Avoiding white slavery…

Talk about deja vu… But I’ll get to that later.The pendulum keeps swinging on Laos - from great to lonely, from perfect to frustrating. Maybe I’m just ready to come home. Yet at the same time I want to keep going and going and going…

What I don’t like: streets are not marked. I have seen not one street sign since I got here. Which means, of course, that I got horribly, totally lost. I think I ended up in Thailand. Not really, but I can see it right over the Mekong. As I was walking I was feeling so sorry for myself and wishing I had someone with me, either to keep me on track (Gert) or laugh about my ridiculous predicament (Selina), but eventually I saw a landmark and used my compass-flashlight key chain - THANK YOU JEFF AND JANICE for the best gift ever, I use the compass daily and the light really came in handy when I was clenching it in my teeth crawling through the Cu Chi Tunnels in Vietnam! So eventually I found the Mekong and went to a cute riverside restuarant, called the Riverside Restaurant, for a lackluster solitary meal. I was hoping for Lao food that would blow me away but it tasted like westernized thai food. But I had the big Lao Beer, since they were out of the smalls and you know me, I’m a trouper.

I was having a lukewarm reaction to Vientiene but then it got a whole lot better - the squid lady came by! Dried squid is one of my favorite pre-, during, or post-dinner snacks. As soon as I got my bill I jumped up to chase her as far as the next restaurant, where I got her to roast me up some squid and it was great, she was so nice and the restaurant people didn’t seem to mind me buying street food to eat there - of course I ordered another beer (my mother and Alex will stand by me: you cannot eat dried squid without beer!). I also used my guidebook to communicate that I wanted hot sauce and lime for dipping, and the hot sauce was so good. Homemade, garlicky, gingery, and HOT by god, hot.

So I ended up enjoying the sun set over the Mekong River, eating dried squid and, let’s face it, getting pretty drunk.

Today was another unusual day. I had decided to start off with the Lao National Museum and I got, oh, nowhere near it. I had wanted to go to Pha That Luang, which is supposed to be a big deal, a huge monument, but the guidebook lists it as closed Monday. I asked the tuk-tuk driver and he said no, it is indeed open, so we headed there. It was great because it was still early, and maybe all the Lonely Planeters stayed away thinking it was closed, so I was practically alone.

I was just walking along looking at beautiful paintings by local artists when I hear “Hello!” and once again, turn around and see 3 young monks. I am a monk magnet. Long story short: they were fun, we spent the next 6 hours together, they took me on the local bus to Xieng Khuan (aka “Buddha Park”) 24 km out of town - I never would have been able to figure out the local bus!, then back to Vientiene to go to 2 magnificant pagodas, and I just said goodbye and we have a tentative playdate for next week when I pass through Vientiene again. I lost my head for a second and held my hand out to shake hands and they jumped back like I pulled a gun… good one, Mary!

So the day turned out to be really great, really really wonderful… But here’s what I DO NOT like about Laos, it is too laid back! I know, how is that a problem? It is a huge problem when you are waiting for a plane ticket on an already full flight and you come back to the travel agent the following day as agreed and it is obvious that he totally forgot to check! They had me sit there for about 20 minutes waiting for… something, I don’t know. And now they want me to come back tomorrow. I said if I can get the confirmation before I leave for Vang Vieng, okay, otherwise…??? I might have to fly to Phnom Penh again, or somehow get back into Vietnam and take the bus… What I’m trying to say is that I might be stuck here forever. Send my stuff.

I was a little pissed so I went next door and that travel agent said Okay! but then it was cash only!!! What the hell? Frankly, I need my US dollars since I can’t get any here, so that option didn’t appeal to me.

I have a feeling there is a Vietnam Airlines office very close that they are not telling me about. Which is pissing me off. I am going to call right now.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

Yesterday afternoon I went back to Angkor Wat on my own (with my moto driver, Pross) and had a little quiet time sitting on one of the small sub-temples in full view of the front of Angkor Wat. I wrote in my journal, wrote some postcards, just chillin’ out waiting for the sun to set.

Angkor Wat is considered the largest religious building in the world, and although it is almost 1000 years old, I was surprised to find out that it (and many of the temple ruins) is still used for worship and there is an adjacent monastery. So there are always these magnificent looking monks in saffron robes wandering around, which is a big novelty for the tourists. I was even thinking yesterday that I would have to amend my “Monks are fun guys” statement because some of the younger monks seemed pretty irritated by people following them around with cameras all the time.

So I was really surprised, while I had my head down writing, to hear “Hello!” and see 2 very young monks wanting to chat with me. One spoke english and the other spoke japanese and they said they thought I might be japanese - which I will take as a HUGE compliment because all the japanese girls I have seen have awesome fashion sense (”Harajuku girls, you got the wicked style…”). We were joined by another young monk. They had a lot of questions about the US and Vietnam, and I had a lot of questions about Cambodia… For example, all those people I see begging, all the landmine victims, they don’t get any help from the government and basically if it wasn’t for the tourism they wouldn’t have any money at all. He asked about my religion and when I told him I was buddhist he got really excited and said “in Buddhism, we believe that to help others is to help yourself”, regarding the amputees and begging kids.

A finnish guy came over to take a picture of the monks and I asked him to take one with my camera too and it turned out really sweet. I promised the monk I would send him some books in english and he gave me his address at the pagoda. We ended up sitting there on the steps of the temple talking for over half an hour, well past the sunset and, ooops, after the park closed. I had to walk out in the dark with my flashlight (absolute must-have item for temple exploration, if only to see inside the dark dark bathroom!)

As Pross and I approached the guesthouse we saw that much of the Old Market Area was in the dark… again. Our block had no power the night before, but just for about an hour or so. But last night I didn’t get power back until after 10 pm. Evidently, pretty common in Siem Reap. So instead of sweating in my room, I walked into the Old Market area to find a place to eat. It’s very eerie walking through the streets of Cambodia in total darkness. I knew there were people all around me but I couldn’t see them. I found a place that looked nice and the proprieter was desperate for a customer so I sat down and ate a wonderful romantic candleligt dinner all by myself. I’m still not used to eating alone. I tried a traditional khmer dish called Amok - it’s like a fish curry with shrimp and squid and veggies and eggs. Really spicy, really good.

So it was up early again this morning to get the big sunrise shot. I met Pross in the lobby at 5am and you know what? I wouldn’t have thought I could be cold in Cambodia but on the drive to the temples in the dark, I froze my Wats off. I’d gone to Angkor Wat on Thursday for the sunrise but we really got there just as the sun came up (our tuk tuk had trouble, we had to get our admission tickets, it took too long), so I was happy to get there in the dark this morning and set up dead center just as the sky started to brighten.

People do still live there, around Angkor Wat and the other temples 

After that I just did some of the other big temples in Angkor Thom, including Bayon (one of my favorites) and the Terrace of the Leper King and Terrace of the Elephants. And it was great! When I went to those on Thursday, they were just teeming with people but somehow I lucked out this morning and had them almost all to myself. I think the big tour buses do a well-traveled loop and fortunately, none of them were around for me.

Bayon… hundreds of semi-smiling faces 

Defaced Buddhas

Me and Pross 

I got back to town by 9am because I don’t want to get “templed out”, and I plan on going back for sunset. I also arranged for Pross to take me to a weekly concert to benefit the hospital, this week is violin music. I figure that will be a nice way to spend my last night in Cambodia.

One more thing… the kids here are too much. Borderline annoying and adorable, I can’t decide if i want to smack them or hug them. They follow you down the streets saying “postcards? postcards lady?” and if I say I already have them they say “but now buy from me!” They are tenacious and adorable. When you say “no thanks” they try to engage you in conversation by asking where you are from. It’s really smart because most westerners are too polite to not answer a direct question. So when I say I am from the US they all, and I mean in unison, yell out “Really! I am from Washington DC!” which is SO CUTE. I had one girl say “there are 50 state, the largest one is Alaska and the smallest one is Rhode Island”. Then they want to know what state I am from and yesterday I had a little boy tell me “the capital is Tallahassee” which was impressive. I think a lot of Floridians don’t know that.

And there is quite a bit of emotional blackmail too. It’s so transparent… but it works! I had this girl, she was selling postcards postcards postcards - and i was saying no thanks no thanks no thanks and she said “when you go, I will miss you.” Jesus! I almost put her in my backpack.

But… it doesn’t really work on me. The ones that follow me down the street, the ones that come up to you in the cafes and will not leave - I never want to give money to them because somehow they have learned that if they are annoying enough and persistent enough, people will give them money to leave them alone. I don’t want to support that. In Saigon, the moto and cyclo drivers make me want to scream, so when they ask me where I am from I say “Uranus. It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

Oh and guess what I saw. My record for number of people on one moto was 5, which I saw twice in Vietnam. Well the other morning I saw (and I had to count out loud to be absolutely sure) “onetwothreefourfivesixSEVEN!” and threw my arms in the air for victory. 3 adults, 3 children, and the lady in the back holding an infant. Of course it went by too fast for a photo so you’ll just have to trust me.

Fun Fact: Cambodia is the only country whose flag features a man-made object! (Angkor Wat) See what you learn when you read my blog?

Denise, you win. It was indeed Jesse from Saved By the Bell. I love you for knowing that (and I know Tia, Tay and Sue know it too!). And my mom didn’t diss laotians, she dissed H’mongs!

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