Back to the Other Side

the whole set of photos

2011-04-24T15:57:00.003-04:00

I'll take "potpourri" for $800, Alex

2010-12-03T01:41:00.003-05:00

A few things that are rattling around, still to be said:

There's something kind of disturbing about the constant refrain of tuk-tuk drivers in Phnom Penh coming up and saying "Killing Fields?!" They say it over and over again - Killing Fields? Killing Fields? It feels like walking the streets in Germany somewhere and having Jews come up and say Holocaust?! Holocaust?! It's unsettling, and I know it's a tourist destination, the main Killing Fields memorial site, and I know it's immediate and often personal history, and I know it's just a shorthand, and I know it's no different than saying "National Museum?" or any other destination, but it unsettles me every single time. I'm not sure how to feel when I say no. What I want to do is stop, and look at the person and tell him I'm so sorry that this horrible thing happened to them. Then I realized that if I'm talking to someone in his mid- to late-40s, it's a bit more likely that I might be talking to someone who perpetrated the crimes than someone who survived them, since so few did survive. Complicated.

For the most part (except on our return to Phnom Penh, curiously), vendors and tuk-tuk drivers have been remarkably low-key. They don't chase us down, they don't keep asking after we say no, etc. This was true in all of Cambodia and Laos.....except at Angkor Wat. We went to the vendor area to buy a bottle of water, and you couldn't go near it without being swarmed by kids selling postcards (look lady, see, Angkor Wat sunrise, Angkor Wat clouds, temples, see lady? you buy? One dollar, look lady...), kids trying to take you to their family's "stall" to buy food or drink, women trying to pull you this way and that, to buy food or drink. So Marc headed toward one woman to buy water -- purposely not going to the left because that woman was being too pushy -- and as he paid for the bottle of water, the pushy woman started screaming at him: "You don't keep your word! You bad person!" I guess this is the intersection of a constant flood of tourists and great need.

Cambodia is always described as one of the poorest countries in SE Asia, and I think Laos is considered poorer. In southern Cambodia, everywhere we looked we saw people with at least a couple of cows, a few pigs, a bunch of chickens, and fields of rice. Curiously, we didn't see cows in Laos, though on our trip out to the waterfalls we did see a couple of chickens here and there.

In Laos, the word for hello is sabaidee (sah-bye-deeeeeeee), and it's always said with a smile and with palms pressed together and held at your chest, like the namaste pose. It's an all-purpose word, I think - it means hello, good morning, welcome, all those concepts. When we'd go to breakfast at our restaurant in Luang Prabang, the young women who worked there (one nametag: Mrs. Chit, waitress) would stop whatever they were doing, turn to face us fully, and place their hands together and give us a full sabaidee. I started doing the same thing and it felt really amazing - not just a mindless hi in passing, not really paying attention, but a real stop and look and acknowledge. I enjoyed every sabaidee given and received in Laos.

Our dinner last night at K'Nyay was absolutely amazing, and I hope Marc can replicate it when we get home. We had sweet corn fritters for an appetizer - the kernels were giant, and the batter holding them together was very light and crispy, and I could've eaten them til the cows come home. We each got char kreung - mine with chicken and Marc's with shrimp - and the sauce was so spicy it left our lips and tongue stinging for a long, long time. They were served with a wild rice mixture that was perfectly chewy and nutty and stood up to the rest of the meal. We actually got dessert, which we don't usually do; I got banana fritters (served with a small scoop of ginger ice cream) and Marc got pumpkin coconut parcels, which were delicate and subtle and really delicious. I really wished my camera had been working, the food was beautiful and wonderful. We may go back there tonight, for our last dinner in Cambodia.

For our last two days in Phnom Penh, we're staying in a tiny little hotel - the Blue Lime - down an alley behind the Royal Palace. If it weren't for the loud construction project going on all day long next door, this would be a nearly perfect place to stay. I love the decor - it fits my aesthetic and makes me happy - and it's certainly reasonable. Our first of two nights we had a regular room, but tonight, our last night, we got a room with a private pool....for $75/night. Want to see?

looking out our bedroom window, at our pool

standing outside at our pool's edge, looking back into our room. COOL!


this is the main pool for the hotel - not bad either, but the noise is a bit too much

For a bit of sightseeing this morning, we walked to Wat Phnom, which is the namesake wat for this town. According to legend, a woman named Penh found 4 Buddha relics in this area, and took them to this phnom (which means hill...it's the highest point in town) and this wat was built. Anyway - big, wat-ey, and interesting.

this elephant is available for people to ride around the wat

there was a small bunch of monkeys hanging around

and here it is, Wat Phnom.

So we leave Phnom Penh tomorrow, Saturday at 11 something in the morning, for the 2.5 hour flight to Hong Kong. We leave Hong Kong around 5-something pm (still Saturday) and we land in JFK at 8pm (still Saturday). After flying for 16 hours (just the Hong Kong-JFK part). That always blows my mind and confuses me a little too much.

at some point, you're ready

2010-12-02T21:38:00.001-05:00

And for me, the moment is NOW. I am ready to go home. I'm ready to sleep on something other than rock-hard platforms, with giant hard pillows. I'm ready to have my good coffee as I'm waking up slowly, rather than having to get dressed and fixed up and wait for Marc also to be ready, and then to get usually-mediocre coffee. I'm ready to go home. If it weren't for this bed situation, I think I wouldn't be quite so ready, but this has done the old girl in.

I've been thinking a lot about strangeness, and Otherness. When we went to Vietnam in November of 2005, it was my first time to really be somewhere else. I'd been to Mexico (what Texan hasn't), and to Paris and surrounds, London, and Glasgow. But you know, those aren't really different in any important way. It helps that I can read French, but anyway, it's all western, all modern in the same way as my home was. But Vietnam, that made my head and self split open. I couldn't read any of the writing, the script was unrecognizable to me. The money? 148,000 dong to a dollar, couldn't do that translation in my head so it was a constant source of confusion. The people spoke almost no English, even at the front desk of our fancy hotel in Hanoi. The rules, unlike any I'd encountered (cf crossing busy streets, and remember, this was before I really lived in Manhattan). The food, not all that familiar to me. At one point, and it was early on in Hanoi, I hit a kind of wall and didn't think I was going to be able to take it any more. But of course when that happens, you just be with it until it passes, and I did, and it became great again. Still, I've remembered that shock of Other, and thought I'd feel it here.

But I haven't. Is that because it's easy now, since I've already been to this part of the world? Is it simply less Other here, than it was in Vietnam (which was more complicated given our military history there)? If I were to go back to Hanoi, I probably wouldn't feel that again, not even a little bit, because it would be my 2nd time there. And I've changed a lot in the intervening 5 years, seen a lot more of the world. Can I still experience the Otherness that was so shocking? That's one thing I liked about traveling, getting to feel that jolt, that reminder that what can come to seem like "just the way people are" is NOT "just the way people are," but rather "just the way I and my culture are."

Anyway. Ready to go.

When we pulled into Phnom Penh yesterday, I felt so happy to be back in this wonderful city. Something big was going on, cops at every intersection, some kind of cavalcade of big cars with little flags flying on antennas, and I loved that. It's a vibrant city. Last night we ate an amazing dinner at K'Nyay - more on that soon - but before we went to the restaurant we walked along the river, where the Water Festival crowds had been. It was relatively empty this time. Young people walking around, parents with very small toddlers running around, beggars hitting us up with open hands and wordless pleas from their eyes. There was a most amazing temple we saw, on the waterfront plaza. It was crowded, and on the altar were three statues of fat dudes with really giant eyebrows....not too Buddha-like, I have no idea who they were. But behind them was a green and red and white neon thing with flashing lights, could've easily been in Las Vegas and no one would've even blinked. But there were a dozen people sitting on the ground in front of the altar, and a bunch more just outside the door lighting incense. It was such an unusual scene.

Out to search for a Cambodian scarf, then we'll probably relax around the pool the rest of the day. Tomorrow will be LONG, but I'll write one more post tonight.

outsider art outside Vientiane: Buddha Park

2010-12-01T05:21:00.003-05:00

Buddha Park is this phantasmagorical, bizarre wonderland of statues depicting both Buddhist and Hindu iconography (and maybe other stuff too.....do you know which religious system(s) revere mermaids?). It's about 25km from Vientiane, and the mini-bus we took was only slightly faster than walking. I wasn't always certain we were going to make it, and on the way back, it seemed like there was an awful lot of heat coming from the engine under the driver's seat. Much of the trip was on a seriously potholed dirt road, and we definitely could've walked faster and been more comfortable. But that's ok, it was another experience of transportation in SE Asia. So, the park. This dude built it in 1958, but it looks a lot older than that. The statues are very large -- some are giant -- and they're made of cement and cement-covered bricks. I kept thinking that if only I knew the iconography, there might be giant cosmic jokes being told. As it was, I could only wonder, and gape in wonder.

such a busy crowd, like being at a statue party of weirdness

lots of dominion over things - here, triumph over a pile of skulls. :)

awww....baby Ganesha.

me being eaten by a crocodile

Marc and the ladies

again, Marc and a lady, plus a really giant snake.

mermaid? really?

monks crawling around the top of .....

this giant thing, which is supposed to represent hell, earth, and heaven or something like that.

Here's the mouth - you crouch and go inside, and I guess there are stairs inside or something.

I was just thinking of miniature golf with this one. Can you just imagine that? Putt-putting a golf ball into the mouth? It would fit the park, no kidding.

and this GIANT reclining Buddha - see him in context in the top photo. Giant.

So that was a very interesting trip. Trippy. Funny. Weird. Not like anywhere else, that's for sure! Every place we've been has been quite different from every other town, but now we return to the familiarity of Phnom Penh, tomorrow. Still, we'll be staying in a very different hotel, and we have plans to go to a wonderful restaurant tomorrow night. It'll be so interesting to see what it's like in Phnom Penh without all the Water Festival crowds....and what it'll be like after the tragedy of the Water Festival, too.

This is our last night in Laos, and it's hard to say what Laos is like. Is it like Luang Prabang? Or Vientiane? Or something else entirely - you can't tell what a country is like based on two places. We've both had such a hard time remembering where we are, while we've been in Laos. When we were in Luang Prabang, I kept thinking I was in Tibet. (WHY?!! That makes no sense. Nothing about it was like Tibet. Nothing. Buddhists sure, but very different Buddhists.) Now and then I was thinking we were in Borneo. Again, why. That's so weird. Being in Vientiane has been just a generic experience - Anywhere Asia. I don't know why it's been so hard to hold Lao in my mind; maybe it's because I didn't have an idea of Laos before I came, no template in my mind for it. With Cambodia, for better or worse there's Pol Pot and Killing Fields, at least it's something for an unworldly person like me to hold on to. With Laos, I knew of the Hmong and their arts - part of my understanding since the late 1970s - but somehow I just didn't/don't have a "LAOS" idea in my head. I think I'll hang on to Luang Prabang as my idea of Laos.

So now, we're going back to the banks of the Mekong for one last night of amazing and cheap food. I'll probably have one last Beerlao for the road. Ciao Lao.

breakfasts in Vientiane

2010-12-01T02:22:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Marc and I had breakfast in the hotel - we usually do that, it comes free with the room and why not. Usually the breakfasts are at least ok, and often they're wonderful, especially in tropical places. But yesterday morning, we were sitting in the unremarkable restaurant of our unremarkable hotel, sipping our brilliantly orange 'juice' and it hit us both at the same time. We've tasted this before...........tang! Yes, in this semi-tropical place, with fresh fruit on every corner, we were drinking tang. And we suspect the eggs were of the powdered variety, given their texture and color. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, and free or not, I didn't want to waste any more vacation breakfasts on such bad food. (Oh, and Laos is known for its coffee -- the coffee in our hotel was bad instant. Not even good instant. Bad. Instant.)

So this morning we decided to go to a nearby bakery, which was highly rated in Lonely Planet and on TripAdvisor. Really, very highly rated, like, almost #1 in both places. And they said things like "you could eat every meal here and still want more." So off to Joma Bakery we went, this morning, in keen anticipation. (Well, I went in keen anticipation, seeing as how I love breakfast. Marc, not so much with the breakfast.) Granted, we've gotten used to having piles of amazing food that ends up costing us a couple of bucks. OK, we're in that context right now. But what we got this morning was (a) unremarkable, and (b) at New York prices. Too bad. And last night we stopped at the other highly-rated and always listed bakery, Scandinavian Bakery, for donuts. (Donuts seem to be a favorite Lao sweet, and what do you know: they're a favorite Lori sweet too.) Again, the context, really cheap amazing food. And again, unremarkable food at NY prices. The donuts were about $1 each. I KNOW!

We just returned from a dusty, bouncy ride out to Buddha Park - a bizarre, freakish, Disneyland of eastern religion iconography. As soon as I fix the photos, I'll post.

now why did we come here again? Hello, Vientiane.

2010-11-29T07:42:00.000-05:00

We were trying to remember why we decided to come to Vientiane, and being here hasn't helped us remember. All Marc could reconstruct is that we came to Vientiane to get to Laos before we knew we had to go to Phnom Penh to go to Luang Prabang, or anywhere else in Laos, and somehow Vientiane never got dropped from the itinerary. It's not like we knew anything about Vientiane, other than that it's the capital of Laos. So when we got here this afternoon, we started looking in the travel guides, our Lonely Planet book, everywhere online, and we just kept reading this kind of thing: "since there's not much to do in Vientiane, the kids love to bowl."

Since one of our primary activities when we travel involves eating, we decided to go to the Mekong, just a few blocks from our (lackluster but ok) hotel since there's supposed to be a big thriving food scene there. The way we understood it, there would be lots of food vendors all along the riverfront. Here's what we saw:

yeah. I guess not.

So we wandered a bit, and finally found the food vendors lined up along a street set in a ways from the river. We picked one that looked good and sat down; the tables and chairs were lined up in the dust, littered with cigarette butts and construction debris, and an electrical wire running down the middle. I think we were getting bitten with sand fleas, on top of it. But I'll tell you what: the food was amazing. We had sticky rice, fried spring rolls, a grilled fish, chicken in spicy red chili sauce, and yellow noodles with pork. Plus a giant Beerlao for me, and a big bottle of water for us to share. LOTS of food, and all delicious. And the bill came to $15, which included a tip of unknown size.

We have no idea what we're going to do here. Aside from the wats, there's not that much to see. A replica of the Arc de Triomphe, Buddha park outside town, and a couple of markets......and we're here for 3 nights. Our hotel is wholly unremarkable, a far cry from the really lovely place we stayed in Luang Prabang. Vientiane suffers in the comparison, and we're glad it's not our last stop on our vacation. We have two nights in Phnom Penh to look forward to, and I hope we find something of interest here. We'll see. At the least, we decided to just go ahead and be up front with our shared disappointment in Vientiane, kind of like we did with our experience in India, and that helps. What's that saying? A problem shared is a problem halved, or something?

Oh yeah. I have a cold.

Perhaps the rest of this evening we'll watch Lao tv - in a language we absolutely cannot understand - in an attempt to entertain ourselves. :)

sacred and profane

2010-11-28T22:17:00.003-05:00

It's ridiculous to be a tourist complaining about tourists, but I'm so thoroughly disgusted right now I just want to hit someone. Hard. And I want that someone to be wearing shorts and a fanny pack, and to be a westerner.

I have to acknowledge first that I was there to watch, too. I was there to witness a ritual about which I know only a little, a ritual that has no personal meaning for me, but one that is moving. The monks' morning alms round in Luang Prabang is a big thing - just google it and you'll see what I mean. Every morning the monks get up at 4am for prayers and their morning business, then they hit the streets. Every morning, Lao women get up and prepare rice and other food, and gather fruit, and bring their mats to the curb to wait for the monks to walk past, so they can earn merit by feeding the monks. It's one of the only ways women can earn merit. On their knees, they put a pinch of rice in each monk's bowl. It's not an unusual ritual, but in Luang Prabang, with 33 temples and all these monks, it's notable. In the early morning gray, the silent monks in orange robes parading past, collecting rice....well, I wanted to see it.

There are women along the path who want to sell you rice or other bits of food to give the monks. There's an urgency to it when they ask, and they say "the monks are coming!" with what sounds like excitement. I loved that, considering this is a 365-day/year activity.

Setting aside the lengthy set of rules that we found in our hotel room, there are just a few rules to follow regarding the monks, and they're easy to learn because they're posted anywhere you might find out about the monks' alms rounds: women do not touch the monks robes, and you stay lower than the monks. Really, that's it.

OK. Now for my disgust and rant. Marc and I got up very early, crossed the bridge in the dark, and made our way to a part of the main street opposite a number of Lao women on their mats, with their offerings arrayed in front of them. We sat on the curb. We saw a few tourists sitting among the Lao, with some kind of cloth draped diagonally across their bodies, and with their purchased offerings in front of them. I wouldn't do that myself, because I'd feel like I was co-opting a ritual just for the tourist sake of it. But at least they were participating in a way that honored the ritual. But the big crowds of old white-haired tourists -- camera-wielding, fanny-packed and tennis-shoed -- were so disgusting I got so mad I just wanted to leave. They walked up to the seated women and got in their faces, flashing flashing taking pictures, as if the women were in the zoo or something. Then, when the monks came, they stood in front of them, barring their way, so they could flash flash flash take pictures of them up close, 'doing their monk thing.' I do think they were Americans, too. (To which the cynic in me wants to add "of course.") There were individual tourists who were doing that too, men with enormous cameras stacked up with so many lenses, as if they were pretending to be war journalists or something, flash flash flash shooting the monks just inches away from them.

I also had my small video camera. I sat on the other side of the street, and did not use flash, and tried to unobtrusively take a short movie of the event -- which turned out to be a different event than I'd hoped.

swine tourists.

eating out in Luang Prabang

2010-11-28T09:20:00.000-05:00

Thank heavens Marc remembered that our little video camera can also take still photos. They're not as good as our great camera takes, but they're certainly better than nothing! Last night we ate in the food market and didn't take pictures, so we ran through tonight to get a few shots so we could remember our wonderful time with street food in Luang Prabang:

it's a very crowded scene - tables and food on both sides of the narrow alley. and LOTS of people!

buffet style: you buy a regular plate (about $1) or a large plate (about $1.25), then you help yourself to this huge spread of food. and it's ALL DELICIOUS.

the ever-present Beer Lao, and a groaning board of dishes

all kinds of grilled food - fresh fish from the Mekong, and chicken, and pork

So you get your food, and find an empty spot at a picnic table. On the tables are containers filled with chopsticks, and empty glasses for your Beer Lao, and a roll of toilet paper to use as a napkin. It was really a great experience, and I'm so glad we did it. Eating in Luang Prabang was fabulous.

on the main street are fruit shake vendors. you select your cup with whatever fruit you want (the three times we got shakes, Marc got banana-mango, banana-pineapple, and papaya, and I always got coffee-oreo) and they blend it while you wait. the vendors are all lined up, and we always went back to the same grouchy lady -- not this smiling one in the picture. the shakes are about 60 cents.

I'm really going to miss this town. Tomorrow around 2pm we fly off to Vientiane, but in the morning we plan to get up really early to walk into town to witness the silent alms rounds of the monks.

so surreal

2010-11-28T01:13:00.000-05:00

I had one of those moments this morning, the kind where you suddenly can't process anything, you can't believe where you are, what you're doing, what you're seeing. We hired a driver to take us out to the Tad Sae waterfalls, which are these flat limestone tiers with turquoise/aqua-colored water falling over them. Really gorgeous, from what we'd seen and heard. And while yesterday was kind of overcast and slightly cooler - perfect for walking around town, which is what we did - today is cloudless and hot. So the idea of taking an open-air drive up into the mountains to see waterfalls sounded just right.

This is as good a place as any to comment on the sheer beauty of Laos. At least in this part of the country, the landscape is dominated by forested mountains that must be karst, given their shape. I love karst mountains, so this landscape really makes me happy. And there are often clouds clinging to the tops, which make me remember being in the countryside around Machu Picchu, another place that made me so happy. So anyway: gorgeous, gorgeous countryside. The trip was lovely.

When we got there, turns out we had another journey to get to the waterfalls.....by boat. We weren't expecting that, but it was the surreal and amazing part. There we were, in a flat-bottom boat driving up some river in the mountains of Laos, under a sunny sky. There were people tending their gardens on the riverbanks, naked little kids playing at the river's edge (this river wasn't muddy at all), and the breeze was blowing my hair off my face. I was just boating up a river in the mountains of Laos. Me. And Marc. Unbelievable.

The waterfalls were truly lovely, but my camera died so I post someone else's photo and know that it looked exactly like this:

the muddy banks of the muddy Mekong

2010-11-27T21:18:00.000-05:00

It really is muddy, the Mekong River - reddish-brown everywhere we've seen it. It's such a vital part of people's lives here; during the rainy season, obviously it swells and stays at a high point. But when it recedes for the rest of the year, guess what the clever Lao do? They plant the river banks. The soil there is incredibly fertile, and all along the banks you see these lush little garden plots. Yesterday we were lying in the sun and heard kids laughing and a lot of splashing. There was an unplanted section that was a big slide-y mud slick, being used by four little boys to slide into the river. Two were naked as little brown jaybirds, and two wore underpants; they had some kind of something, plastic I guess, that they sat on to slide into the river.

The Water Festival that was just celebrated in Phnom Penh has at least partly to do with this most unusual thing that happens with the Mekong.

See that big lake? It's the Tonle Sap, and it connects to the Mekong with a tributary. Well, when the rainy season comes the tributary flows into the Tonle Sap. After the rainy season ends, it reverses direction. So the Water Festival celebrates that reversal of direction. I think that's very cool.

In a spectacular incidence of packing fail, I didn't bring the charger for my camera battery. I've taken it on every other trip we've ever taken and never needed it once, so I decided not to bring it this time. And now, of course, in that way things work, my camera battery has only about 1/4 charge left. We're going to a nearby waterfall today, really gorgeous, and I'm going to take it but I want to save my battery for Vientiane, which is our next stop....tomorrow. For now, though, we're off to hire a tuk-tuk!

Lao food and our hotel

2010-11-27T01:54:00.001-05:00

More lemongrass, I guess that's what makes it different. But I'd have a hard time saying that Lao food is x y or z. The only thing I can say is that so far, Lao food is amazing. Last night we ate at Tamarind, this fantastic little out of the way restaurant across the street from a giant temple. As we started eating, the monks were chanting and it was surreal and wonderful. We got the set menu, which was a LOT of food, all described as typical Lao food. (And by the way, once you get to Laos and Cambodia, being here is incredibly cheap. We'll have a huge dinner and it'll be $15...for both our dinners, and that often includes a beer for me! Our hotels are quite reasonable too.) Anyway -- our dinner:

OK, I know this looks gross -- bamboo soup -- but it was AMAZING.

Marc had lemongrass-ginger tea and I had Lao coffee. AMAZING.

OK: at the bottom, lemongrass stuffed with chicken; going up on the left, peanut sauce, then fish cooked in banana leaf, then pumpkin - AMAZING, all.

that stuff on the lower right? A-MA-ZING. It's some kind of seaweed covered in sesame seeds, dried in the sun, then fried. In the spoon, chili paste, on the left side of the plate, dried buffalo (that had marinated in honey, I think); two small pork sausages at the top; in the middle, a couple more dipping sauces, the green one made of eggplant and the red one tomato. I could've eaten my weight in seaweed. It was aMAzing.

we sat on the porch, so that's the inside of the restaurant over Marc's shoulder

I had Lao Beer (the beer of wholehearted people, they say) and Marc had this incredible watermelon chili granita. It really was amazingly delicious, not like anything either of us had ever tasted. Perfectly balanced, sweet and hot.

So we were very happy with that dinner. Afterwards, we had to walk back to our hotel which involves walking on the side of a very tall bridge over the Mekong. It was harrowing in the dark, for someone like me who's afraid of heights and who trips over the design in the carpet, so clumsy. Here it is in daylight:

That's the bridge -- hope it's obvious how high it is. Scooters and bikes go on the bridge (no motorized vehicles), but if you walk, you're relegated to the outside edge:


YIKES. Uneven boards, unevenly spaced, nailheads sticking up, sure there's a rail on the side but sometimes there are just three boards, not four, and some of the boards don't look all that sturdy, and man that's a long way down to the river and don't look down just look straight ahead but I have to look down because I keep tripping if I don't....

Yeah? Here's a video -- walk over the bridge with us:

But it's SO worth it. Here's our beautiful hotel, Le Bel Air Resort, right on the banks of the Mekong River:

the edge of the grounds, at the Mekong

the cabins

and that one's ours! Cozy, right?!

hi honey!

We're loving Luang Prabang. The people could care less about us (we love it that way) - they do their thing, we do ours. Usually, the tuktuk drivers just say in a low voice "tuktuk?" and that's that. When we're in the market, the people running the stalls don't speak unless we ask a question -- no pushing, no putting things on our bodies to try to force us to buy (ahem, *cough*India) -- they're just there if we have a question. After breakfast this morning, we walked over the bridge and wandered around, back to the markets (next post on that!). I bought a small handmade bag from a Hmong* woman, as a birthday gift for a friend, and we stopped and got shakes (smoothies, really; Marc's was fruit, and mine was coffee). We stopped at a little place overlooking the river and had some lunch - fried noodles, and rice and chicken (our lunch was $6, see what I mean?!).

*You know, being an American out in the world can be really hard going because our government has been such an asshole for so long. We were just so horrible to Laos, and to the Hmong, and people are still being killed by all the unexploded bombs left in this beautiful country - bombs we take no responsibility for, because we weren't "really here at war." Quite often, we pass little groups of musicians playing local music, really beautiful, and we see that they're victims of land mines, missing limbs, and collecting money. And I get nauseous walking past them, from shame of my country. And I wanted to apologize to the Hmong woman this morning. But what does that do? Assuage my guilt for a second, not really, nothing.

OH. WOW. LAO.

2010-11-26T04:05:00.000-05:00

Laos is AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL. Huge green rolling mountains with jagged tops - valleys - rivers. Our hotel is just wonderful, and I have a lot to say but for now just three quick photos before we head to town. More later, after dinner.

The Luang Prabang airport

Marc enjoying a cold lemongrass tea as we checked in.

among the police department's rules:
5. do not any drugs, crambling or bring both women and men which is not your own husband or wife into the room for making love.
6. do not allow domestic and international tourist bring prostate and others into your accommodation to make sex movies in our room, it is restriction.

I do wonder about that "prostate;" perhaps they mean to say "prostitute." Otherwise it would be an all ladies country.

Wow. Laos, really something. I can't wait to see more.

a last coupla things from Siem Reap

2010-11-25T20:58:00.000-05:00

Before I forget:

Cambodia and Thailand have been engaged in battles for a long, long, long time. One great benefit of France's involvement in Cambodia was that it retook land that had been taken by Thailand. Siem Reap means "Siam is defeated" which totally, totally cracks me up. It's like naming a town in the far northern US "Suck it Canada" or something. It makes me laugh every single time I say Siem Reap. (Which, FYI, is pronounced SEE-em re-EP.)

The beds in Cambodia have -- without exception -- been hard as the floor. There's usually a lot of variability in hotels, but not here. Here, every single bed is as hard as the floor. They are actually beds, actual mattresses, but just really really hard. And the pillows are very thick and overstuffed, leading to crazy stiff necks in the mornings. I have a hard enough time staying asleep, but these rock-hard beds and high hard pillows keep me waking up all night long in a lot of physical pain. I'll be sad when our vacation is over, but I'll be thrilled to be back in my own cozy bed with my own soft pillows.

Since the beginning of our vacation plans, I've been most looking forward to seeing Luang Prabang, in Laos - and now it's time! Before I shut down, I'll show you a couple of photos of Ta Prohm, which is one of the temples in the larger Angkor Thom complex. I haven't begun to work on my Angkor Wat photos, but I do want to get something up here.

OK, this one is obviously Angkor Wat. The sun was nearly up.

Ta Prohm is all overgrown; it's a constant battle to keep the jungle from taking it back.

It had such a different feeling from Angkor Wat - a bit eerie but wonderful.

This spot is iconic - you always see photos of it. The time we were there, it was in such shadow but nearby was so light, I couldn't adjust the image very well. Anyway, it was flooded with a big tour of Chinese tourists who didn't seem eager to let anyone else near the spot any time soon so I finally gave up.


there are these Khmer faces on all four sides of this tower, and similar towers on all four corners of the temple. i can imagine they looked kind of fierce if you saw them for the first time.

OK! Time to close up shop for the morning, to pack and prepare to leave Cambodia. I'm glad we'll be back for a couple more nights in Phnom Penh, but I'm very much looking forward to seeing Laos.

just a quick note of being thankful

2010-11-24T23:11:00.001-05:00

Thankful Lori in front of Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat as the sun was coming up

I am so very thankful, on this most unusual Thanksgiving of my 52 years of life. Thankful for my children, who are living their own thankful lives and building their own happy families. Thankful for my sweet husband, who (among all the rest) organized this amazing trip for us, and who (still among all the rest) got up with me at 4:25 this morning even though it wouldn't have been his first choice, and who (still among all the rest) stays patient with me when I overheat and need to stop and drink water. Thankful for my relative extraordinary wealth that allows me to fly to the other side of the world and see this incredible place, and meet these sweet people. Thankful that I'm healthy enough to do this.

I just keep thinking of Cat's Cradle, The Books of Bokonon (Kurt Vonnegut, of course):

God made mud. God got lonesome. So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!" "See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars." And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud. I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done. Nice going, God. Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have. I feel very unimportant compared to You. The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around. I got so much, and most mud got so little. Thank you for the honor! Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep. What memories for mud to have! What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met! I loved everything I saw! Good night.”

Lucky me, lucky mud.

I have hundreds of photos.....wait until you see Angkor Thom. Our Thanksgiving dinner was great; we ate at The Touich Restaurant and Bar. We started by sharing two appetizers: beef salad "lab" battambang and banana flower salad with dried fish, and then I had sauteed chicken ginger from battambang province and Marc had sauteed chicken with spices and lemon grass.

Tomorrow we fly off to Laos, to Luang Prabang. I can't wait to see it, even though I'll be sorry to fly away from Cambodia.

Siem Reap and the Golden Banana

2010-11-24T03:15:00.002-05:00

There are a couple of things that make us feel comfortable about a hotel in this part of the world - the biggest one is when they explicitly forbid sex tourists. I get very freaked out by the child sex trade, especially, but the whole thing bugs me a lot. We also tend to feel comfortable when a hotel says that it's gay-friendly; we suspect that means a certain warm and open atmosphere. Friendly. So the place we're staying when we return to Phnom Penh falls in the former camp, with the explicit statement forbidding sex tourism, and the place we're staying here in Siem Reap is the latter - gay-friendly.

For a while, we thought I was the only female in the whole place. For a while, we thought gay-friendly meant gay-exclusive. The staff, at least those we've interacted with, were somewhat flamboyantly gay, and giggly. The young man who set everything up with us could hardly stop giggling, and sliding his eyes to the side. I liked him, and he made me laugh. When he showed us to our room, the art on the wall really said all we needed to know:

I LOVE IT!! I really do. It makes me silly happy.

Siem Reap is preparing to be Tourist Central; the road coming into town was lined with these gigantic, mostly pastel-painted hotels that would fit comfortably in Miami Beach but were named "Empress of Angkor" or "Princess of Angkor" or things like that. Crazy. They're giant, hundreds of rooms each.

this Buddha in the traffic circle had no arms, leading Marc to call it (of course) the Buddha de Milo

the pool in our B&B; view from standing on our balcony

all the porches have these bathtubs. what?! luckily, there's a wonderful shower inside the room.

new and old Siem Reap, all on one traffic sign set-up. Temples to the left, golf straight ahead.

KFC, anyone?!

lots and lots of these giant new hotels

Our lovely little B&B is down an unpaved alley in the old part of town, so we're going to rest a bit and then head out to visit the Old Market. Maybe later check out the Night Market. But we have a tuk-tuk arranged to pick us up at 4:45 in the morning to see sunrise at Angkor Wat, so it won't be a late night for us, no matter what.

I guess all my loved ones in the US are busy making pies and turkeys and side dishes and getting ready to spend time with other of my loved ones. Happy Thanksgiving Eve, y'all, from a 3rd floor suite of a gay-friendly B&B in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

goodbye sweet Kep

2010-11-23T23:19:00.001-05:00

Last night was an enormous storm - there were torrential rains much of the night, with booming thunder and streaks of lightning. I loved it, and such a nice way to end our time in Kep.

I'll really miss our lovely bungalow

Our last gorgeous sunset; we knew a storm was coming, but.....

WOW look at that storm cloud!

We had breakfast this morning and then got in our cab for the 3-hour trip back to Phnom Penh. The roads were so bad, so terribly bumpy, that there was no possibility of knitting to help pass the time, but I did make a few notes of things I wanted to be sure to comment on, so I don't forget:

the surprising popularity of bocce ball! we didn't see it being played anywhere in Phnom Penh, but we did see it a lot in the countryside around Kep and Kampot. Weird, right?
our hotel in Kep, the Veranda Resort, was really wonderful. Marc and I would love to come back and stay for a week, partly because we just loved Kep and the area, and partly because it was such a lovely, lovely place to stay. (It is a little strange, though, having the peace and quiet wrecked by coconuts crashing into the roof, knocking the tiles off.) One thing that was less than ideal, though, was the security. The room didn't have a safe, and we were told at the front desk that we could leave cash in their safe if we wanted. Well, we wanted to do that! So the first night, we left our cash with them, got our little receipt, sealed the envelope and handed it over to them, along with our passports. The next morning we wanted our passports and we watched in shock as they opened the "safe"......a canvas bag, hanging on the back of a chair. Right there. Easy reach. It may have had a zipper, but maybe there was just a flap. And don't think "canvas bank bag" that might have a lock or something. NO. Think shoulder bag, purse, that kind of bag. There was all our money, right there. Any unscrupulous person who saw the set-up could just walk behind the counter any of the numerous times there was no one there, and lifted the whole thing.
It's often sweltering here, as you'd expect in a tropical area that has a monsoon season. Sweltering. Muggy. Intense (for me, though Marc loves it). But the Cambodians wear a LOT of clothing, including long-sleeved sweaters and hoodies, simultaneously. There I'll be, panting and dripping sweat, and there they'll be in layers and hoodies. What is up with THAT.
And another what's up with that: we can't get any cell phone reception in Phoenicia, just upstate in NY, but everyone here, in every remote bit of countryside, has at least one cell phone that's in constant use.
In Vietnam, it's like everyone is an entrepreneur on speed. "Want to buy a bra? No? Then can I make you some lunch? No? Then want a ride somewhere?" Right in front of obvious communist signs, too. It's like screw the political system, everyone's a mini-capitalist. But here, the entrepreneurial spirit isn't in evidence to the same degree. A huge exception is Pharey, our tuktuk driver from yesterday in Kep. He had two phones, and he was always setting up some kind of deal for someone. He stopped to help a couple of western girls get on a bus, then told us that he'd taken them to Kampot the day before. He knew everyone, it seemed, waved to everyone, and was always upselling us. It wasn't offensive or aggressive, but he was ... um ... earnest.

So now we're in the Phnom Penh airport waiting for our flight to Siem Reap. Tomorrow, Thanksgiving at home, will be very different for us. Our plan is to see Angkor Wat, and it's also the national day of mourning for all those lost at the Water Festival. It'll be the most unusual Thanksgiving I've ever spent, that's for sure.

have you heard the news?

2010-11-23T04:30:00.000-05:00

The question doesn't need context - it's on everyone's lips today. Have you heard the news? More than 300 people died in Phnom Penh last night at the Water Festival. Have you heard the news? It's so sad, they say they don't know why. It's a funny kind of question; are they asking what happened, was it just started by people getting scared and everyone freaked out and a stampede happened? Are they asking why, why so many dead, in a country with such a recent tragic history of senseless death? They don't know why.

If I hadn't been here, I might have just heard the news and thought oh that's terrible, and gone right on with my business. But I have been here, and I have met so many of these people, and it's been hard not to cry, even though I feel self-conscious about that. They move me, with their easy smiles and seeming-delight in waving as we fly by in our tuktuk. And humankind is terribly complicated, because these are the same people who slaughtered these same people, in the name of Pol Pot. Or communism. Or something. So no story is ever simple, and people are all kinds of things, all at once....but there are also these broad cultural differences among people. The Vietnamese - our experience was that they're busy busy busy, and they tease and giggle, and they're hustling and so busy. Cambodians, going about their business and smiling easily, and not as hurried as the Vietnamese. The Lao, we've heard, are gentler and slower still.

Marc said it's like being in Manhattan on September 12 - no one could talk about anything else. And really, what else is there, in the face of such shock and loss.

This morning we took a tuktuk to Kampot at 8:45; it's about 24km from Kep to Kampot, and it took us about 45 minutes to get there. Pharey (pronounced as the French say Paris, 'par-EE') drove us; here's a shot of Marc and Pharey at the end of the trip, since I didn't get one at the beginning:

A tuktuk is a motorcycle with a covered wagon-type-thing dragging behind it. They're open air, which was wonderful this morning when the air was fresh (not quite as great coming home in the drenching rain, though!). The countryside between Kep and Kampot was stunning: enormous fields of ripe rice, as far as you could see; people in the fields working, and standing under their homes smashing handfuls of rice stalks against a board to winnow out the grains; big cows everywhere; yards filled with pigs and chickens; children smiling at us as we sped by. I really loved the trip this morning. There was one moment that left me kind of haunted. You know how time can suddenly go v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y? As we went past a home, a young boy, maybe 11 years old, was walking away from his home toward the highway. We looked at each other. I smiled at him. He smiled at me. We held each others' gaze. I don't know how all that happened in the second or two that we must've been able to really see each other, but it did and I've thought about him all day.

Here's some of the scenery between Kep and Kampot (click any picture to enlarge):

everyone walks their cows around

just working; the head scarves are uniquely Cambodian

lots of people wear things that look like jammies to me!

homes on stilts, with cows and bulls in the yard

hoofing it down the road. most of the cattle are this breed. as a texan, i don't recognize it.

see? cows lying about everywhere!

really beautiful little fishing mini-village

see the rice fields? very ripe rice, heavy heads hanging down

not sure where these piggies were going. to market to market, maybe?

stacks of rice harvested. i don't know the lingo - it's not threshed like wheat, or ginned like cotton. anyway. stacks of rice harvested. pretty.

When we got to Kampot, we left Pharey to do his own thing and we wandered around. Kampot was seriously built-up by the French when they colonized the country, and that lovely architecture is still hanging around despite Pol Pot's desperate efforts to bomb it all to hell. It certainly doesn't look like it once did, but you can tell how it might have looked in its heyday. There was a big storm looming overhead, as you'll see.

oops! forgot about the chickens. chickens are everywhere too.

The monks were out on their alms round; they were always in pairs, and they always held umbrellas (mostly brilliant yellow orange, which kind of matched their orange robes). It's not like begging, and it's not like charity; it's a way for people to make merit. The monks would stand before a door, waiting, and someone would come out with a bit of food or a bit of money. They'd kneel before the monks and I think they were saying prayers of some kind. Then they'd put the money in the monk's bag, or the food in his tall silver container, and the monks would go to the next door. Although the people generally smiled at us, the monks never met our gaze.

After walking around until we'd seen everything, we stopped and had some lunch before we met Pharey for the trip home.We had a lovely view of the Kampot River, from our seats on the 2nd floor of the restaurant:

and those are tuktuks, obviously

Then it started POURING down the rain, as it has every day we've been here on the coast. It's just the end of monsoon season, so this isn't very surprising, and it hasn't bothered us. But we did want to stop at the market on the way out of town, so we ran in and saw this very ingenious system for diverting the rain:

those are fabric tunnels hanging down from fabric drains that run along the ceiling. the rain pours through the tunnels down into a system of drainage ditch-things that crisscross the floor. pretty smart.

Kampot was really wonderful, we loved it. It'll be sad leaving Kep and Kampot, they're really such beautiful places in the world. Now, when I'm back in Manhattan, I'll think of these people out in the rice fields, or resting in hammocks, living such different lives than mine. I hope I get to come back some day.

stampede at the Water Festival in Phnom Penh

2010-11-22T18:18:00.000-05:00

I just heard about the stampede at the Water Festival in Phnom Penh - 339 people killed, so terribly sad. We're ok, obviously, but it's really a tragedy. That's a lot of people killed. I can imagine how it happened, the crowds were so intense, people sitting on the ground in big groups, small children everywhere, people who might still be easily skittish even this long after the amokness of Pol Pot. So so sad.

getting crabs in Kep

2010-11-22T17:57:00.000-05:00

So one thing you hear about, when you hear anything about Kep, is the crab market. Last night we ate at the crab market -- we thought. Turns out, the crab market isn't that road of little restaurants, the crab market is more like it sounds: the morning's catch from the Gulf, hauled out for sale:

Kep fisherwomen wear leopard print jackets when hauling in a basket of crabs!

click to enlarge - it's a real scene, with food stalls under umbrellas and crabs being hauled in by the second

crab baskets at the bottom of the photo, crab boats in the water

so many vendors, all cooking fresh seafood on the spot

squid and fish and crabs, skewered and cooked over wood charcoal

the attention to detail on the backside of this sculpture cracked me up

this guy towered over the whole thing - the guardian of crab fishermen, i guess

my husband, in hog heaven....wandering into a market filled with fresh crab


the air was so smoky - all those charcoal fires everywhere. it smelled GREAT.

We got caught in a lot of rain, so we headed back to our hotel to relax for a while. The afternoon became sunny again, so we swam for a couple of hours in the beautiful pool at our hotel:

it's a wonderful pool - water just slightly salty, not too cold but definitely not warm. just right and wonderfully refreshing after a sweltering day at the crab market

We were ready to head back to our room anyway, but I noticed the sky was darkening. Just as we got to our bungalow the skies opened up and it was bloody humping DUMPING, as a friend of mine used to say. I mean gallons and gallons of water were just pouring down, it was wonderful.

When it stopped raining, we headed across town to this great little restaurant called Breezes. I decided not to take my camera -- dang it -- because we passed some gorgeous scenery and the skies and water were absolutely incredible. Shades of rosy pink, reflecting on the softest-looking pinkish water, I wish I'd taken my camera. Anyway. The meal was just great; Marc got crab croquettes and lok lak, which is a Cambodian beef dish that comes with a great limey green peppercorn sauce. I got udon noodles with ground chicken, mushrooms, and fresh basil, extremely tasty. We hired a tuktuk driver to pick us up at 8:30 in the morning for a trip to Kampot. More on that tomorrow.

My now-customary ending to this post: I love it here! Cambodian people are so warm and friendly, and my heart melts a little each time I interact with someone.

a treehouse in Kep

2010-11-21T22:22:00.000-05:00

Our taxi driver didn't speak much English (though of course he spoke more English than we speak Khmer, so he's got a lot on us!) - he did know the word "crazy" which he used a lot to describe other drivers on the road. Once he pulled up alongside a guy on a scooter and chewed him out in Khmer; the guy had a young boy on the bike with him, and he'd been weaving from side to side. As best I could make out, the cab driver said beer and sleep and drunk. Sounds like the guy deserved to be chewed out.

Driving in Cambodia, like driving in Vietnam and India, involves constant use of the horn. It's a kind of echolocation, I think....."i'm here" ... "here" .... "over here." The ride from Phnom Penh to Kep took about 3 hours, and the transformation of the landscape was amazing. As we entered Kampot province, it started to shift a good bit, to greater lushness and tropical-looking vegetation. But when we crossed into Kep province, it was a startling difference; the vegetation was thick, dense, overgrown, beautiful. Architecture changed too, as the homes are built on stilts.

The cab was funny; there was a Playboy sticker on the glovebox door, a standard assortment of Buddhist things hanging from the rearview mirror, two bobble-head dogs bobbing along on the front dashboard, pillows and a padded kleenex box on the back dashboard, and a small handmade pillow with a counted cross-stitch cover on it, of a floppy-eared rabbit. Someone loves the cab driver a lot, I think. The best thing about him, aside from his saltiness, was his apparent love of 1980s love ballads (think Celine Dion) and rap. He played CDs the whole trip, and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel during the rap songs. Periodically he rubbed his face and neck with something that smelled very strongly like Vicks. As we got closer to Kep, it started raining a lot.

standard transportation in the countryside

Our hotel is amazing, really. It's the most wonderful room either of us has ever stayed in. The Ritz Carlton in Singapore was big-time marble fancy, but this is much more to our liking. It really is like being in a huge treehouse; we have a large private bungalow, with a lovely (and huge) veranda, complete with chairs and a loveseat, a table and chairs, a hammock (for tiny little Cambodians, not me!), and a long bench.

pouring down rain when we got here! we got soaked making the run to our bungalow

tropical vegetation

walkways through the trees, up to our bungalow

pathways through the complex

this was our view of the sunset, after the storm ended. it was really breathtaking.

We walked to the crab market for dinner - about a 10-minute walk from our hotel. The crab market is a street full of these little restaurants....kind of dodgy looking, but it seems to be where you eat in Kep. We picked the busiest one we could find, Kimly. I'd taken a nap, which always leaves me feeling awful and strange and out of it, so I was kind of, well, out of it. The restaurant was full of Americans, plus one table filled with young Korean men, whose table was covered with empty beer bottles. The food was ok, not much more, but very very greasy. Marc had seen a big plate of french fries going to another table, so he ordered a plate to go with his fried shrimp (I got fried rice with prawn meat); the french fries tasted like fried fish, but then so did everything. During the night, I think we both kind of regretted our dinner a little.

blogging on our veranda

While I've been writing this post, Marc walked around with the video camera, and said the pool is incredible so I know we'll spend some time there. Our plans for the day are to go to the pepper plantation and into old Kep to see King Sihanouk's old palace. Maybe. We'll see. It's also supposed to rain hard again today, so who knows.

the ubiquity of the Gaga

2010-11-20T21:59:00.002-05:00

OH - I meant to say this earlier. Our first night here in Phnom Penh, we were kind of dazed by the long journey, thoroughly lost in time and space, and wandering around looking for a place to eat dinner. As we walked through a giant park, there were loudspeakers somewhere blaring

P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)
P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)

It made me laugh, and remember earlier this spring, in Honduras, how we kept hearing Paparazzi.

So before we pack up for the day, one more little post. We walked to the Central Market, because we love markets, and keeping in mind the way Phnom Penh is the NYC of Cambodia, we walked through the gold and diamond district....

and the machining district, where a guy was poking another guy with the tip of his arc welder:

Whatever she was cooking (below) looked and smelled great! Street food is often this, a woman with a little stove cooking for you, on the spot:

Central Market was the least interesting/most commercial market we've seen. The one next door to our hotel is the best so far, but of course we have a lot of them still to see. I'm especially interested in the night markets in Laos.

crowds and fetal eggs

2010-11-20T19:04:00.004-05:00

Phnom Penhers do love their city, and of course this makes me love them. As a Texan and a Manhattanite, I really get pride of place. When we were coming to the hotel, our cab driver said, after we told him we're from NY "Oh, that's a big city like Phnom Penh." I laughed and said yes. In Cambodia, PP is "the city."

Yesterday afternoon we walked all over the place, including locating a different hotel for our return to PP. This one is fine, and we've enjoyed the central location, but we'd heard about this other place that sounded amazing. Also, this is a giant hotel, and we tend to prefer smaller ones.

we're on the 2nd floor, that room on the mid-corner. it's like being in the prow of a ship.

this is our room - surrounded by windows, these are just a couple. the entire wall on the left is solid windows.

So anyway, yesterday afternoon we wandered around, found (and booked) our next PP hotel, rested a bit, wandered out into the insanity of the Water Festival, and got massages. We each spent $7 for an hour-long massage - I got a foot massage and Marc got head and shoulders. We both laughed afterward; our young masseuses had no training or skill, they just kind of rubbed us, but it was ok, and at least somewhat relaxing.

For dinner, we decided to go to the Bopha Phnom Penh Restaurant; it was highly-ranked on TripAdvisor, and we'd scouted it out earlier in the day and it looked great - decks overhanging the Mekong, deep cozy chairs, nice ambiance, and they had a set menu of Khmer specialties we wanted to try. WELL. As evening fell, I swear the number of people attending the festival quadrupled. It was shoulder-to-shoulder, packed. Like Times Square on New Year's Eve. Families had spread out blankets all over the sidewalk and were eating; vendors were out in force selling food, and for the first time we saw the mounded platters of deep-fried tarantulas and grasshoppers. And another thing they eat here that I find really hard to imagine is fetal duck eggs. Here's a YouTube video - don't click play if you're squeamish:

these egg vendors are everywhere - the bicycle with the sidecar, filled with fetal eggs.

So anyway, we navigated through incredible crowds and made our way to the restaurant. We got wonderful seats, right at the edge overlooking the river. Happy. A lovely breeze. I wanted to try Angkor Beer, but they were out so I tried a Tiger Beer (meh). Lovely. And then, after we'd ordered our food, we saw the first in a long parade of .. gosh, I don't even know what to call them. Floats, I guess. They were on HUGE barges, and they were these intricate filigreed light displays. For the most part they didn't flash, they were just static light displays of different things, moving slowly past on the river. We're not familiar enough with the iconography to understand a lot of it, but my favorite one had a brilliant green dragon with flames coming up out of its back in a recognizable Buddhist shape. Some of them had music accompanying them on the barge, and a couple did have small bits of moving light - one, for instance, had a person with what looked like a 1950s satellite receiver thing on top of the head, sending out rays. One float was what looked like a demon. And one was clearly a city, and then one of the waiters stopped by our table and pointed and said, with enormous pride, "That's my city." I just loved that.

Anyway. They were gorgeous. One after another, after another. After a while we noticed that at some point farther up the river, they turned around and came by again, facing the other bank. I think that thing from the previous post was one of these light displays - here:

Our dinner was 2/3 great; we started with a beef and pepper salad, really great. The 2nd course was fish amok* which was an OKish curry, I don't tend to like fish curries because of the fish texture. The last course was some kind of deep-fried pineapple spring rolls that were divine.

*do you know what the word amok references? We run amok, as in "Don't you kids run amok while I'm at the store!" But amok is a Malaysian concept for a murderous frenzy, a killing spree perpetrated by an individual out of rage or resentment over perceived mistreatment. Wikipedia says the syndrome of "Amok" is found in the DSM-IV TR. Anyway, I guess the cook went all amok on the fish's ass or something. Or else amok is the curry. Whatev.

We're going down to breakfast now, and then we'll wander around some more. Our cab is picking us up at noon to drive us the 2-3 hour trip to Kep, on the coast. I'll post from Kep.

HAVING A WONDERFUL TIME. Do not want to leave. :)

Nom Pen

2010-11-20T00:32:00.004-05:00

When we were taking the 45-minute cab ride from the Phnom Penh airport (pronounce that Nom Pen to sound like a local), the friendly cab driver told us about the Water Festival that's taking place Saturday through Monday. He warned us that our hotel is right in the middle of it, and the festival goes 24-hours a day, and it's crazy and loud, and that most people change hotels to stay farther away from the middle of it all. 24 hours a day. Crazy. Crazy traffic, and crazy people, he said. When we checked into our hotel, the smiling woman at the front desk said a million people are coming for the festival, from all over the countryside (a million, I asked? And she smiled - I liked her immediately for the emotional exaggeration.).
Well, this may be a problem for people who haven't come from New York City, but for us it was just more of the same, and we love it.

I don't know where to start, except with the emotion of it. I love this place. Love it love it love it - there's such a wonderful energy, streets crowded with people all going in every direction doing everything, selling buying. Streets crowded with scooters and tuktuks and cabs and cars. Scooters carrying young men with women sitting sidesaddle behind them, sometimes wearing regular clothes and sometimes very dressed up. Families of 4, with a little child in front and another child between - baby father child mother. Scooters laden with plastic bags of stuff. I hope I remember how it feels to be here. I hope the photos help me remember. We'll shoot some video, but it's the whole sensory package and nothing electronic can capture all that.

Having been to Vietnam, we already knew how to be a pedestrian here: you can't wait for a pause in traffic, because there isn't one, so you just walk out into it. Back in the atari days, I played Frogger and it's a lot like that - I even imagine the sound effect as I'm squirreling my way across the street through the cars and scooters. You just gauge your starting point and walk into it, and you don't hesitate or change your mind because the drivers are gauging where they're going to go based on where you are headed. It all works, somehow, and we get across the street.

We had breakfast at our hotel this morning, pretty good, and then we went out for a short walk. When we passed the big temple, I saw three monks standing behind the gate, holding pinkies and smiling. It made me so happy. We wandered down the busy side street next to our hotel and found ourselves in the market -- HAPPY making. The aisles were tiny, but not as choked with scooters as the Hanoi markets, which meant we could look around a little more easily. No stacks of fried dogs, but live chickens, just-dead fish, lots of produce, some kind of small brains (Marc suggested that they were weasel brains, of all things), little stalls of people making amazing-looking meals, skewered grilled fish. The banana market, which Marc especially loved.

Except for one very young begging boy who aggressively jabbed Marc in the back until we had to just leave, we haven't been bothered at all by people wanting things from us. Everywhere we go, men assertively offer us tuktuk rides, and they use a friendly strategy - "hey! You again! I saw you yesterday!" and then the conversation is going and they press press press, offering to take us to the Killing Field memorial, to the temples, everywhere. There's a bit of misleading going on, with them assuring us that some things are closed but that they know what's what, but it's not an all-out assault like it was in India. After a short conversation and saying no several times, they quit pushing us. It doesn't feel aggressive and impossible. It helps that everyone smiles so much - since I smile a lot, it feels comfortable and familiar to me.

We had dinner last night at a little "swiss" garden - who knows why it was swiss, but the food was AMAZING. i had tofu clay pot, which was full of seafood i think. tiny squidlets, some shrimp, some unknown stuff but i didn't stop to think about it it was just so so good. marc ordered fried river lobster but they had run out, so he got fried shrimp with garlic and pepper. usually we've planned where we're going to eat, after doing research - and we'd done that last night too, but the restaurant we'd picked was closed for the water festival. so for once, we just walked along the street and picked a place and went in. it was really great food, just what we needed after our very long day of travel.

So the Water Festival. We had no idea what to expect, I was wondering if it would be motorboats racing up and down the Mekong (the Mekong!! I'm staying in a huge room with an enormous wraparound veranda overlooking THE MEKONG RIVER!!). But no, no motorboats. Instead, there are these extremely long boats filled with people rowing like hell. The men in the back stand, and those in the front sit, and there's a guy in front yelling the rhythm. We can't figure out how the racing aspects works, they just seem to be randomly going, not competing with each other in any way we can tell. Perhaps the time is clocked when they take off and when they come back, and everyone just starts whenever they want. We can't tell. Most boats are clearly well-organized teams, with every person wearing the same shirt and hat... the red boat, the green one, the pink one, etc. But now and then you see a long boat filled with kind of random-looking people.

distinctive architecture here

such a young population, and temples everywhere you turn

this is the presidential palace, we think

this wat is right next door to our hotel

' a wat complex - photo taken from our balcony

the long boats - these guys all row HARD

fruit with our breakfast

wait....what? COFFIN SHOP?

Ministry of Cult and Religion?

don't know if this was just set up for the Water Festival, but it's huge

Marc heading for a banana vendor

busy people on a busy street

chicken vendor in the market, squatting among her still-live (but kind of zombie-like) chickens

great-looking fruit in the market

a lunch stall -- those are skewered grilled fish near the bottom of the photo, on the table

this isn't even the main market, but it was wonderful

i kept seeing these everywhere; maybe they're places for offerings? there were often little piles of things scattered about, and sometimes even half-empty glasses of beer.

the view from our room

My posts aren't usually this scattered and random; getting started is always a bit of a mess, because so much happens by the time I'm ready to post the first time. Anyway - so far it's been amazing. I love Phnom Penh and can't wait for the rest of the day.

getting here

2010-11-20T00:30:00.001-05:00

That's a long-ass flight. Sure, you know going in that it's a long flight - 15.5 hours, long flight. Got it. But when you've already been sitting there for 8 hours and you're just halfway there, when you've already had a couple of meals, watched a couple of movies, and you're just halfway there, when the lack of padding on the Cathay Pacific ~~buckets~~ seats is killing your butt bones....even though you've got plenty of your own padding!...and you're only halfway there, it's a long flight. Here's a happier view from the beginning of the flight:

GOODBYE, NEW YORK!

Chinese version above, English below

I thought that looked like a cloud farm. Neat rows....never mind.

The first meal - breakfast, obviously. Not bad, relatively speaking.

Before we take off -

Hong Kong was shrouded in fog, so we only saw the giant mountains as hulking dark masses. Maybe on the way home it'll be clearer and we can get a good view. The best part of the getting-here is that we're here. On to the rest!

flying away....

2010-11-17T17:40:00.001-05:00

Cathay Pacific! Our first (very long) flight to Hong Kong

DragonAir - what a fabulous plane - will take us to Phnom Penh

the elusive Lao Airlines - our flights appear and disappear. Luckily they worked out.

Bags are packed, boarding passes are in hand, passports...wait, where's my passport....oh yeah. Passports are in hand, snacks are packed, nothing left to do but try to get some sleep tonight. RIGHT. :)

just one reason

2010-11-11T11:28:00.000-05:00

There are literally dozens of reasons I love traveling with Marc so much, but the one that's relevant for this post is that the way he prepares for our trip delights me to no end. Here, in the final week before we leave, he's organizing all the information in a few ways -- one is to make a folder for me, with all the relevant travel documents, and another for him. Here's mine:

this thrills me....the calendar stapled on the front of the folder, with dates and locations written in his hand

and inside, flight details, hotel details, and

necessary visa paperwork, with copies

It thrills me, having everything so put together -- and put together in the way he does it. This time next week we'll be in the air, heading for the north pole. Shazam.

food

2010-10-14T17:34:00.002-04:00

One of the first posts on our first travel blog - the Vietnam blog called The Other Side, and the source of the name for this one - was about fried dog. Our research ahead of time suggested that fried dog was a common food, and sure enough, we did see pyramidal stacks of fried dogs in the markets in Hanoi. There was something strange about their extreme uniformity in size, as if they were farmed. Anyway. Food is an important part of our travel pleasure. (Or not.....I'm looking at you, India.) So we're anticipating the food in Cambodia and Laos, doing internet research, watching food travel programs. Anthony Bourdain, the guy who eats bizarre food, a young couple who took off for a year, all kinds of food travel programs.

If they're in Cambodia, they always feature deep-fried tarantulas. Always. Without exception. The shots are the same: lovely Cambodian women sitting in their market stalls behind large flat baskets mounded high with deep-fried tarantulas, others piled with fried grasshoppers, others with beetles. The Cambodian women smile beautifully, and then the camera shoots them crunching happily on tarantulas, with the little legs sticking out the corners of their mouths. The American tv host grimaces, gags a little, pretends to be game, and typically will not eat it. (Though they do usually agree to eat grasshoppers, I guess so they don't look like spoiled snotty Americans, or something.)

Anyway, I will not pretend to be game. I will not eat the tarantula. I will not eat the grasshoppers or beetles, either. I will not even pretend. Call me snotty, call me provincial, call me narrow-minded, I really don't care. NO.

REALLY???

note: i am not looking at this while typing the caption.

they're supposed to be crunchy, tasty snacks. I'll never know.

and with this, the plans are complete

2010-07-08T12:49:00.002-04:00

Our in-country flights are made, after an awful lot of trouble with websites and crazy bank rules:

Phnom Penh , KH To Siem Reap , KH Wednesday, November 24
Vietnam Airlines VN 3985 (new)
PNH 12:55 - REP 13:40

Leaving From : Siem reap (REP), Cambodia   Going To : Luang prabang (LPQ), Laos   Departure : 26-Nov-10
Lao Airlines | Flight No. QV868 Depart : 12:40(REP) Arrive : 14:05(LPQ)

Leaving From : Luang prabang (LPQ), Laos   Going To : Vientiane (VTE), Laos   Departure : 29-Nov-1
Lao Airlines | Flight No. QV102 (new) Depart : 13:10(LPQ) Arrive : 13:50(VTE)

Leaving From : Vientiane (VTE), Laos   Going To : Phnom penh (PNH), Cambodia   Departure : 02-Dec-10
Lao Airlines | Flight No. QV841   Depart : 10:20(VTE) Arrive : 11:50(PNH)

It's all done but the waiting! Which, of course, is the hardest part. Oh sure, there's research he'll do - identifying a bunch of restaurants in each place, making a little folder of info for each place with photos of the hotels for non-English-speaking tuktuk drivers, etc. But it's all in place now, nailed down and secured.

Is it November yet?

Luang Prabang: Le Bel Air Resort

2010-07-05T11:27:00.001-04:00

Luang Prabang (pronounce the 'a' sounds like ah...luong prabong) is apparently an amazing place, filled with temples and monks, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing it. Here's where we'll be staying: Le Bel Air Resort.

That's the hotel in the background; to go anywhere, we'll have to cross this bridge.

Breathtaking Luang Prabang

the rooms

And with this, our hotel reservations are all completed. Our flights there and back are settled. All that's left is setting up the interior flights, then we'll be done.

Vientiane: City Inn

2010-07-05T10:24:00.001-04:00

In Vientiane, Laos (pronounced wee-en-CHAN, as far as we can tell), we'll stay in a junior suite at the City Inn Vientiane. It's in a great location, and gets good reviews so we're looking forward to it:

Every picture I've seen of the Mekong River reminds me of the Mississippi - big, meandering, and muddy. (and sidebar note of awe: I'm going to see the Mekong River!)

Welcome to the City Inn Vientiane

one of the rooms - a junior suite? We don't know. Still, lovely!

I don't want to wish away months of my life - there's too little left for that - but I am so excited, I wish it were time to go right now.

Siem Reap: Golden Banana

2010-07-04T19:55:00.002-04:00

More details: Here's where we'll stay in Siem Reap, which is our anchor point for seeing Angkor Wat. We'll arrive on November 24th, and stay for two nights.

the pool at the Golden Banana Boutique Hotel

and our room - a deluxe suite

Siem Reap seems to exist to handle the load of people heading to Angkor Wat; there is a part of town that is so jam-packed with hotels, and there isn't a whole lot going on in Siem Reap itself, from what we see so far. But here's the big reason to go, even if there is a lot else to see. ANGKOR WAT.

What is it I'm always saying? Oh yeah........I can't wait! As of today, 136 days until our wonderful trip.

JFK to HK

2010-05-23T13:16:00.001-04:00

The specifics of our flights are coming together, and that's always a thrilling experience - it becomes real in a new way. Here are the specifics for the JFK to Hong Kong leg - 15 hours and 20 minutes:

That little white X approximates the North Pole, more or less.

the interior of the Cathay Pacific cabin - not as luxurious as Singapore Airlines, but it'll take us there!

and there we'll sit, seats 56A and C.

It's so hard to wait! Here's the itinerary in map form:

Once the in-country flights are finalized, we'll number the stops so the actual itinerary will be clear.

Phnom Penh: Amanjaya Hotel

2010-05-09T12:39:00.001-04:00

And here's where we'll stay in Phnom Penh:

Fancy! The rooms are beautiful, and ours will have a balcony:

Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia, and apparently it has a lot of old French architecture, from the colonial days.

where to stay in Kep

2010-05-09T12:34:00.001-04:00

The Veranda Resort will be our destination in Kep. The reviews are all very good, and we're looking forward to the cabins:

the bougainvillae'd walkway out to the treehouse cabins

the veranda

the cabins

the bedroom

veranda

cabins in context

This place sounds just wonderful; Kep is on the coast, near the border with Vietnam. It sounds like a sleepy place, not much to do other than relax and eat fresh seafood. In other words, our kind of place.

the makings of an itinerary

2010-04-25T14:14:00.001-04:00

Flights are booked!

Two of these, actually - one for me and one for him. We'll be on the other side of the world for Thanksgiving, which will be a brand new experience for me, that's for sure!

Maybe it's a little too soon to start counting days, but it's thrilling, having it booked.

going back

2010-04-12T12:04:00.000-04:00

It looks like we might be heading back to the other side of the world; we loved Vietnam so much, so this time we hope to see Laos, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and a bit of Hong Kong on the way. Fingers crossed....