Although my first trip really went very smoothly and was quite a success (in my humble opinion!), I desperately needed some serious peace, quiet, and relaxation on my break between trips. I deceided against the beach - too hot right now, and I really wanted a week with no distractions, like full moon parties and buckets of Sangsom (Thai Whiskey!), so I deceided to take the overnight bus to Chaing Mai, in Northern Thailand for some trekking and yoga and hopefully lots of lazing around.
I've been here for 7 days and here's what I've done: Eat, yoga, nap, read, wander, trekking in the jungle, massage, sleep, eat, yoga, read, shop, eat, nap, massage, yoga, watch TWILIGHT, eat, sleep, massage, read. I'm so beyond blissed out, I hardly know what to do. Unfortunately what I HAVE to do is get on a train in a couple of hours and go back to Bangkok, but if I could stay here I would.
There are so many yoga places, I've taken 5 classes, each at a different studio. And every other restaurant is of the crunchy veggie tofu and fruit shake variety, so I've been eating the most delicious food, too. And yes, I invested in a portable DVD player and definitely bought TWILIGHT. And someother movies, too. So I had at least one night in for a movie marathon.
Most importantly, I've had a LOT of alone time. As my mother can attest, that didn't necessarily put me in the best mood yesterday, when I was feeling a bit homesick and neurotic and overly-emotional on the phone, but I think it's a good thing. I haven't had more than a few moments at a time on my own since I got here nearly 3 motnhs ago, and it's been good to let some things process themselves, and to reflect on my already eye-opening (what an understatement) experience here.
Beisides all of this self-indulgent deep thinking I've been doing, I went on a FANTASTIC trek into the jungle. It's called "The Flight of the Gibbons". I haven't watched much of The Amazing Race, but apparently they did the same trek on the show one season. It doesn't have anything to do with Gibbons, other than the fact that it's a huge zipline course through the jungle canopy, so you literally "fly" like a Gibbon (that's a monkey, by the way). I didn't see any, either (although we saw lots on Macaques in Vietnam and Cambodia - so cute!), but I have never been in such a majestic place. The trees are SO OLD. I imagine they're as big as the Redwoods, but they're gnarly and twisted and so unbelievably tall! And somehow, my fear of heights was non-existent. Maybe because I was so Zen-like from all the yoga or something, but I was zippping along like there wasn't a 200 foot drop to the jungle floor below me.
So I'm sad to be leaving, but ready to get back and get on with the next trip, which starts in two days. Wish me luck!
~Erin
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Singing Trees
Like Vietnam, Cambodia felt different the second time around. Maybe because I knew what to expect and had already felt the initial shock of visiting the Killing Fields. And I had immersed myself in several books about the Khmer Rouge so it was all I really had on my mind on that first trip through. I was stunned and inspired by the determination of the people, especially in Phnom Penh, but also deeply saddened by what had happened - and the fact that before this trip I had never really heard anything about it.
This time, although I still love the city and I can see why it was once called the "Paris of Southeast Asia", I felt the seedier, more gritty side of it. It is a place teetering on the brink of badness. Or at least I got that impression this time. There is such a will of the people to change that, and to improve their country, but the government is still so corrupt and ridiculous, it's hard to see it changing any time soon. One of our guides, when discussing the current tribunal to convict former Khmer Rouge of crimes against humanity, he remarked, with a laugh, that he used to see one of the guys on trial at the supermarket all the time. With a laugh, only because it's so completely ridiculous. This tribunal has been years in the making, held up for financial reasons, but also because many people just want to get on with things, on with life. But here is this guy, most likely guilty of the most barbaric of crimes, the torturing and killing of prisoners, including children, and our guide has to see him in the supermarket all the time.
I did have to go back to the prison, S-21, where the Khmer Rouge summarily executed thousands of its people, usually after torturing them each for weeks on end, but I didn't go inside - I stayed at the aptly named Bhodi Tree Cafe across the street, in case any of my group needed to escape early and have a nice glass of iced Bale Fruit tea. The same went for the Killing Fields. I stayed outside, but even the perimeter of that awful place reverberates pain and suffering. Just walking to the bathroom I caught myself looking down, hoping I wouldn't see any bone shards or remnants of clothing, like you see scattered about the inside everywhere. I treaded lightly and made my way back to the bench by the front gate and stood there and waited for my group. It was still hard not to be emotional even on the outside. Most of my group was pretty strongly affected, too. Several of them bursting into tears, and coming to join me after just a little while.
But on a lighter note, don't get me wrong, I still love Cambodia. We took a beautiful whirlwind cyclo tour through the city, past massive pagodas and temples, huge French-Colonial buildings, remnants of the days of Indochina, which stand regally, having endured so many years of hardship and war.
After PP, Siem Reap is a relief. What a cool town! I had more free time on this trip to explore and just enjoy the place. Of course the Angkor temples will never lose their majestic power, and I am still taken aback by how beautiful they are. I went with a couple on my trip to some temples I hadn't visited earlier - on the outskirts of the temple complex, old Hindu-style brick temples, crumbling with age, but reaching so high to the sky, with impossibly narrow stairs, symbolizing the difficult trek to Heaven. It's also just a fun town to bum around in. There is a great little cafe called The Singing Tree with hammocks and rattan chairs and huge shady trees that serves garden burgers and fruit shakes and has yoga classes in the evenings. I spent a lot of time there!
Finally we had to leave and made our way back to Bangkok. There is such a stark and immediate difference crossing the border. It's easy, almost, to get used to the lack of development, but once you get to Thailand and there are paved roads and street signs and stop lights, highway landscaping and 7-11, you realize how much farther Cambodia really has to go.
I was pretty sad leaving this group - again, such nice people (and patient, considereing this was my first trip!), many of whom left me really sweet notes and heartfelt goodbyes. I'll be keeping in touch with many of them, I am sure, and I think they will always be more special than most being my first group. A couple of the girls and I still hung out a few nights after the trip was over, back in Bangkok - we didn't want to say goodbye - ha!
My next trip is the "reverse" loop - it's a more basic-style (read: lower budget, longer bus rides, no free meals) trip, and goes in the reverse order of what I'm used to, with a few new places ont he itinerary - so I'll be back in Cambodia in a couple of days with a new group (and VERY young - all under 23, I think! Yikes!). I feel like I have my mind blown a little bit each time I go there, and I"m excited to see what is in store on this next visit. We'll also being going to Shianoukville, on the southern coast, which I'm looking forward to seeing for the first time (and going to the beach, of course!).
More later!
~Erin
This time, although I still love the city and I can see why it was once called the "Paris of Southeast Asia", I felt the seedier, more gritty side of it. It is a place teetering on the brink of badness. Or at least I got that impression this time. There is such a will of the people to change that, and to improve their country, but the government is still so corrupt and ridiculous, it's hard to see it changing any time soon. One of our guides, when discussing the current tribunal to convict former Khmer Rouge of crimes against humanity, he remarked, with a laugh, that he used to see one of the guys on trial at the supermarket all the time. With a laugh, only because it's so completely ridiculous. This tribunal has been years in the making, held up for financial reasons, but also because many people just want to get on with things, on with life. But here is this guy, most likely guilty of the most barbaric of crimes, the torturing and killing of prisoners, including children, and our guide has to see him in the supermarket all the time.
I did have to go back to the prison, S-21, where the Khmer Rouge summarily executed thousands of its people, usually after torturing them each for weeks on end, but I didn't go inside - I stayed at the aptly named Bhodi Tree Cafe across the street, in case any of my group needed to escape early and have a nice glass of iced Bale Fruit tea. The same went for the Killing Fields. I stayed outside, but even the perimeter of that awful place reverberates pain and suffering. Just walking to the bathroom I caught myself looking down, hoping I wouldn't see any bone shards or remnants of clothing, like you see scattered about the inside everywhere. I treaded lightly and made my way back to the bench by the front gate and stood there and waited for my group. It was still hard not to be emotional even on the outside. Most of my group was pretty strongly affected, too. Several of them bursting into tears, and coming to join me after just a little while.
But on a lighter note, don't get me wrong, I still love Cambodia. We took a beautiful whirlwind cyclo tour through the city, past massive pagodas and temples, huge French-Colonial buildings, remnants of the days of Indochina, which stand regally, having endured so many years of hardship and war.
After PP, Siem Reap is a relief. What a cool town! I had more free time on this trip to explore and just enjoy the place. Of course the Angkor temples will never lose their majestic power, and I am still taken aback by how beautiful they are. I went with a couple on my trip to some temples I hadn't visited earlier - on the outskirts of the temple complex, old Hindu-style brick temples, crumbling with age, but reaching so high to the sky, with impossibly narrow stairs, symbolizing the difficult trek to Heaven. It's also just a fun town to bum around in. There is a great little cafe called The Singing Tree with hammocks and rattan chairs and huge shady trees that serves garden burgers and fruit shakes and has yoga classes in the evenings. I spent a lot of time there!
Finally we had to leave and made our way back to Bangkok. There is such a stark and immediate difference crossing the border. It's easy, almost, to get used to the lack of development, but once you get to Thailand and there are paved roads and street signs and stop lights, highway landscaping and 7-11, you realize how much farther Cambodia really has to go.
I was pretty sad leaving this group - again, such nice people (and patient, considereing this was my first trip!), many of whom left me really sweet notes and heartfelt goodbyes. I'll be keeping in touch with many of them, I am sure, and I think they will always be more special than most being my first group. A couple of the girls and I still hung out a few nights after the trip was over, back in Bangkok - we didn't want to say goodbye - ha!
My next trip is the "reverse" loop - it's a more basic-style (read: lower budget, longer bus rides, no free meals) trip, and goes in the reverse order of what I'm used to, with a few new places ont he itinerary - so I'll be back in Cambodia in a couple of days with a new group (and VERY young - all under 23, I think! Yikes!). I feel like I have my mind blown a little bit each time I go there, and I"m excited to see what is in store on this next visit. We'll also being going to Shianoukville, on the southern coast, which I'm looking forward to seeing for the first time (and going to the beach, of course!).
More later!
~Erin
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Vietnam Take Two
I'm so behind on my blog! It really is harder than I thought it would be on the road to keep up - we're so busy and when I do have time online I am doing accounts or just trying to keep up with email. My apologies! Anyway, I finished my first trip successfully, and I'm now in recovery mode in Bangkok. I'm leaving tonight on an overnight bus to Chiang Mai for some peace, quiet, yoga and trekking. Then my next trip starts in a week!
Some recaps on Vietnam-
My first time through Vietnam, I really felt a love/hate-ness for the place. It's overwhelming, the traffic is insane, just walking down the sidewalk is an effort in and of itself, it's incredibly communist-feeling and it's just jarring compared to it's laid-back neighbors. That said, I knew there was something I was missing, and I resolved to keep my mind open one the next trip and try to see past the tough outer layer. And I am so glad I did.
I LOVE Vietnam. It's still completely insane, especially the cities, but this time around, I did see what I had been missing. I had my bearings a bit more in Hanoi and was actually able to walk through the old town without getting totally lost and practically run over, the weather was cool which helps curb the frenetic energy in general, and I was able to see what a cool town it is. Our second night there, a few members of our group were leaving us, and we had a farewell dinner and drinks at a small restaurant down an alley in the old quarter. Amazing food, as usual, then we headed up the street to a little bar. The bartender was playing music by request and when one of the guys in the group, an English guy named Steve, requested the Stone Roses, the bartender darted out the door, down the street, to a little shop that sold burned CDS and DVDs and bought three albums, just to be able to play the one song Steve wanted to hear. It's these encounters that happen so often that make me love that place. That the people are so up for a good time and aiming to please that he would run down the street in the rain to get some random album by a random (albeit beloved in the UK) band for a random patron is amazing to me.
The highlight, or one of them, may have been Hue. I knew I liked the town the most on my initial trip, but on this one, we took a guided motorbike tour all throughout the town, in through the villages, out into the countryside. Don't worry - we had helmets and the drivers are excellent, and Hue is nothing compared to Hanoi traffic wise. At one point, riding through the tiny alleyways of the small villages, the kids standing out to yell "Hello!" and give high fives, the sun beginning to set over the rice fields, I almost started to cry. It must have been the wind in my hair, or the fact that it was just so damn fun, but I was almost completely overcome by emotion. And my group must have been, too. One woman, Gail, hugged me afterwards, saying that it made her feel young again. Ha. I know what she means...
The one place I don't care to revisit again, and I will stay outside next time, is Cu Chi Tunnels. You may recall from my former blog that this is a sort of propaganda-filled museum depicting life for the Viet Cong who had infiltrated the south to fight the Americans during the war by building tunnels and setting booby traps. I went through for a second time with my group, but rather than being moved as I was before, I was just pretty disgusted. It's beyond propaganda. It's so over the top it's almost funny, except it's not. What made me feel better, though, was our guide, who was excellent. While we were walking through, he had a pretty scripted explanation for everything, and he seemed impatient and annoyed with my group who was too turned off to really listen closely. But back on the bus, in the safety of the closed quarters, we got a different story out of him. He is a government employee, and he cannot dissent from what he is told to say as a guide. However, he admitted to the place being a tool of propaganda still. In fact, referring to a large US tank that stands on display with a sign explaining that the tank was gunned down by VC and captured thanks to the cunning fighting tactics of the Cu Chi Village people, the real story, our guide said, was that the tank was actually left there when the Americans left Vietnam, and the VC used it as their own tank to fight rebel South Vietnamese. The placard at the site is a complete falsification. Anyway, it took guts for him to admit that, and it became clear that although it's still a communist state, the people don't necessarily fall in line 100 percent...
In general I just felt like all of my initial impressions and feelings along the way were different the second time around. Which just goes to show how much I still have to learn over here. The word complex doesn't begin to cover it. I have felt scared, I have felt heartbroken, I have felt elated and welcomed and saddened and frustrated, all in the course of a few weeks. And this is just the beginning!
Cambodia, coming up...
Some recaps on Vietnam-
My first time through Vietnam, I really felt a love/hate-ness for the place. It's overwhelming, the traffic is insane, just walking down the sidewalk is an effort in and of itself, it's incredibly communist-feeling and it's just jarring compared to it's laid-back neighbors. That said, I knew there was something I was missing, and I resolved to keep my mind open one the next trip and try to see past the tough outer layer. And I am so glad I did.
I LOVE Vietnam. It's still completely insane, especially the cities, but this time around, I did see what I had been missing. I had my bearings a bit more in Hanoi and was actually able to walk through the old town without getting totally lost and practically run over, the weather was cool which helps curb the frenetic energy in general, and I was able to see what a cool town it is. Our second night there, a few members of our group were leaving us, and we had a farewell dinner and drinks at a small restaurant down an alley in the old quarter. Amazing food, as usual, then we headed up the street to a little bar. The bartender was playing music by request and when one of the guys in the group, an English guy named Steve, requested the Stone Roses, the bartender darted out the door, down the street, to a little shop that sold burned CDS and DVDs and bought three albums, just to be able to play the one song Steve wanted to hear. It's these encounters that happen so often that make me love that place. That the people are so up for a good time and aiming to please that he would run down the street in the rain to get some random album by a random (albeit beloved in the UK) band for a random patron is amazing to me.
The highlight, or one of them, may have been Hue. I knew I liked the town the most on my initial trip, but on this one, we took a guided motorbike tour all throughout the town, in through the villages, out into the countryside. Don't worry - we had helmets and the drivers are excellent, and Hue is nothing compared to Hanoi traffic wise. At one point, riding through the tiny alleyways of the small villages, the kids standing out to yell "Hello!" and give high fives, the sun beginning to set over the rice fields, I almost started to cry. It must have been the wind in my hair, or the fact that it was just so damn fun, but I was almost completely overcome by emotion. And my group must have been, too. One woman, Gail, hugged me afterwards, saying that it made her feel young again. Ha. I know what she means...
The one place I don't care to revisit again, and I will stay outside next time, is Cu Chi Tunnels. You may recall from my former blog that this is a sort of propaganda-filled museum depicting life for the Viet Cong who had infiltrated the south to fight the Americans during the war by building tunnels and setting booby traps. I went through for a second time with my group, but rather than being moved as I was before, I was just pretty disgusted. It's beyond propaganda. It's so over the top it's almost funny, except it's not. What made me feel better, though, was our guide, who was excellent. While we were walking through, he had a pretty scripted explanation for everything, and he seemed impatient and annoyed with my group who was too turned off to really listen closely. But back on the bus, in the safety of the closed quarters, we got a different story out of him. He is a government employee, and he cannot dissent from what he is told to say as a guide. However, he admitted to the place being a tool of propaganda still. In fact, referring to a large US tank that stands on display with a sign explaining that the tank was gunned down by VC and captured thanks to the cunning fighting tactics of the Cu Chi Village people, the real story, our guide said, was that the tank was actually left there when the Americans left Vietnam, and the VC used it as their own tank to fight rebel South Vietnamese. The placard at the site is a complete falsification. Anyway, it took guts for him to admit that, and it became clear that although it's still a communist state, the people don't necessarily fall in line 100 percent...
In general I just felt like all of my initial impressions and feelings along the way were different the second time around. Which just goes to show how much I still have to learn over here. The word complex doesn't begin to cover it. I have felt scared, I have felt heartbroken, I have felt elated and welcomed and saddened and frustrated, all in the course of a few weeks. And this is just the beginning!
Cambodia, coming up...
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