We Killed a Cow

Well, not intionally. And, it wasn't really our doing. Nevertheless, we were on a "VIP" bus high-tailing it through Cambodia, freewheelin' through the small thatched-house towns and weaving and bobbing around motorbikes and children. Domestic animals and farm animals. Honking our way down the Cambodian Highway of Life trying our best to alert everything alive to gain way or risk being victim of a 4 ton bus ruining your day.

Whooooooooooose, zip, wrrrrrrrrruuuuuuung!

We slip and slide around the hairpin turns with the honk of a horn in what would be considered the wrong lane back home. No lanes over here. No shoulders either. Too bad if you're a motorbike driver and our bus is passing another on a blind turn at 100km an hour and your coming the other way. Your off the road and better hope its not a ditch or a gully, a pile of trash or the remains of a burning bamboo roof.

Nearly flying, we driving with such force, through said town, on the third rotation of the same album, of what is seemingly the only band in Cambodia. Or the only band ANYONE listens too. We nearly avoid a naked baby prodding some roadkill with a stick, an omen of sorts?!, the driver lays into a honk before, during and after we pass the child to let him know of our arrival and departure. When immediately, we come SMACK, THUD, what was that?

Something large we just slammed into and ran over with our tires as the bus tilted ever so slightly to the left a few degrees. The busdrivers debated stopping, but eventually did, all the while all the passengers were rubbernecking for a view of the damage.

Was is a human or an animal!?! That was the wonder. Luckily, I guess you could say, it was a cow. And a rather proper sized cow at that. As it happened to be a Saturday, we were reassured by the locals that it was, "no problem," and that the cattlefeed would be a welcome feast for the small village.

That was our welcome ride into Cambodia and I meant to write about it ages ago, but just plain forgot. What a bizarre story and upon mentioning it to our travel buddy Dave from NY, who we always run into, he acedotes, "well, at least you weren't on my train in India where a guy laid his head down on the tracks and the train sliced it off and we had to stop for 2 hours, all get out and help the conductor find the head."

Notes on Vietnam

Vietnam, so far..............

So far Vietnam has offered us a different experience so far than the previous countries. We have been trying lots of traveling via bus throughout the many different countries, long 5-12 hour stretches. So far Vietnam has come in first place in terms of bus travel. We were greeted in Cambodia with a new bus that had a flat screen TV in the front! As soon as the bus started the driver put on some tunes. We are pretty accustomed to this so far, Thailand and Laos it was the same 30 year old Reggae song over and over, Cambodia also had their local 30 year old favorite, but Vietnam...well Vietnam greeted us with Christmas music that was preformed by a reggae/disco group with ultimate fur get ups and sparkley peacock outfits, not only were these smashing hits executed to perfection, but they also played some of the songs with the Disney's cartoon, Recess. For no rhyme or reason, but that is pretty much what set the tone for us here in Vietnam, lots of random weird funny awkward things all around!!!

To add to the list of weird things, in DaLat we visited the "Crazy House" which felt like a Gaudi/Alice in Wonderland art hotel museum space. Upon entering one of the rooms in which you could rent for the night we were greeted by a drunk Easy Rider imposter (http://www.easy-riders.net/). Who escorted us onto one of the beds, closed all the windows, pushed us face up on the bed to look into the rooftop mirror above the bed, closed the door and the curtain to the room and sat right outside the curtain. When we tried to get up and leave he pushed us back onto the bed and sat back down...Weird...again we tried and fail, back on the bed....ok this is weird, we said NO THANKYOU and tried to leave, he then asked us for $1 for his attempt to let us have "private time" then when rejected asked for a cigarette. No thanks easy rider imposter, thats just too weird for us...

Moving right along our Vietnam escapade, we have rented bikes and motorbikes numerous times throughout the counrty. Its a great way to see the "real" culture and the landscapes. Jeff is always musing about how its important to see the "real (insert Country)". Half true/Half jest. It almost never fails that while we are riding along, Lalala, we get asked at least two handfulls of time (ya that's a bunch of time!) if we would like a taxi ,easy rider, motorbike, or bike taxi! Hmmm, now stop me if I am wrong, but if I have my own means of transportation I think that it is pretty clear that I don't need any additional means of transportation! But maybe that's just me...weird!

Another weird thing is that at every meal you are offered tea. This was so amazing because we love tea!! Almost everytime we go for a meal it never fails, this great tea that everyone in Vietnam seems to be drinking! We finally asked what kind of tea it is and it turns out to be Artichoke tea!! Weird!! But sooo good!! We then went as fast as we could to the local market and bought the biggest bag that we could and now look forward to bringing it home with us in mass quantities!! (not only is it good for your liver, digestion, and cholesterol but it tastes amazing!)

An unexpected weird thing happened yesterday as we were soaking in mud and mineral baths for 5 hours at the local hot springs, our bug bites and cuts that have been oozing pusd and blood non stop for the past 2 months, stopped. Wow!! Weird!! Unexpected and wonderful!! Not only did they cure us, but the baths left us with great glowing skin, relaxed muscles and an experience we plan to take home and indulge in regularly!

The Dragonfruit. I believe our favorite Fruit over here. Amount: $0.50 for one in Vietnam, $20 for one back home. Yummers. Sreaming hot pick w/ flair on the outside.

Ok, All for now. Hope you are all being safe. As they say in Vietnam, which sometimes comes across fatalistic or foreboding, but, is certainly genuine: Good Luck!

Dam Sen Park

We decided to head off to what we thought would be a quirky Vietnamese city park yesterday. We read about ice scultures and animal statues made of CD's and other various sites of interest in Lonely Planet. Turns out that this park was an Amusement Park and it was a great example of not trusting all things in Lonely Planet to be proper recommendations. However, they should have noted that this wasn't a park, but a 6year old kids amusement park. We were looking to relax, poi, read, etc. we ended up donning some parkas for the Harbin Ice Festival Style lit up Ice Sculpture Hall, watched some Late Show Style Stupid Animal Tricks, went on the World's Worst 3D vitual simulator ride and talked to some local kids who certainly wondered what we were doing there.

Killing Fields and S-21 Cambodia

A few days ago we arrived in Phnom Pehn, the capitol of Cambodia, and also the location of the Killing Fields and S-21. A little on Phnom Pehn first, this place is N-U-T-S nuts!! We arrived at 10pm after a 7 hour bus ride. Greeted by trash, tons of cars, vendor after vendor of stalls filled with crap... Quite the opposite of the little island that we had just arrived from. There are tuk-tuk drivers waiting at the bus stop to shuttle us to some guest house that they get money off of or to some guest house that they have pictures of but look nothing like when you get there!

We decide to go to a place called "No problem" guest house. We are greeted by two 16 year old boys who immidiatly tell us that if we want to score any drugs that theirs are the best, and can't we tell by the way they are acting?...hmmm....it's late, we are tired, and the room is ok..so we decide this place will be fine to crash in....12 am I am awoken by what I first think is the fan oscilating above our heads, but soon realise it is the rats in the floor squeeking and scampering around...at first in my imagination they are all over the floor, about the crawl into bed and rummaging through our stuff. Luckily, they are only in the floor and walls, not on!

10 am after 3 hours of sleep, we head off of the Killing Fields which house many many skulls of innocent Cambodian people who were captured and killed by the Khmer Rouge for either being beautiful, handicapped, educated, female...whatever excuse you could come up with besides being plain, obiedient, and willing to sacrafice anything about being an individual.

The skulls are piled high in a stupa, on the floor is clothing that washed up from the mass graves. This humbeling stupa is lined with shrines and people offering flowers and insence to give respects. The story is bone chilling and extremely sad. As we walk around the fields we are told by signs to watch your step, and to not step on the mass graves. Walking around the fields where people were forced to work, wait 3 little girls ready to steal your camera and beg for 1.00 for 20 mins. wow. This place really pulls at your heart strings.

After that we are taken to S-21, an old high school where people were kept in rooms and tortured. The torturing is showed in some pictures and paintings on the walls. The torture devices all rusted and sitting there open on the mattress in the rooms which you can walk into.

Some of the torture includes tying up the hands behind the back with a piece of wood, then hanging them from the bars behind their back (located in the high school that were probably used for physical eduacation). Once the person passes out because of so much pain they have thier head stuck inside a vat of waste and other foul things, in order to be woken up and tortured more.

It is really hard to believe that people can acually treat other people with such a lack of compassion and inhumanity, even if the person they are torturing is their own family. The overwhelming chaos of Phnom Pehn is really a place that takes a while to digest,and only a couple of days is needed to have your fill.

You want Book, Just One.........

No, I don't want to buy the shitty photocopied and Elmer's glue bound edition of the history of Angkor Wat, as told by your great uncle.

"Just one, good price for you....

Ok, kid, how much do you want

""Five Dollars, for you, good price. "

Ha, you've got to be kidding me. First off, I saw the original edition at the museum for $4.00 yesterday. Also, I have more books than I can possibly read at once, I believe my rucksack currently holds 5 novels and 2 travel books. More than enough. I keep holding onto these books to trade at guest houses but have a hard time justifying offloading a Tom Wolfe for a Clive Cussler or trading the Aussie guy my John Irving for his James Peterson. Seriously, is this what the world is reading? Evidently.

After five minutes of humoring this kid, for the sake of making breakfast interesting, I've got the price down to $1.00, learned that he doesn't go to school and that his parents have forced him for years to slang books on the street for immediate money and gratification, instead of attend FREE public school 4 blocks away. He even lied straight to my face about how he goes to school.
Yeah Right, we asked a Tuk Tuk driver and a waiter if they knew this kid and yeah, they seem him everyday.

What a shame. This county's youth is split into two, and I guess this counties parents as well. Some push their kids to be pushers, to scratch and pull for an dollar here and a dollar there, to bring the bacon home to the adults. The other portion study diligently and work hard for long term success. One can easily tell who has what upbringing by the time there in their early twenties.

So this kid, as cute as it is that he know the capital of California is Sacramento, still doesn't deserve our money. Its so tough, because he's a kind, good-natured kid, but you just cannot perpetuate this failed system. The more books he sells, the less he's in school and the more of a deadbeat he'll be when he grows up. Sad but true.

Fast forward 4 minutes later and another kid, 13 or so this time, shows up.

"You want postcard"?

"no

Why Not?

Why not, he asks!?!? I loved that. Why not, because I already have 10 postcards taht I bought yesterday, and I don't need more. Because my rucksack is full. Because, you are 13 and have been doing this for at least 7 year and we tourist need to stop supporting you. Because yesterday when I bought teh postcards off a girl at Angkor, one of the other 6 girls standing around trying to sell to us yelled at me and said, "I asked you first". They she continued to tell us to leave Cambodia, go back to our country, and generally go to hell.
Why not, because all the postcards you sell are picutes that are taken w/ a polaroid camera from the 1970s. Why not, because we just cannot buy thing and consume and purchase all day long.
Why not, and the answer we came up with, "because I don't want to. Goodbye""

After 2 minutes of lingering, he finally left. Too.

Cambodia is so 50/50. The people are affable ane kind, and pushy and deceitful. The food is amazing and Amok and it gives me heartache and diahrea 1 out of 5 times. The ruins are amazing and well preserved, but everyone seems to be living in their shadow, reminiscing and embracing the wonder that was 800 years ago. This county has had some horrible times as of late w/ the Khmer Rouge and some people get it and some people don't. They have the fortitude to perservere and make a life for themselves. But, so many choose to loiter around the day, napping, playing twiddly thumbs or lounging around with their 7 friends outside of a store. Its like I just want to shake the country by the ground up and motivate these people to do something and make difference.

All over Cambodia, there is a feeling of unease. Everyone is waiting, the cities are waiting. There is dust everywhere and it feels like an old Western Movie where everyone is on their porch looking down the street for Doc Holiday and the gunfight and shootout. So they wait and they wait, and they aren't motivated to pave the streets, work on their houses, cultivate their garden to grow some food to sell to make some money. Its such an experience to come from our country where everyone is so forward thinking and we are programmed from birth to succeed through hard work and sweat.

More Pictures, Less Copy

Val From USA, Wonho from Korea, Elodie from France and Emily from Scotland hanging out trying to figure out how to communicate together and translate everything into English
Val looking really tough in this picture shooting a gun for the first time, while the rest of the group is busy making bamboo cuts w/ machetes in order to have nec equipment in order to drink local Whiskey at night.In remote, REMOTE, Northern Thailand at the Don Chiang coffee plantation and hill tribe. This tribe was definately lightyears ahead of all the others combined in terms of their desire to persue a financial means to live a life less rough and tumble. Amazing coffee that we'd been drinking for 2 weeks so we thought, we better visit the motherland.Moustache. Not the new style for me. Pretty sleezy and skeezy. Obviously.

In Luang Probang Laos. Val in the left and Jeff on the Right. Hard to tell, I know, all five of making the same face. FHHHHHHHHHHHHREARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Fresh Fruit Shakes for breakfast for a whopping $.75 each. Yummers. Just don't dump in the 4 ouches of sugar, a couple of teasspoons will do.

Siem Reap massages

I am learning that there may be nothing else more akward than getting a massage in Cambodia. First off, the way you get lured into a massage place is by 3-5 Cambodian girls sitting in front of the building in the shade yelling "Hello Lady, you want Massa??!!!-or-Mister, you want massa?!!!??"...This happens at least 4-5 times while walking down a street block. The first couple of times you smile and politely say "No thank you." Then after about 15 times of hastleing you just don't look or acknowledge, especially if they start grabbing your arms or shoving a pamphlet in your face.
After an early day of biking to Angkor Wat to catch the sunrise, and hours of bike riding in the squelchering sun we decided it was time to give in, to the less than tempting temptations. We heard a recommendation for a place on the corner of our street and walked in. Thinking that the two older ladies who washed our feet before heading to the room were going to be giving us massages, we felt a little at ease.....
We were promptly escorted to a room with two mattresses by two 15 year olds, nice, then asked to change into towels...I hesitated a few moments to see if the girls would leave. They didn't. So I undressed and wrapped myself in a towel and plopped on the mattress. Meanwhile, the whole time there eyes glued on me,watching me undress like it was some kind of show. Then it was Jeff's turn. They were starting to get giggly and straight up stared the whole time. He managed to slip the towel around his waist and do a manuver to wriggle his bottoms off under the towel...nice!
Plop! We were both down on the beds ready. Now we were waiting for the massage ladies to come in...but they were already there! The two 15 year old girls told us to lay face up, both had jars of what smelled like vicks vapor rub. The girl who was doing my massage scooped out 3 fingers full of the rub and managed to rub the same spot on my left thigh for at least 20 minutes..interesting technique...Rub the leg till it hurts and turns raw and you can't feel it anymore, literally...that's new! I look over at Jeff and he has his eyes closed and has the most painfully uncomfortable look on his face. It was so weird and akward so far that I was couldn't wait for the "massage" to be over!
I must mention that meanwhile this whole time the two girls are speaking to each other laughing and giggling in Cambodian like no one else was in the room. They stop and ask Jeff if he speaks Cambodian, sigh in relief, and resume talking and rubbing the vicks on our thighs...Obviously talking about us.
I thought I would try to close my eyes and pretend that this was the best massage I had ever had but found it hard to relax or even keep my eyes closed for longer than 10 seconds...Why? because my massage girl was making rude gestures to her friend and stopping occasionally to pick her ear or rub her nose...
Finally the hour was up, I couldn't wait to unload all the things that were going on in my head and see what Jeff's experience was like.I thought I was going to burst with all the things I had to say! Little to my surprise, akward was his experience as well. Could possibly be the most uncomfortable time I have had on this trip thus far, the worst massage and $6.00 that I have ever spent in my life!

Pictures and Small Snippets of Travel

Here is a picture of one of Val's many puss bites. She was up to a total of 8 at one point and I had 3 at my worst. This is pretty standard look for 3 days into the puss affair. They go away after about 3 weeks and leave nearly no trace except for the scar tissue and the redness that we are hoping will leave as well.


To the right is a photograph of us taken as we ride through the Vang Vieng countryside in Norther Laos. We were on our way to visit some small local tribes, with an ultimate destination of two caves. One was so cavernous that you could walk back 600m and after the first 20 meters you couldn't go any on w/out a flashlight. It was pitch back and dead silent. The other cave was one in which we has to literally swim to in order to access. But, more on those later.

Here I am with our friend Motoki from Japan, the one on the far left, and my other friend Wall, from Thailand. Wall was impressed that Motoki and I were successfully able to beat all of the local kids from Laos at the Ice Cream Fair in games such as: milk the golf ball out of the fake cow udder, soccer, dress up in a lifesize ice cream suit and sumo wrestle, shoot hoops, find more golf balls in the bucket of colored balls than the other challengers, etc. You get the idea.
We won a 3 inch high stuffed animal keychain of Wall, that we promptly misplaced.


Here is out hideout in Don Det, 4000 Island, Laos. Two people, two hammocks. Check out the granola that we found. Epic lightnight storms every early evening let to beautiful cristal clear skys during the evening. Not a bad set up for $1.00 a night, and to think that these German girls we saw haggled down from $1.00 to $0.75 successfully. We didn't know whether to congratulate them for a job well done or throw our granola at them.




Here we are in Angkor Wat. We're tired. Very. We'd been getting up 3 days in a row much too early. Earlier than the Tuk Tuk drivers and so early that the clubs were still vomiting out people from the night before and as we we're leaving out guest house, people were on their way home from the bars.
We were up early to see the sunrise at Angkor, but, more importantly, we were able to grasp the beauty and sanctity of the place w/out the masses of tourist and hordes of kids pushing this that and the other. Also, we beat the heat, which would come funneling in around 1100AM, but by that time, we'd already have logged 7 hours of touring and nearly 20km of biking for the day.