Monday, May 16, 2011

How's Bagpacking in America?

I had a fun time today, just finished my 3rd of 4 exams and went to hang out with some friends in my Islam class where we managed not to study and talk about the US this whole time. The conversation started out my friend, Hannah, she's going to do a work study in Albany, NY at Six Flags for the summer and wanted to know the weather. She then was asking about bagpacking and how to get to LA. I decided it was time to pull out a map and sadly ruin her dreams of bagpacking the US.

Nobody understands how big our country is. Out here or a lot of the Europeans I meet who have never been to the US. The girls today tried to compare it to the UK. Not even close. As a part of a paper I did for ROTC, I wrote about how there are things that we, as Americans, consider common knowledge that other countries dont. For instance, I never knew a majority of SE Asia was occupied and imprisoned by the Japanese in WWII. The US public school system didn't teach me that, because its not as important as other things are. However, I know the general size of the majority of countries in the world. I know we are huge and I know Singapore is mega mega tiny. World Geography, as I have found, is not common knowledge for the SE Asias to learn, even the very westernized Singaporeans don't learn much of it. Its ok, we all have our own educational priorities set up by the government, but it leads many foreigners to not understand about the size of the US.

I pulled up a map of the US on google images and pointed out the location of major cities. Then I described the distance (in driving time, since km/miles aren't a fun easy conversion lol). NM to FL, 30 hours. DC to FL, 12 hours (I know all the good ones!). IT was sad to tell her this, since she was really looking forward to a "cheap weekend bagpacking to LA", but its best she learns before her trip rather than during.

This is not the first time I've had this conversation. There have been many others, mainly with the Europeans, who say how "weird" American's are because they never go out of their country of "vacation". This was something that I needed to explain and I feel like I've really became aware of since I've been abroad. When American's go on a vacation, they normally stay within a few states of their home or visit family. Travel isn't cheap because our cities are very far apart, therefore there is no mega cheap mass transit like there is in Europe or SE Asia. They have cheap flights across cities/countries because they are so CLOSE. There are no bagpack friendly things in the US (like here/Europe) because people dont bagpack in the US since major sites are quite far away from each other. Its expensive enough to go cross-country, why go out of the country? We have every kind of landscape, lets just stay here. Its a true mindset of Americans I believe and a bit hard to explain to those who grew up out here where everything is so freaking close together!

We then proceded to pull up people of Walmart and laugh. It was great.

Only a few more days left :) After my exam Wed night, going out for a night on the town in Arab Street for some cheap beer and good hummus with friends and lounging by the pool for a day and a half before starting the realllly long journey home.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Day 7/8: Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Today was MUCH more cheery! We went to an all day cooking class and had a GREAT time! It started with a trip to the market to get to see what type of stuff we would be using and for the guide to point out what was commonly used by the Cambodians. As the usual Asian market scene, it was like a grocery store, selling everything you could eat, every kind of meat, vegetable, spice, etc. Here are some particularly odd things: pigs blood, buckets of sticky palm sugar, they used duck (not chicken) eggs here, balloot (spelling? which is almost ready to hatch chicken eggs that were cracked and you pretty much ate the baby chicken), lotuses, all the fish was alive and was be-headed in front of you, leaving a small bloody pile of still squirmy fish heads in the corner. Gross.

We went back to our cooking place, a roof terrace above a blind massage parlor, and made 4 dishes: chicken spring rolls, this pumpkin meringue, chicken curry, and salad. The dessert (pumpkin) was a meringue poured inside a hallow pumpkin, which was used as a steamer and was steamed for about two hours. The Salad was fruit, chicken, and different herbs and vegetable mixed with this awesome spicy peanut sauce. I have developed quite a tolerance for spicy curry here and love it! The curry was the best, as Cambodia has a huge Indian influence (why they were all Hindu's back in the day) so curry is a big deal. However, unlike the watery/oily curry of the Indians, Cambodians and Thai (the Khmer people used to rule Thailand and Vietnam, and now only have Cambodia, which is why stuff is so similar around them) use coconut cream to make their curry creamy, which is amazing. There was lots of "Isnt this Thai food?" which the chef had to say the Thai's copy the Cambodians since the Khmer ruled Thailand first. We made out minced meat by hand, used a mortar to mix stuff for like 30 minutes, it was awesome.

While we were in between dishes, the cooks themselves were making lunch. There is this gross nasty fish that is fermented for 3 (yes, three) YEARS and you can only imagine how it smells. They put it inside a strainer in a pot of boiling water and the fish immediately melts into the water, leaving the strainer full of bones that are thrown away. Our chef said its way too much for anybody to try BUT Cambodians hahaha. Our chef also told us about how the Cambodians LET the French colonize them, as the kingdom was being threatened by Vietnam and Thailand and would have been taken into the borders of those countries if France hadn't intervened and why he loved the French people. Also learned Saigon was a Cambodian city until 1943, and 13 million Khmer people live there today.

That evening, Kara and I went out for drinks. In Siem Reap, alcohol was actually cheaper than water or soda, as we were told due to the competition between restaurants for tourists money. In PP, it was a little more expensive, but still considered a good price at home. We sat on a terrace overlooking the Lake in PP and drank for a while. We found a night market and did a little shopping , as they were more willing to bargain here and went home.

We slept great (thank you booze) despite the loud music and on/off AC throughout the night that had occurred every night since we arrived in PP. We made it to the airport and Singapore with no problems :)

Now it's study time, for the next week and a half before I go home. Its gotten even hotter here in Singapore, so I'm trying to figure out when to use the AC so I don't die while reading my school books. Just a few most posts and I'm home!

Day 6: Phnom Penh, Cambodia

**Warning: we went to learn about the genocide today. I'm not going to leave anything out so you can really hear in detail what happened to these people, but there's some sick stuff in here. Just wanted to warn you....

We woke up late morning with the Canadian girls and went to hire a tuk-tuk for the day to take us to the main sites of PP; Royal Palace, the Genocide Museum, and the Killing Fields. So, a tuk-tuk is a motorbike that had a trailer hitches to it where we sit in little seats, versus a rickshaw which is a guy biking a trailer where we sit in the front. So what happens is we walk outside our hotel and immediately there are tuk-tuks asking us where we want to go, usually yelling "tuk tuk lady?" In PP, they said lady or sister. We previously decided on a price among ourselves and pretty much tell the tuk tuk driver what we want, he laughs and says no, its too far, then we walk away, and he comes yelling after us OK OK! Works like a charm, every time. So we got a tuk-tuk all day for $12 = $3pp. Awesome.

Our first stop was the Royal Palace. Cambodia's official title is The Kingdom of Cambodia, and yes there is a king. I went inside with one girl while the other two went to get tickets for our cooking class the following day, as they had been to Bangkok (I haven't) and said nothing in SE Asia beats that huge palace. So like many important buildings in SE Asia, you have to be properly dressed, meaning legs covered to knees and no shoulders. At EVERY place I have been, if you aren't properly dressed, since its hot and everyone who comes to see are tourists, there is a bin of random sarongs or scarves to wrap yourself in so you can go in. Not here. There was a sign saying you CANT use a scarf/sarong, which is just weird. SO I had on shorts and the other girls had a sleeveless shirt. They didn't have a bin and you had to buy these ugly white shirts to go in. Not worth our money, as the place was pretty overpriced anyway. SO I snuck my camera through some gates and snapped some pictures anyway.

History time:
In the middle of the 20th century, Cambodia was in a civil war. There was the "bad guys" and the Khmer Rouge (KR for ease of typing). They were political parties battling it out for control of the kingdom. It coincided with the Vietnam War. Days after the fall of Saigon (Vietnam War, when the North took over the main city in the South), PP fell to the KR. It was called "Liberation Day", April 17th, 1975. The people thought that the KR were the good guys, communists, and people kind of celebrated, still not knowing what to think. Within days of the liberation, PP turned into a ghost town. Pol Pot, the leader of the KR, also called Brother No. 1 (which confused many locals because they thought there was someone above Pol Pot, who was the leader, not just a brother, and Pol Pot just let them think that) he had some twisted ideas. He wanted to create a country that went back in time, back when it was just farmers. To him, this meant killing all of the intellectuals and forcing people to become farmers.

The city became a ghost town because he forced the people out to work in villages and become farmers. Obviously, you can tell this effected more people than some, as many farmers out in the borders continued their work, just with worse conditions. The killing of intellectuals wasn't known, just that there would be men coming in the middle of the night to take away a member of the family. Then, the whole family would disappear. The farmers were forced to work under terrible conditions with little food, resulting in the death from starvation of 1.5 million people. This continued from 1975-1979 when the Vietnamese finally intervened, stopping the genocide that took place, which I will explain in a minute. The KR, being a political party, still exists today. The leadership claims to not have known about the harsh conditions and blames it on the lower members of the party. More on this later.

Tuol Slung Genocide Museum (also called S21)
This museum is actually the place of the largest prison ran by the KR, located in the heart of PP. As schools, factories, and all other stores in the city was abandoned, the KR took over this high school, S21, and turned in into a torture camp for the intellectuals of Cambodia. When the KR decided they found an intellectual, or someome they didn't like, trying to oppose them, they arrested that person, claiming them to be either CIA or KGB. They tortured the prisoner until they confessed to flase allegations and gave up the names of their family members. Then they and their whole entire family (children, cousins, aunts, parents) would be taken to a killing field (10's of them throughout the country) and they would be killed. In 1979, when the world got its first glimpse at what was happening here, they found 14 (or 16) bodies at S21. They had built a grave site at the entrance of the museum. The school consisted of 4 main buildings, three stories each, making two court yards. Three were used to imprisonment. There were large rooms with metal bed frames and shackles with large dark blood stains under the beds. In the rooms they actually found tortured and murdered victims, they took a photo of the gruesome scene and hung it on the wall for us to see when we entered. Every single room had a large blood stained floor directly under the bed. Each building had a different type of cell, many consisting of pantry-sized rooms made from concrete where prisoners were shackled to the floor and fed almost nothing out of dog bowls.

They found all the torture equipment still here. Water boarding was common. They turned monkey bars from the school into a device where they tired a victim upside down until unconsciousness then was dunked into a pot of water. And continued. They didn't do this to women. Instead, they cut off their nipples and mad scorpions and bugs bite the raw flesh. They were fed almost nothing. They were not allowed to speak or do anything. All of the buildings had a wall of barbed wire completely enclosing it, to keep the prisoners from jumping off and committing suicide. They photographed and height each prisoner and they left behind every record. There were rooms and rooms set up with the photos of the people who were imprisoned here, who all but 7 died. There were only SEVEN survivors ever found , which happened when they were let go near the Vietnam border in 1979.

In the rooms, there were artist depictions of the stories that were documented about this place. Many of the workers who worked in the prison were forced to work there out of fear for their lives as well. There were so many documents about this place on display so they could be read.

The most interesting part was a few rooms dedication to the current court trials about the 5 heads of the KR. I wasn't completely clear about this part, but Pol Pot, his 4 ring leaders (2 men and a COUPLE, yes a women did this too)., and Duch, the nickname of the man who ran S21, plus many others were arrested. For some reason, after they were given a death sentence, they were released by the King of Cambodia, I think on some weird technicality. Pol Pot died while still under house arrest in 1998 before being released. The others were re-arrested in 2006, not after the UN recognized the KR as a legitimate party to be heard before their court. Duch confessed to everything, saying he is completely responsible for the actions at the prison. As genocide is hard to use as a term in this use, since technically it was against intellectuals/political parties and not a particular race, he was only given a 35 year sentence. But he's in his 70s and wont live it out. The other 4 are still awaiting trial for a long laundry list of things. In the museum, they had copies of incriminating letters being used in the court cases to help convict these people. Our guides said they are all upset, as they get to live in prisons and get fed and sleep, which is heaven compared to how they made their own people live for 4 years.

We went to the killing fields next. When the prisoners were finished confessing, and the KR believed they had found all of the family (to prevent retaliation by a family member for killing another), they were loaded into a truck, in rags or naked, and brought to a field 17km out of the city limits of PP. This was the "field of choice" for the men and women from S21, while there are 10s of fields throughout of the country. They were unloaded and brought into the "waiting room of death". Music blared, as speakers were attached to trees to try and drown out the sound of screams and moans of death. The KR chose this spot as it was an old Chinese grave site, and they believed it would be inconspicuous to kill people here. Even though it was only 17km away from the city, it was a far distance to travel by non-motorized means. WE were told people who farmed on the outskirts could hear it, but they either couldn't do anything about it, or chose to rather not know, since they themselves were probably at deaths door. They found 130-something shallow graves and unearthed 92 of them, as the rest had been washed away from the years and years of floods. They uncovered 8,900+ skulls, with the single largest grave housing 450 people. As Buddhists believe in putting bodies in a stupa after death, all large intact bones and skulls were transported into a giant stupa built in 1988 on the grounds, and placed on one of 17 layers so the families could come prey for their loved ones. Every tour guide had some history about this place, a few we heard say their family was in the stupa. Pretty much anyone born before the 1980's was affected.

There was two particular graves that were especially gruesome. Well, they all were. There were just what looked like rolling hills, which really were the dug up graves. The people were bound and blindfolded and killed by farming tools. The KR believed bullets were too valuable to be used to kill this many (they killed 1.5 million total in the fields around the country) so they used hoes, bamboo sticks, any farm tool. The bodies were hacked alive and many were actually buried alive. One was reserved for the soldiers of the KR who tried to run away and were caught. They were beheaded by bamboo stick, more to torture than to instantly kill, as you can imagine how long it took to hit someone with a bamboo stick to take off their head. Another grave was reserved for women and children. Small children were taken from the mothers and had their heads hurled against a tree, smashing it, before being thrown into a grave. Some were thrown in the air and they used a bayonet to cut the babies in two mid-air. It was terrible.

To this day, after it rains, bones and clothes reach the surface. Just waking around, you could see bone fragments and teeth in the dirt and pieces of shirts and clothing coming up from the earth. IT was the saddest thing I have ever seen.

After this, we took a break and had some food. IT was pretty hard to find cheery conversation, but there was a small 2 year old who wanted to share her mangoes with us so we played with her and that lightened our mood. We also ate food by this cow who just wouldn't stop moo-ing and it was quite funny. Kara and I stopped at the two famous markets in town, Central and the Russian market. IT was quite sad, nobody wanted to barter and nobody seemed interested at all in selling stuff. Maybe because they close at 5pm ,as does EVERYTHING in PP, and it was like 4pm, or just because they can rip off tourists more because its the popular capital. But shopping was weak.

Day 5: Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Today, we woke up pretty early and hoped back on the bus to Siem Reap. It was such a great place, I was a bit sad to leave. From what we saw of PP when we landed, it was just another large city in Asia.

So to fully understand the torture of this bus ride, when we got back to Singapore (where I am typing now), we looked up the weather. The WHOLE entire week it was 35C (95F). It was SOOO hot. The bus ride was the worst thing in the world. We transferred from our hotel to a bus which took us about 10 minutes to another station. It was nice, there was no whiny Cambodian music videos at full blast and the AC was nice. Then we got onto a new bus. It was completely full, and the front/side doors didn't close. There was no AC. For 6 hours in the middle of the afternoon. Literally, we sat in a pile of sweat trying not to touch one another, it was so miserable. We stopped mid ride for food, and it was much cooler (by this, I mean like 95 instead of 100) outside, so that was nice. Once we got within an our of PP, the main highway was still under construction. SO the non packed roads brought loads of dust circulating inside the bus. Everyone had their shirts over their mouths, coughing and everything in sight had a thick layer of red dust over it. IT was terrible.

There really is very limited transportation in Cambodia. The main transportation is by these buses, which are not government run but randomly ran by companies. There is no train system or no government bus system. Another very common was is to pay to ride in the back of someones truck.

Our new hostel was pretty nice. IT was only 5 months old so everything was clean. IT was what I would consider a party hostel. Lots of drinking, loud music, weed, but they served good food and there was limited AC, so we had SOME comfort. The city itself smelled. It was very gross. It looked like all the other big cities in Asia, except there wasn't the "nice and clean" part within the city limits. It smelled either like weed, gas, or trash. There were tons of people, but despite everything w read online, I didn't feel like I was going to get mugged at any minute, even though we were warned by locals all the time to "mind your things" when inside the markets. We met these two Canadian girls who were backpacking for 7 weeks in SE Asia and decided to join up with them the following day for the tour.

We got into an interesting conversation about skin. One thing that has happened to me at almost every trip is that my face breaks out. I always brushed it off, maybe its because I use my travel stuff which is different, or I"m busy and sweat alot. But one of the girls said that's not relay why, its because of the pollution. It made so much sense. The pollution in the cities (minus Singapore, of course, because eco green is their life even though they don't always practice what they preach) is terrible here. It's quite ironic, in the US, we are led to believe by the media and some other countries that we are the worst polluters because we drive big trucks and hummers. They obviously have never visited the streets of Bangkok or Cambodia. The motorcycles here jet out large plumed of black smoke and there is not one inch of street that isn't covered in something gross. In the morning the smell is worse, as it rains sometimes at night and the smell gets to sit in the water and become grosser. I actually saw and trash dump IN The city in PP while we were riding around.

Two things I forgot to mention that day before that Lucy told me. In their stable, there was a world map. They had the idea to have guests tack their home countries to see how many people visited the stables. IT was just an ordinary map, but obviously not an American printed map, since the US was on the right side instead of the left side like we see it at home. She told us that her workers, which are locals and orphans they hire, had no idea what it was. They had never seen "the sea" or a map, never the less a WORLD map. She had to explain to them what the other colors meant. Could you imagine seeing a world map for the first time? Another thing we talked about, was the Cambodian music videos. The women would stand and sway on their feet and twist their lands at their hips. It was like Hawaiian dance, with the hand motions, but no hip movements and their hands were stuck to their sides. Lucy said that they bound their hands to make them very flexible (think bound feet of the ancient Chinese) because very flexible hands was considered a beauty thing in Cambodia. Many of the women could bend their fingers back to their arms, it was a common thing. Who knew?

It was a nice easy day :)

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Day 4: Siem Reap, Cambodia

Today started early for Kara and I, we went to this place called Happy Horse Ranch and rode Cambodian ponies around the country side. The place is run by an old embassy working from Phnom Penh who was rescued by the US during the civil war against the Khmer Rouge and lived in CA with his family for 30 years. Lucy, this gal from New Zealand, rode with us at 530 this morning, since its just so hot during the day. We did a 3..5 hour ride around the small village they had their ranch in and around lots of farm lands. It was so nice, because it was so early we got to see everyone starting their day. Lots of people were bathing (pots of water and scoops) and little kids were getting ready for school. Our guide the other day said that the little kids are all taught to say hi and bye to tourists to be polite, and ALL of the small kids ran to the road and waved to say hi, it was so cute! The animals were all waking up and wandering around. The calf's were all scared and interested at the horses and the dogs liked to follow.

We walked n between fields of rice. There were some farm squares that were all water for fish farming and we saw duck farmers. There were tons of water buffalo everywhere too! Lucy has been living here on and off for 4 years (she traveled here on vacation and fell in love with the ranch so she stayed!) and showed us the huge baby buffalo. The horses are pretty scare of them and we could trot or canter by, since she said the buffalo will chance the horses. WE talked alot of the time, she told me about the weird things shes seen during tours, like a guy electric shock fishing (illegal). My horse was quite feisty, randomly kicking into a run or doing small bucks. Once while we were walking through deep irrigation water, he decided to stop and sit down in the water! I leaped off so I didn't get smashed and the horse got up, just wanting a dip in the water., IT was quite funny and my camera survived, even though I was soaked in muddy water. It was defiantly one of the most fun days we've had :) We saw homemade cricket catchers with sheets and bright lights. We had a great time and got lots of photos!

We came back and napped. We got up at 430 the last couple days and were so tired. We got a hold of a map and wandered around the city, which basically was the restaurant/markets we've been going to the whole time. We tried to exchange money at a place that claimed to. She didn't really know what my Indonesian Ruphiah were and she undercharged Kara's Singapore exchange to USD by about $40. When we laughed and said no thanks, she said okay then how much, like she was trying to barter the exchange. Ya right, we left. We went back to the market this evening to look at some more things. We fund a T-shirt shop ran by this guy who made his own designs and made shirts fro his designs and his brothers artwork. They were very nice, as they werent' screaming tourist shirt, so we bought ones. Looked at the gemstones some more, but nothing was looking good. We're guna save the rest of our money for Phnom Penh, which has this famous place called Russian Market, so who knows, maybe we'll find something cool :)

Getting the mega exciting bus ride back to PP tomorrow. Yay. Not.

Day 3: Angkor, Cambodia

I will try as hard as I Can to keep this not ridiculously long, since I saw about 10 temples today during out 12 hour tour... :)

So if you have never heard of Angkor (pronounced anchor) Wat Archaeological Part before, you should google image it to understand the magnificence of this compound. Here's some back history. The Kingdom of Cambodia, as its officially title insinuates, has been run by kings its whole life. There are three periods known by Cambodians; Pre-Angkorian which is pre 9th century, Angkor Period (9-15th century) and Post Angkor (15c to present). The ethnicity of the Cambodia's have always been the Khmer (kuh-mer) people, which they are still called today. They call their country Cambodge, as this is a French colony and many of the names/pronunciations have been influenced by French. The Angkorian period was a period of peace (even though there were a few wars in there) and the "best" kings are considered to come from here. There are two types of stone used during this building that all (but one) the temple were built from, gathered from a quarry over 70km away. The base of the places were built with limestone, and this was awesome being porous so the water didn't sit in the temple and ruin things, it drained through. The outer stone was sandstone, which was like a veneer layer, as this was very soft and easy to carve. In the beginning, the people practices animism, then Hinduism came and they were Hindu's. During the Angkorian period, they decided to become Buddhists, which 95% of the population practices, even though its still a bit influenced by Hindus.

The paragraph titles are the names of the things we saw during our tour + history.  

Angkor Thom: 
In the early 10th century, Angkor Thom was built. Angkor means capital (kind of) and Thom means big. Angkor Thom was the capital during the beginning of the Angkorian period. In the 10th century, they built a moat around the capital and a small dirt wall. In the 12th century, they decided to make a stone wall where the dirt one was. It encloses a space of 12km. There are 5 entrances, 1 in all directions and 2 to the east. The east is a very important direction for both religious (Hindu/Buddhism), for many reasons, (Buddhism) like the run rises in the east, so its a new beginning. The Hindu's believe there is an invisible mountain the middle of the universe that has 7 levels where all the gods live, and the mountain's entrance is to its east, hence the two east entrances because its important. Each of the gates has sculptures on the sides leading up to it. Don't quote me on the name, but its a Buddhist story called the battle of the milk sea. One of their main gods was reincarnated to a snake and there was a fight between good and evil on the invisible mountain which is found i the middle of the milk sea in the middle of the universe. There is a famous depiction of the snake being tugged (think tug of war) with the good and bad on either sides, with the back puller the gods of good/evil. This is a really popular story, as its depicted in many of the temples. Either side of the road leading up to the gate is either side of the snake being pulled into two.The capital was eventually relocated to its current city of Phnom Penh during a 4 year war with the Siem people. The complex was then abandoned and pretty much not used of after.

Angkor Wat (the famous one)
Wat means temple in Sanskrit, so this is the capital temple, built in the 12th century for a place of worship for the kings, located outside the angkor thom walls. Its surrounded by its own moat, which is pretty awesome because any of the temples sit in their own water, as the porous limestone lets the water run though, but not out from under the temples. But Angkor Wat has a moat so the water goes there, and its been continuously used even after the relocation of the capital, so its the most intact temple in he complex, and also the biggest. Its area encloses an area of 4km and the temple itself is 1km (when i say this, i mean km^2). The temple was built during the Hindu period, and was then used for Buddhist worship when they changed religions in Cambodia. There is 1 gate surrounding the complex, which sits on 4 levels with 3 of them being levels of the buildings. Every single square inch of this place (not including the floor, but including the ceiling) is completely covered in etchings and drawings. Its beautiful! Every little nook and entrance and column is covered in pictures of Hindu Gods, lotuses, bas reliefs (stories), etc. The 1st floor has the bas reliefs on it. They include many of the stories we saw at Prambanan in Indonesia, the famous Hindu ones, also including the battle of the milk sea. Since its a UNESCO, there are many different countries working of recovering the workings, and the US is renovating the milk sea story here. Monks pray at the 3rd story, as there's a monastery next to it. Our tour guide made a point to mention they are not forced monks like the Thais, as he said every male in Thailand has to take a monk-ship in his life.

One of the bas reliefs shows 3 levels in carvings, representing the 3 levels, heaven, earth, and hell. There are 36 Hindu punishments received in hell for different things and they are shown in the bas reliefs. Here are the ones I remember. Adulterers, both the male and female, have to climb a thorn tree and get impaled with the thorns as they do it. Women who have abortions are brought to hell and hot stones are put in their belly. Men who cheat other men have a long stick stuck inside of them.... Quite interesting depictions. 

The main entrance here is to the west, not east, for many reasons as well. IT was first built to be a mausoleum they think, since facing the west represents the sun going down and all its insinuations, like the end of life, etc. Also, if it faced the east, it would put its back facing the Angkor Thom capital, which would have just been rude. Its east gate is also very close to the stream that was used to help carry the rocks from the quarry to build, so its the only temple with a west entrance. 

From 1177-1181, the Angkorians fought with the Cham (pronounced jam). Cham is a country (region I guess) that Vietnam has since taken over, which is why nobody has heard of it in the US. Anyway, they waged war for 4 years which the temple was being completed, so some places are not complete and were finished later in life by the Buddhist monks in the 16th century (who also pained parts of the Temple red but that has since wore off). Fortunately, there is only one civil war scar (Cambodia vs Khmer rouge, the people who did the genocide from 1975-1979) which was 1 bullet hole.

There are these chambers, which are the the "foyers" into the temple from the outside. If you stand near the walls, you can pound on your chest (make a loud deep noise basically) and it echos! Called the echo chamber, the story behind it is if you are angry and want to get it out, come here and beat your chest and get your anger out and it echos. They had this is another temple also. 

When we left breakfast, we passed this place again and saw people taking wedding photos. Our guide said he was recently married and got some shots in front of the temple too, its  Siem Reap thing and apparently the rest of Cambodia is jealous. Wouldn't blame them lol Also when we left, our guide showed up this offering. It was a skinned chicken, and you offer the skin which still has its feathers on. The offering is made for the gods to help sickly family members.

Prehn Khan (pray kan)
So the king who built the Angkor Thom also built a large majority of the stuff inside, including this temple. is name was Javavarman VII (I will call him VII because its just easier for me) and is mega famous. Varman (look in his name) is a common title the kings add to their names, as in Sanskrit it means king of gods (or god of kings, but you get the idea). This temple he built for his father, and was used as a university to mainly royals during its time period. VII was the Cambodian who fought back (before he was king) to the Cham people when they started the war and took over. He was made king after that. This temple was built in 1191 on one of the main battlefields during the war. The overall design scheme is a large cross hallways which you could see all the way to the other end from each cross side. In the middle there is a stupa (Buddhist grave stone like thing), but there was originally a bronze statue. More on that later. The doorways are purposely quite small, to force people to bow when they enter. Right now its still being renovated, so its pretty collapsed in.

During the change from Hinduism to Buddhism, all the temple (minus Angkor Wat) was changed. All the wall sculptured of Buddha was removed, leaving an outline of a sitting Buddha where the sharp objects were used to carve out the statue. There are etchings on columns of a cross legged Buddha that were etched over to show an oddly sitting Hindi god and Buddha was giving a beard. You can still see the original Buddha sitting behind it. There are lots of Garuda (Bhrama's bird vehicle in Hinduism, hes like the "head"god) and Naga (the snake) combinations here. Naga is represented in both religions, but now its seen as a Buddhist figure, so these are a show of the coming together of religions.

Another thing here are lingas, which are like pillars with 3 different shaped pieces (think circle pillar with a hexagonal part and a square part) that represents the 3 "head" gods of Hinduism. The pillar is set in a stone block and water is poured on top of it. There is a small drainage canal carved in to the rock that sticks out which is supposed to represent the female organ, and makes the water become holy when it pours out the other side. 

This temple, like many others, was very looted. The bronze statue that was in the middle was taken by the Siem people when they were at was with the Cambodians in the 14th century. Its believed it was destroyed and has never again been found. This temple, mainly in the center of the cross, was covered in small holes on the wall that used to hold rubies, sapphires, and copper pieces, to add reflection to the place for beauty. Many deities that are females also had jeweled belly buttons and eyebrows, which have been looted away. Many heads of statues have been taken off to sell on the black market and its still popular to do that these days also.

We saw a nun (looks like monks meaning shaved head lol) here selling stuff to make offerings. She had no teeth. The guide says nuns (women) don't smoke normally, but they chew this harsh tobacco and that's why she has no teeth. He was also explaining this other stuff they chew, a combination of beetle powder and this white paste that comes from firing a clam shell, that turns red when you chew it, which was why her tongue was dyed red. Gross and creepy.

Bayon (bay yuan)

This temple was built by VII for himself, sitting directly in the middle of the 12km square made by the Angkor Thom walls inside the capital. It is different from the rest, as the bas reliefs represent only true stories about Cambodian life. The majority of the bas relief on the outside represent his conquering of the Cham people. There are walls about the land and sea battles, as the war began when the Cham invaded by sea. The different ethnicity's are seen on the wall, as well as the Chinese soldiers who came to help he Cambodians. There are many depictions of the daily life of the Cambodians, with markets, food, etc. There's a funny one of a women who is holding a turtle to cook, and the turtle bites her husband in the butt and he's screaming, its kind of funny.

The coolest thing about this temple is the faces. There are large round blocks with 4 faces (many gods have an additional four faces on the top of their head). There are a total of 49 blocks + 5 from the gates = 54 blocks. These represent the 54 provinces of Cambodia during his time period. So there are 54*4=216 faces. There is only 1 large smiling face with open eyes, showing the peoples love for their king. WE took lot of fun photos that look like we are kissing the statues!

Ba Poon
This is another large temple that you can't go inside (only around) because its still being renovated. They started renovations when the French occupied it. Then it got bombed during the Vietnam War and the top was blown off. The French and after had documented each stone and was rebuilding it, when the Khmer Rouge took power and destroyed all the documentation and where each stone went and what the temple looked like before. So they are having trouble putting it back together. It looks like a pyramid of squares. One of the lengths of the walls used to be a 17m reclining Buddha, which isn't there anymore, you you can still see the outline.

Royal Palace
There isn't actually one here... well there is but its not around anymore, you can only see the royal temple that only the kings + his family used inside the capital. The royal palace and houses were built of wood, so they have since disintegrated, but they found foundations so they know when exist. The wall surrounding the royal complex was made of stones, however its destroyed and in rubble. People believed since it was a royal wall, it had rubies and gold inside of it so they looted it, but there wasn't any and they found none.

Elephant Terrace
This is a stage-like thing that overlooks the parade grounds during the Angkor time, which has 12Buddhist temples (mini ones) on the back. There are lots of carvings of elephants and structural holdings that are made to look like elephants trunks hold of the walls. Cool.

Ta Prohm
This is the Tomb Raider Temple, as it was featured in the movie and pretty much is what brings tourists to Angkor Wat. It was built by VII for his mother and is pretty much in runs minus the main walls. The thing that is SOOO famous about it are the trees. There are 150+ trees here that look like birch, called Sprung (translated Sanskrit). They are white and have the same texture as birch, and the only leafy parts are right at the top. They can grow on about anything and have crazy roots. So there are trees that began to grow on the tops of the walls and have rooted down and around the walls and rocks of the temple walls. You have to google it or look at my FB pictures to understand just how awesome it is....

We went to a few other minor places, such as Batey Kdai and saw what would be the swimming pool (giant lake) in the complex. We saw the oldest temple in the complex built pre-anything else in the 10th century that was made of bricks. We went to the top of a very high hill which has an active Buddhist temple on top (Angkor period as well) to watch the sunset (it was cloudy) but we could get a 360 panorama of the Tonle Sap Lake, Angkor town, Siem Reap, everything! I'll stop, because this is long. Bit it rock, the tour guides all are park certified and went to school for lots of years and do apprentice ships there so they rocked, it was amazing!

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Day 2: Siem Reap, Cambodia

Sticky keyboard, apologizing in advanced.

Kara and I spent the day on a boat tour of Tonle Sap lake. Its the biggest lake in SE Asia and is quite amazing. it varies per season, from 2m deep and 2500km^2 of area to 12m deep and 12,000km^2 of area! we lucked out, we were the only ones on the boat in our tour, and our guide spoke very good English and wanted to just share everything with us! here is what we did :)

We got picked up in a nice AC Car. even at 8am, the eventual 92 degree weather was in the mid 80s. We drove through the local streets of town and our guide was telling us about the basic jobs in Cambodia, farmer, fisher, and seller. the sellers, business man, either are educated and are "rich men" or they set up a small convenient store-like shop out of the downstairs and sell snacks and gas. the people i learned liked to buy gas from these people as the gas pumps charge a government tax. We got to see the rich and poor men house, as he differentiated. Just as an example, the rich man would own a color TV (not big screen, LCD, or multiple channels...) and the poor man couldn't afford one. They were all stilt houses. The rich ones were nicely painted, made out of nice wood and some had stucco looking coverings. the poor houses were smaller stilts made out of wood and the walls/roof was dried palm leaves. The stilts were for many things besides just to keep the house safe from the highly fluctuating river, such as protecting from dangerous snakes and insects and a place to keep the cows and dogs and chickens, which most have. The right side of the road was the rich side, as they backed up to a rice paddy and were allowed to own land. The poor left side backed up to the river, which wasn't allowed to be owned as it was government property.

We reached the end of a long road at a ''mountain' which was just a tall hill with a temple on top. It was the ONLY high ground around and was useful for helping lost fisherman get back to the port. This is a lake that looks like the great lakes, like an ocean. There are a number of villages inside and out and i will try and explain the best I can. a long time ago, there were two types of villages, the stilt ones and the floating houses. The floating houses are actually movable and not attached to the lake by any means. Education became harder for both villages, as high schools and even secondary schools were only being built in the city, so their children had no transportation and possibly not enough money even to attend the city schools. The villages then got left in the dust and were very poor. The floating villages try to adapt, but building some stilt houses along a road build by the pier to the lake, which was owned by a Korean company to promote tourism on the lake. They also built permanent floating houses and schools, meaning they rise with the water but are anchored to the ground. So now, there are floating villagers that part of the year live on the lake, part of the year live in these new houses. There is still a purely stilt village we visited, as well as one other village that has stilt houses but takes them apart and moves on dry land during the year. and then re-builds back when they are done!

When I saw floating village, i don't mean like just houses live we've seen in Indonesia. These are legit 'gas stations", food stores, religious buildings, restaurants, etc everything is floating. So we are in mega dry season right now, and the lake is at its lowest, and is this ugly clay color of mud since its only a few feet deep. We can see the whole mangrove forest of trees towering 10s of feet into the air. During the rainy season, only the tip tops of these trees are visible, how neat! We sent to each village and saw how each season gave a different way to catch fish, including some acre-long complicated contraptions that look like mazes... The stilt village was all dried up, so we walked through it. The children had just got out of school, as they only went to school half a day (and had to go to the city past primary school). There were all sorts of animals and naked babies running around again. I learned all the animals but the pigs were allowed into the houses during the flooded season, and the pigs had a communal floating pen. There was one place that was high enough to be always not flooded, the town monastery. they had local monks who lived off the towns donations and we got to see the small kitchen where the old ladies cooked for them. They only eat breakfast and lunch, and cannot be alone talking with a lady or touch one ever. They had lots of stupas and pagodas being built, and our guide told us that bodies were cremated in there, as they don't bury their dead like many others do.

We got to see the small primary school, which had gotten recent money from NUS (college in Singapore)'s angel fund. It had wide access to the towns water supply that was put up about 40 feet in the air to keep from contamination from the flooded seasons. Each house had pipe access to the water, and there was a small well by the monastery that had a sign that it was donated form a family from PA. Each house also had battery-operated electricity that they had to charge daily. Somehow. There was drying peanuts and shrimp on the sidewalk. I learned the dried shrimp goes for 3 times as much money per kilo than fresh shrimp here. Makes sense, as in Singapore they literally sprinkle it on EVERYTHING like it was salt or Parmesan cheese or something....

We went back to the floating village to see a restaurant where they kept some animals for attraction. They have small crocodiles at  this lake, and they are a great catch/breed for people as they are very expensive to sell to surrounding countries. They also farm catfish here to make money during the low seasons. We learned that there can be over 400,000 tons of fish caught each year here, and as well as 5 million snakes (also caught to sell to feed the crocs and eaten, including pythons). There were small boys waiting in little boats for us, and when we approached the floating restaurants, tried to come in the boat to let us hold their pythons. These little 6 years olds were relentless. There was already a 3 year old (I swear to god he was 3) who jumped into our moving boat from his fathers moving canoe with a huge bucket of beer to try and sell us.... Anyway, we got to see there are over 400 kinds of fish here and they sell rice "wine"(liquor) they soak in scorpions and snakes to make more potent.....

Unfortunately, Alma made it to the airport just on time and forgot her passport and won't be joining us :(

the market here is amazing. Bought presents, so can't tell you specifics :) BUT there are amazing real gemstone jewelry and silk and homemade soaps and everything SOOO cheap here! Misquitos are out really bad tonight though :/ The food here is great and very cheap. The alcoholic beverages are about 25cents a beer, we had 8 margaritas for $5 tonight with dinner. Its ridiculous. Can't complain. But must get sleep, got a 5am sunrise tour of Angkor in the morning :) 

Monday, May 2, 2011

Day 1: Phnom penh/Siem Reap, Cambodia

So what I am trying to do this vacation is post at the end of the days, since we will be here for 8 days and thats just a bit too much for me to write on one day11 

Our hour and a half flight went pretty quick. I'm taking this trip with Kara, an American from the Midwest. As we were going through customs of the surprisingly nice Phnom Penh airport in the capital city o Cambodia, We saw on the news station that bin Ladin was dead. Of course there was no Internet so I didn't get to see anything more. It was sooo hot when we got outside. It's in the low 90s with about 80% humidity and it's dry season. The air was filled with heat haze and dust. We got into our motorized tuk tuk to our hostel where were getting picked up by the bus for an exciting six hour bus ride across country to Siem Reap for a few days. 

Immediately this place looks like Vietnam. Try drove on the right side o he road and the building style and street set up was Vietnamese. The french controlled this country during the colonial era so the rarely used secondary translation was French. We drove a good spam of the city and got to see the highlights. The streets were sandy and dirty and it wasn't very crowded. There were a few multiple story buildings along the road by the airport but most were abandoned during or after construction. A few of these buildings had signs that read they were government buildings including, ironically, the department of labour building which was abandoned during construction. As we got closer to the city center, Which was very small and consisted of low rise buildings for a capital, the new government buildings towered and were quite pretty. Everything just had a layer of dust and sand and trash. No green and very dry.

We got to our hostel Where we were picking up and waiting for the bus. It's was lovely with a pool good prices. Everybody uses America money but only bills. All purchases or change under a dollar was dealt in reils, the Cambodian currency. We got onto a bus an hour later bit was slightly air conditioned and two stories, us at the top. There is a large river and lake that connects the two cities. The bus road, unpaved but bring paved, runs to he north east of the lake which has almost no cities. There were a few very poor and small villages with stilt houses up against the raised road overlooking a large dry plain of nothing. There are small farm squares for rice and other things but it's out of season and it looks like I could be in Africa or something. There was a hill and a few other spots inherent distance where u can see temples towering which was pretty neat. As the day went on, things did get greener as time went on. There were lots of Lilly pads growing in puddles. There were lots of little naked babies running around with dogs and cows. There seems to be lots of happy animals and kids running around. It was nice at night, seeing the stars since Singapore is just so bright. 

Siem Reap was very quiet when we arrived. We are staying at a 3 star hotel for $6.50 per night with free tuk-tuks everywhere in the city. We went out for dinner, eating some weird pizza with free beer. As soon as we got to the food area of our part of town, a small boy carrying a baby came and grabbed by side, pleading he needed to eat. Common ploy, but still sad none the less. The market here is insanely awesome. Real gemstone jewelry for dirt cheap and silk everything. this will be a fun trip :)  Keyboard on this computer sucks and driving me nuts, will write more tomorrow!

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Day 5: Yogyakarta, Indonesia

We woke up in the early morning and grabbed a taxi to the airport. Our driver sounded like he had a cold and we got to hear his hacking and coughing up things the whole gross 30 minutes ride to the airport. We had some issues here. Instead of like the rest of the world. you paid airport tax not in the cost of your ticket, but separately here. It was $10USD. We had NO money. We argued with the lady, telling her what do you want us to do? We had NO money left and we need to get on our plane. She pretty much said that sucks. As we were arguing with her, a nice Indian couple came up to us and lent us the money. They were flying to Singapore, so we did get to pay us back. But this pretty much ruined the day for us, as we were freaking out that we couldn't leave the country....

Overall it was an amazing trip! We learned so much and got to see great nature and be in non-touristy areas, which are always the best!!! Only have 23 more days here, with 8 days in Cambodia coming up and a few big Singaporean trips this weekend. 4 exams, 1 test, and 1 paper to go :)

Day 4: Kaliurung/Solo, Indonesia

Funny story. So we got up at 3am to meet our drivers to the sunrise tour to see a temple, which was an hour away. We got to this little village and went into one of the rooms, where we were told to wait and eat (they gave us tea and toast) while waiting on the other people to join us. Long story short, they took us to the wrong tour. We were getting briefed on our climb up Mt. Merapi when we realized this isn't what I think it is. I re-read the confirmation, and still have NO idea how there was a mix up, but the original reason we came to Indonesia was to climb this mountain so we decided to stay. Quick back history: Merapi, meaning fire (mer) mountain (api) in Sanskrit, is considered to be the most active volcano in the world, given this title by a group of vulcanologist who are in charge of making this list. It erupts big at least once a year, with larger explosions every 7 years and HUGE ones every 70. The mountain is surrounded by many small villages, which we could consider to be developing places. In Nov 2010, they had their 7-0 year gigantic explosion. It killed 300 people and there are 100 missing. They had a month warning thanks to technology, but a few villages refused to clear out because they believe their daily prayers and offerings would prevent the volcano to explode. The village closest to the dangerous side, the south where the eruption flows happened this time, decided to all stay put (there was 30 of them) since their chief spiritual man said it won't explode, I've been praying. They unfortunately were all buried alive in the explosion.

Our guide, Christian, was a very famous man in his country. His village was the most developed due to his fame. There is one ecologist on the main 5 islands of Indonesia, and he was Java's ecologist. He was man of the year in Indonesia a few years back. He is also a firefighter and in his 60s. He told us we would be going up on a hill/ridge where its considered to be the level 3 danger zone. He was one of the few allowed there because of his expertise and said we would be safe. It was drizzling when we left at 5am, and the sun was barely up when we started the walk. Within 20 min, we had reached the danger zone, which was a little scary if you lived in that village! We stood on the ridge facing the mountain. Now imagine. To the left, was the Kaliurung village we had just left. The trees in the forest were standing with no leaves, but there was lots of green low brush growing back. To the right was N.O.T.H.I.N.G. For as far as the eye could see, there were flattened trees, all brown and no green, burnt by the 1000C + hot pyroclastic flow that had tore through the area. All the trees looked like sticks, flattened in the same direction. The valley below us we were looking in had mini gorges in it, caused by another giant explosion in the 1000AD time period. There was literally no green anywhere to be seen, it was unreal.

In the distance you could see the villages. Christian pointed us out the first village that got hit where the villagers decided to stay. They had since dug out the houses. There was a line of small villages on another ridge next to the valley, with destroyed houses that looked very odd, as they were colorfully painted, the only color in the stripped land. There was a temporary road that had been built. Christian said the villagers lived in a temporary government refugee camp and would return to their village only during the day, when it was safe, to keep tabs on their belongings. Apparently, many city people would come to the evacuated villages and steal things.There was a total of 22 villages destroyed by the blast. All of this happened in only 13 minutes.

We stayed on this ridge for another 2 hours about. Christian showed us growing tiger balm and cinnamon. We had lots of fallen tree to climb over, it was quite a hike. We came across a former seismology center. In the month before the explosion, it was stripped of its equipment for safety reasons. The left over steel structure was grossly twisted and knocked down, completely destroyed and useless. It was magnificent in a very scary way. When the morning haze cleared, you could clearly see all the way to the top of the 2975m volcano. It had blown off 10m from Nov 2010, previously 2985m. The explosion caused the peak to explode in half, resulting in two peaks with the crater in the middle. There was huge columns of white smoke coming out of the top, which was safe, given it wasn't black. Christan told us he uses a combination of technology and nature to determine when the volcano will erupt. Technology can track the rising lava from inside the crater, but there are other natural ways to tell. He told me three ways and I only remember two. First, snakes will start to run away, since they live underground and can sense the changes. Also, dogs will start to bark at the volcano. Speaking of animals, there are macaws and black panthers that live whats left of the forest around Merapi. Christan had seen 3 panthers i nth 6 years he has been giving tours and believes there are only 10 left since the explosion. They live in the caves right near the base of the volcano.

We reached the end of the ridge and found flowers laid on newspaper. Locals still come to give offerings to the volcano. Christian told us of the horror stories of 1 of the people who has died climbing the volcano, because he chose to take a bad path (he was actually climbing it on the rock faces) and about a couple who was lost for 4 days and the rescue efforts that went into finding them. He said the royal family and Yogya sultan come out once a year to make their annual offerings. They and many others believe there is an invisible kingdom inside the volcano. Christian said he doubts if he will ever climb to the peak ever again after this past explosion. He believes is a sign from nature that the mountain is saying "stop putting your feet on me, leave me alone" and he is going to respect that.

We continued down another way into the more protected valley near Kaliurung village. We came across a park and waterfall snuggled up to the valley, which had much destruction from falling trees from the blast. The waterfall was tall but weak, this being the beginning of dry season in Indonesia. We same to the "touristy" part of the park. Once again, we are the only tourists around. This is not an area for tourists or westerners, as most of the "tourists" are people from local villages. We had our second of three breakfasts, a nice variety of local breakfast foods. There was these fried omelet looking things, with tomatoes, onions, etc that you ate with whole green chile's. They had friend bananas and my favorite, sticky coconut rice you sandwich around cooked soy with brown sugar. Delicious. We walked back to the village a bit later after talking to Christian a bit more about Indonesia and went to our starting point where we had yet another breakfast, this time more westernized. We got banana pancakes, like the amazing pancakes we had in Bintan (Indonesia) With bananas inside we dipped in honey. We got fruit also, which included avocado. He brought out fresh milk for our tea "from the cow down the street" that had been taken that morning. Amazing!

It was a little funny, Christian had asked us about Obama. Everybody in Indonesia said two things when they met us. They asked Alma is she was mixed (Asia, which she isn't) and if we knew Obama. He studied around here in high school, his step dad from Indonesia. Christan said when he came to visiting in November after the explosion, he spoke Indonesia and pretty much dropped everybody to the floor when he spoke.

We decided to not go back to the temple, as we pretty much had no money left, and to catch a bus and go to Solo. It was a two hour bus ride through cities with no AC and people here don't have a large of a bubble as Americans do, so it was very crowded and awkward. About every stop, which consisted of a guy hanging out the back of the bus door, which were opened the whole ride, and he would bang on the bus if he saw a guy waving the bus down. The bus slowed down, didn't stop, and the passenger would make a leap onto the bus. There were musicians that got on about every stop, mostly young men with tattoos and ear piercings singing and playing the guitar or ukulele. They would come around for tips at the end. On the way back from Solo, we had some rude musicians get all bothered that us two tourists didn't give them loads of money, since everyone assumes us to be rich, but it wasn't that bad the whole time. The music was nice! There were a few people tyring to sell food and wallets and pens (weird), they would give them to you and come back around to see if you wanted to pay or if you opened the food and already started eating it. I almost fell for that, confused why I was getting free food, but caught on luckily.

Solo was quite disappointing. I had read its the cultural rival to Yogya and less touristy so you can see the real Indonesia. I think it had more to do with the fact that NOBODY had a map so we were lost literally 100% of the time we were there and it was Sunday, the day of rest, so about 90% of everything was closed. NOBODY spoke English. IT was hard trying to tell people where to go in the tuk-tuks, which we only knew one place that was open the antique market. Big rip off. Nobody wanted to haggle, which was weird, because there are NO tourists that come here, so who else would buy their junk? There were a few rude people here, but we figured they aren't as sued to tourists as Yogya and everywhere else was so it was whatever. We wandered around another local market, lost, and upset that we couldn't even book a bike tour like we wanted too since all the tour guide were off on Sundays. IT was bad planning, and we ended up just getting back on the bike and leaving. It was just a day of confusion from the start, as we got mega lost when we returned to Yogya but eventually found our way back to our hostel, where we sat down for some westernized Indonesian food and beer.

Day 3: Yogyakarta, Indonesia

The train was uneventful. We sat in reclining seats, watched a bit of TV, and fell asleep (kind of) until our arrival in Yogya at 3:50am. We wandered down the road a bit. It was quiet and empty, expect for tuk-tuks with their drivers passed out inside. We went into a hotel lobby for a minute to use the restroom and ended up getting escorted outside, but it was okay We took refuge in a 24 hour McD's and waited until breakfast and the bus to start. We headed the bus stop where we were met with the nicest people who helped us get into the 30 cent bus for the almost hour ride to Prambanan Archaeological Park.

After our much needed nap and lunch at an amazing Indo-French pizza joint, we decided to do a Little local exploring of our area despite the thunder and rain. This part of town, a few miles south of the train station and main tourist areas, is much quieter, cleaner, less crowded, and just plain nicer. The "Main stretch" is 2 block of the road we stay on, which is more like an alley than a road. The stores are all Batik (explanation to come) and antique shops. We had fun looking at all the random and old trinkets and made a few local purchases. There was a shop dedicated to only locally made items, which was quite alot. Here, there is silver, copper, and brass jewelry and stuff made, puppets, leather skin workings (explanation to come), carving, painting, batik, stitching, everything. There was some trouble purchasing, due to me forgetting my money in the hostel, so we kept walking up and down the same road window shopping, eating, and getting my money. There was a tuk-tuk driver who wanted to talk, even after he discovered we WALK everywhere. He asked about Obama, the "icon" of America to many places overseas. We finally decided, as the rain had stopped, to go see the sultan's palace. Don't know every much about it, except its not as cool as it sounds and got boring reviews. Basically the guy wanted $2 for both to drive us around, take us new places, do the palace, and wait, so we agreed.

Little did we know, the palace was closed already, which was fine. He instead took us to a few local art places where we learned alot. First stop was a leather maker. By maker I mean carver. We walked into a room with a table and a stone and some tools. The maker talked to us for about an hour. They imported buffalo leather, as Indonesian buffalo hide is too tough since they are working animals here. The items they made were puppets. Leather people with button hinge arms and legs. They made VERY intricate patterns designed on them (that went all the way through) that were created by hammering different ended bike nails into the leather. Back in the day, the puppets were used to educate children about life lessons. They had good/bad motifs, sharing, etc. The puppets have since developed characteristics. There are 200 total figures, 100 human, 50 animals, 50 others. They are representations of Hindu Gods. The actual people all look almost the same, which is the point, as the stories are about what is inside, not on the outside, that counts. They have odd body features, for example, all have very large butts. This represents the bottom of a human, earth. The patters of this earth represent the 4 elements. The upper part, around the chest, is the emotions. There are swirls, representing the ups and downs of emotion. The evil spirit that everyone has is represented on the back of the neck (why yous hairs stands up there when you sense evil/danger) because you can't see your own evil spirit. All the colors to color the leather when they are finished are naturally made and stand for something. Yellow, from tumeric, is justice. Red, from beetles, is smarts. Blue, indigo, loyalty. White from crushed buffalo bone, gold from insect wings. He then asked us about our favorite colors and told us the traits we might have from them. He, just like all the others in SE Asia, asked Alma is she was mixed bc she looked Asia. He found out we were American and said Obama studied here and he and Clinton came and got puppets. And they are the only leather puppet makers that supplied the palace with their puppets. I bought one, Khumi, who is a mothering figure. I gave the maker my email address and he will be sending me her story.

Next we made a stop at the art gallery that sells art from the the university at Yogya's Fine Arts program. There were a few oil paintings, but mostly batik. We sat down with the shop owner with some tea, where he made another mention of Alma's possible Asian-ness when she dumped sugar into hers, as Indonesians like their palette sweet. Batik is much more complicated than we thought. First, beeswax is melted and a handmade instrument is used to make a drawing. It has a little canister on a piece of bamboo or wood that send the wax into a thinner tube, so it comes out like pens ink. Each instrument has any different sizes. What happens is, the wax makes a painting, then the cloth is dipped into die, so the cloth under the wax isn't colored. The cloth then gets dipped into hot water and the wax comes off. So, for the traditional sarongs, this is okay, because they are simple repetitive designs with one color. But paintings are not. You have to plan to over lap colors and put more wax over certain ones, its complicated . The artists now are experimenting with different techniques to come up with different textures.  Because it is dyed and no wax is left when its come, the actual cloth is like a shirt, its dyed. You can hand wash it, iron it, fold it, touch it, etc. Awesome.

Got an early night with an earlier rise (3am) to make our sunrise tour!!!

Day 2: Carita, Indonesia

We woke up with the sunset and got in a quick breakfast of tea, toast, and jelly. We met up with our tour guide who spoke okay English. He showed us a map in the hotel of where we were going. Let's do some brief history to make this all make sense. A very long time ago, there was one HUGE volcano in the middle of the strait. Its about a 2 hour boat ride (with double motors) from Carita, so the volcano is literally in the middle of nowhere in the ocean. This huge volcano exploded and created 3 giant volcano's. The infamous 1883 explosion occurred, the largest volcanic eruption ever recorded by man that was heard almost around the world. The 1883 volcano (the one of the three that actually erupted) was split in half and destroyed the other two, leaving itself and three other volcano islands around. In 1923, a new island volcano surfaced, the volcano they now call Krakatoa. It grows at an amazing 3-4 cm PER DAY and is not around 620m above the water. This volcano remains the most active, giving off almost nightly shows of fire explosions and lava flung into the air. Its about 95% volcanic rock on the island with a small mini forest on the far south side that doesn't get affected from the eruptions as much. The rest of the volcano islands are less active with much more vegetation on them.

We boarded a small boat with our guide, me and Alma, and 2 other helpers and started on the 2 hour journey into the middle of the ocean. We started the tour by coming to an idol and circling the small Krakatoa volcano. There was smoke coming out the top and vents in the sides. The whole volcano is stained with sulfur deposits, giving its slopes a striped look of white sulfur on the black volcanic rock. The majority of the shoes was jagged hardens lava formations from the hot stone hitting the cooler ocean. The small part of the island by the jungle was made up of black sand. The water around here was the most perfect water in the history of the ocean (I Really believe this). The shallow ocean floor immediately near the islands was not sand, it was rock. This kept the water from getting murky from all of the sand floating around in the ocean so it was perfectly clear. The water near Krakatoa had a neat dark teal look, as it was floating over black, not white, sand.

There was pumice floating in the surf when we left the boat and one the shore of Krakatoa. The island is like one big slope until you reach the crater. There is a smaller hill very near the top, but a safe enough distance away to got be in danger of the sulfur or smoke. We started through the mini jungle and onto a hill of volcanic sand which was very steep and hard to climb. We reached the top of the hill and over the other side was all the sulfur and craters. Since we were about 600m up, we had an amazing view of all the other volcanic islands around us. We left down another side, allowing us to get close enough to the sulfur to feel its effects and start coughing, it was a little cool haha One the way back , we saw one of the few animals that live on this island, the monitor lizard. This lizard looks like a baby kimono dragon, with the same creepy look and walk and quite large. Half of its tail was bitten off, the guide saying it probably got attacked by the other predator on the island, a python...

We got back onto our boat and headed to the 1883 volcanic island. One half was literally cut in half, with its cheer cliff from the top on one side and gentler slope with trees on the other. The cliff half had a large crevice going right down the middle. We took the boat to the slope side where the coral reefs were. When we threw in the anchor, you could actually SEE the coral specifics from the boat, a good 1-2m above the coral. The water was SO clear, since once again, the coral grew on the rock, not the sand, so you could see everything. We spent the next hour or so snorkeling around. We saw eels and tons of fish, a healthy reef with no damage to it. This place was obviously not a tourist place and it was very healthy and maintained by nature. It was the most beautiful water/reef I have ever seen!

Unfortunately, we had a night train to catch in Jakarta to take us to the next destination, so we had to leave in the afternoon to made it back in time. We finished our lunch of shrimp friend rice, egg, and friend chicken, and took a nap while we finished our 2 hour journey back to shore. Our guide told us about how his grandfather was living in Carita during the 1883 explosion. Everybody took refuge in the mountains, which are right on the coast, and had to live there for three months before it was safe enough to come back to their homes, which were all destroyed. The drive back was pretty uneventful. We got to see Carita and the other beach towns for over an hour in the daylight, since we were stuck in traffic as they were repaving part of the roads and nobody wants to listen to the traffic guys so we just sat there for a while.... there were cows and SO many goats and sheep wandering around, it made for good window amusement while we were stuck there. We saw a good amount of rice patty fields. Something I also noticed, so the rice in Vietnam was different than any rice I've had in the US or SE Asia, its much smaller grains and harder. They served that same type of rice in Indonesia as well, which I wonder what it is....

We made it to the train station with 1.5 hour to spare. Our guide told us we had to check in an hour before so we left the train station to wander around their National Independence Square that bordered the station. Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, had a large park with a huge Washington monument-like structure in the middle. There were SO many people, playing soccer, flying kites, and just sitting and realizing. I almost walked into the men's bathroom, making the wrong guess on which Indonesian word meant women, which now I won't forget, wanita. There were lots of groups of kids/teenagers who wanted to say hi, seeming like they wanted to practice their English. Oh, something I forgot to mention. We are like the ONLY white people here. We saw absolutely NO other Caucasians in Carita or Jakarta and only about 10 TOTAL in Yogya. This really isn't a tourist place. So, given that fact, we got lots of Hi Misses! and Hello how are yous shouted from groups of boys who all giggled when we responded.

We went into the train station to grab some food. We ordered pizza, but some other Waiter took mine accidentally and gave it to another person, which sucked because it was the last pizza they had. We realized this, but our waiter was pacing around the restaurant, casting us glancing, obviously upset and didn't want to tell us what happened ,poor guy! Alma got her pizza, which was cheese over ketchup on bread. Not bad.... lol

We went to the train, and was told we couldn't board until exactly when it arrived, at 8pm. So we attempted to get on the Internet, which was slower than dial up, and just stood around for the train. A  police man came up to me while I was standing in the middle of the station waiting for Alma in the rest room. I could see he wanted to see if I was up to no good, being a foreigner standing in the middle of a station alone with a huge bag pack, but once I told him what I was doing, he wanted to teach me some Indonesia words, he was very nice. We got onto the train, which were all like airport seats, and tried to fall asleep during our 8 hour trip across into central Java to Yogyakarta.

Day 1: Jakarta, Indonesia

We landed in Jakarta at 7pm and was met by our drivers who were taking us to Carita Beach, where we would be leaving the following morning for out Krakatoa Park Tour. Indonesia is made up of many islands, with 3 very large ones that run below the equator. Java, the middle of these three island "states" is where Jakarta was and all of the cities we would be visiting this trip. Carita beach was a coastal town on the straits in between Java and Sumatra, the island "state" to the north west of Java. In this strait was where the volcano was. While we were in Carita, I found a map from early 2000s that said there was a no-boat-zone due to unexploded ordinance in the South part of the strait...so who knows what goes on there!

Anyway, we got into the van with out two drivers and started off on our 4 hour car ride through the middle of nowhere Indonesia. Everybody who we met on our trip was overly nice, it was very nice and welcoming. One big this we noticed off the bat, which I noticed in Thailand, was the variety of cars. Americas are led to believe we are the only people who use trucks. False. There were so many trucks in Indonesia as well as a variety of a van/SUV-like car. They are all Asian brands, so they don't look like our cars.

The beginning of the drive was on the highway to get out of the city. We were stuck in some deadlock traffic, and people would come up into the windows in the traffic and try to sell water, toys, fans, trashcans, etc. everything! I also noticed something that confused me a little about the language. They speaks Indonesian here, but there were many words that I recognized from Malaysia, like taman (park), negara (national), etc. We noticed this throughout the trip. I think these are words that originated from Sanskrit, probably from their Arabic friends who brought over Islam, that's my best guess. But it was nice because we knew a FEW words. There were lots of night food vendors with huge signs as "doors" made from banner material with a photo of the animal and its name. This was a nice way for us to quickly learn the foods we liked, ayam (chicken), bebek (duck), and my favorite name, lele (catfish).

The rest of the drive, the other 3 hours, as on potholed half paved roads in large fields and factory lands. There were SO many factories once we got relatively close to the coast, most of them some kind of oil production, as they all had petra in their names. HUGE Ones that looked like they went on forever.

We finally made it to our hotel that was across the street from the beach and it was the most basic tiny thing, but it was nice. We quickly went to bed since we had a 6am wake up in the morning!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

One month Left!!!

Its weird to think this will be one of my last Singapore blogs left to write! I have one month to the day until I get back on the 1+ day travel to the US. I have 4 exams, 1 paper, 1 test, and 2 trips standing in my way!

Went and had lunch with some friends in my Islam class. We had fun comparing Singaporean versions of western foods to ours. A very common "western" dish here is spaghetti with either chicken or steak on top. They asked to try and explain the health care system, it was a little overwhelming. Singaporeans don't really do the health insurance. Many people don't have health insurance here they said. Makes sense, I got 3 injections, meds, and a doctors visit for my toe and it cost less than $90USD! There was no mention of whether I had insurance or not.

Had an interesting conversation with a cab driver the other day. He picked us up from our dorms to take us down the road late at night to meet some friends for beer and chips (the English gal named it :) ). There is a local hawkers center that we drink beer at until all hours of the night since they are opened basically 24/7. THis driver told us that women here don't get canned, its against the law to offer that as a penalty. Kidnapping is another death penalty offense. His opinion was that so many rich people and overseas businessmen work here is because they know their money will not end up on corruption or illegal activities. HE said the rich feel so safe here and bring in their families and money. Interesting theory....

SO tomorrow Alma and I will make our way through Java, one of the Indonesian Providences. We land in Jakarta, not staying there too long as its a very infamous city for corruption and illegal activities... we get in a cab and drive to Carita, a beach town to the west. In the morning, we are taking a boat tour to Krakatoa, the famous volcano that blew the loudest eruption ever recorded y humans (1883). Its required to use 2 engines on any boats in that strait where the volcano-island is just in case, as it and the two sisters it created are very active. Then we will overnight train to Yogyakarta in central Java for a few days, stopping in Solo, a small town near Mt. (volcano) Merapi. It Will be VERY Exciting, as this will be a very non-western place to visit. Java is very know for its MEGA old temples. We will be visiting a 7-9century Hindu AND Buddhist (they are separate) temple, but more on that when I return :)

The last trip left is Cambodia. I will be spending a week their with Kara (another Chicago gal) and Alma will be making a pit stop for a few days to join. I am assuming nobody reading this knows anything about Cambodia, just like I didn't until I got here and researched it, so here's some background. Cambodia has been occupied and kept record on since the late BC's. Its most famous tourist attraction is Angkor Archaeological Site, one of the 7 wonders of the world and UNESCO site, its a HUGE (spanning 100s of acres) temple complex build by the Angkor people. If anyone saw tomb raider, one of the clips was from a ancient temple that looks like its growing into a tree, that was filmed here actually... and the country is just speckled with REALLLY old temples and shrines such as this, everywhere! Recently though, Cambodia hasn't been that great. To the north, they have a border fight with Thailand, mainly in an area that holds the oldest temple in Cambodia. Soldiers on both sides like to shoot each other and deaths have been counted up until Feb 2011.

In the late 70s, the King (Cambodia is actually the Kingdom of Cambodia) did some ethnic purging, turning deaths into a genocide of anybody who was different (if you had glasses, you looked smart, so you deserve to die). The police set in charge of this would take people (I believe 1.4 million were killed...) into what are now know as killing fields, just fields around the area. Then they would be executed and left to rot. Still, 40 years later, these fields are still around with the bones and scraps of clothing. Just fields of skeletons, one of them is in the capital Phnom Phen! There were a few parks I was looking into visiting that would saw if you look towards this view, you see white in the background, thats a killing field :( A popular tourist attraction in the capital is a high school that the police turned into their interrogation rooms. Between this and the Vietnam War (Cambodia borders Vietnam, its due west of Ho Chi Minh/Saigon) the country used to be covered everywhere in land mines. All populated area and main trails for hiking have been swept numerous times, so its safe for tourists, but this isn't a place to wander off into the jungle or behind a village house in the rural area. There are still many places live land mines are known to be kept.

alot. Don't worry, we will be safe of course!

So just because I feel the need to tell you Cambodia isn't just a place with villagers and a bad history, Cambodia has the largest lake in SE Asia that provides the most fish IN THE WORLD to fishers. Yes, there is someone in the world who keeps track of this. They have 1 of 2 jungles left in this part of the world that is TRUELY NOT explored. They have tigers, elephants, and river dolphins (which only Amazon has too). They have famous beaches and a floating hotel. They have beautiful mountains and rivers and this eco-reserve in that lake I was mentioning that has the largest number of endangered birds in the world. Naturally, it holds wonders :)

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Day 3/4: Phuket, Thailand

Today was a nice relaxing day with a little elephant in it :)

I woke up to an awesome spa day. Didn't go for the Thai massage, the hard pressure point body twisting type, but the traditional Swedish. They had a jacuzzi bathtub you could buy time for, but the spa overall was very nice. She washed my feet and I got cold Ginseng tea, which was amazing!


Afterwards, I decided to jump on the free shuttle down to Kamala beach. Immediately when you get down there, one of the first things you notice is all the tsunami and earthquake signs. In 2004, if anyone remembers the huge Tasmania/earthquake that hit that part of the world, I think it was when that model died...? Anyway, Phuket got a direct hit. There was a memorial statue on the beach that as huge, as well as numerous very detailed routes for tourists, locals, and vehicles to get out of the beach in case of a weather emergency. Kind of scary. The beach had normal shops along the road, just like any other beach town. However, there were actual stores ON the beach, as in on the sand. They had restaurants with picnic tables on the Beach and massage parlors and tourist group stands. The whole beach from end to end of the Kamala bay was covered in lounge chairs with umbrellas you paid some guy walking up and down wiping the sand off of to use for an hour or so. I couldn't pay to use a beach chair, that's just wrong, so I settled for the towel in the sand. The water was PERFECT. There was no shells or coral or anything, just sand and clear water. IT was very calm. The beaches in Phuket are all in bays, so its pretty sheltered from the ocean waves. It was beautiful! No fish though, but that's ok. I only stayed for a little, it was super hot and the sand was hot and I really wanted to go lie in the poo loungers :)

So I spent the rest of the day lying in the pool reading my book. Later in the afternoon, my elephant trekking taxi came to pick me up. I found this place on line, they had a good website and the guy I emailed to make the reservation was very nice. It was completely on the other side of the island (the long way) so it took about an hour to get there. The main roads are along the beach, so I got a very scenic drive through the more heavily touristed areas on the way to the elephants. My taxi driver was nice and pointed out lots of things for me. He even showed me where all the "ladies" and "Lady boys" liked to hang out, a infamous trait in Thai culture. It all looked like boardwalk-type shops, all of it. Obviously no locals lived anywhere near this and sadly I didn't get to see how any locals lived. There wasn't even any religious houses anywhere on the Beach, which I thought was odd for this region. It was all dedicated to tourists. IT was the end of high season, so the streets were packed!

We got to the elephant place, after we drove by a few other elephant places, I Realized the one I found online wasn't as unique and special as I thought. Within 2 minutes or arriving, I was sitting on a strapped on bench which was on top of an elephant. You ride shoeless because your feet touch her neck (mine was a 51 year old female). The guide rode on the elephants neck with his feet dangling over her face. He had this really scary looking hook (like an ice pick) that he would gently scratch the elephant with or swat (not hard) at her body to get her moving. She liked to stop and try to eat the grass., even though their rest area was covered in food lol. She had to stop a couple times for the bathroom, as I learned elephants can't walk and "go" as horses do. Elephants walk slow and hit the ground hard, so it was a very bumpy ride. We talked through a rubber farm, where there was lots of bark slitted trees dripping rubber into pots.



On the way home, my driver stopped me at this famous overlook to take photos. You could see the crescents of 3-4 different beaches all the way up the coast for an hour to my beach. IT was amazing! IT was so hot so it was a bit hazy out, but it was still awesome. On top of a hill way in the distance was a huge white Buddha towering over the tree tops. I googled it later after taking a photo. About 10 years ago, some people hiked up to the hill top and could see basically the whole south part of the island, including a what would become very famous sunset point for the island. They decided to build a Buddha monument there, so they imported Burmese white marble and built a 25m tall statue that can be seen from almost anywhere on the south of the island. They call him Giant Buddha. 

I spent the rest of the evening watching the sunset from my hotel and woke up the next morning for an uneventful trip back home. IT was a great vacation!!! I have 2 more weeks of school left and 5 until I come home! I'll be away form the blog probably for these two weeks, well, next weekend I'm off to Indonesia. Good Friday is a holiday here, so we have Thurs-Mon in Java (Island where Jakarta is in Indonesia). And then my 8 day long escapade in Cambodia!!!!!!!!!!

Day 1/2: Phuket, Thailand

I arrived in Phuket later Friday evening. I was very excited about this trip. It was going to be different from all the others. Culture and History was not the main events for this, it was realization and enjoying myself in the paradise of Phuket. Its a poplar honeymoon destination and vacation spot of the wealthy. How can you go wrong?

Phuket is NOT pronounced the English PH sound like F way. Phonetically, its Pooket.

I landed and was picked up by the hotel. They served food outside, so I ate some chicken on a stick by the pool deck. There was an Aussie family who seemed interested in talking to me (they kept looking at me) so I said hi and we ended up talking for the next hour, about what I was doing and what they were doing. Their daughter was graduating high school soon and was very excited to talk to a female scientist. She had dreams of MIT and some California school, telling me how she was surprised there was only 5% Aussies at MIT.

In the morning, I was picked up and driven cross country the short way (Phuket is like a rectangle) to the Ao Po Marina. This was where the "big boat" was leaving on the tour group I joined to go see Phang Nga Bay. Google image Phang Nga Bay!!! My pictures hardly do it justice, as the fog of heat was looming over the ocean. Our boat had two decks, the top one where we hung out and the bottom full of inflatable canoes that we used to wander around the 42 islands in Phang Nga Bay. The Islands, most you can't go into, just into, are large limestone rocks with towering cliffs. The cliffs are a couple hundred feet high with no flat top, that's why you cant go on them. The island have odd formations; there was some mineral or something that erodes quicker than limestone on it, as the bottom of the island was thinner than the top. So think of an upside down cone sticking out of the water. The bottom of the cone had caves and stalactites. It was amazing!!!

Our first stop was to get into a canoe and go into one of the caves. The water was PERFECTLY clear, the lightest shade of teal I had ever seen in an ocean. It looked wonderful up against the leafy green trees and white limestone rocks. I was partnered up with a Colombian who was also solo and we were paddled into the cave by our guide. The guides were all super friendly. The cave was pitch black and the guides all had head lamps. There were bats at certain parts, and they got a kick out of rowing under the bats while everyone screamed not to get guano on them. At the end of the cave, there was an exit into the other side, but it was high tide and you couldn't get out, you could only see the top of the cave exit. The sun shone through the clear water, creating this eerie green glow in the water (see photos).

Next, we went to another popular canoeing spot and just canoes around about 10 islands. We saw hongs, which are Thai for rooms. They are little carved out "rooms" inside the islands. There would be a small entrance via water inside the rock. We would have to lie flat on the canoe to even fit through the opening. Then, we would enter into a lake inside the island, and could see the sky looking up. There were many connecting hongs, which were beautiful. IT was perfectly serene and peaceful, as the ocean waves and other people didn't disturb the inside of the hongs.

Next, we had lunch on the boat, KFC and fried rice and alot of other fried food. Very odd, not Thai food at all. The other guests, (there were 40 of us) were from all over the world. There was a large population (about 12) of Israeli's. Most spoke little English so I kept to my book and got a tan. We dove off the boat after and went swimming. The guides threw in canoes and we flipped them and played chicken since they were inflatable. It was jellyfish season, and there were a flew VERY long creepy looking jellyfish. The guides picked one up and put it in a cup, so I don't think they had a bad sting.

Finally, we went to our last stop, James Bond Island. It's called this because there was some scene filmed here for a Bond film in 1974. Its two "islands" connected by a small beach. Now, the locals built stalls on this beach selling shells and pearls. We took a little boat to shore. The local boats had the weirdest motors, they were truly outboard. They had a motor the size of a cars motor, it was HUGE. But it was on the boat, without any coverings. IT was like a hand held, with a handle to steer, but the prop was on a 12 foot pole out into the water. IT was SO weird! The island had one of the most famous upside-down cone islands and had this very cool rock. The very tall island sometime had a large crack down the middle and shifted, leaving a cave with a perfectly straight cut down the middle. You could see all the layers of the rock inside.

I got a little sunburned, but the day was awesome! I had to wait a bit for my ride since I was staying at a resort in a non-tourist location. I went into the main waiting area of the tourist place, you have to take your shoes off everywhere, this store included.  Kamala Beach, a beach to the north of the tourist locations. It sits on a cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean. Its located on the stretch of road called Millionaire's Mile where all the rich people built houses with amazing views. This place was incredible! It had 3 large pools, all infinity style (looks like they never end) overlooking the cliff/ocean. One had built in pool loungers with Jacuzzi sprays underwaterr. They had a very nice restaurant that served food via candlelight that night overlooking the ocean view. The rooms were great, very modern and open. I got a bathtub, which pretty much made my day! All rooms had sea views and the AC was amazing. Couldn't have asked for a better place!

I opted for room service, because this is a pampering weekend! Watched a little TV, which I only get to do on the nice hotels (meaning the one I stayed at with dad over spring break) so that was nice. After over 6 hours on the boat, I passed out quickly :)

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Fashion and Weddings

So, as a bride to be who cannot be even in the same continent as her wedding, its making my want to talk about wedding stuff get even worse. So I decided to talk to my Chinese teacher about weddings in China! As classes here are literally back to back, (ie class lets out at 330 but your next one starts at 330), I don't have class before Chinese so I always show up 10 minutes before everyone else and we talk about traveling and cultures.

We had a quiz coming up where we had to prepare speeches to recite, mainly about ourselves, and I wanted to learn to say fiance instead of nan pengyou (boy friend) to be more accurate. There is no Chinese word for fiance. There is boyfriend and husband and that is it. She explained to me, in an interesting way, that when China was formed, "I mean, you know, Mao, and the cultural revolution", they decided to make life simpler and get rid of some of the traditions, which were only there as formalities and complicated lives. Engagements and proposals were two of those traditions that were thrown out. When a couple decides they want to get married, they go to the court house, sign papers, and that is that. There is no "Will you marry me?" proposal moment, no parties to celebrate, though she did say after the marriage the families will have a big dinner together. Its just a cut and dry kind of thing, no real excitement and romance in the sense that we in the US treasure. My professor grew up in Central China, but spent alot of her life in Hong Kong. This is where she met her husband. She told me in order to get married in Hong Kong, you must go to the courthouse and sign the papers AND go to a lawyers office as a witness to an exchange of rings. They only do ring exchange in Hong Kong. She said her and her husband ran to the store and bought cheap ones which they used for the exchange only and never wore again. She told me the more recent generations (She was born during the cultural revolution when Mao was still around) have brought back some of the traditions. As a country, China is considering bringing back some of the traditions that the people like, such as an engagement and formal wedding ceremony.

I knew the exchange of rings wasn't a worldy concept, but even in places where they do its not the same. I learned here from my Mexican friends that the wedding band goes on the right hand. There was an awkward moment with an exchange student who didn't realize that in the US, we rep the bands on the left hand, and that was why I had my ring on. But no harm done, just another learning experience!

I've been shopping here a couple times and whenever I go, I do find things to wear. The clothing here, minus the super expensive Gucci-like designer stores, the clothes here are all made from cheap fabric and cheaply stitched, whether its a $5 shirt or a 30$ shirt. I feel like people here are more fashionable than in Daytona, which isn't really saying that much, but I am also in a HUGE city compared to Daytona so my fashion comparison is pretty much shot out the window. Now something I have noticed, in a way that I don't thinks its a fashion statement thing, is that the girls here wear much more feminine clothing than back home. Dresses are way more common, so are skirts and ruffles and pastel feminine colors. Another thing that is very popular here, like at home, is the straight leg jeans especially on guys and the large thick rimmed black eye glasses. Worn more for fashion than necessity, I've spotted lots without lenses which is just weird.... There aren't as many "brands" worn here though. I feel like at home, people where brands a lot instead of wearing certain types of clothing. And even if they don't, the brands are displayed. Most of the stores here might LOOK like chain stores, but its just some guys business. They all buy from the same factory, but instead of working together to create on franchise they all chose to be independent, so there's no local brands or symbols (Think the American Eagle eagle) or anything like that.

They do have a HUGE variety of jewelry and accessories here which is fun :) Its a bit sad, since everything is super cheap and wares easily, but I've found some nice things. There is a open section out in front of one of our canteens where student club vendors and local vendors come periodically and sell stuff or recruit for their club. I found a vendor who sold stone pendants. Alma and I were looking around, and I found a pretty white marble pendant that I liked. The vendor, an Asian in his 40s, told me that if I held it, I could feel the stones pulse. The stone send positive vibes when it was squeezed and could put people in a good mood. Then he asked if he could charge it. Sure, why not? So in the middle of the canteen, he held the stone in his hand, got this far away distance trance-like stare off behind us, and started swaying and chanting. ME and Alma just started at each other, a little embarrassed and very confused. He chanted out loud and some language for about 3 minutes and handed me back the stone. We thanked him and left.

Phuket, Thailand. Google Phang Nga Bay, that's where I'm going to do my big tour! I'm going solo, and splurging on a resort by the beach (still like $60/night only) at one of the most famous Thai beaches, and gong to ride an elephant in the jungle! woo!