Thursday, May 28, 2009
Day 30: Mersing Malaysia
For my fellow partner in crimes blog please go to:
www.docboneshk.blogspot.com
I'm a little jealous of his pictures and thorough details, but by plugging his blog I also thank him
that I don't have to do this myself, and it still gets done. Cheers Adam!
Here's a creation from Ha Long Bay courtesy of Adams sister Kristen.
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/7403/jumph.gif
Well big news for today and foremost consuming thought for today, is that apparently the rumor that my work visa didn't go through is indeed true. The plans for the next three months of my life, including the time to procrastinate and figure out what happens after those three months, has completely vanished, leaving me without future in a small sleepy village in Malaysia.
Apparently a degree in Electrical Engineering does not qualify me to be a teacher in the greater outdoors. There were no certifications to put on the forms and no master climber to phone for a reference, I guess its back to washing dishes at Cracker Barrel. I guess reality had to come back sooner or later though. Maybe I'll retire to the woods of Bohol for a spell, pretty cheap to live there. Maybe I can figure it all out under a coconut tree. Anyways, everything happens for the better. New horizons, new challenges, and new things to discover. The past always drops off the back anyhow, no sense thinking that just because you can see the future that it doesn't go the same way...
And thats that. Day 30, now Day 1.
www.docboneshk.blogspot.com
I'm a little jealous of his pictures and thorough details, but by plugging his blog I also thank him
that I don't have to do this myself, and it still gets done. Cheers Adam!
Here's a creation from Ha Long Bay courtesy of Adams sister Kristen.
http://img16.imageshack.us/
Well big news for today and foremost consuming thought for today, is that apparently the rumor that my work visa didn't go through is indeed true. The plans for the next three months of my life, including the time to procrastinate and figure out what happens after those three months, has completely vanished, leaving me without future in a small sleepy village in Malaysia.
Apparently a degree in Electrical Engineering does not qualify me to be a teacher in the greater outdoors. There were no certifications to put on the forms and no master climber to phone for a reference, I guess its back to washing dishes at Cracker Barrel. I guess reality had to come back sooner or later though. Maybe I'll retire to the woods of Bohol for a spell, pretty cheap to live there. Maybe I can figure it all out under a coconut tree. Anyways, everything happens for the better. New horizons, new challenges, and new things to discover. The past always drops off the back anyhow, no sense thinking that just because you can see the future that it doesn't go the same way...
And thats that. Day 30, now Day 1.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Day 20: Tales from the Fish Market
Disclaimer:___________________________________________________________
Gweilo :: Definition :: White Ghost :: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guizi
This term we use alot in Hong Kong; its a term that the locals use for 'white' people. I've since fully adopted this term into my everyday venacular, and have found myself quite dependent on it.
________________________________________________________________
Ah...sleep feels really good and necessary right now, better reset the the alarm another hour until 10...anyway, I'm on Filipino time now... I'm starting to wonder whether it may have been more of the Saint Mikes talking last night rather then my better judgment. Whether I was joking or not when I asked Jonalyn if I could work with her in the fish market the next day, she didn't even hesitate in answering when she said yes...
Had a evening out last night with Jonalyn, 'the girl from the fish market'. More like a double - Jona brought her friend Jade(?), for Adam I supposed. Glenda and Cyril made it out too with Jessica bedding down the young-ins. I joked for Glenda for her to put on her dancin' shoes tonight, but I've since learned that you don't make jokes like this with her and Cyril. It had slipped my mind that the skills Cyril has having been in a dance troupe that toured the world, would surely have transferred over to Glenda. They had some pretty saucy moves on the dance floor at Slabadu, and maybe it made it a little easier to act silly out there knowing I wasn't going to try to measure up.
Since Glenda is very a very outgoing type, it wasn't long into the first set to when the band announced that there was a special guest in the house tonight that was going to come and play a song: "All the way from New York, Adam and James"! Umm...shit. Classiest place I'd have ever played. I figure I need to try to make this fun, so I opt to play drums to Adams Folsom Prison on guitar out front. No matter if I play shitty on em, it always cracks me up a little just banging on the skins. My shyness eventual wore off, and as well noted at the Karaoke bar later in the night - a screaming rendition of "Light my Fire". Jonalyn kept asking me if I sang and if I'd sing some David Cole or some other fancy pancy stuff. And when she said she liked the Doors rendition, I think the plan to go the opposite route worked for the better....
____________________________________
I noticed Jona the first day that we went to the fish market with Glenda, when she was using a her fish hatchet to cut up a 2 kilo yellow fin tuna. I spotted her right away, didn't even have to look back. The prettiest girl in the market, gleaming with sweat and surrounded by flies, and rotting fish.
The merkado (market): Always the experience. Being the only Gweilo's, we end up being the headlining attraction. You can scan the stalls and almost inevitably you see at any one time, a small group of Filipino market workers looking at you and laughing with their friends, some just smiling and laughing to the themselves. The children being very interested in the Gweilo, they'll follow you around just staring at you, then they'll shy away when you met there stare or try to engage them. At times it's really exciting to be so 'popular', other times its slightly overwhelming; not being able to understand what anyone is saying, and always on the front lines, as it were.
Jonalyn I think took a far amount of abuse from her friends and family and accqaintences today at the Market.
She taught me how to rip out the entrails out of the fish from the gill flap, and I was basically her lacky for an hour or two, fetching ice and watering the fish to keep fresh. When I tried to chop a fish up with the hatchet, I think Jona's Manug (mom) yelled at her . Her friends would ask if I thought she was pretty and if I liked her, when I told them yes they would go into slight hysterics and then turn away giggling. Her aunts and elders would ask her, among other things, if I was going to be her husband. Others would say some remarks that seemed to shy Jona away. When I asked her about these instances she would just say she couldn't translate. I was curious if these remarks were attempts to hurt her, which pissed me off a little bit.
When I first got to her fish stall at around 11 am our area consisted of only each stall worker behind their bounty, which later seemed to turn out that all where related to Jona in some way, mostly cousins of one sort or another. Each 'stall' is basically a flat tiled tilted table with various fish piled facing the customer. Each stall borders the next and encircles the workers in a small wardoned off area filled with entrails, fish stock, styrofoam bins, flies, blood, and lots of puddles. About a dozen stalls in each batch and aisles for the customers between the dozen or so of these stretching far in to the distant market. As this being just the fish area, there's pork areas, vegetable areas, knifes, crafts, etc, etc, and everyday filling the light from crack of dawn to well in the night, the market breathes a life of its own. Families working the same stalls for 10, 20, lifetimes. I suppose you could liken it to walking into someones living room, I guess then maybe its only natural to have people so curious as to who the foreigner is.
Jonalyn works the market 6 days a week from 7:30 am to 8:30 pm, 230 pisos a day (just under $5 usd), and with a 3 year old baby at home with the sitter yet to be paid. Jona's of a real tough kind of manner, when I first saw her, fish guts and sweat smeared on her apron and shirt, hatchet in one hand and bleeding chunk of tuna in the other. But with one of those smiles that manages to even slow the pace of the market to a mere hum.
... The sun sits high in the town of Consolacion, another 90 +, and the streets are filled with never-ending traffic, and all the noises that go with it. Groups of Filipino's congregating in all the usual places, and the coming's and the going's - endless. Motorbike taxi operators gather to one side, one leaves with a fare on the back, and one returns and starts the wait. Jeepneys, crisscrossing the main artery, visible to our world on the side street. Continuing to pick up fares on the side of the road until the back of the converted pickup truck is filled to max capacity. 7 piso's to ride. Not bad to get a handful of miles up the road for half a quarter.
Jonalyn goes back to market after my lunch invitation at Glenda and Cyril's. I walk her as far as the internet cafe with vague plans of hanging out Friday night. It still surprises me how short she is. The first couple times I saw her in the market, the bench she stood on must have added at least a foot. Back to the market... think I'll sit this one out. As I watch her walk back with her friend Anna, she turns and waves and the heat drops heavy now. I catch a kid with a 6 string out of the corner of my eye and decide to wander over. Renea, as was his name I later learned, offered me a seat and hands the beaten acoustic guitar to me. Without the right high E string, I opt not to tune that one it in fear it might break. After singing a couple of songs for them and recognizing that they don't know any songs that I may know, I summon the Derek Delzer in me, and start with the name game. Renee, and Khalil both 14( another verse) get quite a kick out of this. I sing about the pregnant lady with a baby in her tummy and the kid on the street with no food in his. I sing a couple about the fish market, and same same everyday. And carpenter hammers across the way and as sun bleaches the street a couple more seem to come. I say farewell to my new friends and hand the now more or less in tune guitar back to its owner. "Thanks for singing with us they say", as I retire to the air-conditioned sanctuary, and high tech machinery. The whole rest of the world so close, but for so many just a rumor of an even stranger place.
Gweilo :: Definition :: White Ghost :: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guizi
This term we use alot in Hong Kong; its a term that the locals use for 'white' people. I've since fully adopted this term into my everyday venacular, and have found myself quite dependent on it.
________________________________________________________________
Ah...sleep feels really good and necessary right now, better reset the the alarm another hour until 10...anyway, I'm on Filipino time now... I'm starting to wonder whether it may have been more of the Saint Mikes talking last night rather then my better judgment. Whether I was joking or not when I asked Jonalyn if I could work with her in the fish market the next day, she didn't even hesitate in answering when she said yes...
Had a evening out last night with Jonalyn, 'the girl from the fish market'. More like a double - Jona brought her friend Jade(?), for Adam I supposed. Glenda and Cyril made it out too with Jessica bedding down the young-ins. I joked for Glenda for her to put on her dancin' shoes tonight, but I've since learned that you don't make jokes like this with her and Cyril. It had slipped my mind that the skills Cyril has having been in a dance troupe that toured the world, would surely have transferred over to Glenda. They had some pretty saucy moves on the dance floor at Slabadu, and maybe it made it a little easier to act silly out there knowing I wasn't going to try to measure up.
Since Glenda is very a very outgoing type, it wasn't long into the first set to when the band announced that there was a special guest in the house tonight that was going to come and play a song: "All the way from New York, Adam and James"! Umm...shit. Classiest place I'd have ever played. I figure I need to try to make this fun, so I opt to play drums to Adams Folsom Prison on guitar out front. No matter if I play shitty on em, it always cracks me up a little just banging on the skins. My shyness eventual wore off, and as well noted at the Karaoke bar later in the night - a screaming rendition of "Light my Fire". Jonalyn kept asking me if I sang and if I'd sing some David Cole or some other fancy pancy stuff. And when she said she liked the Doors rendition, I think the plan to go the opposite route worked for the better....
____________________________________
I noticed Jona the first day that we went to the fish market with Glenda, when she was using a her fish hatchet to cut up a 2 kilo yellow fin tuna. I spotted her right away, didn't even have to look back. The prettiest girl in the market, gleaming with sweat and surrounded by flies, and rotting fish.
The merkado (market): Always the experience. Being the only Gweilo's, we end up being the headlining attraction. You can scan the stalls and almost inevitably you see at any one time, a small group of Filipino market workers looking at you and laughing with their friends, some just smiling and laughing to the themselves. The children being very interested in the Gweilo, they'll follow you around just staring at you, then they'll shy away when you met there stare or try to engage them. At times it's really exciting to be so 'popular', other times its slightly overwhelming; not being able to understand what anyone is saying, and always on the front lines, as it were.
Jonalyn I think took a far amount of abuse from her friends and family and accqaintences today at the Market.
She taught me how to rip out the entrails out of the fish from the gill flap, and I was basically her lacky for an hour or two, fetching ice and watering the fish to keep fresh. When I tried to chop a fish up with the hatchet, I think Jona's Manug (mom) yelled at her . Her friends would ask if I thought she was pretty and if I liked her, when I told them yes they would go into slight hysterics and then turn away giggling. Her aunts and elders would ask her, among other things, if I was going to be her husband. Others would say some remarks that seemed to shy Jona away. When I asked her about these instances she would just say she couldn't translate. I was curious if these remarks were attempts to hurt her, which pissed me off a little bit.
When I first got to her fish stall at around 11 am our area consisted of only each stall worker behind their bounty, which later seemed to turn out that all where related to Jona in some way, mostly cousins of one sort or another. Each 'stall' is basically a flat tiled tilted table with various fish piled facing the customer. Each stall borders the next and encircles the workers in a small wardoned off area filled with entrails, fish stock, styrofoam bins, flies, blood, and lots of puddles. About a dozen stalls in each batch and aisles for the customers between the dozen or so of these stretching far in to the distant market. As this being just the fish area, there's pork areas, vegetable areas, knifes, crafts, etc, etc, and everyday filling the light from crack of dawn to well in the night, the market breathes a life of its own. Families working the same stalls for 10, 20, lifetimes. I suppose you could liken it to walking into someones living room, I guess then maybe its only natural to have people so curious as to who the foreigner is.
Jonalyn works the market 6 days a week from 7:30 am to 8:30 pm, 230 pisos a day (just under $5 usd), and with a 3 year old baby at home with the sitter yet to be paid. Jona's of a real tough kind of manner, when I first saw her, fish guts and sweat smeared on her apron and shirt, hatchet in one hand and bleeding chunk of tuna in the other. But with one of those smiles that manages to even slow the pace of the market to a mere hum.
... The sun sits high in the town of Consolacion, another 90 +, and the streets are filled with never-ending traffic, and all the noises that go with it. Groups of Filipino's congregating in all the usual places, and the coming's and the going's - endless. Motorbike taxi operators gather to one side, one leaves with a fare on the back, and one returns and starts the wait. Jeepneys, crisscrossing the main artery, visible to our world on the side street. Continuing to pick up fares on the side of the road until the back of the converted pickup truck is filled to max capacity. 7 piso's to ride. Not bad to get a handful of miles up the road for half a quarter.
Jonalyn goes back to market after my lunch invitation at Glenda and Cyril's. I walk her as far as the internet cafe with vague plans of hanging out Friday night. It still surprises me how short she is. The first couple times I saw her in the market, the bench she stood on must have added at least a foot. Back to the market... think I'll sit this one out. As I watch her walk back with her friend Anna, she turns and waves and the heat drops heavy now. I catch a kid with a 6 string out of the corner of my eye and decide to wander over. Renea, as was his name I later learned, offered me a seat and hands the beaten acoustic guitar to me. Without the right high E string, I opt not to tune that one it in fear it might break. After singing a couple of songs for them and recognizing that they don't know any songs that I may know, I summon the Derek Delzer in me, and start with the name game. Renee, and Khalil both 14( another verse) get quite a kick out of this. I sing about the pregnant lady with a baby in her tummy and the kid on the street with no food in his. I sing a couple about the fish market, and same same everyday. And carpenter hammers across the way and as sun bleaches the street a couple more seem to come. I say farewell to my new friends and hand the now more or less in tune guitar back to its owner. "Thanks for singing with us they say", as I retire to the air-conditioned sanctuary, and high tech machinery. The whole rest of the world so close, but for so many just a rumor of an even stranger place.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Day 19 Monday May 18: Mmmm....fertilized duck embryo
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_(egg)
Special Filipino delicacy last night - Balut, Irvin said I'm half Filipino now.The 16 day old fertilized duck embryo is quite different the 19 day old. Considering they hatch at day 21, you may imagine what type of delicious treats await you just below the vieny interior of the shell. I thought the best ways to take this to the extreme are as follows: (1) First you get a table full of 21 day old eggs spread across it. Gather a group of fellow immorals, and make a game of it. As soon as the egg starts moving, grab it, crack it open, and gabble it down. Of course for the less daring, care should be takin' of beak and feet bones. This could be a fun drinking game, maybe with whiskey or Absinthe. (2) The second and which is still in development, is to some how have the embryo already in your mouth right before it begins to hatch...
Yesterday, toke it quite easy. Stayed mostly in V&G, which seems just to be a label for a certain grouping of houses, of which is ours. Us, consisting of: Adam, Syril, Glenda(32), Olive(2), Elyse(4), Aaron(11), Jessica (23?) (or Roberto is you wish) and me.
The girls are really funny - and all the time, and I think the language barrier works well, it's pretty fun trying to repeat what they say and add strange sounds of my own here and there. They don't seem to even miss a beat, or really even care that we can't entirely communicate by words. They've taken to me Adam easily and like to crawl all over us, it's quite normal to be sitting on the couch with monkey babies climbing the lattice barred windows behind your head, or on your head for that matter. Elyse and I trade up being each others hair stylists, while Olive seems to be having a deeply involved conversation with me. As for Aaron, he is my main translating assistant, and he sometimes takes it apon himself to want to teach me random new words whenever I'm in one of my Cebuano comprehension modes. Compared to the girls, he is rather quiet; although, he does help to translate some of what the girls are saying, or anyone if I ask.
As for Cyril, father of the household, he works the graveyard shift at an IT customer service company, as has been for I believe three years now. I haven't gotten quite to the heart of it, but I think if you have some type of trouble with some software and you call a tech person, you get him; I'll have to get back on specifics. Cyril is a very accommodating host, and has made me feel very welcomed in his home.
As for Jessica, or Roberto if you wish. Jessica is the families resident transvestite house keeper. It took me a little while to learn that she (as I've settled on this pronoun, although I've heard Glenda and Irvin use opposing ones) is paid for her services. She lives in a spare room, stays all week, leaves for the day to go back to her village and then returns the same. She seems to perform, or help in all the house hold duties, but mostly Cyril and Glenda prepare the meals. As much as I try to engage her, and while Glenda says she is very shy, she sometimes seems to ignore me. Nonetheless, I continue to try to loosen her up a bit.
Glenda, I feel is our saint here. She really looks out for us, and is very open and genuine. She likes to be joking, and trys hard to make us feel comfortable. One joke that I especially was fond of was when we she took us to the Barber. The shop was a small room packed with 6 swivel chairs, with just as many barbers, and just as many patrons. After a gaggle of Filipino chatter with much laughing at our expense she explains how she had just arranged for Adam and I to be sold, and how tomorrow we would be dead.
In other news... went SCUBA diving for the first time last Thursday. Always thought I maintained a residual fear of claustrophobia from growing up, so I was wondering how this was really going to go. Had some initial trouble re-pressurizing my brain, but was able to figure it out after a bit... The city streets of Cebu are very populated and polluted: noise pollution, exhaust pollution, excretion pollution; its hot, steaming, and a full onslaught on your senses. You can't drink the water out of the tap; one the reasons being because the local politicians decided it was a good idea to put a dump at the mouth of the local tributaried watershed system; thus, up sucking all matter of shit up stream and into local reserves... Despite having the ability to scrap pollution sludge of your front teeth after a bike ride down the main strip, it not hard to escape it all. Some of the waters I've seen off the shores in more remote areas are aqua clear, and once on the bottom: corals, vivid fluorescent colors, strange sea creatures. Sea horse looking like snakes about 8 inches long, pulsating plants, upside down fish. I soon realize I haven't looked up in awhile. When I did I was about 35 feet down. A sudden surge cycled through the system, My vitality is really starting to be dependent on the whim of this equipment, and on my own state of calmness. Scary thought, as I look ahead to the our guide followed by Adam. They start to descend over the edge into the dark abyss, over a ridge that spans the peripheral far past my lines of sight. Another surge as I try to re-immerse myself in the floor of coral and calmness...
Can't wait to go again.
About one more week in Cebu and then one to Malaysia via Singapore. Tonight I believe Irvin's friend Lino is taking us out to eat in Lapu-Lapu City, and then maybe hang out with some local Filipino girls from the market place that we kind of met when we bought yellow tail tuna the other morning. Glenda subsequentely went bact and got one of their phone numbers. We see how this one plays out, might be highly dependent on the level of English they know...there's always Karaoke.
Interested note: Lapu-Lapu is the Filipino warrior that is said to have laid Ferdinand Magellan on his spear at the battle of Mactan. One of the boats that was in Magellan's fleet (Maria?) later returned to Spain, and thus chalking up the first circumnaviation of the globe.
Day 18 : May 17 - Cebu
A mouse brushes up against my heel as I sit in my internet cafe stall separater, 12 Pisos for a hour of 'connection', about a usd quarter. Coke's in the fridge 6 Pisos. Little girl runs away from the computer near to me that her mother has led her too. Trying to lay out some travel plans and stay "up to date'...
Last night watched Ong Bak, and hit the hay. Really wanted to hit the town for one of my only Saturaday's but just could not muster the reserves. Did a solo mission on Friday which turned out pretty well, but yesterday after biking for some odd 40 km, just couldn't do it on my own. If your in a place where you know no one, and in this case can barely communicate at times with anyone, then It often takes big jolt once you get somewhere to keep the night going. Any how, well rested after a big day of mountain biking two different Islands in the Philippines: Mactan and ? (the bird sanctuary Island).
Lunch on the Bangka. Some fish called Sunghan, which looks like a very stern Disney fish character, pulled some creature out of a shell and ate it, pork, and some others...tasty. Toke a swim near the boat, but when I saw the lavatory empty about a foot above the water and splash and disperse, and then the same with the kitchen sink filled with entrails, I decided to get out. Hmm, I was wondering how to flush that toilet earlier.
... time for dinner! and got to get back to the homestead. Adam and a family of five waiting on me for a 6:30 sup ...
Last night watched Ong Bak, and hit the hay. Really wanted to hit the town for one of my only Saturaday's but just could not muster the reserves. Did a solo mission on Friday which turned out pretty well, but yesterday after biking for some odd 40 km, just couldn't do it on my own. If your in a place where you know no one, and in this case can barely communicate at times with anyone, then It often takes big jolt once you get somewhere to keep the night going. Any how, well rested after a big day of mountain biking two different Islands in the Philippines: Mactan and ? (the bird sanctuary Island).
Lunch on the Bangka. Some fish called Sunghan, which looks like a very stern Disney fish character, pulled some creature out of a shell and ate it, pork, and some others...tasty. Toke a swim near the boat, but when I saw the lavatory empty about a foot above the water and splash and disperse, and then the same with the kitchen sink filled with entrails, I decided to get out. Hmm, I was wondering how to flush that toilet earlier.
... time for dinner! and got to get back to the homestead. Adam and a family of five waiting on me for a 6:30 sup ...
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Day 16 - Friday 15th - Cebu
Still alive and in Cebu. No time to write blogs, and no computer that's easy to get to to use.
Causalities: Ipod, cellphone (# 2), and I can't find my sunscreen. I think the Ipod might be in the bathroom of the Pakse, Laos airport, or somewhere in that string of events. Anyway, all's well, rid of extra baggage...
Causalities: Ipod, cellphone (# 2), and I can't find my sunscreen. I think the Ipod might be in the bathroom of the Pakse, Laos airport, or somewhere in that string of events. Anyway, all's well, rid of extra baggage...
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Day 10: Kuala Lumpur Airport
Traveling day today.
Up before 6 a.m... Sall supposedly waiting with the Tuk-tuk down on the street for a 6:15 ride back to the Seam Reap Airport. One of the mornings when you think it must be some kind of twisted joke that a person should be asked to actually get up and function. One of the most tired moments I've felt since the start on this little jag, all the way back to when I dragged myself on a plane bound for Hanoi; with a total of around 3 out of the last 48 hours of sleepy time.
A strange blurring sequence of movements, somehow when you have no good choice there are other levels of consciousness that can move you from A to B. Good thing everything is packed and ready to go. Back down to the streets that mere hours earlier were filled with all manner of red light traffic. Even small children asking for money for food; tourists stumbling out of bars on Pub Street and the working girls making the rounds. Grifters hounding for dollars. Quite a gregarious group actually, once you ignore their prying and engage them in some conversation, they easily drop the relentless peddling.
Last night, I had to give a good go for our the last night in Seam Reap, Cambodia. Meghan and Adam however decide and with sound judgement, I suppose, that they'd call it an early night. Solo mission, through the hot, crowded, crazed streets. Maybe I can find a little more of the underbelly.
The temples are hands down mind blowing. You can go pretty much anywhere in any of them. The best thing to say of them is that they are definitely something to see. Some of them I suppose feel like stone villages acres in size, with every surface intricately carved, rooms inside of rooms (or tombs), giantly carved faces towering on looming spires, vast moats on the order of miles, elaborate stone pools inside of open cathedral interiors, every last block geometrically symmetric and connected, etc, etc, and all of this and much more crumbling from a millennium of wear and abandonment.
After a full day at Angkor Wat, and the surrounding temples, we were quite drained yet again. The weather however was much more cooperative then the day before, with enough cloud coverage the blazing sun was kept at bay for a least a good portion of the day, and allowing a little more time to just stand out in the open at the different temples. At the one pub I went to the owner had said that the day before had been something like 102 degrees. Today, a little cooler but to put in a little better context you still break to a pouring sweat - just under a minute.
We hired Sall out to be our Tuk-tuk driver for another day. Sall is a 31 year old local Khmer who has live his entire life in Seam Reap. He has been driving "taxi" for seven years now, of which the last 2 he has been going the Tuk-tuk route as opposed to the straight motorbike taxin'. Tuk-tuk is definitely the way to go, for Sall and for us, and arguably the best way to get around a place like Seam Reap. You can sit in your covered little carriage, about 4 people max ( most comfort for 2), attached to the back of the motorbike and your good to go. Angkor Wat is big place and they say you need at least 3-4 days to get a good soaking of the sights. For those that have time, and like to sweat til they puke, then a tradish bike would be good. For Sall he makes more money for the more people he can take, so he eventually upgraded once the bike was paid up, and now he's able to rent the Tuk-tuk trailer for $1 a day.
Sall would turn out to be quite good timer, and once the sights were scene, we met back up with Sall later in the night. We went back to the hotel to recup and see if Adam was still alive. Big night the night before in Laos(I think I personally clocked an hour or so of sleep), but we all get hit in weird ways sometimes, and Adam was out of commission for Seam Reap day 1. A new addition to the team however is Ted from Pennsylvania. We met him at the airport coming in and shared a taxi to town, and our paths converged for the day and into the night.
After a couple hour recup - power nap from moment in the door - with a good bout of some horrofic dreams - to waking to Ted and Adam ready to go. Feeling better and geared for Cambodian night life. Meghan takes the night off and hangs low, while the three of us meet up on the streets with Sall.
In southeast Asia, you don't go clubs, you go to the Disco Tech, or Risco Tech as Buon (pronounced Boone) from Pakse, Laos would say. Sall had plans for the boys, and we were at his mercy. We hopped in the Tuk-tuk and away we went. First we ate at a local little street side Khmer restuarant. Sall every couple of weeks when he has saved enough money to take his wife and seven year old son out to eat. Full on with plastic lawn chairs grouped to tables stretched from the front of the store/restaurant front to the road side. Any Khmers here, as Sall explains that no tourists come here, and that none of the workers speak English. A big clay pot with cover sits in front of us, on propane burner, working on a boil. A handful of other dishes surround us awaiting for their turn to be piled into the cauldron. Some of a vegetable nature, some of meaty, fishballs, raw egg on a pile of beef. We order the local Angkor beer and settle into the conversation. One main theme and goal is trying to get to know Sall a little better, and another and more constant theme: trying to figure out what each other is trying to say. After sometimes strenuous effort, we all try to mange clever and different ways to say phrases to get our points across. Sometimes we settle. Sometimes one question may be met with us clinging to to understand an answer pretaining to something completely unrelated, but then often only peaking a curiosity elsewhere. Mostly Sall speaks of his poverty and his work, his sacrifices so that his son can go off to a English speaking school, his general "lot" in life. Despite his hardship, he does not come off bitter, I'm left with an impression that he just is happy today to have had a day of work, and hopeful that tomorrow will be the same.
Couple brewskers down, and really starting to relax in the heat and commotion of the night. We pay the check and leave the restuarant. Garbage strewn under the tables, noise and dirt blowing in from the streets, mixing with all manner of smells, some pleasant some of more septic qualities. All joining in a thick heat, as we part it, we head back to the Tuktuk, mixed with others of the same same kind, parked this way and that, we climb in back while Sall kick starts the ailing engine. Although Sall must be earning more with pulling around this trailer apparatus, his small motor scooter engine must no doubt be taking its toll. Low gear and heavy thuds bring us out to a sea of motor bike traffic, and lights. With the relief from the claustrophobia, the wind that hits once in the Tuk-tuk is one of the best places you would want to be.
We go here to there, checking for somewhere that hasn't closed up. Friday night and the boys looking for some action. Sall says all closes by 12, only 10:30 or so, but eventually find a nice restaurant/bar with a tropical feel. Grass roofs, dirty floors, wooden planked structures. Seven hostesses greet us at the entrance, all standing in matching dress, hands folded and bowing, welcoming us. This appears to be their only job. When we would leave later I noticed a string of these types of places along the road. Always around seven young girls in matching dress, sitting, waiting at their entrances. Everyone immediately takes notice of us, sits us, pampers us, and stays standing near the table awaiting our any whim. The place is dead but the Karoake, as everyone knows, always dies a pianful death. However, somehow these girls train for this, couldn't understand Sall completely on this point, but they all were quite amazing.
10:15 - Kuala Lumpur. Need to go pick up our ticked to Cebu.
Once on the plane in Seam Reap, try to sleep; however, the aisle seat does not approve so easily. Nausea and changing pressure, swallowing seems to be no help. Make it the the KL food court. Meghan departs back to Hong Kong. Eat KFC and sleep desk style for a good 4 hours, waking up every 20 minutes, rearrange pinched nerves, and sore muscles, and then hit the deck.
12:47 am - Monday. ---> off to Cebu.
Up before 6 a.m... Sall supposedly waiting with the Tuk-tuk down on the street for a 6:15 ride back to the Seam Reap Airport. One of the mornings when you think it must be some kind of twisted joke that a person should be asked to actually get up and function. One of the most tired moments I've felt since the start on this little jag, all the way back to when I dragged myself on a plane bound for Hanoi; with a total of around 3 out of the last 48 hours of sleepy time.
A strange blurring sequence of movements, somehow when you have no good choice there are other levels of consciousness that can move you from A to B. Good thing everything is packed and ready to go. Back down to the streets that mere hours earlier were filled with all manner of red light traffic. Even small children asking for money for food; tourists stumbling out of bars on Pub Street and the working girls making the rounds. Grifters hounding for dollars. Quite a gregarious group actually, once you ignore their prying and engage them in some conversation, they easily drop the relentless peddling.
Last night, I had to give a good go for our the last night in Seam Reap, Cambodia. Meghan and Adam however decide and with sound judgement, I suppose, that they'd call it an early night. Solo mission, through the hot, crowded, crazed streets. Maybe I can find a little more of the underbelly.
The temples are hands down mind blowing. You can go pretty much anywhere in any of them. The best thing to say of them is that they are definitely something to see. Some of them I suppose feel like stone villages acres in size, with every surface intricately carved, rooms inside of rooms (or tombs), giantly carved faces towering on looming spires, vast moats on the order of miles, elaborate stone pools inside of open cathedral interiors, every last block geometrically symmetric and connected, etc, etc, and all of this and much more crumbling from a millennium of wear and abandonment.
After a full day at Angkor Wat, and the surrounding temples, we were quite drained yet again. The weather however was much more cooperative then the day before, with enough cloud coverage the blazing sun was kept at bay for a least a good portion of the day, and allowing a little more time to just stand out in the open at the different temples. At the one pub I went to the owner had said that the day before had been something like 102 degrees. Today, a little cooler but to put in a little better context you still break to a pouring sweat - just under a minute.
We hired Sall out to be our Tuk-tuk driver for another day. Sall is a 31 year old local Khmer who has live his entire life in Seam Reap. He has been driving "taxi" for seven years now, of which the last 2 he has been going the Tuk-tuk route as opposed to the straight motorbike taxin'. Tuk-tuk is definitely the way to go, for Sall and for us, and arguably the best way to get around a place like Seam Reap. You can sit in your covered little carriage, about 4 people max ( most comfort for 2), attached to the back of the motorbike and your good to go. Angkor Wat is big place and they say you need at least 3-4 days to get a good soaking of the sights. For those that have time, and like to sweat til they puke, then a tradish bike would be good. For Sall he makes more money for the more people he can take, so he eventually upgraded once the bike was paid up, and now he's able to rent the Tuk-tuk trailer for $1 a day.
Sall would turn out to be quite good timer, and once the sights were scene, we met back up with Sall later in the night. We went back to the hotel to recup and see if Adam was still alive. Big night the night before in Laos(I think I personally clocked an hour or so of sleep), but we all get hit in weird ways sometimes, and Adam was out of commission for Seam Reap day 1. A new addition to the team however is Ted from Pennsylvania. We met him at the airport coming in and shared a taxi to town, and our paths converged for the day and into the night.
After a couple hour recup - power nap from moment in the door - with a good bout of some horrofic dreams - to waking to Ted and Adam ready to go. Feeling better and geared for Cambodian night life. Meghan takes the night off and hangs low, while the three of us meet up on the streets with Sall.
In southeast Asia, you don't go clubs, you go to the Disco Tech, or Risco Tech as Buon (pronounced Boone) from Pakse, Laos would say. Sall had plans for the boys, and we were at his mercy. We hopped in the Tuk-tuk and away we went. First we ate at a local little street side Khmer restuarant. Sall every couple of weeks when he has saved enough money to take his wife and seven year old son out to eat. Full on with plastic lawn chairs grouped to tables stretched from the front of the store/restaurant front to the road side. Any Khmers here, as Sall explains that no tourists come here, and that none of the workers speak English. A big clay pot with cover sits in front of us, on propane burner, working on a boil. A handful of other dishes surround us awaiting for their turn to be piled into the cauldron. Some of a vegetable nature, some of meaty, fishballs, raw egg on a pile of beef. We order the local Angkor beer and settle into the conversation. One main theme and goal is trying to get to know Sall a little better, and another and more constant theme: trying to figure out what each other is trying to say. After sometimes strenuous effort, we all try to mange clever and different ways to say phrases to get our points across. Sometimes we settle. Sometimes one question may be met with us clinging to to understand an answer pretaining to something completely unrelated, but then often only peaking a curiosity elsewhere. Mostly Sall speaks of his poverty and his work, his sacrifices so that his son can go off to a English speaking school, his general "lot" in life. Despite his hardship, he does not come off bitter, I'm left with an impression that he just is happy today to have had a day of work, and hopeful that tomorrow will be the same.
Couple brewskers down, and really starting to relax in the heat and commotion of the night. We pay the check and leave the restuarant. Garbage strewn under the tables, noise and dirt blowing in from the streets, mixing with all manner of smells, some pleasant some of more septic qualities. All joining in a thick heat, as we part it, we head back to the Tuktuk, mixed with others of the same same kind, parked this way and that, we climb in back while Sall kick starts the ailing engine. Although Sall must be earning more with pulling around this trailer apparatus, his small motor scooter engine must no doubt be taking its toll. Low gear and heavy thuds bring us out to a sea of motor bike traffic, and lights. With the relief from the claustrophobia, the wind that hits once in the Tuk-tuk is one of the best places you would want to be.
We go here to there, checking for somewhere that hasn't closed up. Friday night and the boys looking for some action. Sall says all closes by 12, only 10:30 or so, but eventually find a nice restaurant/bar with a tropical feel. Grass roofs, dirty floors, wooden planked structures. Seven hostesses greet us at the entrance, all standing in matching dress, hands folded and bowing, welcoming us. This appears to be their only job. When we would leave later I noticed a string of these types of places along the road. Always around seven young girls in matching dress, sitting, waiting at their entrances. Everyone immediately takes notice of us, sits us, pampers us, and stays standing near the table awaiting our any whim. The place is dead but the Karoake, as everyone knows, always dies a pianful death. However, somehow these girls train for this, couldn't understand Sall completely on this point, but they all were quite amazing.
10:15 - Kuala Lumpur. Need to go pick up our ticked to Cebu.
Once on the plane in Seam Reap, try to sleep; however, the aisle seat does not approve so easily. Nausea and changing pressure, swallowing seems to be no help. Make it the the KL food court. Meghan departs back to Hong Kong. Eat KFC and sleep desk style for a good 4 hours, waking up every 20 minutes, rearrange pinched nerves, and sore muscles, and then hit the deck.
12:47 am - Monday. ---> off to Cebu.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Day 9: Last night in Seam Reap
Last day in Seam Reap, Cambodia. Toured another bunch of 'Wats' today. And tomorrow catching a plane early to Kuala Lumpur, and on to the Philippines later the same day. Sweat pouring for most of the day, and hot, hot temps. Draining, but somehow renewing. Nice and easy tonight, as yesterday was a bigger one.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Day 7: Savannakhet to Pakse
Slightly hung over and definitely not enough sleep. Arrived in Savannakhet midday. Air conditioned padded seats, started from Hue, Vietnam at 6 a.m... Good sleep for a change, but barely time to scarf a coffee before minibus driver is at the hotel ushering us along. The opening of the hotel courtyard gives a view of the back alley we've come by. Sprinters flicker by and moments later a screaming Vietnamese woman in hot pursuit. Everyone around me and in sight rushes to the alley. Not to be left out I make it to the alley just in time to see a teenage kid being lightly frisked. Petty theft maybe. Ask someone what happened but just a smile and a "no problem" from the minibus driver. Next bus for Laos is in two days and no time to be anymore curious...
- $4 Hotel called Impressions: swimming pool, air conditioning. Didn't have whole hell of a lot of time for Hue, but managed to walk the Perfume River and get a whiskey/rum coffee.
- $35 Lao visa
- 2 buses - ~10 hours of travel ( Hue to Savannakhet)
Laos does indeed seem to be quite the sleepy place. Scattered - just off side of road - shacks, corragated, and straw roofed, sitting 6 feet or so on stilts. Random water buffalo's, dogs, pigs, chickens, cows. Weather reminds me New Mexico, 90's and nice and dry.
- After walking the Mekong in Savannakhet, we happened upon a game of petang (very similar in Bocce ball or that game you play with the saw dust and the sliding metal pucks), just so happens to be a Lao guy there who lived in Montgomery, AL, 6 years, and knows a little bit of English. Before we know it were getting pissed on BeerLao's and playing petang with 8 Lao-ian's, and having a shit of a time saying the three Lao words we know. Definitely came together. One second walking the streets and not being able to even communicate a hello, to a good ol' fashion piss fest. High fives, beer chugs, mockings, drunken hugs, etc, etc...hence to get back to the start... slightly hung over today, and definitely not enough sleep.
If only my knee's would fit behind the bus bench seat in front of me. Another bobbing torture sleep. The thing about this is to support the head, lots of positions seem like a good idea when your really tired, but may not be when your neck decides it's job is done. Persistence is the key though, and sacrifices must be asked of other parts of the body. On the five hour bus ride to Pakse I could probably have totaled two hours of "good enough rest". Glimpses of consciousness: More than once someone poking me for a ticket and mustering a series of movements to produce one, having to sit up because someone needed to sit next to me, realizing someone was sitting next to me, street vendors speaking gibberish standing in the center aisle of the bus holding sticks of something resembling bat kabobs in one hand and beetle kabobs in the other, and the 50-60 times my head was bouncing off my chest - waking me long enough to process a snapshot of Lao life.
Route 30. Main artery running the height of Southern Lao. Many scenes to speak of, that I won't overkill here. Third world stuff I suppose. Lots of people laying in hammocks under their houses. No one really too interested in a western face, and a welcome respite from Vietnam with all the grifters. Motorbikes, motorbikes...straw roofs with a motorbikes. Everyone smiles, and any Lao that I've talked to has been nice. The hotels and tourist offices are very helpful and overly accommodating, and no one gets pissed off at you if you refuse something (unlike a handful in Vietnam).
Once in Pakse: $5 a piece to bed down. Probably sleeping tonight in better comfort than 95% of Lao-ians. I read the middle class income is something like $100 a month...
...anyway, all well from Lao. No significant mozzie pop. to speak of so far. Lao seems to be a little more expensive in these towns than Vietnam which is surprising with the average spending of a Lao-ian at around $2 a day. Better Iced coffee than Tim Horton's for sure.
- 10,000 Lao Kip for an Iced coffee. (about $1.15 or so).
- 20,000 for pasta
- $4 Hotel called Impressions: swimming pool, air conditioning. Didn't have whole hell of a lot of time for Hue, but managed to walk the Perfume River and get a whiskey/rum coffee.
- $35 Lao visa
- 2 buses - ~10 hours of travel ( Hue to Savannakhet)
Laos does indeed seem to be quite the sleepy place. Scattered - just off side of road - shacks, corragated, and straw roofed, sitting 6 feet or so on stilts. Random water buffalo's, dogs, pigs, chickens, cows. Weather reminds me New Mexico, 90's and nice and dry.
- After walking the Mekong in Savannakhet, we happened upon a game of petang (very similar in Bocce ball or that game you play with the saw dust and the sliding metal pucks), just so happens to be a Lao guy there who lived in Montgomery, AL, 6 years, and knows a little bit of English. Before we know it were getting pissed on BeerLao's and playing petang with 8 Lao-ian's, and having a shit of a time saying the three Lao words we know. Definitely came together. One second walking the streets and not being able to even communicate a hello, to a good ol' fashion piss fest. High fives, beer chugs, mockings, drunken hugs, etc, etc...hence to get back to the start... slightly hung over today, and definitely not enough sleep.
If only my knee's would fit behind the bus bench seat in front of me. Another bobbing torture sleep. The thing about this is to support the head, lots of positions seem like a good idea when your really tired, but may not be when your neck decides it's job is done. Persistence is the key though, and sacrifices must be asked of other parts of the body. On the five hour bus ride to Pakse I could probably have totaled two hours of "good enough rest". Glimpses of consciousness: More than once someone poking me for a ticket and mustering a series of movements to produce one, having to sit up because someone needed to sit next to me, realizing someone was sitting next to me, street vendors speaking gibberish standing in the center aisle of the bus holding sticks of something resembling bat kabobs in one hand and beetle kabobs in the other, and the 50-60 times my head was bouncing off my chest - waking me long enough to process a snapshot of Lao life.
Route 30. Main artery running the height of Southern Lao. Many scenes to speak of, that I won't overkill here. Third world stuff I suppose. Lots of people laying in hammocks under their houses. No one really too interested in a western face, and a welcome respite from Vietnam with all the grifters. Motorbikes, motorbikes...straw roofs with a motorbikes. Everyone smiles, and any Lao that I've talked to has been nice. The hotels and tourist offices are very helpful and overly accommodating, and no one gets pissed off at you if you refuse something (unlike a handful in Vietnam).
Once in Pakse: $5 a piece to bed down. Probably sleeping tonight in better comfort than 95% of Lao-ians. I read the middle class income is something like $100 a month...
...anyway, all well from Lao. No significant mozzie pop. to speak of so far. Lao seems to be a little more expensive in these towns than Vietnam which is surprising with the average spending of a Lao-ian at around $2 a day. Better Iced coffee than Tim Horton's for sure.
- 10,000 Lao Kip for an Iced coffee. (about $1.15 or so).
- 20,000 for pasta
Monday, May 4, 2009
Night in Hue. Slicky and thick, and the mozzies are starting to come out. Guess thêre's not much to worry about on the coast, but starting to look at them a little more suspicisously. As for Hue, alot less hustle and bustle then Hanoi, although still more than enough grifters hounding you to buy something you don't want. As soon as you show the least bit of interest in anything, for example if a bike carrier guy is hounding you that you need a ride with him, and if you make the mistake of asking how much, then his making up the seat for you and coraling you in. On the other hand, alot more people tend to speak english and a lot more people will say hello. Today we were all pretty worthless in the afternoon, After the 12 hour bus ride we decided to get off before our scheduled stop in Hue and toke a tour the DMZ (demiliterization zone), where the heaviest conflicts of the war toke place. quite sureal to say the least. We toured through a network of North Vietinemese tunnels that they lived in for 18 months: birthed children thêre, etc....have to write more later something is seriously ưởng ưith this keyboard. Keep having to corect all these strange characters that kêp appearing....though all í s ưell and on to Laos tomorrow after another 12 hours of bus rides. Good night Vietnam.
Day 5
Arriving in Hue. Another bus ride. 2 Hours from Hang Da where we started this one out. Arrived at Hang Da after a 12-13 hour overnight bus ride. Sleep was not ideal and trying to get to the bathroom was attempted to cross the human jungle gym. Tried to wait it out for hours, but eventually summoned the movtivation to make it happen...pretty beat up at this point but got a Hotel with a pool for $5 USD a piece, and now back to figuring out how we'll get back to Hang Da to catch our already paid for bus over to Savanakhet in Laos....
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