How this will change me

I was out with some girlfriends last night, entertaining a woman from Paris who had come to Ho Chi Minh to work with my company, who is publishing a few books with her. This was her first time in Asia, and as we were sitting in a bar after dinner we just started talking about how different it is. She had been to Singapore before coming to Saigon, but when asked to describe Singapore, she said "It's a lot like London." I haven't been there, but I've heard it's true--the laws are very strict regarding littering and other activity that could look the least bit unclean, and there are cameras everywhere. So, it feels like London.

She then looked around the street outside the bar, at the women with children selling gum and tissues for money (to give to men probably hiding in the shadows, watching them), the vendors selling sunglasses and lighters and pot...and she was just like "I will never see people the same way again."

And it's just so true. I am glad to be here for several practical reasons, the main one being that it is waaaaay more affordable to live here than it is to live in the States right now, even on my low salary. The less practical reasoning is that, because I do know that I want and, for my vague career goals, need to go back to the States to start working my way up the publishing ladder, this experience is giving me a new set of eyes--a set that has seen this part of the world, and is learning just how different it really is.

Ok, I started writing the above paragraphs a few days ago, and then ran out of steam on what I was saying, and now that I'm going back to it I can't quite pick it up again. But there you have it--some random thoughts on living here.

Hopefully I'll have some more interesting things to write about soon.

Happy Valentine's Day from Vietnam

Why, hello!

I don't really believe in Valentine's Day, as holidays go. My hippie views push me towards believing that if you love someone, you should express that every day. I know the day started as a Saint's day, but now it's just a reminder to do something that we don't do enough of in our daily lives.

That little disclaimer aside, I'd love to wish all of you lots of love today. I love you. Yes, you. Sitting in front of your computer, reading my little blogeroni. I'd hug you if I were there, but because I'm not I'll just pretend like I have super powers and squint my eyes and mentally send you a hug, mk?

Mk.

I hugged an elephant and I liked it

After standing under the waterfall, my tour guide took be to a smaller temple that is supposedly a great sunset spot. It was, in fact, a great sunset spot, but the most exciting thing was that I hugged an elephant. Here's me being awkward about it, because every time she shifted her weight I flinched. Elephants are huge, and kind of daunting.

Also, these pictures are all slightly blurry because I didn't want to use the flash and possibly scare her.

Ok, and here's a sunset photo. Just for you.

There are more photos added to this album, and I just made an album here of the last temple, which was very Indiana Jones-esque. The only way to really see the temple was to scramble over the ruins, climbing over stones that are hundreds of years old. Hundreds. Of. Years. Old. Crazy.

Me vs. the Waterfall

So, I have a story to tell. On day 2 at Siem Reap, I decided to go to some temples that are more off the beaten path. One of these was the temple of Banteay Srei, whose photos appear at the end of this album. It is one of the most detailed temples in the area, known for its intricate carvings and blah blah blah. Sorry, I'm just not up for talking about that one right now.

The "temple" that really got to me was Kbal Spean, the "Temple of One Thousand Lingas," which was created some time between the 11th and 13th centuries. Now, for those of you not up to speed on your Hinduism, the linga is the phallic symbol. This "temple"--which I keep putting in quotation marks because it wasn't really a temple--was actually a stream bed covered and surrounded by carvings of religious figures and symbols, including the linga. Like this:


All of those raised circles are lingas, and have been there, in that stream for around 800 years. It's a bit insane to think about. Because the water runs over these carvings, it is considered sacred; at the time, people from nearby villages would come here to bathe themselves when they were sick or, in the case of women, when they wished to get pregnant but were having trouble. These people would bathe in the water, and then carry buckets of it back to their villages for others who could not hike the 1500 km up into the forest to get it. This practice is still somewhat in effect today, and when we got there, there were others already bathing. (You can see all my photos here.) Some tourists had decided to try it, and I thought "Why not?" However, I started overthinking it, and the water was cold, so this is as far as i got:


Lame, huh? So. I did this, and then me and Thon, my guide and moto driver, hiked back down. All the way down the mountain I was thinking, "I should have gone under that waterfall. That would have been an amazing experience." But I had chickened out--half-assed it, in a way. And I started feeling really bad about it in the pit of my stomach, thinking about how I didn't want to have any regrets from this trip. It was nagging at me, that I should do this.

Thon and I got to the bottom, and had some late lunch. After much thought, I turned to him and told him that I wanted to go back up and go in the waterfall. I assured him I wouldn't take that long, since this time I wouldn't be stopping for tourist information, and I had a clear goal. He laughed and shrugged and said ok. So I went back, because I wanted to.


I know this isn't really that big of a deal, but to me it was, because it was a moment where I had initially acted based on reservations--I was worried about getting wet, about looking silly, there were lots of people there...but then I thought that all that was stupid. How many chances will I get to bathe under a sacred 800-year-old waterfall? Just one, maybe. So going back was me making a clear decision (which, as most of you know, is not my forte) to go after something that I wanted. And afterwards, I felt great about it.


So, I got soaked, got some photos, and hiked back down. Thon had sat at the cafe with the cafe lady, and they both laughed at me when i trekked back down, dripping wet. Thon was like, "You did it!" And I felt fabulous.

And then I went and hugged an elephant. But more on that later.

Arielle Datz, Tomb Raider

On the first full day in Angkor, the day that I rented the bicycle, I went to see Ta Prohm (full photos here), which is a temple that has not been fully restored like many of the others, but rather has been reclaimed by the forest. Many people call it the "Tomb Raider" temple, because parts of that movie were filmed here; Angelina Jolie's character entered a doorway in one of the trees, and entered some sort of magical world, i.e. movie set. I think it's kind of sad that this temple is now considered cool because of this action movie, and not because of its history and architectural prowess, but that's just me.


These trees are enormous. And still very much alive, and still growing. As I was walking around the temple, I started imagining a dialogue of sorts:

Temple: (booming voice) I am a symbol of the greatness of King Jayavarman VII, the living evidence of his power and his devotion to the Gods!!!

Trees: Yeah, well, I'm thirsty. Shove over. (Grows directly over walls)


It's just evidence that nature wins. And it was incredibly beautiful, the kind of thing that makes people feel very small. In a good way.


UH-mazing.

Temples, temples, and more temples...

So, on day one in Angkor Wat I rented a bicycle for $2, and decided to ride around the inner cluster of temples.

After seeing Angkor Wat, I biked over to another smaller temple, and started talking with this guy Brian (pictured), and we stuck together for the day, biking around together. It was nice wandering aimlessly around the temples with someone rather than on my own.

The photos are here, of the Bayon with all of its faces, and of a few smaller temples. Also, there were macaque monkeys all over the complex, and they were super used to having people around. This one guy asked me to take a picture of him petting one of them, which took courage--you don't know what diseases those little guys can carry. The guy also gave one of them some food, which the monkey then tasted and then threw down on the ground. It was hilarious and adorable. "No! I reject this!" and then he turned his back.

Enjoy the photos. This weekend I'll put up photos from Ta Prohm, the temple that is overrun by trees.

Siem Reap

On Monday I took a bus from Siem Reap, and arrived in the evening. I went up to Angkor for the sunset from Pre Rup, and to buy my hugely expensive (but worth it) three-day pass for the temples.

On Tuesday, I rented a bike for the day to do the "small circuit" of temples--Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and the Bayon (the temples adorned with heads of Avilokiteshvara, a bodhisattva), and Ta Prohm, the "Lara Croft" temple with the trees going over it.

I took many more photos from this day, but I'm only uploading one Facebook album at a time, and trying to blog accordingly. So the photos here have Pre Rup and Angkor Wat in them, and the next batch will have more.

Phnom Penh

So, after the 2 day/1 night boat trip from Saigon, we landed in Phnom Penh. By "landed," I mean "arrived by van." The tour included one night in a hotel, but the catch was that you couldn't have a single. I was the only person traveling alone in the tour group, but a lovely family from Melbourne invited me to share one of their rooms--there were 4 of them, so the hotel was giving them 2 double rooms, but they didn't each need their own bed, so they gave me one. It was super nice of them.

The next day I moved to another hotel (the one included in the tour package was too pricey for me), and took off wandering. Here are the rest of the photos from Phnom Penh.

This photo is from the temple of Wat Phnom, which is a small temple on the only hill in the city. I also went to the Golden Palace and the Silver Pagoda, where the Royal Family used to reign (I think they still do, and that's why many parts of the complex were barred to the public, and why you couldn't take photos inside the buildings). They made me rent a pair of pants to cover up my legs, since I was wearing shorts. They were bright green, and looked smashing with my bright turquoise top. Check out the photo album.

While there I met a guy named Jeff, and we wandered around the city together for the rest of the day. I also went to the Killing Fields, where Pol Pot sent many people to be massacred during the Khmer Rouge regime. That was...bright and cheery. I decided to pass up the Genocide Museum, which is more graphic than the Killing Fields, from which most of the bodies have been removed. So...I opted for one depressing tourist destination, instead of two.

On Sunday, I did my souvenir shopping at the Russian Market, which is called that because the Russians used to shop there. Then I went on the Hash, because I had run out of things to do. It was an adventure--40 km in the back of a truck, and then we got on a ferry to go to an island, where the runners got lost. Good thing I don't run.

Anyway, that's that. More pictures coming soon!

From Saigon to Phnom Penh

...on a boat.

This was a many-legged voyage. We started in Saigon, and took a bus for 3 hours to get to the Mekong. Then we were on this boat for about 2 hours, stopping to get a tour of a coconut candy factory and a rice paper factory. Then we made a lunch stop, got back on the boat, then got back on a bus to go to Chau Doc, the town where we stayed for night 1.

Day 2: We got up super early and had a tour by row-boat of the floating village and the Cham village (Cham is a Muslim minority group in Vietnam), and then headed toward Cambodia. Many more hours on a boat, followed by a few on a bus, and we were in Phnom Penh.

Sorry to not be more descriptive, but I'm a bit tired today. Here is the first photo album. Enjoy!

Jambo, Cambo!

So. I just got back from Cambodia, and realized that I took 800 pictures. That's a LOT. So I'm in the process of figuring out the best way to get them online--Facebook is currently being a petulant child and only uploading select photos, while relegating the others to tiny black and white icon status, Picassa only allows the upload of 5 photos at a time, because my Mac is old, and I simply cannot post 800 photos up on this hear blog.

Moreover, I had a fantastic time, and cannot decide whether to be verbose or short-and-sweet with my retelling. It'll probably be a mixture of both.

Here are the highlights, and perhaps tomorrow I'll write more about the opening days:

First, I took a 2 day/1 night boat tour up the Mekong Delta, which made a few stops and finally ended up at Phnom Penh. Stayed there a few days, then went by bus to Siem Reap and spent Monday through Thursday exploring the temples of Angkor Wat and the surrounding areas. After that, went further north to a city called Battambang, where I stayed for a day before returning to Phnom Penh for another weekend. Caught an early bus today (Monday) back to Ho Chi Minh City. And here I am.

This trip has left me tanner (an unprecedented occurrence, although I am weirdly tan: ring line, necklace line, sock line, shorts line...), bruised (from knocking myself on rocks, etc.), sore (from biking 20 km and hiking around all over, mosquito bitten (although not that much), and generally exhausted.

However, on this trip I met tons of really interesting, really nice people, biked 20 km around the 1000-year-old temples of Angkor Wat, climbed over some of said temples in true Indiana Jones style, hiked into a mountain site covered with religious carvings and doused myself under a sacred waterfall (see above photo, post-dousing), hugged an elephant, chatted with some monks, read a bunch of novels, and generally felt great doing it. I wrote in my journal a lot, had a lot of time in my own head, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

So, that's the run down. As far as photos go, I am determined to share my experiences with you through them (Hello, I HUGGED an ELEPHANT and I have proof), just as soon as I figure out how to handle it. I will probably put a batch up every day, so as not to completely overwhelm my computer/the internet. You'll just have to stay tuned.

More tomorrow.

A