Birthdays in Cambodia

Hi Everyone! I bet you thought we fell into the Mekong and had washed away to sea by now... Still here, we've just spent many days in a row on busses with not much blog posting time. Tough to keep up these days, so we're dividing the job between our blog crew. Sarah will get back to you soon with a recap of some other Bangkok activites, Megan and Michelle will shower you with photos and stories from the wonders of Angkor Wat and the strange city that is Siem Reap, and I'm going to pick up with continued Cambodia adventures in Phnom Penh.





Sarah and I said goodbye to Megan and Michelle on April 25th (miss you guys!!), and made our from the tourist cluster of Siem Reap to the big bad capital. We found some tasty snacks along the way -











Boiled turtles! Yum. We also made friends with this little naked boy on the bus.








Phnom Penh did not seem to be as gritty as people say.
It was dirty and bustling, but at the same time friendly and welcoming. The Cambodians are always looking to make a buck off tourists, it's true, but they are honest and smiling as they do so.




The next day was my birthday!! We let all our friends know, hoping for some birthday discounts from tuk-tuk drivers. After exploring a bit of the city, we decided to hit the first order of business for the day, a birthday haircut!! Mom, Dad and Grandparents, you might want to close your eyes for this one -


I shed most of my hair weight! Feeling much cooler now :)

Sarah got her 'do freshened up too. She even got three lines shaved into the side of her head, because she saw this little boy with the same thing and thought it was super cool. The Cambodians pretty much love her hawk. They smile and point at it and say, boy haircut?!

The city was hotter than the seventh ring of hell, as Sarah likes to say, so we decided to continue birthday celebrations at the Phnom Penh water park!!
It was no Water Country, but the two slides and bathtub warm swimming pool kept us occupied for a few hours. It appears that Southeast Asians do not believe in swimming suits. Whether they are dipping in the Mekong, bathing under a waterfall, or in a pool, there are no changes of costume to get in the water. Jeans, long sleeve button down shirts, belts, earrings - all come into the water with them. Needless to say we felt a little out of place in our bikinis, but no one else seemed to mind.

Outside the park was a little street fair, and Sarah popped two balloons with her expert dart throwing skills and won two prizes for me - a tube of black herb toothpaste and a shuttlecock (one of those children's toys that you kick up in the air). Happy Birthday to me!!



We had a nice dinner that night to celebrate - fried frog legs for me! Strange and wonderful birthday in Cambodia came to an end.

The next day we decided we'd been having way too much fun, and it was time to sober up the visit with a few depressing doses of reality. We started our day at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, the prison used during the Khmer Rouge dictatorship to torture and kill dissidents. Pol Pot and his gang pretty much wanted to get rid of all city folk and anyone with an education, because they did not support the grand plan of putting all Cambodians to work in collectives and increase rice production for export. Pretty ingenious plan.


The prison was a converted school building, and still had chalkboards hanging next to the torture cells. People were killed here from 1975 to 1979, when the Vietnamese expelled the Pol Pot regime. Strangely enough, the UN continued to recognize the Khmer Rouge government for another ten years, until enough people came forward with stories of opression that they recognized the new government. At the prison they forced 'confessions' out of citizens, and then killed them on the spot or sent them off to the killing fields, the next stop on our Pol Pot tour. Choueng Ek killing fields were just outside of the city, and yet during the regime no one seemed to know the extent of the torture that was going on until much later. Thousands of people were brutally murdered here, and dumped into mass graves. There was a tree where soldiers bashed babies heads before throwing them into a ditch. The memorial built in the center of the killing fields was a collection of skulls, bones and clothing from the mass graves.




After a nice pretty tuk tuk ride to clear our heads,


we were ready for the next emotional part of our day - a visit to a Cambodian orphanage. We came equipped with a 25 kilo bag of rice as a donation to the orphanage, recommended by our tuk tuk driver who used to volunteer at the Lighthouse Orphanage.


The kids were incredibly sweet, and obviously used to having visitors. They immediately took our hands, decorated us with the glitter they were playing with, and showed us around their dormitories and school rooms. They spoke English fairly well, played so nicely together, and smiled all the time. It was hard not to be in awe of these kids.

Sarah even got to show off her soccer ball skills, though these guys had her beat.


We hit rush hour on the way home! More motorbikes than I thought existed in this world.


I continued to pursue my babies on bikes photo collection.



Our tuk tuk driver So Marly insisted we shouldn't end the day without buying him a beer, which turned into two pitchers of beer and papaya salad with unidentifiable marine life in it. He told us a lot about his life growing up on an island in the Mekong. It is strange to chat with people and know what they have gone through in their lifetimes here, and that war was just a few short decades ago and still so fresh in their minds.


Time to take a load off after an exhausting day. Sarah and I headed to dinner. Those of you who can read the sign in the background will understand why this place made us feel happy again.



Time for us to get out of internet cafe! For your short summary of the next few days, we headed to Sihnoukville on the coast of Cambodia. The sunsets were beautiful and the breeze much needed.

However, there were many of these guys in the water.
Plus lots of trash, and local kids crying until you buy their hand woven fishes, so after a night we decided to head back to Thailand in pursuit of beautiful beaches and solitude. We bussed for quite a few days, the scent of durian following us all the way.

And now to the beach! We'll be back to you in a week with stories of relaxation and suntans.

One night, in Bangkok ... Michelle & Megan Guest Blogged!

So, we (Megan and Michelle) arrived in Thailand on April 29 and spent a couple of days on our own in Ayutthaya. Then we met up with Arli and Sarah in Chiang Mai for the annual Songkran festival, which involves everyone and their mom (literally) skipping work to throw water at passersby all day long for three days to purify things for the New Year. We spent many days getting soaked to the bone, looking at Wats, and eating and drinking our way through the country side. After a two day excursion to Chiang Dao (where the locals didn't get the memo that the water throwing should have stopped), we all returned to Bangkok. We chose to spend two nights in an area safely away from all the conflict between the gov and the Red Shirt protesters and focus on having some fun. A night out to a local gay bar seemed to be a good option. It took little time for this to (d)evolve into an impromptu early birthday celebration for Arli and a rather lengthy dance-off between Michelle and a Bangkokian chica (guess who won). That's the short version-- we'll let the pictures and captions tell the rest of the story....

This is us in a tuk tuk (motorcycle taxi) in Chiang Mai. Meggo's godfather's girlfriend, Nok, is Thai and insisted on sending us everywhere with her favorite tuk tuk driver. Where is Arli, you might ask? She's riding shotgun on the jumpseat (aka small board on top of battery).

Nok actually hooked us up quite a few times. She was able to get us discounted seats to a Muay Thai (Thai Boxing) match, where we founds ourselves entertained and occasionally a little disturbed. The fighters were mostly young men, until the end, when some older guys came out, but their match was just a show fight.

Here we are sitting with Nok and her friend at the Muay Thai match.

This might have been the weirdest part of the experience. Yep, you guessed it, that's a child and a dwarf ... getting ready to fight each other. The child was 14 and the dwarf was 20. Poor kid, that 20 year-old really punched the crap out of him. Eh, they seemed like friends when it was over and they stopped by our seat at the bar to ask for tips.

Best buds, all around.

Just taking a leisurely stroll along the Chao Praya river in Bangkok.

Say cheese! Aren't they cute. Still on the river, waiting for the local water bus. That's some big crazy bridge that no one cares to recall the name of.

Photo from the boat of Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn.

Here are a couple of photos of the giant reclining Buddha at Wat Pho (they do not sell soup). And we do mean GIANT. In the first pic, Arli is basically standing in the equivalent to a medium sized church, which is entirely filled up with His Goldenness. Arli, btw, had to borrow a scarf b/c she wore a TANK TOP to a TEMPLE. Shaaaaame!

We are just posting this because it makes us look so attractive. We're eating food.
Michelle got distracted from her din-din by a baby Morris. It was so wee.

These are our new best friends at Zeta. Obviously we took this picture through beer goggles. Michelle's dance-off rival is at the right in the plaid shirt.

slow boat to china. i mean thailand

Hey guys what's happenin??!?!

it's our last night in luang prabang and we don't have much time to write. here are some highlights of the last few days:

- we rented a motorbike and cruised around the countryside all by ourselves. it was wonderful fun, after we figured out how to drive it (i took it on a test spin around the block in town and got stuck in a market by accident). we both did a bunch of driving, and decided that we have to get a motorcycle when we get back to the states. to ride around in Brooklyn  ;)

- we visited kuang si water fall and swam in its beautiful blue pools. it was magical. afterwards we ate a coconut waffle.

- we visited a muong village and played with the kids. also ingested water and tea from various highly suspect sources- we're still alive, but MAN that cup was dirty.

- we went on a trek through farming fields and rice paddies to another muong village where we spent the night on bamboo mats. even more painfully adorable half-naked children. we gave them candy and took their pictures. also there were a lot of pigs and chickens and the roosters woke us up in the morning.

- we visited a REAL ASIAN FAIR. yes they have them here and they are just as dirty and seedy and full of junk food as the ones in the US, so i don't want to hear any more complaining when i want to go to the Big E or NY state fair this fall. oh, and before we made it to the fair, we rode our motorbike to this funny roadside restaurant/bar where there was no one but us, the menu was only in Lao, no one spoke english, and we went from having some tofu curry (what we wanted) to duck curry to barbecued duck pieces (which we ttally didn't want). huh. and from spring rolls (wanted) to lettuce rolls to a heavily sauced, lettuce-only salad (not wanted!). it was great!! actually, it was pretty fun and weird.

- we went sort of white-water kayaking and it was fun! my glasses did not fall off. we had a cute guide named Tuy who told us that Lao kids dont' have sex until they are married. if they sleep with someone before they are married, they have to marry them, or their parents get involved and it's ugly. ouch! anyway, the kayaking was great.

as a super bonus surprise for you guys, here are a few photos from the last few days- they are actually CURRENT! not too many an we don't have much time- but enjoy, and feel free to add appropriate captions in the comments section. we are now off to thailand via the slow boat (2 days) up the mekong river to meet Megan and Michelle. oh joy!!

 arli with some cute muong village kids. we have them stuffed in our bags right now, don't worry.

 kuang si waterfall. that's me swimming. the picture doesn't really do it justice (the waterfall, not me. i look perfect).

a muong woman feeding her piggies. they squealed all night long.

me with more cute kids. also stuffed in our packs.

cute little girl lounging with her bread in some inner tubes by the water cave.

me and Tuy and a large pig. this one was apparently the result of a fleeting romance between a regular pig and a wild boar. yuck.

 arli riding our trusty motorbike! she did a good job. it was pink.

Picture Pages!! Not.

So, we are still striking out on uploading photos to blogger, but here are a few lucky ones from the first few days of the trip that made it on to photobucket before we turned into pumpkins:

http://s765.photobucket.com/albums/xx299/arlichristian/

Anyhow, we made it to Laos and love it here. It's beautiful, the people are friendly, and the food is even tastier, if that's possible. They have curry here!

After a harrowing 24 hour bus journey from Hanoi, which left us feeling more like cattle than humans, we made it to Vientiane - the capital city - for a day. We got over our inhumanness with a lovely dinner with Jenn, a college friend who recently moved to Laos. Buffalo stew, red curry, and sticky rice made us smile again. The next day we visited COPE - a center for orthotics and prosthetics for victims of Unexploded Ordnance (cluster bombs and other nasty stuff left behind in the countryside). They had a great visitors center with documentaries and lots of legs to play with - hopefully we'll both come back to volunteer someday. We also made friends with a monk! He asked us lots of questions, including why Sarah was dressed like a boy. He smiled a lot but like a good monk he did not shake our hands or make physical contact.

Next we hit Vang Vieng, the drunk river tubing capital of the world. We went (sober) tubing in a water cave! It was beautiful. Then we kayaked down the Nam Song river and observed beautiful karst cliffs, young children hunting prawns in the river, and the non-native drinking habits at riverside bars. We were both brave enough to try the 20 foot rope swing - and both almost lost our suits in the splash into the water. We made our first real friends of the trip, and shared a three liter Beerlao personal tap.

Now we are in Luang Prabang, soaking up the natural beauty and hitting the handicraft markets a little too hard. Tomorrow after an early start to see the monks make their rounds we will (parents, cover your ears!) rent a moto to head out to explore some caves and waterfalls.

Miss you!

PS - For those wondering who is writing the post, the 'posted by' name at the bottom of the post is the official typer, but the other is inevitable over the shoulder adding comments ;)