noodle quest 2006

the museum was really intense. i don’t know if i have ever been to a site of mass torture or killing before. we entered the building and went to the third floor of the southernmost building to watch a film about the prison and about the khmer rouge. then jess, vanny and i walked around the museum. it was really nice to have vanny there especially because not everthing was translated in to english so he was able to help us understand more, however it was his first time in the museum as well. a few levels of the various buildings were left in their prior state, tiny wooden cells. they were 2/3 the width of a twin bed and about 2 feet shorter. prisoners were forced to lie in one position shackled to the wall and were required to ask permission if they wanted to change positions while sleeping or else they were subject to torture. the walls in these parts of the buildings ached. just touching them was heavy- there was literally pain oozing aroudn the rooms. it felt so alive in such a heinous and tortured way. i felt drawn to the inconsistencies in the cells, the rat holes and the slices of barred window that distinguished one cell from another (in addition to the number marking each one inside and out). i thought about how these people must have passed the day memorizing these details. other parts of the museum were designated for other things. a few halls had rows of billboards with different sized photographs of the inhabitants of S21. So many were young children under 10 years old. another hall was exhibitng paintings created by a former prisoner of S21 who was one of the VERY few that survived the facility. the painting s all depicted tortures that seemed surreal- like pulling out people’s nails and puring slcohol into th eopen wounds. jesus. but it did happen, it is real.
after this vist we went for a walk and stopped and ate some delicious fried rice and scallion pancakes on the street. then we convinced Vanny to go to meditation with us at Wat Lanka. Although he lives with monks, he has never meditated before. he was reluctant to go but we convinced him. we took a moto to the wat.
at the wat grounds we entered and looked for the main temple. we ascended a tall winding set of stairs and entered the main temple which was decadent and beautiful beyond belief. there were square yelloe pillows with purple round pillows set up all along the floor of the room. we were instructed by a monk to bring the pillows out to the terrace and we had a short class, maybe 20 minutes about how to meditate, the theory behind it, the goal, etc. then the monk told us, “you will now struggle until 7pm.” we brought our pillows back into the wat and sat as we were instructed previously. it was a struggle to maintain the position and keep thoughts in the rise and fall of the abdomen but it was a pleasant struggle, hence the title of the previous post.
after meditating we walked around for a while, dropped Vanny off at his wat, and went back to our guesthouse to pick up our stuff and check into okay guesthouse. however when we got there, the manager and receptionist rudely alerted us that they had given our room away. they told us we could sleep in the dorm room for free since it was their mistake. the dorm room was essentially two beds in the hallway leading to three rooms. we were pretty sad about it but too hungry to care. we went to have dinner at a restaurant called “on the corner” which was awesome. we met the owner named Pip and told him how rude everyone was at okay guesthouse. it turns out that he is also the vice president of the hotel and restuarant association of cambodia so he insisted on taking us to another guesthouse for the night until okay had a room for us. he took us to a few places. the one we settled on was 20% legit hotel, 30% sketch kareoke bar and 50% brothel. the room was huge though and there was a door and a/c so we stayed. Pip insisted on paying for the room as “we were guests in his country.” we did not want to feel indepbted but were tired so we agreed. it took a bit of gentle coaxing to convince him that he could not sleep in the other bed in the room but eventually we amiably evicted him. the room cost 15$- certainly the most expensive room we have stayed in, but not the nicest. i think that award probably goes to Than Xuan hotel in Hoi An which was 12$ a night and truly lovely.
In the morning we felt really shady leaving the hotel so we did it as fast as possible. we jumped on motos and went to okay guesthouse. we ate some food, took showers, moved into our room and went to go see Wat Pnom which was really big and beautiful. Then jess and i parted ways, she went to to the national museum and i went to the river to hang out with the kids. we met up at Herb’s, ate some pizza, and then went to the Lazy Gecko to watch the 40 year old virgin (actually very funny) and zoolander (which didn’t quite hit the spot this time around). After, we came home, hung out in the garden at the hotel for a while then went to bed. This morning jess woke up at 6am and went to have an interview with this dude who we might work for 22km outside of pnom penh. we met up at the riverside to take the kids to the water park at around 11am. For reasons that i don’t exactly understand, Poung became extremely angry at me and refused to go the waterpark. his brother said that Poung said he didn’t want to go if so many people were going to come. i think the reality is that he felt bad that he felt like all of these kids were taking advantage of us and he was worried about me and jess spending too much money. however i tried to explain to him that this was not his concern. we did not want to exclude anyone and were prepared to pay so stop worrying and come. maybe the issue was something else however because he wrote me a very angry e-mail that said never to write or talk to him again. he is 15- i’m sure i was that reactionary at his age or maybe some larger issue transgressed that i neglected to understand- i really don’t know. the water park was TOTALLY nuts. jess and i took seperate tuk tuk’s and loaded them up with 10 kids on each one. everyone was very excited. we got there and after trying to count how many we had numerous times, we settled on 21 and payed a dollar each for their entrance. we had a good time jumping in and out of the pools and rafts with them althugh there was some drama. a couple of our kids almost got thrown out for running and playing too rough. a few got scraped, a few fell down, a few had belly aches and a few just hassled each other unnecesarily. nothing that a seasoned camp counselor like myself hasn’t handled countless times. after a few hours we loaded them back up and came back to the riverside. our dirvers hassled us for more money than they were owed which really pissed me off. jess and i were feeling sick in the morning and now we are totally exhausted. we came back here, showered, ate some food and now jess is napping. there was an amazing thunderstorm after we got back and i got to watch it from the couch in the garden which was very cool. tomorrow we go to the post office and then go to sihanoukville (beach town)… hooray!

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