Class blog

Since we are here in SE Asia doing travel writing, our class is keeping a blog. Check out HERE what everyone is writing about their experiences and comment freely.

Hot, hot, hot.

Today was the day of even MORE temples. So, while I'm sure pictures would have you all enthralled, I'm not going to blog about that.

We went to three temples today. We were out in the heat from 9am-3pm. That's a really long time to be trekking around and climbing over ruins.

So at about the second temple the 104 degree heat hit me. Like a brick wall.

Headache, clammy, nauseous, and a hint of dizziness that had me grabbing for any steady structure.

Naturally, I was paired today with the girl who brought the 4 lenses (that she changes out regularly) for her massive camera. She enjoyed stopping every 30 seconds to smell the roses and then take pictures of them. Which is wonderful for photography and life in general. Doesn't fare well when you're reaching for the tuk tuk Sistine Chapel style.

Between the second and third temples we stopped by a little Khmer restaurant to eat lunch. AKA I spent 5 dollars to chug water and stare at a plate of fried rice. Which was spicy. And I can't eat spicy foods, thanks to my darling reflux problems.

Once we were done we climbed back into our tuk tuk, where our driver was no where to be found. We waited 20 minutes for our driver and guide before a random tuk tuk driver asked who we were waiting for. When he retrieved them, we were off to the third temple.

Still feeling like my suffocated spider caught under a cup (remind me to let him out after this), we arrived at the third temple. The Tomb Raider temple where Angelina Jolie herself frolicked about. I was not in the mood to frolic. Zero frolicking, sir. I told the guide I wasn't gonna make it to the temple and if I stepped out of the tuk tuk there was a strong chance I was going to dive face-first into the dirt.

So I waited in the tuk tuk.

For an hour and a half.

Which would have been fine if I would have been able to sit with legs spread, elbows on knees, head hanging between them like I had planned.

INSTEAD, the driver decided to practice English with me. Which he was not very good at. And it would have been fine, I'm all into international conversation classes, had I not felt like manure.

Did we talk about our favorite color? Nope. How about our families? No. How about anything remotely easy to converse about? Au contraire. We talked about democracy.

It was a wee bit painful.

Not only did we discuss the government of Cambodia versus America, but I was told I was wrong multiple times.

It went like this:

Driver:"In Cambodir we has ze people with ze problem. Zeeeee prezident. He don't lizen to ze people. In Amadica, you have ze problem and ze president, he fix the problem."

Me: "Not always. We elect representatives who vote for most stuff FOR the people, but it's impossible to make every person happy."

Driver: "No. That is not how it iz in Amadica."

And with that, I am defeated.


Alas, the hour and a half passes and it is time to head home! The wind through my tuk tuk is magical and I can feel the cold shower running already.

Quite naturally, the roommate with the key was not back yet. So we waited in the heat for another 30 minutes until she came.

Dear Mother,
I'm quite alright now. After a cold shower and a few minutes in the air conditioning this is all a bit funny. Not too funny yet, I need more air conditioning before it's really funny. However, the day didn't go well but I'm going to camp out in my cool room all night to return my body temperature to below boiling. I promise, tomorrow will be a better day.
Love, your darling daughter

PS- Yes, Mom, I drank water. In my defense I had 3000ml of water before/during all this happened.


Let's hope tomorrow something goes right.

Angkor WAT!? Angkor TOHM

Today was Angkor Tohm day and though I'm sure it was quite interesting, our tour guide had very broken English. Here are some pictures from it though.

The adorned Buddha is what they were trying to make the Hindu god look like in Angkor Wat.

PS- please excuse my travel clothes. Indiana Jones, Inc. was having a sale.

For your viewing pleasure...

Elizabeth and I running around Angkor Wat like it's a jungle gym.

Angkor Wat and friends.

2:50 pm Cambodia time

Holy cow. It's only early afternoon and I already have a ton to talk about.

Today was Angkor Wat day. Ya know...one of the 7 wonders of the world? The big kahuna of Cambodia?

Well it's supposed to look like this:

Apparently they're doing construction on the front so my full view pictures weren't exactly spectacular.

At least I got a few good looking pictures:

Some history: Angkor Wat is a HINDU temple build from 1113-1150. It was build as a Hindu temple for Vishnu, the god of protection. Most people in Cambodia today are Buddhist, however, so they convince themselves that the temple is Buddhist.

**This is a statue of Vishnu, the Hindu god, decorated like Buddhist decorate statues of Buddha. You'd think they'd see the difference.**

The Cambodian government has put Buddhas all over the inside of the temple and has even tried to carve in sketches of Buddha. There is writings and carvings alllll over the temple that prove otherwise.

**Some female Hindu carvings that people constantly touch for luck. You can tell where they're most worn.**

**Some crazy stairs we walked up to get to the top of the 5th tower**

Our guide's name was Yut and was so incredible. Each outing we go on we have a driver and English speaking tour guide for every two people. Pretty nice set up.

Yut was a monk for 11 years, from when he was 13 to 24. We saw another monk walking around Angkor Wat so Yut talked to him and we got to see him and take pictures with him (without touching, of course.)

**Yut and Elizabeth talking to our monk friend in Angkor Wat.**

Some more history: In the 1980's was the Khmer Rouge where anyone with any kind of skill was targeted and killed. All four of Yut's grandparents were killed but his parents escaped. Later they went to see a memorial in Siem Reap that has the skulls of people killed and his parents claim to have found his grandfathers's skull by recognizing the teeth.

**Yut. Behind him is a wall describing the Khmer Rouge with pictures of the leaders during that time.**

**Here is the memorial for the dead. Let's look closer...**

**Intense.**

Day 1. Going strong

This morning we woke up, had a remarkable breakfast thanks to the B&B, and hit the town.

First we saw a squatter village.

**Squatting. Get it? Ha.**

Ever seen one? Ok. Maybe you have. Ever walked through one and talked to the people?

It was really intense. Suddenly a few hours outside of AC each day didn't seem so bad. The houses were made of any material they could find at the time of construction: siding, branches, logs, cardboard.

One woman, Yuem, who we talked with for quite a while, built a really decent structure that she spent $1500 on. I couldn't imagine how ridiculous we looked as well dressed Americans with cameras worth more than her house.

**Yuem standing in her doorway.**

Yuem had three kids. The oldest was 17 and then she had two in the house that looked about 5 and 1. She told us that people in the village feed their kids sweetened condensed milk because it won't go bad and it's much cheaper than regular milk. I can feel my mother cringing.

Rice is 60 cents a day per person so after buying that and rights to the land there isn't much money left for more food. The kids also have parasites so they get first dibs on the little bit of nutrients the kids get. Hence the skinny ribs and puffy bellies.

Yuem also proudly said that her 17 year old works in a garment shop, to us a "sweatshop." Except there was a whole nother tone to it. Brandon told us a story that someone had referred to it as a sweatshop as if it was a terrible, oppressing job and the Cambodian responded, "Try being a farmer. Once you're bent over a field 10 hours a day in the heat and humidity then sitting at a machine in a room with fans and a fixed salary doesn't sound so bad." I think that's what I'm going to write my first story about. Americans get it so wrong sometimes.

Then we learned about Journeys Within Our Community (JWOC) which is the non-profit that Andrea and Brandon (owners of the B&B) run. They've dug wells in the squatter village so they can have clean water year round instead of drinking collected rain water out of holes in the ground. They also have scholarships to send people to college in turn for "volunteer" work. Most of the program is about educating people, including teaching english.

Once we were done with our tour we headed to the market to get lunch. Everything is so cheap. I guess I knew that coming into the country but you really just don't believe it until you see it. I have a strong inkling that I won't be able to resist the incredible prices. Or the food.

I've decided to pull off a fedora. Mostly because I know I can't pull it off in America because I am neither Britney Spears or a starving artist. Hopefully it'll be worth my $3 investment to wear it for the next 5 weeks. If you can't pull it off in America, try it abroad.

Exhibit A: If you haven't heard of it before, witness the "navajo skirt."

** A rare gem I came across at Goodwill that I decided to pull off in Morocco. Not sure it succeeded but damned if I didn't try.**

Tomorrow we're headed to Angkor Wat, one of the wonders of the world.

An interesting mix

6:22am Cambodia time

I thought I was completely adjusted to Cambodia time but at about 5:45am I was wide awake. Which might have to do with jet lag or might be due to the fact I went to bed at 8pm last night.

I can't tell much about Cambodia yet considering my 12 hours of experience so far but if there is one thing I'm sure of it's that Cambodia is HOT. This place makes Georgia in July look like a meat locker. "Impossible!" you say. But I speak the truth. Luckily our bungalows are air conditioned so it wasn't too hard to sleep. My guess is it's only like 85 with the air conditioning on.

The B&B served us dinner last night (they'll be providing most of our meals) and it was wonderful. I think I'm really going to like Asian food. They go to the market everyday and make everything fresh.

So far Cambodia seems to be a nice mix of Costa Rica and Morocco.

*As hot as Morocco and as humid as Costa Rica.

*Strange critters in your room like Costa Rica but outside the B&B the streets look like Morocco.

*The food is fresh from market/the ground like Costa Rica but cooked with incredible flavor like Morocco.

I'm sure I'll draw more comparisons later but hey, I just got here. There's a lot to learn.

Touched down in Cambodia

After arriving at Hartsfield-Jackson 35 hours ago, we have traveled 10,748 miles and have finally arrived at our bed and breakfast. I'm sure I'll post pictures later but it is INCREDIBLE. There's a pool and a garden and a swing and little children running around.

Luggage: still lost. There is hope for it's return in the morning.

Chitty chitty Bangkok

So here I am in the Bangkok Airways lounge in Bangkok.

27 hours since I left Atlanta and I'm only one more flight away from Siem Reap. The last three have been incredibly long but not too shabby in general.

I realized I haven't been so outnumbered by Asian people since high school and it's nice and humbling. We had a 2 year old on the 14 hour flight but it only cried for like 5 minutes the whole time. Thata boy.

The plane from LAX to Taipei was on a double decker plane. So fancy. And it was packed. Made for not much chair reclining and lots of breaks to stand up and stretch. Luckily out last flight from Taipei to Bangkok had about 20 people on it so we spread out and reclined like crazy.

So far (all in ATL time):

9:30pm-2:30am ATL-> LAX

4:40am- 6:15pm LAX-> Taipei

8:00pm-> 11:30pm Taipei-> Bangkok

A Thai Airways lady was kind enough to inform us, while giggling, that our luggage was still in LAX. So we'll see how that turns out. The airline workers are trying really hard to speak English with us and it is not going unnoticed.

Hopefully we'll have decent wireless at the bed and breakfast where we're living so I can blog more when I get there. For now I'm alive and well in Bangkok with one more flight to go. As for my luggage, only time will tell.

Cambodia bound!

Today is the day, dear friends. In 4 hours my first of 4 planes will take off from Hartsfield-Jackson.

One of the girls on the trip found out three days ago that her flight had been canceled. Hopefully that's all the bad luck this trip has in store for us.

Stay tuned for more Asian adventures!

Dear Apple Fritters,

You are quite possibly the ugliest dessert offered at Krispy Kreme. If I have an ugly kid, I'm naming it Apple Fritter.

Love, Cindy

Bad to the bone

Blog correction: The skinny arm is NOT only for college girls. Some of us were born with it.