tonight, as i was driving home from work after what was a beautiful blue, sunny sky day with temperatures between -16C and -8C, driving into the blue-purple dusk with the full moon shining over mounts peter and paul, the city lights twinkling in the fading light, i thought "man. you can't beat kamloops in january."
who the hell am i kidding. you can. it's called southeast asia.
so, here you go - photos. i will be adding more as they become available (as of right now it appears to be "shea's SE asia vacation" as i don't have her photos yet) but here's a sneak peek.
work is insane. i am retarded and volunteered for this green energy fair in my spare time. what i wouldn't give for a set of poi, my beer lao t-shirt and a bonfire on a beach right now - somewhere tropical (i suppose i could do this on the banks of the thompson river...but in -15, probably not as much fun).
love,
tasha.
thailand 1
thailand 2
laos 1
laos 2
vietnam 1
vietnam 2
cambodia 1
cambodia 2
cambodia 3
thailand (again) 1
thailand (again) 2
Monday, January 21, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
how to lose 23 kilos in just a few hours.
well, i'm back. home sweet home. i love coming home to a clean apartment and a huge stack of christmas cards (i'm ignoring the bills). someone sent me a parcel over christmas (thanks, whoever you are) but of course it was returned, so please resend it. i love presents. i also had a voicemail from my high school grad date, that was a pleasant surprise.
my backpack decided it liked the weather in vancouver better and has chosen to spend a night there. i know it made it that far because i picked it up from customs and put it on the belt to magic bag land, so that's a good thing. i'm glad now i decided against that big bottle of bombay sapphire at duty free because i'd be sure they'd be rifling through my piles of damp and dirty clothes to steal it. i still can't believe my bag only weighed 23 kilos. i guessed more like 4839 kilos. though i did shed a few books and a pair of very used flip flops in ko tao.
my layover in korea actually was pretty awesome. there are times where i hate that i never have a quiet mind - i'm always thinking (over thinking) and analyzing and wondering about things. curiousity takes over all the time. today i was glad because it helped me kill 8 hours in the incheon airport. they had a cool little korean craft centre, and you know me and crafts, it's like the magic word. so, i made this little paper pencil holder thingymabob and she wrote my name in korean on it (it probably says "shithead" or something, but she swore it said "tasha".) i explored every wing of the departures area and found a great little lounge with couches, where i laid out for a couple of hours, read and had a nap. way better than a hotel anyday, and i didn't have to venture out into the cold.
amber, being the superstar she is, came and picked me up at the airport and took me to get groceries. now i'm contemplating if i have the energy to even have a bath - a bath would be so nice right now after 3 days of travelling (i'm sure my travelling neighbors would have all agreed).
and now that i'm back, i can say it. i had no stomach problems at ALL on this trip. none. no repeat of the great dysentery adventure of 2002, no food poisoning, nothing. shea had a little problem (she made me swear not to blog about it, but it rhymes with monstipation) and many of our friends reported horrific cases of either end explosions, but i was a-ok. i was pretty careful but no more so than last time, so i think my guts are just stronger. i think i have dad's "sit on the stove for 9 hours" spaghetti sauce to thank for that. so, thanks dad.
the trip was overall a tremendous success. you're all probably dying to know how shea and i got along, right? i mean - we're 8 years apart, have NEVER spent that much time in close quarters together (i've never spent that much time that closely with ANYONE before). you'll be pleasantly surprised to hear that it went really, really fantastically well. seriously. we had one, um, moment, a very well controlled burst of expletives (from me, not her) and it blew over in about 4 minutes. sure, there was eye rolling and snarkiness now and again, but overall, we got along really well, and we both saw sides of each other i think we didn't really know existed. all shea ever really knew of me was older sister who came home, worked like crazy all summer and then lived her life elsewhere. i think she was truly surprised to find out i'm actually pretty fun. i was surprised by a lot of things about shea too, like that she really does at the end of the day have a great head on her shoulders. it was a great trip. i wouldn't change a thing.
time for a bath. then i'm going to crawl under the covers of my thick down duvet into my bed that actually has coils in it and high thread count sheets in my warm winter red PJs and prepare for the real world that kicks in tomorrow.
over and out, thanks for reading. photos will follow soon.
xoxo
tasha.
my backpack decided it liked the weather in vancouver better and has chosen to spend a night there. i know it made it that far because i picked it up from customs and put it on the belt to magic bag land, so that's a good thing. i'm glad now i decided against that big bottle of bombay sapphire at duty free because i'd be sure they'd be rifling through my piles of damp and dirty clothes to steal it. i still can't believe my bag only weighed 23 kilos. i guessed more like 4839 kilos. though i did shed a few books and a pair of very used flip flops in ko tao.
my layover in korea actually was pretty awesome. there are times where i hate that i never have a quiet mind - i'm always thinking (over thinking) and analyzing and wondering about things. curiousity takes over all the time. today i was glad because it helped me kill 8 hours in the incheon airport. they had a cool little korean craft centre, and you know me and crafts, it's like the magic word. so, i made this little paper pencil holder thingymabob and she wrote my name in korean on it (it probably says "shithead" or something, but she swore it said "tasha".) i explored every wing of the departures area and found a great little lounge with couches, where i laid out for a couple of hours, read and had a nap. way better than a hotel anyday, and i didn't have to venture out into the cold.
amber, being the superstar she is, came and picked me up at the airport and took me to get groceries. now i'm contemplating if i have the energy to even have a bath - a bath would be so nice right now after 3 days of travelling (i'm sure my travelling neighbors would have all agreed).
and now that i'm back, i can say it. i had no stomach problems at ALL on this trip. none. no repeat of the great dysentery adventure of 2002, no food poisoning, nothing. shea had a little problem (she made me swear not to blog about it, but it rhymes with monstipation) and many of our friends reported horrific cases of either end explosions, but i was a-ok. i was pretty careful but no more so than last time, so i think my guts are just stronger. i think i have dad's "sit on the stove for 9 hours" spaghetti sauce to thank for that. so, thanks dad.
the trip was overall a tremendous success. you're all probably dying to know how shea and i got along, right? i mean - we're 8 years apart, have NEVER spent that much time in close quarters together (i've never spent that much time that closely with ANYONE before). you'll be pleasantly surprised to hear that it went really, really fantastically well. seriously. we had one, um, moment, a very well controlled burst of expletives (from me, not her) and it blew over in about 4 minutes. sure, there was eye rolling and snarkiness now and again, but overall, we got along really well, and we both saw sides of each other i think we didn't really know existed. all shea ever really knew of me was older sister who came home, worked like crazy all summer and then lived her life elsewhere. i think she was truly surprised to find out i'm actually pretty fun. i was surprised by a lot of things about shea too, like that she really does at the end of the day have a great head on her shoulders. it was a great trip. i wouldn't change a thing.
time for a bath. then i'm going to crawl under the covers of my thick down duvet into my bed that actually has coils in it and high thread count sheets in my warm winter red PJs and prepare for the real world that kicks in tomorrow.
over and out, thanks for reading. photos will follow soon.
xoxo
tasha.
Monday, January 14, 2008
how to cram 3 weeks into one.
my biggest pet peeve with shea is that it takes her forEVER to do anything. she is so pokey, once it took her 6 minutes to just pee. JUST PEE.
obviously, shea's biggest pet peeve about me is that i'm hopelessly impatient and do things like time her when she goes pee.
one day in siem reap, i was waiting for shea (as per usual). so i was staring her down and quietly judging her every move as she floated around the room (as per usual). i said "shea, hurry up." she said "tasha, get out of here." so, i went out to the common balcony to chill out and came across this guy playing the mandolin. we visited. he was cool. that night shea and i had planned on just packing and going to bed, but my new friend (and neighbor) and his roommates were going out. obviously, we all hit it off, and have spent the last week travelling with them, changing plans like crazy and living it up.
so who knew that the two traits that drive shea and i craziest about one another would be responsible for tying up this trip with the biggest, bestest bow ever.
these last few days have been so fantastic. every day has been packed full, and every night has been pretty well perfect. the boys were supposed to be doing a PADI course, but because of some medical stuff both had to put it off until they could check with doctors in samui, so i was diving solo. i did 4 dives, the first was a refresher dive since it's been nearly 3 years since i've been under. i hate the skills. i just want to swim and see things. i mean, i know it's good and all to remember how to do important things like, oh, put your mask back on when some dumbass kicks it off, or put your regulator back in your mouth in case you snag it on a piece of coral (which i did). but i just wanted to GO. we saw someamazing things, nothing as exciting as a whale shark (sigh) but we did see these great little clown fish that would come right up to your mask and poke around. the best is we did about 4 swim throughs - basically through some caves and rocks, which was something i've never done before. my dive buddy was kind of boring though, and wouldn't do flipper high 5s or sommersaults with me. he wouldn't cannonball off of the boat after either while we waited for the diving classes to come back up, so i had to make my own fun. plus i had to pee in the water. i loved my dive instructor though - she was thai and so funny. she gave me a bandaid for a skinned knee, she said "you need to cover. because the fish, they like. MWA MWA MWA MWA!" as she made faces of fish eating my scabs (sure enough, i was robbed of every scab on my body, which was a lot thanks to loads of bug bites).
this reminds me this interesting little fact: after i dive (and during), i have to pee SO MUCH. it's crazy. i just assumed it was the whole floating in so much water thing but apparently there's actually a biological reason for this, according to this insane french guy who was diving with me. when you're beneath the surface, everything is all compressed, including your blood. all the excess water from your blood goes through you and into your bladder, so it's constantly full. and don't go "oh gross you peed in the ocean". you all have done it, i know it. and if you pee on the boat, when you flush it just goes straight out anyway, so i might as well be having fun swimming while i'm at it.
anyway, lawrence had rented a big dirt bike and explored the island while i was diving, so the next day i rented a quad and shea and i went with him to check out some of his favorite places.
ok, let's discuss thai quads. they aren't the solid polarises or hondas we have here. no no, it's more like the ones you can buy at canadian tire for $800, with tires worn to the skin. the "roads" were insane dirt trails (yet there were trucks going up and down them) with loose sand and huge rocks. on a good quad, this would have been awesome. on this quad - it was terrifying. and shea was a nervous nellie, constantly grabbing me and making scared noises - i nearly made her walk. on the way back down this scary, giant hill i finally told her that she needed to stop squealing and entertain me so i wasn't so freaked out (every time we remotely hit the brakes we skidded sideways, and the suspension was shot so steering wasn't exactly reliable). so, she sang me some songs, and we broke out "baby got back" to lighten our spirits. lawrence was a star and kept up my morale when i was really, really not having fun. but once we were down it was all good. and the destination was so completely worth it.
there was this incredible little bay at the top of the island, with one resort with little bungalows and a great little beach and a great little bar. next time i'm on ko tao - it's my destination for sure. we snorkelled for a couple of hours (i went hunting for a black tip reef shark but never did find it) and it was awesome. i found shea a cute yukon firefighter boyfriend, but we didn't see him again after that. damn it.
that night we chilled out on the beach, playing with the poi, drinking buckets. needless to say, it got messy but was so much fun - though i was having a bit of anxiety about having to leave the next day - i'm really terrible with goodbyes and get attached to people i travel with for longer than a couple of days. i had a flight booked from surat thani and had to take the night ferry the next night. i was feeling a bit sad about going - i just wanted ONE MORE DAY.
so, the next day, i said screw the flight (it was so cheap) and i booked a catamaran/bus the NEXT day for 10 am - so, another day in paradise.
shea and kris headed to the beach to nurse their hangovers, but lawrence and i decided to make the most of out his bike and went for a cruise around (mostly looking for this elusive beach kris and shea kept going to - we never did find it, but we found another). we bought some snorkel gear and practiced some snorkelling with lawrence for when he DOES get to do his PADI, then watched sunset on the beach with the mosquitos and the mandolin. it was a chilled out last night in thailand, and it was fantastic.
and i made a plan when i was on the boat ride back from the dive. i've decided that i'm going to get my dive master certification, and we're all going to move there. shea is going to run the bar and be the fire poi master, kris will be our underwater photographer (and we'll do underwater weddings, so i'll get ordained), and lawrence will be our DJ, our dirt bike tour guide, and write and record the music to go along with the underwater videos and wedding videos for our guests. i'm working on the business plan. they're all in.
*sigh*
damn you, real world.
so, the next morning shea and i parted ways at the pier, lawrence saw me off and i sadly got onto the catamaran and headed back towards bangkok. on champorn pier i chatted with this scottish guy who was on his way from samui to bangkok to pick up his girlfriend, and we ended up hanging out for a couple of hours in bangkok while i waited to go to the airport. i felt this little surge of love for bangkok - i must be in a delirium from the past while - and took it in for the last time. i watched this western guy preach at the top of his lungs to the hordes of sinners on khoa san road, i watched the masses of backpackers lining up for the night busses and ferries to ko pha ngan for the next full moon party, i even felt a little love for the wooden frog ladies who wander around in tribal dress making those goddamn wooden frogs croak with the sticks. i must be in bliss. shea did tell me on ko tao that she's not sure she's ever seen me this relaxed or happy, at least not in a long time. it's been an amazing trip.
so now i'm in korea, killing the next few hours on the massive lay over i have here. i'm watching to see what will happen with this really gross bug bite on my arm - kris thinks it's going to hatch baby spiders - he might be right. i won't be sad to leave behind all the bugs, thanks cold weather. the colon has told me there's loads of snow falling in kamloops right now - so i'm already plotting my first night ski of the season. there's a full moon coming up - i'm thinking of having my own little full moon party at stake lake, i'll bring the vodka redbull, someone bring the buckets, we'll go for a night ski and whoop it up. sure, it's snow instead of sand and fleece instead of bikinis but in the end, it's the people you're with that make your experiences the best they can be.
i'll blog more when i get back, give you some of my perspectives and crap, if you want to read that drivel. and, of course, i'll be uploading photos like a crazy woman, so i'll post some and a link to the album. being the tremendous tech geek i am, i plan on doing something fun with the pictures, but i'll have to collect them from the various people who have more first.
and mom/dad, sorry we've been incommunicado. our room had no power point in it, shea never did buy a power converter and the cell phone has been dead for days. besides, an hour away to call or email would be an hour away from the beach/bikes/boys that we were having so much fun with. i hope you'll forgive us - in a few hours you can call me to your heart's content.
and by the way - i'm getting my motorcycle license when i get back (that means you, me, open road anne walker). i had so much fun on the scooters that i want to take some lessons and actually ride a bike - plus when i go places like this i'll have more confidence (and you know, abilities) to explore - it's the only way to experience it. it was pretty fun being on the back too - except for that time in hoi an i was nearly hit by a bus (i put my feet down when we swerved i was so freaked out. "s'ok! s'ok! just don't look!'" was the advice from the driver). i told shea when we were in vietnam after cruising around mui ne with a moto taxi that my next boyfriend has to have a bike. she thinks i'll be trolling for hell's angels next, since i like hairy men who ride motorcycles. i want to add to my skills - geez, i mean i can drive quads and snowmobiles, tractors, use a chainsaw, fly a helicopter (welllllllllllllll ok it was just a little bit and probably just an excuse for the pervy pilot to get a girl to put her hands on his joystick, but it was fun. darcy did it too, so there.), why not a motorbike? that makes me sound not very girly, but considering i have 98234 pairs of shoes, always maintain my eyebrows and use my shoe as a hammer, rest assured i'm still very much a girl.
love,
tasha.
obviously, shea's biggest pet peeve about me is that i'm hopelessly impatient and do things like time her when she goes pee.
one day in siem reap, i was waiting for shea (as per usual). so i was staring her down and quietly judging her every move as she floated around the room (as per usual). i said "shea, hurry up." she said "tasha, get out of here." so, i went out to the common balcony to chill out and came across this guy playing the mandolin. we visited. he was cool. that night shea and i had planned on just packing and going to bed, but my new friend (and neighbor) and his roommates were going out. obviously, we all hit it off, and have spent the last week travelling with them, changing plans like crazy and living it up.
so who knew that the two traits that drive shea and i craziest about one another would be responsible for tying up this trip with the biggest, bestest bow ever.
these last few days have been so fantastic. every day has been packed full, and every night has been pretty well perfect. the boys were supposed to be doing a PADI course, but because of some medical stuff both had to put it off until they could check with doctors in samui, so i was diving solo. i did 4 dives, the first was a refresher dive since it's been nearly 3 years since i've been under. i hate the skills. i just want to swim and see things. i mean, i know it's good and all to remember how to do important things like, oh, put your mask back on when some dumbass kicks it off, or put your regulator back in your mouth in case you snag it on a piece of coral (which i did). but i just wanted to GO. we saw someamazing things, nothing as exciting as a whale shark (sigh) but we did see these great little clown fish that would come right up to your mask and poke around. the best is we did about 4 swim throughs - basically through some caves and rocks, which was something i've never done before. my dive buddy was kind of boring though, and wouldn't do flipper high 5s or sommersaults with me. he wouldn't cannonball off of the boat after either while we waited for the diving classes to come back up, so i had to make my own fun. plus i had to pee in the water. i loved my dive instructor though - she was thai and so funny. she gave me a bandaid for a skinned knee, she said "you need to cover. because the fish, they like. MWA MWA MWA MWA!" as she made faces of fish eating my scabs (sure enough, i was robbed of every scab on my body, which was a lot thanks to loads of bug bites).
this reminds me this interesting little fact: after i dive (and during), i have to pee SO MUCH. it's crazy. i just assumed it was the whole floating in so much water thing but apparently there's actually a biological reason for this, according to this insane french guy who was diving with me. when you're beneath the surface, everything is all compressed, including your blood. all the excess water from your blood goes through you and into your bladder, so it's constantly full. and don't go "oh gross you peed in the ocean". you all have done it, i know it. and if you pee on the boat, when you flush it just goes straight out anyway, so i might as well be having fun swimming while i'm at it.
anyway, lawrence had rented a big dirt bike and explored the island while i was diving, so the next day i rented a quad and shea and i went with him to check out some of his favorite places.
ok, let's discuss thai quads. they aren't the solid polarises or hondas we have here. no no, it's more like the ones you can buy at canadian tire for $800, with tires worn to the skin. the "roads" were insane dirt trails (yet there were trucks going up and down them) with loose sand and huge rocks. on a good quad, this would have been awesome. on this quad - it was terrifying. and shea was a nervous nellie, constantly grabbing me and making scared noises - i nearly made her walk. on the way back down this scary, giant hill i finally told her that she needed to stop squealing and entertain me so i wasn't so freaked out (every time we remotely hit the brakes we skidded sideways, and the suspension was shot so steering wasn't exactly reliable). so, she sang me some songs, and we broke out "baby got back" to lighten our spirits. lawrence was a star and kept up my morale when i was really, really not having fun. but once we were down it was all good. and the destination was so completely worth it.
there was this incredible little bay at the top of the island, with one resort with little bungalows and a great little beach and a great little bar. next time i'm on ko tao - it's my destination for sure. we snorkelled for a couple of hours (i went hunting for a black tip reef shark but never did find it) and it was awesome. i found shea a cute yukon firefighter boyfriend, but we didn't see him again after that. damn it.
that night we chilled out on the beach, playing with the poi, drinking buckets. needless to say, it got messy but was so much fun - though i was having a bit of anxiety about having to leave the next day - i'm really terrible with goodbyes and get attached to people i travel with for longer than a couple of days. i had a flight booked from surat thani and had to take the night ferry the next night. i was feeling a bit sad about going - i just wanted ONE MORE DAY.
so, the next day, i said screw the flight (it was so cheap) and i booked a catamaran/bus the NEXT day for 10 am - so, another day in paradise.
shea and kris headed to the beach to nurse their hangovers, but lawrence and i decided to make the most of out his bike and went for a cruise around (mostly looking for this elusive beach kris and shea kept going to - we never did find it, but we found another). we bought some snorkel gear and practiced some snorkelling with lawrence for when he DOES get to do his PADI, then watched sunset on the beach with the mosquitos and the mandolin. it was a chilled out last night in thailand, and it was fantastic.
and i made a plan when i was on the boat ride back from the dive. i've decided that i'm going to get my dive master certification, and we're all going to move there. shea is going to run the bar and be the fire poi master, kris will be our underwater photographer (and we'll do underwater weddings, so i'll get ordained), and lawrence will be our DJ, our dirt bike tour guide, and write and record the music to go along with the underwater videos and wedding videos for our guests. i'm working on the business plan. they're all in.
*sigh*
damn you, real world.
so, the next morning shea and i parted ways at the pier, lawrence saw me off and i sadly got onto the catamaran and headed back towards bangkok. on champorn pier i chatted with this scottish guy who was on his way from samui to bangkok to pick up his girlfriend, and we ended up hanging out for a couple of hours in bangkok while i waited to go to the airport. i felt this little surge of love for bangkok - i must be in a delirium from the past while - and took it in for the last time. i watched this western guy preach at the top of his lungs to the hordes of sinners on khoa san road, i watched the masses of backpackers lining up for the night busses and ferries to ko pha ngan for the next full moon party, i even felt a little love for the wooden frog ladies who wander around in tribal dress making those goddamn wooden frogs croak with the sticks. i must be in bliss. shea did tell me on ko tao that she's not sure she's ever seen me this relaxed or happy, at least not in a long time. it's been an amazing trip.
so now i'm in korea, killing the next few hours on the massive lay over i have here. i'm watching to see what will happen with this really gross bug bite on my arm - kris thinks it's going to hatch baby spiders - he might be right. i won't be sad to leave behind all the bugs, thanks cold weather. the colon has told me there's loads of snow falling in kamloops right now - so i'm already plotting my first night ski of the season. there's a full moon coming up - i'm thinking of having my own little full moon party at stake lake, i'll bring the vodka redbull, someone bring the buckets, we'll go for a night ski and whoop it up. sure, it's snow instead of sand and fleece instead of bikinis but in the end, it's the people you're with that make your experiences the best they can be.
i'll blog more when i get back, give you some of my perspectives and crap, if you want to read that drivel. and, of course, i'll be uploading photos like a crazy woman, so i'll post some and a link to the album. being the tremendous tech geek i am, i plan on doing something fun with the pictures, but i'll have to collect them from the various people who have more first.
and mom/dad, sorry we've been incommunicado. our room had no power point in it, shea never did buy a power converter and the cell phone has been dead for days. besides, an hour away to call or email would be an hour away from the beach/bikes/boys that we were having so much fun with. i hope you'll forgive us - in a few hours you can call me to your heart's content.
and by the way - i'm getting my motorcycle license when i get back (that means you, me, open road anne walker). i had so much fun on the scooters that i want to take some lessons and actually ride a bike - plus when i go places like this i'll have more confidence (and you know, abilities) to explore - it's the only way to experience it. it was pretty fun being on the back too - except for that time in hoi an i was nearly hit by a bus (i put my feet down when we swerved i was so freaked out. "s'ok! s'ok! just don't look!'" was the advice from the driver). i told shea when we were in vietnam after cruising around mui ne with a moto taxi that my next boyfriend has to have a bike. she thinks i'll be trolling for hell's angels next, since i like hairy men who ride motorcycles. i want to add to my skills - geez, i mean i can drive quads and snowmobiles, tractors, use a chainsaw, fly a helicopter (welllllllllllllll ok it was just a little bit and probably just an excuse for the pervy pilot to get a girl to put her hands on his joystick, but it was fun. darcy did it too, so there.), why not a motorbike? that makes me sound not very girly, but considering i have 98234 pairs of shoes, always maintain my eyebrows and use my shoe as a hammer, rest assured i'm still very much a girl.
love,
tasha.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
just dive right in.
well..........we're here. you know, travelling is the worst part about travelling. we walked to our bus stop at 6pm (the boys had to be on their bus at 7pm) and the bus showed up at 7pm anyway. it was a sweet-ass bus this time, reclining seats with little leg rests, movies (and not crap asian disco or sketch comedies, REAL movies), and air conditioned but not -45 C a/c. just as we were falling into a deep sleep, shea and i were kicked off in the middle of nowhere at 3am. so, we sat at this little stall for about 45 minutes when other buses started showing up - along with the boys. then about 15 minutes later we were put on another bus. awesome! we got all cozied in, we all had our own seats...we drove approximately 4 minutes than were kicked off again at a bus station, to wait until 6am for another bus to the ferry. shea and kris somehow managed to contort their bodies to sleep on some hard wooden benches, and lawrence and i had a beer and played some shithead to bide the time. there are certainly worse ways to kill 2 hours time (like sleeping on a hard wooden bench, or on mats on the concrete, like the others).
our bus came, and again - all cozied in just to drive 10 minutes to the ferry. holy god, the sitting area of the ferry was just rows and rows of hard plastic seats, and i'm not even exaggerating this time when i tell you that room had to be about 11 degrees C. it was so frigging freezing, we were piling on clothes and sharing sleeping sheets - trying to get just a couple hours more sleep. finally, hypothermia set in and we all fell asleep for about an hour anyway. when we woke up, we went above deck (where every other single person was) to a beautiful, sunny day on the ocean, with ko tao in the distance. fan-tastic.
so, here we are. the boys had already booked their diving schools and accommodations, so we hopped in and i booked a couple of dives as well, so we're all staying at the same place. yesterday we just lounged on the wooden decks and tanned, swam in the ocean, chilled out. it was incredible - it's definitely tasha's happy place to be by the ocean. or any water, for that matter. but ko tao hasn't changed as drastically as i had feared - it's still a funky, laid back place with awesome people.
shea bought herself some poi in bangkok- she's becoming a regular little hippie, it's fantastic. we played around with those on the beach during sunset, and again last night -i told shea that i'm betting by this time next year she'll be in dreads at shambala raving with her glow stick pois and her adopted cambodian children. you never know - stranger things have happened. believe me.
we had a wicked BBQ last night, shea and i shared some marlin and some squid - i took a little video - i trust these computers more so i may upload some photos if i get some time - but between the beach, the ocean, the poi, the diving, the boys and the sunshine - i don't plan on being online much in the next few days - i fly back up to bangkok n the 14th (sniff sniff) and back to the real world on the 15th. unless i happen to get malaria, or dengue fever...yeah. maybe - and i have to stay in thailand for a month or so to recover...
hmmm.
but yes, our resort here is great - we have little bungalows and a fantastic beach bar where this guy was playing with his fire pois last night, lawrence was playing his mandolin, someone always had his little bongo and we just relaxed and prepared for our next few days of being under the sea. you know, under the sea - where darling it's better, down where it's wetter, take it from me!
xo
tasha.
our bus came, and again - all cozied in just to drive 10 minutes to the ferry. holy god, the sitting area of the ferry was just rows and rows of hard plastic seats, and i'm not even exaggerating this time when i tell you that room had to be about 11 degrees C. it was so frigging freezing, we were piling on clothes and sharing sleeping sheets - trying to get just a couple hours more sleep. finally, hypothermia set in and we all fell asleep for about an hour anyway. when we woke up, we went above deck (where every other single person was) to a beautiful, sunny day on the ocean, with ko tao in the distance. fan-tastic.
so, here we are. the boys had already booked their diving schools and accommodations, so we hopped in and i booked a couple of dives as well, so we're all staying at the same place. yesterday we just lounged on the wooden decks and tanned, swam in the ocean, chilled out. it was incredible - it's definitely tasha's happy place to be by the ocean. or any water, for that matter. but ko tao hasn't changed as drastically as i had feared - it's still a funky, laid back place with awesome people.
shea bought herself some poi in bangkok- she's becoming a regular little hippie, it's fantastic. we played around with those on the beach during sunset, and again last night -i told shea that i'm betting by this time next year she'll be in dreads at shambala raving with her glow stick pois and her adopted cambodian children. you never know - stranger things have happened. believe me.
we had a wicked BBQ last night, shea and i shared some marlin and some squid - i took a little video - i trust these computers more so i may upload some photos if i get some time - but between the beach, the ocean, the poi, the diving, the boys and the sunshine - i don't plan on being online much in the next few days - i fly back up to bangkok n the 14th (sniff sniff) and back to the real world on the 15th. unless i happen to get malaria, or dengue fever...yeah. maybe - and i have to stay in thailand for a month or so to recover...
hmmm.
but yes, our resort here is great - we have little bungalows and a fantastic beach bar where this guy was playing with his fire pois last night, lawrence was playing his mandolin, someone always had his little bongo and we just relaxed and prepared for our next few days of being under the sea. you know, under the sea - where darling it's better, down where it's wetter, take it from me!
xo
tasha.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
as i was saying...
so - siam reap.
siam reap is an incredible city. one of my favorites so far, actually. who knew that cambodia and laos would end up being our favorite countries on this trip? i thought it would be vietnam, i said to everyone that i was so excited for vietnam - hands down my least favorite, and i probably wouldn't make the effort to return. laos and cambodia though - absolutely.
anyway - so we hired our tuk tuk driver from the night before, bunnak, to be our temple driver to angkor wat and the other temples. what an awesome guy - shea and i have a little crush, actually - we're both trying to think of friends we could hook him up with in canada so he can move there with us. the guys at the guesthouse called him something that sounds like ca-doo - and encouraged us to as well. apparently it means "short man", and it makes him blush. he's so cute. anyway, he took us out to angkor wat in the morning, sat and visited while we had breakfast and gave us some good tips, like how much to pay for a guidebook from the bazillion children selling crap (at least they're not begging) outside the walls.
ok if you haven't heard of angkor wat, please just open up a new window now, go to images.google.com and take a look see.
done?
it's even more incredible in person.
angkor wat is this amazingly preserved temple that's hundreds and hundreds of years old. the walls are all hand carved, intricate patterns and scenes, and there is just this sense of peace and tranquility about the place - especially at the time we were there, when it was quiet. you could hear the birds chirping, the cicadas chipping away and the odd monkey wandering about. it's crazy busy at sunrise and sunset, and quiet during the day - perfect. we wandered about for a few hours, then headed to a few other temples around angkor thom. you could never get enough out of one day, but we figured two would be plenty.
the one thing i really didn't like was the rows and rows of stalls and hordes of children selling you stuff outside the gates. they're pretty heavily controlled though - they have this rope they they're not allowed to cross, and there is security police there to make sure they don't, but the odd one sneaks through. i told shea they need shock collars, like those invisible fences for dogs, so when they cross (which they always sneakily try to do) they get a zap. she thinks i'm mean. i think it's brilliant.
but the second they see you - even if you're 200 m away, you hear them yelling "LADY! LADY! PINEAPPLE! MAAAAAAAAANGO! LADY! LADY! COLD WAAAAAAAAAAAATER!" but they can't come at you, because of this magic rope. it's kind of entertaining - you can hide and peek out and see how long it takes to here "HEY LAAAAAAAAAAAADY!"
the kids were the funniest, and the peskiest. the little bastards all came running up wanting "money for schooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool". i never gave money except to one kid who was totally hiding out in a temple, and gave me a little tour past these signs that said "no entry" ("it's ok! it's ok!" he said. why not.) and told me all about the construction. that was worth a dollar for sure.
that night we went out to the "angkor what?" bar for some drinks, and met up with these two awesome girls from california. they were both in their 30s and had just said screw it all, quit their jobs, sold their stuff and went travelling.
the next day our buddy ca-doo was again taking us to the temples, this time at noon (he kept pushing it back, we didn't know why. but we did soon...). we went to the temple where they filmed "tomb raider" (that's the big sell), which was really beautiful, with huge trees and vines growing over the ruins, a complete jungle. we then did sunset at this crazy temple with a kajillion other people - you had to climb up these stairs that honest to god were at a 70 degree angle - like a steep ladder but no rungs to hold onto. we bought two cold angkor beers for the sunset, and were glad we only had one, because navigating those stairs drunk would have been suicide for sure, though there were so many people we figured you could probably crowd surf your way down no problem. there were all these asian women who had not only hiked up the path but up those frigging stairs in high heels - how do they do it? high heels all the time. insane.
for dinner, bunnak had arranged for us to go to this khmer buffet with traditional khmer dancing, so off we went right after sunset. it was nice, pretty touristy but still worth the $12 we spent. that's one crazy thing about cambodia - you use US dollars for everything. even the ATMs give you US dollars. you never had riel except for the small "coins" - 50 cents was 2000 riel, etc. it's kind of weird, and kind of sad really, a commercialization tactic that loses a bit of cambodian culture.
so we fully planned on going straight to bed, since we had a 6:45 bus to bangkok the next day. we got back and our neighbors were outside - lawrence from england, kris from wales and fam from holland - and they were heading out. we figured "why not, we'll pack up and go out for a couple of hours". yeah right - famous last words.
pitchers were on special. the american girls showed up. at 5:45 am we crawled into bed for 45 minutes of sleep before the bus left. it was great times at the angkor what? bar. if you bought two pitchers, you got a free t-shirt. a pitcher was $6 and held about 8 drinks (gins and tonics baby), and shea wanted a t-shirt. being the nice big sister i am, i got my very own pitcher so she could get a t-shirt. aren't i nice? and we found why bunnak was always changing our schedules - he was two timing us with our neighbors - he had us on opposite schedules. sneaky little monkey. as if we would have cared. we actually ended paying him more than we bartered on because we loved him so much.
anyway, 6:30 rolls around and getting shea out of bed was like waking the dead. i actually thought she might be for a minute but a good ol' violent shake did the trick. she was still wasted, it was the funniest thing i've ever seen. we got her sorted and down to the tuk tuk, where good ol' bunnak was there to take us to our bus. she was taking forever and we finally realized she was still too drunk to put on her pack and was pulling her backpack down the stairs and down the hallway. we got to our bus, paid bunnak, gave him hugs and high 5's and waited for our bus. the steamed pork bun guy came around, and we thought "yes. those look SO GOOD."
no.
no they are not.
we both took a bite, hoping for that same satisfaction that comes from a sausage and egg mcmuffin after a big night out, and both of us looked in horror at each other.
"it tastes like a dirty chicken coop smells" shea said. that was it. bye bye buns.
we saw bunnak go by a few minutes later with our neighbors, who were also heading to bangkok - then our bus pulled up. this shit old bus with uncomfortable seats and no a/c. we were hopeful that it was just taking us out to the bus station where we could get a proper bus.
no again.
first of all, let me tell you about the road between siam reap and poipet (the border). you know how forest service roads are when they've been used heavily by logging trucks in monsoon rains? you know, with the big ruts and washboards and washouts? yeah - those are like freaking paved highways in comparison.
about 250 kms took us over 6 hours on the worst bus i have ever been on in my life. i was in the back, the window would not shut and dust from the road poured in non-stop. the window rattled on the washboards like it was going to fall right out, and i was right over the wheel well, which had a broken shock that not only clunked like a son of a bitch but knocked about right underneath my legs. apparently the airlines are giving the cambodian government a hefty sum to take their sweet ass time improving that road, because more people will chose to fly. my lovely friend sam told me that when he was in cambodia a few years ago, the roads were even worse and he did the trip in 17 hours in the back of a pick up truck. so i guess i should thank my lucky stars that i had a shit, dusty, noisy bus instead.
we passed a bus that had broken down, been replaced with another that broke down immediately after loading everyone up again, so yes, it could have been worse. that bus contained our neighbors.
poipet - what a complete shit hole. seriously - it even smells like one. it was disgusting - we couldn't get through the border fast enough and back into thailand. i was sad to leave cambodia - it's a truly beautiful country with beautiful people. shea and i both found about 50 cambodian kids we wanted to bring home, in fact i'm not convinced that shea doesn't have one or four in her backpack right now. she not only surprised me but surprised herself for her love for cambodia - she's been reading books about the khmer rouge take over and the killing fields, she's picking kids she wants to adopt, and thinking of ways to come back and help the cambodian people. it's like freaky friday around us - i'm staying out all night and shea's turning into angelina jolie. i think it's funny - she's rolled her eyes at my environmental lectures, and once threw a juice box (recyclable - there's a deposit!) in a firepit just to spite me when i lectured her. don't tell her, but i actually saw her pick up garbage at a temple. someone ELSE's garbage. and she tut-tutted about how could people do that. it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.
anyway, we got to bangkok 13 hours later, met up with the neighbors and found the most crap guesthouse we've found so far. the green guesthouse. and it's expensive - bangkok is twice as busy as it was a month ago, and everything is twice as expensive. so, rather than go to bed in our gungy rooms, we decided to go down to kho san road.
and find us a ping pong show.
OOOOoooooooooooooooh yes. a ping pong show. we negotiated a price with a taxi and were whisked through a dark alley to a waiting taxi, driven to god knows where to this sketchy underground place and ushered into this strip joint. now this, this was thailand at its seediest, for sure. i won't go into the gory details, but let's just say i discovered new ways to smoke a cigarette, should i take up the habit, i can throw away my money belt because apparently women have plenty of storage space in places no one could pick pocket you, and discovered a new method to write my postcards out. the ping pongs were the least of the shocking things we saw. i think lawrence was damaged for life. we all felt a little violated (especially kris, who not only had a wayward ping pong come at him but a banana. oh - the horrors.) i'm glad we did it, but would never do it again. it really was kind of like prostitution, those women we certainly not doing these things because they enjoyed them, and it's completely tourist driven. but hey, when in thailand...
so another insanely late night later, yesterday we wandered about bangkok for a while waiting for our bus to ko phi phi. i lost shea for a while, and she left me this note:
"tasha,
i ran off to patpong to fulfill my dreams of being a ping pong girl, i was very inspried last night and think i've found my calling...i'm only becoming a ping pong girl so i can make money for schoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool".
sorry, mom and dad.
so, we got facials, got all beach ready, and an hour before we were to leave, i checked my email to see that eliza, who we were meeting, said ko phi phi was completely booked up, the crappiest rooms started at about $25/night, and she was going to ko lanta instead. i was super stressed out, and we were figuring out what to do, when the neighbors said "screw it, come to ko tao instead."
so, we changed our bus ticket and are instead going to ko tao tonight with kris and lawrence (fam left today - we said our goodbyes to her a few minutes ago). we have 4 days there then i fly out of surat thani and shea goes to phuket for her muay thai camp. i just want to go diving, and have some beach time - i cannot wait.
siam reap is an incredible city. one of my favorites so far, actually. who knew that cambodia and laos would end up being our favorite countries on this trip? i thought it would be vietnam, i said to everyone that i was so excited for vietnam - hands down my least favorite, and i probably wouldn't make the effort to return. laos and cambodia though - absolutely.
anyway - so we hired our tuk tuk driver from the night before, bunnak, to be our temple driver to angkor wat and the other temples. what an awesome guy - shea and i have a little crush, actually - we're both trying to think of friends we could hook him up with in canada so he can move there with us. the guys at the guesthouse called him something that sounds like ca-doo - and encouraged us to as well. apparently it means "short man", and it makes him blush. he's so cute. anyway, he took us out to angkor wat in the morning, sat and visited while we had breakfast and gave us some good tips, like how much to pay for a guidebook from the bazillion children selling crap (at least they're not begging) outside the walls.
ok if you haven't heard of angkor wat, please just open up a new window now, go to images.google.com and take a look see.
done?
it's even more incredible in person.
angkor wat is this amazingly preserved temple that's hundreds and hundreds of years old. the walls are all hand carved, intricate patterns and scenes, and there is just this sense of peace and tranquility about the place - especially at the time we were there, when it was quiet. you could hear the birds chirping, the cicadas chipping away and the odd monkey wandering about. it's crazy busy at sunrise and sunset, and quiet during the day - perfect. we wandered about for a few hours, then headed to a few other temples around angkor thom. you could never get enough out of one day, but we figured two would be plenty.
the one thing i really didn't like was the rows and rows of stalls and hordes of children selling you stuff outside the gates. they're pretty heavily controlled though - they have this rope they they're not allowed to cross, and there is security police there to make sure they don't, but the odd one sneaks through. i told shea they need shock collars, like those invisible fences for dogs, so when they cross (which they always sneakily try to do) they get a zap. she thinks i'm mean. i think it's brilliant.
but the second they see you - even if you're 200 m away, you hear them yelling "LADY! LADY! PINEAPPLE! MAAAAAAAAANGO! LADY! LADY! COLD WAAAAAAAAAAAATER!" but they can't come at you, because of this magic rope. it's kind of entertaining - you can hide and peek out and see how long it takes to here "HEY LAAAAAAAAAAAADY!"
the kids were the funniest, and the peskiest. the little bastards all came running up wanting "money for schooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool". i never gave money except to one kid who was totally hiding out in a temple, and gave me a little tour past these signs that said "no entry" ("it's ok! it's ok!" he said. why not.) and told me all about the construction. that was worth a dollar for sure.
that night we went out to the "angkor what?" bar for some drinks, and met up with these two awesome girls from california. they were both in their 30s and had just said screw it all, quit their jobs, sold their stuff and went travelling.
the next day our buddy ca-doo was again taking us to the temples, this time at noon (he kept pushing it back, we didn't know why. but we did soon...). we went to the temple where they filmed "tomb raider" (that's the big sell), which was really beautiful, with huge trees and vines growing over the ruins, a complete jungle. we then did sunset at this crazy temple with a kajillion other people - you had to climb up these stairs that honest to god were at a 70 degree angle - like a steep ladder but no rungs to hold onto. we bought two cold angkor beers for the sunset, and were glad we only had one, because navigating those stairs drunk would have been suicide for sure, though there were so many people we figured you could probably crowd surf your way down no problem. there were all these asian women who had not only hiked up the path but up those frigging stairs in high heels - how do they do it? high heels all the time. insane.
for dinner, bunnak had arranged for us to go to this khmer buffet with traditional khmer dancing, so off we went right after sunset. it was nice, pretty touristy but still worth the $12 we spent. that's one crazy thing about cambodia - you use US dollars for everything. even the ATMs give you US dollars. you never had riel except for the small "coins" - 50 cents was 2000 riel, etc. it's kind of weird, and kind of sad really, a commercialization tactic that loses a bit of cambodian culture.
so we fully planned on going straight to bed, since we had a 6:45 bus to bangkok the next day. we got back and our neighbors were outside - lawrence from england, kris from wales and fam from holland - and they were heading out. we figured "why not, we'll pack up and go out for a couple of hours". yeah right - famous last words.
pitchers were on special. the american girls showed up. at 5:45 am we crawled into bed for 45 minutes of sleep before the bus left. it was great times at the angkor what? bar. if you bought two pitchers, you got a free t-shirt. a pitcher was $6 and held about 8 drinks (gins and tonics baby), and shea wanted a t-shirt. being the nice big sister i am, i got my very own pitcher so she could get a t-shirt. aren't i nice? and we found why bunnak was always changing our schedules - he was two timing us with our neighbors - he had us on opposite schedules. sneaky little monkey. as if we would have cared. we actually ended paying him more than we bartered on because we loved him so much.
anyway, 6:30 rolls around and getting shea out of bed was like waking the dead. i actually thought she might be for a minute but a good ol' violent shake did the trick. she was still wasted, it was the funniest thing i've ever seen. we got her sorted and down to the tuk tuk, where good ol' bunnak was there to take us to our bus. she was taking forever and we finally realized she was still too drunk to put on her pack and was pulling her backpack down the stairs and down the hallway. we got to our bus, paid bunnak, gave him hugs and high 5's and waited for our bus. the steamed pork bun guy came around, and we thought "yes. those look SO GOOD."
no.
no they are not.
we both took a bite, hoping for that same satisfaction that comes from a sausage and egg mcmuffin after a big night out, and both of us looked in horror at each other.
"it tastes like a dirty chicken coop smells" shea said. that was it. bye bye buns.
we saw bunnak go by a few minutes later with our neighbors, who were also heading to bangkok - then our bus pulled up. this shit old bus with uncomfortable seats and no a/c. we were hopeful that it was just taking us out to the bus station where we could get a proper bus.
no again.
first of all, let me tell you about the road between siam reap and poipet (the border). you know how forest service roads are when they've been used heavily by logging trucks in monsoon rains? you know, with the big ruts and washboards and washouts? yeah - those are like freaking paved highways in comparison.
about 250 kms took us over 6 hours on the worst bus i have ever been on in my life. i was in the back, the window would not shut and dust from the road poured in non-stop. the window rattled on the washboards like it was going to fall right out, and i was right over the wheel well, which had a broken shock that not only clunked like a son of a bitch but knocked about right underneath my legs. apparently the airlines are giving the cambodian government a hefty sum to take their sweet ass time improving that road, because more people will chose to fly. my lovely friend sam told me that when he was in cambodia a few years ago, the roads were even worse and he did the trip in 17 hours in the back of a pick up truck. so i guess i should thank my lucky stars that i had a shit, dusty, noisy bus instead.
we passed a bus that had broken down, been replaced with another that broke down immediately after loading everyone up again, so yes, it could have been worse. that bus contained our neighbors.
poipet - what a complete shit hole. seriously - it even smells like one. it was disgusting - we couldn't get through the border fast enough and back into thailand. i was sad to leave cambodia - it's a truly beautiful country with beautiful people. shea and i both found about 50 cambodian kids we wanted to bring home, in fact i'm not convinced that shea doesn't have one or four in her backpack right now. she not only surprised me but surprised herself for her love for cambodia - she's been reading books about the khmer rouge take over and the killing fields, she's picking kids she wants to adopt, and thinking of ways to come back and help the cambodian people. it's like freaky friday around us - i'm staying out all night and shea's turning into angelina jolie. i think it's funny - she's rolled her eyes at my environmental lectures, and once threw a juice box (recyclable - there's a deposit!) in a firepit just to spite me when i lectured her. don't tell her, but i actually saw her pick up garbage at a temple. someone ELSE's garbage. and she tut-tutted about how could people do that. it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.
anyway, we got to bangkok 13 hours later, met up with the neighbors and found the most crap guesthouse we've found so far. the green guesthouse. and it's expensive - bangkok is twice as busy as it was a month ago, and everything is twice as expensive. so, rather than go to bed in our gungy rooms, we decided to go down to kho san road.
and find us a ping pong show.
OOOOoooooooooooooooh yes. a ping pong show. we negotiated a price with a taxi and were whisked through a dark alley to a waiting taxi, driven to god knows where to this sketchy underground place and ushered into this strip joint. now this, this was thailand at its seediest, for sure. i won't go into the gory details, but let's just say i discovered new ways to smoke a cigarette, should i take up the habit, i can throw away my money belt because apparently women have plenty of storage space in places no one could pick pocket you, and discovered a new method to write my postcards out. the ping pongs were the least of the shocking things we saw. i think lawrence was damaged for life. we all felt a little violated (especially kris, who not only had a wayward ping pong come at him but a banana. oh - the horrors.) i'm glad we did it, but would never do it again. it really was kind of like prostitution, those women we certainly not doing these things because they enjoyed them, and it's completely tourist driven. but hey, when in thailand...
so another insanely late night later, yesterday we wandered about bangkok for a while waiting for our bus to ko phi phi. i lost shea for a while, and she left me this note:
"tasha,
i ran off to patpong to fulfill my dreams of being a ping pong girl, i was very inspried last night and think i've found my calling...i'm only becoming a ping pong girl so i can make money for schoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool".
sorry, mom and dad.
so, we got facials, got all beach ready, and an hour before we were to leave, i checked my email to see that eliza, who we were meeting, said ko phi phi was completely booked up, the crappiest rooms started at about $25/night, and she was going to ko lanta instead. i was super stressed out, and we were figuring out what to do, when the neighbors said "screw it, come to ko tao instead."
so, we changed our bus ticket and are instead going to ko tao tonight with kris and lawrence (fam left today - we said our goodbyes to her a few minutes ago). we have 4 days there then i fly out of surat thani and shea goes to phuket for her muay thai camp. i just want to go diving, and have some beach time - i cannot wait.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
this post is really long. and rated PG.
wow, it seems like years since i''ve blogged. i have to search waaaaay waaaaaaay back in my memory, back to vietnam...
oh yeah - mui ne. ok, so we hopped a bus (again, a local bus, not sure why, but it was a good one, so all was good) to ho chi minh city (formerly known as saigon). we arrived safe and sound, grabbed a taxi to this mystery address given to us by the guy who booked our bus, which was another really good travel agent. we booked our next busses into cambodia - bangkok and found this funky little hotel on the strip. then we went looking for adventure, and adventure we found, in the form of a cyclo (those bicycle rickshaw things) driver named noam.
noam and i struck a deal - a one hour tour for 70,000 dong for me and shea. no problem, not a bad price. noam looked out for us - he took us to a market (for "no money! no money!" for an awesome lunch (hopkins - i thought of you. it was just like the #52 (no peanuts for you) - best spring rolls yet). he got us some weird green tonic for our bazillion bug bites ("no money! souvenier!"). he held our hands like 3 year olds to cross the streets. when it was taking longer than an hour, i said "noam, this is long - no more money, right?" and he said "no problem!". we went to the war remenants musem - no here is where it gets PG rated. this museum holds no punches. it is a very graphic - and very sad - display of the consequences of the vietnam war. it's fairly anti-US, and to be fair, sorry my lovely us friends and relatives, one look at the smiling US soldier beside a pile of dead children, i can't blame them. pictures of napalm burns, of agent orange birth defects, of elderly people and babies being hauled out of hiding in villages and executed, sometimes in the most horrific and torturous ways - it was really upsetting. i shed a few tears and had to walk away a few times. it was heartbreaking. mostly because as i see these people on the streets, and i see kids playing and women gossiping and men playing cards, i think they're people, just like us - and i can't imagine being so cruel. necessary or not - this war was beyond cruel. what threat an 8 month old baby is, i have no idea, but it was all (graphically) laid out in the museum. i'm glad we went - i think that you can't visit a place like this and ignore their very recent pain, it's disrespectful.
so, to ease our minds, we continued our tour (still being told "no problem!" about no more money) and shea spotted a sushi restaurant. oooooooooh did she want sushi. as soon as we walked in the door, i knew our bargaining powers were going out the window. and i don't blame them - our sushi cost as much as their weekly wages, i'm sure. so we got back in our cyclos and noam started to cough. "that's a bad cough you have there" i said. he says "yes, i am very poor. i cannot afford medicine. too poor."
shit.
sure enough, we pull up in front of our last stop, a water puppet show (more later), and noam gave us a whopping bill of 5.5 million dong - each. WHAT? he said that we could pay him 70,000 dong per HOUR. i said no no, you said no more money after one hour, (and besides, that''s even more than 70,000 per hour, the weasly little bastard). this is like $60 DOLLARS. we had a bit of a scrap outside of the water puppet show, he started getting aggressive so we just threw half that at him and walked away. bastard.
the water puppet show was really cool though - it's a set with a little brown icky pond with a temple around it, and these puppeteers are behind and do this crazy little show while others play instruments and provide the voices for the puppets. it's very cool, i have a little video i'll upload when i'm home.
we hauled our sorry (and broke) asses home and went for a beer by our hotel, watched for prostitutes (fun game - spot the pervy westerner paying for lovin') and got up the next day to go into cambodia.
i will not lie to you - i won't miss vietnam. it was a steady stream of buildings and shacks (except for that small part between hoi an and mui ne) and people who just want your money. the people were truly lovely - especially those who wanted nothing from you - and those that did were truly lovely until you refused them, then it wasn't so pretty. everything was so expensive, bartering was no fun and it was just so - busy. but to be fair to vietnam, we rushed through and only hit the busy, touristy places. i wish we had gotten off the beaten track. but now: to cambodia.
this border crossing was incredible. so easy, i just couldn't believe it (this keyboard keeps putting ''s where 's should be and ""s where ''s should be, and i''m getting tired of correcting them, so sorry - just suck it up). our tour company took care of everything, and with the wave of a wand (and goodbye to $25), we were in cambodia. just. like. that.
instantly, i liked cambodia better. rows and rows of farms and wooden houses on stilts, and miles of ponds full of water cabbage and water lillies, it''s truly beautiful. it took my breath away, to tell you the truth. it''s tidy, simple and relaxed, and the people are hilarious. they are so funny, always taking the piss out of one another and out of the tourists, you have to love them. we arrived in phnom penh on cambodia time (that is, 4 hours after we were told we would get there) so we were too late to go to the killing fields. so, we got a hotel, changed our next day bus to noon and went for a walk around the city. truthfully - phnom penh is a crap city - big, dirty, full of beggers, it wasn''t my cup of tea. we ended up by the river trying to have dinner at this great little non-profit dinner place where profit goes to helping orphans (yay orphans). we were constantly deluged by children begging or selling things, i did buy some postcards from an agent orange defect lady who i called "midge" (she was basically a head with a 1 year old body, in a wheelchair) because she was nice and funny. we went for a massage, then i went for another. i know - decadent, right, but i did something to my neck where i can hardly move it side to side, and massage 1 did nothing, and it was only $6. we did find another massage place right by our hotel, so i went for #2, which was far more violent than massage 1, with the toe cracking, knees in back joy that you get from thai massage. it helped a little, though i was sincerely afraid she was going to vomit on me a couple of times. she had the burps something fierce, and a couple of times a little retch came out as she was over me, and i thought ""please god - don''t puke. don''t puke. don''t puke."" she didn''t. but they DID bring a GUY up there, and here i am, all in my ginchies and he comes up and lays on a bed 3 down from me. it was weird, and any relaxation i had going on went right out the window.
the next morning, we got up and hired a moto to take us to the killing fields. we got him to $5 each, no problem. then we said we''d have breakfast first, so we walked around and crossed a busy ass street (again, holding hands like 3 year olds) to this restaurant called ""chez lipps"". with a name like that, they have to have a western breakfast, right? i mean, just some fruit or something. here they all eat beef soup or pig heads or whatever for breakfast. i just wanted some fruit and yogurt with some muesli.
wrong.
wrong wrong wrong.
we got in, they ushered us to this little glassed in section, asked if we wanted coffee. sure. we noticed we were the only non-khmer in the place. hmmm. our coffee came. along with two deep fried spring rolls (huge) and what can only be called a sandwich, two slices of really processed white bread with about 5 small pieces of pork? inside, with some green things. it was the most bizarre thing - we didn''t order, we didn''t ask for anything but coffee. so, we ate it - the spring roll was pretty good (yummy grease at 8 am) but the sandwich sketched me out. shea ate hers. then they brought us this fried dough, kind of like a doughnut with no sugar, as what, dessert i guess? it was so strange. but the whole kit and kaboodle was a whopping $1. total. for both. cheapest breakfast yet.
so we went back and found our moto guy. he ushers us over to his bike, and we say ""but there''s two"". no problem, he says, get on.
ok, here in cambodia, there is no need for a mini van, because entire families ride on motorbikes. i''m not exaggerating in the least - we play this game called ""how many cambies can fit on one moto"" and so far it''s 2 adults and 3 kids. we''ve seen 4 adults too. they''re all cool as a cucumber too, the woman sitting sideways on the back, holding onto nothing, like it''s no big deal.
for us - very big deal.
i didn''t even have to finish the self-sacrificing big sister sentence, ""shea, do you want me to - "" ""YES"" she said. so i got on the back.
so, the shea sandwich headed out to the killing fields. it was actually kind of fun on the way out there, the guy does this all the time, i told myself. no problem. we arrived out there, and this is a little more of the PG-13 for you.
here''s a quick and dirty history of the killing fields - in the 70s, king 1 was overthrown by king 2, who was buddies with the US. he let the US bomb the crap out of the vietnam/cambodia border to flush out the viet cong. this made the farmers angry. very angry. they started a small army, the khmer rouge. it got bigger. it was led by overthrown king 1. king 1 then assigned another guy, a guy by the name of pol pot. PP made the army giant. PP overthrew the king 2. PP decided he wanted this brand new country, one with complacent people with no religion/arts/knowledge/life. so, he took the city dwellers first (the ""free thinkers"") and put them in work camps. anyone with education was immediately executed. only ""poor dumb"" farmers were considered real people. the killing fields are where they took several of the people to execute them. viewer discretion is advised.
there was this peaceful field, full of birds, butterflies, oxen, a school next door. kids playing. in the centre, a large temple, several meters high. stacked with skulls.
skulls of men, women, kids, babies. clothes that were unearthed from their mass graves, washed and piled below. these were the city people - people who 32 years ago were alive, when i was but a twinkle - educated people, children. there was a tree, a tree where - sorry, but it must be told - kids were thrown against to kill them. it was horrible. horrible and sad and sickening. google it and read more about it - it''s so heartbreaking. but here''s what i love about cambodia - the people here, they don''t dwell. they don''t lament on their shit luck, they don''t demand money or pity from anyone. they just want to live their lives, and live them well. they''re the most incredible people, they are funny and caring and nice, and so genuine. they''ve lived through horrors we cannot even imagine. we have a lot to learn from these people.
so, after spending some time hanging about (and being accosted by begger kids as soon as there were trees between the security people and us), we headed back into town. this part of the trip wasn''t as fun - we hit phnom penh rush hour.
this is insanity, motos everywhere, trucks everywhere, each bike with at least 2-3 people on it. weaving in and out, slamming on breaks - i actually started to get a bit scared. the novelty had worn off - this was stupid and i wanted to be back at the guest house pronto. so i distracted myself by watching for weird and wonderful things. a new born baby in the basket of a moto - a dog being carved up, a moto with about 300 pounds of bananas hanging from it - interesting. not going to die today. not. going. to die.
i can see why people get hurt travelling, and people all tut-tut about ""what were they thinking"". it''s like that couple that left their kid in their hotel room while they ate dinner in portugal, and she was kidnapped. everyone judged. but you know what? when you''re somewhere where this stuff is the norm, you just do it, as if you''re invincible. come on, i mean ""when in rome"" isn''t a saying for nothing, right? i would never dream of being 3 on a motorbike in canada. but here, shit, three is NOTHING. but, we''re alive, and that''s all that''s important.
anyway, after about 40 harrowing minutes of riding (and one almost certain crash barely avoided, to which our driver heard, loudly i''m sure, ""FUU************K"" from me and shea), we got back and waited for our bus. another bus. god i''m sick of busses.
this bus ride was quite nice, actually, to siam reap. at one stop, this kid saw shea and knew a softie when he saw one. he was trying to sell her pineapple, which she already had plenty of on the bus. ""pineapple! please, only one million dollars. pineapple! please! yes ok! yes ok!
she kept saying no, then we got back on the bus. about 2 minutes later, i hear her mutter ""shit."".
""what?"" i ask.
""he''s outside the window.""
tap tap tap.
she''s trying not to look, but she does anyway and he says ""PINEAPPLE! PLEASE! ONLY ONE DOLLAR! YES OK! YES OK!!""
shit.
finally, she opens the window, gives him a dollar, he smiles brightly and says ""THANK YOU!"" and runs away happily. now we have two pineapples to eat.
we got into siam reap that night, got a tuk tuk to a guesthouse (called ""wat''s up?"" haha. wat - what. (wat is a temple). it made me laugh). the place is run by these hilarious laid back young cambodian guys, who are always joking with us.
i liked siam reap better instantly - it seems like a small city thought it''s pretty big, and it''s super laid back and funky.
ok i''m going to end the blog there, partly because i''m tired of typing, partly because i''m starving, and party because i need more water (we found $1.50 gin and tonics last night - but that''s another post). plus we''re doing day 2 of temple tours today, and i need to go get ready.
over and out, cambodian love to you all,
tasha.
oh yeah - mui ne. ok, so we hopped a bus (again, a local bus, not sure why, but it was a good one, so all was good) to ho chi minh city (formerly known as saigon). we arrived safe and sound, grabbed a taxi to this mystery address given to us by the guy who booked our bus, which was another really good travel agent. we booked our next busses into cambodia - bangkok and found this funky little hotel on the strip. then we went looking for adventure, and adventure we found, in the form of a cyclo (those bicycle rickshaw things) driver named noam.
noam and i struck a deal - a one hour tour for 70,000 dong for me and shea. no problem, not a bad price. noam looked out for us - he took us to a market (for "no money! no money!" for an awesome lunch (hopkins - i thought of you. it was just like the #52 (no peanuts for you) - best spring rolls yet). he got us some weird green tonic for our bazillion bug bites ("no money! souvenier!"). he held our hands like 3 year olds to cross the streets. when it was taking longer than an hour, i said "noam, this is long - no more money, right?" and he said "no problem!". we went to the war remenants musem - no here is where it gets PG rated. this museum holds no punches. it is a very graphic - and very sad - display of the consequences of the vietnam war. it's fairly anti-US, and to be fair, sorry my lovely us friends and relatives, one look at the smiling US soldier beside a pile of dead children, i can't blame them. pictures of napalm burns, of agent orange birth defects, of elderly people and babies being hauled out of hiding in villages and executed, sometimes in the most horrific and torturous ways - it was really upsetting. i shed a few tears and had to walk away a few times. it was heartbreaking. mostly because as i see these people on the streets, and i see kids playing and women gossiping and men playing cards, i think they're people, just like us - and i can't imagine being so cruel. necessary or not - this war was beyond cruel. what threat an 8 month old baby is, i have no idea, but it was all (graphically) laid out in the museum. i'm glad we went - i think that you can't visit a place like this and ignore their very recent pain, it's disrespectful.
so, to ease our minds, we continued our tour (still being told "no problem!" about no more money) and shea spotted a sushi restaurant. oooooooooh did she want sushi. as soon as we walked in the door, i knew our bargaining powers were going out the window. and i don't blame them - our sushi cost as much as their weekly wages, i'm sure. so we got back in our cyclos and noam started to cough. "that's a bad cough you have there" i said. he says "yes, i am very poor. i cannot afford medicine. too poor."
shit.
sure enough, we pull up in front of our last stop, a water puppet show (more later), and noam gave us a whopping bill of 5.5 million dong - each. WHAT? he said that we could pay him 70,000 dong per HOUR. i said no no, you said no more money after one hour, (and besides, that''s even more than 70,000 per hour, the weasly little bastard). this is like $60 DOLLARS. we had a bit of a scrap outside of the water puppet show, he started getting aggressive so we just threw half that at him and walked away. bastard.
the water puppet show was really cool though - it's a set with a little brown icky pond with a temple around it, and these puppeteers are behind and do this crazy little show while others play instruments and provide the voices for the puppets. it's very cool, i have a little video i'll upload when i'm home.
we hauled our sorry (and broke) asses home and went for a beer by our hotel, watched for prostitutes (fun game - spot the pervy westerner paying for lovin') and got up the next day to go into cambodia.
i will not lie to you - i won't miss vietnam. it was a steady stream of buildings and shacks (except for that small part between hoi an and mui ne) and people who just want your money. the people were truly lovely - especially those who wanted nothing from you - and those that did were truly lovely until you refused them, then it wasn't so pretty. everything was so expensive, bartering was no fun and it was just so - busy. but to be fair to vietnam, we rushed through and only hit the busy, touristy places. i wish we had gotten off the beaten track. but now: to cambodia.
this border crossing was incredible. so easy, i just couldn't believe it (this keyboard keeps putting ''s where 's should be and ""s where ''s should be, and i''m getting tired of correcting them, so sorry - just suck it up). our tour company took care of everything, and with the wave of a wand (and goodbye to $25), we were in cambodia. just. like. that.
instantly, i liked cambodia better. rows and rows of farms and wooden houses on stilts, and miles of ponds full of water cabbage and water lillies, it''s truly beautiful. it took my breath away, to tell you the truth. it''s tidy, simple and relaxed, and the people are hilarious. they are so funny, always taking the piss out of one another and out of the tourists, you have to love them. we arrived in phnom penh on cambodia time (that is, 4 hours after we were told we would get there) so we were too late to go to the killing fields. so, we got a hotel, changed our next day bus to noon and went for a walk around the city. truthfully - phnom penh is a crap city - big, dirty, full of beggers, it wasn''t my cup of tea. we ended up by the river trying to have dinner at this great little non-profit dinner place where profit goes to helping orphans (yay orphans). we were constantly deluged by children begging or selling things, i did buy some postcards from an agent orange defect lady who i called "midge" (she was basically a head with a 1 year old body, in a wheelchair) because she was nice and funny. we went for a massage, then i went for another. i know - decadent, right, but i did something to my neck where i can hardly move it side to side, and massage 1 did nothing, and it was only $6. we did find another massage place right by our hotel, so i went for #2, which was far more violent than massage 1, with the toe cracking, knees in back joy that you get from thai massage. it helped a little, though i was sincerely afraid she was going to vomit on me a couple of times. she had the burps something fierce, and a couple of times a little retch came out as she was over me, and i thought ""please god - don''t puke. don''t puke. don''t puke."" she didn''t. but they DID bring a GUY up there, and here i am, all in my ginchies and he comes up and lays on a bed 3 down from me. it was weird, and any relaxation i had going on went right out the window.
the next morning, we got up and hired a moto to take us to the killing fields. we got him to $5 each, no problem. then we said we''d have breakfast first, so we walked around and crossed a busy ass street (again, holding hands like 3 year olds) to this restaurant called ""chez lipps"". with a name like that, they have to have a western breakfast, right? i mean, just some fruit or something. here they all eat beef soup or pig heads or whatever for breakfast. i just wanted some fruit and yogurt with some muesli.
wrong.
wrong wrong wrong.
we got in, they ushered us to this little glassed in section, asked if we wanted coffee. sure. we noticed we were the only non-khmer in the place. hmmm. our coffee came. along with two deep fried spring rolls (huge) and what can only be called a sandwich, two slices of really processed white bread with about 5 small pieces of pork? inside, with some green things. it was the most bizarre thing - we didn''t order, we didn''t ask for anything but coffee. so, we ate it - the spring roll was pretty good (yummy grease at 8 am) but the sandwich sketched me out. shea ate hers. then they brought us this fried dough, kind of like a doughnut with no sugar, as what, dessert i guess? it was so strange. but the whole kit and kaboodle was a whopping $1. total. for both. cheapest breakfast yet.
so we went back and found our moto guy. he ushers us over to his bike, and we say ""but there''s two"". no problem, he says, get on.
ok, here in cambodia, there is no need for a mini van, because entire families ride on motorbikes. i''m not exaggerating in the least - we play this game called ""how many cambies can fit on one moto"" and so far it''s 2 adults and 3 kids. we''ve seen 4 adults too. they''re all cool as a cucumber too, the woman sitting sideways on the back, holding onto nothing, like it''s no big deal.
for us - very big deal.
i didn''t even have to finish the self-sacrificing big sister sentence, ""shea, do you want me to - "" ""YES"" she said. so i got on the back.
so, the shea sandwich headed out to the killing fields. it was actually kind of fun on the way out there, the guy does this all the time, i told myself. no problem. we arrived out there, and this is a little more of the PG-13 for you.
here''s a quick and dirty history of the killing fields - in the 70s, king 1 was overthrown by king 2, who was buddies with the US. he let the US bomb the crap out of the vietnam/cambodia border to flush out the viet cong. this made the farmers angry. very angry. they started a small army, the khmer rouge. it got bigger. it was led by overthrown king 1. king 1 then assigned another guy, a guy by the name of pol pot. PP made the army giant. PP overthrew the king 2. PP decided he wanted this brand new country, one with complacent people with no religion/arts/knowledge/life. so, he took the city dwellers first (the ""free thinkers"") and put them in work camps. anyone with education was immediately executed. only ""poor dumb"" farmers were considered real people. the killing fields are where they took several of the people to execute them. viewer discretion is advised.
there was this peaceful field, full of birds, butterflies, oxen, a school next door. kids playing. in the centre, a large temple, several meters high. stacked with skulls.
skulls of men, women, kids, babies. clothes that were unearthed from their mass graves, washed and piled below. these were the city people - people who 32 years ago were alive, when i was but a twinkle - educated people, children. there was a tree, a tree where - sorry, but it must be told - kids were thrown against to kill them. it was horrible. horrible and sad and sickening. google it and read more about it - it''s so heartbreaking. but here''s what i love about cambodia - the people here, they don''t dwell. they don''t lament on their shit luck, they don''t demand money or pity from anyone. they just want to live their lives, and live them well. they''re the most incredible people, they are funny and caring and nice, and so genuine. they''ve lived through horrors we cannot even imagine. we have a lot to learn from these people.
so, after spending some time hanging about (and being accosted by begger kids as soon as there were trees between the security people and us), we headed back into town. this part of the trip wasn''t as fun - we hit phnom penh rush hour.
this is insanity, motos everywhere, trucks everywhere, each bike with at least 2-3 people on it. weaving in and out, slamming on breaks - i actually started to get a bit scared. the novelty had worn off - this was stupid and i wanted to be back at the guest house pronto. so i distracted myself by watching for weird and wonderful things. a new born baby in the basket of a moto - a dog being carved up, a moto with about 300 pounds of bananas hanging from it - interesting. not going to die today. not. going. to die.
i can see why people get hurt travelling, and people all tut-tut about ""what were they thinking"". it''s like that couple that left their kid in their hotel room while they ate dinner in portugal, and she was kidnapped. everyone judged. but you know what? when you''re somewhere where this stuff is the norm, you just do it, as if you''re invincible. come on, i mean ""when in rome"" isn''t a saying for nothing, right? i would never dream of being 3 on a motorbike in canada. but here, shit, three is NOTHING. but, we''re alive, and that''s all that''s important.
anyway, after about 40 harrowing minutes of riding (and one almost certain crash barely avoided, to which our driver heard, loudly i''m sure, ""FUU************K"" from me and shea), we got back and waited for our bus. another bus. god i''m sick of busses.
this bus ride was quite nice, actually, to siam reap. at one stop, this kid saw shea and knew a softie when he saw one. he was trying to sell her pineapple, which she already had plenty of on the bus. ""pineapple! please, only one million dollars. pineapple! please! yes ok! yes ok!
she kept saying no, then we got back on the bus. about 2 minutes later, i hear her mutter ""shit."".
""what?"" i ask.
""he''s outside the window.""
tap tap tap.
she''s trying not to look, but she does anyway and he says ""PINEAPPLE! PLEASE! ONLY ONE DOLLAR! YES OK! YES OK!!""
shit.
finally, she opens the window, gives him a dollar, he smiles brightly and says ""THANK YOU!"" and runs away happily. now we have two pineapples to eat.
we got into siam reap that night, got a tuk tuk to a guesthouse (called ""wat''s up?"" haha. wat - what. (wat is a temple). it made me laugh). the place is run by these hilarious laid back young cambodian guys, who are always joking with us.
i liked siam reap better instantly - it seems like a small city thought it''s pretty big, and it''s super laid back and funky.
ok i''m going to end the blog there, partly because i''m tired of typing, partly because i''m starving, and party because i need more water (we found $1.50 gin and tonics last night - but that''s another post). plus we''re doing day 2 of temple tours today, and i need to go get ready.
over and out, cambodian love to you all,
tasha.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
oh - and that dreaded leg hair...
hey amber, julie, remember when i was going on and on about how much i love threading, how it's so much better for your skin, there's no waste at the end of the day, and how i wish you could actually thread your legs instead of just your eyebrows? haha, remember that?
never do this.
ever.
we did it in hoi an. i thought shea was actually going to pass out. it was an hour of ripping out your hairs on your legs bit by bit. i actually made her take a valium (or a "velium") that becky had given us for the bus because i feared she might punch our nice vietnamese threader lady in the head. i distracted myself by turning up the CD player playing "big hits of 1990" or something. shea is amazed that i can't remember where i put the room key 10 times a day, but i could sing along to "girl, i'm gonna miss you" by milli vanilli like it was nobody's business, regardless of the fact that i haven't heard it in about 15 years.
that's all. moving on tomorrow - not looking forward to my very heavy backpack.
never do this.
ever.
we did it in hoi an. i thought shea was actually going to pass out. it was an hour of ripping out your hairs on your legs bit by bit. i actually made her take a valium (or a "velium") that becky had given us for the bus because i feared she might punch our nice vietnamese threader lady in the head. i distracted myself by turning up the CD player playing "big hits of 1990" or something. shea is amazed that i can't remember where i put the room key 10 times a day, but i could sing along to "girl, i'm gonna miss you" by milli vanilli like it was nobody's business, regardless of the fact that i haven't heard it in about 15 years.
that's all. moving on tomorrow - not looking forward to my very heavy backpack.
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