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

I'm not in a black hole...

...I'm in Cambodia. Back in Saigon on Monday evening. I took a TON of pictures, so much so that I had to buy a new memory card to accommodate them, so I'll be posting way more when I have reliable internet access.

K bye!

OMG I fed an elephant!

This morning I went to the zoo with Julia and Wallace, and it was a pleasant morning. I will put more photos up on Facebook as soon as it works again, but for now I shall just give you this:


Needless to say, I wanted to take her home and name her Fluffy.

Stuff from all over, and Vietnamese nightlife

The pictures in the post are slightly irrelevant to what I'm writing about. Just so you know.

First, a picture of some miniature pancakes that I made. One was shaped perfectly like a fishie. I was rather proud. And, of course, I ate it first.


I took a walk to the backpacker district to buy my boat ticket to Cambodia, and started thinking about the way nightlife works here. There are plenty of streets with shops on them, and giant markets where you can go and buy everything that you could possibly want, and yet...shopping happens mostly at night, out on the street.


For example, there is a street near my house called Nguyen Trai, which is lined mostly with clothing and shoe boutiques. These remain largely empty during the day. At night, these and other vendors spread out big tarps on the sidewalks and sell their wares--handbags, shoes, clothes, helmets, jewelry, wallets, belts, etc. And the street gets packed! On my walk back from getting my ticket, I had to a) walk in the street because the sidewalks were full (not an uncommon occurrence in this city) and b) be extra careful because people were cruising by on their motorbikes to check out the merchandise.

(This is an ox made of San Miguel cans, btw. It stands next to the Coke Castle pictured below.)

Moreover, in places like Ben Thanh Market, which is an ENORMOUS market that sells everything, the market itself closes at 5, but then all the vendors move their stuff outside to tents. That's when the market gets really busy, is when the shopping moves outside at night. I suppose this makes sense, if everyone is working or at school during the day; the only time they would be able to go shopping would be at night. I don't entirely understand why the markets don't just stay open later, but...maybe people just like buying stuff when it's "off the street" then when it's on a mannequin in a store window.

I'm usually too tired during the week to venture out and actually shop here. In general, shopping in this country is overwhelming and exhausting, simply because they don't really understand the concept of browsing. As soon as you approach a vendor, or walk into a store, you will have 3 or 4 salespeople bombarding you will "Hello! You want this? Or this? Or maybe this?" and if you even glance at something specifically they will be like "Oh, you like this?! We have it in a million colors and sizes! Here, try!" and I just want to run away.

One of these nights I'll muster up the energy to go out there and seriously check it out.

What Saigon smells like

Here is a list, made in my head while walking from place to place, of the things one can smell in the streets of Saigon:

exhaust
sewage
fish
barbecue
waffles
cigarettes
dirt

I will probably update this later, when another odor strikes me.

Chúc mừng năm mới!

That means "Happy New Year!" in Vietnamese, if you hadn't guessed.

I have no pictures from New Year's Eve or Day, really, because my camera has begun sucking batteries dry while it's off. Which gives me the lovely surprise of turning on my camera after putting in fresh batteries the night before and having it immediately turn itself off and greet me with a "please change batteries" message. Thank you, camera. I'm thinking of replacing it with a better one if I save up some money. We'll see...

So, I had a luxurious New Year's Eve, very low-key, drinking champagne and eating cheese and tapenade and scones with Julia and Emilie. For New Year's Day we went to a pool to swim and lay out, then had a late lunch (for me: steamed clams with lemongrass, and a North Vietnamese noodle soup with beef and herbs), followed by a nap. Feel completely relaxed, and do not want to go to work tomorrow, but will suck it up.

I hope everyone had a thoroughly enjoyable 2008, and I wish everyone an even better 2009. Happy New Year!

As Promised

From Sunday night:




L'haim, everyone!

The Holidays in 'Nam, continued...

Just sharing a few more photos to show how insane the Vietnamese get with Christmas decorations. This is Le Loi Street, which is one of the main streets in Ho Chi Minh City. All lit up, I would call it Vietnam's answer to the Champs-Élysée. Except that the Champs-Élysée is classy, and Le Loi looks like the Christmas spirit vomited all over it. I know this picture is blurry, but it shows both the lights and the traffic:


And this is Saigon Centre, which is a big mall on Le Loi. The square in front of it was filled with people taking pictures in front of the lights, as well as many Vietnamese Santas selling things like light-up tiaras, Santa hats, and other miscellaneous goodies.


It was pretty blinding, that's for sure. Also, I took a picture of my menorah yesterday, the last day of Hannukah (and yes, I realize that I'm spelling it different every time. Sue me.), but I can't be bothered to upload it yet. When I do, I'll post it.

Cheers!

Shots from my holidays

Here is my homemade menorah, from a few nights ago. I put it in the foyer of our house, since everything is tiled and there's nothing that could catch on fire out there. Plus, it means people passing by can see it through our front gate.

For Christmas day "dinner," a few friends and I went to a big fancy hotel on the river for a Christmas brunch buffet. This was an absolute feast, complete with a million kinds of main dish (lobster, duck, goose, ham, steak, turkey, sushi, salmon, etc.), and unlimited wine. Needless to say, we started drinking champagne at about 11:30 a.m. and didn't stop until 6. However, we were eating a lot and frequently chasing down a tiny child, so we didn't really have the opportunity to eat or drink ourselves into oblivion. I think that this is a good thing.

Here is a shot of part of the buffet:


In dessertland, there was a little village made entirely of chocolate cake.


And the lobby had a gorgeous tree, which Wallace adored. That's her, in her new Christmas dress (you can't see the chocolate all over the front).


All in all, a great day. We stayed at the hotel for about 5 hours, eating and drinking and talking, then went to a restaurant nearby for happy hour, and continued our sparkling wine revelry. Around 7, I went with Julia and the Walrus back to their place to put the little one to bed, and Julia and I watched Hot Fuzz on HBO and finished a bottle of red wine that she had. It was great.

Unfortunately, today (Friday the 26th) I have work. I will do my best (or...almost my best) to be productive.

Hope all of you had wonderful holidays, spent with friends or family or both, surrounded by love. I'm sending you some from over here; hope it makes it all that distance.

Hugs and Kisses,

A

One of my very best friends in Vietnam

This is Bwoon. She's the puppy that lives across the alley from me. Her family keeps their front gate open frequently, and when she hears my keys she runs out to say hi and jump up on me. Then she zooms around in figure eights in the street before coming back to me to play. I must say, it's really nice to have someone who is always happy to see me.

In other news, I'm really exhausted and at a loss of things to write. So, hopefully I will be inspired later.

Eight Crazy Nights

I'm thinking of celebrating Hannukah this year. Is that weird? It probably is. All my life I've considered myself an atheist, and wrestled with the concept of faith, settling to call myself agnostic and not devote too much energy to the subject altogether.

In my family, we always did both Christmas and Hannukah in the most secular of ways--lighting the candles, having a tree, exchanging presents. This year, when I won't be seeing my family or most of my friends, or having a tree, I have this strong desire to light the menorah (if I can find one). I read an article recently that was written by a Jew working in Saigon about his experience being Jewish here. And he mentioned that for Hannukah, one of the main principles is that the menorah lights the night, and shows other wandering Jews that they are not alone. I really, really like this idea; I like the idea of putting candles in windows in general, but I like the idea that I would be doing something that Jews all over the world would be doing at (almost) the same time (time zones permitting, etc.). As much as I can say that I don't believe in God, I do like the idea of feeling like part of something bigger than me, of participating in something big. Especially since, while I've been making friends here, I still feel alone sometimes, and if lighting these candles can help alleviate that for me and possibly for others (granted, there aren't many windows in our house; I'll probably put it on the roof somewhere.), then I think it's worth doing.

There is a Chabad center in Saigon, and I've got their information. I'm going to see if they loan out menorahs, or sell them and Hannukah candles, or something. I'll see what they say.

[Update: I went to the Chabad after work, and--after a somewhat awkward conversation about my status or non-status as a Jew, and my desire to light the candles--was told that the Rabbi would email me when he gets back in town about picking up a menorah and some candles. So, success! They seemed really eager to have found a possible new Jew in town, so I felt kind of interroggated: Are you Jewish? Were you raised Jewish? Would you like to come to Shabbat services on Friday? So I kind of shuffled around the hard questions. I might go to the Hannukah party on Monday evening, for the lighting of the candles and a good Kosher meal. Because who doesn't like a good Kosher meal, eh? So we'll see how this little adventure goes.]

A photo from Mui Ne

Mui Ne, Rematch

Weekends in a row spent in Mui Ne: 2

Amount of mosquito repellent used: 0

Mosquito bites: 23ish. I keep discovering new ones.

Amount of sunburn from laying out by the pool/beach for a whole day: unsure

Seeing an 18-month-old's first time at the beach: priceless...She decided that the sand was horrible but the ocean was terrific. This called for some heavy lifting (of the baby) on Julia (the mom)'s part, since Wally wanted to feel the ocean but not the sand. Hilarious!

Haven't gotten photos yet from the girls (my camera was dead), but once I have them I'll put 'em up.

Adventures in Mui Ne

Last weekend I had to get out of the city, so I decided to brave the rain and go to the beach. It's about a 4 to 5 hour bus ride, which costs about $6 each way, and the hotel cost $15 a night, which is a bargain. I took the night bus on Friday and got there at 2 a.m. Friday night. Saturday I walked around the town, and then got a coffee and lounged at a beach cafe. Here is the main drag of Mui Ne, which is basically a series of hotels, resorts, restaurants, massage places, and souvenir stores. So, everything one could possible need, right?

Saturday afternoon I took a xe om to the major sights near the city. First, the fishing village:

Then the white sand dunes, which were incredible. They were so QUIET--even with the tourists, all you could hear was the wind. All the sound was absorbed by the sand. And I had to keep reminding myself that I was actually in the middle of the countryside in Vietnam, and not in, like, the Arabian desert.

Then we went to the red sand dunes, and even though there had been no sun all day I was given a glimpse of a sunset:

Beautiful. All in all, a relaxing weekend, spent wandering, lounging, and reading. For more photos, you can check out the Facebook album that I made.

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was enjoyable--I spent mine at a potluck with a small group of people, and it was nice. I am thankful for this adventure and opportunity, and for all of you. You are missed.