Stanford & Steinbeck


Sunday came all too bright and all too early after a night of birthday celebrating.   To top it all off, the poor Birthday Girl got stuck “momming” everything to death in the morning.   Guilt consumes me!

A bit late, I headed for my “coffee” date with a high-school best friend whom I haven’t seen in years.   Brainiac that he is, Chase remembered from a miniscule set of photo comments on Facebook that I’ve discovered my gluten troubles.   The sweet man had amazing gluten free muffins and a fancy fruit plate waiting.   It was really great catching up, meeting his husband & roommate, and being an audience to their hilarious shenanigans.

I was supposed  to head to Santa Cruz and probably camp (Couchsufing  wasn’t delivering as expected), but ended up spending the whole evening with the wild bunch!   After an interlude on a sushi date in downtown Palo Alto with my college friend, Hope, I returned for a tour of the Stanford Campus (Chase and Brian are doing their graduate degrees there).   Then we shared an amazing, authentic, Indian dinner complete with asafoetida, some delightful wine, and more hilarity.   New knowledge: grad school logistics, funding, etc.   Maybe I will put it to use someday!

The next morning I left for Santa Cruz – “Surf City USA” – and arrived early to dreary weather and a sleepy, cold scene.   I first went to visit the campus.   I was expecting an open sort of mission-style campus, and so was really surprised to find a very spread-out, hillside of modernish buildings shrouded in forest.

I found a big lot with a trail to an overlook at the back and ran into a maintenance manager who pointed out highlights of the town.

After hiking around the waterfront, chatting up some locals, and watching some surfers, I went to see the city’s famous “Boardwalk.”   It’s more like a mini-carnival, complete with kitchy shopping opportunities and rollercoasters.

It was pretty dead given the time of year and the rain, so I walked around the downtown until deciding I might be best off spending the day indoors.   Santa Cruz is located on the north side of the famous, enormous Monterey Bay.   An hour around the bay on the opposite side lies a well-known, highly respected science aquarium.   Sign me up!

Upon arrival in Monterey (where the aquarium is), I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Monterey was the stage for John Steinbeck’s “Cannery Row.”   He’s one of my favorite authors, and it was fascinating to walk down “Cannery Row” reading quotes from the book and imagining the scene years ago.

The aquarium was fantastic.   It’s interested traveling at this time of year.   I find myself surrounded by Europeans, retirees, and school children on field trips.   Those were my aquarium companions.   The most interesting parts of the aquarium for me, having been to several aquariums and having a pretty solid working knowledge of Pacific marine life, were:

  • having a name for the jellies I see in Humboldt Bay (moon jellies)
  • learning that the sail jellies can’t/don’t sting
  • understanding why biodiversity is so high in Monterey Bay (a giant underwater canyon perpendicular to the continent and terminating in the bay relatively close to shore)
  • that the water color  changes I’ve noticed on the west coast aren’t just due to the presence of  the sun or lack thereof, but are affected  significantly  by the amound of plankton in the water
  • that the Pacific coast water in the U.S. is acutally coldest in the spring, not the winter as one might expect (although I have already lost track of why, exactly, that is)
  • there are flat-billed flamingos!

The aquarium also managed to create the first ever self-contained living kelp forest.   It was pretty awesome to see it pulsing in all its glory.   I did get to learn a few new species and saw the coolest sea horses ever – they look exactly like kelp!   I also got a clearer idea of what some of the sushi I eat looks like in the ocean.   My favorite interactive exhibit was a “restaurant” where you sit down at the counter and punch in your order.   Then a waitress comes on the screen and explains how your choice either encourages or discourages sustainable fishing practices.   I eventually ordered everything on the menu!

I wasn’t feeling the touristy offerings of Monterey after I left the aquarium, so I ended up covering way more ground than intended that day.   I headed to Big Sur and spend the late afternoon and early evening enjoying the famous coastline stopping at lots of overlooks.   The flowers were going crazy and vivid purple carpets covered huge stretches of the cliffs above the ocean.   The water was an amazing blue, and there was very little traffic.   Big Sur seemed to have the best of the Mendocino coastline (cliff colors and texture) and the Lost Coast (majestic height rising nearly straight out of the ocean) combined.   It was great!   I had noticed a few campgrounds on a tourist-info map.   The first one was full and $22 a night.   It seemed sort of cumbersome, lonely and possibly unsafe to set up my tent in a campground, so I drove up a side road to a pullout overlooking the ocean and just slept in the back seat with my favorite puffy blanket.   It was great!

A Room with a View


My weekend in San Francisco was a seredipitous  addition to my California geography road trip.   (Did I explain this yet? Not having been to any of the San/Santa’s beyond the two greats – Diego and Francisco – I decided to mold my trip around visting  all these places.   The hope is that getting to know them will seal into my memory some meaning for later retrieval.   Then, conversations with allusions to California geography or learning that someone is from SanaSantahmmnah will draw more than a blank, “Hmm.   Oh, Okay.” from my lips.)

Like I said, I’ve already been to San Francisco multiple times and done all number of touristy things.   However, it was Elly’s birthday, the city is always fun, and she had a free place to stay.   Sounds nothing but wonderful!

“Free place to stay” does not adequately describe our accomodations, however.   It just so happens that a relative of Elly’s keeps an apartment in the city, and Elly stays in this usually empty abode when she leaves Santa Rosa to attend her weekend classes.   This apartment is in a high-rise at the front of the line overlooking the Embarcadero, the bay, Treasure Island, and Coit Tower.   This view is what is on display through floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass doors the moment you enter the apartment.   Wow!

We both arrived before dark and gave over our evening to enjoying bottles of wine and yummy cheese complete with fantastic conversation.   I love this woman!   Saturday we made breakfast and then she took off for class.   In an apartment that only has occasional weekend occupants, I figured housekeeping wasn’t high on the list of activties  and set out to find things that needed TLC.   TV is a novelty in my little world, but the apartment had it!   I flipped on MTV while I worked to keep up with the pop culture that my CASA kid (and millions of other people) so adore.   It amazes, disappoints, and fascinates me how ridiculously sexualized, flashy, and overstimulating  every single music video is.   !Que lastima!

I spent most of the day cruising around the city people watching.   Being stuck in the 70’s – technologically – wouldn’t work well long term.   Public libraries (internet) and pay phones are my mainstays for communication, but are pretty impractical.   I finally spotted a pay phone – an endangered species these days – as I was on my last few blocks back to the apartment.

Saturday night we celebrated both Elly’s birthday and the end of her school semster  at Bissap Baobab –

a Senegalese restaurant in the Mission District.   After bar hopping a bit, we ended up at a tiny dance spot.   I found a great spot to avoid unwanted dance partners and had a fantastic time!   It seemed like we left after 20 minutes, but somehow two hours had gone by!

Couchsurf #1 – quintessential Berkeley and Hare Krishna


In hindsight, I am terribly grateful to Sandra who let me surf her couch in Berkeley.   I’m finding that not every couchsurfing  host is as responsive or reliable as I am, which is causing me to re-think Servas.   But anyway…

Having never been to Berkeley (and not even knowing how to properly spell it), I decided it was a must-add to the itinerary.   Coupled with the fact that it is the stage for a novel my book group just read, it was an obvious stop.

I met Sandra at her front door at 5:00.   We got to know each other over some tea before heading off for an impromptu tour of Berkeley on the way to the Hare Krishna temple she has been attending  for the past few months.   We arrived before the class she attends in time for the end of the daily honoring of the deities ceremony.   The temple was tucked away in a neighborhood, and plain on the outside.   The inside, however, was incredibly beautiful and ornate.

The singing of the monks was really beautiful and poetic.   For the class, we sat on rugs in the center of the temple and sang from the Bhagavad  Gita and then the students read the translations aloud.   The monk talked about how the text applied to daily life and how it related to the other parts of the Bhagavad  Gita.   It was really interesting!   Followers of Hare Krishna believe that a person has to be reincarnated over 80,000 times before being gifted with a human body.   Incredible!

After the temple, we went out for my first Ethiopian food!   We shared the family-style  sampler and were absolutely stuffed.   The food is generally served with a side of Injera – a traditional “bread” that doubles as a utensil.   Really, the “bread” is more like a cross between a beer pancake (if you’ve never had this, envisioning a regular pancake will get you close) and a crepe.   The “pancake” is rolled up into a tube – like Little Debbie Swiss Rolls – and then cut into sections.   To use, simply unroll a bit, tear off, scoop up some delightful dish, and eat!

The Injera is made  with teff  – the world’s smallest grain.   Unfortunately for my gluten-free tummy, in the U.S. they mix in 1/2 wheat flour.   I figured my first Ethiopian meal called for a digestion sacrifice and boldly ate heaps of 1/2 wheat, 1/2 teff  Injera.   It was delicious, and the fallout wasn’t anything I haven’t experienced a million times before.   Oh!   And how was the food that the Injera scooped?   Delightful!   Lentils, greens – a tasty mix between Indian style dishes, southern cooking, and light Greek fare.

We were early to bed and early to rise as Sandra – a med student – was off to a required basic life-saving skills course for the day.   She drew me an incredible map which set the stage for a perfect day.   Since she lives a block from the infamous UC Berkeley campus, my first order of business was to give myself a tour.   Real tours were booked solid, so I just wandered around checking out the libraries and buildings.   What a gorgeous place!   Made me want to go back to school!

Life with a car in downtown Berkely  revolves around two hour  parking.   At the two hour  mark, I grabbed my car and headed up to Tilden Park – the highlight of the day for sure!   The “park” is really a huge preserve of woods in the hills overlooking Berkeley, the Bay, and San Francisco.   I had the trail I picked randomly to myself and was rewarded  with an incredible view at the top.   I so love being out-of-doors and out-of-crowds, that I had a few moments of doubt regarding my plan to visit my way down the coast cities in effort to really learn California’s political geography.   Shouldn’t I just be backpacking?

After Tilden, Sandra had tipped me off to the local YMCA’s free-mother’s-day  weekend.   Since Sandra is a member, I got into the three-story, amazing, Berkeley Y for free!   They have pretty incredible facilities.   I weight-lifted, steamed, and sauna-ed my afternoon away.   Well, the two hours that parking allowed, at least.   Then I nursed my internet addiction (hey – a traveler has to get info and make couchsurfing plans somehow, right?) at the Berkeley Public Library before embarking on a Telegraph trek.   Telegraph is the famous street in Berkeley, much like Arcata’s Plaza or New York’s Times Square.   It’s a multi-block stretch of funky stores, restaurants, and bars that cater to the student population.

An impromptu, musically-challenged bluegrass band played while reggae blared from a stereo cart on the corner.   Heavenly pizza smells poured from open doors, incense smoke whirled out of head shops, and the flashy colors of the late 80’s were everywhere.   A sweet proprietor of a hole-in-the wall convenience store operation made my day when I inquired about the price of his apples and he tossed me a freebie!

Two hours are up again!   Time to head to San Francisco to meet Elly and begin celebrating her birthday!

Shifting Gears in Santa Rosa


Bless her heart, Elly is a wonderful friend and a wise young woman.   We go way back to the “Tingle” (not kidding) wing of the Hamilton Residence Complex at the University of Oregon.   She was an incoming freshman, and I was an out-of-state sophomore limping my way -financially – through an independently funded bachelors with a tour of duty as a Resident Assistant.   We chose the same study abroad program in Mexico the following summer and bonded over countless adventures.   When I moved back to the west coast, she was one of the friends I enthusiatically phoned to predict the multitude of unforgettable weekends we could now share.   Nearly four years later, the horrifying visit score is Elly:2, Jema:0.   Redemption!

Elly was my first stop on the attempt at life on the road this summer.   She was sweetly tolerant as I went through internet detox and suffered from either my first encounter with allergies or a backyard-going-away-party-campfire smoke-inhalation recovery.   She took me to my first African dance class, and we lucked out with a guest teaching group from Oakland!

We danced for hours to some really fantastic drumming and topped off the evening with my first “cask-conditioned” English-style ale at the Toad-in-the-Hole pub in the historic Railroad District.   Yay!

Day two also happened to be Cinco de Mayo, which calls for margaritas in general, but especially when the celebration is being shared by two amigas whose friendship blossomed south of the border.

We checked out the Cinco de Mayo scene and were a bit surprised to be, besides most of the policia, basically the only non-latinos.   There was some excellent people watching, and it was a fun crowd.   At the end of the night, I finally got to meet her beau.   He is working the census, among other jobs, and had lots of good stories about it.

Day three, while Elly was at work, I got a guest pass to her gym and steam room – heaven!   Then I walked along the river to downtown to visit the Luther Burbank Gardens – “home of world renowned horticulturist, Luther Burbank, who lived and worked in Santa Rosa at the turn of the twentieth century. ”   It was gorgeous.   The roses were heavenly, I finally learned what a Kiwi bush looks like, and I discovered that date buds can be grafted onto young almond trees and produce within a year!

Mid-afternoon I thanked her incredible roommates for their hospitality and headed south for my next adventure!

Trip to the Emergency Room


Fair warning: this might be a little graphic and gross for the weak of stomach.   Be warned!
Fair warning update 2017: this was also written by a much younger version of me.  Please forgive her glaring… youth.

So, as I was saying a temporary goodbye to Kong – my Angkor Wat motorcycle driver –  I was also eating “mien” (like ‘mean’) or longan  – a relative of the lychee.   They are a delightful fruit with a thin peel.   Once peeled, they have the consistency of a grape (smooth and slick), are slightly smaller than a golf ball, have a flavor much like cantaloupe and pineapple, and a big seed in the middle – about twice the size of a corn nut.   I had one of these glorious globes in my mouth as I walked away.   As I shouted back “Okay, bye!”   I took a deep breath in to follow up  with, “See you at 5:30!” and instead inhaled the un-chewed fruit straight into my throat.   Ahhhh!

longan

Longan’s aren’t huge, but they aren’t small either. photo Emran Kassim

I began choking and turned around to located Kong, desperately imagining how I would show him the Heimlich maneuver if he didn’t already know it.   As I gagged and struggled towards him trying to dislodge the ball, it suddenly slipped down my throat, much to my temporary relief.   Kong hadn’t turned around and was none the wiser.   With a slight pain in my esophagus, I turned back to my original destination, the Butterfly Garden, and headed inside.

Two minutes later, as I wandered up the street to check out Singing Trees, I could no longer swallow.   I am one of those people with an ‘esophagus  thing.’  If I eat too quickly, food becomes lodged on its way to my stomach.   From here, I either sit drooling over a sink or toilet until it passes – unable to get anything past the painful blockage, or I throw up.   Not stinky-from-the-stomach puking, but my body just clears out whatever was stuck.   Throwing up is always much nicer and quicker than waiting for the lump to work its way south, but I never get a choice.   Starchy foods like rice and bread and dense foods like meat are the biggest culprits.   This has been a source of embarrassment at several “just-met-you” dinners for me, as my dining companions worry and hover over my drooling, spitting self as I assure them “I’m really fine.   This happens all the time.   I don’t know why it happens.   No I’ve never been to a doctor.   My parents just told me to eat more slowly.   Really.   I’m fine.   It will pass.   Please, go eat.   I’ll be fine.   I’ll be out in a minute.   No, really.   It’s fine!”

Never have a I swallowed something so large and so… whole.   So… unchewed.   The tightness in my chest was worse than any other time as I trudged through the streets back toward my guest house spitting everywhere.   Kong had been so nice to me, and I was sure the blockage would pass soon.  So I went to meet him… and his girlfriend Heather for dinner.   We were going to the market to get ingredients and then go back to their place to make dinner.   The market was fantastic, minus me fleeing to the street every few minutes to spit.   And then few times that my mouth was so full of saliva that I couldn’t respond to questions without looking like something out of a horror flick.

Cambodian markets don’t really stink, which is awesome.   Usually the smell of flesh and fish at the markets penetrates all corners – even the dry goods and clothing – but it wasn’t like that at this market.   We rolled up our pant legs to cross through the section of vendors selling flopping fish, and I got to see a woman with a seasoned hand rapidly turning a pile of skinned frogs into frog legs for sale.

frog legs

Frog legs – not at the market, but this is what they looked like there.        photo wikimedia

We bought vegetables from their favorite vendor.   At the pork stand, there was also a black block of a clay-like substance for sale.   I asked my companions what it was (between mouthfuls of saliva), and they told me it was blood mixed with a gelatinous substance which is then cut into squares and used as soup stock.   Heather said she likes it.   Oh.   Umm… yum.

After our rice purchase, we loaded up in Kong’s tuk  tuk  for the trip back to their apartment.   They have a lovely furnished place that is so 70’s with dark wood paneling covering one half of the main room and burnt orange paint covering the other.   Heather showered while Kong worked on chopping things for dinner.   I helped out, between spitting out mouthfuls of saliva, trying to be  a good conversationalist and not let the tightening in my chest distract me.   Then it was Kong’s turn to shower, and I chatted with Heather about her past and her Cambodian existence.   She’s done lots of teaching around the world, and loves it here!   I’m invited for drinks later with their friends – a goodbye celebration as I learn Heather and Kong are moving to Phnom  Penh in a few days..

As the evening moves on, my need to spit turns into a need to throw up as I inevitably swallow some of my saliva.   My esophagus fills up, and when it’s full, I then wretch over a toilet until it comes back up in a froth.   Ew.   I tried to eat some rice and veggies, which made me puke almost immediately.   Then, at Kong’s urging, I try to take a big drink of water in the hopes that that will force it down.   When I have my esophagus problem, this is always the first remedy people suggest, but I know that anything else going in just makes things worse.   I’m desperate this time, so I take two big swallows of water.   Big mistake as I bolt for the toilet and spend a few minutes escorting it back out of my throat.   Yuck.

Finally, Kong finishes his water, and I stealthily nab the bottle creating for myself a place to spit without having to run to the bathroom every 90 seconds.   Now I am much better company, and I can only hope they don’t notice that I am now collecting a bottle of saliva.   Again, yuck.   We head out on the town to meet up with their friends.   It has now been almost five hours.   Usual clearance time is from 3 minutes to an hour.   The longest I’ve gone was 90 minutes because of some stupid rice in college.   Now I’m getting worried.   I decided to skip the social scene which would require  me to sit in a bar and spit in a bottle unable to partake in the celebrating.   Nothing will go in my body.   I go to an internet cafe and start looking up ‘can’t swallow’ and ‘ask-a-nurse’ phone numbers in the U.S.   I call my boyfriend, Pat, who calls the hotline for me.   In my distress I forget to tell him that you have to trick the nurses because of stupid US laws.   They won’t (can’t) help you if they’re not licensed in your area.   So he tells the Montana nurse that he’s calling from California, and she says, “Sorry.   No dice.”   Oh no!

Pat calls the Mad River (Arcata) Hospital who say I would need to cross the thousands of miles to the California coast and come in to be  evaluated.   What they will tell him is that I either need a muscle relaxer to help the spasms do their job, or (god forbid) an endoscopy to push it down or pluck it out.   Oh, please no tubes in throat.   In my frustration at the cards being stacked against me, I am short with Pat who I wanted to be my salvation (sorry sweetie) and rush to end the pricey call.   Having no other options, I head back to my guesthouse to wait it out.   My bus leaves at 7:30 a.m. to take me to the Thai border.   At least, if it’s not gone, I can go on to Bangkok to get some medical care.   My guidebook says cryptically, “If you fall ill in Cambodia, run – don’t walk – to Thailand.   Cambodian medical care is atrocious.”   Oh no!

I watch National Geographic specials for a few hours, spitting into my bottle every 90 seconds, and puking  up the accidentally swallowed saliva every 20 minutes.   The squeezing in my chest is awful, and my hopes at getting any sleep are dashed  as I instantly start to drool all over the pillow.   I resign to reading my newest purchase, “First They Killed My Father” – a book about a family by a woman who was five when the Khmer Rouge took over.   When the chest pain gets so strong I can’t concentrate, I stare at the wall as I spit into my bottle and think about the next step.   I would die for a drink of water.   It’s been seven hours now since I’ve had anything.   My pee was dark, dark yellow last time I went – a product of hiking up and down temples in the tropical heat all day while only drinking a liter and a half of water.   I slowly realized that if I’m still in this condition in the a.m., getting on a bus would be a stupid choice.   I will be hot, continuously more dehydrated, and starving.   I realize that I could end up passing out and would then be at the mercy of my rescuers.   I shudder at the thought of the death-trap of a clinic described by my guidebook.   Crap.

I’m getting desperate.   I start to brainstorm ways to get a muscle relaxer into my body.   I remember a third-grade teacher my mom used to work with said when she was in Ireland, they used to snort shots of vodka to get drunk really fast.   Would that help?   I realize that I can breathe and therefore  could smoke something.   There’s a reason that ‘medical marajuana’ exists.   It’s supposedly really illegal here, and I weigh the possibility of  Cambodian prison with the possibility  of being able to eat and drink again.   In the end, I don’t take the streets in search of weed.   Then I remember someone once told me that anorexics  put alcohol up their bums to avoid ingesting the calories associated with it.   I consider this and then realize that I might also be able to put a pill there and accomplish the same thing.   Then I decide I would rather risk illegal pot smoking than experimentally shove some questionable pharmaceutical up my rear.   Damn .

Now it’s midnight.   My chest pains are increasingly worse as I become more and more dehydrated.   I flip open my guidebook and read about medical care in Siem  Reap.   It names a hospital that’s ‘affiliated’ with ‘the hospital’ in Bangkok.   This is like saying a college is affiliated  with a university in Boston.   Um… there are dozens.   Which one?   I decide I don’t care.   ‘Bangkok’ is enough for me as I weigh the possibility of  passing-out-from-dehydration-and-choking-to-death-on-my-own-puke with sub-standard medical care.   I am going to the hospital.   I dress and try to rouse one of the staff sleeping next to the front desk to help me.   He murmurs sleepily from his hammock, “No speaking English.”   I look up hospital  in the dictionary and try out the foreign words.   No dice.   Then I say “tuk  tuk.”   Still nothing.   Then I say, “Can you help me get a tuk  tuk to the hospital?”   Again I get, “No speaking English.”   Shit.

I’m starting to get a little panicked, which is saying something.   Usually I am the epitome of calm, even when bad things are happening.   But I do NOT like this.   At all.   Finally I decide to hit the streets and hope there’s someone there.   The image of the girly bar I will have to walk past with all its leering staff lingering outside passes through my head and I shudder.   About a block past my guesthouse, I hear a motorcycle  coming.   Make that a tuk  tuk.   I peer into the headlights trying to discern whether it is occupied.   I think not, and I raise my hand to flag him down.   He wants five bucks for a two dollar ride, but I am too desperate and anxious to keep this opportunity, so I agree.   I spit in my bottle the whole  way to the hospital  and am greeted  by corridors empty of patients except for me.

I explain to the man at the nurse’s station and ask for internet so I can show them a picture of what I swallowed since they are having trouble understanding.   I quickly email Pat so the only person out there who knows of my fruit choking incident will also know where I am.   They want an xray.   I tell them they won’t see anything, except maybe the seed, since fruit is organic matter.   I ask for a muscle relaxer.   They say they will give it to me, “but first x-ray.”   I suspect this might be a money maker for the hospital and nervously wonder if my insurance company is going to live up to the reputation of  insurance companies and I will have problems with my claims.   I am the type of person who would not carry auto insurance if it wasn’t legally required.   This time I am glad that I followed advice, albeit reluctantly, about getting travel insurance.

Of course the xray  shows nothing.   This is my first hospital admittance.   Ever.   In my entire life.   My mom has taken me to the emergency room before for flu and whatnot when it was outside of doctor’s hours, but never have I been a hospital patient.   And now I have to go choke on fruit in Cambodia.   How exasperating.   So, finally they stick one of those awful IV things into my hand, draw some blood, and put some antispasmodic medicine into my bloodstream.   Finally!   Actual treatment.   Now just work on my dehydration issue and you’ll be my new hero!   I get a little nervous as the doctor and the nurse converse in front of me with confusion on their faces.   I get the impression they are trying to make a team decision about what to do and don’t really know.   I don’t like it, so I say, “What’s going on?”   I get a barely intelligible reply and the doctor ushers the nurse out to hash out their guessing game in private.   Oh no!

Finally the nurse returns and he hooks up my saline drip.   Relief!   Over the next half hour, my dizziness starts to subside (placebo?), and they tell me I am going to be  admitted to a ward.   I become an official invalid as they insist on rolling me and my I.V. on a gurney upstairs to my first ever hospital room.   I spy a computer in the hall and ask to again use the internet to send an update to Pat.   I feel like I’m in a movie as I wheel my drip with me down a hallway.   I hunt and peck out an email with my I.V.-free hand.   I get new nurses and a new doctor to whom I have to explain the story all over again.   The new doctor wanted to give me a muscle simulator.   Isn’t that like drinking a beer and then having a cup of coffee?   I am desperate to drink, eat, swallow, and be pain-free again, so I agree.   They are going to monitor me for a few hours.   If I’m not better, I go to Bangkok for an endoscopy.   Yuck.

The nurses want me to try and  drink some water, so I go through the uncomfortable demonstration of just exactly  how it doesn’t work.   They freak out as turn exorcist and puke back up the water and extra saliva that’s gone down recently.   Convinced, they leave me to read my book.   Finally, it’s 3 a.m. and I am exhausted.   I raise my bed to sitting and actually manage to sleep for 20 minutes at a time until my throat fills up, my chest tightens, and I need to puke.   At 7 a.m. my new doctor decides I should have another x-ray – the kind where you drink something that appears on the x-ray and identifies the blockage.   I try and  explain that I can’t get more than two tablespoons in before immediately puking  but he wasn’t to try anyway.   ($$$$$$??)   Oh well.   The not-so-gentle morning nurse helps me get my top off again for the xray.   They take three shots, lining me up, having me swallow at the last minute and then wretch until they move the equipment so I can puke.   Yuck.   Of course they don’t come out because I couldn’t drink enough fluid.   Crap.

Now we are making plans to fly me to Bangkok where they have endoscopy equipment.   I will miss the first departure, so they try and  get me a seat on the afternoon flight.   Once my second saline drip runs out, they unhook me and I get my affairs in order.   The plan is to go to the airline office, purchase  my ticket (insurance better pay!), go to my guesthouse, retrieve  my luggage, then go to the airport.   My personal plan, since I am in one of the wondrous spells of no chest pain, is to swallow NOTHING until I get to Bangkok.   Then, on arrival, before going to the hospital, I will try some water to test the blockage and possibly invite a whole new bout of puking  and chest pain.   I get my affairs in order and am escorted to the cashier’s where I sign my credit card slip for $373.33 in medical care.

My escort has disappeared, so I sit down to wait and re-read my insurance policy.   To my dismay, the coverage section seems to say that it will only cover doctor recommended medical care (I’m safe here, I think) and flights where the ensuing hospital stay is seven days or more.   Shit.   I am only going to need a few hours.   As I wait for my escort, I lament having to give up the pain-free spell I am in to test the blockage, and head for the water tank.

I fill my glass with cold water, enjoy a few more seconds of being pain free, and take a tentative sip.   Nothing.   Then another sip.   Still nothing.   I get brave and take a big swallow.   NOTHING!   What timing!   I am cured!   No pricey airline flight!   I can eat!   I can drink!   I take a few more tentative swallows until the glass is gone.   I fill it and finish it two more times.   Drinking never felt so good!   YES!   My escort is still missing, so I ask reception if they can arrange a tuk-tuk.   Turns out that’s part of my $400 visit, so I am delivered back to town for free.   Thank you!

Yay!   I am free!   Afraid to stomach solids, I order up a fruit shake for breakfast.   It is heaven to feel food in my stomach again.   Then, I make phone calls to Pat and my mother, and one to my bestie Mags for good measure. I feel silly, but I am joyous as I make my way to my guesthouse to drop off my things.   Since I’ve missed the only buses out of here, the only thing to do today is blog, read, eat, and relax. I decide an ice cream is in order for the ‘sick girl’ and get myself to the  air conditioned  shopping center for a banana split.   Mmmm!!!   Today has ended up being a great day.   Now I just hope my insurance comes through!

Update 2017: It did.  Submitting the paperwork was super easy, and they paid the whole thing!

Angkor Wat


The temples around Siem  Reap are amazing.   They include Angkor Wat – the largest religious building in the world – as well as several other amazing historic temples.   My calves got a workout acending to the level of the gods all day long.   Thank goodness I didn’t try to bike this one.

The principle spires of Angkor Wat, and the most famous view of the enormous compound.

I had partial success getting a moto  driver who could tell me a little more about the temples.   His name was Kong (but said ‘coon’ with a whisper of a ‘g’ at the end).   I told him I was determinded  to find a driver worth his salt and asked him what his favorite part was about Angkor Wat.   He couldn’t tell me a favorite part.   However instead of repeating the route and temple names, he explained that moto drivers aren’t allowed inside and that you have to go to guide school and get a special license to learn about the temples.   Fair enough.   You’re hired!

Angkor Wat from a distance surrounded by a huge moat (which the local kids love to jump into).

He was really nice and loved using all the “American” phrases he knew on me.   ”Let’s go, dude.”   “Take it easy, dude.”   ”Yo, my man, what’s up?”   His English was superb for local standards.   The first point of interest for me wasn’t a temple, but the road rules here.   He, as the driver, has to wear his moto  driver identification jacket when he’s driving me.   And he has to wear a helmet.   But I don’t.   What gives?   Also, he confessed to not having a license plate by way of explaining why we left the main road.   He knows where all the cops hang out, so he just drives around them.   I noticed about 30% of people didn’t have license plates.   I think it’s usually not a problem for Kong, since he more often has his moto  hooked up to his tuk-tuk (the pull behind cart for passengers) which obscures the view of the would-be license plate.

An example of some of the awesome bas reliefs at Angkor Wat.

On to Angkor Wat!   Once the home to a jaw-dropping empire, Angkor Wat and surrounding temples boasted a metropolitan population of over a million in the days where London was a small, 50,000 person city.   Wow.   I always try to imagine these places with the all the missing wooden structures that have long since rotted and the sea of houses that must have rolled out between all the places of worship.   Now the space between is covered  in groves of trees and jungle.   Angkor Wat was pretty awesome in a very sweaty way.   It’s surrounded by a moat, and it’s a veritable Asian castle of which it was refreshing to wander the cooler corridors.   It smelled like a mix between castle (musty), incense (to carry prayers to Buddha), and cave (bat crap- and lots of it).   Out of respect for my very warm-blooded body, I very slowly made my way up and down the stairs throughout the compound admiring the bas-reliefs and sculptures – both the ones that have lasted the ages and the ones that have been recreated.

The menacing gateway to Angkor Thom with ten foot thick and twenty four foot high walls.

Next it’s on to Ankgor  Thom – another compound only slightly less majestic.   It’s way larger in terms of acreage, but includes a wider variety of temples.   One of the neatest things about the temples surrounding Siem  Reap is that they weren’t built all at once, but rather in entirely different centuries.   So, they carry with them the history, values, customs, and architecture of the ages.   The similarities are noticable, but the differences are amazing.   Angkor Thom is surrounded  by enormous walls 24 feet high and 10 feet thick all the way around.   The gem of Ankor  Thom is Bayon  – a fortress of an ancient king complete with pinacles  similar to Angkor Wat, but each hosts a enigmatic  face.   They are said to resemble the king, looming over the kingdom reminding the people who’s who.   It was my favorite of the temples in terms of beauty.   Also worth mentioning are the ”Elephant Terraces” where I got to wind my way through canyons of buddha images adorning the bases of the monuments.   Wow.

The whole of Angkor Thom. Wow.

“Let’s go, dude.”   Onto Ta Phrom, the last stop of the day, and award winner for most mysterious and adventure insipring.   This temple has only recently been slated for reconstruction and repair.   So, it is a testament to what the other temples would look like today were it not for due diligence of ages of culture conservationists.   Here the jungle literally eats away at the temple as tree roots slice through walls and wrap around structures like boa constrictors.   There are huge stone chunks of the temple everywhere, and a walkway throughout to keep visitors away from areas which are in serious danger  of collapse.   It is rumored  that portions of Indiana Jones films were shot  here amongest  the historic rubble.   My favorite parts, of course, were the enveloping trees and the places where I could see the walls starting to spread apart – like looking at gaps in a Jenga game on a grand scale.

One of the faces at Bayon in Angkor Thom. Big Brother is looking out for you…

My least favorite parts where other disrespectful tourists – especially the ones who look like me.   Do they just not read that it’s not okay to wear shorts and tank tops in the sacred temple grounds?   Do they not care?   What’s so hard about wearing some capris?   Can you really not handle a t-shirt?   And quit holding hands!   PDA’s here are SO not okay.   But you didn’t read that either, did you?!   Do you see anyone else doing it?   No.   Do you think that means you’re the only people at Angkor Wat who also happen to be  in love?   No.   And quit climbing on the temple!   I know you can read.   I know you saw the sign.   Thanks for making white tourists look like jerks.   Grrrr!!!

Some of the thousands of buddhas adorning the canyons between the terrace bases in the ”Elephant Terraces.”

By the end of the day, my legs were wobly  from all the climbing and motorbike riding.   It’s actual exercise to sit on the back of a motorbike here.   It is both really uncool and super weird (not to metion  uncomfortable for people who are embarassed  by a hug) to hold on with anything but your legs and core strength.   So, when Kong wanted to take me to one last temple, I declined.   He guilted  me into it by saying, ”you don’t like the temples that much, do you?”   Okay, okay, one more temple!   And of course it had to be  the steepest one.   Much like climbing the sacraficial  pyramids at Tenochitlan  in Mexcio, but steeper.   Some stairs are worthy of a climbing rating – granted only 5.6 or 5.7, but still!   I offered up my thanks for my young legs the whole  way up and the whole way down.   The view from the top was spectacular and very worth it.   I also got to tease a trinket selling girl who asked me where I came from.   I fired the question back at her, and she said ”my mother.”   I laughed out loud and said, ”Yeah?   Me too!”

A ”Temple of Doom” shot at Ta Phrom. Nature completes the cycle.

Overall – Angkor Wat is amazing.   Maybe it’s my northern hemisphere blood, or my lack of education about the temple history (or both), but they don’t beat Machu  Picchu  for awe and amazement points in my book.   I suppose because I’m a mountain girl, ruins with peaks shooting skyward all around and a temperature in the comfortable 60’s instead of the sweltering 80’s (and that’s the winter temp here!) get my vote more easily.   I definitely recommed a trip, though, and I look forward to returning one day!

Ta Phrom rubble – what the rest of the temples would (and did) look like without serious and ongoing efforts.

I had Kong drop me off at a tea garden famous for it’s butterflies (none in sight) where he invited me to meet up with him and his American girlfriend for dinner.   I readily agreed!

One Day Moves Into Two


After I got done looking for prices on Rotha’s  BrailleNote  (poor guy, they ARE $6,000!), I went for a nightcap at my guest house – my first pina  colda  with real coconut cream!   I still wasn’t quite satisfied, so I went down the street to the Monkey Republic and ordered up a Chocolate Chimp – just the ‘dessert’ I’d been craving!   There I met Ellie from the Netherlands, and we chatted the night away about traveling, bargaining, holiday customs in our home countries, and more!   She thinks Christmas in the U.S. is a waste of resources and expensive and that I should be more bold in my bargaining.

I was almost done with ”Around the World in 80 Days,” so of course I had to stay up late to find out if they won or lost the bet.     As a result, I didn’t get myself clothed in time to order a very hearty breakfast and instead ended up with the only portable thing – PBJ – for $3 (ridiculously expensive, especially for here, and especially when a full breakfast is only $3.25!)   The moto  driver I’d arranged the night before was really nervous about me being “on time,” but of course it was hurry-up-and-wait as usual.

I’m still trying to figure out the difference between durian and jackfruit.   The look alike  and small alike, but wikipedia  lists them as two different species (not that they’re any kind of official reference, but…).   Today I got to try one of them at a bus stop.
Was it a durian?
Or a jackfruit? I may never know!

It was great, but I ended up springing for the pineapple and a few Cambodian donuts instead.   One was like an empanada  (half moon  shaped dough) stuffed with shredded coconut.   The other was like a sopapilla with honey on the inside.   Yummy!

One thing I keep noticing but forgetting to talk about: no traffic lights!   There are very few traffic lights in Cambodia.   Even at major intersections (like four lanes meets four lanes), the modus operandi is just to nudge your way out in to the stream.   I did this several times on my bicycle in Phnom  Penh.   Amazingly, people just go around you and you keep inching forward until you’re across.   Not too bad!   When there is a big enough group crossing, it ends up stopping the cross traffic for awhile, so functioning basically like a stop light, only it’s common sense.   I like it!

The most interesting cargo on the trip to Phnom  Penh  that I got to see leaving the bus: 1) a wicker tote bag full of live chickens, 2) a moto  scooter!   The chickens were a surprise, but I did a double take when I saw them rolling a scooter out the back door of the luggage area.   How great!   The monkeys in the power lines were also a treat as we rolled in to Phnom  Penh.

My all day view out the window today.
Monkey in Phnom  Penh

Much to my dismay, upon arrival I found out my coast to city company was completely booked for Siam Reap seats for the rest of the day!   There is no night travel in Cambodia, meaning buses arrive at their destinations in daylight or shortly after sunset.   It being 12:30, and Siam Reap being a 6 hour trip, I was really pushing it for time.   I raced down the street to another bus company, and thankfully found out (while luxuriating in their air conditioning) that there were a few more seats on the 2 p.m. departure.   Yay!

I settled in a local’s spot with no menu and pointed at a cabbage/pork dish and some rice.   It was great, and the other guy at my table loved chatting with me.   He also recommended a guest house in Siam Reap to me, and arranged for them to come pick me up at the bus station – a relief to me since I would be arriving in the dark to a throng of overenthusiastic moto  and tuk  tuk  drivers!   Then I hunted for internet (it’s time to start hunting for a ride home from San Fran to Humboldt) in the sweltering heat to no avail before settling back in the air conditioned bus office to read about sustainable tourism in Siam Reap.

The bus ride was six hours of delightful sleep mixed with non-stop karaoke videos.   It’s weird – like watching Cambodian MTV crossed with that 80’s disney  talent show.   Of course all the songs were love songs with the woman playing coy and hard to get.   They also almost all took place in the countryside.   Modern dressy clothing, but walking through rice fields, paddling around ponds in wooden fishing boats, at the beach, etc.   From my window seat, I also noticed repeatedly the Cambodian variation on Buddhist shrines.   Same three-tiered doll-house size replica of a temple, same offerings out front, but many of the Cambodia shrines are disco-style with lots of neon and bright colored lights.   I wonder what the difference is to them?

Now I am in Siam Reap, and I love it!   No more big city!   There are still lots of people here (50,000?), but it’s a small town feeling with all but the main roads unpaved and quiet.   And I can see the stars!   Orion and the Seven Sisters are out in full force tonight.   I’m getting used to the constant bargaining and hassling, and try to take it with patience and a good sense of humor.

Siam Reap night market

Tonight, as I entered the night market and stopped to look at some spoons, the very first vendor woman says to me, ”Hello, lady.   Buy something?”   I laughed out loud, and asked her, ”Did you just say ‘buy something?’   She says yes, innocently, and I laugh again.   She asked me if she said something wrong, and I explained about the less direct approach most westerners are used  to.   She thanked me for explaining, telling me that it really helps her to know because she doesn’t have a way to learn otherwise.   It was funny!   Of course I heard the phrase over and over as as I strolled through the market.

Tomorrow I go to see Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious compound.   I’m excited!   I’m not looking forward to bargaining with the tuk  tuks.   I’m determined to find a driver who knows at least a few factoids and tid bits about the temples.   When I tested the waters tonight by asking a few guys what their favorite temple was, they just kept repeating the different routes and asking me when I wanted to go.   I will try again in the morning, but I might end up resigning myself to the standard fare of memorized phrases.   Guess I should learn Khmer or hire a tour guide!

P.s. – I can’t believe today is already the 20th!   My jaw dropped when I checked in at my guest house.   Five more days! 🙁

A Little Wiggle Room


So, thanks to Vichetr, my arrival in Sihanoukville was smooth.   After a pretty good night’s rest, I awoke to find I’d tipped over my makeshift contact holders during my in-the-dark fan battle.   (Should have brought two cases or back-ups.)   I put the old ones in and left the dried up lenses to soak hoping they’d regain their life.   Especially if the old pair didn’t survive the snorkelling trip!

I got my beachware  on, had breakfast, got to see my first alms-giving to a monk (I’ve tried not to be  the voyuer  that so many tourists are regarding  this tradition), and got picked up by a tuk-tuk and two French men.   We did the standard hurry up and wait as we watched storm clouds gather on the southern horizon.   It was clear to the north, though.   Which direction is Bamboo Island, anyway?” I asked our guide.   That’s when we found out the our ”English speaking guide” didn’t really speak or understand all that much English.

Sure enough, we launched off in the direction of  the storm!   Two awesome Australian women – Pip and Beck, a young Dutch couple, the Frenchmen, two older women from Denmark and a mysterious and quiet older couple.   It wasn’t long before I could see the whitecaps flashing in the water ahead.   Pretty soon the islands ahead became obscured by the gloom and the seas turned to an emerald grey.   They rolled the rain cover over the braces to make an awning for us, and we dove head long into the storm.   The rain came down in sheets soaking everything around the edges as we sat huddled in our bikini’s and towel-wrapped shoulders.   After an somewhat unnerving hour or so of wind, rain, whitecaps, rocking, rolling, and constant engine cut-outs, we sighted Bamboo Island and ran up on the shore.
We all just sat there as the rain came down in sheets.   The Frenchman donned their raincoats  and took the plunge.   Next the Denmark women were off, then the Australians went for it.   I decided that I love to swim, rain or no rain, and dived in as well.   Soon the rain had stopped and the sun was shining.   In between bouts of swimming in the clear blue water, I lounged in a hammock and read my book.
The waters off Bamboo Island
The greatest lazy day in hammocks. Makes me feel like I’m on the Amazon again!

It was great to do so much relaxing!   For lunch, it was Barracuda baked in tin foil, rolls, and fruit!     I love the tropics!   We went for a hike across the island and found another beach.   We all went for a swim and I soon learned about teeny schools of stinging fish that don’t really hurt any more than a mosquito bite.   Those with more extensive ocean experience assured me that they were normal, but I cut my swim short anyway as I tired of the little zaps.

Finally it was time to boat past some snorkeling spots on the way home.   I love snorkeling, and was the first to dive in!   I had some trouble with google fog (I don’t care how many times you spit, it doesn’t always work), but the coral was beautiful!

Fuzzy coral
My the most prominent underwater species – looks like little suction cups and sways in the water. I like it!
Squiggle coral (I’m making up these names)
And I’ve never seen such big sea urchins!   The coolest part was the electric blue rings on the surface of the urchins.   Really cool.   And the reef we were at was really close to the surface so I could see everything.   The downside – as I was treading water and defogging  my goggles, I accidentally kicked a sea urchin.   OUCH!   They’re poisonous.   Not kill-you-posionous, but definitely make-your-foot-numb-for-a-few-hours-posionous.   After that, I took one more trip around the coral, swam out to the deeper sea, and then took my turn at flopping myself back onto the boat (this was one of the funniest parts of the trip!).
My nemesis! Beautiful but dangerous.

The Australians were nurses and advised me to keep my puncture covered so I don’t pick up any of the rampant diseases (ring worm, etc.) in my open wound.   Point taken!   So, I hobbled back up to my hostel, took a shower, dressed my throbbing and numb foot, and took it upon myself to veg out as completely as possible.   I interneted, read, had a fantastic gourmet baked eggplant dinner, had a few beers, a crepe  suzette, and then watched two disks of Grey’s Anatomy (which I have never seen before).   I didn’t get some of the macro stuff, this being season 3 and all, but lots of mini dramas to entertain my brain.   It was great!   It’s been… probably two years since I’ve spent more than an hour or two doing “nothing.”   Heaven!   Thank you, Sea Urchin!

Today I slept in, had a breakfast so huge that at 8pm my normally ravenous appetited  is still abated, caught up on my blog some more, walked down to the beach (carefully) and took a moto  to the bakery where proceeds go to a local project for street children.   Then I went to Seeing Hands Massage – an employment opportunity for the blind.   I spent an hour and a half with Rotha  (rote-ah) which was the highlight of my day.   The massage  was, as usual, different than  what I’m used to at home.   Lots more pressing than rubbing.   The great part was chatting with Rotha.   He spoke great English!   He’s 23, and became blind from having the measles when he was three (as did most of his co-workers).   He hopes to be the director of a place employing blind people.   He asked me if I would mind telling him the difference between search and explore, between correct and edit, and if I could find out how much a Braille Note cost for him.   He was great!

Seeing Hands Massage in another city. Unlike other places I’ve been to in SE Asia, they have you change into scrubs and each person gets their own massage table. It was great!

I walked back home and took the wrong spoke off the traffic circle.   After a little backtracking, I made it ‘home!’   So, now I am here, researching the Braille Note (I thought maybe he was confused  about the name).   I’m sad to report back to him that this computer for the blind is about $3,000 – $6,000 new (maybe – no companies list their prices – I had to go through hearsay), and there is only one on Ebay right now that is $100.   I hope he can get one!   I wonder if I could write a company on his behalf?

Tomorrow morning I am off to Siam Reap, the base city for SE Asia’s most famous temple – Angkor Wat.   I might try to pay a visit to the Killing Fields as I pass through Phnom  Penh.   We’ll see how my foot is.   I can’t believe I’m flying home in only six more days!   Yikes!

Get Me Out of Here!


04.27.10 – Preface: this entry and indeed the entire blog is my means of communicating with my friends and family.   If you are looking for an accurate representation of what Phnom  Penh  is like or searching out wise & philosophical ponderings on the lessons of travel, please look elsewhere.

Phnom  Penh.   In a word, “‘YUCK.”   In two – ”absolutely putrid.”   You want three?   “Full-volume chaos.”   I think Phnom  Penh ranks right up there for worst trip experiences.   I think I almost would rather have been back on the slow boat.

I am not a fan of cities.   Especially cities where people have been consumed  by desperation and can no longer have the priviledge  of being “‘people.”   The reining era of the Khmer Rouge ripped Cambodia apart beginning in the late seventies and continued for twenty years.   Background for those who need it: the Khmer Rouge was an extremist communist party who sought to aggressively exterminate all the down-sides of capitalism by flipping the country completely on end.   Anyone who had moved above the very bottom ranks of society was considered  a threat to the communist ideal.   Shop owners, university students, professors, anyone who wore spectacles – essentially all of the  middle and upper class citizens – went onto  the list of seek and destroy missions.   Illiterate and uneducated peasants from the countryside were installed  to fill societal needs that education necessitates – like medicine.   People were exterminated out of pure suspicions.   Pol Pot, the major Khmer Rouge leader was fond of saying, ”It is better to kill twenty innocent men than to let one guilty man go free.”

After my interest in meeting the local people and learning lessons that travel alone offers, Angkor Wat and the Khmer Rouge history are what drew me to Cambodia.   If it weren’t for Tuol  Sleng   (a major prision  of the KR) and the killing fields (mass graves outside of the city), Phnnom  Penh  never would have been on my list.   Conventional wisdom has it that Cambodia ”is crippled  by a short-term outlook that encourages people to live for today rather than  thinking about tomorrow, because a short while ago there was no tomorrow.”   Which brings me back around to the misery that is Phnom  Penh.   People are not poorer in Cambodia than in surrounding SE Asian countries, so I have to wonder if the vulture mentality that has evolved here (and not elsewhere) is a product of Cambodia’s recent injustices at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

My eighteen hours in the city were barely tolerable.   I arrived and was accosted  and hunted by moto  drivers everytime  I even looked at the street.   In the morning, since the earliest sight-seeing open was the Royal Palace, I rented a bike and headed straight there, determined to make the 2:30 p.m. bus OUT of the city.   I didn’t eat breakfast.   A big, big mistake for anyone who knows me well.   Big.   Mistake.   I ended up having to eat a bag of some weird cross between a cheeto-porkskin-chip thing as a ”breakfast replacement.”

The Royal Palace was a let down, as I tend not to be  as awed by architechture and art as I am by mountains and waterfalls.
This tree and its amazing flowers (shorea  robusts  roxb) were all over the palace grounds. What do you think, dad? Have you ever seen this before?
The pavilion of  Napoleon. This house was gifted  to the King after it was used  to house a French empress during the inauguration of  the Suez Canal. It was reassembled in the palace grounds.

The grounds were beautiful, the gardens and buildings were amazing, but I was full-to-bursting with its history after only 90 minutes.   I was then faced with a dilema.   I had four hours thirty minutes remaining.   More than the killing fields, I really wanted to see the Tuol  Sleng  prison museum.   If I went to the fields first, I would have to rush through the museum or not go at all.   If I went to the museum first, I couldn’t chance leaving town for the fields afterwards and having traffic keep me from my bus (for which I had already purchased a ticket).   There was no way I was staying in Phnom  Penh, so Tuol  Sleng it was.

The museum is the site of a former school turned prision during the Khmer Rouge era and it was horrifying.   I arrived just as a movie that focused on how the KR rein affected a single couple began the first of its two daily showings.   The fear described by all the survivors in the movie of never knowing when you or your family would be swept away by the Khmer Rouge, for better or for worse, was completely tragic.
Some of the mugs shots of S21  (Security 21) Prison – Tuol  Sleng. Nearly all those pictured here were eventually executed at the Killing Fields where their skulls reside in a giant white memorial stupa.
The photos and histories of Khmer Rouge recruits were sad and spoke to the helplessness that racked Cambodia’s people.   The torture chambers were terrifying.   Paintings depicted how the torture devices were used.   The worst were the fingernail rippers, the body hangers, and the dunk tanks.   From gallows, soldiers would tie a prisoners hands behind their back.   Then, using that rope, they would hoist them into the air.   People dangled in this atrocious position until they passed out.   They were then dunked head first in putrid water sure to revive them and the whole process began anew.
The tank itself – really horrifying to stand right next to it and imagine all its victims.
A painting of one of the torture methods at S21 by a prisoner who survived.
The regulations for the prisoners and every other citizen under the Khmer Rouge regime.

The photos and mug shots of the prisoners were haunting.   The “rules” of the prision  were some of the most disgusting abuses of power I have ever seen.   The barbed wire still covering the building was awful.   The only uplifting thing in the whole  place was a display about the national effort to expose the Khmer Rouge’s wrong doings completely to Cambodia’s people.   A campaign to have all citizens visit the Killing Fields and Tuol  Sleng  is giving people pieces of their history back and helping to fill in the blanks created by Khmer Rouge.   One woman discovered her long-lost brother in a photograph of Tuol  Sleng prisoners.

The worst of the living situations at the prison. Some were ”lucky enough’ to get a cell. Others were chained at the ankle and had to lie side by side, nearly naked.

I left the Tuol  Sleng  prison in a somber mood and raced back to check out of my hostel.   My two hours remaining before the bus were just enough to be  dangerous, and so I decided against visiting the Killing Fields.   I didn’t want to forever impress my negative mood about the city on the history of my foray here, so I passed the time trying desperately not to be hounded, eating lunch, checking email, eating ice cream for comfort, and trying to visit a nearby market that was in a parking garage.   It was terribly depressing, and I immediately left to sit at the bus station and wait for the bus.

The starving and dead at Tuol  Sleng.

Finally I was seated  in an air-conditioned space and no one was hassling me to buy anything I didn’t want to buy, go anywhere I didn’t want to go, or do anything I didn’t want to do.   I was so relieved to be  leaving Phnom  Penh that I didn’t really mind too much when the three cell phones (yes three) of the young man I was assigned  next to went off constantly for nearly the whole trip.   We had a passive-aggressive space battle, as both of us are the type that insist on bringing our bags on the bus with us.   I was annoyed  with his willingness to sprawl into my area (I have a thing about areas).   But overall we managed pretty well.   We stopped half way and everyone got off the bus.   In these situations it’s always hard to tell if it’s a bus stop or a break.   After the bus was empty but for myself and three passengers, I decided on break.   In Brazil, often the bus stops at a restaurant en route.   Many times a meal at said restaurant is included in the ticket price.   After watching other passengers go in several directions – to the cheaper food vendors and to the restaurant – I decided it wasn’t included.   I wasn’t all that hungry, so I roamed about and stretched until it was time to roll on.

A child prisoner who was a victim of the regime.

When we arrived at Sihanoukville, my seat partner spoke to me for the first time announcing the name of the town and gesturing out the window.   That started a small conversation about where the bus stopped in town.   He was a supervisor for a cell phone company (which explained his three phones ringing non-stop).   I asked him the appropriate  price of a moto  taxi when we pulled into the bus station and grinned at him in amusement and disbelief at the moto-party  greeting the bus.   The drivers all come running along-side the bus as it pulls in, leaping three feet in the air and smiling and waving frantically at the arriving passengers, desperate to establish  a connection and gain a fare.   It’s nuts.   You would think we were their long lost  brothers and sisters finally coming home after twenty years.   Vichetr  (like Richard), my seat buddy, told me his staff was coming to pick him up and that I should go with him.   I was much obliged and gathered my things to follow him off the bus. He was one or two people ahead of me. By the time I had descended the stairs, I lots him in the mob who were all shouting at him.   I searched the crowd with no luck, and suddenly Vichetr  surged up the middle of all the moto drivers and whisked me off to the parking lot.   Thank you!

He had his driver take me past all the possible hospitality strips so I could decide where I wanted to stay.   Finally they dropped me near the “Monkey Republic” and I ended up at ”Mick and Craig’s” where I got a very nice room for only $6.   After the most delicious goat chesse  and bean burritos, I arranged an island, beach, and snorkelling tour for the morning and retired.   What a day.   Vichetr’s kindness was the bright spot in my otherwise dark days in Cambodia.   Thank you!

Pigs and a Death Wish


So, we were off, the Irish and I, to Cambodia.   The journey, however, was not to progress with any semblance of speed.   I had rushed to make the 8:30 departure only to linger until almost 9.   Then we had rushed from the boat to the vans, only to wait around until nearly 10.   Then we had bumped with a focus down a few miles of rolling dirt road to the main highway where we sped 20 miles to the border.   At the Lao border, it was a minimum of 30 minutes for the 15 of us, as there was a French couple adamant about not paying the $2 ‘stamp fee.’   Pure corruption, but you’ll never talk them out of it.   And it’s not like it’s $20.   To me, it seems a bit silly to argue what almost all first world-ers make in less than 15 minutes of employment.   The French did not succeed in doing anything but getting terribly angry and then parting with $2.

The approach to the Lao border.
The Lao immigration shack.

Then it was a 50 yard drive to the Cambodian border where half the group still needed to obtain  visas.   I would have been up $15 but down “peace-of-mind” if I had waited.   My guidebook threatened that a visa at the desolate border wouldn’t be possible, so I succumbed to my (American?) need for security and got it in the Lao capital.   Finally all were processed  after an hour’s time, and we were directed  to a mini-bus.   There was no rack atop for the massive bags most backpackers carry, so we were instructed  to load them onto the bus in the back seats.   A hefty project in the stifling heat – the bus being a completely windowless oven.   I, thankfully, was mostly exempt.

The Cambodian immigration shack.

We stood around the boiling pavement taking refuge in the shade of some small trees for the better part of an hour.   Finally, patience  not always being my strong suit, I sought out the guy in charge of the whole  operation.   He informed me that there would not be enough passengers for the minibus and that we would instead be taking a van.   The groans of the other 14 were humorous if you looked at it from a certain angle, as we formed an assembly line in the oven to transfer the bags.   Finally, a suspicious man (in this environment, all locals are regarded  as suspicious by most travelers) approached us enthusiastically asking if we were going to Phnom  Phen  and pointing at his car.   Having already paid $22, and not wanting to be  duped into paying more, we ignored him and stood with our crowd at the van.   Twenty minutes later, our conductor announced that the three of us making the journey to Phnom  Phen (the Irish and I) would go by car since the route varies farther along.   Good enough!   So we went, after all, with the suspicious man.

But.   Of course we couldn’t depart  right away.   First he opened the trunk.   Left to talk to some folk.   Then loaded the Irish’s bags (I loaded mine, they -in  the heat-  said exactly, “HE can do it.”).   Then left again on a conversational errand.   Then returned and encouraged us to get in the car.   Then, suddenly, had one more errand to leave.   The Irish grew comically impatient, practically yelling, “WHAT is with all this PISSING AROUND!?!?!?!”   I hadn’t set foot in the car, whereas they had been in and out.   I decided in the broiling heat, I wasn’t going to get in until the driver closed his door!   Two more errands, and we were off!

One hunderd  yards later, we were not.   Our driver pulled over and followed a path into the tall grass where we could hear him chatting with someone.   I took it upon myself to see if the A/C worked (it did!_, but he quickly shut it down when he returned a few minutes later.   Four hundred yards and stop.   Three hundred yards and stop.   Five hundred yards and stop.   Will we ever get to Phnom  Phen?

My mother and Pat will be glad to know that this man was one of the more careful I’ve seen.   He actually depresses the brake pedal on corners and when there are animals in the road.   However, as is standard, once we got going, we maintained a speed of 80-90 miles per hour on a road I wouldn’t trust with 60 in the states.   The potholes were horrifying as we slammed through them, bottoming out in our 90’s Toyata Camry again and again.   We picked up a passenger in the first town, and she rode shotgun with the foreigners in the backseat.   It took us awhile to discover why she kept throwing plastic bags out the window: the rough roads were making her terribly car-sick.   Poor thing!

The worst stretches of paved road were like this. When the potholes were numerous, we slowed to about 40mph. But if there was just one every 30 feet – back to 80 or 90! Poor car.

We bombed through villages, took detours requiring the compact car to descend deeply rutted craters four feet deep and then climb the other side.   The scraping of the under carriage on the high points of the ruts was brutal.   I wanted desperately to get out and walk, but the driver just plowed through, groaning at each rub and smack.   Yikes!

Ordering lunch at the roadside restaurant was comical.   As there was no menu, we spent about ten minutes pouring over my menu-reader in my phrasebook with the staff trying desperately to communicate that we’d eat anyting.   How was the word for “rice” not in the menu-reader?   Eventually we got “fried rice” and “pork” from a woman diner at the only other table.   We nodded enthusiastically and were served  heaping plates of delicous  fried rice, the famous Kampot pepper, and some interesting meat bits – many of which I avoided – followed by a huge plate of papaya.   We tried desperately to finish it in the name of showing our gratitude, but it was just WAY too much food.

The nicest of the sections of dirt roads. I couldn’t get a good picture of the rolling dips, crevices, ruts, etc.

Most memorable on the trip (besides the atrocious roads and our severe sympathy for the car) were the pigs and boats.   Every population center we passed had loads of people driving aroung  with pigs in crates – their forelegs and hindlegs bound in pairs.   There were bicycles with pigs (yes, plural), motorbikes with pigs, trucks with pigs, carts with pigs, pigs, pigs, pigs.   At first we thought the pigs were dead, but closer inspection saw that they were just bound and stuffed in the crates.

Slaughtered pig on a moto. A surprise sight the first time around.

The boats, were some kind of mythical  cross between medival  times and the third world.   I think they must have been fishing  boats.   A giant 60′ x 40′ raft hosted enourmous  poles that raced skyward at leaning angles shooting off like a hand in five directions.   At the tippy-top, maybe 70 feet in the air were giant nets connected to the five points.   I assume that the nets were dropped  into the water where they gathered fish and were hoisted back up.   But why so high?

Dip net fishing (as I learned it’s called) in black and white. Apparently the nets are used  to gather entire schools of fish that swarm the Mekong when it floods. It’s said that the counterarm makes it possible for a single person to lift and lower the net. Wow.
More pigs in a basket

As we neared Phnom  Phen, I realized why, when we had pulled over and were waiting for passenger-girl to finish puking  in the bushes, our driver had had  such a hard time understanding my friendly questioning, complete with map, about where he and his wife lived in Phnom  Phen.   At this point, you might do well to know that he was a customs official.   Well, I thought it was just a language barrier.   Turns out he’d been hoping the whole  time to squeeze a few more dollars out of us.   He refused (via “confusion”) to tell us where his final destination  was (lest ours be on the way), and tried to get $10 more for taking us to the door of our hotel.   When the Irish girls indignately  refused his first offer, suddenly his English was excellent so that he could tell us how bad traffic was and what a taxing chore and huge favor he’d be doing by taking us there.   They demanded him down to $6 – two a piece – and we ended up at “Capitol” – one of the most popular guesthouses in Phnom  Phen.

Piglets in a basket…on a motorbike.

The second we stepped out the door of the car, we were descended  upon by the moto  and tuk-tuk  drivers desperate to make a buck all shouting over the top of one another for our attention (money).   We tried to politely decline, but our “no thank yous” fell on deaf ears and continued shouts, much to our annoyance.   Conveniently, the hostel had no single rooms left (true or not, I’ll never know), I instead had to pay for a double (one of the few downsides to travelling alone).   When I returned to the streets twenty minutes later in hopes of internetting a bit, of course I was accosted  again by the motos  and tuk-tuks incessantly, even after I communicated repeatedly that I did not need a ride as I was only going across the street.

The nasty, crowded streets of Phnom  Phen. Imagine it by night at the end of a long, uncomfortable journey!