Saturday, November 30, 2013
Paradise
Today we took a boat trip to three islands with Romny Travel and Tour Services: Koh Chrolosh, Koh Russei, and Koh Tres. The first island we just jumped off the boat and snorkeled. I saw schools of fish, black and white striped fish and rocks and some coral under the ocean. Nothing was terribly colorful, but it was wonderful all the same.
Have I told you that the weather has been perfect in Sihanoukville?
I jumped off the very top of the boat and did lots of swimming at the first island.
At the second island (not sure which one above, but it is also known as Bamboo Island) we had margaritas with cane sugar (lost count of how many), cokes in bottles, lunch, and watched volleyball being played in a beautiful pool of water. I built a sand castle. We walked across the island along a jungle path and swam on the very hardly inhabited other side of the island.
The only thing on this island was a bar, beach chairs, some bungalows that you can rent for 3 bucks a night and chickens. That's it. Also paradise. Did I mention paradise?
We spent about three hours on the second island.
I gave all our stuff to RM and instead of taking the little boat to the big boat, I swam out to it. It was delightful. I beat the little boat there.
On the third island, we did some more snorkeling and I dove off the side of the boat maybe 20 times. So much sun and swimming and diving. One of the guides caught a fish off the side of the boat and they cooked it over hot coals right on the boat and we all had a bite. There was also squid. I actually just had a bite of the squid and not the fish.
We were right on schedule all day and now we are back at the hotel having some mixed shakes and waiting for Mekong Bus Express to take us back to Phnom Pehn.
Tomorrow is the Book Festival. It will be my last full day in Cambodia.
Today? Paradise.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Heading to the Islands
We are going on a boat! We are going snorkeling, which I have never done, so that is thrilling. I believe the main Island is Bamboo Island... I think we will see about three. We are supposed to be back here by 415 and our bus back to Phnom Penh picks us up at 430 so we are REALLY hoping that all works out. Fingers crossed!
Napkins / Quack quack
Napkins here are very very small and delivered in a receptacle similar to a kleenex box.
Trash is collected by women who squeeze an item that quacks like a duck. When you hear that, you know the trash lady is close.
Currently drinking at Ernie's Bar where we've had hotdogs hamburgers and fries. Yum.
And now we are at a café having fruit shakes and ice cream and cheesecake. The leisure is getting ridiculous. RM poured espresso over his ice cream for an electrified delight.
And now we have taken a long magic walk along the beach, by a foot path and over a bridge to see the sunset. I made a sand castle with two little kids and their dog. We swam. The sunset was practically nonexistent because of the clouds. We took a long walk back. Now we are getting ready to go out for Indian food for dinner.
And that's your update from the Bod.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Lazy Life
We took a tuk-tuk to Victory Beach last night to watch the sunset. We were slightly disappointed because there were so many clouds but it was quite dramatic and we got to see some lightning in the distance so that was nice. Victory Beach was much more rustic than Serendipity. It is a lot dirtier too, but it was interesting to see more of the area. There are some hills and lots of trees, but mostly it's just paradise here (but the waves are too calm...no way to surf or even boogie board here). We took lots of pictures of the sunset then decided an adventure was needed so we walked back. It was a nice long walk mostly in the gathering dark with tuk-tuks and motos every 20 seconds asking if we wanted a ride. Half way home we found a grocery store that RM remembered from last time he was here and guess what they had? If you said GELATO, you would be right. It was very good and the perfect way to split our walk in two. We continued on home. Stopped for pizza and beer and drinks and had a great fun evening living the beach life in Sihanoukville.
This morning after sleeping in (RM had to do some work) I walked into the beach area and had a western breakfast (cheese omelet, toast, and banana chocolate shake). I then did some shopping and then parked myself on the beach for an hour or so to read.
Beach life.
In a few minutes we are going to get coffee. We might arrange for a boat to take us to an island tomorrow. Tonight we might go to Wat Leu to watch the sunset.
That's what life is like in Sihanoukville.
Sihanoukville
We have arrived in Sihanoukville! I have two words for this place. Beautiful. Lazy.
It's a beach town. That's basically it. The waves are lazy. The visitors are lazy. The weather is hot and lazy. So, we got here. Lazed around. Went for a walk. Saw the beaufitul beach (we are right on Serendipity Beach...2nd row for you beach goers...we are living it up in a hotel that is 20 bucks a night...we could have had a bungalow with no air conditioning or wifi for 6 bucks, but we are living large. We had lunch at a Japanese place right near the Gulf of Thailand (which is actually the body of water that we are near). I admit to getting tired of the fare. I'm tentative now because of my stomach but did partake in fried noodles with veggies and also a side of fries. Which were delicious. And another fruit shake. Which I will miss.
Tonight we are going to Victory Beach to watch the sunset. Then we are having pizza for Thanksgiving dinner. Tomorrow, RM has a phone call he has to be on in the morning then we might check out some other beaches. Yeah. Lazy. Wonderful.
I've been reading and watching the clouds go by. So nice.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Happy Thanksgiving!
It is Thanksgiving day and we are in a van headed to the coast. At home people are traveling and getting ready to share a turkey and great family time and, while I will really miss Thanksgiving at home, I am having a nice time here. This has been an amazing experience, but there are certainly times in life when you wish you could be in two (or three) places at once and now is one of those times. We heard (in English) on the radio that "It's Thanksgiving Day in the US, so stay tuned and I'll tell you more about Thanksgiving." We were really looking forward to hearing that intrepretation, but we drove out of range so now we'll never know what that particular Cambodian DJ thinks about American Thankgsiving.
My phone is barely charged and (again) I've been unable to access wireless on this van despite the fact that it is available, but I can type this now and I can look out the window at the beautiful scenery as we journey to the coast.
I can see some mountains off to my left way in the distance and I've seen a market and houses (long) with a big deep ditch by the road. At one part of the ditch, they allowed it to fill with water and a boy is bathing his cow. Now there are just large swaths of field sprinkled liberally with palm trees and the occasional white water buffalo or cow or whatever they are.
I'm now going to take a nap (hopefully...many of you know that I cannot read on buses or in cars and vans are the worst). When next you hear from me we will be at the ocean!
New note: we've just taken a man break...you know...the kind of stop where you pull off to the side of the road and all the men in the van tumble out to pee against a fence. I was worried about the weather for a while because it was quite overcast, but now the sun is out and it's beautiful. The palms on the palm trees seem to be getting bigger and it's starting to look a little more like the images I've seen of Vietnam...quite jungle-y here and there.
Oh, and at our last stop (a charming very rustic cafeteria/restaurant place where we didn't get anything) I went in to check out their toilets and was intrigued to find squat toilets. Yup. The bowls were sunk totally into the ground. No. I didn't use them.
Quitting Time in Cambodia
To continue my post from last night, I arrived at RM's work in a considerable state of sweat and tired. A bubble bath and some chocolate sounded really good, but I could not eat chocolate in my present state and there would be no chance for a bubble bath until we get to the coast. Then, we'll see.
It was starting to cloud over and I figured with my luck today the clouds would open up on me and then we could all be wet to the skin (not just me who was already wet to the skin, only with sweat). We rode our bikes to one of the few sky scrapers in Phnom Penh and parked our bikes in the garage...this is just like parking a car...you get a ticket and everything...this building had about 22 stories and a rooftop bar. We were planning on getting drinks there and seeing the city spreadout below us lit up in the night, but right then, it started to thunderstorm. When I say it was a rooftop bar, that's what I mean. Bar. On the roof. Not available during thunderstorms. I never heard the thunder but I saw lots of lightning, wind, and rain. Luckily, we were inside. Luckier still, they had a coffee shop downstairs. I got a cranberry juice and RM got an Americano (which is actually an Espresso...funny, no?) and we went ahead and booked our guesthouse (which turned out to be a hotel) for the coast and waited out the storm.
Our timing couldn't be better. Pretty much as soon as it stopped raining RM's friend Chantha, another poet, met us and we all walked together to a restaurant run by an NGO (nonprofit) dedicated to something good (art? children? not sure at the moment) to meet the fourth member of our party...Sokatia. Sokatia informed us that we shouldn't wait for a table here because they had said it'd be at least a half an hour and they couldn't even guarantee that. So our two plans for the evening were both a bust. Par for the course on the roughest day of this trip so far.
But then everything changed.
RM and Sokatia conferred and swiftly decided on a Vietnamese restaurant a few blocks away. Sokatia had her moto and so it was decided that I would ride to the restaurant on the back of her bike and the men would walk.
And that, my friends, is when Suzanne Walker had her first motorcycle ride of her entire life.
Sokatia was a very safe driver, and I happened to have my bike helmet with me, so that made it even better. I held onto her backpack and we drove the few blocks to the restaurant without incident. We got there only a few moments in front of the men because some of the roads were one way and we had to loop around. How thrilling!
We arrived at the restaurant and had a very nice time conversing about writing and family and travel. It was decided that Sokatia and I needed to take a road trip in America. I'm sure that will never happen, but I never thought that my first motocycle ride of my life would be hanging onto the back of a strange woman in Cambodia, so you never know. Dinner for me consisted of a 7UP (SO GOOD PEOPLE) and some pho without meat (pho is a Vietnamese dish consisting of noodles, broth, and whatever else you want to put in it...it is generally very tasty, but I was treading quite carefully so I didn't even make a dent in mine or put anything exciting in it). We also got bowls of a sweet tapioca pudding type of dessert with yellow mounds of pumpkin in it (la pov pa em). I quipped that this was perfect for Thanksgiving eve. RM had a mixed fruit shake. I was jealous since I'm staying away from fruit shakes for the moment, until I found out that his had a lot of durian in it which is a fruit that tastes like old socks dipped in moldy cheese. Dinner for four with all the fixings including dessert ended up being only 18 dollars. Can you believe it? So cheap.
Near the end of the evening Chantha's eyes got large and he started starring out the door of the restaurant. We pressed at what was caputuring is attention so completely and he informed us that the brother of the King of Cambodia had just left our restaurant. I don't know if he was serious (a lot of laughter followed) but let's pretend that it was true, okay?
All in all, the day wasn't so bad. I did have a horrendous bike ride and, of course, the fact that I really couldn't eat anything was a negative, but I managed to get some rest, get the bus tickets, see the Palace and Silver Pagoda, have a delightful dinner with new friends and maybe be near the brother of the King of Cambodia, so really, things worked out fine. We biked home (going by way of Tuol Sleng) and were packed and ready for the coast by about 11:15. I took a NyQuil and slept great and woke up with a less runny nose than last night so that's good.
Oh, the crazy.
Well, you all warned me that something terrible would happen in Cambodia and today proved you all marginally correct. Last night my phone charger (which also charges my little keyboard that I'm borrowing from the Kid Doctor) decided to die on me forever. Luckily RM has a charger that fits my phone, but we have to share it and it seems there's always something to charge. However, worse than that, I have come down with what I will call the Traveler's Companion...that's a euphemism for...you know... So eating has not been fun since after dinner last night. Luckily, I have two kinds of medicine and they are helping.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we are going to the coast! Sihanoukville to be exact. You can check it out online if you want. But, going has meant a lot of planning in a short amount of time. Since I wasn't feeling well this morning I stayed in until about noon. I spent the time resting and researching places to stay on the coast and reserving our bus tickets. We wanted an 830 bus, but it was full, so we are going at 7 in the morning. However, to get our seats finalized, someone had to go pick up the tickets at the Mekong Bus Express by 3:00 today. Since RM had to work, that left me.
All you people who know and love me will like this next part of the story...I have actually been to the bus station...it's the same company we used to go to Siem Reap, but that time we took a tuk tuk. This time, I was going to be on my bike. So I looked at the map, conferred with RM, and figured I knew where I was going, (it was in the direction of where I was wanting to go today anyway...the Royal Palace!) and off I went. I made it to the river, no problem. I found 5th street. And it didn't look at all like I remembered. Instead of a slightly crazy street lined with moto shops and gas stations, 5th street was an insane street that I couldn't even bike down because it was full of a Cambodian market place...and not the kind that caters to tourists...this kind is for locals and had all manner of things including dead chickens. I went around the block several times until I figured I needed help. I stopped in at a Dairy Queen of all places and chatted with the two guys working there. Remember, it was ninety degrees here today...I was drenched, feeling not so good, and thirsty. After the initial translational errors they realized what I what I wanted and their eyes got big...the one guy said..."it is FAR from here." We discovered what my error was. 5th street was not the same as highway 5. Sure they were both by the river, and really not all that far apart, but after riding around for a hour, I was getting extremely frustrated. I went to a store next door and bought 3 liters of water, sucked some down and headed out again with renewed energy.
Things looked familiar and then (45 minutes later) they still looked familiar and then (by now it was 2:40...remember, I had to get the tickets by 3) I realized that the things I was seeing were things that I had seen from the bus...meaning, I had passed the place. I stopped at a big restaurant and had the same conversation with different people (a man who said he had actually lived in Pennsylvania) and he said it was about a mile back the other way.
Oh guys, I was so happy when I found the place. It was air conditioned. And they had a bathroom. But the most important of all, I got our tickets for the way there and the way back.
By then it was three o'clock. I was having real second thoughts about going to the Royal Plalace, but that was my goal so I got back onto my bike and tiredly schlepped my way back to the Royal Palace. It was very hard to find the entrance but after talking to four people I finally did. I paid a dollar (a lot here) to park my bike and was finally on my way in.
Finally.
So the Royal Palace is beautiful, what you can see of it...many areas are off limits...there are also oddly curated museum exhibits that reminded me of exhibits I saw in South Africa...they look like they were put on display in the 50's and haven't been touched since. There were many beautiful outdoor bulldings, some (yay!) very old frescoes, a model of Angkor Wat (with a real pigeon resting on top), some crazy monkeys (real), hundreds of boxes in the shape of elephants, and more Buddhas than you can count, including one encrusted with diamonds. The gardens were also beautiful and many gardeners where watering them and I motioned to a man that he should spray my feet and he did. Heaven. I especially liked the little secret Buddha garden with the shaded staircases up and down.
The silver pagoda is so called because of the silver tiles that line the floor. There are thousands of them and I'm sure that back in the day it was a sight to behold, but they really need some restoration. They have a portion uncovered so you can see them, but the rest are covered with rugs. As you walk over them you can feel the poor tiles move under your feet. The really need help. The Emerald Buddha is housed in the Silver Pagoda (you aren't supposed to take pictures in there, but of course I snuck one) and it was beautiful as well as many many other golden Buddhas.
I took lots of pictures which I'll share with you all soon, then headed back into the Phnom Penh traffic to meet RM at his work so we could meet some friends for dinner. I, of course, got lost on the way, but it wasn't too bad and I was quite pleased that I ended up seeing the Palace despite the fact that I didn't have a chance to get cleaned up before dinner.
We had a very pleasant evening which hopefully I'll have a chance to tell you about tomorrow on the bus (let's hope they have wifi like they say they will) but I will leave you with the assurance that I am safe and well and conquered Phnom Penh traffic again today.
Also, I'm catching a cold. The kind with a lot of sneezing. I'll fit right in when I get home.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
I Can Do Anything
Riding a bicycle in Phnom Penh does wonders for the self-esteem. If I can ride a bike here, I can do anything I want ever in my whole life.
I left the apartment around four and twenty minutes later I arrived at RM's office. The bike ride was uneventful, which is just what you want a bike ride in Cambodia to be. The worst thing was how hot it is here. Guys. It's hot. Add a bike helmet and a breathing mask and you are boiling in about two seconds. The other hard thing is finding and reading the street signs. Mama Mia and I had a challenging time doing that in Venice, but this is 10 x worse. Maybe there are signs but they are all written in Khmer, so that's no help at all. Luckily, there are many streets (most) that are numbers and they are usually the numbers I recognize, and they are consecutive, so that helps a lot.
At the office a very exciting thing happened. A certain interviewing Toucan we all know got to interview no less than 6 Cambodians about information and community planning. It was thrilling. These will be on YouTube soon, but Sammy's long suffering editor is quite behind on uploading interviews, so hopefully, it will be before Christmas, but I wouldn't doubt if it took until after then.
After the office shenanigans, we biked over to a local bar for a mapping meetup where we heard two presentations about different ways to design interpretations of maps to help better understand land usage and flooding. This is one of the projects that the NGO that RM works at is working on. There is a lot of research involved...perfect for a library student. One of the speakers was German and the other was Cambodian. The whole evening was in English.
Dinner was next and we headed over to Savana 2, a local Cambodian barbecue place. I tried lots of new foods including heart and stomach. Goat was also eaten and a nice sauce was quickly whipped up by mixing up regular black pepper with lime juice. It was yummy.
Tomorrow I will be biking around Phnom Penh on my own. I plan on seeing the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda, Wat Phnom, and shopping in one of the two main markets here (Central and Russian). I might have to forego Wat Phnom because it's pretty far...we'll see.
We are starting to think about Thanksgiving plans. There is talk of taking a bus and staying my last few days on the coast. That would be very beautiful. I hope the budget and time allows!
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