Ho Phuc

Interesting food I’ve eaten this week include: beef tendon (gross), pork liver (don’t categorize it with Pate…and also, gross), pork heart (better than pork liver…but still, gross) and last but not least-baby duck (pretty good!). We were eating with Chi Hien at a street-side restaurant when the bicycle powered food cart came rolling by selling the baby ducks! For accuracy’s sake, they’re actually duck-eggs, with partially formed duck’s on the inside. My duck-egg was considered a young one, which meant that it was about half boiled egg and half baby duck (you could still see its head). The worst part of the egg was that there were partially formed bones in the egg, though you could just crunch through them. The second worst part, which actually probably is the worst part, was the actual sight of the baby duck. I got around that one by keeping my eyes closed the whole time, though once I laid my eyes on that little baby duck I instantly stopped eating it. It’s not like I had some moral confliction with eating a baby duck, it’s pretty damn popular here in Vietnam; it just felt sort of weird. In combination with its lack of particularly memorable flavor means it’ll join the ranks of the spider & the beef tendon in the one and done club.

On Friday we finished our TESOL certification and are officially certified to become teachers! Ha. Anyways, it was sort of a busy week finishing up all the loose end requirements for our certification, so we had a tame weekend. In lieu of our weekly rooftop excursion, we elected for a massage instead.  This was maybe my fourth or fifth since coming to SE Asia and boy did it blow the competition away! Yes, we splurged for the 5-star treatment coming in at 16 dollars for an hour-long massage, but. Cucumber mask freshly peeled, check. Hot stone massage, check. Some amazingly acrobatic knee massage on back, check. A little chiropractic work throw in, check. And finally endless hot tea and candied ginger before and after. I want to go back already.  This evening, we’re going to a “club” with some of our Vietnamese students, so we’ll inform you of how that goes.

                And now for the big news of the week. After countless hours of searching and innumerable amounts of headaches, Ho Phuc is in my possession.  In reality, it took between 7-10 hours and was in comparison a breeze thanks to my two assistants I had working the case for me (my two oldest male students). I mean, I don’t really know what it is, whether they just really want to be friends with an English speaker or what; but damn, these Vietnamese people are NICE. Everyone in Cambodia and the blogosphere just loved talking about how ready the Viet people were to take advantage of you and rip you off, but I have experienced only the polar opposite (knock on wood). As of Friday, save for the tuk tuk’s, I had yet to even ride on a moto. I had been searching aimlessly on craigslist and the expat fb groups for the past two weeks looking for moto’s but let’s be honest, I didn’t know jack **** about moto’s. Chi Hien and Chi Linh were warning me about going to the used moto lots as they have a tendency to give you (foreigners) the worst bikes for the most money. I knew at the end of the day, buying a used moto was going to be a slight roll of the dice, but then again enrolling in this course was a sight roll of the dice.  Well, I figured if I was going to roll the dice I should probably just give my dice to someone who at least knows the ropes. With 15 minutes left in class, Libby came into my class to ask the guys whether they knew where to buy a moto. After a minute or two of processing and rephrasing- “O teacher, you want buy secondhand moto.” And bam, just like that the race was on, instantly they deferred to the oldest guy in the room, who had to be like 28 or 30? This is by no means offensive, as they all talk about it, but until the Viet people turn like around 35ish, they look 10 years younger than their actual age, then for some unexplainable reason the reverse happens around that time. Anyways, his English was quite moderate, so we had the slightly-better English speaking translating for us, as you can imagine the whole thing was a bit of a cluster****. While we made an initial call to one of the moto places, no luck. Then Nam (the guy’s name), went downstairs to employ/defer to the only older guy in the classes- Andy. Downstairs we went to the computers, to start trolling the Vietnamese version of a moto-only craigslist. I liked the sound of this as it bypassed the shady used moto lots. At first I specified I wanted a Honda (what I had at least inferred was the best moto). We found a 2006 Honda Wave at around 6 pm on a Friday night. By that point, Nam had to go to class, and so Andy offered to take me on his moto to the other side of town to check it out. So off we went, my first time on the back of a moto going to look at buying a moto, ha. Hah. Don’t worry, my Grandpa had a manual Honda scooter I used to drive as a kid so at least I wasn’t a moto rookie.  I was somehow able to convey to Andy that the ball was truly in the court, he needed to inspect it, he needed to test drive it, and he needed to ultimately give me the thumbs up or thumbs down. While we made it to the other side of town, looked it up and down, gave it a test ride, called his car dealer friend, and ultimately said no, we would need to wait for his car dealer friend to come take a look at it before buying it-too risky. So back we went after like two hours, I was a little dejected but knew being impulsive wasn’t going to be a good decision. In semi-broken English he said we would go look at moto’s either tomorrow morning or tomorrow evening, the communication was really that unclear. Anyways, I wake up at 8:50 to look at my phone saying we will meet up at 9 and that Nam is coming with too. Nam buys and sells cell-phone’s so Andy said he was the better bargainer, still don’t know how I deserved all this help. Anyways, he had 8 moto’s all picked out from the website he must’ve gotten the night before, after going through 2 of them (which took about 2 hours, crisscrossing Saigon), he said we needed to do more research. Well off we went to the internet café which was funny in itself. Here we were trolling the forums with 25 other little Vietnamese kids gaming so hard in their boxers. Well, we found a Honda Dream II (the moto that keeps on running) but it turned out to be too old. Next, we looked at a Honda Wave that seemed to be too good to be true. It was.  Some Honda’s these days are manufactured in China-this one was. Looked great and was incredibly cheap. I was willing to get something that looked like junk as long as it was going to be reliable (The Dream II), but at 200 dollars and looking spanking new, I didn’t know. Anyways, after like 40 minutes, Andy and Nam confirmed my suspicions and advised no. As it happened, they had a Yamaha they were selling for $275. Going in to my moto shopping, I sort of had pegged that as my sweet spot but were shopping at around the 175-200 level all day, which obviously was fine by me but really couldn’t get you far unless you got lucky. Anyways, after lowering my Honda criteria to simply being made in Japan; honestly lots of Honda’s are being outsourced and Japanese engineering is really the jewel of Asia. I was happy, I let Nam and Andy go through the whole checklist, had Nam try and bargain them down some, but they wouldn’t budge. Nam said it might be a little high, but at these prices a little high is like 20 or 25 dollars, too high. He was saying they only sold moto’s when they needed the money which was also reassuring. I was starting to get a little nervous that I wouldn’t be able to have my assistants pro bono forever so I sprung for it just as the clouds started forming. Well you guessed it, my first moto driving experience in Saigon was in the rain. What seriously saved me was Andy let me drive his automatic back to the hostel saying he would drive the manual.  I don’t want to scare, y’all but I’ll just say learning to drive manual in the streets of Saigon was a bit…challenging. It’s all good now, trial by fire is the best way to learn assuming you don’t go up in a blaze-which I didn’t. So now we got some wheeeeeels- Ho Phuc. Named after our two favorite names in Vietnam (like they are actually really popular names, there’s like 8 or 10 names in Vietnam that the whole country has, it’s pretty funny).  Of the trifecta, part 1 (moto): check.  We have job interviews on Monday so hopefully by the end of the week we can check that off too.

A tidbit from Libby: I was incredibly nervous when Andrew sped away to go inspect motos, knowing he would probably be driving it home.  I encouraged him repeatedly to please practice and learned how to drive it before he hit the streets.  While he was out, I bought a watch, went to the southern women’s museum and got a pedicure (J).  I returned drenched to the guest house to find a beautiful newly purchased motorbike!  It was very exciting but also pretty terrifying when I first got on it.  I made Andrew drive multiple times around the block to practice before I felt confident in his capabilities; and even then, I was praying almost the entire time.  I have driven mopeds before, one time being in the traffic of Rome, but this was a whole new experience.  Although there are traffic lights, that is about the only form of traffic control.  Motos swerve, cut each other off to avoid an oncoming car, drive on the sidewalk to skip a stop light and pop out into the lane.  It’s startlingly chaotic, yet somehow it works quite well.  Everyone is very aware of everyone else and thus very close calls end at that.  We had many close calls but here we are safe and sound.  On a girly note: I got the cutest helmet!  It is white with pink Japanese cherry blossoms, and it was on sale!  Well, now the city seems infinitely open to us as we can vastly increase our exploration territory.  As Anh Andrew says, until next time! 

(pictures to come)

Ca phe sua da

It’s been one week since we’ve arrived, and it seems like this city just keeps getting better.  First off, the guesthouse location is a two minute walk to our school (awesome). The two Viet women that run Language Corps here are incredibly nice and helpful and do a great job of fostering a community of past program participants within Saigon. For example, Chi Hien holds a curry-Monday at a lunch stand around the corner from the school for all the program alumni.  Secondly, the guesthouse is in District 3 which is in the heart of downtown and universally regarded as the prettiest (doubly awesome). It has literally been a night and day experience from staying on the very edge of town far from school in Phnom Penh; but then again, Phnom Penh vs. Saigon is like night and day. Being in the heart of downtown, most everything is in walking distance. We have taken the bus twice (both unnecessary trips) but other than that we haven’t needed to take a moto or taxi for anything.

On a typical day of school, you just go get Vietnamese coffee from one of the like 4 vendors on the street that range from 45-65 cents. Vietnamese coffee is great, every Viet person is very proud to tell you that Vietnam is the second largest coffee producer in the world behind Brazil (I skip telling them the minor fact that when it comes to coffee production, quality not quantity are what matters). Anyways, the process of making Vietnamese coffee is similar to a fusion of slow drip coffee and espresso. You pour water over espresso sized grounds (the smallest) and let it soak through the grounds for 30 minutes. The most well-known coffee is Ca phe sua da which is a shot or two of coffee, condensed milk and sugar. Mocha’s can’t compete, neither can Lattes, thankfully, my stomach forced me to drop the condensed milk and go with the simpler and less desert-esque (and slightly cheaper (by about 5 cents)) ca phe da. After your one or two ca phe’s, if you’re feeling hungry, you can get your 50 cent Bahn mi- French bread, fried egg, cilantro, pate, soy sauce, chili sauce, sprouts baguette-literally across the street from the school and the coffee stands. If you’re feeling especially hungry you can get the 1.25 broken rice and pork which is also delicious and is located in the same alley as our school. For lunch, there are an endless amount of options: 2-3 types of noodles, Pho, Vietnamese stuffed pancakes, currey, doner’s, pizza. All of these options are within walking distance of course. Thankfully, with all these delicious eating options there just happens to be a great park also within walking distance where we have already gone running in a few times. The park also happens to be a great place for people watching, at all hours of the day there are always people playing badminton, sometimes having dancing lessons or dancing workouts, the occasional thai kickboxer and people doing what appears to be Wushu? That or Vietnamese karate. On Friday evening, we were having a bottle of wine in the park  when a mother came up to Libby and asked if she could take a picture of Libby with her baby.  The woman said she was from Hanoi (I guess blonde people are more rare up there), needless to say Libby was pretty excited to finally get the coveted “baby pic.” After the park, we went to see some live music. There are dozens of places with live music on a weekly basis and at least four designated music clubs. We didn’t find any rock n roll, but we found some decent Vietnamese music singing pitch perfect American 90’s pop rock which was fun.  The bar (We’ll have to look up the name) was super interesting, super close, and packed with people excited to “cheers” with us.

The next day, Saturday, Christine had gotten one of our students to take her around the city today as her tour guide, and we joined her. The only problem is that ‘Maria,’ knew the city about as well as we did. We ended up walking all around district 1 and little bit of district 4.  She showed us how the bus system worked (kind-of) and we went to her favorite Pho place which was very delicious. She’s been in Saigon for three years and is in her last year of university but came from a small town in central Vietnam. The university students that come from the country run a TIGHT budget which means they pretty much aren’t able to go out and drink like normal college kids get to in the States. That and the whole concept of a “dive-bar” simply doesn’t exist here in Vietnam. It’s kind of sad because Chi Hien was trying to explain that these students might spend the equivalent of a single beer at a “club” for a week’s worth of expenses including food. So for fun, the majority of the students say they like to get coffee for fun. I think this dilemma might stunt their social growth because we asked what Maria liked to do and she said she really enjoyed watching movies. When we asked which movies she liked she said she really liked the Disney Channel and all the shows and movies on Disney (She’s 21 or 22). Anyways, maybe it’s not any worse, just different. She’s really nice, and Libby and I are going to make it a point of hanging out with her again. Our next plan is to go to the water park with her but she still needs to acquire a bathing suit which is kind of funny, will keep you informed.

After we finished our tour with Maria, Libby and I started doing research on roof-top bars. We stumbled upon Chill Sky Bar the first time we explored Saigon but since the photo is on Libby’s iPhone and it’s now out of chronological order, I’ll introduce Chill Sky-bar upon our return visit. All you need to know is that it’s a pretty over the top awesome bar on the 26^th floor of a skyscraper. Needless to say, our interests were piqued in regards to the whole rooftop bar scene in Saigon. Well, after doing a little research we decided our next rooftop bar would be “Broma,” which was awesomeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Set in a four story French colonial building, it has a really cozy feel in the trees, candlelit, great music that ranged from Spanish guitar to French house, and a nice staff. It seems like a keeper. Yes, 4^th floor can’t really compete with 26^th but at least we can go to Broma when it isn’t happy hour. After having a cocktail at Broma, we ventured back to Sax N Art, a jazz club we stumbled across during our tour with Maria earlier in the day. The club is owned and headed by the first, and maybe only Vietnamese saxophone player to get a scholarship to Berklee College of Music. He really is incredible, and for the sake of time (need to watch this movie we bought at the DVD store down the block for the great price of 50 cents) if you want to look him up go to saxnart.com.  In Vietnamese terms it was expensive with a five dollar cover, but it was really really really cool.  He really had his own style of heavy jazz with a bass guitar and a hard-hitting drum player so between Broma and Sax n Art we had a great night. We wrapped up the weekend by going to mass at Notre Dame Cathedral and had a nice “brunch” at this French style Ca phe. Everything about the ca phe seemed French except the food, but who cares!

On To The Next One

This past weekend the group went to Sihanoukville as our last hoorah of sorts before we spread out to our respective countries. Six of the group members stayed put in Cambodia; two went to Thailand while Libby, myself and the designated “cool aunt” of the group, headed to Saigon for the last two weeks of our program. Jan is 50 years old but has no trouble hanging with us younger folks. She’s a drug counselor in the Seattle school system and is planning to move with her husband into semi-retirement over here in Vietnam next year. It’s cool to see someone her age still be able to relate to people our age, and she has an awesome retirement scheme (these beaches are amazing), but like the majority of the people looking to move here for an extended time period, she doesn’t really have any familial ties back home. She’s recently married, doesn’t have any kids, doesn’t talk to her sister, and both of her parents were only children. In her position, it seems like a no-brainer, but still. The same goes for two of the younger girls, both come from divorced families, the normal one (from Nebraska) also escaping from a broken off engagement. The other one, the black sheep of the group, hailed from the northern reaches of Canada (New Brunswick(ish), and had never been out of the country. One of the most important rules I’ve set for myself is to complain as little as possible, and she seemed to totally miss the memo. A, it only makes the situation at hand even worse and B, it seems to invite/attract more annoying things to complain about.  However, with Libby always chirping in the background that I should be nice to her, I was slowly able to forgive her ridiculous crassness (she told us her types of boys were construction workers) and her nonstop whiney attitude (I’d be bitchy too if I was from middle of nowhere Canada). What was really the kicker was the sob story of growing poor with the single mother working two jobs with no supervision, getting into trouble in school ect ect. And I’m being serious about it being a sob-worthy story, which is the eternal dilemma in this situation, where do you draw the line between being standoffish and rude and just recognizing personality differences between the two. These past two weeks have been like the first week of college on steroids. You’re around these people 24/7, they are the only people that can really speak your language and you all are experiencing some degree of culture shock, so we’ve gotten to be quite good friends with a couple of the people in our group, but I’m so thankful that I came to Southeast Asia with my buddy/confidente/best friend whatever you want to call Libby in this situation. My brother did the same when he went to Korea with his best friend, and I think it takes a lot of the pressure/tension off trying to adjust to a new culture by having to try and force a best friendship that could backfire after a lot of investment was put into ect ect. Nebraska and Canada immediately hit it off over some commonalities and were already planning on living together after about 5 days of knowing each other. As the days went by and Nebraska started recognizing Canada’s flaws, it got a little awkward and catty as Nebraska slowly distanced herself and starting befriending our little group which wasn’t very accepting of poor ole Canada… Anyways, we’re in Saigon now with Jan as our only other program mate (so the drama has essentially ended) so I’ll stop with this pseudo-serious rubbish, I see now our petty drama doesn’t really translate well into words not to mention the constant boy talk. I had to try though. Maybe in the next post I’ll devote a brief section to our very, um, eclectic program mate from Santa Clause, Indiana, just because.

There have been some comic developments in our lewd and crude section. First, the Buddhist Karma I was secretly hoping for in my first post seems to be alive and well over here. For weeks leading up to our departure for Southeast Asia, I was very vocal about my greatest fear about coming to SE Asia was how my poor stomach was going to handle the infamous meats over here. And right after my public confessions, Libby would always interject about her Ecuador maymester in college. She was always so proud of her “iron stomach,” and how everyone in her group in Ecuador got sick during their month abroad except Libby!!! I always was like, cooool (in my head of course). Anyways, during my first week in Cambodia, while I lay locked in tremendous sparing matches with the bacteria laden meat, I actually thought Libby’s gloats may actually have a shred of truth in them. Then came week number two. Let’s just say Libby finally broke down and asked me if Immodium would help her feel better. I won’t go any farther, that may not even make it past her edit session. Anyways, for me, I’ve settled into a digestive pattern remarkably similar to the rainy season that literally started about a couple days into our stay in SE Asia: sometimes it drizzles, a lot of the time it pours, sometimes it literally strikes without warning, sometimes the clouds and wind brew before the coming onslaught.  Which provides us with the perfect segue, and, I promise, the last of my “toilet sessions: live from SE Asia.” First off, let me just say that I’ve fallen in love with the “bum gun,” a true symbol of Asian ingenuity and efficiency. That being said, the bum gun only works in combo with toilet paper; and, most importantly it is predicated on having sufficient water pressure… Which finally brings me to the most infamous of Water Closet options in SE Asia-the squat toilet. It’s pretty much self-explanatory, and in concert with the bum gun doesn’t really prove much of an issue. It’s when the bum gun goes missing that the squat toilet really gains its reputation. It’s replacement-a plastic pale you use to scoop a standing reservoir of water with. I had been forewarned about this devious variation in the water closet and after two weeks had felt pretty clever over never getting into one of these sticky situations. Which brings us to the bus ride to Sihanoukville. A simple 4 hour ride, nothing to worry about. We stopped at the bathrooms, which our director Rick told us was a “nice bathroom,” well, I had been getting a few rumbles in my stomach during the first hours, akin to the clouds gathering. There was a decent line and a few of the girls were in line in front of me, well, being the clever one I had TP packed in my backpack in the bus and thinking I was going to be nice and gentlemanly offered to go get them some of my TP, by the time I dug around my backpack and came back, the proverbial monsoon struck, just in time for me to open the door and lay witness to my first squat toilet. First off, the toilet is tiny, I mean you’re aiming for a target about 6 inches wide and a foot and half long, which doesn’t provide much margin of error. What the squat toilet needs is like a handle to hold onto because it’s really awkward trying to balance a squat and hold ‘er steady, sorta felt like the map guy/aimer in a B-52 doing a run over Tokyo or Dresden. Anyways, after it was over, I just stood looking confused because the whole thing was manual and I didn’t know what to do next. After about a minute or two I heard a big splash next door and putting two and two together, I washed it down with a pall full of water. By the way, I think the reservoir gets contaminated by the waste. I shudder to think about what would have happened without TP…

Back to Sihanoukville. Parts of it were dumpy and touristy, and some parts were amazing. Got my first dose of SE Asia white sand tropical beaches which are amazing. It was bittersweet leaving some of our good friends and leaving behind some of our not so good friends. Have been in Saigon for a day now, which seems like a paradise compared to Phnom Penh, seriously. Glad I got to have a healthy dose of Cambodia, enough to feel like I probably don’t need to ever go back unless it was another excursion to Angkor Watt. I need to go explore more of Saigon so I can report back, and also need to describe the absurdness of driving in Cambodia (think Autobahn meets Frogger), but I got a little sidetracked with the squat toilet, and my toilet sessions needed a proper finale- so till next time.

Sihanoukville Pictures from our boat trip below, and view from dinner on the beach-grilled Baracuda is very very delicious. Meaty like Salmon, yet very white and mild.

                

On The Road Again

For better or worse, we had an eight hour bus ride to Siem Reap this past weekend with the other 9 members in our program. The love-hate relationship I hold for my fellow program-mates vacillates wildly and frequently. Though to be honest, it’s more of a like-hate relationship. Even then, I’m still not sure whether the like end of the spectrum is merely a result of the unceasingly optimistic attitude that’s important to have when living/traveling in a developing country. But at the end of this week, we probably won’t see the majority of these people again for the rest of our lives, so it doesn’t really matter. Anyways, we took an 8 hour bus ride in one of those 10-12 person vans, and it was, shall we say, rugged. It was pretty surprising that the highway linking the two major cities in Cambodia was 60-70 percent dirt road. Honestly, I was just happy (and also amazed) we didn’t get a flat tire; I think they must have magic rubber in this country. What a handful of our group do not seem to realize, still, is that complaining doesn’t a) quicken the uncomfortable experience or b) lessen the uncomfortable experience in any way. At one point our van ran out of air conditioning coolant and was only blowing air essentially and the backseat just turned into a chorus of complaining b******. For one, why the f*** did you think it was a good idea to bring denim to the equator? Secondly, talking about the pool of sweat your a** is sitting in isn’t going to make said pool of sweat disappear. Thirdly, using such explicit language doesn’t invoke empathy from your fellow passengers. Honestly, the temperature of the van was HOT, but I was sort of expecting HOT when I decided to come to Southeast Asia, so I was fine. Then again, the only materials I brought with me to SE Asia was nylon and linen. There’s three types or maybe “styles” of hiking clothing here. There’s the “traditional,” which isn’t really traditional, style of Cambodia clothing which is really light, pajamy style of cotton with elephant or other patterns on it. Unfortunately, this style makes you look a bit too much like a dirty hippie/backpacker and reminds me too much of Bonnaroo. Then there is the “normal” or modern western style of say jean shorts and a t-shirt. Except we all know that ends up in a pool of sweaty a**. Then, there is choice number three, you may get a few chortles in the beginning, but after a couple hours when you’re the only one feeling fine, looking like Dora the Explorer and Indiana Jones doesn’t seem that stupid after all (Libby & I). I keep thinking this is a good segue into the personality summary of our group, but there’s more I’d like to recap of the weekend, so I’ll get to it shortly!

Back to Siem Reap: I can’t help but thinking the only reason Siem Reap, a town of one million, exists is because it is the gateway to Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples. Also, I can’t blame them for creating an entire city/economy around this 7th wonder of the world. Angkor Wat is amazing/breathtaking/brilliant; everyone who can go should go. That being said, it’s a bit of a bummer that the city you have to stay in is just one giant tourist trap. I do think I want to go back before I leave Southeast Asia, but it’s tough; there’s no great way to do Angkor Wat. There will probably always be hordes of tourists (and for good reason), so there’s no real rustic or authentic way to do it. I thought maybe hiking the 17 mile loop of all the temples would be a great way to see the sites, but after experiencing the heat & humidity, there’s no way in hell; not to mention the many warnings we heard of leftover landmines in the jungles.  It might be a different story in December, but we’ll see.  Either way, it’s one of the seven wonders of the world, and after seeing this as my first wonder of the world, it’s my new mission to see all seven.  Anyways, besides the actual temples, Siem Reap had the “night market” and “pub street.” Night market was just the usual shmorgishbord of designer knockoff’s, grubby hippie ware, ect. ect. ect.  There were some decent things inside the maze, and Libby got to work on her negotiating skills (1/3^rd original price), but we still have some ways to go, I think 1/4^th to 1/5^th would probably constitute a “good deal.” Pub Street, the Cambodian version of Bourbon or Beale was pretty fun, though most everyone was fixed on the World Cup games which come on at 11 pm and 3 am here (big bummer). We got a taste of traditional Khmer dancing at one of the restaurants on this street, and though some of the reviews questioned its authenticity, we realized that a vast majority of Cambodia’s culture was obliterated with the Khmer Rouge. So we were happy with their effort (it was free, so there was no suckering going on). The tour guide we had for Angkor Wat (yes, touristy, though pretty knowledgeable so a visit with a tour guide and without would probably be the ideal) had very personal stories about the Khmer Rouge. Both his grandfather and his uncle were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Three million out of a country of six million were killed by the Khmer Rouge, and when you think that anyone who was educated was targeted and all of the libraries burned, a shocking amount of their cultural heritage was destroyed in those 4 years. Y’all can probably read a book on it if you’re truly interested (Libby just finished First They Killed My Father), but the Khmer Rouge truly were a testament to the brutality of human nature and the sort of psychotic rabbit’s hole our nature can go down. Hrur’s (pronounced very similar to whore, ha) grandfather was killed by a bamboo stick, where he was tied to a tree, had his throat partially cut and bled out over the course of six hours. There were countless other instances of much worse methods involving water (couple of weeks), acid, scorpions, sun, ect. Families ripped apart, forced marriages & children of Pol Pot ect. Bullets were only available if you could pay for your death, and some people chose to eat a poisonous fruit that induced a death involving blood coming out of the capillaries of their skin, which I’m sure hurt really, really, badly. Anyways, it was sort of unsettling hearing these stories while exploring such a wonder but it was unique to be able to hear such a close-hand account.

Off of the depressing tangent and back to Pub Street. It could probably be summed up best by one of the bar’s slogans- The Angkor What- “promoting irresponsible drinking since 1998.” A little tidbit of our group, there’s 10 of us, 1 very strange looking 40 year old man (who’s actually growing on me a lot), a very interesting and well-traveled 50 year old woman (mom of the group shall we say?) and 6 other girls ranging from 18-24. Needless to say, these girls loved getting Angkor What wasted, making out with what at that wasted moment in time seemed like exotic looking Australians, Europeans, South Americans (mainly Losers Back Home (LBH)) all while absolutely sweating their a***# off (if you can’t tell, it’s becoming a major theme of southeast Asia) and then puking in various parts of the bar and street. All in good fun though, so much to write & so little time. At least I’m away from the incessant-ironical turned unbearable- “are we there yets” from the bumpy bus ride home, so I should be able to expound more about the interesting personalities in the coming days. Till Next time

Here's an interesting food item worth trying once..but not twice. We stopped at a place called "Spider Village" en route to Siem Reap. The Khmer spices cover up any of the possibly (??) bad tastes, however we weren't adventurous enough to take a bite out of the actual body... The only problems with the legs were the decent-sized hairs still attached

Here are a few photos from Angkor Wat and the surrounding Wats/Temples. It takes a while uploading photos with my connection...so i'll be uploading a few more in the coming days

just a few pictures to update with, Libby and I made it down to the waterfront and ran across "Fish&Co," a restaurant that happened to have a fish tank out front where you stick your feet in and the fish eat your dead skin. It was three dollars for 30 minutes in the tank and a free beer so we decided it was worth.

We sat next to these Scottish people who recommended "18" for dinner. We had fish amok which made it my second "amok" dish of the day-the first being chicken amok for lunch. Besides the street food, fish/chicken amok is the first truly Cambodian dish I've tried since arrriving (I don't think they have too many originals worth having). The amok dish is quite good, I highly recommend it, it has a sauce similar to that of Northern Thai Curry. Better yet, we had our first spicy thing in Cambodia! The amok came with soy sauce with a few pieces of pepper soaking in the soy sauce (great idea), well we tried the pepper in our amok dish and it turned out that a small pepper about the size of 1/4th of your pinky finger nail was hot, not hot enough to warrant milk or a spoonful of sugar but it was still refreshing to have something spicey. Anways, feel like I'm rambling, couple pictures from where we take our TESOL course below

Vietnam-Cambodia Friendship park & statue across the street from school

Meeting white people* turned out to be just what the doctor ordered.  Furthermore, it turns out our guesthouse is on the edge of town so white people do actually exist in Phnom Penh and there are a multitude of eating establishments with English menus. They seem shockingly expensive compared to our “authentic” Khmer food (think 3-5 dollars compared to 1.75 for a meal), but we just had a Nepalise/Indian meal this afternoon that was the most filling & satisfying meal since our arrival.  We left feeling full for the first time.   Anyways, back to the tour on Sunday afternoon, we met our TESOL course group at the tour, there are 10 of us and it is quite the amalgamation of characters, more on that to come. I’m still trying to figure everyone out, and I’m hoping to group them into a linnus-esque system of personalities, though even the strangest ones are warming on me.  The tour was pretty standard, a couple different Wat’s (name for Buddhist Temples, Angkor being the biggest one), the palace, and a multi-story mall full of western style over-priced amenities. Pictures below.

I’m going to go into more detail regarding the different personalities among our group and our teachers, but I’m a little sleepy at the moment. We just watched the Killing Fields which is a worthwhile flick to devote a couple hours to if you haven’t already.  We are planning on going to the torture prison & killing fields next Thursday, so we’ll post pictures of that when the time comes. Anyways, we drank a bottle of wine during the movie, first wine in Southeast Asia, feels just like home! The only problem is between the 7 dollar bottle of wine and the Indian meal, we spent more today than in the last three days combined, but what can you do; sometimes you need to live a little (and also, hence the sleepiness). One last thing I wanted to share, I feel like this needs to have a devoted section within the blog-the “Lewd & Crude” per se. In Cambodia, toilet paper is not a standard accessory in the “water closet.” What they have instead (in the fancy bathrooms at least) is a spray hose (think old-school kitchen sink) that takes the place of toilet paper.  Anyways, half of the week we have our TESOL course at the local university, and today was one of those days. After our enormous, and enormously satisfying Indian lunch, I headed straight for the university bathroom only to find the forewarned bathroom with spray-hose. At first sight, I turned around and went back to the classroom figuring I could wait an afternoon till we got back to guesthouse. Well after another two hours I was starting to get self-conscious with my active stomach in close proximity to the rest of the class, and in the name of science, I went for broke during the next break. The jet pressure was strong enough presumably for a sanitary job.  The only problem was shaking around doing some sort of dancing jig by myself in the stall trying to air-dry as quick as possible, all the while still having a strange sensation from the jet-stream!

 Anyways, all in good fun, pretty busy with this 8-6 learning how to teach business so I’ll try and keep y’all informed as best as possible.  Angkor Wat this weekend so great pictures to come, but till next time!



* Per Zoe's comment: In SE Asia, "white people" refers to all western non-asian people.  It does not have the offensive racial undertones as it does in America.