I feel like crap. The trip home turned out to be a lot of fun, but I'm paying for it big time now. My flight started off at 11:30, so I had been awake for at least 15 hours already. I didn't sleep a wink going to Seoul, South Korea which was about 5 hours. I landed there at around 6 am, and decided I didn't want to stay in the airport for my 12 hour layover, so I went exploring in Seoul (Janet, it was awesome - thanks!) for about 8 hours (and nearly lost all sensation in my fingers when for the life of me I could not find a store that sold gloves). When I took off from Seoul, I was at 32 hours with no sleep. The flight to Seattle thankfully turned out to be much shorter than the flight there (why is that??) but I still only got about 1 hour of sleep on the 9 hour flight. I had a two hours layover (43 hours and counting...) in Seattle before I returned to Portland at around 1:30 pm. At which point, I decided to force myself to stay awake until 11 pm. So the total was about 52 hours with 1 hour of sleep. I figured that I would be so tired I could sleep for at least 12 hours, right? But no, I woke up at 4:30 am and couldn't go back to sleep. And that's the way it's been for the last 3 nights. Work was no fun, but at least the workload wasn't too bad. But I'm feeling like a zombie. Tomorrow, my friends Tina and Jesse are visiting from out of town, then I have a soccer game, then a wedding reception, and then a Decemberists concert. I'm hoping to sleep for ALL of Sunday.
The last 4 days of Siem Reap were pretty great. First off, the night before, I was finally the one to be leaving the group and took a flight from Ho Chi Minh to Siem Reap (1 hour flight vs 14 hour bus ride - not even a contest). On Friday, I went to Honour Village to help assess their medical supplies and stock them with some stuff they might need, which was fairly simple since they only need to look after the health of the orphanage kids, in contrast to the Savong Medical Clinic which was serving the surrounding villages as well. I had Saturday off to borrow a bike from the guesthouse and I went pedaling around town, going down every street I could find that I hadn't seen before. Not all that difficult since Siem Reap is pretty small. Someone had told me where to find a street vendor that sold fried tarantulas. I got there and found the street vendor, but it turns out she didn't have tarantulas. What she did have was some kind of 6 inch long cockroach, as well as some 2 inch long beetles, deep fried chicks, and blackened frogs (not just legs, the whole thing). Okay, I waved the white flag. I'd reached my limit. Cambodia, you win. Anyhow, I need to save up something to try next year.
Saturday night, I had dinner with Kate and Chris (from OXfuhd UniVUHHsity), and several friends of theirs from the hospital. We had dinner at Il Forno which actually made good pizza. REALLY good pizza. So, over this pizza I got the lowdown on infectious diseases that they see and are able to diagnosis. For the difficult tests that require immunosorbent assays (HIV) or take a long time to culture (TB), they send it to the Pasteur Institute in Phnom Penh which I learned is VERY well equipped and can diagnosis just about anything. This is good to know for anyone who's going to Cambodia as a medical volunteer although I don't know if the Pasteur Institute will accept specimens from anybody or whether it has to go through a hospital.
On Sunday, I was invited to the wedding reception of Prom who is the owner of the guesthouse Golden Takeo which is right across the street from where I was staying. Prom is a hilarious Cambodian who I got to know over the last 7 weeks and who helped me to arrange all my travel plans. His rooftop restaurant also happens to serve the most amazing frosty chocolate shakes. Come to think of it, maybe I shouldn't have become friends with him. But the wedding party was awesome with terrific food and horrific Cambodian karaoke that included a Michael Jackson impersonator dancing to Billie Jean. Okay, maybe Cambodian karaoke is an acquired taste, but I don't know if I'll acquire it in this lifetime. Michael Jackson impersonators? More, please. Dancing to Cambodian music was much more fun than listening to it, but with the heat, I couldn't last more than a few songs.
On Monday, I went back to the Savong School and Orphanage to say my final goodbyes to the staff and kids. It turned out to be a lot harder to do than I thought. I even had a prolonged conversation with La and Liang, the two half-sisters who run the lunch stand that I ate at everyday. For those of you going there to volunteer, you can find their food stall directly across from the Bakong Temple. It's almost in the center of all the other food stalls. If you tell them you know me, your meal price will drop from $4 per dish to $1 per dish. La makes AWESOME pork fried rice. Don't worry, it's perfectly clean and safe. One of the ladies will also find the ice cream man if you ask. The ice cream man is this guy who pedals around on a bike attached to a giant frozen cooler. Yes, there's ice cream in it, but he serves it in a French baguette with sweetened condensed milk all over it. Trust me on this - it's out of this world.
Monday night, I had dinner with the Honour Village volunteers and Prom and his new wife, before I finally rushed off to the airport. Dorothy, Gordon, Jill, Moira, Cat, Dan, April, and Rosie - thanks for the conversations and good luck with the rest of your stay!
If I'm awake at all on Sunday, I'll try to start uploading photos and videos.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane...
Alright folks. I'm at the Siem Reap airport ready to head home via Seoul, Korea, and then Seattle. Will have a few more entries to put in after I'm home. But I've wrapped up my trip with a few REALLY hard goodbyes at the orphanage and school today. To everyone I met along the way, good luck and safe travels. To all those of you who followed my blog, thanks so much for your support and encouragement. Portlanders: see you soon!
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Cu Chi Photo Essay
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| Ben Duoc Memorial Temple |
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| The names of the Vietnamese who died fighting the French and the Americans |
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| Bats! |
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| Sara shrieked and came running out of a room yelling "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD! SPIDERS!!! THERE ARE HUGE SPIDERS IN THERE!!!" Turns out they weren't spiders - just some weird looking crickets (I think). I wonder if they're tasty. |
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| Trap door with large spikes waiting at the bottom. |
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| Tim decides to test the eyesight of bats by trying to touch one. It turns out that bats see well enough. |
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| Surgeons. I can't seem to get away from them. |
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| This is the Vietnamese man who led us home. THANK YOU! |
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| This photo somehow seemed appropriate. |
Cu Chi
The Cu Chi tunnels consist of a network of more than 250km (150 miles) of underground man-made tunnels that were dug out by the Vietnamese in the 1940's originally to fight against the French who had occupied Vietnam, as well as Cambodia and Laos (collectively known as Indochina), from the late 1850's.
During WW2, the French got slightly distracted when their country got invaded by the Germans. They eventually gave up control of Indochina to the invading Japanese. There was a lot of invading in those days by non-Americans. The communist Viet Minh party was formed in 1941 as a group interested in independence from the French. Unsurprisingly, they became very popular since the French had occupied the region for so long. They were also probably tired of eating baguettes. In the power vacuum that was formed by the surrender of the Japanese in Aug 1945 (and the French in Vietnam who were interned by the Japanese), the Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh took over and Vietnam finally had its independence. For a few months.
The French who didn't seem to figure out from the German occupation that it sucks to be invaded, wanted Vietnam back. Which is admittedly sort of understandable if you've seen the beaches in Vietnam. And half of the country's border is made up of gorgeous coastline. Geographically, it's the bee's knees. Displaying an unfortunate lack of judgment, the Allied victors (US, UK, and the Soviet Union) agreed that the country belonged to the French, so the Chinese forces moved into the North while the British troops moved into South Vietnam to help hold things until the French could re-equip themselves to occupy the area again. The British then re-armed the already present interned French as well as the defeated Japanese who hadn't yet returned home, to help out since there weren't enough British troops. War and politics make for strange bedfellows. The Viet Minh party won an election held in January 1946, but by March, the French landed in Hanoi and by November, had ousted the Viet Minh. The peeved Viet Minh then began guerilla warfare against the French, thus kicking off the First Indochina War.
The subsequent years got messy, not just in terms of body count but also from the number of other countries that got involved all of whom were convinced that "winning" Vietnam was significant in their battle against evil commies or capitalist pigs. The Vietnamese party in power happened to be communist, but the only thing the Vietnamese people really wanted was to have their country back and for everyone else to leave. The US watched, but temporarily remained on the sidelines. In 1954, the Vietnamese had the last say and the French finally threw in the towel and left, leaving behind only their baguette recipes and architectural influences. And thus, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam gained their independence.
Then things got *really* messy over the couple of decades as the Americans, who also failed to learn anything from history, took the reins from the French and became more and more involved, convinced by the Korean War that communism was spreading and that defeating the communists in Vietnam was really crucial in stemming "the Red Tide". Bizarre political alliances, corrupt leadership, rigged elections, secret bombings, media propaganda, executions, assassination attempts, and a whole host of other melodramatic events defined this era in SE Asia. In Vietnam it all culminated in The Vietnam War (aptly known as "The American War" by the Vietnamese).
...but I digress. The tunnels in short, were built to fight the French and ended up also being used to fight against the Americans and other SEATO allied forces (Australia, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines). The ones in Cu Chi are actually only a portion of the entire network of tunnels which underlie much of the country. The Vietnamese lived within the tunnels - hiding in them during the day, and coming out at night to attack enemy forces. The tunnels are an intricate network of tunnels with underground wells, air vents, military bunkers, medical clinics, war planning rooms, etc. The use of the tunnels were very effective especially in the beginning when Vietnam forces would seem to appear and disappear into thin air. The tunnels were eventually discovered and the American forces first tried to bomb them, but the extent of the tunnels were severely underestimated and the locations for most of it were unknown. Many trees died during this bombing campaign. They eventually tried to send people into the tunnels, but that was ineffective as well because they were heavily booby trapped. The tunnels are considered by some historians to be critical to the Viet Cong in allowing them to survive long enough to outlast the American troops, eventually leading to their withdrawal in April 1975.
So now you know most of what I read about in the last couple of days. Photos in the next post...
During WW2, the French got slightly distracted when their country got invaded by the Germans. They eventually gave up control of Indochina to the invading Japanese. There was a lot of invading in those days by non-Americans. The communist Viet Minh party was formed in 1941 as a group interested in independence from the French. Unsurprisingly, they became very popular since the French had occupied the region for so long. They were also probably tired of eating baguettes. In the power vacuum that was formed by the surrender of the Japanese in Aug 1945 (and the French in Vietnam who were interned by the Japanese), the Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh took over and Vietnam finally had its independence. For a few months.
The French who didn't seem to figure out from the German occupation that it sucks to be invaded, wanted Vietnam back. Which is admittedly sort of understandable if you've seen the beaches in Vietnam. And half of the country's border is made up of gorgeous coastline. Geographically, it's the bee's knees. Displaying an unfortunate lack of judgment, the Allied victors (US, UK, and the Soviet Union) agreed that the country belonged to the French, so the Chinese forces moved into the North while the British troops moved into South Vietnam to help hold things until the French could re-equip themselves to occupy the area again. The British then re-armed the already present interned French as well as the defeated Japanese who hadn't yet returned home, to help out since there weren't enough British troops. War and politics make for strange bedfellows. The Viet Minh party won an election held in January 1946, but by March, the French landed in Hanoi and by November, had ousted the Viet Minh. The peeved Viet Minh then began guerilla warfare against the French, thus kicking off the First Indochina War.
The subsequent years got messy, not just in terms of body count but also from the number of other countries that got involved all of whom were convinced that "winning" Vietnam was significant in their battle against evil commies or capitalist pigs. The Vietnamese party in power happened to be communist, but the only thing the Vietnamese people really wanted was to have their country back and for everyone else to leave. The US watched, but temporarily remained on the sidelines. In 1954, the Vietnamese had the last say and the French finally threw in the towel and left, leaving behind only their baguette recipes and architectural influences. And thus, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam gained their independence.
Then things got *really* messy over the couple of decades as the Americans, who also failed to learn anything from history, took the reins from the French and became more and more involved, convinced by the Korean War that communism was spreading and that defeating the communists in Vietnam was really crucial in stemming "the Red Tide". Bizarre political alliances, corrupt leadership, rigged elections, secret bombings, media propaganda, executions, assassination attempts, and a whole host of other melodramatic events defined this era in SE Asia. In Vietnam it all culminated in The Vietnam War (aptly known as "The American War" by the Vietnamese).
...but I digress. The tunnels in short, were built to fight the French and ended up also being used to fight against the Americans and other SEATO allied forces (Australia, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines). The ones in Cu Chi are actually only a portion of the entire network of tunnels which underlie much of the country. The Vietnamese lived within the tunnels - hiding in them during the day, and coming out at night to attack enemy forces. The tunnels are an intricate network of tunnels with underground wells, air vents, military bunkers, medical clinics, war planning rooms, etc. The use of the tunnels were very effective especially in the beginning when Vietnam forces would seem to appear and disappear into thin air. The tunnels were eventually discovered and the American forces first tried to bomb them, but the extent of the tunnels were severely underestimated and the locations for most of it were unknown. Many trees died during this bombing campaign. They eventually tried to send people into the tunnels, but that was ineffective as well because they were heavily booby trapped. The tunnels are considered by some historians to be critical to the Viet Cong in allowing them to survive long enough to outlast the American troops, eventually leading to their withdrawal in April 1975.
So now you know most of what I read about in the last couple of days. Photos in the next post...
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Get Your Motor Running. Head Out On The Highway.
I'm alive. This is something of a small miracle considering what we went through yesterday. Just kidding, Mom and Dad. Let me back up and start this story from two days ago. On Tues, we simply spent some time just walking around Ho Chi Minh City and just relaxing after a VERY long bus ride. At night, we discussed plans for the next day (Wed). We knew we wanted to go to see the infamous Cu Chi Tunnels. The Cu Chi tunnels are located outside of HCM (near the town of Cu Chi...of course). However, our group had different ideas of how we were going to get there. There are of course a multitude of tour companies who are all too happy to take you out there for a pretty reasonable fee. But they all seemed a little bit boring to most of us. Then Tim came up with an idea - we could rent motorbikes ("scooters" in the U.S.) to go visit the tunnels. Unlike in Siem Reap, foreigners are allowed to rent motorbikes in HCM. Now, before we went to HCM I had asked about the tunnels and had heard that they were 50 km away. Tim was convinced they were more like 15 km away. After all, it looked so close on his iPhone map. With the right zoom, Beijing looks pretty close too. One of us turned out to be wrong. So very, very wrong. Tim, in an effort to convince us, told us it'd be a couple of turns and in five minutes we'd be out of the city traffic and into the countryside where it would be a easy and lazy ride out to the tunnels. Did I mention that one of us would turn out to be wrong?
Martin was up for it but didn't want to drive because he didn't have a license. James didn't want to drive at all because he called the traffic "bloody insane". Yes, he's a Brit. But he also had a somewhat valid point. Allow me to illustrate. Remember how I mentioned in the previous post that HCM consists of over 9 million people? To put it into perspective, that's about the same population of Bangkok. Hong Kong "only" has 7 million. The vast majority of the HCM traffic is comprised of people on motorbikes; I'd say roughly 80% of the motorized vehicles on the road. And remember what I posted about traffic in Siem Reap? Well, it's about 10 times more populated, the driving is equally chaotic, and the intersections are enormous with hundreds of vehicles in them at any one point going in all directions. But Tim was quite excited for the idea. He's had years of experience with a motorbike back in New Zealand. Me? I've had years of experience with Mario Kart. I was very moved that Sara trusted me enough to be a passenger. On a more serious note, if Sara's family and/or boyfriend are reading this, I assure you I drove with extreme caution, I never took any risks, we all had helmets, and I would never undertake such an endeavor with a passenger unless I felt safe doing so. I'm happy to say that the driving itself was blissfully uneventful.
So the next morning, Tim and I went down the block and immediately found a couple of 100 cc automatic Yamaha motorbikes. Tim gave me a quick 5 minute tutorial of all the controls and we took them for a quick spin around the block. I drove around in crowded traffic until I felt comfortable. No problemo. After about 5 minutes, it really started to feel second nature. So we met back in front of our guesthouse and then Laura and Sara hopped on. To avoid having my backpack snatched, I wore it while Sara sat behind me. And off we went...
The supposed 5 minutes to get out of the city turned into about 45 minutes of weaving and dodging through some of the most amazing traffic I've ever been in (and I've driven through Boston, New York, DC, SF, Seattle, and LA). However, interestingly, unlike in the U.S., traffic in Vietnam NEVER seems gridlocked. Part of it is that people only partially pay attention to little details like traffic lights, lane markers, and sidewalks. Curbs in Vietnam are at a 30 degree angle to the road and thus, they appear to be designed to be driven over. You know, in case that 80 year old woman on a bicycle is holding you up. So anyhow, there's no gridlock (that I've seen) because if anything is holding up traffic, everyone just goes around said blockage. If they have to drive into oncoming traffic, or up onto the sidewalk with the pedestrians, so be it. I'll admit, this seems insane to most Westerners at first glance. But when you actually drive in it, for whatever strange reason, it works quite well, and it really isn't as scary as it might seem from a pedestrian's point of view. A big part of it is that road rage really doesn't seem to exist in any SE Asian country. No one is in a competition with you to see who "wins". I quickly discovered a couple of tricks to driving in HCM. Don't rush, but also don't hesitate. Follow the crowd, make sure you can be seen, and you'll be just fine.
As we drove out there, we found the town of Cu Chi but got a bit lost and there wasn't a single foreigner in sight. But we finally found a couple of kind souls who knew enough English that they figured out where we trying to go and pointed us in the right direction. It turns out that the tunnels are quite a bit outside of town (another 15 km to be exact; so 15 km from HCM was *slightly* off) and we arrived there a little after 2:30 pm. Which gave us just enough time to explore the tunnels before closing time at 5:00 pm. The tunnels were quite the visit and I'll write more about that in a followup post with photos.
At around 5 pm, we hit the road with the realization that we were not going to make it back by dark. We took what we thought might be a faster route back, but it turned out to be a much smaller road that went through several small towns. It was certainly scenic and the sun setting over the rice paddies in Vietnam was absolutely gorgeous - breathtakingly so. For a little while as we passed the amazing scenery, my thoughts turned to my dear Uncle Bob who passed away just before my trip. He was a kind soul who always lived in the moment, never had a negative thing to say about anyone, and took great joy in being surrounded by the people he loved. His passing served as a reminder to me to always try to find ways to savor life and be happy. It's too short to sweat the small stuff. Uncle Bob, wherever you are, I hope you are continuing on in your awesomeness. Gan bei! Cheers.
About 45 minutes later, the sun set and we were on the outskirts of HCM. We were stopped at an intersection with about 100 other locals on motorbikes. Just about all of them were staring at us. Quite a few of them were pointing at us, saying things in Vietnamese, and laughing. Perhaps they were saying, Look at the foreigners. Remember their faces. We're going to see them again on the 10 o'clock news tonight. At this particular intersection, there was also a family on the motorbike - a father who was driving, a mother who was on the rear seat, and their 2 year old infant was sandwiched between. They were smiling at us at first as well, but then as we took off from the intersection, they caught up to us and started pointing ahead at Tim and Laura, with concerned looks on their faces and shaking their heads in disapproval. The mom was grabbing something invisible out of the air and saying something very rapidly in Vietnamese. I shrugged my shoulders. Finally, looking at Laura we figured out what they were trying to say. Laura, on the back of Tim's motorbike was holding her iPhone out at her side, using the GPS to navigate us back home. This was not a good idea in a city that has a reputation for street thieves. We caught up to them and called out to them to put the iPhone away. If someone managed to grab it, it'd be too easy to get away with the city's maze of dark alleyways.
While we were filling up on gas earlier, Laura also informed us that the phone battery was down to 25%. Tim and I waved it off, figuring that gave us at least a couple of hours. Well, we were both wrong about that. The iPhone went dark right almost exactly when the sun completely disappeared. Laura pulled out the Lonely Planet map and figured she could get us home using just that. We were still roughly 20 km from home at this point. Well, unfortunately we got quite lost. From all the traffic and brightly lit buildings, we were obviously in the city. But the streets go in seemingly random directions and after about 20 minutes of driving, I don't know that we really knew where we were headed, in spite of Laura's assurances. But the buildings were getting taller and the lights were getting brighter, so at least it *seemed* like we were headed in the correct general direction. Then again, as I said, HCM is a BIG city. So I suppose what happened next was an inevitability.
Tim and I were both in the left hand lane of about 4 lanes of traffic and then Laura started gesturing vigorously to the right. Tim veered off to the right. Sara started calling out, "Go right! Go right!". I looked over my right shoulder and saw about 30-40 motorbikes each on average about a foot apart. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to cut across. So I kept going and it turned out I was in a left hand turn only lane. So I was forced to go left onto a one way street with no way to turn around. City blocks in Vietnam are very very large. It took me at least several minutes to reach the end of the block, turn right, go up another block, and turn right again to get back to the intersection where we were separated. We finally got back about 15 minutes later, but Tim and Laura were nowhere in sight. Crap.
So there we were, in a city of 9 million, at night, in rush hour, with no GPS, no map, and no fluency in Vietnamese whatsoever. But we did have a full tank of gas. So there's that at least. There was nothing to do at this point but keep on driving down the road. We finally found a small street with very little traffic and saw a small hotel where I pulled over, hopeful that someone inside spoke English. Sara ran in to find someone. While she was inside, I saw a young Vietnamese man standing on the street just ahead of me. I waved to him and asked him if he spoke English. He shook his head, but walked over anyhow to see if he could help. I tried pronouncing anything I could remember that was in our neighborhood. Pham Nga Lao District? De Tham Street? Ben Thanh Market? 23 September Park?, but to no avail. He motioned for another woman on the sidewalk to come over. I tried all the locations again, but again, I couldn't be understood. Finally, they both called another woman over who did speak a little English. But even then, she didn't know any of the locations I listed. Sara then walked out and shook her head. No luck.
Then, suddenly I realized something. Somewhere in the back of my head, I had enough common sense when I rented the motorbike to grab a business card that had the address on it. I quickly dug into my pockets and found the card and handed it to the young man. As luck would have it, he had an iPhone 4 on him. So he pulled it out and entered the address into his GPS. He found the address and showed me the route. It showed that we were 6 km away. Not too bad even though we were on the wrong side of the city. However, the route first took a convoluted path through a bunch of small streets before finally getting to a large road that would lead us all the way back. They had a discussion for a few minutes about what to do with us while I listened intently, as if I could understand them if I only focused my attention enough. The woman who spoke a little English started writing down turn by turn directions. Then the man suddenly had an idea and he ran off down the street to talk to an older man (we were guessing he had to be at least 75) on a motorbike and talked to him for a couple of minutes while showing him the map on his iPhone. The two women said to us "seo" and gestured with their hands to indicate that we should follow the old man. The old man drove up to us on his motorbike and gave us a price: 40,000 dong. 2 USD. That was the easiest decision I had to make in a long time. Before we drove off, we profusely thanked the three other Vietnamese locals for helping us out.
About half an hour later, we finally got back to our street. But we were worried for Laura and Tim because their motorbike was not back at the store and we weren't sure if they had an address card. Sara went off in to go find us a couple of victory beers while I waited in front of the rental store. After about 5 minutes, I turned to see Laura and Tim waving at us excitedly from across the road. It turns out that they waited for about 10 minutes and then continued on. They lucked out and happened to come across the one big road that took them all the way home. And thus, our adventure came to a happy end. It was an absolutely awesome day and over dinner, we re-lived every exciting minute. It's going to be hard to top this day.
Martin was up for it but didn't want to drive because he didn't have a license. James didn't want to drive at all because he called the traffic "bloody insane". Yes, he's a Brit. But he also had a somewhat valid point. Allow me to illustrate. Remember how I mentioned in the previous post that HCM consists of over 9 million people? To put it into perspective, that's about the same population of Bangkok. Hong Kong "only" has 7 million. The vast majority of the HCM traffic is comprised of people on motorbikes; I'd say roughly 80% of the motorized vehicles on the road. And remember what I posted about traffic in Siem Reap? Well, it's about 10 times more populated, the driving is equally chaotic, and the intersections are enormous with hundreds of vehicles in them at any one point going in all directions. But Tim was quite excited for the idea. He's had years of experience with a motorbike back in New Zealand. Me? I've had years of experience with Mario Kart. I was very moved that Sara trusted me enough to be a passenger. On a more serious note, if Sara's family and/or boyfriend are reading this, I assure you I drove with extreme caution, I never took any risks, we all had helmets, and I would never undertake such an endeavor with a passenger unless I felt safe doing so. I'm happy to say that the driving itself was blissfully uneventful.
So the next morning, Tim and I went down the block and immediately found a couple of 100 cc automatic Yamaha motorbikes. Tim gave me a quick 5 minute tutorial of all the controls and we took them for a quick spin around the block. I drove around in crowded traffic until I felt comfortable. No problemo. After about 5 minutes, it really started to feel second nature. So we met back in front of our guesthouse and then Laura and Sara hopped on. To avoid having my backpack snatched, I wore it while Sara sat behind me. And off we went...
The supposed 5 minutes to get out of the city turned into about 45 minutes of weaving and dodging through some of the most amazing traffic I've ever been in (and I've driven through Boston, New York, DC, SF, Seattle, and LA). However, interestingly, unlike in the U.S., traffic in Vietnam NEVER seems gridlocked. Part of it is that people only partially pay attention to little details like traffic lights, lane markers, and sidewalks. Curbs in Vietnam are at a 30 degree angle to the road and thus, they appear to be designed to be driven over. You know, in case that 80 year old woman on a bicycle is holding you up. So anyhow, there's no gridlock (that I've seen) because if anything is holding up traffic, everyone just goes around said blockage. If they have to drive into oncoming traffic, or up onto the sidewalk with the pedestrians, so be it. I'll admit, this seems insane to most Westerners at first glance. But when you actually drive in it, for whatever strange reason, it works quite well, and it really isn't as scary as it might seem from a pedestrian's point of view. A big part of it is that road rage really doesn't seem to exist in any SE Asian country. No one is in a competition with you to see who "wins". I quickly discovered a couple of tricks to driving in HCM. Don't rush, but also don't hesitate. Follow the crowd, make sure you can be seen, and you'll be just fine.
As we drove out there, we found the town of Cu Chi but got a bit lost and there wasn't a single foreigner in sight. But we finally found a couple of kind souls who knew enough English that they figured out where we trying to go and pointed us in the right direction. It turns out that the tunnels are quite a bit outside of town (another 15 km to be exact; so 15 km from HCM was *slightly* off) and we arrived there a little after 2:30 pm. Which gave us just enough time to explore the tunnels before closing time at 5:00 pm. The tunnels were quite the visit and I'll write more about that in a followup post with photos.
At around 5 pm, we hit the road with the realization that we were not going to make it back by dark. We took what we thought might be a faster route back, but it turned out to be a much smaller road that went through several small towns. It was certainly scenic and the sun setting over the rice paddies in Vietnam was absolutely gorgeous - breathtakingly so. For a little while as we passed the amazing scenery, my thoughts turned to my dear Uncle Bob who passed away just before my trip. He was a kind soul who always lived in the moment, never had a negative thing to say about anyone, and took great joy in being surrounded by the people he loved. His passing served as a reminder to me to always try to find ways to savor life and be happy. It's too short to sweat the small stuff. Uncle Bob, wherever you are, I hope you are continuing on in your awesomeness. Gan bei! Cheers.
About 45 minutes later, the sun set and we were on the outskirts of HCM. We were stopped at an intersection with about 100 other locals on motorbikes. Just about all of them were staring at us. Quite a few of them were pointing at us, saying things in Vietnamese, and laughing. Perhaps they were saying, Look at the foreigners. Remember their faces. We're going to see them again on the 10 o'clock news tonight. At this particular intersection, there was also a family on the motorbike - a father who was driving, a mother who was on the rear seat, and their 2 year old infant was sandwiched between. They were smiling at us at first as well, but then as we took off from the intersection, they caught up to us and started pointing ahead at Tim and Laura, with concerned looks on their faces and shaking their heads in disapproval. The mom was grabbing something invisible out of the air and saying something very rapidly in Vietnamese. I shrugged my shoulders. Finally, looking at Laura we figured out what they were trying to say. Laura, on the back of Tim's motorbike was holding her iPhone out at her side, using the GPS to navigate us back home. This was not a good idea in a city that has a reputation for street thieves. We caught up to them and called out to them to put the iPhone away. If someone managed to grab it, it'd be too easy to get away with the city's maze of dark alleyways.
While we were filling up on gas earlier, Laura also informed us that the phone battery was down to 25%. Tim and I waved it off, figuring that gave us at least a couple of hours. Well, we were both wrong about that. The iPhone went dark right almost exactly when the sun completely disappeared. Laura pulled out the Lonely Planet map and figured she could get us home using just that. We were still roughly 20 km from home at this point. Well, unfortunately we got quite lost. From all the traffic and brightly lit buildings, we were obviously in the city. But the streets go in seemingly random directions and after about 20 minutes of driving, I don't know that we really knew where we were headed, in spite of Laura's assurances. But the buildings were getting taller and the lights were getting brighter, so at least it *seemed* like we were headed in the correct general direction. Then again, as I said, HCM is a BIG city. So I suppose what happened next was an inevitability.
Tim and I were both in the left hand lane of about 4 lanes of traffic and then Laura started gesturing vigorously to the right. Tim veered off to the right. Sara started calling out, "Go right! Go right!". I looked over my right shoulder and saw about 30-40 motorbikes each on average about a foot apart. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to cut across. So I kept going and it turned out I was in a left hand turn only lane. So I was forced to go left onto a one way street with no way to turn around. City blocks in Vietnam are very very large. It took me at least several minutes to reach the end of the block, turn right, go up another block, and turn right again to get back to the intersection where we were separated. We finally got back about 15 minutes later, but Tim and Laura were nowhere in sight. Crap.
So there we were, in a city of 9 million, at night, in rush hour, with no GPS, no map, and no fluency in Vietnamese whatsoever. But we did have a full tank of gas. So there's that at least. There was nothing to do at this point but keep on driving down the road. We finally found a small street with very little traffic and saw a small hotel where I pulled over, hopeful that someone inside spoke English. Sara ran in to find someone. While she was inside, I saw a young Vietnamese man standing on the street just ahead of me. I waved to him and asked him if he spoke English. He shook his head, but walked over anyhow to see if he could help. I tried pronouncing anything I could remember that was in our neighborhood. Pham Nga Lao District? De Tham Street? Ben Thanh Market? 23 September Park?, but to no avail. He motioned for another woman on the sidewalk to come over. I tried all the locations again, but again, I couldn't be understood. Finally, they both called another woman over who did speak a little English. But even then, she didn't know any of the locations I listed. Sara then walked out and shook her head. No luck.
Then, suddenly I realized something. Somewhere in the back of my head, I had enough common sense when I rented the motorbike to grab a business card that had the address on it. I quickly dug into my pockets and found the card and handed it to the young man. As luck would have it, he had an iPhone 4 on him. So he pulled it out and entered the address into his GPS. He found the address and showed me the route. It showed that we were 6 km away. Not too bad even though we were on the wrong side of the city. However, the route first took a convoluted path through a bunch of small streets before finally getting to a large road that would lead us all the way back. They had a discussion for a few minutes about what to do with us while I listened intently, as if I could understand them if I only focused my attention enough. The woman who spoke a little English started writing down turn by turn directions. Then the man suddenly had an idea and he ran off down the street to talk to an older man (we were guessing he had to be at least 75) on a motorbike and talked to him for a couple of minutes while showing him the map on his iPhone. The two women said to us "seo" and gestured with their hands to indicate that we should follow the old man. The old man drove up to us on his motorbike and gave us a price: 40,000 dong. 2 USD. That was the easiest decision I had to make in a long time. Before we drove off, we profusely thanked the three other Vietnamese locals for helping us out.
About half an hour later, we finally got back to our street. But we were worried for Laura and Tim because their motorbike was not back at the store and we weren't sure if they had an address card. Sara went off in to go find us a couple of victory beers while I waited in front of the rental store. After about 5 minutes, I turned to see Laura and Tim waving at us excitedly from across the road. It turns out that they waited for about 10 minutes and then continued on. They lucked out and happened to come across the one big road that took them all the way home. And thus, our adventure came to a happy end. It was an absolutely awesome day and over dinner, we re-lived every exciting minute. It's going to be hard to top this day.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
HCM
Tim, Laura, Sara, Martin, and I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, aka Saigon, on Monday night. In combination with the surrounding towns, HCM is made up of more than 9 million people, making it not just the largest city in Vietnam, but the largest city in all of the territories making up the former French Indochina - Laos, Vietnam, most of Cambodia, and small parts of Thailand. There's fascinating history with regards to this region and it all makes sense in the context of what happened with the French and the Japanese during World War II. This is something I need to study up on more when I get back home.
The border crossing was quite interesting. We crossed over at the Vietnamese town of Moc Bai. Just before the crossing though, we passed through the town of Bavet, Cambodia that seemed to be comprised of only casinos. Really large, fancy casinos. It turns out that border casinos in Cambodia are big business. Thailand doesn't allow gambling within the country, period. In fact, their laws regarding gambling are quite strict. However, that does nothing of course to dissuade its citizens from partaking in private gambling - cock fighting, muay thai boxing, etc. It's estimated that at least 70% of the Thai population gambles regularly. After all, life is short and laws are meant to be broken in SE Asia. Vietnam and Cambodia don't allow gambling by their own citizens, but foreigners are allowed. Which means casinos can be built if they only allow foreigners in. And so, in Cambodia, casinos have been built on border cities (e.g. Poipet and Bavet) to capitalize on citizens from neighboring countries. The casino business is doing okay for now, but there is speculation that Vietnam will soon partially legalize gambling for its own citizens. Depending on the form the new law takes, it may mean the end of the casinos at the border towns.
We went through a customs check, but it seemed to be mostly for show. I walked through the "metal detector" with my 5 lb full brass/steel camera in my hand, and the machine didn't even make a peep. I'm not even sure it was on. And if it was, there wasn't an officer in sight to stop and search me. It would perhaps save the TSA quite a bit of money if they also had similar setups. And likely, equally effective.
On the other side, we piled back into the bus for the remaining 3 hour ride into Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam's contrast to Cambodia was immediately apparent. The roads were twice as wide, and twice as smooth as Cambodia's. As we approached HCM, there were still small huts on the side of the road like in Cambodia, but they were constructed much better and there was a lot less garbage in the streets. The contrast continued to grow as we got into the city. It was easily apparent, even at night, that HCM was much more developed and modernized compared to any of the Cambodian cities. It was also a little strange to see the signs in Vietnamese. The Vietnamese language has an interesting history and derivation. It originally started off being quite similar to Khmer and had similar roots in Sanskrit. However, in the past 150 years, it became heavily influenced by Chinese, in particular the Cantonese dialect. The written language has evolved as a result of the region's French colonization and has developed a interesting Latin form with additional diacritics (accents and other glyph symbols) to accomodate the additional vowels and sounds that are not used in Latin-derived languages. Thus, when you see the Vietnamese language, you can almost read it. Except that you probably can't because there are very different rules of pronunciation for their alphabet.
This results in some rather awkward and comical attempts at speaking (comical at least to our immature Western minds). For example, the money is called "dong" (VND). 1 US Dollar is exchanged for roughly 20,000 dong. The first night we got here, I exchanged $50. Which got me 1 million dong. Hell yeah. For about half an hour, I became a millionaire. :) And then I bought a shake. So then I wasn't.
The border crossing was quite interesting. We crossed over at the Vietnamese town of Moc Bai. Just before the crossing though, we passed through the town of Bavet, Cambodia that seemed to be comprised of only casinos. Really large, fancy casinos. It turns out that border casinos in Cambodia are big business. Thailand doesn't allow gambling within the country, period. In fact, their laws regarding gambling are quite strict. However, that does nothing of course to dissuade its citizens from partaking in private gambling - cock fighting, muay thai boxing, etc. It's estimated that at least 70% of the Thai population gambles regularly. After all, life is short and laws are meant to be broken in SE Asia. Vietnam and Cambodia don't allow gambling by their own citizens, but foreigners are allowed. Which means casinos can be built if they only allow foreigners in. And so, in Cambodia, casinos have been built on border cities (e.g. Poipet and Bavet) to capitalize on citizens from neighboring countries. The casino business is doing okay for now, but there is speculation that Vietnam will soon partially legalize gambling for its own citizens. Depending on the form the new law takes, it may mean the end of the casinos at the border towns.
We went through a customs check, but it seemed to be mostly for show. I walked through the "metal detector" with my 5 lb full brass/steel camera in my hand, and the machine didn't even make a peep. I'm not even sure it was on. And if it was, there wasn't an officer in sight to stop and search me. It would perhaps save the TSA quite a bit of money if they also had similar setups. And likely, equally effective.
On the other side, we piled back into the bus for the remaining 3 hour ride into Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam's contrast to Cambodia was immediately apparent. The roads were twice as wide, and twice as smooth as Cambodia's. As we approached HCM, there were still small huts on the side of the road like in Cambodia, but they were constructed much better and there was a lot less garbage in the streets. The contrast continued to grow as we got into the city. It was easily apparent, even at night, that HCM was much more developed and modernized compared to any of the Cambodian cities. It was also a little strange to see the signs in Vietnamese. The Vietnamese language has an interesting history and derivation. It originally started off being quite similar to Khmer and had similar roots in Sanskrit. However, in the past 150 years, it became heavily influenced by Chinese, in particular the Cantonese dialect. The written language has evolved as a result of the region's French colonization and has developed a interesting Latin form with additional diacritics (accents and other glyph symbols) to accomodate the additional vowels and sounds that are not used in Latin-derived languages. Thus, when you see the Vietnamese language, you can almost read it. Except that you probably can't because there are very different rules of pronunciation for their alphabet.
This results in some rather awkward and comical attempts at speaking (comical at least to our immature Western minds). For example, the money is called "dong" (VND). 1 US Dollar is exchanged for roughly 20,000 dong. The first night we got here, I exchanged $50. Which got me 1 million dong. Hell yeah. For about half an hour, I became a millionaire. :) And then I bought a shake. So then I wasn't.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Good Moooorning Vietnam!!!
It's been a somber past couple of days in Phnom Penh. On Sat, we went to Tuol Sleng, a school that was later converted during the Khmer Rouge regime into a security center, infamously known as "S-21". It was the largest security detention center in Cambodia and was where suspected enemies of the state were held, interrogated, and tortured. And if they survived long enough, they were subsequently hauled off to Choeng Ek, The Killing Fields, where they were summarily executed and buried in mass graves. I took some photos, but need a little more time to work on them before I post. The past two days have been a grim reminder of how fortunate we all are to live in the society that we do. It's hard to understand how human beings have the capability of such cruelty but it is critical to understand if such atrocities are to prevented in the future. Then again, such tragic human acts seem to have a way of slipping under the radar of most developed nations until after it's too late. I've only just started to delve into the details of what's happened but if you're interested in knowing more, the Wikipedia entry is a pretty good start: Khmer Rouge.
Yesterday morning, Sylvie headed off for Koh Chang off the coast of Thailand. In the early afternoon, Markus headed off to Sihanoukville. The rest of us are are headed to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. Right now, Tim, Laura, Sara, Martin, and I are waiting outside our hotel for the bus. BTW, if you come to Phnom Penh, try to do a better job than us at finding a decent place to stay. The place we stayed at was called the Angkor International Hotel. It was...okay. According to Tim and Laura, it was far better than the place they stayed on their first night. This is hard for me to imagine, because I would classify this hotel as shady at best. But the location was good so we stayed. With my notebook computer and photography equipment, I never left my 25 lb backpack in the room though which meant I was pretty much drenched in sweat the entire time we were here. Oh well, I needed the exercise anyhow. I'm guessing the fruit shakes are around one million calories each (half of it is sweetened condensed milk) and I've been drinking like two a day. *burp*
Phnom Penh in general is more expensive than Siem Reap which is surprising because Siem Reap is a lot more touristy. It was more expensive to stay here than my posh accomodations in SR at Motherhome Guesthouse, which honestly, was like a 5-star hotel by comparison. Food is also more expensive here. And really I couldn't find much more to see than the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng. Enjoyed my time here, but it's high time to leave. I'm looking forward to getting some Vietnamese food too. I'll write more when I get there. See you on the flip side.
Yesterday morning, Sylvie headed off for Koh Chang off the coast of Thailand. In the early afternoon, Markus headed off to Sihanoukville. The rest of us are are headed to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. Right now, Tim, Laura, Sara, Martin, and I are waiting outside our hotel for the bus. BTW, if you come to Phnom Penh, try to do a better job than us at finding a decent place to stay. The place we stayed at was called the Angkor International Hotel. It was...okay. According to Tim and Laura, it was far better than the place they stayed on their first night. This is hard for me to imagine, because I would classify this hotel as shady at best. But the location was good so we stayed. With my notebook computer and photography equipment, I never left my 25 lb backpack in the room though which meant I was pretty much drenched in sweat the entire time we were here. Oh well, I needed the exercise anyhow. I'm guessing the fruit shakes are around one million calories each (half of it is sweetened condensed milk) and I've been drinking like two a day. *burp*
Phnom Penh in general is more expensive than Siem Reap which is surprising because Siem Reap is a lot more touristy. It was more expensive to stay here than my posh accomodations in SR at Motherhome Guesthouse, which honestly, was like a 5-star hotel by comparison. Food is also more expensive here. And really I couldn't find much more to see than the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng. Enjoyed my time here, but it's high time to leave. I'm looking forward to getting some Vietnamese food too. I'll write more when I get there. See you on the flip side.
Culinary Adventures Episode 3: Brain Food
Two nights ago, a group of us wandered out late at night in search of cheap food. There happened to be a local market across the street. Very much NOT a foreigner hangout. When you go to these places, you just have to not look down if you want to be eating anytime soon. I saw what I thought was a bowl of noodle soup being served to a local, so I pointed to it and said, "D'oat k'near". Same. While waiting for our food, Sylvie who was so hungry she couldn't wait, ran across the street to a vendor selling what she thought were hard-boiled eggs. As she sat down, she cracked the eggshell on the table, peeled the top and her head suddenly reeled back with a look of disgust on her face. Markus leaned over to take a look and the same expression appeared on his face. I knew what that look meant. She had accidentally bought a couple of balut - a fertilized nearly hatched fetal chicken (or possibly duck). For the next half hour, it sat on a dish untouched - a perfectly formed fetal chicken/duck, heretofore named "Chuck". (Get it?? Haha.)
About 15 minutes later our food came. My dish turned out to be a bowl of rice porridge rather than noodles because obviously I didn't look carefully enough at our neighbor's bowl. I ordered it with pork and I *think* there was pork in there. But in addition to the meat, I was able to identify liver and one other organ that I didn't recognize immediately. Then I realized what it was. Brain. Pig brain? Wheww. It took me about 10 minutes to work up the courage, but I finally just popped it in my mouth, quickly chewed and chased it with half a bottle of water. Done. Not completely inedible, but not really something I'd order again either.
Finishing my meal, I picked up Chuck. I picked a bit of the yolk and tasted it - no different than a regular egg yolk. Then we proceeded to dissect Chuck and identified all the parts. Feathers, feet, wing, head (and brain of course), and internal organs - all present and accounted for. Eventually we finished our meal, but the Chuck sat in my bowl, partially dissected. I stared at it for a few minutes and thought to myself - Millions of people throughout SE Asia eat this everyday and love it. It's not poisonous, and there's not going to be any dangerous disease it could be carrying. Really, there's no reason NOT to eat it. Wasting perfectly good food in this part of the world would be rude. Sacrilegious even.
A Cambodian family sitting at the next table watched me staring at the egg. The young mother grinned and called out across the table to me in Khmer. I like to think that she was daring me. I looked back at her. Back at the egg. Finally, I picked up my chopsticks and turned to Sara, "Get your camera out." After the flash went off, I popped the whole thing into my mouth and started chewing. I waited for some uncontrollable reaction, but it never happened and it really did taste...pretty good! The only difficult part came when I bit down on something hard and which was presumably the beak. But that passed within a second or two. Then I chased it with the remainder of my water. I looked over at the Cambodian family who were now cheering and gave them a big grin and two thumbs up. "Ch'ng an", I said triumphantly. Delicious.
About 15 minutes later our food came. My dish turned out to be a bowl of rice porridge rather than noodles because obviously I didn't look carefully enough at our neighbor's bowl. I ordered it with pork and I *think* there was pork in there. But in addition to the meat, I was able to identify liver and one other organ that I didn't recognize immediately. Then I realized what it was. Brain. Pig brain? Wheww. It took me about 10 minutes to work up the courage, but I finally just popped it in my mouth, quickly chewed and chased it with half a bottle of water. Done. Not completely inedible, but not really something I'd order again either.
Finishing my meal, I picked up Chuck. I picked a bit of the yolk and tasted it - no different than a regular egg yolk. Then we proceeded to dissect Chuck and identified all the parts. Feathers, feet, wing, head (and brain of course), and internal organs - all present and accounted for. Eventually we finished our meal, but the Chuck sat in my bowl, partially dissected. I stared at it for a few minutes and thought to myself - Millions of people throughout SE Asia eat this everyday and love it. It's not poisonous, and there's not going to be any dangerous disease it could be carrying. Really, there's no reason NOT to eat it. Wasting perfectly good food in this part of the world would be rude. Sacrilegious even.
A Cambodian family sitting at the next table watched me staring at the egg. The young mother grinned and called out across the table to me in Khmer. I like to think that she was daring me. I looked back at her. Back at the egg. Finally, I picked up my chopsticks and turned to Sara, "Get your camera out." After the flash went off, I popped the whole thing into my mouth and started chewing. I waited for some uncontrollable reaction, but it never happened and it really did taste...pretty good! The only difficult part came when I bit down on something hard and which was presumably the beak. But that passed within a second or two. Then I chased it with the remainder of my water. I looked over at the Cambodian family who were now cheering and gave them a big grin and two thumbs up. "Ch'ng an", I said triumphantly. Delicious.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Players And Playees
Kiwi Sylvie, Sara, and I took the overnight bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh and arrived early this morning. Along the way, we picked up a Swede - Markus - who's joined our traveling circus. Markus is a teacher from Stockholm who's making his way to Melbourne and has been traveling all over Asia for the last 5 months. He has one month to go before he lands there. We found out today that Irishman Martin will be joining us tomorrow night. Today, we met up with Tim and Laura again and went out to explore the city along the riverside.
We settled at a cafe where we ordered some food and drinks. While we were sitting, a ten year old boy who was selling books came along. His English was actually 90% fluent. He worked his little game on us and managed to convince Tim to play him Tic-Tac-Toe and if he beat him, Tim would have to buy a book from him for $3. Tim won and technically got the book for free, but of course wouldn't take the book. The very determined kid sat down at the table with us and watched the cartoon that was playing on the TV in the cafe. Suddenly, he got an idea.
"Hey lady", he said to Sylvie, "how about you buy me toy?" Plan B apparently was on.
"What kind of toy?"
"Um...remote control car!" We all groaned in disapproval.
"Okay, how about ball, so I can play with my friend?"
"What kind of ball?"
"Football. Soccerball." Now we're talking.
"You play soccer?", I asked.
"Sure, sure. My team is Man U." He think he actually beamed with pride a little. Who knows, maybe he believed it?
The bartering continued while we peppered him with questions about how much a ball would cost, where we would buy it from, whether he was going to turn around and sell it to someone else, and whether the stores he pointed out to us that sold the ball were actually owned by his family. Finally, we told him we would get him a small gift but we would buy it from a marketplace, not the stores he recommended so a few of us stayed with him at the cafe while the others went to go find a ball for him. After about 15 minutes, they came back but said they couldn't find a ball. They ended up finding a Man U soccer jersey that fit him perfectly. You'd think he would jump up and down for joy. But no. He sulked and said what he really wanted was a ball. The cafe owner laughed and told him that if he didn't want the jersey, he could give it to her 1 yr old son who was standing close-by sucking on a popsicle and couldn't care less about a red soccer jersey. We tried convincing him that it was actually a really useful gift because then he could go sucker all the Brits into buying books from him, but he really just couldn't see the business sense in that. And thus ended our encounter with the ten year old sales(con)man. A pretty good one at that.
Laura wasn't feeling too well, so she and Tim retired after our cafe encounter and the rest of us walked over to the National Museum in which Sylvie struck up a conversation with and subsequently fell for...a monk. We did get an invite out to his pagoda tomorrow though so that worked out well. As we walked to the front gate of the museum, Sylvie plotted ways she could marry the monk. The rest of us tried pointing out that there was a slight flaw in that plan but she wasn't having any of it. Markus and I just looked each other and shook our heads. Women.
We settled at a cafe where we ordered some food and drinks. While we were sitting, a ten year old boy who was selling books came along. His English was actually 90% fluent. He worked his little game on us and managed to convince Tim to play him Tic-Tac-Toe and if he beat him, Tim would have to buy a book from him for $3. Tim won and technically got the book for free, but of course wouldn't take the book. The very determined kid sat down at the table with us and watched the cartoon that was playing on the TV in the cafe. Suddenly, he got an idea.
"Hey lady", he said to Sylvie, "how about you buy me toy?" Plan B apparently was on.
"What kind of toy?"
"Um...remote control car!" We all groaned in disapproval.
"Okay, how about ball, so I can play with my friend?"
"What kind of ball?"
"Football. Soccerball." Now we're talking.
"You play soccer?", I asked.
"Sure, sure. My team is Man U." He think he actually beamed with pride a little. Who knows, maybe he believed it?
The bartering continued while we peppered him with questions about how much a ball would cost, where we would buy it from, whether he was going to turn around and sell it to someone else, and whether the stores he pointed out to us that sold the ball were actually owned by his family. Finally, we told him we would get him a small gift but we would buy it from a marketplace, not the stores he recommended so a few of us stayed with him at the cafe while the others went to go find a ball for him. After about 15 minutes, they came back but said they couldn't find a ball. They ended up finding a Man U soccer jersey that fit him perfectly. You'd think he would jump up and down for joy. But no. He sulked and said what he really wanted was a ball. The cafe owner laughed and told him that if he didn't want the jersey, he could give it to her 1 yr old son who was standing close-by sucking on a popsicle and couldn't care less about a red soccer jersey. We tried convincing him that it was actually a really useful gift because then he could go sucker all the Brits into buying books from him, but he really just couldn't see the business sense in that. And thus ended our encounter with the ten year old sales(con)man. A pretty good one at that.
Laura wasn't feeling too well, so she and Tim retired after our cafe encounter and the rest of us walked over to the National Museum in which Sylvie struck up a conversation with and subsequently fell for...a monk. We did get an invite out to his pagoda tomorrow though so that worked out well. As we walked to the front gate of the museum, Sylvie plotted ways she could marry the monk. The rest of us tried pointing out that there was a slight flaw in that plan but she wasn't having any of it. Markus and I just looked each other and shook our heads. Women.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Sometimes You Just Have To Keep Walking
The clinic has been closed this week. There is some kind of administrative snag - something to do with the new NGO law and registration of the medical clinic. I'm not entirely clear at this point, but in any case, the clinic is closed until further notice. Life goes on.
On Monday, I went to the orphanage to hang out and teach the kids. A couple of families from Canada (Victoria!) were there helping to paint and build a new house behind the school. I went with Kiwi Pete behind the orphanage to check out how the fish in the pond were doing, but took a slightly different route than usual. Spotting a patch of green grass, I stepped into it and immediately heard a squishing sound. The ground suddenly swelled up and around my left foot. I quickly took another step forward hoping to get out, but then my right foot also got stuck and I started sinking. I had my mesh closed toed sandals on and so the water (at least I thought it was water) quickly rushed into my shoe. I quickly walked several more steps before I got back to solid ground. With a quick whiff of the air, a sudden realization flooded my head almost as quickly as the "water" flooded my shoes. I looked over my left shoulder and realized I was directly behind the two bathrooms/toilets. My eyes quickly scanned down at the base of the building and I saw two PVC pipes opening directly onto the ground. I'm such an idiot. I quickly ran to the water tank and flushed both of my feet. Then rinsed out my shoes. Note to self: if the grass is very green and lush, don't walk on it.
In the afternoon, I went to the school where a new home was being built behind the main building. Sylvie, Pete, and I jumped in to help the son - Alex - of the family from Victoria. Brick and mortar had been laid down earlier in the day by some of the Cambodians. However, they did not smooth the mortar so as a result, there were large gaps in the mortar and the job just didn't look very well finished. So we each grabbed a trowel and a bamboo stick and started smearing on mortar to fill in the holes and uneven surfaces. At some point, I looked over and saw Alex grabbing fistfuls of mortar and just smearing it on by hand. Well, that seemed like a good idea to me and much more efficient than this tiny bamboo spatula. So I started doing that too - using my hands. After about another hour of smearing on the mortar, Alex says, "So doc, it's probably not a good idea for me to put my hand with stitches on it in cow dung huh?" Uh...where to begin with the questions?? "What?" "The mortar. It's mixed with cow dung. You didn't know?" "Um, no. No, I did not. Why would I know that?" Kiwi Pete looked over at me and snickered in his thick NZ accent, "Ah yeeah. This cow dung helps the mortar stick really great." Fantastic. Luckily, it was the end of the day, and Alex's family happened to bring some first aid supplies. I took off his bandages and cleaned off his stitches which were only 4 days old and unsurprisingly, not healed. Did my best to clean them off and luckily, the wounds didn't appear infected yet. We applied some antibiotic ointment and I gave some pointless instructions - no more sticking his hands in dung. Cow or otherwise. Second note to self: same goes for me.
Yesterday (Tuesday), I took the day off to go visit Honour Village, the NGO which Dorothy and Gordon are working at. Honour Village was started in May of 2010 as a result of the British woman who had had a unfortunate negative experience volunteering at another NGO. Undaunted, she decided to start up a new NGO under her control with complete transparency and full accountability. I don't know all the details yet of their logistics, but at least from the surface, what they have accomplished in less than a year is commendable. I didn't get a chance yesterday, but if I go back for a return visit, I'll take some photos.
At Honour Village, I met a woman from the UK named Lyn. Lyn is starting up an English language school in an area east of Siem Reap by about two hours. This is a pretty remote location with no English classes currently available, and there are very few if any foreigners. She was given a building by the government so that she could start up this program and her organization (Today Youth Tomorrow Leader) is in the process of setting everything up. She is currently recruiting teachers to come out to help teach. If you are interested, you can find out more details by e-mailing her at: lynharvey21@gmail.com. I don't have any ties to her organization, but if you are interested in going off the beaten path and being part of a pioneer program, you should drop her a note to find out more.
On Monday, I went to the orphanage to hang out and teach the kids. A couple of families from Canada (Victoria!) were there helping to paint and build a new house behind the school. I went with Kiwi Pete behind the orphanage to check out how the fish in the pond were doing, but took a slightly different route than usual. Spotting a patch of green grass, I stepped into it and immediately heard a squishing sound. The ground suddenly swelled up and around my left foot. I quickly took another step forward hoping to get out, but then my right foot also got stuck and I started sinking. I had my mesh closed toed sandals on and so the water (at least I thought it was water) quickly rushed into my shoe. I quickly walked several more steps before I got back to solid ground. With a quick whiff of the air, a sudden realization flooded my head almost as quickly as the "water" flooded my shoes. I looked over my left shoulder and realized I was directly behind the two bathrooms/toilets. My eyes quickly scanned down at the base of the building and I saw two PVC pipes opening directly onto the ground. I'm such an idiot. I quickly ran to the water tank and flushed both of my feet. Then rinsed out my shoes. Note to self: if the grass is very green and lush, don't walk on it.
In the afternoon, I went to the school where a new home was being built behind the main building. Sylvie, Pete, and I jumped in to help the son - Alex - of the family from Victoria. Brick and mortar had been laid down earlier in the day by some of the Cambodians. However, they did not smooth the mortar so as a result, there were large gaps in the mortar and the job just didn't look very well finished. So we each grabbed a trowel and a bamboo stick and started smearing on mortar to fill in the holes and uneven surfaces. At some point, I looked over and saw Alex grabbing fistfuls of mortar and just smearing it on by hand. Well, that seemed like a good idea to me and much more efficient than this tiny bamboo spatula. So I started doing that too - using my hands. After about another hour of smearing on the mortar, Alex says, "So doc, it's probably not a good idea for me to put my hand with stitches on it in cow dung huh?" Uh...where to begin with the questions?? "What?" "The mortar. It's mixed with cow dung. You didn't know?" "Um, no. No, I did not. Why would I know that?" Kiwi Pete looked over at me and snickered in his thick NZ accent, "Ah yeeah. This cow dung helps the mortar stick really great." Fantastic. Luckily, it was the end of the day, and Alex's family happened to bring some first aid supplies. I took off his bandages and cleaned off his stitches which were only 4 days old and unsurprisingly, not healed. Did my best to clean them off and luckily, the wounds didn't appear infected yet. We applied some antibiotic ointment and I gave some pointless instructions - no more sticking his hands in dung. Cow or otherwise. Second note to self: same goes for me.
Yesterday (Tuesday), I took the day off to go visit Honour Village, the NGO which Dorothy and Gordon are working at. Honour Village was started in May of 2010 as a result of the British woman who had had a unfortunate negative experience volunteering at another NGO. Undaunted, she decided to start up a new NGO under her control with complete transparency and full accountability. I don't know all the details yet of their logistics, but at least from the surface, what they have accomplished in less than a year is commendable. I didn't get a chance yesterday, but if I go back for a return visit, I'll take some photos.
At Honour Village, I met a woman from the UK named Lyn. Lyn is starting up an English language school in an area east of Siem Reap by about two hours. This is a pretty remote location with no English classes currently available, and there are very few if any foreigners. She was given a building by the government so that she could start up this program and her organization (Today Youth Tomorrow Leader) is in the process of setting everything up. She is currently recruiting teachers to come out to help teach. If you are interested, you can find out more details by e-mailing her at: lynharvey21@gmail.com. I don't have any ties to her organization, but if you are interested in going off the beaten path and being part of a pioneer program, you should drop her a note to find out more.
Placebo Effect
A 50-something year old woman came into the clinic last week. This would be her third visit since I have been here. On her first visit, her complaint was difficulty breathing, a racing heart rate, chest tightness, and an overall sense of anxiety. After ruling out any of the life threatening stuff, it was pretty clear she had general anxiety disorder. We decided to put her on a beta-blocker - propranolol - which, in the US, has an off-label usage for treatment of anxiety attacks. It turned out to work pretty well for her so she came in a second time and we sent her off with the same medication. So by now, this was her third visit, she was in the middle of a panic attack, and we needed to try something else because we couldn't just put her on beta-blockers forever. Benzodiazepenes (sleeping pills) wouldn't have been a great idea either with the added problem of addiction risk. A psychiatrist is what she really needed, but I figured my chances of finding a cup of Stumptown coffee here would be better (I would kill for one...no, really I would). But I had an idea. Now, I should explain, normally I do not like to deceive patients, but I didn't feel like we had another choice under the circumstances. We gave her a children's multi-vitamin and told her it was really strong medication. After she chewed on it, we chatted with her for a little while to find out what else was going on her life. Finally, we decided to give her a couple of bags of antacids and adult multivitamins. While handing it over to her, speaking in Khmer, she said something to Thea, who started to laugh. She turned to me and said, "She said that the other drug works very well and she feels much better now." I quickly swallowed my laugh before we gave away our little secret. So we gave her another bag of the children's multi-vitamins that we split into many pieces to make them last her a little longer. She seemed pretty happy with her new treatment. It's not going to fix her life, but if a little bit of grape flavored pill makes her feel better for an hour or two, I suppose that's something.
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