Friday, April 24, 2009
the facebook status updates.
Thought i should let everyone else in on whats been happening but dont really have the patience to sit through writing another blog. And then i had the brilliant idea to just cut and paste my facebook status updates. they explain most of whats been happening the last week or so. Its been crazy, but i'll let to posts explain:
April 18
"has been attacked by an angry male turkey while on the back of a moto, seen a giant dog magically appear from a garbage bin smaller than the dog AND been told off for not eating the spinal cord floating in his soup. And that was just this morning"
April 24
"has had the most adventurous two days ever. He's raced the monsoon to the vietnamese border twice (won once, lost the other), walked up a river made of road (the moto couldnt ride with me dragging it down), nearly been arrested by Cambodian border guards for being an illegal alien, hitched a ride sitting next to the engine of a homemade truck transporting illegally logged lumber, Been given food and drink and a smack around the back of the head by a toothless Vietnamese lady (got me in trouble for having my wallet where it could be pickpocketed), had a stranger stop me on the street and give me Laotian money for apparently no reason, had to rescue one of my thongs from the quicksand at the bottom of a puddle infested by leeches (scariest shit ever), been the only westerner in a city of 150,000 people and walked around with a million dong in my pocket. Might take a while to top these last 2 days"
"i did forget the part about trying to bribe people with a busted camera, among other things. more because its written into certain contracts for certain NGOs that we work for that we wont bribe people."
April 25
"[My] last 24 hours may have topped the 48 before that. Had lunch paid for by a Cambodian drug runner and his Vietnamese brothel owner friend, nearly been kicked off a bus because i couldnt understand what the driver was asking me, fallen asleep outside a travel agent at 3 am, been taken in by two Viet Kong veterans (who now sells rice wine with giant cobras pickling in it, as well as illegal dead wildlife), and finally booked a flight to Hanoi. should be there in 6 hours! I also remembered that on my last day in camp i was given a package of 'medicine' with a red and white umbrella and 'the umbrella corporation' written on the front. inside were little yellow tablets with 'modern' stamped on them. needless to say i didnt take too long to ditch them. life imitating videogames anyone?"
Forgot about the 6 or 7 Vietnamese army supervisors that glared at me when i couldn't stop staring enviously at their pith helmets
And thats the week so far. I'm pretty sure more crazy things are going to happen in Hanoi when I get there this afternoon.
Edit: Oh! i forgot to mention the moto driver i had back in cambodia that had a full black acid wash denim outfit. except for this neon pink trucker cab with a gold glitter rim. he was awesome
April 18
"has been attacked by an angry male turkey while on the back of a moto, seen a giant dog magically appear from a garbage bin smaller than the dog AND been told off for not eating the spinal cord floating in his soup. And that was just this morning"
April 24
"has had the most adventurous two days ever. He's raced the monsoon to the vietnamese border twice (won once, lost the other), walked up a river made of road (the moto couldnt ride with me dragging it down), nearly been arrested by Cambodian border guards for being an illegal alien, hitched a ride sitting next to the engine of a homemade truck transporting illegally logged lumber, Been given food and drink and a smack around the back of the head by a toothless Vietnamese lady (got me in trouble for having my wallet where it could be pickpocketed), had a stranger stop me on the street and give me Laotian money for apparently no reason, had to rescue one of my thongs from the quicksand at the bottom of a puddle infested by leeches (scariest shit ever), been the only westerner in a city of 150,000 people and walked around with a million dong in my pocket. Might take a while to top these last 2 days"
"i did forget the part about trying to bribe people with a busted camera, among other things. more because its written into certain contracts for certain NGOs that we work for that we wont bribe people."
April 25
"[My] last 24 hours may have topped the 48 before that. Had lunch paid for by a Cambodian drug runner and his Vietnamese brothel owner friend, nearly been kicked off a bus because i couldnt understand what the driver was asking me, fallen asleep outside a travel agent at 3 am, been taken in by two Viet Kong veterans (who now sells rice wine with giant cobras pickling in it, as well as illegal dead wildlife), and finally booked a flight to Hanoi. should be there in 6 hours! I also remembered that on my last day in camp i was given a package of 'medicine' with a red and white umbrella and 'the umbrella corporation' written on the front. inside were little yellow tablets with 'modern' stamped on them. needless to say i didnt take too long to ditch them. life imitating videogames anyone?"
Forgot about the 6 or 7 Vietnamese army supervisors that glared at me when i couldn't stop staring enviously at their pith helmets
And thats the week so far. I'm pretty sure more crazy things are going to happen in Hanoi when I get there this afternoon.
Edit: Oh! i forgot to mention the moto driver i had back in cambodia that had a full black acid wash denim outfit. except for this neon pink trucker cab with a gold glitter rim. he was awesome
Thursday, April 9, 2009
the first expedition and Angkor
so as im sure everyone knows ive been pretty slack with this thing. I could argue that i have been insanely busy, or that i was sick with some weird disease, but to be honest, i just didnt feel like writing the blog that much.
But I should probably get everything down before i forget it, so here is the abridged version. if you want to hear more about anything in particular post a comment and i'll elaborate.
The first expedition:
Loved seeing the gibbons, hated everything else. Nights are freezing out there, food was awful (pigs guts and foetii, fertilised chicken eggs and fermented fish paste, yum) and washing your own clothes by hand is the most annoying thing ever. i dont think i'll ever look at a washing machine the same way again. Being on an antimalarial called Lariam didnt help, with its wonderful side effects of depression and paranoia. For a while I was convinced that the two guys I work with were plotting against me to get me out of there as quickly as possible. Not everything was bad though, I got to see a gaur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaur) while sitting in camp one morning (these things are super rare and shy, so far as I know I'm the only expat working for CI in the region to have seen one) and we spent a couple of days looking for signs of tiger. We found a couple of tracks that where big enough to be tiger, but it had rained between when they were laid and when we found them, so we couldn't really get any decent shots of them. Still, nice to know there is a tiger living within a kilometre of where we sleep.
That was about it for the first trip. Had some hassles with money on the way back and by the time I got back to Phnom Penh I was done. I was really contemplating heading home either straight away or sticking out one more trip and heading home in a month. But I spoke to my boss and he told me to take a break, head up to Siem Reap and Angkor and think about it a bit before I made any decisions.
Good thing I listened to him. Headed up to Siem Reap (the tourist town close to Angkor) and spent 5 days there. The place is amazing, Angkor was fantastic. I had this idea that it would be all touristy and you'd have to stick to the path and be surrounded by tour groups talking loudly and taking a million photos. Thankfully for the vast majority of the temples that wasnt the case at all. Granted at the temple of Angkor Wat it is like that and I found it really over-rated compared to the other lesser known temples. But some of these places are amazing. Being the only person in Bayon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayon) for sunrise was awesome, as was climbing the more remote temples and suddenly finding yourself in some secret little room feeling like you just discovered the place.
The nightlife and backpackers of Siem Reap helped loads as well, met a whole bunch of rad english and finnish people, with a few americans thrown in for good measure. Had such an awesome time drinking in Angkor What? (rad uni style bar thats been there forever, and has obscure transformers graffiti) and sneaking around the backpackers hostel trying to discreetly steal palm leaves to make hats out of (we had a hat making competition one night, far more awesome than it sounds). Only problem was that I was slightly poorer than expected and ended up with literally $2 to my name once the trip up to SR was over.
But I should probably get everything down before i forget it, so here is the abridged version. if you want to hear more about anything in particular post a comment and i'll elaborate.
The first expedition:
Loved seeing the gibbons, hated everything else. Nights are freezing out there, food was awful (pigs guts and foetii, fertilised chicken eggs and fermented fish paste, yum) and washing your own clothes by hand is the most annoying thing ever. i dont think i'll ever look at a washing machine the same way again. Being on an antimalarial called Lariam didnt help, with its wonderful side effects of depression and paranoia. For a while I was convinced that the two guys I work with were plotting against me to get me out of there as quickly as possible. Not everything was bad though, I got to see a gaur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaur) while sitting in camp one morning (these things are super rare and shy, so far as I know I'm the only expat working for CI in the region to have seen one) and we spent a couple of days looking for signs of tiger. We found a couple of tracks that where big enough to be tiger, but it had rained between when they were laid and when we found them, so we couldn't really get any decent shots of them. Still, nice to know there is a tiger living within a kilometre of where we sleep.
That was about it for the first trip. Had some hassles with money on the way back and by the time I got back to Phnom Penh I was done. I was really contemplating heading home either straight away or sticking out one more trip and heading home in a month. But I spoke to my boss and he told me to take a break, head up to Siem Reap and Angkor and think about it a bit before I made any decisions.
Good thing I listened to him. Headed up to Siem Reap (the tourist town close to Angkor) and spent 5 days there. The place is amazing, Angkor was fantastic. I had this idea that it would be all touristy and you'd have to stick to the path and be surrounded by tour groups talking loudly and taking a million photos. Thankfully for the vast majority of the temples that wasnt the case at all. Granted at the temple of Angkor Wat it is like that and I found it really over-rated compared to the other lesser known temples. But some of these places are amazing. Being the only person in Bayon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayon) for sunrise was awesome, as was climbing the more remote temples and suddenly finding yourself in some secret little room feeling like you just discovered the place.
The nightlife and backpackers of Siem Reap helped loads as well, met a whole bunch of rad english and finnish people, with a few americans thrown in for good measure. Had such an awesome time drinking in Angkor What? (rad uni style bar thats been there forever, and has obscure transformers graffiti) and sneaking around the backpackers hostel trying to discreetly steal palm leaves to make hats out of (we had a hat making competition one night, far more awesome than it sounds). Only problem was that I was slightly poorer than expected and ended up with literally $2 to my name once the trip up to SR was over.
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