Cambodia, the Land of a 1, 000 tuk-tuks aka my winter vacation

Okay, so I’ve been a major slacker on the blog. Rather than offer half-hearted apologies and predictable excuses, I’m just going to say:

Last week of December was horrific. Half of winter camp was hell and the other half was great but I still got a lot of crap about it. So there was no winning. And, traveling with Candy the pink mammal wonderdog is sheer misery; I’m drugging her senseless (wait… she’s already senseless… I’m knocking her unconscious instead) next time I travel with her. She’s so lovely except for the banshee scream.

Getting to Cambodia was super fun. I always wanted to kick around in the Incheon airport for 4 hours. I debated on buying a book but I just can’t pay $12 for a paperback. Instead I practiced in my 4 year old Korean book and people watched. Eventually I decided to go through to my gate but then there was this ruckus… given the amount of people on the film crew and the flashing cell phones in the crowd, they were filming a K-drama or something. But I wanted to get to my flight, so there’s a strong possibility this white foreigner is wandering in the back of the scene… Oh, and did I mention I ditched my winter coat, so I was wandering around Korea in a fleece sweater?

Cambodia was wonderful and warm! It was so easy to get around in and everyone was so friendly.

I spent a bit of time in the capital Phnom Penh and hooked up with a guy from Oregon. We did the touristy thing and I had a day long conversation in English! Oh how wonderful. I also enjoyed my first real Western meal (pasta!) in a long while. We saw several wats (temples/stupas), S-21 (a school-cum-torture chamber and prison for the Khmer Rouge), the Silver Pagoda and Royal Palace grounds, and the riverside.

After that I went to Battambang. I didn’t really enjoy my stay there because the bus ride was hell (try sleeping when the driver’s blaring his horn every 5 seconds and pulling over for pitstops every 20 minutes). I got off and was assaulted by the tuk-tuk drivers (taxi) and this guy would not leave me alone. He followed me for two blocks! My first hotel was closed so the second one I went to wasn’t… foreigner friendly. The lady did everything short of telling me no to make me change my mind. But thinking I could catch an afternoon bus the next day, I took a nap and emerged at dusk. The town was nice enough, if small. I wandered for hours and had some fried rice for dinner. I didn’t find out until later that the only bus tickets to Siem Reap were in the morning… so I took it and didn’t see the Bamboo Train or the giant Buddha… but that was okay… until my bus was almost TWO HOURS LATE. I could’ve seen everything in those two hours! There were two other foreigners and we had a ‘where the hell are we?’ conversation a few times. After another horrible bus ride, I got dropped off and assaulted by the tuk tuks. I asked to go to a lodge and the guy goes, oh no, its far out of town (aka I don’t know where that is). He took me to a fairly cheap hotel where I got the last room (again). He also badgered me into going to the temples with him the next day.

Next day, a guy shows up and goes, ready for the temples? I asked him if he was the guy that picked me up from the bus stop… I’m not convinced he was. I should’ve given him a Korean coin to show me. Oh well. The temples were fantastic. I spent hours wandering the ground at Angkor Wat to avoid the tour groups of [Korean] tourists. It was amazing. I then went to a few more temples and met some sweet Japanese tourists who were aghast that I wasn’t with a tour group. I did sort of get ditched by my tuk tuk, which I wasn’t happy about. He fell asleep waiting for me and so I had to wander and wade through beggar. This one little girl in particularly trailed me around the whole time and the security officer even asked me if I was having a problem. I went back to the hotel, took a nap, then headed out for the evening to eat (you guessed it) pasta saturated in CHEESE. Four cheeseS… that weren’t plastic, imitation cheese produce.

The next day I went to temples further out. I went on a lovely nature hike up the mountain to see a sacred waterfall. I enjoyed the hike and there were butterflies everywhere. There were also tropical fish (and if you’ve ever seen a baby gar, you’d realize they’re really cute!). I did get yelled at and shooed from the river at one point though. I wanted to go to the nature conservatory but didn’t realize it was Sunday. So that was a bummer. Then I went to Bantreay Srei, which is hundreds of years older than Angkor Wat and carved out of red sandstone. I enjoyed wandering the grounds… until I turned in corner into a field of large water buffalo. I don’t care how “docile” they are; those ain’t cows and I wasn’t having any truck with them! On the way back I stopped at the Landmine Museum, which was small and scary. Neither S. Korea nor the USA has signed the Ottawa Convention (banning the manufacturing/use of mines). I’m sure our gov’t is happily supplying landmines to wartorn areas and giggling over the profits. But I learned a lot about Cambodian history and the USA’s role in the rise of the Khmer Rouge (via the Vietnam War, where the USA carpet bombed the hell out of Cambodia) and got to see lots of guns/mines/warheads/etc. And a big turtle… Last stop was the Butterfly Conservatory. Of course, my camera decided to die then and there. But the guy showed me around, pointing out butterflies and eggs and showing me the caterpillar boxes and the chrysalis cages. He also explained that they shipped them to Europe, so they had to be careful about dates (so the butterflies didn’t hate in transit!). The most amusing part of the day was when the tuk tuk driver venomently said, “America is #1! Korea is #0! Koreans stinky!” Apparently he didn’t appreciate the Korean tourists any more than I did. I did get a kick out of the free K-pop performance at the riverside later in the evening though.

The last day in Siem Reap I went riding. It was nice even though the mare I was riding was being a twit. The guy was like, just grab the horn if you’re scared. I laughed. Scared? The mare was so short I didn’t have far to fall. I was just unhappy that she wasn’t being cooperative. Then he wanted to trot… nooooooo, no trotting, my poor butt! But we visited another temple and I chatted with some cute children. It was a nice little trip. I spent the rest of the day chilling and watching House and Bones and doing my laundry in the tub. I skipped the floating village; it sounded like an expensive tourist trap.

The next day I headed for Kraite, a tiny rural town in the northwest corner by Laos. Bus ride from Hell, take three. No one told me the bus had a free pick up, so I went to the station and got on the bus. They went to my hotel and were really baffled to find me already one the bus. But the actual ride to Kraite… was long and the driver was slow. But I did have a nice conversation with a local University student. He was going home to his village for his grandmother’s funeral and was getting exasperated with the bus (which was, of course, now two hours late). He was quite happy to use his English Lit. major on me and inform me what he thought of the government and the tourism and the corruption. He told me I overpaid both my tuk tuk drivers (I already knew that but I didn’t know until later that I paid them twice what I should have…) but the bus ticket was only a few dollars more. Then the bus dropped me off in the middle of nowhere and this other guy grabs me going Kraite? (Karate? Krotchknee? I still can’t pronounce it!). I was shoved on a mini bus with 14 other people and we bounced our way to Kraite. I was never so happy to get off as I was then.

Again with the last room. I was feeling sick from the travel, so I spent most of my time in Kraite taking it easy. I spent a half day biking around a beautiful island in the Mekong river (and almost crashed into a tree, must to the amusement of the locals) and just chilling at the river side. Little kids pestered me of course. I also went to see the rare, endangered Mekong River Dolphins. There’s only about 100 left in the wild/world and they only live in 3 pools (1 in Cambodia, 2 in Laos). I also hauled my sore (very sore from horseback riding/bike riding/bus riding) butt up another mountain to a shrine to see the sunset. It rained. But I did make friends with the temple dogs and interrupted some monks and saw some very explicit and somewhat disturbing murals about what happens to sinners. Did I mention I rode a moto to see these things? Not my preferred method of transportation.

I headed out after recovering and met some other foreigners waiting for the bus. We chatted and the bus was [again] late. That should’ve been a warning right there—it was late because of a breakdown… so we get on and get moving. Then the bus broke down. We tromped out, it was fixed, we got on. Go, break, go, break, go… I had plenty of time to chat and bond with the other travelers. We also got to see a rubber tree plantation, which was cool. But the whole time I was hearing chickens… I assumed it was a box of chicks or something… it turned out to be two half-grown chickens bound to a bag. Finally we transferred buses and I sat next to a Brit. She and I hit it off and decided to crash together in Phnom Penh.

We finally roll in and this tuk tuk driver goes, do you remember me? Um, no, I don’t. That was two weeks ago and unlike Koreans and Japanese people, I haven’t learned to tell you apart yet. He was very persistent, asking where we were going and offering a free ride. He could’ve actually been the guy I overpaid two weeks before trying to be nice; I should’ve asked his name because I did remember that. After wandering and trying to read a map (without realizing every street had TWO names and a number because the Vietnamese came in and changed things) we ran into some other foreigners who directed us to a dorm hostel. Wish I had gone there first! The owner gave a summary of everything you needed to know and it was great to meet other travelers. I did get tangled in the mosquito netting though!

I spent the next few days just hanging out and enjoying the city and the Brit’s company. We’d hang out then go do our own thing then hang out and go out to dinner/beer then do our own thing again at night. We went to the Killing Fields and the Royal Palace. I think I must have walked my legs off through; I was so sore. Who knows how many miles I walked because after walking all day I then went for a three or four mile walk along the riverside at night too.

I did finally, on the last day, go to haggle in the market. I went to the Central Market, which was this huge maze of… everything. Fake watches, electronics, household items, bedsheets, etc. I wandered and browsed until I hit the fried spiders/roaches. I stopped dead. Now, I know you can say protein source and what-not, but I classify creepy-crawlies (including shrimp) as do-not-eats. But I bought my souvenirs with only a minor altercation with one of the vendors. The other vendor was so happy he threw in extra. Did I mention I suck at haggling? I’m sure my purchase paid him for the entire week.

Sadly, I had to take an overnight flight back to freezing Korea. Which was made infinitely worse by the gaggles of Korean tourists that ran me out of the bookstore and the duty free store and into a quiet corner by the bathrooms.

Back in Korea I went to Daegu to pick up a dog. I wanted to take one dog (female mame shiba inu), the coordinator would have liked to me take another (female long hair chihuahua)… and somehow I ended up with a male poodle? A spinning male poodle. And yes, Rupert spins neurotically. I seem to attract the special ones.

Then I went back to Wonju to pick up Candy and finally headed back to Dogye! On to find my water pipe had rusted through and was creating my very own non-butterfly waterfall on my balcony (yes, the boiler and pipes are on the balcony with the washing machine -.-). I call my co-teacher, she doesn’t answer, I call Eun Hee, she doesn’t answer, I call my co-teacher again… meanwhile I’m bounding in and out of freezing cold water trying to shut the water off. I finally get ahold of my co-teacher and babble something. She hangs up on me to call the school handy man. I must not have conveyed the urgency well enough. Meanwhile I have figured out how to shut off the water and am scooping it down the gutter with a mixing bowl. By the time she calls back 30 minutes later I’m numb and no more immediate help was necessary. Which is good because none was coming.

The last day of my vacation was spent waiting for the plumber to come fix the pipe then standing awkwardly with the school handy man as the plumber fixed the pipe. My school told me it was my responsibility to fix the pipe. That didn’t sound right but I wanted water and heat. Now I’m getting ready to launch into a responsibility war over my gas bill, which I’m sure is not right. I’m hoping the meter is off, but there’s no way I’m using 100, 000 w worth of gas when the gas isn’t even on! And especially not when my neighbors are paying 5-10, 000 w!

Pictures without explanation is here:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v333/eveliens/Cambodia/