I have always considered myself - give or take a few days (or summers...) - a morning person. I think it's a good time to get stuff done. The air is still fresh. The sun is not too hot and is slanting at such an angle that it sort of speckles across the ground like drops of dew. It's the perfect time of day and like all great things, it seems to slip away too quickly.
None of this is true in Vietnam. In fact, I've found myself counting down to the end of the mornings.
I can't remember who wrote it (Thoreau or Emerson, I'm fairly certain), but the idea of "springing up from sleep in eager anticipation of the wonders of the coming day" does not apply. The only "springing up" comes from the heart-stopping sudddeness of the banging on our doors of the 6:45 cleaning ladies, whose highest end seems to be the delivery of hot water in thermoses to our rooms.
* I have yet to use the hot water once. In fact, I only assumed it was hot until the other day when - in my drunken pre-awakened exhaustion, I accidently kicked over the thermos, which unplugged itself upon contact with the ground, spilling its scalding contents onto our floor and my bare feet.
Also, for the past few days, the morning has been further soured by the series of stomach cramps that have slowly started to phase out the need for my alarm clock (my stomach, Jeffery - unbeknownst to me - seems to set his alarm for about 15 minutes before my cell phone alarm.).
Even still, there is still unfinished Vietnamese homework to do in preparation for our 8:30 class, in which we learn Vietnamese and make honking sounds like geese in our attempts to repeat the Vietnamese word for "old man". (Imagine English students saying "old man, old man, old man, old man, old man, etc....)
And yet despite all that is looked to with fear and uncertainty in our mornings, there is a shining oasis of everything that is good in the mornings.
David was the first to discover it, but it has slowly caught on as a staple (a foundation even...) of our morning food ritual. For just outside the gates of our building's complex, there is a little middle-aged lady in brown and white capris with a hat that looks like Gilligan would have worn. She pushes a comically rickety food cart, and yet she brings happiness to any who meet her. We do not know her name or where she comes from (she disappears after breakfast), but every morning, rounding the corner of our gate, we see her there, frying eggs in a small, dirty black skillet.
It is a unique breakfast dish - fried eggs in a soy-sauce soaked pickle stuffed French loaf wrapped in a sheet of paper torn out of a book (I've had sheets from a computer programming book and a scientific journal wrapped around my bread, while Rob - yesterday - had a shopping list embracing his delicious morsel.)
We cannot speak to her and can only point, but she smiles with an energizing enthusiasm, and shows me that she cooks with "cooking oil" and not peanut oil (I like her very much for this reason).
We then retreat from her stand and sit under the shade of the bushy patio where we order iced coffee (mmm....) and bite into the little flavorful explosions.
This morning, we talked about our regrets at not being able to communicate our true thanks for the food that brings us such joy each morning, and yet we knew somehow that there was a deeper connection between us and the egg-frying lady with the rickety cart. We sat for a minute, digesting our breakfast and sipping on our coffees, and Rob - having reflected for a moment - formed the words that perfectly captured the reason she knows that she brings us such joy morning after morning. Taking one more bite, he profoundly spoke,
"She speaks the language of love."
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Just because I like pina coladas, and got caught in the rain...
In fairness to the drink, it wasn't a pina colada. It was something, I think, called a fruity fritter or something like that (mango, pineapple, strawberry, banana). Quite delicious but extremely unsatisfying in its fleeting nature (the cup though tall, is very thin with a an even thinner waist, making for few possible sips).
I think I'm starting to understand this city. It's still very large and overwhelming, but I can point in general directions now and say that our guesthouse, for example, is in that direction. This is a good development since for the past few days I've been walking the city in an effort to find signs of life in the local art community (my main aim being the discovery of neat, original art galleries of which I have found two thus far).
We live in District 1, which you can say is the primary part of Saigon. If I was pressed to single out one district as being "downtown," District 1 would be it. It's also the area where most of the art galleries are.
Two days ago, I set out in search of an organization called Saigon Open City - a non-profit organization aimed at promoting contemporary art in Saigon. It is currently in the midst of a three part series that is looking at the ways art tells about three different periods of Vietnamese history (you can check out more at www.saigonopencity.org ... it's pretty cool).
Anyway, having found the address of a number of galleries around Saigon, I decided to just walk there - a task that sounds much more simple than it truly is.
For me, finding Saigon Open City's office - and really any place in Saigon for that matter - is a bit like trying to find Station 9 and 3/4 in Harry Potter. While it seems simple enough, odd numbers on one side of the street and even on the other, street numbers just disappear, get skipped, or even demolished. I walked up and down one street, trying to find address 2B, and seeing if there was some hidden doorway or passage between 2A and 2D. However, nothing of the sort was to be found.
Finally, rounding the street corner and following along, I was able to find a back alley and through a mixture of sign language and exaggerated motions, I was able to show my intense desire to find 2B, to which the solemn man would simply point towards the office, which was tucked down an alley that was already down the previously mentioned alley. Naturally, the next four galleries proved to be just as difficult to find - with no help from the constant requests by the motorbike drivers to "show me many things".
Exhausted, I finally ducked into a coffee shop to get a fruit smoothie (the fruity fritter or whatever it was called) and emerged, rejuventated. Of course, minutes later, dark clouds began to gather and little helicoptery leaves that resemble quidditch snitches (lots of Harry Potter references, I know) began to fall all around me. Minutes later, I would be soaked.
The reason that I name this post after the pina colada song is because the issue of eating here has come up constantly. Over the past few years, I've started to say that life, for me, is the stuff that happens between meals. Food (especially the good kind...I get depressed thinking about Two Sisters and Keifer's...you Jacksonians are lucky lucky people) has become one of my foundational pillars. It's something I like to talk about. It's something I'm constantly thinking about. And obviously something that - when it's good - brings me unspeakable joy.
I'm not saying the food here is not good. Far from it. It's just different. Here, it is completely normal to have beef soup (pho bo) for breakfast. The other day we even had a crab/shrimp soup at 7:30 in the morning with orange juice and coffee. I'm constantly having to ask about peanuts and peanut oil (the oil is surprisingly hard to ask about, and naturally leads to extra stress when I can't completely figure out what's in each dish). Obviously, my stomach is adjusting, and that once firmly grounded food pillar of mine has shaken just a bit.
The subject of food comes up constantly between my roommate, Phat (who is great), and myself. We are both hungry at all hours, and before he had arrived I had stocked up our bedroom with a few cereals, including Honey Bunches of Oats as well as All Bran.
I've offered Phat both of these cereals which he has enjoyed (I think), but, in the most literal sense of the word, we have different tastes. I love Honey Bunches of Oats, and I eat it by pouring it into my hand and shovelling it into my mouth many hands at a time, so the first day we had met, I offered Phat a bit of my beloved cereal and he ate it politely carefully picking up each little crisp one at a time and enjoying it on its own.
All Bran, for me, is a much more practical cereal. It does not exactly bring joy to my taste buds but rather to other parts of me that receive joy in very unique sorts of ways. Rob even made the comment, after seeing my horrifyingly large box of All Bran with the motto, "TAKE THE TWO WEEK CHALLENGE," that eating cereal should not be a "challenge". His point was well taken.
Despite this however, Phat exclaimed, when I hesitantly offered him the All Bran, that he enjoyed All Bran much more than "that other stuff." I wasn't hurt (I'm sort of glad to have more HBOO to myself), but interested in our differing tastes.
Another example of this came when a group of Robertsons and our roommates went out to grab a quick dinner at one of our roommates' favorite restaurants.
Ducking down another back alley, we came to an "open-air" restaurant (when I say open air, I mean that the front facade of the building is just not there). A few women stood outside, huddled under a canopy and around a gigantic boiling pot of water and noodles. On a table next to the pot, there sat these eerily neon orange pieces of something that I assumed would be added to the stew.
We proceeded into the restaurant, walking past groups of people sitting on tiny plastic chairs around tiny plastic tables. There were children, old men and women, pregnant women, business people, everything, yet, our group were obviously included the only non-locals. That was fine, and we were met with wonderful hospitality by everyone. We continued on up a set of narrow, rickety steps with only enough room for about half a person, and moved up onto the second level of the restaurant - which shook slightly with every step (and movement) that we took.
We sat down at our tiny plastic tables, and my and David's knees came up above our shoulders on account of the tiny-ness of the chairs. Some pale geckos scattered along the wall as we sat down - shaking the floor and the foundations of the building.
Moments later, our food was delivered with the same eery neon orange meat floating in a noodle soup.
*Just to give you a picture of this, imagine going to the supermarket and buying uncooked chicken from the frozen section. You know how pale and plastic it looks under its saran wrap? That's how this looked in our soup.
I tried to politely eat my noodles while attempting to drown the still-living meat in the bottom of my soup bowl so as not to seem completely ungrateful.
I looked for sympathy around the table, but found most everyone slurping up their bowls of the soup. It was aggravating that my stomach, whom I'm going to start calling Jeffery (I think I'm just projected this tempestuous, spoiled school boy image on him based on my own insecurities, but for now we'll just say Jeffery was why I didn't eat)couldn't be just a bit more daring.
So, I'm adjusting. It's a different place, and I hope that in the coming weeks, I (erm, I mean, Jeffery)will be a bit more open to trying some of the things that our roommates see as their own foundational pillars (we went the next day to the fast food place here and ordered double cheese burgers and strawberry shakes...they were magical.)
Anyway, we're working on it.
I think I'm starting to understand this city. It's still very large and overwhelming, but I can point in general directions now and say that our guesthouse, for example, is in that direction. This is a good development since for the past few days I've been walking the city in an effort to find signs of life in the local art community (my main aim being the discovery of neat, original art galleries of which I have found two thus far).
We live in District 1, which you can say is the primary part of Saigon. If I was pressed to single out one district as being "downtown," District 1 would be it. It's also the area where most of the art galleries are.
Two days ago, I set out in search of an organization called Saigon Open City - a non-profit organization aimed at promoting contemporary art in Saigon. It is currently in the midst of a three part series that is looking at the ways art tells about three different periods of Vietnamese history (you can check out more at www.saigonopencity.org ... it's pretty cool).
Anyway, having found the address of a number of galleries around Saigon, I decided to just walk there - a task that sounds much more simple than it truly is.
For me, finding Saigon Open City's office - and really any place in Saigon for that matter - is a bit like trying to find Station 9 and 3/4 in Harry Potter. While it seems simple enough, odd numbers on one side of the street and even on the other, street numbers just disappear, get skipped, or even demolished. I walked up and down one street, trying to find address 2B, and seeing if there was some hidden doorway or passage between 2A and 2D. However, nothing of the sort was to be found.
Finally, rounding the street corner and following along, I was able to find a back alley and through a mixture of sign language and exaggerated motions, I was able to show my intense desire to find 2B, to which the solemn man would simply point towards the office, which was tucked down an alley that was already down the previously mentioned alley. Naturally, the next four galleries proved to be just as difficult to find - with no help from the constant requests by the motorbike drivers to "show me many things".
Exhausted, I finally ducked into a coffee shop to get a fruit smoothie (the fruity fritter or whatever it was called) and emerged, rejuventated. Of course, minutes later, dark clouds began to gather and little helicoptery leaves that resemble quidditch snitches (lots of Harry Potter references, I know) began to fall all around me. Minutes later, I would be soaked.
The reason that I name this post after the pina colada song is because the issue of eating here has come up constantly. Over the past few years, I've started to say that life, for me, is the stuff that happens between meals. Food (especially the good kind...I get depressed thinking about Two Sisters and Keifer's...you Jacksonians are lucky lucky people) has become one of my foundational pillars. It's something I like to talk about. It's something I'm constantly thinking about. And obviously something that - when it's good - brings me unspeakable joy.
I'm not saying the food here is not good. Far from it. It's just different. Here, it is completely normal to have beef soup (pho bo) for breakfast. The other day we even had a crab/shrimp soup at 7:30 in the morning with orange juice and coffee. I'm constantly having to ask about peanuts and peanut oil (the oil is surprisingly hard to ask about, and naturally leads to extra stress when I can't completely figure out what's in each dish). Obviously, my stomach is adjusting, and that once firmly grounded food pillar of mine has shaken just a bit.
The subject of food comes up constantly between my roommate, Phat (who is great), and myself. We are both hungry at all hours, and before he had arrived I had stocked up our bedroom with a few cereals, including Honey Bunches of Oats as well as All Bran.
I've offered Phat both of these cereals which he has enjoyed (I think), but, in the most literal sense of the word, we have different tastes. I love Honey Bunches of Oats, and I eat it by pouring it into my hand and shovelling it into my mouth many hands at a time, so the first day we had met, I offered Phat a bit of my beloved cereal and he ate it politely carefully picking up each little crisp one at a time and enjoying it on its own.
All Bran, for me, is a much more practical cereal. It does not exactly bring joy to my taste buds but rather to other parts of me that receive joy in very unique sorts of ways. Rob even made the comment, after seeing my horrifyingly large box of All Bran with the motto, "TAKE THE TWO WEEK CHALLENGE," that eating cereal should not be a "challenge". His point was well taken.
Despite this however, Phat exclaimed, when I hesitantly offered him the All Bran, that he enjoyed All Bran much more than "that other stuff." I wasn't hurt (I'm sort of glad to have more HBOO to myself), but interested in our differing tastes.
Another example of this came when a group of Robertsons and our roommates went out to grab a quick dinner at one of our roommates' favorite restaurants.
Ducking down another back alley, we came to an "open-air" restaurant (when I say open air, I mean that the front facade of the building is just not there). A few women stood outside, huddled under a canopy and around a gigantic boiling pot of water and noodles. On a table next to the pot, there sat these eerily neon orange pieces of something that I assumed would be added to the stew.
We proceeded into the restaurant, walking past groups of people sitting on tiny plastic chairs around tiny plastic tables. There were children, old men and women, pregnant women, business people, everything, yet, our group were obviously included the only non-locals. That was fine, and we were met with wonderful hospitality by everyone. We continued on up a set of narrow, rickety steps with only enough room for about half a person, and moved up onto the second level of the restaurant - which shook slightly with every step (and movement) that we took.
We sat down at our tiny plastic tables, and my and David's knees came up above our shoulders on account of the tiny-ness of the chairs. Some pale geckos scattered along the wall as we sat down - shaking the floor and the foundations of the building.
Moments later, our food was delivered with the same eery neon orange meat floating in a noodle soup.
*Just to give you a picture of this, imagine going to the supermarket and buying uncooked chicken from the frozen section. You know how pale and plastic it looks under its saran wrap? That's how this looked in our soup.
I tried to politely eat my noodles while attempting to drown the still-living meat in the bottom of my soup bowl so as not to seem completely ungrateful.
I looked for sympathy around the table, but found most everyone slurping up their bowls of the soup. It was aggravating that my stomach, whom I'm going to start calling Jeffery (I think I'm just projected this tempestuous, spoiled school boy image on him based on my own insecurities, but for now we'll just say Jeffery was why I didn't eat)couldn't be just a bit more daring.
So, I'm adjusting. It's a different place, and I hope that in the coming weeks, I (erm, I mean, Jeffery)will be a bit more open to trying some of the things that our roommates see as their own foundational pillars (we went the next day to the fast food place here and ordered double cheese burgers and strawberry shakes...they were magical.)
Anyway, we're working on it.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Playing "Frogger" - Saigon Style
In Saigon, I am a frightened squirrel - a twitchy, frantic, frazzle-tailed, crazy-eyed rodent that plain and simply cannot cross streets.
I'm sitting in an open-air internet cafe in Saigon, sweating (as usual) while watching a woman right outside the door run sugar cane through an industrial looking roller (ideal for catching fingers) to make a drink of pure sugar. I have yet to try the drink yet, because, as I told you, I am a nervous squirrel.
For the past two weeks I have been yearning for a place to settle down, rest my head, call home - even for just a moment. Naturally, we have picked the craziest city, I think, in the world.
I think I wrote in the previous post that I had never seen more motorbikes in my entire life. That was an understatement.
Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) is home to some 8 million people - none of whom, as far as I can tell, work. From my 2 day observation, it seems to me that every single person in this city spends their entire day riding on their motorbike. Truly, there are moments when the group of motorbikes get hazy it stretches so far and seems to become a solid mass of steel and exhaust they are packed so tightly.
Here lies the problem. Despite the eternally long blocks here, the sidewalks all - inevitably - come to an end yielding to the street - almost liquidy in its concentration of motorbikes. Yet when the sidewalks come to an end, there is generally no signal to cross. The method here is much like frogger, or, in my case, squirreler, in which one has to slowly creep across the street while cars and motorbikes honk at (and yet miraculously bend around) you. Just as in Frogger, it's the first step that is the worst. Once you're on the lilypad, there's generally very little turning back, and instead you are basically committed to crossing. It's pretty horrifying to see a horde of maniacal motorbikes buzzing your way, and yet I cannot begin to tell you the rush I feel on the other side.
Really, the past two days have been a crash course in surviving the city. Though many of us are beginning to get the hang of the whole street crossing business, many (including myself) have yet to master the art of sleeping past about 6:30 A.M.
In my guesthouse, the man next door (whose every move I can hear perfectly through my wall) begins to hawk loogies around 6 every morning. About that same time, two very ill-tempered cats resume a war of which both have probably forgotten the origin. The cleaning ladies begin their rounds, knocking on doors to deliver hot water, whose purpose at 6:30 in the morning I have yet to determine. Additionally, a lady likes to sit outside my window and pick her new cell phone ring for the day, while the single parking spot a few feet away from our building becomes home to a honk-filled traffic jam.
I suppose that all the commotion does have its advantages in that it gets us up early enough that we can accomplish innumerable amounts of things (so far that list of "things" has included exploring the market - filled with everything from knock-off Lacoste shirts to cow brains - as well as finding the perfect coffee shop (Rob and I tried a place today that served a coffee mixed with sweet condensed milk...basically like drinking caramel)).
Just as in Frogger, while the day may be filled with crocodiles and large delivery trucks aimed at your destruction, we have started finding our lily pads and every night (somehow)seem to find our way across the other shore.
I'm sitting in an open-air internet cafe in Saigon, sweating (as usual) while watching a woman right outside the door run sugar cane through an industrial looking roller (ideal for catching fingers) to make a drink of pure sugar. I have yet to try the drink yet, because, as I told you, I am a nervous squirrel.
For the past two weeks I have been yearning for a place to settle down, rest my head, call home - even for just a moment. Naturally, we have picked the craziest city, I think, in the world.
I think I wrote in the previous post that I had never seen more motorbikes in my entire life. That was an understatement.
Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) is home to some 8 million people - none of whom, as far as I can tell, work. From my 2 day observation, it seems to me that every single person in this city spends their entire day riding on their motorbike. Truly, there are moments when the group of motorbikes get hazy it stretches so far and seems to become a solid mass of steel and exhaust they are packed so tightly.
Here lies the problem. Despite the eternally long blocks here, the sidewalks all - inevitably - come to an end yielding to the street - almost liquidy in its concentration of motorbikes. Yet when the sidewalks come to an end, there is generally no signal to cross. The method here is much like frogger, or, in my case, squirreler, in which one has to slowly creep across the street while cars and motorbikes honk at (and yet miraculously bend around) you. Just as in Frogger, it's the first step that is the worst. Once you're on the lilypad, there's generally very little turning back, and instead you are basically committed to crossing. It's pretty horrifying to see a horde of maniacal motorbikes buzzing your way, and yet I cannot begin to tell you the rush I feel on the other side.
Really, the past two days have been a crash course in surviving the city. Though many of us are beginning to get the hang of the whole street crossing business, many (including myself) have yet to master the art of sleeping past about 6:30 A.M.
In my guesthouse, the man next door (whose every move I can hear perfectly through my wall) begins to hawk loogies around 6 every morning. About that same time, two very ill-tempered cats resume a war of which both have probably forgotten the origin. The cleaning ladies begin their rounds, knocking on doors to deliver hot water, whose purpose at 6:30 in the morning I have yet to determine. Additionally, a lady likes to sit outside my window and pick her new cell phone ring for the day, while the single parking spot a few feet away from our building becomes home to a honk-filled traffic jam.
I suppose that all the commotion does have its advantages in that it gets us up early enough that we can accomplish innumerable amounts of things (so far that list of "things" has included exploring the market - filled with everything from knock-off Lacoste shirts to cow brains - as well as finding the perfect coffee shop (Rob and I tried a place today that served a coffee mixed with sweet condensed milk...basically like drinking caramel)).
Just as in Frogger, while the day may be filled with crocodiles and large delivery trucks aimed at your destruction, we have started finding our lily pads and every night (somehow)seem to find our way across the other shore.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Laying My Bus Life to Rest
I never planned on writing this particular post. I thought I had exhausted everything there was to write about transportation in Southeast Asia. Given that we're not exactly seeing sights or doing anything particularly exciting on buses, I would have thought that these posts would be intensely boring if I even decided to write about them in the first place! Nevertheless, I have discovered that I am completely incapable of sleeping on buses (and when I do begin to nod off, the bus drivers usually takes this as a sign to either stop the bus for a break or have his attendant collect tickets from passengers...both causes for me to wake up.)
So, given my handicap, I find myself with extraordinarily large chunks of time that I can use to admire the scenery or just think...no reading, as that makes me feel like crap.
We'll start with the obvious observations.
1. Bus drivers honk a lot.
I think I mentioned this a bit earlier when talking about our Camry ride between the Cambodian Border and Siem Reap, but bus drivers are much worse. They honk at everything - multiple times. They honk at people walking along the side of the road. They honk at houses for leaning too much. They honk at the sky for being blue.
I actually tried counting the number of times one of our drivers honked in one of our marathon trips and passed out from exhaustion and my complete bewilderment that there were numbers beyond trillions.
2. No bus ride here is complete without a movie ... or let me re-phrase, a video.
Calling what we watch a "movie" would be generous. Our trip from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh was taken up with karaoke of depressed young men sitting in exotic locations (atop waterfalls, in grassy fields that look out over mountains, etc.) while longing for a girl they have lost. None of them are happy, but their insistence on isolating themselves into these remote places, I think, does not help much with their situation.
On that same trip, we watched two martial arts movies: one with Jet Li and one with Bruce Lee. As far as I can tell, despite different characters, both movies dealt with the exact same subject in which a karate prodigy (Li or Lee) leaves his school and returns after having learned about the death of their master - who dies under shady circumstances and thus leads the prodigy to retaliate in a fit of rage to reclaim the honor of his master.
Finally, on our last trip from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City, we watched a most puzzling selection of excerpts from action movies (Terminator, a random Van Dam, and a virtual reality something) while 80s love songs were played in the background. (Early in this viewing session, David turned to me with eyes full of bewilderment and we just hoped that the ride would be smooth).
Which it wasn't.
For the first half of the trip, I tried my absolute best to sleep. I had only had two pieces of toast earlier that morning (a recipe for disaster for my stomach) and I started violently struggling to pass out so I wouldn't have to confront the whims of my stomach. Regardless, our trip on the Cambodian side was spent jolting up and down (I feared my hair was being rubbed off by my head rest). We shifted, reclined, straightened, and stretched in an effort to find solace, but most of our time was spent looking at one another helplessly as we bounced up and down in our seats.
The Vietnamese portion of our trip was much better and there is very little to say of it. It felt like there was a lot less countryside before we entered the sprawling suburbs of HCMC.
Based on first impressions, it seems like a cool city. More motorbikes than I have seen in my entire life. We'll be here for five weeks...it's such a refreshing feeling to know that we are finally getting settled somewhere.
Will write again soon. Miss you all, and hope all is great where you are.
So, given my handicap, I find myself with extraordinarily large chunks of time that I can use to admire the scenery or just think...no reading, as that makes me feel like crap.
We'll start with the obvious observations.
1. Bus drivers honk a lot.
I think I mentioned this a bit earlier when talking about our Camry ride between the Cambodian Border and Siem Reap, but bus drivers are much worse. They honk at everything - multiple times. They honk at people walking along the side of the road. They honk at houses for leaning too much. They honk at the sky for being blue.
I actually tried counting the number of times one of our drivers honked in one of our marathon trips and passed out from exhaustion and my complete bewilderment that there were numbers beyond trillions.
2. No bus ride here is complete without a movie ... or let me re-phrase, a video.
Calling what we watch a "movie" would be generous. Our trip from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh was taken up with karaoke of depressed young men sitting in exotic locations (atop waterfalls, in grassy fields that look out over mountains, etc.) while longing for a girl they have lost. None of them are happy, but their insistence on isolating themselves into these remote places, I think, does not help much with their situation.
On that same trip, we watched two martial arts movies: one with Jet Li and one with Bruce Lee. As far as I can tell, despite different characters, both movies dealt with the exact same subject in which a karate prodigy (Li or Lee) leaves his school and returns after having learned about the death of their master - who dies under shady circumstances and thus leads the prodigy to retaliate in a fit of rage to reclaim the honor of his master.
Finally, on our last trip from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City, we watched a most puzzling selection of excerpts from action movies (Terminator, a random Van Dam, and a virtual reality something) while 80s love songs were played in the background. (Early in this viewing session, David turned to me with eyes full of bewilderment and we just hoped that the ride would be smooth).
Which it wasn't.
For the first half of the trip, I tried my absolute best to sleep. I had only had two pieces of toast earlier that morning (a recipe for disaster for my stomach) and I started violently struggling to pass out so I wouldn't have to confront the whims of my stomach. Regardless, our trip on the Cambodian side was spent jolting up and down (I feared my hair was being rubbed off by my head rest). We shifted, reclined, straightened, and stretched in an effort to find solace, but most of our time was spent looking at one another helplessly as we bounced up and down in our seats.
The Vietnamese portion of our trip was much better and there is very little to say of it. It felt like there was a lot less countryside before we entered the sprawling suburbs of HCMC.
Based on first impressions, it seems like a cool city. More motorbikes than I have seen in my entire life. We'll be here for five weeks...it's such a refreshing feeling to know that we are finally getting settled somewhere.
Will write again soon. Miss you all, and hope all is great where you are.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Steep and Shallow
As we sat sweating in the lobby of our hotel on our last day in Phnom Penh (and last day before travelling to Vietnam), Rob captured our exprience in every place that we have visited. He said, "It seems like we do a whole lot the first day, sleep in and are worthless on the second, and then travel on the third." After some brief reflection, we all agreed that he was right. It was day 2 of Phnom Penh, and we - in true form - were moaning about the prospect of visiting the Royal Palace.
I promise, though, we were tired for a good reason.
We had arrived in Phnom Penh two days before in the late afternoon, had found a place to eat a late lunch, and then arranged a boat cruise down the river that our guest house lay next to.
As few boat cruises are complete without it, we bought some Angkor beer (a real gem for those of you who have never had it) and shimmied down the dirt-mud path that led to our boat where our hostess - a nice woman with an enormous white visor - met us.
We found out that we would be the only six people on the boat (not counting our hostess and the captain), and moments after this realization, the awkwardness began to settle like heavy snow upon us all.
We sat in little red plastic chairs (many left unoccupied) facing each other on the boat's main deck while our hostess - sweet as she was - tried to interest us in karaoke. We smiled graciously while trying to quietly decline her requests when we all decided to move up onto the smaller deck on top of the boat to enjoy our drinks.
Good move. The smaller setting with no roof eased some of the cramped openess of the deck below and we watched as the sky began to grow dull for a moment until it finally extinguished into darkness, leaving only our boat - green christmas lights lining its deck - as a tiny speck floating through the water.
Our first full day in Phnom Penh was much more eventful. We started out the day driving in a tuk-tuk 7 miles south of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Arts Academy to see traditional Cambodian dancers perform "Pamina Devi: A Cambodian Magical Flute".
Pulling off a dusty road filled with street vendors and "gas stations" consisting of men sitting under umbrellas with liter size coke bottles filled with a strange yellow liquid, we turned into a driveway with a sign with a drawing of a backwardly curved finger pointing right and the words "Khmer Arts Academy" written below.
Suddenly, the sun went out as we came under a cover of trees and to our left we beheld a massive pavillion theater with enormous stone heads looking over it - much like those we had seen at Angkor Wat.
Shortly after we would meet John and Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, the two directors of the Academy (John is American while Sophiline is Cambodian). After a few quick words, we were escorted under the pavillion to six white plastic chairs that lined the side of the main performance space, and minutes later, drums, xylophones, and oboes began in a cacophonous harmony, escorting a line of gracefully arched dancers across the stage in front of us.
They told a story of love, one of following your heart in the midst of chaos - even when others may be telling you extreme ways of finding peace. It was a story of balance - one where both man and woman offer their own unique strengths to endure through seemingly hopeless situations. It was a story of home - one where a hopelessly lovesick birdcatcher finds that his true soulmate is the bird that he has carried on his back throughout his entire journey for love.
We all watched with amazement as the dancers would bend their bodies and fingers - like snakes, Sophiline explained - to tell this story. It was a performance of delicate details as we watched Sophiline move in to guide her dancers, carefully adjusting the curvature of their fingers.
It was beautiful.
Afterwards, we sat crosslegged on the dancefloor in our bare feet and spoke with Sophiline and some of the dancers. I recorded the conversation and will try to summarize it later at some point - I think I could fill a whole entire blog with it.
When we left, John told us a few places we needed to hit while we were still in Phnom Penh. One was the National Theater and the other was Tuol Sleng - one of the prisons used by the Khmer Rouge during their rule from 1975-1979.
We knew we had arrived at the National Theater when we saw the towering steel spire that Sophiline had told us to look for (it had carried the hammer and sickle previously but now spires with nothing atop it). We pulled up and saw children playing soccer in a dirt patch between some palm trees and some guys working on a broken down bus (one of many in the parking lot).
Truly, the parking lot is more like a junkyard - filled with broken down buses, motorbikes, and cars. There is no pavement for people to park primarily because the theater was destroyed by fire 12 years ago.
We decided to step inside to check out what was left within the shell of the pink brick building. Inside, we found water filling the lobby, cars parked beneath the grand stairway, grafitti written on the walls, men sleeping in hammocks held up by the doorways leading into the main performance hall, and beautiful leather shadow puppets hanging carelessly on a blackboard in the lobby. We passed a man watching a static-filled television in a plastic fold-out lawn chair and came into the main hall.
The hall itself has the sky as its roof. Plants grow out of the orchestra pit, and a woman sat cooking something in a steaming pot where the fifteenth row probably would have been. It is easy to imagine what a beautiful space it must have been; however, the building continues to lie in sleep, waiting for the plants to swallow it alive.
From there, we went to Tuol Sleng - a prison made from a school with barbed wire snaking jaggedly around its walls.
I don't have any facts or numbers to give regarding the horrors that went on within the walls of this prison; however, seeing the pictures of some of the two million people killed during the Khmer Rouge's reign, it grew sickening to learn more. I won't try to be cliched in my response to seeing the prison. It was terrible, and it is horrifying to think of what we have (and continue to) do to one another.
The rest of our day was spent resting and keeping inside from the sweltering weather until dinner when we went to a restaurant (also recommended by John) called Pop Cafe - an Italian place around the corner from our guest house. It was a sleek, modern narrow restaurant with few seats, white walls, and black furniture. I felt terribly underdressed.
The food came out (one of the best pizzas I've had in years) and we were having a good time until the power in the restaurant went out (something that supposedly happens from time to time in Phnom Penh).
We would end the night sharing food and stories over two candles in the cafe.
(and of course the next day, we rested.)
I promise, though, we were tired for a good reason.
We had arrived in Phnom Penh two days before in the late afternoon, had found a place to eat a late lunch, and then arranged a boat cruise down the river that our guest house lay next to.
As few boat cruises are complete without it, we bought some Angkor beer (a real gem for those of you who have never had it) and shimmied down the dirt-mud path that led to our boat where our hostess - a nice woman with an enormous white visor - met us.
We found out that we would be the only six people on the boat (not counting our hostess and the captain), and moments after this realization, the awkwardness began to settle like heavy snow upon us all.
We sat in little red plastic chairs (many left unoccupied) facing each other on the boat's main deck while our hostess - sweet as she was - tried to interest us in karaoke. We smiled graciously while trying to quietly decline her requests when we all decided to move up onto the smaller deck on top of the boat to enjoy our drinks.
Good move. The smaller setting with no roof eased some of the cramped openess of the deck below and we watched as the sky began to grow dull for a moment until it finally extinguished into darkness, leaving only our boat - green christmas lights lining its deck - as a tiny speck floating through the water.
Our first full day in Phnom Penh was much more eventful. We started out the day driving in a tuk-tuk 7 miles south of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Arts Academy to see traditional Cambodian dancers perform "Pamina Devi: A Cambodian Magical Flute".
Pulling off a dusty road filled with street vendors and "gas stations" consisting of men sitting under umbrellas with liter size coke bottles filled with a strange yellow liquid, we turned into a driveway with a sign with a drawing of a backwardly curved finger pointing right and the words "Khmer Arts Academy" written below.
Suddenly, the sun went out as we came under a cover of trees and to our left we beheld a massive pavillion theater with enormous stone heads looking over it - much like those we had seen at Angkor Wat.
Shortly after we would meet John and Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, the two directors of the Academy (John is American while Sophiline is Cambodian). After a few quick words, we were escorted under the pavillion to six white plastic chairs that lined the side of the main performance space, and minutes later, drums, xylophones, and oboes began in a cacophonous harmony, escorting a line of gracefully arched dancers across the stage in front of us.
They told a story of love, one of following your heart in the midst of chaos - even when others may be telling you extreme ways of finding peace. It was a story of balance - one where both man and woman offer their own unique strengths to endure through seemingly hopeless situations. It was a story of home - one where a hopelessly lovesick birdcatcher finds that his true soulmate is the bird that he has carried on his back throughout his entire journey for love.
We all watched with amazement as the dancers would bend their bodies and fingers - like snakes, Sophiline explained - to tell this story. It was a performance of delicate details as we watched Sophiline move in to guide her dancers, carefully adjusting the curvature of their fingers.
It was beautiful.
Afterwards, we sat crosslegged on the dancefloor in our bare feet and spoke with Sophiline and some of the dancers. I recorded the conversation and will try to summarize it later at some point - I think I could fill a whole entire blog with it.
When we left, John told us a few places we needed to hit while we were still in Phnom Penh. One was the National Theater and the other was Tuol Sleng - one of the prisons used by the Khmer Rouge during their rule from 1975-1979.
We knew we had arrived at the National Theater when we saw the towering steel spire that Sophiline had told us to look for (it had carried the hammer and sickle previously but now spires with nothing atop it). We pulled up and saw children playing soccer in a dirt patch between some palm trees and some guys working on a broken down bus (one of many in the parking lot).
Truly, the parking lot is more like a junkyard - filled with broken down buses, motorbikes, and cars. There is no pavement for people to park primarily because the theater was destroyed by fire 12 years ago.
We decided to step inside to check out what was left within the shell of the pink brick building. Inside, we found water filling the lobby, cars parked beneath the grand stairway, grafitti written on the walls, men sleeping in hammocks held up by the doorways leading into the main performance hall, and beautiful leather shadow puppets hanging carelessly on a blackboard in the lobby. We passed a man watching a static-filled television in a plastic fold-out lawn chair and came into the main hall.
The hall itself has the sky as its roof. Plants grow out of the orchestra pit, and a woman sat cooking something in a steaming pot where the fifteenth row probably would have been. It is easy to imagine what a beautiful space it must have been; however, the building continues to lie in sleep, waiting for the plants to swallow it alive.
From there, we went to Tuol Sleng - a prison made from a school with barbed wire snaking jaggedly around its walls.
I don't have any facts or numbers to give regarding the horrors that went on within the walls of this prison; however, seeing the pictures of some of the two million people killed during the Khmer Rouge's reign, it grew sickening to learn more. I won't try to be cliched in my response to seeing the prison. It was terrible, and it is horrifying to think of what we have (and continue to) do to one another.
The rest of our day was spent resting and keeping inside from the sweltering weather until dinner when we went to a restaurant (also recommended by John) called Pop Cafe - an Italian place around the corner from our guest house. It was a sleek, modern narrow restaurant with few seats, white walls, and black furniture. I felt terribly underdressed.
The food came out (one of the best pizzas I've had in years) and we were having a good time until the power in the restaurant went out (something that supposedly happens from time to time in Phnom Penh).
We would end the night sharing food and stories over two candles in the cafe.
(and of course the next day, we rested.)
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
How many are going to Phnom Penh?
Quick post, I swear. Sorry to have been going on a bit in the last few.
I can remember my grandfather telling me a riddle over dinner one night that went something along these lines.
"As I was walking to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives, and each wife had seven cats, and each cat had seven kits. Kits, cats, wives, how many are going to St. Ives?"
What I did, of course, was to add up all everyone and then blurt out some huge number, when the answer is actually one, since "I" am the only one going to St. Ives.
If we tweaked this riddle a bit and assumed that we saw a Cambodian man on his motorbike outside our bus window who was also going to Phnom Penh, we would say that he had seven wives (no polygamy here, but just bear with me) and that each wife had seven baskets and each basket had seven pigs (large ones). And the question would be - assuming that he is also going to Phnom Penh - how many motorbikes are going to Phnom Penh?
The answer, like the previous question, would be one.
I wish I had had my camera so that I could have grabbed a picture of these people that we passed in our grimy bus. From the dust up ahead, a stack of chairs would seem to be floating down the road to Phnom Penh, but as we passed, there would be a little man (often with another person with him) tucked underneath these towering walls of furniture/animals on a motorbike! (Their balance is truly incredible).
All for now, I'm blogged out for a bit...couldn't sleep this morning so I decided to do a few. Hope everyone is doing great. Miss everyone very much.
I can remember my grandfather telling me a riddle over dinner one night that went something along these lines.
"As I was walking to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives, and each wife had seven cats, and each cat had seven kits. Kits, cats, wives, how many are going to St. Ives?"
What I did, of course, was to add up all everyone and then blurt out some huge number, when the answer is actually one, since "I" am the only one going to St. Ives.
If we tweaked this riddle a bit and assumed that we saw a Cambodian man on his motorbike outside our bus window who was also going to Phnom Penh, we would say that he had seven wives (no polygamy here, but just bear with me) and that each wife had seven baskets and each basket had seven pigs (large ones). And the question would be - assuming that he is also going to Phnom Penh - how many motorbikes are going to Phnom Penh?
The answer, like the previous question, would be one.
I wish I had had my camera so that I could have grabbed a picture of these people that we passed in our grimy bus. From the dust up ahead, a stack of chairs would seem to be floating down the road to Phnom Penh, but as we passed, there would be a little man (often with another person with him) tucked underneath these towering walls of furniture/animals on a motorbike! (Their balance is truly incredible).
All for now, I'm blogged out for a bit...couldn't sleep this morning so I decided to do a few. Hope everyone is doing great. Miss everyone very much.
Re-examining French Impressionists, Re-Uniting with Childhood Loves, and Re-Playing Geography Bees in Siem Re-ap
I've been trying to figure out how exactly to approach this particular posting. I've asked different people in my group about what they took most from our visit to Siem Reap, and I've tried to think about what made this particular portion of our trip unique.
For those of you who don't know about Siem Reap (I didn't until about a month ago), it is the home of Angkor Wat, a temple that Wikipedia explains much better than I ever could...
There. I am truly glad that I saw it, but I'll go on and check it off my to-do list.
My problem with visiting Angkor Wat was two-fold. For one, I had no idea about any of this. And second, anyone with less than a double PhD in archeology and anthropology, will have trouble being stimulated by these temples for more than about I'd say four hours (I think we stayed for about 7). I will say that it was slightly comforting when I ran into a man after our tour who asked if we were all "templed-out" - a similar malady to that of spending the day at the ruins of Pompeii when people who don't know enough about/don't have enough of an appreciation for a place lose all ability to distinguish between things as simple as doors and wallpaper.
Granted, Angkor Wat did have monkeys (which were incredible), the steepest set of steps I have ever attempted to climb in my life (requiring the use of both hands and feet to ascend...as well as size 2 shoes to even begin to fit onto these short steps), and the single most unsuccessful rooftop garden I have ever seen in which the roots of the trees that I suppose once sat nicely upon the top of these temples have now taken on the qualities of the squid from 20,000 leagues under the sea - monstrous roots melting like candle wax on top of entire walls and busting their way between large chunks of rocks.
The highlight of our day for me, however, came in sitting in the back of our tuk-tuk (much better than our Thailand experience) talking with our driver, Monet.
*I asked Kelsey (our resident art scholar) if Monet was a French impressionist. She replied that she wasn't sure because she always got Manet and Monet mixed up and could never tell them apart. After another moment, she replied, "All I know is that one had syphilis and one cut off his ear." So forgive me if Monet is not indeed a French Impressionist...I will willingly change the title of this post if he's not.
Regardless, our driver Monet made up for all the misdeeds of his predecessors. First, he had an extra-sensory knowledge of our every movement within the winding mazes of these temples, and though he never went into the temples with us, if we ever strayed from our path down some wrong road out of the temple, he would race up in his tuk-tuk and tell us that we were going the wrong way but that he would take us to where we needed to go. He also - when I, as usual, had difficulty communicating the the peanut oil aspect of my allergy - swooped in to translate for me and ordered me a bowl of scorching vegetable-rich, peanut-free soup.
Monet is 25 years old - hardly older than us - and yet he, because he cannot afford to go to the university in Siem Reap ($400/semester) has to drive a tuk-tuk. His English is nearly perfect after relatively few years of learning and his personality is wonderful with constant laughter.
At the end of our day at Angkor Wat (and other temples), he took us to the base of this mountain where he told us we could climb to watch the sunset over Cambodia. It had already started to cloud up and the wind was really starting to pick up (Rob noted how the children selling books and little trinkets would stop their selling to chase the leaves whenever they would fall with the wind). Nevertheless, we decided to climb and hope that it wouldn't rain too hard on top of us.
Coming to the top of the mountain, there is another temple, which we also climbed, to behold the vast Cambodian countryside. Pictures nor words would ever do it justice, so I won't even try (I also didn't stay on top of the mountain long enough to take in enough mental description...there were very dark, very large clouds moving quickly toward us). Despite Rob's insistence that we stay to watch the sunset, we decided to go back down the mountain.
Driving our tuk-tuk back along the road - wind flapping in our hair, a nice feeling compared to the absurdly hot weather of most of the day - we turned to our right to behold a sunset made of orange, purple, pink, and yellow. It covered the sky and was so magnificent that the eastern sky began to take on some of its other-worldly colors. Rob gave us the "I told you so" look and we all tried to believe (unsuccessfully) that we had gotten the better view. Still, it was incredible.
Two last quick side thoughts (and co-titles of this post) that I forgot to mention were this.
1. Siem Reap had a quick mart right next door to our hotel that sells strawberry frosted pop-tarts that were just about the best tasting things that I can remember tasting since the first time I ate strawberry frosted pop-tarts. They became my breakfast for the rest of our time in Siem Reap and would be what I nursed on during our drive to Phnom Penh.
2. While eating lunch at Angkor Wat, we were approached by a little girl selling flutes. We had already bought a flute from a similar little girl earlier that day, but our showing her the flute did little to dissuade her from attempting to sell. As it naturally happens, Matt is usually the one to have the hardest sell job put on him by these children. For one, he likes to talk to them and thus gets roped in to buying their products.
In this case, the girl (talking to Matt) made an interesting propostition. She said, "I tell you capital of Russia, you buy three dollar."
You can understand our hesitancy. We could hardly believe that she would know the capital of Russia, but what if she did and we had to buy another flute that we could not play? We figured Russia might be a bit too easy, when she upped the ante to asking US what the capital of Madagascar was.
Now, my history with geography questions has been a streaky one. In eighth grade, I had won our school's geography bee, only to arrive at the state bee to be soundly defeated (the one kid that didn't get a single question right), so I have a bit of a sore spot for geography questions. Generally, capitals come easy to me, but I absolutely couldn't remember the capital of Madagascar.
Hoping that if we ignored her she would go away, we were dismayed to see her still pressing the question. Surely she didn't know that capital too!?
Yet after a few minutes of us all sitting around, I felt the word "Antananarivo" slip out of my mouth and run right into the furious eyes of the girl who obviously HAD known the capital of Madagascar.
Moments later, she finally left.
Having been "Templed-out" by Angkor Wat, we all passed out that night after a meal at one of Angelina Jolie's favorite Tomb Raider haunts, The Red Piano, and slept til noon the next day, preparing for our trip to Phnom Penh for the rest.
For those of you who don't know about Siem Reap (I didn't until about a month ago), it is the home of Angkor Wat, a temple that Wikipedia explains much better than I ever could...
Angkor Wat (or Angkor Vat) is a temple at Angkor, Cambodia, built for King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. The largest and best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre — first Hindu, dedicated to Vishnu, then Buddhist — since its foundation. The temple is the epitome of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors.
Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple mountain and the later galleried temples. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the gods in Hindu mythology: within a moat and an outer wall 3.6 km (2.2 miles) long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west; scholars are divided as to the significance of this. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs and for the numerous devatas adorning its walls.
There. I am truly glad that I saw it, but I'll go on and check it off my to-do list.
My problem with visiting Angkor Wat was two-fold. For one, I had no idea about any of this. And second, anyone with less than a double PhD in archeology and anthropology, will have trouble being stimulated by these temples for more than about I'd say four hours (I think we stayed for about 7). I will say that it was slightly comforting when I ran into a man after our tour who asked if we were all "templed-out" - a similar malady to that of spending the day at the ruins of Pompeii when people who don't know enough about/don't have enough of an appreciation for a place lose all ability to distinguish between things as simple as doors and wallpaper.
Granted, Angkor Wat did have monkeys (which were incredible), the steepest set of steps I have ever attempted to climb in my life (requiring the use of both hands and feet to ascend...as well as size 2 shoes to even begin to fit onto these short steps), and the single most unsuccessful rooftop garden I have ever seen in which the roots of the trees that I suppose once sat nicely upon the top of these temples have now taken on the qualities of the squid from 20,000 leagues under the sea - monstrous roots melting like candle wax on top of entire walls and busting their way between large chunks of rocks.
The highlight of our day for me, however, came in sitting in the back of our tuk-tuk (much better than our Thailand experience) talking with our driver, Monet.
*I asked Kelsey (our resident art scholar) if Monet was a French impressionist. She replied that she wasn't sure because she always got Manet and Monet mixed up and could never tell them apart. After another moment, she replied, "All I know is that one had syphilis and one cut off his ear." So forgive me if Monet is not indeed a French Impressionist...I will willingly change the title of this post if he's not.
Regardless, our driver Monet made up for all the misdeeds of his predecessors. First, he had an extra-sensory knowledge of our every movement within the winding mazes of these temples, and though he never went into the temples with us, if we ever strayed from our path down some wrong road out of the temple, he would race up in his tuk-tuk and tell us that we were going the wrong way but that he would take us to where we needed to go. He also - when I, as usual, had difficulty communicating the the peanut oil aspect of my allergy - swooped in to translate for me and ordered me a bowl of scorching vegetable-rich, peanut-free soup.
Monet is 25 years old - hardly older than us - and yet he, because he cannot afford to go to the university in Siem Reap ($400/semester) has to drive a tuk-tuk. His English is nearly perfect after relatively few years of learning and his personality is wonderful with constant laughter.
At the end of our day at Angkor Wat (and other temples), he took us to the base of this mountain where he told us we could climb to watch the sunset over Cambodia. It had already started to cloud up and the wind was really starting to pick up (Rob noted how the children selling books and little trinkets would stop their selling to chase the leaves whenever they would fall with the wind). Nevertheless, we decided to climb and hope that it wouldn't rain too hard on top of us.
Coming to the top of the mountain, there is another temple, which we also climbed, to behold the vast Cambodian countryside. Pictures nor words would ever do it justice, so I won't even try (I also didn't stay on top of the mountain long enough to take in enough mental description...there were very dark, very large clouds moving quickly toward us). Despite Rob's insistence that we stay to watch the sunset, we decided to go back down the mountain.
Driving our tuk-tuk back along the road - wind flapping in our hair, a nice feeling compared to the absurdly hot weather of most of the day - we turned to our right to behold a sunset made of orange, purple, pink, and yellow. It covered the sky and was so magnificent that the eastern sky began to take on some of its other-worldly colors. Rob gave us the "I told you so" look and we all tried to believe (unsuccessfully) that we had gotten the better view. Still, it was incredible.
Two last quick side thoughts (and co-titles of this post) that I forgot to mention were this.
1. Siem Reap had a quick mart right next door to our hotel that sells strawberry frosted pop-tarts that were just about the best tasting things that I can remember tasting since the first time I ate strawberry frosted pop-tarts. They became my breakfast for the rest of our time in Siem Reap and would be what I nursed on during our drive to Phnom Penh.
2. While eating lunch at Angkor Wat, we were approached by a little girl selling flutes. We had already bought a flute from a similar little girl earlier that day, but our showing her the flute did little to dissuade her from attempting to sell. As it naturally happens, Matt is usually the one to have the hardest sell job put on him by these children. For one, he likes to talk to them and thus gets roped in to buying their products.
In this case, the girl (talking to Matt) made an interesting propostition. She said, "I tell you capital of Russia, you buy three dollar."
You can understand our hesitancy. We could hardly believe that she would know the capital of Russia, but what if she did and we had to buy another flute that we could not play? We figured Russia might be a bit too easy, when she upped the ante to asking US what the capital of Madagascar was.
Now, my history with geography questions has been a streaky one. In eighth grade, I had won our school's geography bee, only to arrive at the state bee to be soundly defeated (the one kid that didn't get a single question right), so I have a bit of a sore spot for geography questions. Generally, capitals come easy to me, but I absolutely couldn't remember the capital of Madagascar.
Hoping that if we ignored her she would go away, we were dismayed to see her still pressing the question. Surely she didn't know that capital too!?
Yet after a few minutes of us all sitting around, I felt the word "Antananarivo" slip out of my mouth and run right into the furious eyes of the girl who obviously HAD known the capital of Madagascar.
Moments later, she finally left.
Having been "Templed-out" by Angkor Wat, we all passed out that night after a meal at one of Angelina Jolie's favorite Tomb Raider haunts, The Red Piano, and slept til noon the next day, preparing for our trip to Phnom Penh for the rest.
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