The joys of getting lost

This morning after I dropped off my laundry and had breakfast, I decided to wander in the opposite direction of the center of town. It looked like it might be a little more local, and happily it was. I walked down paved roads, dirt roads, past farms, schools, mansions, and shacks. I had no idea where I was going. Well, I had a general sense, but basically I got lost. It was fun, though. Lots of folks, young and old, would smile as they passed by, either on foot, bicycle or motorcycle. The further I walked the more the greeting became just “hello” instead of “hello lady”. I actually got past my camera shyness and took some pictures of people, mostly kids, who were more than happy to have their picture taken. The kids are so cute here and so smiley. I’ve managed to suppress my tendency to reach out and pat them on the head and instead just go for a little handshake now. Touching the head is a big cultural no-no here as the head is the most sacred part of the body. Conversely, the feet are the least sacred and so it's best to avoid putting your feet up on tables and chairs or gesturing towards anyone or anything with the feet.

I took off on my little jaunt around 10:30 or so. A couple hours later with no water left and the hot sun beating down in a cloudless sky, I started to wonder if maybe I had wandered too far. Luckily an older man, probably in his 50s, passed by me on a motorbike on a dirt side road. I was heading in the general direction of town and he asked if I needed a ride. In some cases this might be a bad idea, and I’m sure there’s crime in Cambodia, but it seems to me that 99.9% of the population here wouldn’t hurt a fly. So I hopped on his bike and 10 minutes later I was back in town. I gave him $1.50 and thanked him wholeheartedly for the lift.

I decided to go get myself a fruit shake somewhere and as I was heading toward the restaurant area, I heard my name being called out from inside an internet café. I turned around to discover that Helena from Sweden (also a Hansen!), whom I had met in Vientiane, Laos, had recognized me. So she joined me for a shake and we caught up on recent travel stories. It’s a small, small world indeed. Tomorrow I head to Phnom Penh, the capital. Who knows who I’ll run into there!


This little boy’s parents called out to me from the other side of the road. I said hello back, then decided to take the window of opportunity to ask if I could take a picture. He's even more adorable in person.


This little girl crossed the dirt road to say hello to me as I was taking a picture of some ducks. She was on her way to school.


Back in town I went into a fair trade handicrafts shop where this man was at the pottery wheel.

Pleasantly surprised

It’s just after noon here and already I’ve been up for almost 8 hours. Jesica, Andrea, and I woke up before dawn this morning to take a tuk-tuk to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise there. It was lovely. Despite being templed out, Angkor Wat is definitely worth seeing. It’s enormous and essentially you’re walking around centuries old ruins. We spent about 5 hours there altogether, seeing the main temple and a couple others nearby. I bought a one-day pass and I think that’ll be sufficient for me. Those guys are going back for day three tomorrow. I’m sure the other temples are amazing, too, but I guess I’m more of a drive-by tourist. I’m OK with just scratching the surface of most things, unless it’s something I’m really passionate about. If it were a temple dedicated to the history of food, for example, it might be a different story.

The weather here continues to be hot and humid. What I wouldn’t give for a pool! A few of us were speculating about the possibility of paying one of the higher end hotels in town to let us take a dip. Hmm… Last night I walked around the night market here. It has a different feel than other night markets around Asia. The food section is sparse, unfortunately, although I did manage to get a nice fruit shake. I also got the Siem Reap version of a crèpe, with banana, egg (sort of a custard in a can), and Milo, which is the Nestle Asia version of Ovaltine. It was delicious, if not nutritious.

I have to say, I kind of had low expectations for Cambodia. I decided to come here and to Vietnam because they’re so close, but neither one of them has ever held any special appeal to me. Cambodia has been a really pleasant surprise, however. For one, there’s an incredible amount of social entrepreneurship here, businesses operating with a purpose - employing HIV-positive women, the disabled, or using their profits to fund literacy projects. There’s also an incredible amount of recycling going on - the bags and wallets made out of rice bags, and last night I saw a number of products, from jewelry to photo frames, made from recycled paper and newspapers. So cool. I’m totally inspired and am pretty sure I want to do something like this next. Although I had no idea what I was looking for when I started this trip, it’s possible that I may have just found it.

Welcome to India... I mean Cambodia

I arrived in Siem Reap last night around 8 p.m. Travel days, especially long ones like yesterday, are my least favorite part of the backpacking experience. Of course you meet some great people, but by the time you get to the new place you’re tired, hungry, disoriented, and all you want to do is find a room, a shower, and some food. I traveled with some cool folks yesterday, Andrea from Canada and Jesica from Argentina. Jesica had also recently traveled in India and we both agreed that there’s a bit of an Indian feel to this place. Maybe it was the experience of filling up the bus with gas, which consisted of two boys running up to the bus along the side of the road with three buckets of fuel and a funnel. Or the fact that the poverty here is so apparent; this is definitely not Thailand. Twice already when I’ve been working on my laptop I’ve had people ask me how much it cost. This seems to be the equivalent of the question that Americans ask when they meet people, which is, “What do you do for a living?” Sort of a means of assessing how successful you are and how much money you make.

The other strange thing about Cambodia is that the price for everything is listed in U.S. dollars and this seems to be the preferred currency. You can also pay for things in Thai baht and Cambodian riel, although apparently you can’t take out riel from an ATM. You’re given the choice of dollars or baht and if you want riel, you can only get them at a place of exchange. So in a way, it’s easy to keep track of exactly how much you’re spending, but at the same time it’s a bit odd to be using your home currency in a place so far away.

My traveling companions hit the ground running today and headed to Angkor Wat already. As usual, though, I decided to kick around town. I’d like to get a sense of where I am and besides, I’m not exactly in a hurry, so I don’t need to rush to squeeze things in. Apparently you can get up to a three-day pass for the temple site because it’s so huge. I’ll have to talk with them tonight and see what they think. It’s on the expensive side, for Asia, to get in, about $20 a day. I was already overcharged at the border for my visa, so already I'm a little annoyed with the way things are run here. You can get your visa on arrival, but the folks who bus you over offer the convenience of getting it for you as you wait and eat lunch at a rest stop, however you have to pay them about 50% more. A little for the bus operators, a little for the border guards. Ah well.

I’m staying at a place called the Garden Village. They only had dorm rooms last night, which consisted of a mattress with a mosquito net outdoors, community bathroom, for $1. Jesica and Andrea stayed there, but I decided that while I’m adventurous, I’m not that adventurous. So I got a room down the road, but moved back there today. $6 a night, with a fan and private bathroom. Sweet.

I spent a couple hours walking around what seems to be the center of town. Siem Reap is pretty cool. It's definitely touristy, but not to the point where it feels completely inauthentic. You can't take five steps, though, without hearing, "Hello lady, where you go? You go see temple? You need tuk-tuk?" I do appreciate the fact that they've mastered the difference between sir and madam here, but if I find a t-shirt that says "No, I don't need a tuk-tuk" on the front of it, I'm buying it. I'm just getting really good at saying no again, like India. The other thing that's prevalent here is kids trying to sell you things, like postcards and such. Their shtick seems to be, "Hello lady, where you from?" And then when you tell them America, they start naming off facts about your country. "America. Capital Washington, D.C. President Barack Obama. Population 300 million." And so on. One little girl asked me how long I'd been in Cambodia and when I told her one day she was pretty sure I needed to buy postcards from her. I told her sorry, but I wasn't buying anything, and what I think she said to me, in broken English, was something along the lines of "Sorry doesn't buy food." So... this aspect of Cambodia might be a little hard to get used to. You feel bad, but then aren't you just perpetuating the problem by simply throwing money at it?

There seem to be a lot of organizations here aimed at helping people help themselves, particularly the disabled. There's a pretty significant population of disabled people here because of the landmine problem. In fact I remember I did a big research proposal on it when I was a student at UNH. It's a sad situation, but it's good that there's help. One of the things these organizations do is train people to make things, which they then sell to tourists, and use the profits to fund the organization. One of the coolest products I've seen so far is bags and wallets made out of recycled rice bags, a brilliant reuse for this material in my opinion.


Baby bath, Cambodian style.


This man appeared to be teaching these young fellows something. He was kind enough to let me take a picture, but then of course asked for money. $10 I think he said. Ambitious. I gave him 1,000 riel, which is about 25 cents.