What the hell am I doing?

I'm about to get on the back of a honda crotch rocket motorbike for a week in the Cambodian countryside. A motorbike, not a motorcycle, and part of this trip back down the godawful road that brought me here in the first place. For $5 and 6 hours on a bus, I could be in Phnom Penh by early afternoon tomorrow. But no. I have to be frickin Angelina Jolie (I wish) and head out to see the real Cambodia. I'm excited about it and panicking at the same time. Today was the worst torrential downpour that I've ever seen in my life. Buckets of rain for about 6 hours. Hopefully that means that the next week will be completely rainless, right? I know that this is going to be one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and what the hell do I have to complain about when I can rent myself a posh splurge room for a night to rest and recover while most of the people around me here are still left with nothing, sleeping in the rain. We're making a big loop of northwestern cambodia, returning this way to head south for phnom penh after visiting Heang's family. He is excited for me to help his sister to practice her english. He's a super smart guy - eager to learn and knows a lot about cambodian history. He's quick with a gentle pat on the shoulder when it all gets too much for me to bear emotionally, and he unintentionally makes me feel guilty for my minor complains and issues. I swear to all of you - you would never complain about anything else in your life if you spent just one week in a place like this. There is more poverty here than you can image if you haven't seen it, yet few people (usually only the amputees) ask for a simple handout. Everyone works so hard for anything that they can get, and from sunrise to sunset, laying roads in the most miserable of humid heat, and selling what trinkets they can to tourists. Sure it can get annoying to be seen as a wallet with legs, but they're trying so hard that it's only fair to do what you can to help. We're going to load up in Sisophon with what I can afford and deliver food and clothes to some of the villages. Hopefully I won't break the bank in just this one week...

I'm off in the morning. I'm sure I'll have a series of long blogs to catch up with when I get back to a computer. Wish me luck.

I love geckos

They are everywhere. They eat bugs. And they drop their twitchy tails when you try to catch one :) We got our 3 day passes for Angkor Wat yesterday and headed out to see the temples for a few hours. Angkor Wat is really impressive, the most intact of all of them, and HUGE!! We also went to Bayon at Angkor Thom which is right there nearby. I think that's my favorite of all of them. It's more of a ruin, and there are super cool faces everywhere. After 4 hours, we'd had enough - in particular of the kids selling things all over the place. I met two cute boys in Angkor Wat, Spiderboy and 007 as they've called themselves. They followed me around for about half an hour just chatting away in pretty good english that they've learned from tourists. It's really tough walking around the temples here. There are stalls everywhere, and as soon as you get out of the motocart, you get swarmed with kids trying to sell drinks, books, handbags, scarves, books, you name it. And if you buy anything from anyone, you get half a dozen more who see you as an opportunity. I had a hard time of it today out at the old capitol. My driver (who is fantastic, and I'll write more about him in a bit) wanted to stop for lunch, so we went into a stall area. I bought a can of soda, and quickly had a girl fanning me with a menu, three kids putting flowers in my hair, and a little boy put a bamboo leaf ring on my finger. I gave a girl $10 for a handbag (they were 3 for $5, but I just gave her the extra), and she gave me a scarf as a souvenir. She was so sweet, but then a woman who saw this came over and was shoving postcards in my face telling me "You bought from these girls, now buy my postcards." I just lost it and started to cry because you feel like if you could buy something from everyone that you see, you would want to be able to help, but you just can't. So it gets exhausting and heartbreaking to see people with nothing when we're all so fortunate back home, and yet there is so little as an individual that you can do to help. And they're not just begging for money - they buy these things and turn them around to sell for profit, so at least they're doing their best to work for anything that they can get. Enter my absolutely fantastic moto driver, Heang, who was comforting me with pats on the shoulder (while still reminding me how lucky I really am). He has plans to try to put together an organization independent of the corrupt cambodian government where he can buy food, clothes, school supplies for the even less fortunate kids in the countryside who don't even have tourists to sell things to. He showed me pictures of a village school that was a palm thatched roof, no walls, and a few tables with benches. He's really nice and an excellent driver (I'm convinced he's the safest driver in all of Asia). He offered to take me on a 5 days motorcycle tour through the countryside between here and phnom pehn, and I'm seriously thinking that I might do it. It'll be a physically and emotionally draining experience, but one that I think would be good for my heart and soul.

On a lighter note, I can now say that I've been clubbing in Cambodia. It's not exactly what I'd expected to be doing on this trip, but my two companions were up for a night out, so we went. It was a good time. We started at a bar called Angkor What? (which I later found out donates a bunch of their profit to the local charity children's hospital). I signed the wall. So if you're ever in Siem Reap, go to the bar and find my signature at the top of the right pillar outside over the specials menu. "A gecko was here, www.phdtraveler.blogspot.com I got the tail ;)" Right before I signed that, I tried to catch a gecko on the ground, and it left me with its twitchy tail. Did I mention that I like geckos? and monkeys, too.

We're getting up super early in the morning to catch sunrise at Angkor Wat, so I must be off. Sorry for the terribly long blog. If I take this motorcycle trip, you all won't hear from me for a few days while I'm in transit.

Filthy but happy and safe and sound

12 hours door to door, we're in Cambodia!!! I can't believe that I'm saying those words. Amy and I left our guesthouse in Bangkok to head for the bus station this morning. We told the driver to use the meter because he wanted to charge us 120 baht ($4) when it should only cost 80 baht. So he gave us the drive around - meter pegged at 125 baht. Little did he expect me to hand him a 100 baht note and walk off. I shouldn't have even given him that much, but it was bad traffic after all. It infuriates me when cab drivers try to take advantage of tourists. So there!

We made the 8 am bus out of bangkok for Aranyaprathet. We were supposed to meet a third woman that Amy knew, but she didn't show. On the bus, we met a 21 year old Cannuck gal from Vancouver, and the three of us managed the border crossing unscathed. It was crazy, though - a military guy got on the bus at a checkpoint and removed who I presumed are 8 illegal cambodians. Once we got to the border, I negotiated a tuktuk down from 150 baht to 80 for the three of us, and we walked across the border without trouble. I was expecting more of a crowd of pickpockets, so we'd tucked and cinched everything away. For $40, we got a cab about 150 km from Poipet to Siem Reap on THE MOST HORRIBLE ROAD ON THE PLANET!!!! I swear to God, I could stand up to my knees in some of those potholes. The only saving grace was that it hasn't rained here for awhile, so we never had to push the car. This is what third world looks like, though - Christian Children's Fund commercials in real life. I tried to focus more on the quaintness, smiling children awed by three foreign lass's, herds of cows blocking the road, and the fact that our driver RULED! We passed so many cars coming here (though it still took 4 1/2 hours), and no one passed us :)

Well, I'm tired, disgusting, in need of a bath and a good night's sleep. We're off to Angkor Wat in the morning, and I'll try to post my first photos in a couple of days once my card in more full. I love you all!

Nok nok. Who's there?

Nok Air! Goofy airline with a smiling duck beak for a logo. Not that I flew them, but it was funny, eh? I'm on my second full day in Bangkok. I met up with Amy last night, and we're going to head off for Cambodia in the early morning. It should be interesting. I'm looking forward to Angkor Wat, but not so sure about the rest of the country. I'm doing my best to stay in travel zen mode, and it's working out so far. I had my first tuktuk experience yesterday. I was walking to the palace to see the emerald buddha, and a really nice thai guy stopped me to say that it was closed, and I should go elsewhere. Sure it's closed, that's the big scam! But it really was, and he really was just being nice. He showed me a couple of other places in his book, flagged a driver forme,and sent me on my way. The driver was supposed to take me to two temples and a "high fashion" store (so he gets paid to drag a tourist in), then back to where I'm staying. After the first temple and the fashion store, he dropped me off at the big buddha and showed me where to walk to get home "my kids are waiting for me", so whatever, the buddha was really cool, and I headed in the direction he pointed back to KSR. Enter second random nice thai guy who showed me two more places to see and put me in another tuktuk. This driver took me to one temple (that was closed), then to a fashion store, then to a jewelry store, then LEFT ME AT THE SECOND TEMPLE!!! He didn't even stick around to get paid. Just decided that I wasn't playing the game of "pretend to be interested enough to waste a lot of time so they think you might buy some overpriced cheap crap". I so firmly convinced another driver to take me home NO STOPS! It was not so bad, and I'm proud of myself for being firm and tough in the face of the tuktuk mafia :)

In the midst of all of that, I had my first "wow" moment that literally brought me to tears. I spoke for awhile with a really kind monk in the first temple who wanted to talk about hurricane rita because he'd seen it on the news. He was being very empathetic and drawing comparisons to the tsunami of last year. I couldn't help think, a quarter of a million people in some of the poorest areas of the world just washed away. I can't fathom it. So later when I was walking through another temple, the monks were in evening service, and the chants were just sooooo beautiful, and I realized that even with the obnoxious driver situation, I'm surrounded by beautiful, kind, generous people who are so poor and yet have real concern for some of the wealthiest in the world. That's a beautiful spirit.

Off to Cambodia tomorrow. This should be an interesting trip. Stay tuned, and I'll share the gory details.

Whew, can't wait to get out of here!

Everyone says, "get out of bangkok as quickly as you can", and I understand already. I'm staying at one of the many guesthouse/hotel type places with "sawasdee(hello)" in the name, which seems nice enough. About $4 US for a decent room with shared shower. It's on a side street from Khao San Rd which is the backpacker area. It doesn't really feel like I left home. In fact, it feels a lot like (insert your favorite Spring Break hangout here) except for the every so slightly increased proportion of Thais. My favorite are the roadside stands promoting "strong drinks, 60 baht($1.50). We don't check ids" where you can sit on a stool and share a bucket with a few straws. Maybe I'll get my hair dreadlocked while I'm here. What do you think? :)

I'm meeting up with a gal from Spokane tomorrow who has a merry gang of followers all of their way to siem reap. Hopefully we'll head on out of here within the next day or two. Anyway, i'm going to get out of here and hope that the gianormous cockroach that skittered past the door doesn't carry me away.

Off to Bangkok!

Hi all!
I've got 15 minutes before I need to head for the bus to bangkok. It's been a great time in hong kong, and you should all make an effort to get here. It's just about the cleanest and easiest to navigate of cities this size, and the people have been fantastically friendly. Wednesday, I made a leisurely pace down to the Vietnamese consulate to drop $67 for my express visa service and now have passport and visa in hand for that leg of the trip. Ivan and I met up for real hong kong dim sum in a nice fancy place, then headed off with his workmate, Wade, to do some last shopping for his trip before he headed back to sydney. He was on a mission for a Bally bag knockoff for a friend, and I can now say that I have survived a couple of trips up creepy stairways to the real hong kong underground market - double doors, buzzers, a healthy fear of cops and all. I think I may avoid the crazy Aussies for the remainder of this trip ;)

After Ivan took off, Wade and another work pal, Ricky, and I wandered around in Mongkok awhile longer - seafood market, street stalls, etc. I tried tofu fa (flower tofu) which is soft tofu in a light syrup, tastes sort of like cold tea with honey. It was really good and authentic since there wasn't a word of english in the whole restraunt.

Yesterday, I recovered my passport and was hit on by a nice old (like 70-something) chinese man. He asked where I was from, if I was a tourist, where I was staying, might he come up to visit me. I laughed and politely said goodbye. It was cute. Wade and I wandered Hong Kong Island, up to a British cemetery with lots of markers from WWI and II (yay, my first cemetery on the trip!)I got several good shots, but my camera was dying. Fortunately it didn't totally die because on our way back to the downtown part of the island, we passes the hong kong Times Square where Jackie Chan was attending the premier of his new movie. So I saw Jackie Chan from about 30 feet away in Hong Kong! That was super cool. I'll post proof soon when I can get photos off my camera, as well as the cliff dangling shot from the peak. Off to Bangkok!

Those crazy Aussies...

For those of you on the crazy Aussie kick, I met one within minutes of checking into my hostel here. His name is Ivan, and he's actually quite a nice guy. Until he had me clinging to a fence on the edge of a cliff. More about that in a bit...

We headed out early yesterday morning and went to the local fresh foods market. One of the very first things we saw was a woman killing and skinning six frogs with a butcher knife, and she barely touched them. They were mere froglegs in about a minute flat. I was tweaking a bit, and the guy who had purchase them just laughed and laughed at me. The market was incredible - but the meat just hangs out. And it's freaking 90 degrees and 87% humidity here. Blech. I guess if enough people had died of e coli, they might decide to refridgerate by now, so maybe we mericuns are just super paranoid by world standards, but I won't take my chances.

From there we went down to hong kong island and up the tram to victoria peak. It's really somewhat of a tourist trap. There's a big shopping mall at the top where they charge three times as much for a bottle of water as down in hong kong. We started walking up a hill until the path turned into an old concrete staircase mostly covered by grasses that ended at a green fence surrounding a power station. We wanted to get to the other side of the hill where the better view was, so Ivan set out inching his way along a 4 inch concrete ledge, hanging onto the fence...and I followed. It actually wasn't so bad because the dense brush beneath us would have quickly broken a fall. But what a view! You can see all of hong kong from up there - well what's visible through the polution at least. The shipping years here make seattle look itsy bitsy, too. And those amazing butterflies with bright turqious wing spots and white cockatoos really do exist. They're fantastic to see for real in the wild - where cockatoos are practically pidgeons.

We caught the ferry back in time to see the laser show in downtown hong kong. Every night at about 8 pm, the lights on the buildings start going off in cool patterns, and there are green lasers that shoot off the tops of the tallest buildings. Hong Kong has got to have the most amazing skyline of any city - no offense to you new yorkers ;)

I'm here, and I'm thermal!

Hi all!
After a 14 hour flight (oh my god!!!) I'm finally here and checked into the hostel. I'm about to crash for a good night's sleep, at least until about 3 am when I wake up thinking it's morning. Ah the joys of pharmaceuticals (Tylenol PM). I really just wanted to point out a couple of things: 1. those temperature scanners that they put up in the Hong Kong airport to detect the bird flu work pretty well. I was a nice shade of yellow over everyone else's green, which means this cold is probably a bit fevered. And: 2. why didn't the airport policeman standing at the stairs to the emergency exit stop me before I skipped my merry way down to set off the alarm? Oops :)
I am in the busy busy shopping district in a nice little hostel that is *super* quiet, especially when you consider the bustling street noise below. My room is a closet with a bed and barely enough room for me and my pack (which weighed in at 26 pounds at the airport). I'm going to sleep...

Patience, I haven't left yet ;)

Hi! If you just got my email, and you dropped by to check out the site, here it is! I leave Seattle at 7:10 am on Sunday, Sept 18th. Don't know what I was thinking when I agreed to such a ridiculously early departure time. But oh well, I'll be asleep on the plane before it's even off the ground. Come back as often as you like to see how it's all going. I'll try to post pictures when I can and keep it updated pretty regularly.