AND I'm still in cambodia

Welcome back to the world of my blog. Or perhaps I should welcome myself back.
Amazingly I am nearing the 2 month mark in my trip and I have been doing exciting things, which is a great change from what I now endearingly call suckville also known as sihanoukville. I never thought I would be one who didn't like the taste of super chilling on a beach but low and behold it happened.

There were a few things from suckville that could use some commenting. The first day I tried to go diving there the waters were very rough so we skipped it. On the way back into town was a wonderful sight of monks clad in bright orange folds of fabric on their daily alms gathering. One was holding a black umbrella while an individual was praying to him. Bowing in cadence with the rhythm of the prayer and holding his hands together in front of his face. It was a beautiful sight, especially contrasted to strewn garbage on the street, the traffic and the going ons of early morning life.

That said I went diving the next day--it was alright, poor visibility. I got a bit of a scrape/irritation on my foot from the fin, and it led to an infection. That was shitty, but even worse was getting taken by a medical clinic in Siem Reap. I went to get it dressed and they sold me some pills I didn't need and charged me $10 for a bad bandage job and $8 for the pills. That may not sound like a lot, but its all relative. Luckily that was what I would call my first, and hopefully only, time of being taken in SE asia. All I needed was some antibiotic ointment and its all good now.

So I was in Siem Reap, possibly better known for housing the Angkor Wat complex and temples. It is certainly called a wonder of the world for a reason. It was epic, beautiful and majestic. What I can say about it is, go there. Being there I felt a mix of intense spirituality, destruction (khmer rouge), inspiring greatness and history. But it was constantly buZzing all around me and I found it very difficult to focus on any one element. The presence of each was very powerful but it still felt amazing being there. Perhaps I tried to use my camera too much as a kind of blinders to these sensations, but I got some great pics. It was truly killer for lack of a sweeter word. Beautiful and tragic...

Siem Reap is a cool town but not great. Its expensive and there are so many tourists. However apparently this is quite a slow high season. I'm sure we can all guess why. So I moved on to a city called Battambang, which is the second largest after Phnom Penh. This also involved something exciting because it was my first water travel. I took a boat with maybe 40 other people across the northern section of Tonle Sap lake, the largest fresh water lake in se asia. Then through many tributaries of the lake. Some only as wide as the boat and at times even less than. In fact I think our driver was training. He was constantly throwing it in reverse at bends in the river because he couldn't make the turns correctly and we kept gliding into the side of the path. At one point there was this guy on a really small fishing dingy and the device that was steering the prop caught his boat and launched him off. He looked much less than ecstatic.

Life on the water was extremely cool to experience. IF your house wasn't on a boat everything else was. Some houses were like house boats, others were just straight boats with rounded coverings made from wood, plastic sheeting or metal. Some houses were built on 30 foot tall stilts for when the river floods from snow runoff from way up north into the mekong. Everything else was on boats; markets, taxis, the schools were floating buildings, and some temples. Life looked easy, but I assume it was an illusion, it must have been the people that made it such. There were awesome bamboo contraptions that were house, raft and net fishing device that looked straight out of that shitty kevin costner movie waterworld, all connected together in an impressive amalgamation of bamboo physics. And the children, almost always smiling and waving, so sweet.

Battambang is a cool enough town for me to stay here a few days. So far it looks like a bunch of pharmacies, electronic/household ware shops, beauty salons, and clothes stores. Tonight I went with the driver of my tuk tuk to a popular restaurant with the locals and had a delicious plate of fried eel(spine in of course) which was super good. Yesterday (SUN) I must have witnessed about 4 wedding parties going on. Sometimes for the event they will erect a tent like structure with no walls from a building directly into the street, perhaps to the middle, and it is totally normal and usual.

Thats about all I've got for now. Its nice to let you in on the scoop again. But a few thoughts before I exit.


-Big props to all the ladies that wear high heels and drive manual motorbikes.

-Tuk tuks in cambodia have a front and rear facing seat, unlike the ones in thailand that only have a front facer, so that they can sleep in them.

-Never have I seen a better cargo on a motorbike than two large live pigs upside down in a sort of wicker harness awaiting who knows what.