehouse with heaps of different levels. One of the levels has a complete drop off the edge and about a story below sits about 10 or so crocodiles! Not the best area to get drunk! I got a photo of me next to the drop pit, you think I don't like heights normally, wait until there's 10 crocodiles below!
Tomorrow we're going to visit the floating village and also the landmine museum.
Hopefully there's no crocodiles at the floating village.
Love, Hugs & Rainbows,
Shanngelina.
P.S. I'm not coming home.
Then it's time to climb down...
Many of you may not know this, (contrary to popular belief that I am so fabulously amazing that nothing scares me, unfortunately I do have just one Kryptonite) Shannon doesn't like heights. I think this comes for two reasons 1. Once again, I am not a Mountain Goat and 2. I am short, so genetically, I'm not supposed to up high.
Luckily for me a Mountain Goat lives on top of the particular temple I'm talking about and whilst giving us some brief commentary on the temple he showed us the easiest way down. For a small fee. I more than happily paid him for his services though. It only took me 10 minutes to get down instead of 5 hours!
We encountered a few little scams at the temples that day, a woman had shaved her head to look like a monk and when we got to the top of a temple she shoved incense into our hands. Standard practice when praying to Buddha is to light incense, bow your head and place your hands in the prayer position, you then move your hands 3 times in the direction of the statue. If you wish, you can give a small donation (whatever you can afford) in the donation tray. Unfortunately, all we had on us was Riel, but the woman with the incense insisted we could only place US dollars in the donation tray. Feeling a little perplexed and not sure if I had culturally offended her by not having the correct money (she wouldn't take the riel so I put it back i my pocket), I asked Pit if this was usual. He was pretty upset, he said the woman was just taking it for herself and that it shouldn't matter how much you give. I was very glad she refused the riel, I'll give to Pax on our way back to Phnom Penh.
We've come across some awesome people so far on our trip, and one of these awesome people is Pit, our new friend and tuk tuk driver. He calls himself Angkor Wat Pete, for his website angkorwattaxi.com. Pete is really very smart and funny! He wants to be a tour guide as well as a tuk tuk driver but the tour guiding licence costs US$3000! The same amount as a car here! He also doesn't think his English is very good, but he understands my sense of humour (not many people at home understand!), so it's pretty damn good. We're heading to his place tomorrow night for dinner. I'm so excited, I can't wait to see inside a Khmer home. I asked if we should bring anything with us, he said, "Just bring Coca Cola, my wife and I really like Coca Cola". Coke - it even dominates South East Asia!
Today, I saw the sunrise over Angkor Wat, and you know what, it was well worth every minute of our 5am departure. We woke up with the crow of the roosters - literally. It may be because I don't get to see the sunrise very often, but there is something brilliant about seeing a new day being born, even more so when you're sitting on a 1000 year old temple made from hand carved sandstone.
Pete, picked us up in pitch blackness to make sure we got to the temple just before sunrise. I think dawn is now my favourite time of the day, it's where the world is slightly confused about whether it is night time or day time. The sky is getting lighter, but the stars are still trying to shine. The crickets and cicadas have a moment when neither wants to give way to the other, but as the sky begins to turn from black to navy to pink, the crickets fade away and finally give in to the daylight.
This was our second day at Angkor Wat, we started exploring at 8.00am yesterday and are only going for two days. You can buy one day, three day or weekly passes, however I think you would need to spend a year there everyday to fully find all of the temples and secrets hidden in the massive grounds. Pit had a great couple of days planned for us, he has sussed out all of the "better" temples, what time of day to visit them and what order to see them in to avoid the crowds. The temples are like stepping into another world. These places are massive, each stone carefully carved with Hindi or Buddhist deities and placed to create intricate hallways, and giant towers. The detail is breathtaking.
You can tell the difference between the rebuilt temples (destroyed by the Khmer Rouge or just by time and nature) and the original temples as soon as you take a step inside. It's like the original temples, dedicated to kings and religion, with carefully carved blocks, each hoisted into place by hand have a 'life' to them. These temples are so old, massive trees (that look like Moreton Bay Figs) have taken hold and grown in and around the doorways. I find the walk ways fascinating. I wonder how many people had walked through here before me?
I'd say about 100,000,000 (half of those would be Korean tourists travelling in groups of 100 or more, clogging the walk ways and stair wells).
Outside the temples the stall areas have a bit of a "Dreamworld" feel to them, like most places heavily frequented by tourists. There are LOTS of souvenir stores, and the food is a bit more expensive inside the gate then out. We ordered noodle soup this morning for breakfast - and we seriously got 2 Minute Noodles! The best version of 2 Minute Noodles I've ever had!
Speaking of food, we ate dinner at a place called Deadfish last night. It is like a warehouse with heaps of different levels. One of the levels has a complete drop off the edge and about a story below sits about 10 or so crocodiles! Not the best area to get drunk! I got a photo of me next to the drop pit, you think I don't like heights normally, wait until there's 10 crocodiles below!
Tomorrow we're going to visit the floating village and also the landmine museum.
Hopefully there's no crocodiles at the floating village.
Love, Hugs & Rainbows,
Shanngelina.
P.S. I'm not coming home.
We're going to Bonnie Doon.
Bonnie Doon is Cambodian for Angkor Wat.
Nah, just kidding.
So since we've been in Siem Reap, the following has happened:
1. We met Pit, who was to be our tuktuk driver for the Angkor temples.
2. John drank 168 cans of Angkor, and about 1241417 pints of Angkor Draft..
3. We checked out the temples.
4. We went to Dr Fish.. again.
5. We booked our bus back to Phnom Penh, and our hotel.
6. We learnt enough Khmer to get the little hustlers to back off..haha.
... and all these things go together so well.... so the story shall be told:
Siem Reap has been great. We are staying in a BEAUTIFUL hotel, with fantastic staff, free internet, free coffee, it has cable, air-con, 90c cans of beer, it really is a top spot... We''re only a little ways from Pub St, the Old Market/Night Market etc, as well as being in a nice quiet back street. A lot of the streets here are dirt, so everything has a nice layer of dust on it...
Today and yesterday we went to Angkor to see the temples... Day 1, we set off at about 9am, and by 2 in the afternoon I nearly died of heatstroke.. turns out 100 bottles of water is no compensation for not wearing a hat and trudging through temples.. The detail of the carvings, along with the beautiful assembly, the way its all put together is magical, breathtaking, awesome, really to be perfectly honest, cannot be described in words.
At the same time as being so amazing, it is heartbreaking, and gutwrenching to see some of the vandalism that has taken place at the hands of the hindu people and the Khmer Rouge.
On Day 2, we set out for the sunrise tour, meeting our new friend Pit at our hotel at 5am. Through the dark, dusty streets of Siem Reap, Mr Pit navigated his reliable and poweful tuktuk, arriving by our sunrise vantage point at 515-ish.
Watching the sun appear over the distant trees and hills, with rays of light beaming across the bath, was a picture I will never forget, mainly due to the fact Shannon captured it all on camera.
From there we set off on the Small Circuit, after knocking down the Grand Circuit on Day 1. There are some amazing temples, my favourite actually being Ta Keo (not Angkor Wat, believe it or Not - I just rhymed). Ta Keo is a huge structure, that hasn't actually been finished yet, apparently due to it being struck by lightning about 95% of the way to completion. Fearing the lightning strike was bad luck, the workers abandoned it, until it became a buddhist temple (temples changed from hindi to buddhist praise back and forth)
We grabbed some breakfast with Pit- a pretty standard overpriced ($2) noodle soup, and a coconut to drink.. from there, we continued templing, including the Bayon, which it would appear is a meeting place for the "Slow as shit Korean Club". From there, we headed to some smaller temples, including the toilet temple... free for ticketholders, 50c for nonticketholders. After draining the main vein, we headed back to Siem Reap town, conversing with our friend Pit.
From a few things Pit had told us, we really wanted to meet his wife, and get to know them both better. We invited Pit and Mrs Pit to dinner, and he accepted, before instead inviting us to his house tomorrow night for some Khmer tucker.
So after bidding adieu to Pit, I wandered the streets of Siem Reap on my lonesome, looking for a nice shady place to read the Cambodian Weekly newspaper. Found a little chair, had a read, and headed back to have some lunch with S-Tacular at STAR RISE (Best. Food. Ever).
And here I am now. Tomorrow we have the landmine museum, as well as dinner with Pit, and then Monday we head back to Phnom Penh, and the plan is to head to Sihanoukville for a few days to chillax on the beach.
Giggity.
John.
Nah, just kidding.
So since we've been in Siem Reap, the following has happened:
1. We met Pit, who was to be our tuktuk driver for the Angkor temples.
2. John drank 168 cans of Angkor, and about 1241417 pints of Angkor Draft..
3. We checked out the temples.
4. We went to Dr Fish.. again.
5. We booked our bus back to Phnom Penh, and our hotel.
6. We learnt enough Khmer to get the little hustlers to back off..haha.
... and all these things go together so well.... so the story shall be told:
Siem Reap has been great. We are staying in a BEAUTIFUL hotel, with fantastic staff, free internet, free coffee, it has cable, air-con, 90c cans of beer, it really is a top spot... We''re only a little ways from Pub St, the Old Market/Night Market etc, as well as being in a nice quiet back street. A lot of the streets here are dirt, so everything has a nice layer of dust on it...
Today and yesterday we went to Angkor to see the temples... Day 1, we set off at about 9am, and by 2 in the afternoon I nearly died of heatstroke.. turns out 100 bottles of water is no compensation for not wearing a hat and trudging through temples.. The detail of the carvings, along with the beautiful assembly, the way its all put together is magical, breathtaking, awesome, really to be perfectly honest, cannot be described in words.
At the same time as being so amazing, it is heartbreaking, and gutwrenching to see some of the vandalism that has taken place at the hands of the hindu people and the Khmer Rouge.
On Day 2, we set out for the sunrise tour, meeting our new friend Pit at our hotel at 5am. Through the dark, dusty streets of Siem Reap, Mr Pit navigated his reliable and poweful tuktuk, arriving by our sunrise vantage point at 515-ish.
Watching the sun appear over the distant trees and hills, with rays of light beaming across the bath, was a picture I will never forget, mainly due to the fact Shannon captured it all on camera.
From there we set off on the Small Circuit, after knocking down the Grand Circuit on Day 1. There are some amazing temples, my favourite actually being Ta Keo (not Angkor Wat, believe it or Not - I just rhymed). Ta Keo is a huge structure, that hasn't actually been finished yet, apparently due to it being struck by lightning about 95% of the way to completion. Fearing the lightning strike was bad luck, the workers abandoned it, until it became a buddhist temple (temples changed from hindi to buddhist praise back and forth)
We grabbed some breakfast with Pit- a pretty standard overpriced ($2) noodle soup, and a coconut to drink.. from there, we continued templing, including the Bayon, which it would appear is a meeting place for the "Slow as shit Korean Club". From there, we headed to some smaller temples, including the toilet temple... free for ticketholders, 50c for nonticketholders. After draining the main vein, we headed back to Siem Reap town, conversing with our friend Pit.
From a few things Pit had told us, we really wanted to meet his wife, and get to know them both better. We invited Pit and Mrs Pit to dinner, and he accepted, before instead inviting us to his house tomorrow night for some Khmer tucker.
So after bidding adieu to Pit, I wandered the streets of Siem Reap on my lonesome, looking for a nice shady place to read the Cambodian Weekly newspaper. Found a little chair, had a read, and headed back to have some lunch with S-Tacular at STAR RISE (Best. Food. Ever).
And here I am now. Tomorrow we have the landmine museum, as well as dinner with Pit, and then Monday we head back to Phnom Penh, and the plan is to head to Sihanoukville for a few days to chillax on the beach.
Giggity.
John.
Thursday 5 March 2009
Angkor Wat?
Chum reap sua!
That was Greetings, Cambodian style (I didn't actually remember that this time either, I have a book to cheat from).
What a fabulous 48 hours I've had! We got to Bogie and Bacall's on Street No. 136 nice and early to help load the truck with supplies for the Dump Run. There was quite a good turn out, an Australian couple who didn't say much (the woman looked like she was a Bretheren, so here on in they shall be known as "The Bretheren Couple"), a young couple, Matt from Caaaaalifoooooooooornia (that was my attempt at his long drawn out accent, being Californian he was so darn relaxed) with a girl from Canada who had a cherry blossom tree tattooed on her shoulder (I forget her name, lets call her Tattoo, like from Fantasy Island except from Canada in Cambodia). There was an American man and his family (he actually donated $150 for the entire trip and provided some basic medical supplies, because of this donation, I thought he was a doctor, he's not, but we'lll call him The Doctor. Not at all as funny as Triple J's The Doctor). Then there was Niomi, the "Photo Journalist", I put this in quotations marks to point out the legitimacy of this job title is questionable. My main reason for questioning her is because she was rude and she pissed me off, that's really all the evidence I have for questioning her though. I'm sure it would stand up in court somewhere...
So our rag tag bunch of volunteers were accompanied by David (the owner of Bogie and Bacall's and founder of the dump runs), Richard, a pommy expat with many a story to tell and a local police officer. We all jumped in the back of a truck with the equipment. This was an AWESOME way to travel around Phnom Penh, except when there were low hanging branches. The first stop was to the markets to purchase 400 loaves of bread, crabapples, bannana's, apples and cordial, all of this came to around $148.00 - very cheap considering it was to feed an entire village.
As we pulled into the dump, my heart broke. Hundreds of little kids rushed out of the school and down the piles of rubbish to chase after the truck. The dump has been set on fire in parts and the whole place has an eerie, smoky cloud hanging over it. We stopped the truck and all the kids made 2 lines, a girls line and a boys line. We all scrambled out of the back of the truck pushing through the kids who were trying to get as close as possible to the front.
John and Richard's job was crowd control (like security at the fenceline of a moshpit, they make sure no one is getting squished). My job was to stop line jumping and pushing. I hated this job, the poor hungry little faces would try and cut in with their friends and I had to be the big meanie who sent them to the back of the line. Understandably though, if people cut in or came up for more than a serve it meant someone else had to miss out on food.
The children are amazingly resilient, happy, polite, friendly and smart. As they were standing in line they would reach out to hold my hand. Their arms were so tiny that most of them couldn't hold all of the food, so they were picking up plastic bags, sheets of cardboard and pieces of material from the rubbish piles to help them carry it all. These children truly have nothing. I honestly can't describe how adorable they all are, you'll have to see for yourself in the photos or maybe in person one day.
After all of the food had been dished out, injuries and illnesses attended to as best the first aiders could (alot suffer from scabies, septic wounds, some have broken bones or burns from falling through soft rubbish piles or standing on coals), about 20 or so kids hung around to play. One little girl took a liking to me so she would stand there just holding my hand or giving me a hug. She taught me how to play a hand clapping game and then a few of the girls sung "The Wheels on The Bus". John and I decided on the way back to Bogie and Bacall's to volunteer again before we leave.
Back in Phnom Penh, we drank lots of beer, chatted to David, Richard and two hilarious Aussie guys called Paul and Daryl. We headed off to The Happy Herb Pizza Place for dinner and tried out one of Cambodia's "Happy Pizza's". My pizza was extremely tasty, the "Happy" part was a bit over rated but was definitely worth a go!
Today we caught a bus to Siem Reap (not far from the temples at Angkor Wat), it cost us just $9.00 and took about 5 hours in a super comfy bus. Siem Reap is only 317kms away from Phnom Penh, but the conditions of the roads drag the travelling time out. We had a little stop over on the way and met this beutiful litle boy (who I'm going to call Pax, because I want to adopt him). When he realised we were't going to buy some pineapple from him to eat, he showed us a little monkey that had been chained up, so we fed some pineapple to the poor little thing. I can see why it had been tied up though, it was a cranky little fucker. We jumped back on the bus and as we were pulling away, little Pax stood there waving and blowing kisses. I want one.
Siem Reap is great! We are in such a nice Ph'teah Som Nak (that was Guest House in Khmer, BOOYA!). It's called Mother Home and is $15 a night, the room is huge and we have a bath! Plus the plumbing is actually inside the wall! We are spoilt! I feel like we're cheating on Asian experience a bit.
All of the roads here are pretty much dirt, which makes taking a tuk tuk a bit like 4WDriving. We headed off to the night Phsar (that was market in Khmer, I'm getting clever!) tonight and I have bought HEAPS of goodies for everyone. We also got to try out Dr. Fish. These are a small type of pyrranah that eat all the dead skin off you're feet. It sounds disgusting and I'll admit, the first 2 minutes are pretty unpleasant. I HAVE MY FEET IN A FRICKING TANK OF PYRRANAHS!!! WHY IS THIS!!?? Then it's kind of like a foot spa, except with flesh eating fish from Turkey.
New counrty, new experiences.
Loving every minute of it,
Shanngelina
That was Greetings, Cambodian style (I didn't actually remember that this time either, I have a book to cheat from).
What a fabulous 48 hours I've had! We got to Bogie and Bacall's on Street No. 136 nice and early to help load the truck with supplies for the Dump Run. There was quite a good turn out, an Australian couple who didn't say much (the woman looked like she was a Bretheren, so here on in they shall be known as "The Bretheren Couple"), a young couple, Matt from Caaaaalifoooooooooornia (that was my attempt at his long drawn out accent, being Californian he was so darn relaxed) with a girl from Canada who had a cherry blossom tree tattooed on her shoulder (I forget her name, lets call her Tattoo, like from Fantasy Island except from Canada in Cambodia). There was an American man and his family (he actually donated $150 for the entire trip and provided some basic medical supplies, because of this donation, I thought he was a doctor, he's not, but we'lll call him The Doctor. Not at all as funny as Triple J's The Doctor). Then there was Niomi, the "Photo Journalist", I put this in quotations marks to point out the legitimacy of this job title is questionable. My main reason for questioning her is because she was rude and she pissed me off, that's really all the evidence I have for questioning her though. I'm sure it would stand up in court somewhere...
So our rag tag bunch of volunteers were accompanied by David (the owner of Bogie and Bacall's and founder of the dump runs), Richard, a pommy expat with many a story to tell and a local police officer. We all jumped in the back of a truck with the equipment. This was an AWESOME way to travel around Phnom Penh, except when there were low hanging branches. The first stop was to the markets to purchase 400 loaves of bread, crabapples, bannana's, apples and cordial, all of this came to around $148.00 - very cheap considering it was to feed an entire village.
As we pulled into the dump, my heart broke. Hundreds of little kids rushed out of the school and down the piles of rubbish to chase after the truck. The dump has been set on fire in parts and the whole place has an eerie, smoky cloud hanging over it. We stopped the truck and all the kids made 2 lines, a girls line and a boys line. We all scrambled out of the back of the truck pushing through the kids who were trying to get as close as possible to the front.
John and Richard's job was crowd control (like security at the fenceline of a moshpit, they make sure no one is getting squished). My job was to stop line jumping and pushing. I hated this job, the poor hungry little faces would try and cut in with their friends and I had to be the big meanie who sent them to the back of the line. Understandably though, if people cut in or came up for more than a serve it meant someone else had to miss out on food.
The children are amazingly resilient, happy, polite, friendly and smart. As they were standing in line they would reach out to hold my hand. Their arms were so tiny that most of them couldn't hold all of the food, so they were picking up plastic bags, sheets of cardboard and pieces of material from the rubbish piles to help them carry it all. These children truly have nothing. I honestly can't describe how adorable they all are, you'll have to see for yourself in the photos or maybe in person one day.
After all of the food had been dished out, injuries and illnesses attended to as best the first aiders could (alot suffer from scabies, septic wounds, some have broken bones or burns from falling through soft rubbish piles or standing on coals), about 20 or so kids hung around to play. One little girl took a liking to me so she would stand there just holding my hand or giving me a hug. She taught me how to play a hand clapping game and then a few of the girls sung "The Wheels on The Bus". John and I decided on the way back to Bogie and Bacall's to volunteer again before we leave.
Back in Phnom Penh, we drank lots of beer, chatted to David, Richard and two hilarious Aussie guys called Paul and Daryl. We headed off to The Happy Herb Pizza Place for dinner and tried out one of Cambodia's "Happy Pizza's". My pizza was extremely tasty, the "Happy" part was a bit over rated but was definitely worth a go!
Today we caught a bus to Siem Reap (not far from the temples at Angkor Wat), it cost us just $9.00 and took about 5 hours in a super comfy bus. Siem Reap is only 317kms away from Phnom Penh, but the conditions of the roads drag the travelling time out. We had a little stop over on the way and met this beutiful litle boy (who I'm going to call Pax, because I want to adopt him). When he realised we were't going to buy some pineapple from him to eat, he showed us a little monkey that had been chained up, so we fed some pineapple to the poor little thing. I can see why it had been tied up though, it was a cranky little fucker. We jumped back on the bus and as we were pulling away, little Pax stood there waving and blowing kisses. I want one.
Siem Reap is great! We are in such a nice Ph'teah Som Nak (that was Guest House in Khmer, BOOYA!). It's called Mother Home and is $15 a night, the room is huge and we have a bath! Plus the plumbing is actually inside the wall! We are spoilt! I feel like we're cheating on Asian experience a bit.
All of the roads here are pretty much dirt, which makes taking a tuk tuk a bit like 4WDriving. We headed off to the night Phsar (that was market in Khmer, I'm getting clever!) tonight and I have bought HEAPS of goodies for everyone. We also got to try out Dr. Fish. These are a small type of pyrranah that eat all the dead skin off you're feet. It sounds disgusting and I'll admit, the first 2 minutes are pretty unpleasant. I HAVE MY FEET IN A FRICKING TANK OF PYRRANAHS!!! WHY IS THIS!!?? Then it's kind of like a foot spa, except with flesh eating fish from Turkey.
New counrty, new experiences.
Loving every minute of it,
Shanngelina
Selamat Pagi Tuan Puan
The above is Malaysian for Good Morning Ladies and Gentleman. I learned this on our flight. It is much more hilarious to hear, because it sounds like:
Selmat Pangi Toing Poing.
Well. What a day and a half it's been. We wake up bright as buttons on Wednesday, keen as mustard to head to the dump and run around the trash.
We meet David, the English owner of Bogey and Bacalls at his pub, and along with Richard (another Pom, sounds like Richard Thornhill, also loves pork-pies, must be the name?) as well as a young brethren couple (very awkward, didn't say two words, but looked down their noses at us when we got back for post-dump lagers) a girl name Cherry from Victoria in British Columbia, as well as Wayyyyyyyyyyne, a surfer dude from Cali-forn- yaaaaa. The local village policeman was there as well, as well as a photo journalist called NY-OH-MEE, who turned out to be an uppity snob. Stupid poms.
Anyway, we get to the pub and immediately start loading the truck with supplies, water, chairs, medical equipment... there are about 10 of us.. and only 2 seats.. where to sit? In the tray.
We rode through the streets of Phnom Penh, atop the tray of a truck, holding onto the rickety tray. We got to a womans roadside bread stall, a woman David calls Mama, where we bought 400 baguettes. From there we went to the wholesale market where we picked up 50kg of bananas, 60kg of crabapples, 40 kgs of regular apples, loaded them up and off to the Phnom Penh City Dump.
Myself and Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyne had been asked to stand at the back of the truck and swat the kids back as we drove through the dump. I must of underestimated what he meant, because as soon as the truck entered the dump, about 50 kids came out of nowhere, from all directions, chasing our truck. Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyne and I then had to unpry the little kids fingers from the truck (whilst we were driving up a mud road, in a dump, not holding onto anytthing...) until we stopped.
We pulled up in a quiet part of the dump, surrounded by two huge trash walls, and Operation Feedkids was underway.
About 450 kids, ranging from new-born baby to 15 years old, as well as some older ladies, young mothers to grandmothers, lined up in 2 orderly male and female lines to receive some tucker from the trucker.
We handed out food while the awkward brethrens (the woman was a medic) treated minor ailments such as cuts, scratches, infections, scabies and so on. There were a lot of cute little kids, including one naked little baby boy, probably 6mths old. He was in the line, being held by his mother, but reached out and grabbed my finger. So then his mother gave him to me to hold. That was awkward. Holding a naked stinky sweaty Cambodian child. But the kid was the cutest I've ever seen so very much ok.
We packed up and had a bit of a play with the kids. I had 2 little brats hanging off my arms asking me to pick them up, little ruffigans that they are. We packed up, said goodbye, and headed back for Phnom Penh City.
Once back at the pub, we unloaded, got everything sorted and sat down for a beer with David (the owner). We got back at about 2pm...One Angkor Draft turned into 20, then some guys from QLD turned up (Daryl and Paul) and they had some beer too. Next time I look at my watch its about 6pm, and Im absolutely pickled. So what to do? We head to HH Pizza.
It was good pizza.
Then the next logical step is... BACK TO THE PUB. So we head back, chill out with Daryl and Paul, two hilarious top blokes, and drink more beer. It gets to 10pm, and its time to pull stumps.. for we had a 9am bus to Siem Reap to catch.
Woke up today at about 6am, seedy as ever, and went for a jog through the city, probably about 3 or 4km. Even at 6am, its very hot and humid. Got back, had some breakfast and boarded an "express bus" to Siem Reap. It was a good trip, cost $9 and was very comfortable. We went for dinner at a little place called Star Rise right near our hotel (Motherhome Hotel) and then jumped onto a tuktuk to go to the Night Markets where we caught a movie and bought some souvenirs. (Rob I bought you a present)
Back at the hotel writing this but up early tomorrow to head to Angkor Wat with our tuktuk driver, Pit.
It should be good.
Til next time,
John.
Selmat Pangi Toing Poing.
Well. What a day and a half it's been. We wake up bright as buttons on Wednesday, keen as mustard to head to the dump and run around the trash.
We meet David, the English owner of Bogey and Bacalls at his pub, and along with Richard (another Pom, sounds like Richard Thornhill, also loves pork-pies, must be the name?) as well as a young brethren couple (very awkward, didn't say two words, but looked down their noses at us when we got back for post-dump lagers) a girl name Cherry from Victoria in British Columbia, as well as Wayyyyyyyyyyne, a surfer dude from Cali-forn- yaaaaa. The local village policeman was there as well, as well as a photo journalist called NY-OH-MEE, who turned out to be an uppity snob. Stupid poms.
Anyway, we get to the pub and immediately start loading the truck with supplies, water, chairs, medical equipment... there are about 10 of us.. and only 2 seats.. where to sit? In the tray.
We rode through the streets of Phnom Penh, atop the tray of a truck, holding onto the rickety tray. We got to a womans roadside bread stall, a woman David calls Mama, where we bought 400 baguettes. From there we went to the wholesale market where we picked up 50kg of bananas, 60kg of crabapples, 40 kgs of regular apples, loaded them up and off to the Phnom Penh City Dump.
Myself and Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyne had been asked to stand at the back of the truck and swat the kids back as we drove through the dump. I must of underestimated what he meant, because as soon as the truck entered the dump, about 50 kids came out of nowhere, from all directions, chasing our truck. Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyne and I then had to unpry the little kids fingers from the truck (whilst we were driving up a mud road, in a dump, not holding onto anytthing...) until we stopped.
We pulled up in a quiet part of the dump, surrounded by two huge trash walls, and Operation Feedkids was underway.
About 450 kids, ranging from new-born baby to 15 years old, as well as some older ladies, young mothers to grandmothers, lined up in 2 orderly male and female lines to receive some tucker from the trucker.
We handed out food while the awkward brethrens (the woman was a medic) treated minor ailments such as cuts, scratches, infections, scabies and so on. There were a lot of cute little kids, including one naked little baby boy, probably 6mths old. He was in the line, being held by his mother, but reached out and grabbed my finger. So then his mother gave him to me to hold. That was awkward. Holding a naked stinky sweaty Cambodian child. But the kid was the cutest I've ever seen so very much ok.
We packed up and had a bit of a play with the kids. I had 2 little brats hanging off my arms asking me to pick them up, little ruffigans that they are. We packed up, said goodbye, and headed back for Phnom Penh City.
Once back at the pub, we unloaded, got everything sorted and sat down for a beer with David (the owner). We got back at about 2pm...One Angkor Draft turned into 20, then some guys from QLD turned up (Daryl and Paul) and they had some beer too. Next time I look at my watch its about 6pm, and Im absolutely pickled. So what to do? We head to HH Pizza.
It was good pizza.
Then the next logical step is... BACK TO THE PUB. So we head back, chill out with Daryl and Paul, two hilarious top blokes, and drink more beer. It gets to 10pm, and its time to pull stumps.. for we had a 9am bus to Siem Reap to catch.
Woke up today at about 6am, seedy as ever, and went for a jog through the city, probably about 3 or 4km. Even at 6am, its very hot and humid. Got back, had some breakfast and boarded an "express bus" to Siem Reap. It was a good trip, cost $9 and was very comfortable. We went for dinner at a little place called Star Rise right near our hotel (Motherhome Hotel) and then jumped onto a tuktuk to go to the Night Markets where we caught a movie and bought some souvenirs. (Rob I bought you a present)
Back at the hotel writing this but up early tomorrow to head to Angkor Wat with our tuktuk driver, Pit.
It should be good.
Til next time,
John.
Tuesday 3 March 2009
The Paragon
Konichiwa - I did learn how to say hello in Khmer yesterday, but now I forget, sorry.
We've moved hotels! This has made me extremely happy. It turns out Cambodia is not FULL of sex tourists HOORAY! After drinking many $1.00 beers on Monday we went upstairs to have a nap, which turned out to be a 12 hour nap! So we woke up at 6.00am the next morning and decided to go on a hunt for a new hotel. Being so fabulous, Courtney lent us her Lonely Planet Cambodia Guide and had been highlighting certain things in it for herself. Thanks to this, we are now staying a a much cheaper much nicer hotel called the Paragon. Which reminds me of the name of a ship in a book I once read.
We explored Riverside (kind of like Brisbane's Riverside except with more Cambodian people and no Story Bridge). I love it here, there are bars and restaurants (with minimal sex tourists) and food markets just around the corner.
While stinging around Phnom Penh on a tuk tuk, we ran into a tuk tuk, car and moto driver (a man of many talents a vehicular transport) named Dara who was introduced to us by Kim the day before. Dara is hilarious, he is so happy (he reminds me of Cho in Hanoi, Chotally Awesome!).
First up, Dara took us to the Killing Fields. May I just say, tuk tuk's are awesome. Except when we rode past the "Bog of Eternal Stench''. Labyrinth fans, this Bog does indeed exist, and it is located underneath a bridge, spilling out into grass fields on the way the The Killing Fields. Watch out of Hoggle and Ludo. ""Smeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeells Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!!!"
Walking through the Killing Fields was a very sobering experience. There are massive ditches in the ground the once were mass graves, holding hundreds and hundreds of Khmer people. Unfortunately, during school no one ever mentioned the genocide that occurred quite recently in Cambodia. I'm not sure if this was the case for yourself, but I will briefly explain. Some absolute loony called Pol Pot, put together a 'political party' whose aim was to create a 'new improved' Cambodia. The way to this 'new and improved Cambodia' was to slaughter educated people, old people (over 60), politicians, families of educated people, families of old people, families of politicians, doctors, lawyers and their families, anyone suspected of being a traitor, and their families. You may see a slight problem in their categorizing of who dies - it's everyone.
So after rounding everyone up, sending those that didn't fit into the categories above to work in rice fields (the aim was to have no industry except for rice, again, another problem), he sent the remaining people to S21, a school turned prison to be "interrogated" (read: tortured) then to the Killing Fields, to be finished off by a blow to the back of the head. All of this occurred between 1974 though to 1978. So I ask the question - when the complete genocide of the Khmer people was being committed, where was the rest of world? And the answer: Nowhere, because it wasn't happening on the door step of a super power and because silk and rice just doesn't earn the dollars that oil does.
After having our eyes firmly stapled open forever, we headed back to Phnom Penh. Dara had offered to take us to lunch at a RIEL (see there it is again - fuck I'm funny) Cambodian restaurant. After lunch we headed back to our new hotel and came across a sign in the foyer "THE NEXT DUMP RUN IS THIS WEDNESDAY". Cambodia is a very poor country and there are some of the living conditions are HORRENDOUS. Just out of town there is a rubbish dump and in this rubbish dump hundreds of people live. They are scavengers, who sort through the rubbish for bottles and cans to hand in for small amounts of money (about 100 cans will get you US$1.00) to help them feed themselves. A group of people have started running volunteers up to the rubbish dump to bring food, fresh water and medical assistance to the children that live in these appalling conditions. So today, being Wednesday, we are off to the rubbish dump to help out. It costs just $15 per volunteer and they end up feeding around 400 people a couple of times a week.
So I'm off to Bogie and Bacall's now to catch the truck up there!
Love, hugs and rainbow families.
Shanngelina
We've moved hotels! This has made me extremely happy. It turns out Cambodia is not FULL of sex tourists HOORAY! After drinking many $1.00 beers on Monday we went upstairs to have a nap, which turned out to be a 12 hour nap! So we woke up at 6.00am the next morning and decided to go on a hunt for a new hotel. Being so fabulous, Courtney lent us her Lonely Planet Cambodia Guide and had been highlighting certain things in it for herself. Thanks to this, we are now staying a a much cheaper much nicer hotel called the Paragon. Which reminds me of the name of a ship in a book I once read.
We explored Riverside (kind of like Brisbane's Riverside except with more Cambodian people and no Story Bridge). I love it here, there are bars and restaurants (with minimal sex tourists) and food markets just around the corner.
While stinging around Phnom Penh on a tuk tuk, we ran into a tuk tuk, car and moto driver (a man of many talents a vehicular transport) named Dara who was introduced to us by Kim the day before. Dara is hilarious, he is so happy (he reminds me of Cho in Hanoi, Chotally Awesome!).
First up, Dara took us to the Killing Fields. May I just say, tuk tuk's are awesome. Except when we rode past the "Bog of Eternal Stench''. Labyrinth fans, this Bog does indeed exist, and it is located underneath a bridge, spilling out into grass fields on the way the The Killing Fields. Watch out of Hoggle and Ludo. ""Smeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeells Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!!!"
Walking through the Killing Fields was a very sobering experience. There are massive ditches in the ground the once were mass graves, holding hundreds and hundreds of Khmer people. Unfortunately, during school no one ever mentioned the genocide that occurred quite recently in Cambodia. I'm not sure if this was the case for yourself, but I will briefly explain. Some absolute loony called Pol Pot, put together a 'political party' whose aim was to create a 'new improved' Cambodia. The way to this 'new and improved Cambodia' was to slaughter educated people, old people (over 60), politicians, families of educated people, families of old people, families of politicians, doctors, lawyers and their families, anyone suspected of being a traitor, and their families. You may see a slight problem in their categorizing of who dies - it's everyone.
So after rounding everyone up, sending those that didn't fit into the categories above to work in rice fields (the aim was to have no industry except for rice, again, another problem), he sent the remaining people to S21, a school turned prison to be "interrogated" (read: tortured) then to the Killing Fields, to be finished off by a blow to the back of the head. All of this occurred between 1974 though to 1978. So I ask the question - when the complete genocide of the Khmer people was being committed, where was the rest of world? And the answer: Nowhere, because it wasn't happening on the door step of a super power and because silk and rice just doesn't earn the dollars that oil does.
After having our eyes firmly stapled open forever, we headed back to Phnom Penh. Dara had offered to take us to lunch at a RIEL (see there it is again - fuck I'm funny) Cambodian restaurant. After lunch we headed back to our new hotel and came across a sign in the foyer "THE NEXT DUMP RUN IS THIS WEDNESDAY". Cambodia is a very poor country and there are some of the living conditions are HORRENDOUS. Just out of town there is a rubbish dump and in this rubbish dump hundreds of people live. They are scavengers, who sort through the rubbish for bottles and cans to hand in for small amounts of money (about 100 cans will get you US$1.00) to help them feed themselves. A group of people have started running volunteers up to the rubbish dump to bring food, fresh water and medical assistance to the children that live in these appalling conditions. So today, being Wednesday, we are off to the rubbish dump to help out. It costs just $15 per volunteer and they end up feeding around 400 people a couple of times a week.
So I'm off to Bogie and Bacall's now to catch the truck up there!
Love, hugs and rainbow families.
Shanngelina
Part 2: The Mini-Series Continues.
So.
Since I wrote last, we left the Flamingo Hotel (where the seedy expat's were) and moved closer to the Riverside, to the Paragon Hotel. It is a nice hotel, not as comfortable as the Flamingo, the blanket is small, the aircon loud, and we have no window, but we are saving nearly 30% and it is in a nicer area with not so much of a filthy expat population.
Also, I forgot to mention, that when we checked into flamingos, they had done a pretty shit job cleaning it as there was a whole packet of Valium (que?) in the drawer next to the bed... wierd.
Yesterday we organized with our tuktuk driver Dara to take us to the Big3 tourist attractions... so we headed off first to the Killing Fields.
It is quite an eye opening experience. As you walk around the dirt tracks of the old genocide paddocks, you are walking over clothing that is slowly unearthing everytime someone new trods the path. It is a red tshirt here, blue pants there, and simply knowing you are walking over the clothes that once adorned a Khmer that died in vain under the rule of an insane regime, is somewhat depressing and uneasy.
There is a tree there called the Killing Tree (or something similar) where apparently children were bludgeoned to death and then thrown in a mass grave beside it (this particular grave held 450 bodies when it was dug-up). Next to the tree there remain a pile about a metre high of human bones.
Back to the start of the circuit they have put in, is a large gold pagoda, about 30metres high, filled top to bottom of skulls of people who had died there. At first it just looked like "skulls"and I was totally ok to see it, but when I got closer and you started to see the teeth etc, it made me queazy and I had to run outside.
We left there and headed to S-21, or Tuol Sleung prison, an old primary school that was converted into a prison/torture centre when the Khmer Rouge took over. They managed to turn simple playground equipment into torture tools. We headed upstairs into the old classrooms that had been turned into both cells and torture rooms. As you walk around these rooms , there is a distinct maroon tint to the stains on the floor, some of the bloodstains have never been removed.
From S-21 we headed to one of Daras local places for a good old fashioned Khmer lunch. We had some tucker, and a lime juice, and headed off to the National Museum. The museum charged $3 entry, and as we were pretty touristed out, decided we'd head for a pub and have an ale.
We had a couple of beers and headed back to our new hotel. We decided we’d book our bus up to Siem Reap, so now we’re heading up on Thursday morning. We also saw a pamphlet advertising a volunteer trip to the Phnom Penh rubbish dump, to feed some of the 1200 kids who live on the rubbish dump. So we went to the pub that the guy owns (Bogey and Bacall on St 127) and met up with one of the guys who helps organize the trips. We got there at about 4pm, and drank, read stories, this guy (Richard) told us stories about his 2 years in Cambodia, saw pictures, eventually got smashed and bounced at about 830 to a western restaurant (Cadillac Bar and Grill) as I was really after a cheeseburger (see earlier comment about being smashed). The owner of the bar was really awesome, nice guy, Kenny from Texas. One of the very few Americans I’ve met travelling who isn’t a douche bag.
After dinner we hit the hay as we had to be up somewhat early for todays trip to the market and rubbish dump.
So that’s where we’re at. It’s now 8am, and we’ll be heading off soon. Just going to go grab some breakfast.
Will update soon.
Cooksley, John.
Since I wrote last, we left the Flamingo Hotel (where the seedy expat's were) and moved closer to the Riverside, to the Paragon Hotel. It is a nice hotel, not as comfortable as the Flamingo, the blanket is small, the aircon loud, and we have no window, but we are saving nearly 30% and it is in a nicer area with not so much of a filthy expat population.
Also, I forgot to mention, that when we checked into flamingos, they had done a pretty shit job cleaning it as there was a whole packet of Valium (que?) in the drawer next to the bed... wierd.
Yesterday we organized with our tuktuk driver Dara to take us to the Big3 tourist attractions... so we headed off first to the Killing Fields.
It is quite an eye opening experience. As you walk around the dirt tracks of the old genocide paddocks, you are walking over clothing that is slowly unearthing everytime someone new trods the path. It is a red tshirt here, blue pants there, and simply knowing you are walking over the clothes that once adorned a Khmer that died in vain under the rule of an insane regime, is somewhat depressing and uneasy.
There is a tree there called the Killing Tree (or something similar) where apparently children were bludgeoned to death and then thrown in a mass grave beside it (this particular grave held 450 bodies when it was dug-up). Next to the tree there remain a pile about a metre high of human bones.
Back to the start of the circuit they have put in, is a large gold pagoda, about 30metres high, filled top to bottom of skulls of people who had died there. At first it just looked like "skulls"and I was totally ok to see it, but when I got closer and you started to see the teeth etc, it made me queazy and I had to run outside.
We left there and headed to S-21, or Tuol Sleung prison, an old primary school that was converted into a prison/torture centre when the Khmer Rouge took over. They managed to turn simple playground equipment into torture tools. We headed upstairs into the old classrooms that had been turned into both cells and torture rooms. As you walk around these rooms , there is a distinct maroon tint to the stains on the floor, some of the bloodstains have never been removed.
From S-21 we headed to one of Daras local places for a good old fashioned Khmer lunch. We had some tucker, and a lime juice, and headed off to the National Museum. The museum charged $3 entry, and as we were pretty touristed out, decided we'd head for a pub and have an ale.
We had a couple of beers and headed back to our new hotel. We decided we’d book our bus up to Siem Reap, so now we’re heading up on Thursday morning. We also saw a pamphlet advertising a volunteer trip to the Phnom Penh rubbish dump, to feed some of the 1200 kids who live on the rubbish dump. So we went to the pub that the guy owns (Bogey and Bacall on St 127) and met up with one of the guys who helps organize the trips. We got there at about 4pm, and drank, read stories, this guy (Richard) told us stories about his 2 years in Cambodia, saw pictures, eventually got smashed and bounced at about 830 to a western restaurant (Cadillac Bar and Grill) as I was really after a cheeseburger (see earlier comment about being smashed). The owner of the bar was really awesome, nice guy, Kenny from Texas. One of the very few Americans I’ve met travelling who isn’t a douche bag.
After dinner we hit the hay as we had to be up somewhat early for todays trip to the market and rubbish dump.
So that’s where we’re at. It’s now 8am, and we’ll be heading off soon. Just going to go grab some breakfast.
Will update soon.
Cooksley, John.
Monday 2 March 2009
Hello Diary. I'm Ann Frank.
Dear Diary,
Since I last wrote I have left Nazi Germany... oh wait. I'm not Ann Frank at all...
So I got up Sunday morning at 6am to make sure everything was a-ok.. my bags were packed.. my shoes were tied... and I had all my bizniss sorted. So.. it gets to like .. 11pm at night. and we''re at Brisbane International.. and I'm getting tired. So I figure I've got an 8 hr flight ahead of me.. so I'll just sleep?
WRONG.
I didn't get a wink. The douche behind me stole my pillow. I was totally uncomfortable and had movies-on-demand right in front of me. So I watched Quantum of Solace.. and some other movies, some Simpsons etc and before you know we've crossed the Timor Sea and we're in Kuala Lumpur.
Imagine sticking your nose in soeones bottom thats had mothballs stuffed up there. Thats what the KL International smelt like. Furthermore, it was boring as bat shit and rainy, and the sun only just rose before we left at 925 KL time.
We eventually board our flight to Phnom Penh.. again Malaysian Air comes to the party with some AWESOME service etc, and before we know it, BAM, we're in Cambodia.
We disembark at Cambodia, we'd filled in our customs and immigration forms when we come to a small problem. We apparently need a passport photo to stick to our Visa Application. What to do now?
The Immigration officer says "No worries, $1." So I gave him a buck and here we are. Cleared customs, immigration and into our shuttle bus we get... It was a pretty non-eventful ride from the airport to the hotel.. the typical South East Asia driving... honk, swerve, drive on wrong side of road, honk, giggle, honk.
Get to our hotel.. chuck our stuff in the room.. and headed for a walk. Phnom Penh is a poor mans Vietnam, only more expensive? Que? Anywho, we got back to the hotel, tired and dehyrdated so went to the bar for some $1.20 beers. Chatted to the owner of the hotel, Kim, a Cambodian man who lived in the US for 20 years.. very interesting and provided a bit of insight into Cambodia that only a person who'd lived and gone from there could give.
After that, we head off to the Wat Phnom, a 1km walk from our hotel. We get there.. lots of touts and little kids all with their "buy water, one dorrar". We walk up the stairs to the pagoda when some woman starts yelling "GO PAY, GO PAY". Not realizing we'd missed the ticket booth, we went to the "Foreigners Only" ticket booth, coughed up a buck, and had a look. There were a few people, ranging from a 3 yr old... to a 40yr old.. to a grandma all on their knees prayin' to Buddha. The woman prayed for peace in the world. The 40yr old prayed for a stable end to the World Economic Crisis.. the little 3 yr old prayed for a bitchin' new Tonka Truck.
So we get back (via Tuktuk) to our hotel. We're pretty hungry by this stage, so off down the street I went looking for some local tucker. I came across a guy selling sandwiches.. All made before your eyes.. a crusty bread stick, stuffed with Coriander, Tofu, Mackerel in Tomato Sauce, and Chili Sauce. It cost $1 for 2 sangers. They were massive. And delicious. Bargain.
I headed upstairs at about 4pm local time (7pm Brisbane time) to have a nap.. however as it was so bloody hot, I decided to go down to the bar for another beer and a game of pool (on my own, to unwind). I set the balls up, and a hooker comes over and is like "lets play". As I have a severe hooker intolerance, known as "Getawaydirtyslutitis", I told her to fk off and came and started on this blog. There are a lot of filthy faggoty British sex-tourists drinking/staying at the hotel we're at.. so we'll be leaving tomorrow. They are the scourge of the earth and make me dry-retch. Rant over.
Apart from that, this place is awesome. I can't wait to check out S21, the Royal Palace and the Killing Fields tomorrow.
Tonight we might go to the "Black Cat Bar" which is also owned by Kim, the bloke who owns our hotel we're in.
Until we chat again, peace.
John.
Update early on the morning of Day 2:
So... I went for a laydown at about 6pm as I was tired.. and we've only just woken up. It's 638am in the morning. haha. Awesome. Now we're hittin' some breakfast and out on the town.
Letters from Kampuchea (Shannon 02/03)
Letters from Kumpuchea - Too lazy to write on the travel blog today!
Hello!
So it's only 3.30pm Cambodian time (5.30pm Brisbane) on Monday afternoon and we've managed to stay up for about 36 hours now, with only 10 minute power naps to keep us going! '
Don't worry, the $1.00 beers have helped get us through.We've gone from Brisbane to Kuala Lumpur and happily spent 8 hours on a Malaysian Airlines flight with a choice of 20 new release movies, tv shows and games - all accessible through a remote control - best thing since sliced bread. We then spent 4 hours in KL airport. There are three main things I noticed most about KL (airport, as I'm not fit to judge the rest of the country yet) 1. the sun didn't rise until about 7.30am 2. It smells. It's a weird sort of smell, like a cross between a cupboard at my nanna's that hasn't been opened since 1940 and urine. 3. They are the proud owner of a bar in the airport called Cheers, where everybody knows your name.After trying to have a kip in some awesomely designed recliner chairs, it was time to leave for CAMBODIA! Or CAMBOOYA!! as I like to call it. See the clever use of Camb (the first syllable in Cambodia) and BOOYA! As in supremely awesome. I knew you would.
Malaysia Airlines have looked after us fantastically, feeding us and entertaining us at every opportunity. Unfortunately, there was a f*ckstick of a Frenchman on our flight making this strike 2 against French men when traveling abroad (see the first travel blog on Vietnam, namely in Sapa). They are extremely rude (ordering the flight attendant around like a dog, refusing to listen to the obligations of people sitting in the exit rows (thankfully he was moved because I sure didn't trust him to step up to the responsibility of saving me in an emergency!) and then cutting in front of us in the visa line - f*cker (luckily, it was the line for visa's NOT for fighting, or Chutney)).So we made it to Kampuchea, through the visa line (we had to bribe the customs official US$1 to let us through without a pre arranged passport photo!), then through customs, which consisted of:
Customs Official with Gun: "Anything to declare?"
Us: "No"
Customs Official with a Gun": "Head straight through"
No bag search, no X-ray - nothing. I think John and I must be the luckiest people ever when it comes to customs - touch wood.We had arranged to be picked up by our hotel - the Flamingo in central Phnom Penh. It's not too bad, comfy, clean, maybe a little bit over priced (which happens when you book before you get here) and FULL of SLEAZY Britich Expats, scamming all over the local girls (but from what I've seen, it seems to everywhere in Phnom Penh). I LOVE what I've seen of South East Asia, I mean LOVE it. The locals are fantastically friendly, the food is AMAZING (just to overuse CAPS here like a 14 year old on MSN... lyk OMG LolzorZ!) and the things to see and do are completely out of anything I would see in my normal world.
There's just one thing - I HATE (there's the overuse of CAPS again) the underbelly and seediness of the older male expat community. They are vile. Like Kyle Sandilands - on crack.Unfortunately that comes with 3rd world and developing economies, even developed economies if you look in the right places in Australia. So I'm going to continue to love South East Asia like it's my home away from home. With cheap beer & food, rich & proud culture, and interesting people - like Kim - the owner of The Flamingo who we met this afternoon.
We're heading to some touristy places tomorrow, the Killing Fields, S21, some pagoda's and the Royal Palace and Elephant rides. The day after, it's off to see the RIEL (see my pun there? No? Look it up) Kampuchea with our new friend Daka.
Peace, Love and Rainbow's.Shanngelina.
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