Rounding the curve
Friday, April 30, 2010
SAISA track
It is almost May, which means we are in the home stretch. Can I start counting the days yet?? I am in a constant state of getting excited that home is so close while trying to enjoy my favorite things about Dhaka while I still have the chance. I am trying to stay open to new experiences while here and do some things outside of my normal routine. That is easier said than done right now because this has been a crazy busy month. I am certified to teach secondary English and have been interning in the Humanities department all year long but the chance arose for me to be a long-term sub in a Science classroom. I figured 6th grade Ecology and 8th grade Astronomy was within my range of science knowledge (or at least I could fake it) but anything much more complicated would have been over my head! Since we got back from Spring Break I have been planning and carrying through teaching science. It has been a good opportunity to practice my classroom management skills and my students are amazing and supportive and are doing well, which means I haven't been doing a total crap job. It is so different being the main classroom teacher-so many different student needs to think about and the cycle is endless-when one assignment is planned, carried through, graded, another one looms ahead. This is especially true when I have very minimal science background and I'm staying one step ahead of my students all the time.
On top of this I have been assisting coaching our SAISA track team. We just had our super huge SAISA track meet last weekend. Anyone can come out for track and from the group that comes out they compete for slots at the end of the season for our SAISA team. In the SAISA meet we compete against international schools from other countries. We competed against 3 Indian teams (New Delhi, Bombay, and Chennai), 2 Pakistan school (Lahore and Karachi), one team from Kathmandu, Nepal, and one team from Colombo, Sri Lanka. Most teams had long traveling periods, the Indian teams flew through Bangkok to get to Dhaka, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense other than its a cheaper flight. I thought traveling from Mary Washington to Salisbury, Maryland for hockey games was a long way! My definition has been redefined. The coaches and athletes stay with host families from school for 4 nights and they usually pair up students of similar ages. There are 2 more teams in our conference from Pakistan but they don't really travel anymore because they are located in dangerous areas. It's a shame because the international school in Islamabad has the only real, nicely laid spring form track that is 400 meters in our conference along with amazing facilities. We run on a 200 meter track that is chalked out on our turf. Not great but still we are much better than many of the other schools who have dirt tracks riddled with pot holes. A 200 meter track with no banked curves makes the inside lane very difficult, especially for our guys running their 100's and 200's and 400's. The 5th and 6th lanes are actually ideal for those events whereas they are not on a 400 meter track. There was a lot of stepping out of lanes on these races that we let go and didn't punish the runners for like you were normally do in a serious meet.
Again, being young (I was the youngest coach there) and being on the "other side" of everything for the first time in my life (the teacher instead of the student and now the coach instead of the runner) was an interesting learning experience for me. There was a huge range of coaches-some like me were pretty young and/or green at coaching track. Some had been doing this for 25+ years. Some coaches completely had the right attitude and were there for the kids. We would help out their runners, throwers, jumpers whatever with technique tips and encourage them so they could perform their best. Others seemed more concerned with their own egos and walked around touting their resumes and pushing their kids to the absolute limit to get those extra team points. It kind of makes you wonder why they were out there in the first place?? I guess that is to be expected though. On top of this we had Bangladeshi timers and markers. This was often times difficult because of the language barrier-when they missed a time or a mark instead of asking one of the coaches who might have gotten it they just made it up. This could either severely help or hurt a runner. In true Bangladeshi style, several of them had their cell phones attached to their ear the entire time. Bangladeshis have awful cell phone etiquette as a culture. The man in the shot put supposed to be measuring throws would not put his down and was trying to talk and take measurements and doing an awful job of it. We had to tell him multiple times to get off his damn phone and do his job.
Our meet was 3 days long-3 full days in 90 degree weather and constant humidity. It didn't even rain once to cool things off. They did put a tent up that covered a lot of the track and had covered places for each team to relax but I did not stop sweating the entire weekend and I wasn't even running. El Gatorade did flow. While exhausting and freaking hot with very few breaks I was incredibly proud of some of kids-those that put in the work were able to cash in. We had a school record broken in the high jump and many of the kids turned in stellar performances. The previous weekend we had a DISA meet, which is with local teams that was one full day. These are the only 2 meets of the season, however, and they come at the end of the season so there is a lot of buildup. We tied for 3rd place out of 8 teams, which was very good. New Delhi runs away with 1st place every year because they are about twice the size of other schools and have athletes that only do track all year round whereas our athletes tend to go from sport to sport to sport. We have come in 2nd the past couple years but with a brand new team of assistant coaches and some age groups that weren't very strong third was very good for us this year.
We had a medal ceremony at the end of every day where every kid who places (1st-6th) gets a nice medal because they are so cheap to buy in Dhaka. They had a podium stand set up and on the last day there was a long ceremony where they recognized the senior athletes and stand out athletes of the meet. All the kids were really supportive of each other and cheering each other on, which was nice to see. Track athletes are generally pretty nice because I think the cocky-ness element that is present in a lot of other sports doesn't exist (as much) in track-you are all running hard and sweating and suffering together, especially in Dhaka, Bangladesh when it's 95 degrees and humid. SAISA is high school and middle school combined so we had athletes who were 10 years old up to athletes of 18 competing on the same track. So many of our students got personal best even if they didn't place or get first. Good, busy, tiring weekend and now I'm glad it's behind me and looking forward to having my afternoons back!
On top of this I have been assisting coaching our SAISA track team. We just had our super huge SAISA track meet last weekend. Anyone can come out for track and from the group that comes out they compete for slots at the end of the season for our SAISA team. In the SAISA meet we compete against international schools from other countries. We competed against 3 Indian teams (New Delhi, Bombay, and Chennai), 2 Pakistan school (Lahore and Karachi), one team from Kathmandu, Nepal, and one team from Colombo, Sri Lanka. Most teams had long traveling periods, the Indian teams flew through Bangkok to get to Dhaka, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense other than its a cheaper flight. I thought traveling from Mary Washington to Salisbury, Maryland for hockey games was a long way! My definition has been redefined. The coaches and athletes stay with host families from school for 4 nights and they usually pair up students of similar ages. There are 2 more teams in our conference from Pakistan but they don't really travel anymore because they are located in dangerous areas. It's a shame because the international school in Islamabad has the only real, nicely laid spring form track that is 400 meters in our conference along with amazing facilities. We run on a 200 meter track that is chalked out on our turf. Not great but still we are much better than many of the other schools who have dirt tracks riddled with pot holes. A 200 meter track with no banked curves makes the inside lane very difficult, especially for our guys running their 100's and 200's and 400's. The 5th and 6th lanes are actually ideal for those events whereas they are not on a 400 meter track. There was a lot of stepping out of lanes on these races that we let go and didn't punish the runners for like you were normally do in a serious meet.
Again, being young (I was the youngest coach there) and being on the "other side" of everything for the first time in my life (the teacher instead of the student and now the coach instead of the runner) was an interesting learning experience for me. There was a huge range of coaches-some like me were pretty young and/or green at coaching track. Some had been doing this for 25+ years. Some coaches completely had the right attitude and were there for the kids. We would help out their runners, throwers, jumpers whatever with technique tips and encourage them so they could perform their best. Others seemed more concerned with their own egos and walked around touting their resumes and pushing their kids to the absolute limit to get those extra team points. It kind of makes you wonder why they were out there in the first place?? I guess that is to be expected though. On top of this we had Bangladeshi timers and markers. This was often times difficult because of the language barrier-when they missed a time or a mark instead of asking one of the coaches who might have gotten it they just made it up. This could either severely help or hurt a runner. In true Bangladeshi style, several of them had their cell phones attached to their ear the entire time. Bangladeshis have awful cell phone etiquette as a culture. The man in the shot put supposed to be measuring throws would not put his down and was trying to talk and take measurements and doing an awful job of it. We had to tell him multiple times to get off his damn phone and do his job.
Our meet was 3 days long-3 full days in 90 degree weather and constant humidity. It didn't even rain once to cool things off. They did put a tent up that covered a lot of the track and had covered places for each team to relax but I did not stop sweating the entire weekend and I wasn't even running. El Gatorade did flow. While exhausting and freaking hot with very few breaks I was incredibly proud of some of kids-those that put in the work were able to cash in. We had a school record broken in the high jump and many of the kids turned in stellar performances. The previous weekend we had a DISA meet, which is with local teams that was one full day. These are the only 2 meets of the season, however, and they come at the end of the season so there is a lot of buildup. We tied for 3rd place out of 8 teams, which was very good. New Delhi runs away with 1st place every year because they are about twice the size of other schools and have athletes that only do track all year round whereas our athletes tend to go from sport to sport to sport. We have come in 2nd the past couple years but with a brand new team of assistant coaches and some age groups that weren't very strong third was very good for us this year.
We had a medal ceremony at the end of every day where every kid who places (1st-6th) gets a nice medal because they are so cheap to buy in Dhaka. They had a podium stand set up and on the last day there was a long ceremony where they recognized the senior athletes and stand out athletes of the meet. All the kids were really supportive of each other and cheering each other on, which was nice to see. Track athletes are generally pretty nice because I think the cocky-ness element that is present in a lot of other sports doesn't exist (as much) in track-you are all running hard and sweating and suffering together, especially in Dhaka, Bangladesh when it's 95 degrees and humid. SAISA is high school and middle school combined so we had athletes who were 10 years old up to athletes of 18 competing on the same track. So many of our students got personal best even if they didn't place or get first. Good, busy, tiring weekend and now I'm glad it's behind me and looking forward to having my afternoons back!
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Floating Village was a community of fisherman that live on in the middle of this lake on house boats. They have bamboo poles underneath their houses for buoyancy. Some even had small flower and vegetable gardens. They all lived very resourcefully and wasted nothing. The community even had a floating church, a school, and a few small stores.
On our way to the Floating Village-these kids work for their parents. I turned around and this little boy with a snake was right next to my left shoulder out in the middle of this huge lake-very shocking! They pull up very fast alongside your boat and the kids will jump off of the skiff onto your boat and try to sell drinks for 1$ or sometimes have snakes like this little boy, trying to get you to pay for a picture with it.
Kristen and I setting out in our personal Tuk Tuk. Our driver was so nice and kept a cooler full of chilled drinks for us to return to after walking around, touring all the temples. It cost us 12$ + about 10 extra because he took us out to the Ladies Temple that was 30 kilometers away from the other temples.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Spring Break-Cambodia and Kuala Lumpur
The weeks leading up to Spring Break were rough on everyone at AIS/D-we had been going hard since we got back from Winter Break and class trips were taxing on everyone. We all needed a break.
Kristen and I had decided back in January to go to Cambodia for SB-one of my goals in coming to this part of the world was to see the temples at Angkor Wat. We flew out on the Saturday after school got out on Thursday. Unfortunately, Bangladesh just wouldn't release its grip on me yet and I was suffering from Dhaka diarrhea the first few days of our trip. I wasn't going to let this ruin my trip though and after an afternoon flight, a night in KL and another short early morning flight, Kristen and I arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Flying in, this looked a lot like Bangladesh-low lying areas, river systems, palm trees, etc. The airport was very nice in Siam Reap-very small and clean and lots of personnel around to help. We got Cambodian visas on arrival for $25 US. Collecting our bags we got a taxi to our guesthouse-the Green Garden Guesthouse, a back packers guesthouse with big, basic rooms with private bathrooms, AC, a bar and restaurant, and cheap beers for 12$ a night. The taxi was a legit sedan-the first I'd seen in months. Our taxis in Bangladesh are beyond sketchy and all look like they've rolled down hills multiple times.
Kristen and I were both suffering from stomach issues so we took short naps but wanted to go out and explore our new surroundings. We hired a Tuk Tuk driver for 12$ a day who would take us around the temples and town in our own personal Tuk Tuk. You can go around the temples by taxi, Tuk Tuk, or bikes. Bikes would have been nice if it wasn't so hot but at this time of year we appreciated the breeze our Tuk Tuk created touring between all the temples.
Our Tuk Tuk driver took us on a 20 minute drive into the country where we boarded a private long boat headed for the Floating Village. The boat ride was 20 US for each of us-own boat and personal tour guide. The water was pretty low at this time of year and lots of kids were in the river picking up trash. Our guide said these kids go to school with the money they earn finding trash and selling it. Other kids were out on the river in boats by themselves or with parents. He said these parents force their kids to work and use the money they make to drink and gamble and don't send them to school with it. Some were honest fishermen but many were not. They would pull up alongside your bigger boat in their tiny skiff and the kid would jump on board with a bucket of drinks or snacks and try to sell them to you. More shocking than this, a lot of the kids had huge boas constrictors around their necks-they try to get tourists to take pictures with the boas for one dollar. It was heart wrenching to see kids as young as two and three years old looking working like this for their parents who would later use it to get drunk.
The floating village was amazing-a whole community of houses floating out in the middle of the river. They were like house boats and their houses were built on top of bamboo poles, which are very buoyant. They were all fishermen and some even had little floating gardens where they grew flowers and some plants to eat. They had a floating church and a school and a store. The whole trip took about an hour and a half and would highly recommend it. Although be careful not to get ripped off-our guide brought us to the little store there and asked us, since we were educators, to buy some notebooks and pencils for the kids. The notebooks and pens he meant were 20 US dollars, the cost of our total boat trip. There was no way a small stack of noteboooks and 10 pencils cost that much money-we figured our guide and the store keepers all got a cut. We could have bought 3 X the amount of notebooks and pencils and shipped them from Bangladesh for less than that-we were definitely being taken for a ride. It was shitty because we felt trapped and taken advantage of being out in the middle of this floating village and at the mercy of our guide. This put a damper on our trip but I would still recommend doing this trip. We headed back in to town for some temple sight-seeing.
Before going out to the temples, we had our driver drop us off in town to get some lunch. Walking around town there were tons of good-looking restaurants serving local Kmer food, western food, and lots of French bistros because Cambodia used to be occupied by the French. We ate a place called the Red Piano that had huge big comfy chairs under a big awning with fans in the ceiling. Angelia Jolie had her own drink here and her pic was in the menu!
The temples are a short 15 minute Tuk Tuk drive from the downtown area. We got a pass for the temples that let us in in the afternoon/evening time and the next day. This was cool because we got to see Angkor Wat, the biggest temple at sunset. The temple was so impressive as you walked up to it. Pictures do not show you just how big it is. I thought it was so nice and you could just pretty much roam freely around-only a few areas were restricted because they were working on these. As the sun went down, they began closing up shop and we paid a guard 1$ to walk around a little more. Then another guard whistled to us to come over and started pointing up these restricted stairs. We gave him 4$ to climb the off-limits stairs and watch the sunset from this temple that was thousands of year old.
The next day we got an early start and our Tuk Tuk driver met us at the guesthouse at 8:30. We headed out for the temples in the Baphoun area. To enter this area of the temples you drive through this massive stone gate with all these stones statues lining the entrance. There were a lot of people at the entrance but the crowd thinned out as we continued to walk around the temples. Again, you could pretty much walk wherever you pleased and only a few places were roped off because they were doing construction on them. The walls were lined with intricate Hindu and Buddhist marking. Around one particular temple they had pictures that stretched across the length of the wall and told some kind of story. This was one of my favorite parts. Our guide books warned us not wander too far off the beaten path of these temples because there are still land mines out there. Cambodia has an extremely bloody history and at every temple we visited there were groups of land mine victims missing arms, legs, or both, posted up playing beautiful string instruments for money.
One temple we went to was called Taphrom. This temple had massive trees growing over it and root systems snaking through the hallways. It was absolutley amazing. These temples had been built in the 12th century and then fell into dissrepair over time. When the French discovered them centuries later, this is what they all looked like-overrun with these huge trees that had grown over the walls and sprouted up in the middle of the temples with their roots growing throughout them. Over time, they had cut back the trees and root systems and restored the temples so they looked more like they had originally. They left Taphrom alone though. This was undoubetly my favorite temple-I thought the trees growing over them showed how truly old they were and how much time had passed since these temples were constructed. Since they build the temples in the middle of the woods to begin with it was very man verse natury and nature had won this round. We walked around these temples for a few hours and then we drove out to the ladies temple that was much farther away (about 30 kilometers). We were very hot after walking around in the hot sun for the morning and the breeze our Tuk Tuk created was nice. Our driver was so sweet and always had a color of ice cold drinks waiting for us. The ladies temple was different, it was a vibrant red brick color and much much smaller than the other massive temples we had been visiting but impressive in its own way. The carving along every wall were even more intricate and involved.
Next to the ladies palace was a set of stalls selling merchandise and food-the same types of things found everywhere in Cambodia, straw sun hats, woven bracelets, knock off sunglasses, little Buddhist and Hindu statues. As soon as you got near the stalls they would begin trying to sell their good, yelling after you, “Hello lady, hello lady!” The ride to and from the Ladies Temple as well as the 30 minute ride out to the boat on the first day gave us a chance to see some of the surrounding countryside. People live simply, in elevated grass huts or sometimes cement huts on stilts with grass or clay roofs. Everything is elevated on bamboo stilts or cement because the area is low-lying and floods. Some people had livestock in fields, big cows or water buffalos. People live simple lives and do not waste anything. Cambodia is a developing country trying to catch up economically.
The Ladies Temple was the last temple we viewed. We could have spent 3 or 4 more days there, touring around all of the temples there were but we wanted to get down to the southern beaches for some relaxation and a change of scenery. Our guesthouse helped us book tickets on an overnight bus that would take us 10 hour down to the southern coast called Sihanoukville. The bus was sketchy and packed completely full. The seats reclined so much that the person in front of you was in your lap. My legs were squished and I am not a very big person. Because of this a lot of people decided the aisle was a better choice. We boarded and set off about 8 pm. I read for about 20 minutes and at this time they decided it was time to turn off the lights. In the pitch dark with nothing to do Kristen and I both fell asleep. It was a good thing we were tired out from the temples all day. The bus stopped 2 hours in at a rest stop and then we stopped another 3 hours later in Phom Phen to drop some passengers off and pick more up. Phonm Phen would have been nice to explore for a day or two as well but since we only had 6 days total we split our time between Angkor Wat and Sihanoukville and a night in KL on the way back. Another 5 hours and we reached our destination at about 5:30 or 6 in the morning. Feeling like we were in the middle of no where, a gathering of Tuk Tuk and taxi drivers met us to take us for 3$ to the beach and to our guesthouse.
We stayed at the Tranquility Guesthouse on Serenity beach. Serenity and Ochentual are the main beaches in Sihanoukville and there are several other quieter ones. Tranquility was nice because it was at the end of the beach but the beach was quite small so everything was easy to get to. Too early to check in, we had coffee and breakfast and watched the waves roll in, looking out at the ocean with Thailand to the right of us and Vietnam to the left of us.
Most of the next two days were spent relaxing on the beach right outside of our little guesthouse. Sihanoukville is a nice beach-you can see that the tourism industry will turn it into another Thailand in the near future but right now it is a fun but low key beach with basic bungalows and guesthouses on the beach for very reasonable prices. We paid 14 US a night for a room with 2 big beds, AC, and hot water and you can find rooms for as cheap as 3 dollars a night. At night we had awesome seafood and vino and played Rummi Cube at a restaurant right on the beach. We went to a place that looked a little more reputable than some of the bars/restaurants because we had been warned to stay away from these places for eating-they keep their seafood sitting out all day long in the hot sun and we met one guy on the bus that got real sick from it. We had delicious seafood and wine at a place right on the beach that wasn’t sketchy and tried one of the famous native dishes, Amuk, which is fish wrapped in a banana leaf. Everything we had was delicious and we then wandered down the beach to the beach bars/sketchy restaurant places. The bars all of giant swings out in the sand and big comfy chairs and big decks. Lots of fun people and drinking.
The next day we woke up to find it overcast and rainy-not what we had hoped for. We decided after a delicious breakfast and coffee, seeing that it hadn’t cleared up, that we would take a Tuk Tuk into town and see what there was to do there. There didn’t seem like a whole lot in town-people mainly come for the beaches, but we figured we’d wander along the beach shops anyways. A short 10 minute ride and we were in the center of town walking back towards the beaches we’d just come from. We wandered from shop to shop and find a hidden gem in Sihanoukville, Cambodia-the best vintage shopping ever. We had expected grundgy beach shops like in Myrtle Beach or Ocean City but we found awesome vintage prints and patterns. Whether it was real vintage or just imitation we couldn’t determine through the language barrier but we didn’t really care. Living in Bangladesh we have limited shopping oppurtunities and it begins to be all the same stuff-this stuff was different. So while our beach day was ruined, we spent it spending money (bargaining and haggling of course) in these vintage warehouses that were hotter and muggier than hell with no AC and one broken fan and came away with some great finds.
After our shopping excursion we had just about sweat out all the nutrients (or toxins) that were in our bodies and decided to hunt for lunch. While it was still drizzling we found a little spot called Holy Cow-a simple road side eatery that was open, with nice open, covered porches, hanging plants, and deep couches that we sank into after the intense shopping that had just taken place. Holy Cow is also home to the world’s best banana-strawberry smoothie ever, which Kristen and I both had. To eat I had tasty lettuce wraps and one of my favorite dead simple South Asian dishes, sautéed morning glory and rice. The crispy lettuce wraps were fresh and crunchy with a yummy peanut sauce and the morning glory never lets me down.
After lunch, the sun had just begun to come out at about 4 in the afternoon. We decided to explore one of the less populated beaches, Otres beach. We hailed a Tuk Tuk off the street and asked for him to take us here and then back to Serendipty beach in an hour and a half or so. He agreed. Turning off the main road, we turned onto a rocky road with a few small guest houses going up, and then down an even more deserted red clay road. The recent rain had left giant potholes of water along the path and this was an extremely bumpy ride-Kristen and I were almost tossed out on several occasions. We were really in the middle of nowhere and I began to get a little nervous-we just hired this guy off the street, he could be anybody and we could be going anywhere. It didn’t even feel like we were headed for a beach. We passed tiny tin and grass farm houses with various livestock along the way. We passed what kind of looked like a long house that was divided off into sections. Each section was for a family that basically had one room to themselves that faced openly to the road. Finally, we saw beach up ahead. This beach was even more basic than the others and a lot more beautiful. It could have been the fact that the water looked glass-like calm or that we were practically the only ones on this long stretch of beach, or the even more simple beach bar/restaurants but this beach was so so worth the rocky/scary drive that I wished we’d had another day because I would have come back in a heart beat. You could look out and see other islands off the coast and what fun it would have been to explore them. We played in the calm water and drank margaritas for a short while-we wanted to get back down that sketchy road before sun set. Still a little nervous going back-we definitely stuck out as foreigners because there were very few around but we made it back to Serendipity beach just fine.
That night we did more bars on the beach-the beaches of Sihanoukville draw an interesting crowd of people; people who want beach time mixed with a little bit of adventure and not just your built-up Thailand beaches. We met a lot of people travelling to or from Vietnam on their way to other parts of South Asia. We met a bunch of guys who worked on a yacht that was sailing the entire world. They were working the South East Asian portion of this adventure. It was a private yacht owned by a British guy and it also had 2 speed boats following it so when they got bored they could water ski and wake board. They usually go from port to port but had just done a 6 week stint out a sea and were having a much needed break on shore.
Needless to say we were sad to leave, early the next morning because this meant out Spring Break was coming to an end. We boarded a four hour bus the next morning to Phnom Pen to catch a plane to Kuala Lumpur. We got there at around 8 at night. The hotel is about an hour’s bus ride from the down town area and we caught a cheap bus (about 3 or 4 dollars) to the down town, Golden Triangle area, where we were staying for the night. At night the PETRONAS towers were lit up and looked amazing. We were staying not too far from there. From what little I saw of the city, Kuala Lumpur looked like a really fun place to be. We got dinner and walked around vibrant night markets where you can get just about anything for a cheap price. We made our way to a street of fun bars in the Changkat Bukit Bintang area-there was an Irish pub, a Rasta bar, and several others that we bounced between. The Rasta bar had a second floor open balcony where you had a perfect view of the towers. The idea of just being able to go out to bars and drink and dance is one that we don’t enjoy in Dhaka. Malaysia is predominantly Muslim but Kuala Lumpur is a far, far more modern city than Dhaka with bars, a monorail, organized roadways, shopping malls, etc. It seemed incredibly modern compared to Bangladesh.
Kristen and I did not want to go to sleep that night because that truly meant our travels were over. The Air Asia plane ride home the next day was the usual mess and chaos with tons of Bangladeshi workers flying home from working some job in Malayasia. Kristen had smartly paid 7 extra US dollars for each of us to have the front-row seats. This ensured that we weren’t in the way, way back with Bangladeshis trying to take pictures of us while we slept. Back to Dhaka, back to reality….
Kristen and I had decided back in January to go to Cambodia for SB-one of my goals in coming to this part of the world was to see the temples at Angkor Wat. We flew out on the Saturday after school got out on Thursday. Unfortunately, Bangladesh just wouldn't release its grip on me yet and I was suffering from Dhaka diarrhea the first few days of our trip. I wasn't going to let this ruin my trip though and after an afternoon flight, a night in KL and another short early morning flight, Kristen and I arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Flying in, this looked a lot like Bangladesh-low lying areas, river systems, palm trees, etc. The airport was very nice in Siam Reap-very small and clean and lots of personnel around to help. We got Cambodian visas on arrival for $25 US. Collecting our bags we got a taxi to our guesthouse-the Green Garden Guesthouse, a back packers guesthouse with big, basic rooms with private bathrooms, AC, a bar and restaurant, and cheap beers for 12$ a night. The taxi was a legit sedan-the first I'd seen in months. Our taxis in Bangladesh are beyond sketchy and all look like they've rolled down hills multiple times.
Kristen and I were both suffering from stomach issues so we took short naps but wanted to go out and explore our new surroundings. We hired a Tuk Tuk driver for 12$ a day who would take us around the temples and town in our own personal Tuk Tuk. You can go around the temples by taxi, Tuk Tuk, or bikes. Bikes would have been nice if it wasn't so hot but at this time of year we appreciated the breeze our Tuk Tuk created touring between all the temples.
Our Tuk Tuk driver took us on a 20 minute drive into the country where we boarded a private long boat headed for the Floating Village. The boat ride was 20 US for each of us-own boat and personal tour guide. The water was pretty low at this time of year and lots of kids were in the river picking up trash. Our guide said these kids go to school with the money they earn finding trash and selling it. Other kids were out on the river in boats by themselves or with parents. He said these parents force their kids to work and use the money they make to drink and gamble and don't send them to school with it. Some were honest fishermen but many were not. They would pull up alongside your bigger boat in their tiny skiff and the kid would jump on board with a bucket of drinks or snacks and try to sell them to you. More shocking than this, a lot of the kids had huge boas constrictors around their necks-they try to get tourists to take pictures with the boas for one dollar. It was heart wrenching to see kids as young as two and three years old looking working like this for their parents who would later use it to get drunk.
The floating village was amazing-a whole community of houses floating out in the middle of the river. They were like house boats and their houses were built on top of bamboo poles, which are very buoyant. They were all fishermen and some even had little floating gardens where they grew flowers and some plants to eat. They had a floating church and a school and a store. The whole trip took about an hour and a half and would highly recommend it. Although be careful not to get ripped off-our guide brought us to the little store there and asked us, since we were educators, to buy some notebooks and pencils for the kids. The notebooks and pens he meant were 20 US dollars, the cost of our total boat trip. There was no way a small stack of noteboooks and 10 pencils cost that much money-we figured our guide and the store keepers all got a cut. We could have bought 3 X the amount of notebooks and pencils and shipped them from Bangladesh for less than that-we were definitely being taken for a ride. It was shitty because we felt trapped and taken advantage of being out in the middle of this floating village and at the mercy of our guide. This put a damper on our trip but I would still recommend doing this trip. We headed back in to town for some temple sight-seeing.
Before going out to the temples, we had our driver drop us off in town to get some lunch. Walking around town there were tons of good-looking restaurants serving local Kmer food, western food, and lots of French bistros because Cambodia used to be occupied by the French. We ate a place called the Red Piano that had huge big comfy chairs under a big awning with fans in the ceiling. Angelia Jolie had her own drink here and her pic was in the menu!
The temples are a short 15 minute Tuk Tuk drive from the downtown area. We got a pass for the temples that let us in in the afternoon/evening time and the next day. This was cool because we got to see Angkor Wat, the biggest temple at sunset. The temple was so impressive as you walked up to it. Pictures do not show you just how big it is. I thought it was so nice and you could just pretty much roam freely around-only a few areas were restricted because they were working on these. As the sun went down, they began closing up shop and we paid a guard 1$ to walk around a little more. Then another guard whistled to us to come over and started pointing up these restricted stairs. We gave him 4$ to climb the off-limits stairs and watch the sunset from this temple that was thousands of year old.
The next day we got an early start and our Tuk Tuk driver met us at the guesthouse at 8:30. We headed out for the temples in the Baphoun area. To enter this area of the temples you drive through this massive stone gate with all these stones statues lining the entrance. There were a lot of people at the entrance but the crowd thinned out as we continued to walk around the temples. Again, you could pretty much walk wherever you pleased and only a few places were roped off because they were doing construction on them. The walls were lined with intricate Hindu and Buddhist marking. Around one particular temple they had pictures that stretched across the length of the wall and told some kind of story. This was one of my favorite parts. Our guide books warned us not wander too far off the beaten path of these temples because there are still land mines out there. Cambodia has an extremely bloody history and at every temple we visited there were groups of land mine victims missing arms, legs, or both, posted up playing beautiful string instruments for money.
One temple we went to was called Taphrom. This temple had massive trees growing over it and root systems snaking through the hallways. It was absolutley amazing. These temples had been built in the 12th century and then fell into dissrepair over time. When the French discovered them centuries later, this is what they all looked like-overrun with these huge trees that had grown over the walls and sprouted up in the middle of the temples with their roots growing throughout them. Over time, they had cut back the trees and root systems and restored the temples so they looked more like they had originally. They left Taphrom alone though. This was undoubetly my favorite temple-I thought the trees growing over them showed how truly old they were and how much time had passed since these temples were constructed. Since they build the temples in the middle of the woods to begin with it was very man verse natury and nature had won this round. We walked around these temples for a few hours and then we drove out to the ladies temple that was much farther away (about 30 kilometers). We were very hot after walking around in the hot sun for the morning and the breeze our Tuk Tuk created was nice. Our driver was so sweet and always had a color of ice cold drinks waiting for us. The ladies temple was different, it was a vibrant red brick color and much much smaller than the other massive temples we had been visiting but impressive in its own way. The carving along every wall were even more intricate and involved.
Next to the ladies palace was a set of stalls selling merchandise and food-the same types of things found everywhere in Cambodia, straw sun hats, woven bracelets, knock off sunglasses, little Buddhist and Hindu statues. As soon as you got near the stalls they would begin trying to sell their good, yelling after you, “Hello lady, hello lady!” The ride to and from the Ladies Temple as well as the 30 minute ride out to the boat on the first day gave us a chance to see some of the surrounding countryside. People live simply, in elevated grass huts or sometimes cement huts on stilts with grass or clay roofs. Everything is elevated on bamboo stilts or cement because the area is low-lying and floods. Some people had livestock in fields, big cows or water buffalos. People live simple lives and do not waste anything. Cambodia is a developing country trying to catch up economically.
The Ladies Temple was the last temple we viewed. We could have spent 3 or 4 more days there, touring around all of the temples there were but we wanted to get down to the southern beaches for some relaxation and a change of scenery. Our guesthouse helped us book tickets on an overnight bus that would take us 10 hour down to the southern coast called Sihanoukville. The bus was sketchy and packed completely full. The seats reclined so much that the person in front of you was in your lap. My legs were squished and I am not a very big person. Because of this a lot of people decided the aisle was a better choice. We boarded and set off about 8 pm. I read for about 20 minutes and at this time they decided it was time to turn off the lights. In the pitch dark with nothing to do Kristen and I both fell asleep. It was a good thing we were tired out from the temples all day. The bus stopped 2 hours in at a rest stop and then we stopped another 3 hours later in Phom Phen to drop some passengers off and pick more up. Phonm Phen would have been nice to explore for a day or two as well but since we only had 6 days total we split our time between Angkor Wat and Sihanoukville and a night in KL on the way back. Another 5 hours and we reached our destination at about 5:30 or 6 in the morning. Feeling like we were in the middle of no where, a gathering of Tuk Tuk and taxi drivers met us to take us for 3$ to the beach and to our guesthouse.
We stayed at the Tranquility Guesthouse on Serenity beach. Serenity and Ochentual are the main beaches in Sihanoukville and there are several other quieter ones. Tranquility was nice because it was at the end of the beach but the beach was quite small so everything was easy to get to. Too early to check in, we had coffee and breakfast and watched the waves roll in, looking out at the ocean with Thailand to the right of us and Vietnam to the left of us.
Most of the next two days were spent relaxing on the beach right outside of our little guesthouse. Sihanoukville is a nice beach-you can see that the tourism industry will turn it into another Thailand in the near future but right now it is a fun but low key beach with basic bungalows and guesthouses on the beach for very reasonable prices. We paid 14 US a night for a room with 2 big beds, AC, and hot water and you can find rooms for as cheap as 3 dollars a night. At night we had awesome seafood and vino and played Rummi Cube at a restaurant right on the beach. We went to a place that looked a little more reputable than some of the bars/restaurants because we had been warned to stay away from these places for eating-they keep their seafood sitting out all day long in the hot sun and we met one guy on the bus that got real sick from it. We had delicious seafood and wine at a place right on the beach that wasn’t sketchy and tried one of the famous native dishes, Amuk, which is fish wrapped in a banana leaf. Everything we had was delicious and we then wandered down the beach to the beach bars/sketchy restaurant places. The bars all of giant swings out in the sand and big comfy chairs and big decks. Lots of fun people and drinking.
The next day we woke up to find it overcast and rainy-not what we had hoped for. We decided after a delicious breakfast and coffee, seeing that it hadn’t cleared up, that we would take a Tuk Tuk into town and see what there was to do there. There didn’t seem like a whole lot in town-people mainly come for the beaches, but we figured we’d wander along the beach shops anyways. A short 10 minute ride and we were in the center of town walking back towards the beaches we’d just come from. We wandered from shop to shop and find a hidden gem in Sihanoukville, Cambodia-the best vintage shopping ever. We had expected grundgy beach shops like in Myrtle Beach or Ocean City but we found awesome vintage prints and patterns. Whether it was real vintage or just imitation we couldn’t determine through the language barrier but we didn’t really care. Living in Bangladesh we have limited shopping oppurtunities and it begins to be all the same stuff-this stuff was different. So while our beach day was ruined, we spent it spending money (bargaining and haggling of course) in these vintage warehouses that were hotter and muggier than hell with no AC and one broken fan and came away with some great finds.
After our shopping excursion we had just about sweat out all the nutrients (or toxins) that were in our bodies and decided to hunt for lunch. While it was still drizzling we found a little spot called Holy Cow-a simple road side eatery that was open, with nice open, covered porches, hanging plants, and deep couches that we sank into after the intense shopping that had just taken place. Holy Cow is also home to the world’s best banana-strawberry smoothie ever, which Kristen and I both had. To eat I had tasty lettuce wraps and one of my favorite dead simple South Asian dishes, sautéed morning glory and rice. The crispy lettuce wraps were fresh and crunchy with a yummy peanut sauce and the morning glory never lets me down.
After lunch, the sun had just begun to come out at about 4 in the afternoon. We decided to explore one of the less populated beaches, Otres beach. We hailed a Tuk Tuk off the street and asked for him to take us here and then back to Serendipty beach in an hour and a half or so. He agreed. Turning off the main road, we turned onto a rocky road with a few small guest houses going up, and then down an even more deserted red clay road. The recent rain had left giant potholes of water along the path and this was an extremely bumpy ride-Kristen and I were almost tossed out on several occasions. We were really in the middle of nowhere and I began to get a little nervous-we just hired this guy off the street, he could be anybody and we could be going anywhere. It didn’t even feel like we were headed for a beach. We passed tiny tin and grass farm houses with various livestock along the way. We passed what kind of looked like a long house that was divided off into sections. Each section was for a family that basically had one room to themselves that faced openly to the road. Finally, we saw beach up ahead. This beach was even more basic than the others and a lot more beautiful. It could have been the fact that the water looked glass-like calm or that we were practically the only ones on this long stretch of beach, or the even more simple beach bar/restaurants but this beach was so so worth the rocky/scary drive that I wished we’d had another day because I would have come back in a heart beat. You could look out and see other islands off the coast and what fun it would have been to explore them. We played in the calm water and drank margaritas for a short while-we wanted to get back down that sketchy road before sun set. Still a little nervous going back-we definitely stuck out as foreigners because there were very few around but we made it back to Serendipity beach just fine.
That night we did more bars on the beach-the beaches of Sihanoukville draw an interesting crowd of people; people who want beach time mixed with a little bit of adventure and not just your built-up Thailand beaches. We met a lot of people travelling to or from Vietnam on their way to other parts of South Asia. We met a bunch of guys who worked on a yacht that was sailing the entire world. They were working the South East Asian portion of this adventure. It was a private yacht owned by a British guy and it also had 2 speed boats following it so when they got bored they could water ski and wake board. They usually go from port to port but had just done a 6 week stint out a sea and were having a much needed break on shore.
Needless to say we were sad to leave, early the next morning because this meant out Spring Break was coming to an end. We boarded a four hour bus the next morning to Phnom Pen to catch a plane to Kuala Lumpur. We got there at around 8 at night. The hotel is about an hour’s bus ride from the down town area and we caught a cheap bus (about 3 or 4 dollars) to the down town, Golden Triangle area, where we were staying for the night. At night the PETRONAS towers were lit up and looked amazing. We were staying not too far from there. From what little I saw of the city, Kuala Lumpur looked like a really fun place to be. We got dinner and walked around vibrant night markets where you can get just about anything for a cheap price. We made our way to a street of fun bars in the Changkat Bukit Bintang area-there was an Irish pub, a Rasta bar, and several others that we bounced between. The Rasta bar had a second floor open balcony where you had a perfect view of the towers. The idea of just being able to go out to bars and drink and dance is one that we don’t enjoy in Dhaka. Malaysia is predominantly Muslim but Kuala Lumpur is a far, far more modern city than Dhaka with bars, a monorail, organized roadways, shopping malls, etc. It seemed incredibly modern compared to Bangladesh.
Kristen and I did not want to go to sleep that night because that truly meant our travels were over. The Air Asia plane ride home the next day was the usual mess and chaos with tons of Bangladeshi workers flying home from working some job in Malayasia. Kristen had smartly paid 7 extra US dollars for each of us to have the front-row seats. This ensured that we weren’t in the way, way back with Bangladeshis trying to take pictures of us while we slept. Back to Dhaka, back to reality….
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