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.
Glad that $600 camera takes more pictures than just squat toilets.
ReplyDeleteThankfully there's the point and shoot to go where SLR's don't dare
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