Sunrise over Angkor Wat

It was 5:15 in the morning and still completely dark when the tuk-tuk deposited us in front of the entrance.

We felt our way through the dark, not sure where we were going and what we would find there. Someone told us to go left, towards the lake. We found a spot where we waited patiently for about an hour and this is what we saw:

Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious building, gradually appeared in front of us.

In the afternoon, when we were returning from a day full of sightseeing, it looked like this:

To be continued...

Learning a new skill: fundraising

When I started this volunteering job in Phnom Penh I had no idea what I would be doing. I thought that microfinance would be similar to working in a bank. I could be processing data on a computer. The reality is the office is buried in tall stacks of papers, files, folders, forms, and reports, filled out in Khmer script. I can't do much with them.

What I’m really doing is fundraising. I never thought I knew how to prepare a fundraising campaign until I actually did it.

The purpose of the campaign is to raise funds that will be disbursed as microloans to poor families around Phnom Penh. I like the idea of microfinance to help the poor. As opposed to a donation, a microloan means that the beneficiary has to eventually repay the money they receive. It compels them to work hard on their business to earn enough income to support their family and repay the loan.

While preparing the campaign, although it was something completely new to me, I realized that I could apply skills I already have. For example, to start the campaign, I had to come up with a catchy title. It's just like when I’m preparing a presentation. The campaign summary had to be short and to the point. It's just like when I'm writing a proposal. I had to interview beneficiaries to get quotes from them that I could use in the campaign description. It's just like when I’m preparing a magazine article. The campaign itself has a scope and a budget and a goal and a deadline, just like a project. So I'm project managing as well.

All I have to do now is to promote the campaign and solicit donations. I guess it's just like marketing, not one of my strongest skills. So I'm asking everyone I know to please help me by either making a donation or spreading the word about the campaign. I made the first donation of $25 myself, because it means very little money to me but it makes a world of difference to poor Cambodians. I know, I live here and I see them every day.

Repairing a water heater

A functioning water heater

This post took a while to compile. I thought it would be fun to document how to go about getting a water heater repaired in my guesthouse room in Phnom Penh. This is how it went:

Day 1

My roommate and I didn’t even notice that the water heater wasn’t working. It’s so hot and humid all the time that we shower with cold water in the evenings anyway. We did notice wires sticking out of the heater and were careful not to run water over them.

Day 2

I wanted to wash my hair in the morning and I would have liked the water to be a little warmer. That’s when I noticed that the water heater wasn’t working. I reported the problem to the maintenance guy at our guesthouse. He said that he doesn’t know how to repair water heaters and that he would call his boss if he may purchase and install a new one for us.

Day 3

I reminded the maintenance guy about the water heater problem and he explained that his boss is out of town and he would call him and he would take care of the problem tomorrow.

Day 4

I reminded the maintenance guy about the water heater problem and he mentioned something that contained the word “tomorrow”.

I rolled my eyes at him and he offered that my roommate and I could change rooms. Ha! That’s funny. We already changed rooms once in this guesthouse and I knew perfectly well that if we take another room, chances are that something would be broken. Since we stayed at the guesthouse we had dealt with fixing light switches, door handles, buying electrical extension cords, and unclogging clogged drains in the bathroom. Also, if we changed rooms, we would have to go through the ordeal of begging for fresh bedsheets again. No thanks, we don’t want to change rooms, we’ll shower with cold water until tomorrow.

Day 5

I didn’t have to remind the maintenance guy about the water heater problem. When I returned home from work in the afternoon he remembered on his own as soon as he saw me. Apparently he had called his boss who didn’t authorize the purchase of a new water heater until an attempt was made to repair the broken one (or perhaps he hadn’t called his boss at all opting to just repair it).

He went to our room and asked to borrow my flip-flops explaining that it would be safer to wear rubber on his feet while he was working with electrical wires in the wet bathroom. I shrugged OK, it’s his decision and I left him there, not wanting to bear witness to his potential electrocution. About an hour later, he notified me that he was unable to repair the water heater. He left it disemboweled until tomorrow, when “his friend is coming” to have a look. Even more wires were now sticking out and we had to be extra careful not to run water over them.

Day 6

I reminded the maintenance guy about the water heater problem and he explained that his friend, who was supposed to be coming, was busy. The magic word, once again, was “tomorrow”.

Day 7

THE BOSS came to the guesthouse to check up on his staff. I was eying him, contemplating whether I should report the water heater problem to him as I wasn’t sure that he was even aware that there was a water heater problem. But the maintenance guy was on to me and he pulled me aside before I had a chance to rat on him and promised me that he would repair the water heater today. Aha, he didn’t want THE BOSS to know that the problem hasn’t been taken care of yet.

His backup strategy now was to exchange the water heater in our room with one from another room where people were checking out that day. He really did come to exchange the water heaters and finally discovered that it wasn’t the water heater that wasn’t working but that the electrical wires that came out of the wall in the bathroom were dead. Another person is “coming tomorrow” to run new electrical wires to the water heater.

And we had been so careful not to run water over the wires, believing they carried electricity.

Day 8

THE BOSS took care of it. He sent two repairmen who looked like they knew what they were doing to run new electrical wires and connect the water heater. Success!

Cambodian TV

Enthiran movie poster

There's a TV in my room in the guesthouse where I'm staying but I haven't bothered to turn it on yet. Another TV blasts in the reception where the guesthouse employees are often glued to watch whatever is on. After three weeks in the guesthouse I have a general idea what their favorite shows are.

Friday night is boxing night. This is the sport that can’t be missed. Last Friday I was there when the match started and the prime minister of Cambodia promised $1000 to the winner. That’s a lot of money for Cambodian standards. I have no idea who was boxing or who won. I retreated to my room, to follow alpine skiing on the internet.

In the mornings there are Khmer soap operas. Some of them must be very dramatic because the women who work at the guesthouse watch them intensely, forgetting dirty breakfast dishes that accumulate on the tables.

There is a local game show, similar to the Games Without Frontiers show we loved to watch as children. It must be very popular because the tuk-tuk drivers who usually hang around on the street outside the guesthouse come in to watch.

On a related note, one of the guys who work at the guesthouse showed me a YouTube clip of his favorite movie. I can’t believe it’s the Bollywood Terminator! That’s not what it’s really called, it’s about a tough looking semi-robot guy, dressed in grey, wearing sunglasses, carrying a mean looking gun, killing everything in sight, rescuing Indian ladies in distress and topping it all off with some dance moves. You can’t beat that, Schwarzenegger! The movie is Enthiran and a sequel is coming up.

Hot weather and mosquitoes

Working at the office with a fan in the background

I can't believe I'm even saying this, but I’m really getting tired of being so hot every day. I know, I wanted to get away from the winter to a warmer climate and I got what I wished for. I just had no idea it would be so humid, all day and all night.

The weather forecast for Phnom Penh constantly says that the temperature is around 33°C with a heat index of 39°C due to the high humidity. The temperature drops only slightly at night, to about 24°C. And this is supposed to be the coolest time of the year around here.

While I was traveling alone it was easier to avoid the worst of the heat because I could take a siesta during the hottest part of the day, or I would take cover in a shaded area or duck into an air-conditioned mall. I also splurged on an air-conditioned hotel room every once in a while.

Now that I’m working in Phnom Penh, I don’t really have much choice. I’m at work all day for a non-governmental organization which can’t afford air-conditioning. There are two fans in the office where I work but I still sweat all day, even when I’m sitting still.

The guesthouse where most of us volunteers are staying is just as bad, that's where I sweat all night. I knew in advance not to expect too much but I did travel for a month before coming here so I do have a baseline expectation from a guesthouse in these regions. There should be mosquito nets on the windows so that we could open the windows and let some fresh air in during the night. But the guesthouse doesn’t have them. We have to make a choice between risking malaria and dengue fever by opening the windows and letting the mosquitoes in or keeping the windows closed and suffering in the stuffy rooms.

It’s ironic that I work in an organization which – among other activities – teaches children from rural areas about the risk factors for malaria and dengue fever, while at the same time we have mosquitoes freely buzzing around us at the office. Go figure.

While I may be getting tired of the heat, on the other hand I’m also starting to stoically bear it. Running isn’t such a burden anymore. I’m sweating all the time anyway, so when I run, I just sweat a little more.

Stranded! Because Obama is coming.

The road is closed because Obama is coming

The Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh is frantic. The annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit is currently underway, starting from yesterday and finishing tomorrow. The event is so special because it will expand into an East Asia summit, with US president Barack Obama attending.

The city was prettied up in preparation for the high level summits, "because Obama is coming", the locals frequently reminded us, making sure we understand how important this is to them. The garbage was swept away from the main roads where the delegations will travel. While roaming the city, I had the impression that some roads had more trash than usual. I think they just swept the garbage from the roads that will be seen onto roads that will not be seen.

The horse statues were polished because Obama is coming

The horse statues along the Sisowath Quay were freshly polished yesterday morning. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me because I went running, but I found it so funny, two men having climbed atop the statues and working on them with little pieces of cloth. When I returned later, the horses had flower garlands around their necks.

Schools are closed during the summit, I’m not sure why. Therefore some of the volunteers in our group, those who work with children, have the days off.

On my way to work on my bicycle this morning I saw that the city was full of policemen, soldiers and what looked like young people dressed in Boy Scout uniforms, making sure that traffic regulations were followed by everyone. I had almost forgotten how it feels to stop at a red light and go on the green. I wish the traffic was so civilized every day.

But it wasn't like that on my way back. Some of the roads were closed, because Obama is coming. They told me at work that I could leave my bicycle there and just walk back home, the police should let me cross the roadblocks on foot. I set off together with another volunteer who works in a nearby office. We came to the roadblock and bravely tried to cross, but the police stopped us. No crossing the road, not even on foot. No one knew how long the roadblock would last, the police wouldn't tell us.

All the traffic was redirected to a parallel road

We pulled out our maps and decided to walk the long way around the roadblock, better than just standing there doing nothing for who knows how long. So we came to a parallel road, where the traffic was redirected. We could hardly squeeze through the mass of motorcycles and all other vehicles that were totally jammed and standing still on the road. But we advanced slowly forward, having to step into mud occasionally because there was no other way to go. After about an hour and a half of walking, the traffic cleared up a little and a tuk-tuk picked us up to take us the rest of the way home.

It was quite an expedition! I hope Obama made it, we didn’t stick around to see him drive by. Tomorrow, when Obama leaves and the roads will be closed again, we’re working from home.

***

I also made an effort to find out what the summits are all about.

I gathered that the focal point of the ASEAN summit revolves around maritime disputes between China and neighboring countries including Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan over coastal waters in the South China Sea. Apparently China is aggressive in its claim to the sea and tensions are escalating.

A major achievement yesterday was the signing of the first ever declaration on human rights in the region.

The expanded East Asia summit will continue previous negotiations for a free trade zone with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand. The area would include close to half the global population and around a third of the world's GDP.

President Obama is expected to make a statement addressing the need for a political reform in Cambodia to allow further democratization.

A history lesson

Royal palace

Cambodia is worlds apart from my home. I have no personal connections to this country; I chose to come here purely randomly.

I was never much of a history fan but I do try to find out the basic historical facts about each country that I visit to give it more context. So I’ve picked up a few facts about Cambodian history. Everything revolves around the period of Khmer Rouge regime during 1975 – 1979, the genocide, and the civil wars that followed.

We visited the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) to observe the Khmer Rouge trials which are currently in progress. The court was established in cooperation with the United Nations specifically to try the most responsible individuals of the Khmer Rouge for their crimes against humanity.

The defendant who was on trial the day we visited the court is 86 years old. He asked to be excused from the proceedings that day because he was ill. The judge allowed him to stay in his cell and participate via audio link. His answers to questions from both the prosecution and the defense counsel were all along the lines of “I don’t remember”. I thought it was meaningless to pry information out of a frail old man who appears not to remember anything. Or doesn't want to remember. But the trials are very important to the Cambodian people. I saw many old, gray haired people in the audience who must have experienced the terrors of the Khmer Rouge first hand. The trials will bring them closure.

Bones in the memorial stupa at Choeung Ek

We also visited the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek, a memorial site where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime. The skulls from the human remains that were dug out of the mass graves are on display in a glass memorial stupa.

A monk beside a temple adorned with Sihanouk's photo

A prominent figure in Cambodian history is former king Norodom Sihanouk who died recently, on October 15. He held various offices during his reign, in fact, according to the Wikipedia, "he held so many positions since 1941 that the Guinness Book of World Records identifies him as the politician who has served the world's greatest variety of political offices".

The mourning period is three months following his death. During this time his body is at the Royal Palace where a steady stream of mourners come to pay their respects every day. Numerous temples and public places are adorned with his photograph. A monk at one of the temples I visited proudly indicated his photograph and described him as “This is my king”.

Field trip to the suburbs

Colleague Chanrath who drove me on his motorcycle

A colleague from work drove me out to the suburbs of Phnom Penh to interview individuals about how microloans have helped improve their lives.

He drove me on the back of his motorcycle, the obvious choice of transportation around here. Before we left, he handed me a helmet and a surgical mask. I have become accustomed by now that many people in these regions wear masks. The reason is that they want to avoid breathing polluted air. Because I was riding on the back of a motorcycle on dusty roads, the mask really protected me from the dust.

Selling fruit: coconuts and some unknown fruits

The first family that we visited didn’t seem extremely poor as microloan beneficiaries are usually portrayed to be. But the family is now on their third progressively larger loan, one of which was to repair their house. Their living conditions are now better than before they had financing. The husband drives a tuk-tuk and has a barbershop at home. The wife sells fruit from her home and operates a coffee shop. They have two children, aged 9 and 5. Their house looks well-kept and the children who had just returned home from school and kindergarten were dressed in neat uniforms. I bought some fruit from the woman. Once again, I have no idea what the fruit is called.

Grandmother and her four grandchildren in her grocery shop

The second family that we visited was much poorer. I interviewed the grandmother who took out and repaid consecutive loans to stock her grocery shop. She sells spices and condiments used for cooking and sweets to school children who stop by on their way home from school. Four children and their parents live in the household but I didn’t understand what exactly their relation to the grandmother was, it was too complicated. The father is a construction worker and the mother helps out in the grocery shop. They have hardly any furniture, the two younger children run around naked (they quickly pulled some clothes on them when I asked for permission to take photos), and the two older ones just returned from school in disheveled uniforms. According to the grandmother, her grocery shop helps to support the family and so the children can go to school instead of being forced to work.

Vegetables of southeast Asia

Vegetables at the market

While I'm not too keen on trying various creepy animals and animal parts that are served as food in southeast Asia, it's quite the opposite in the vegetable department. I'll try anything that's green and comes out of the ground, as long as it’s not poisonous.

Generally, eating fresh vegetables in Asia can be risky because they may not be washed or are washed in unsafe water. But I've taken my chances so far and haven’t had any problems. Actually, tap water in most parts of Thailand and in Phnom Penh is officially safe which means that salads are most likely safe as well.

The markets around here are overflowing with green vegetables. I can taste most of them in food that I order in restaurants. I still haven’t identified all of them so it’s a work in progress. I can’t Google a vegetable to find out what it is, how would I describe it? Someone should come up with photo matching search algorithms. Does anything like that exist already?

Asking the locals about the vegetables is no good either, they just tell me the name of the vegetable in their language and I’m no better off knowing what it is. The most helpful resource in identifying vegetables so far has been going to a supermarket where the various fruits and vegetables are labeled in English. But even there, some of them are called just “herb” or “greens”. It seems not all of them have English names.

Typical lunch in Laos, clockwise from bottom right:
green papaya salad, fried rice, weeds and cabbage, Beerlao

Here is a list of some of the more interesting vegetables that I have tasted so far and for which I was able to find out what they are:

• water convolvulus or kang kong, used in soups and stir fries
• mustard greens, used in soups
• flowering cabbage, it seems this plant group includes Chinese cabbage as we know it back home as well as pak choi, a smaller, darker green variety and everything in between, including yellow flowering stalks
• luffa or some sort of cucumber, resembles a cucumber in taste and texture, used in salads and stir fries
• pea eggplant, I got this in a stir fry once and I thought at first it was undercooked peas. I found out later they were tiny eggplants.
• Thai basil, delicious tasting large leaved basil used in copious amounts in some stir fries
• sour mango, I’m still not sure whether this is just unripened sweet mango or a different cultivar of mango. It’s dark green on the outside and light green on the inside, it tastes sour and it’s eaten as a salad.
• green papaya salad, a typical Laotian dish, made from unripened papaya, nicely sour and spiced to the death with chilies. I like.

One mystery still remains. With papaya salad, they always serve these stalks with green leaves on them. I have no idea what it is. Here is a closeup from the plate with my lunch. (The other vegetable on the plate is good old cabbage.)

Unknown green leaves

Navigating Phnom Penh traffic

Motorcycles on the road

Hiring a tuk-tuk is hassle-free around here. The drivers typically don't overcharge and they carry maps so that if they don’t speak English I can point to where I want to go. I learned the Khmer words for numbers two and three to be able to communicate the fare. That’s all I really need because short rides are $2 and longer rides are $3. (Actually, I also learned the words for numbers one and four to be able to follow steps in my aerobics class.)

I don't mind riding the tuk-tuk but I still decided to buy a bicycle to get around. Having my own means of transportation gives me more flexibility. I bought a used bicycle that has seen better days. They assured me at the shop that if I have any problems with it, I should come back and they will fix it.

Having my own transportation means that I also get to navigate the traffic on my own. It’s terrifying, although I’m slightly less afraid of the traffic while on the bicycle than when I go on foot. No one walks around here. They say that if you see a Cambodian walking, they are going over to their motorcycle. They go everywhere on their motorcycles, even to the shop around the corner or through the vegetable market.

Motorcycles at the market

I went for a few practice runs on my bicycle to get the feel of being part of the traffic. The official traffic rules such as driving on the right side of the road, stopping for a red traffic light and so on are obeyed only if there is a policeman in sight. The unofficial traffic rules say that motorcycles don’t have to stop – ever – because isn’t it kind of difficult to stop when you’re on two wheels? Why bother stopping? So they just go. I have to be constantly vigilant of what is going on 360 degrees around me at all times because vehicles can come towards me from any direction.

With some practice I figured out that the best thing to do in traffic is to go with the flow, it’s not that bad. There is always someone going the same way I'm going so I just try to follow.

Pizza & Coca-Cola

Pizza and Coca-Cola at the office

We had an office party at work today because it was someone's last day at work. They ordered pizza and Coca-Cola.

They offered me the first slice of pizza. Um, I knew it would be impolite to decline, but how do I know what was on that pizza? I quickly scanned it before I took a slice, thankfully not finding any spiders, snakes or intestines on it. It only had shrimp, crab sticks and sausage. I wouldn't normally order pizza with seafood, but compared to other options, it was OK with me.

Now I know what the locals really eat. Pizza. They probably only serve fried bugs to foreigners to scare them. Why am I not surprised?

Rush hour in Phnom Penh

It was getting dark on my way home on the tuk-tuk and the traffic was even more chaotic than usual.

Crickets, spiders, snakes

Clockwise from top left: raw beef, lettuce, white mushroom,
raw beef, Chinese cabbage, flowering cabbage,
crickets, spiders, silkworms, more bugs, snakes on spits

My 6 week volunteering job in Phnom Penh started with two days of introductory orientation. We were instructed about the cultural dos and don’ts, learned a few Khmer language phrases, were sent to the market to practice bargaining skills and ordering food at the stalls, had a sightseeing tour around the city and ended it all with a fancy dinner where we were supposed to taste the local food.

In Cambodia they eat everything. Everything. For appetizers, we were served spiders, crickets, silkworms, grilled snakes, ants, worms, frogs legs… (The French girl noticed they forgot snails.)

In case you’re wondering how they taste I have to disappoint you. I didn’t try any of them. Sorry.

The main dish was a soup that we cooked ourselves, fondue-style. That's why the table was laid out with plates of thinly sliced raw beef. Unlike back home, where beef is often eaten raw, here it was meant to be cooked. There were also plates of vegetables such as Chinese cabbage, flowering cabbage, more green leaves that I still haven't identified, baby corn, white mushrooms, sliced carrots. There were also tofu cubes, yellow noodles, rice noodles and rice.

The table had holes where they put buckets with hot coals, just like a fire pit:

They covered the fire pit with a lid and added soup:

We then dropped ingredients into the soup to cook and spread out beef to grill:

 

As often happens with a fondue, there were too many people trying to cook too much stuff in a dish that was too small. It took forever to cook anything. I was hungry because I hadn't had any appetizers so I just ate rice and raw vegetables.

 

They finally brought out the Angkor beer. A waiter constantly walked around dropping giant ice cubes into our beer glasses. I would have complained that you don't add ice to beer, but it was so hot around the fire pits that the ice really helped to keep the beer cold.

Aerobics on top of the world

Sisowath Quay during the day when it's deserted
(didn't have my camera in the morning when I went running)

I never would have thought that people in an Asian city such as Phnom Penh are so obsessed with physical fitness.

When I went for my run early in the morning on the Sisowath Quay along the Tonle Sap River, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I have become accustomed by now that in these parts of Asia people get up at dawn. What I didn’t expect was that they were all exercising!

Everyone seemed to be out there, old and young and middle-aged, men and women, more or less all of them locals. The few tourists I saw were those who were returning from their all night pub crawls. There were runners and power walkers, groups doing street aerobics, break dancing, tai chi practice, men playing volleyball, a few older people on exercise equipment that is available to the public on the sidewalk.

Another place to exercise is the Olympic stadium so I also went to explore the action there. It was more of the same, people of all ages were about, walking, running, playing sports. There are volleyball and basketball and soccer fields where the men were hanging out. Women did aerobics.

Our aerobics instructor setting up the music.
Another group is already under way in the background.

I joined an aerobics class that was held at the top of the stadium. It was amazing! The music was blasting and the view was magnificent. I could see parts of the city with the temples and skyscrapers under construction and a soccer game that was played inside the stadium.

Crazy traffic in Phnom Penh (notice the name of the street?)

There is just one issue. Although I live very near the stadium and I can get there along back streets in a few minutes, there is one major street to cross. It’s challenging to say the least. The traffic is really crazy here as I had been warned. Let’s just say it takes a while until I decide the traffic has subsided so that I attempt to cross, dodging tuk-tuks, motorcycles, huge 4WD cars, occasional bicycles, all of them hurrying in their respective directions and not all of them going in the direction they should be going.

Welcome to Cambodia Part II: flat tire, fighting over a seat and where did our luggage go?

Quarantine at the border crossing

The border crossing between Laos and Cambodia went surprisingly smoothly. Since our guide sent our passports to the border ahead of time, our visas were stamped and ready, waiting for us by the time we arrived. We only had to go through quarantine where they checked our body temperature. We all passed.

We had to walk over to the bus on the other side of the border. For some reason, there were now many more of us in our group than before the border. I don’t know where the extra people came from, perhaps from an earlier group who had to wait for us. I managed to get a seat, but others who weren't as quick to board had to sit on plastic stools in the aisle.

First flat tire in Cambodia

The bus pulled away and stopped again after a couple hundred meters. The conductor asked us to get off because “the bus is having a flat tire”. Well, surprise, surprise, a flat tire? I really didn’t expect to encounter my first flat tire in Cambodia within spitting distance of the border already. Oh well.

While the bus crew worked on the flat tire, we stayed in the shade under what will someday be the new border crossing. At least that’s what it looked like. It was a brand new building, not quite finished, but it looked abandoned, strewn with trash, overgrown with weeds and already vandalized. Who knows why it was abandoned and if it will ever get completed and put to use.

Abandoned new border crossing

When it was time to board the bus again I made sure that I was on the bus quickly enough so that I would have a seat. My previous seat had already been taken and it seemed that everyone was just taking seats at random so I did the same, I just sat on the first available seat. What a mistake! I had no way of knowing that a Chinese girl was sitting on that seat before the flat tire and she thought it her right to ask me to give up my seat to her because it was hers. Excuse me? The seats weren’t numbered and we didn’t buy tickets for a particular seat so I guess her right to a seat was just the same as mine.

So I ignored her.

She must have thought that I don’t speak English and she proceeded to complain to the conductor. He then asked me in French to give up my seat to the Chinese girl.

I ignored him as well.

The Chinese girl was frustrated with me and realizing that I wouldn’t move, she had to deploy new tactics. She picked on an American guy who was sitting behind me and harassed him to give up his seat “for a lady”.

The guy ignored her too.

Now she was really becoming upset and started yelling at anyone and everyone. The bus couldn’t go anywhere because not all people had boarded because "the lady" was blocking the aisle while throwing her tantrum.

It was hot and everyone was already fed up with the morning activities and we just wanted to go and no one really wanted to deal with the Chinese prima donna. People started chiming in and name calling. A Chinese guy, obviously one of her supporters, tapped me on the shoulder and asked me politely to please give up my seat to the girl so that she would calm down and we could go. But that only triggered more people on the bus to join in and split into two teams.

One team, composed primarily of European and American tourists, urged me to keep my ground and not give in to the girl’s bullying. As if I would. The other team was composed of mostly Chinese looking people who all fought for a seat for “the lady”. I noticed that a few Japanese tourists decided to stay neutral. Actually, I considered myself neutral as well, even though I was in the center of the storm, because during all that drama I hardly said a word. Eventually the Chinese group helped in calming her down, after all we were all anxious to get moving. She grudgingly moved further down the aisle and sat on the plastic stool.

We were finally on our way, driving for several hours and I could tell from the road signs that we were nearing Kratie, my designated stop. It was around 17:00 in the afternoon and I was hopeful that I would get there before dark (the sun sets at around 18:00 in this part of the world).

No, it wasn’t to be.

The bus stopped at a roadside rest stop a mere 7 kilometers before Kratie. The conductor said “15 minutes” and we were all happy to oblige, get out of that stifling bus, stretch our legs, go to the toilet, get food and drink. The bus driver and his crew remained on the bus and when we were all out, they closed the door and drove off!

All our luggage was on that bus!

What now, where had they gone, when would they be coming back if at all? There was nothing to do but sit and wait.

They couldn’t just leave us there, could they?

I mentally started reviewing what was in my backpack and what I would do if they really never came back. But after the long and arduous day, I just didn't care any more.

The bus and crew returned a good hour later, probably having gone off to get something decent to eat. It was by then completely dark.

Sunset over the Mekong River
(view from the balcony of my hotel in Kratie, taken the following evening)

At last, the bus pulled over in Kratie and the journey from hell was over!

I made it alive, with no handcuffs, was not beaten up for taking some obnoxious girl’s seat, and my luggage was intact. I gladly followed a hotel tout who met our bus which saved me the trouble of looking for a place to stay. Funny, he was pissed off for having to wait for the bus for hours, interrogating me why we were so late. Yes, even by Asian standards, the bus was seriously late.

Welcome to Cambodia Part I: police and handcuffs

Our guide in handcuffs

I don't know how to even begin to describe the day I entered Cambodia. It was another one of those trips from hell that make travel unforgettable. And why it’s never boring.

Since there is no local public transportation to the border between Laos and Cambodia, the only option is to take an international bus that goes from a city in Laos to a city in Cambodia. So I bought a ticket for a bus to take me from Four Thousand Islands where I was staying in Laos to Kratie in Cambodia.

The trip was supposed to start at 7:30 in the morning and finish in Kratie at around 14:30 in the afternoon. Good, that would give me plenty of time to find a place to stay, settle in, take a stroll around town, find a nice place to have dinner and catch up on emails in the evening. I probably don’t have to mention right now where this is all heading. Fat chance would I have an afternoon off!

I was at the boat dock on Four Thousand Islands as instructed at 7:30 in the morning. I know, the boat never leaves on time, but I get up early anyway and I went to sit there and wait. I always carry my Kindle with me to pass the time. It took the boatman a half hour to show up and then he still had to have breakfast and run errands. The boat left an hour late, at around 8:30.

I was then shown to the office of the bus company whose bus I would be taking with a bunch of other tourists. The bus company provided immigration forms for Cambodia that we could fill out right there, before getting to the border. A representative of the bus company, let’s call him our guide, collected our forms, passports and visa money and sent them ahead to the border to be processed. In the meantime, we sat there and waited for the bus.

Eventually, a guy with a shiny hairdo (some of the girls in our group thought that he looked like a male escort) showed up and said “OK, let’s go”. We got up and some people started following him, but our guide, in a weak voice, said “No, wait”.

We were confused. Should we go or should we wait?

Shiny haired guy is second from left

Our guide reminded us that he was the one who collected and sent our passports to the border and that convinced us to stay with him. The guy with the shiny hairdo did look somewhat sleazy and on closer inspection he had scars on his face that gave away he must have been in some serious fights in his life.

We continued to wait patiently with our guide who kept reassuring us that “the bus is coming in 10 minutes” over and over for more than an hour.

The shiny haired guy wouldn’t give up. He came back with reinforcements, a group of tough looking guys, marching in as if they were ready to fight. They urged us to “Come on, let’s go” but we knew by then that they were from another bus company and we had to wait with our guide who had our passports to go with his bus company.

The back and forth game continued, with the shiny haired guy’s people becoming more and more aggressive, trying to pick a fight to which our guide didn’t react, they shouted threats and lured us to go with them. Our guide kept asking us nicely to wait and was on the telephone with his boss constantly.

Finally, our bus arrived!

As we got up to board it, the shiny haired guy’s people had had enough. They enlisted a policeman or perhaps some kind of soldier dressed in camouflage shorts and a black tank top carrying a hefty gun on his back (I would venture a guess that he was bribed) who slapped handcuffs on our guide! Allegedly our bus was illegal.

Our guide didn’t know what to do and we didn’t know what to do either.

More people joined the melee, including our guide’s brother and the chief of police. There were many discussions going on, telephone calls and threats all over, people coming and going in little groups. The chief of police eventually gave the order to unlock our guide’s handcuffs but this was done only after our guide’s people agreed that we would take the shiny haired guy’s bus.

Since I didn’t understand most of what was going on, I can’t say for sure what happened. It seems that the shiny haired guy and his cronies are some kind of local Cambodian mafia who come across the border (their bus had Cambodian license plates) to poach tourists from reputable Lao bus companies. That’s how I saw it. But I guess I’ll probably never know.

Anyway, it was 11:30 by the time we finally left on the shiny haired guy’s bus. Little did I know that it was still going to be a long, long day.

To be continued…

Vacation on Four Thousand Islands

My porch with my hammock

I took a brief vacation on Four Thousand Islands. I know, I’m supposed to be on vacation already, since I went on this trip. But traveling is not really a vacation. I have so much to do each day that I barely have time to just relax, read, write, or do any of those activities I had lined up to do when I thought I would have too much free time on my hands.

When traveling, there is always the route planning, the reading of travel guides and researching where to go next and how to get there, where to stay, how to find the guesthouse, get my orientation, find food, decide which sights to see and how to get there, remember where my guest house is to be able to return, pack and unpack, get my laundry done, chat with other travelers to get firsthand information, and so on. Usually, if I take a day off, to just sit and do nothing in particular, I still go out to wander around, at least to eat.

I decided to have my vacation on the Don Det island on the Mekong River in an area in the very south of Laos called Four Thousand Islands. I rented a bungalow on the riverfront. There was a porch from where to observe the river and the sunrise, a hammock to swing in, as well as electricity to power my fan and my light and charge all my electronic devices. There was even WiFi, slow and unreliable, but I could be connected if I wanted to. I finally got around to reading books in the hammock.

It was hot, very hot, even swinging in the hammock on the porch in the shade with Beerlao was unbearable. I fell into a rhythm of taking a siesta during the hottest part of the day when I took a nap with the fan turned on. I got up at dawn at around 5:30 in the morning to go running, which is the only time of day running is possible in these regions, although it’s already hot even so early in the morning. The island was perfect for running because there is no traffic.

Dawn on the Mekong River

Of course I couldn’t keep still, even while on vacation. I had to rent a bicycle for a day to visit the adjoining island and see the sights: a waterfall, a beach where no one was bathing because it was just too hot, the remains of an old railroad that ran on the islands, a few temples and cemeteries.

The waterfall is actually the largest waterfall in Southeast Asia measured by water volume. I don't know, it didn't leave much of an impression on me. Perhaps I wasn't there at the right time of year to view it in its full glory.

Khone Phapeng waterfall

The islands are an eclectic mix of local inhabitants who have lived there probably for generations and a booming tourist industry. Everything seems to be under construction, new restaurants are being built and existing bungalows are being modernized with brick ensuite bathroom additions.

Bungalow modernization

The local people are all up and busy at 5:30 in the morning, which I could observe when I went running. Some of them start working in their rice fields, others go to market on the mainland by boat, and children take the cows to pasture before school starts. There are two schools, a primary and a secondary, on the islands.

But it’s still on the islands, far away from the chaos of Asian cities, relaxed and easy. A real vacation.