November 3 2010 / Phnom Pehn, Cambodia

GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM!

I woke up this morning to the voice of God roaring something about how the Caribbean Sea should go and collect their passports.  Being as that I didn’t fall asleep until maybe three AM last night because I was busy catching up on blogging.  Finally, though, when they called for everyone else who hadn’t gotten their passport yet, I rolled out of bed and collected my temporary visa pass that would allow me to leave the port.  Then I answered a couple of emails, and double checked my backpack—a couple of days ago I learned that I was NOT on the Group B Cambodia trip, but was leaving on the very first day!  So I was super excited and ready for that.  I attempted then to take a nap, but had forgotten that I told Jared that he should hang out with me because we both had to leave around 11am, so we hung out and talked for a while.  Then I was off to the Union with my outrageously heavy backpack. 

Vietnam is not as terribly hot as India was, but it’s just as humid and the air has a grainy feel to it, as though you’re sucking up the jungle through your nose.  As soon as the wall of heat hit me, The End by The Doors started playing in my mind, and it hasn’t left since.  I have a massive urge to watch Apocalypse Now now.  :o  But anyway, we walked a while through the port gate and to the buses—it’s nice that it takes no time to get from the ship to the city for once.  Lauren (my buddy from WIHC) and I hopped onto Bus 2, and soon we took off.  As I munched on my typical sketchy ship food (at this point I’ve learned to just ignore the shady bright pink meat), I looked outside and took in my surroundings.  There were lots of people wearing medical masks and tons more on motorcycles, bikes and scooters.  I’ve heard that motorcycle collisions are a big problem for SAS students and that the way to cross traffic is to keep your head down, not look around, and just walk into the street quickly and steadily, and let the cyclists do the rest—otherwise you’ll freak out!  It has me a little nervous but I’m sure I can handle it.  I loved looking out at all the shops around.  It reminded me of India a little bit, though much cleaner and there were lots more upper-class stores around, which surprised me. 

We got to the airport and got our passports, and then went and checked in for our flights and went through security.  We actually got in really fast and had two hours to spare (which I guess for an international flight is probably a good idea).  So Lauren and I went and sat down at Gate 9 and kind of idly watched this HBO movie playing across the way.  We had no idea what was going on, but it was about a jungle in Hawaii and murderers or something.  We got pretty emotionally invested and were bummed when we had to move to a different gate, though luckily it was still playing there!  As time went by we realized that our flight was delayed, and as another movie (called “Tin Man” or something like that… it had Kevin Costner and was dreadful) started up, I wandered out to grab something at a little café I’d seen.  There were things that looked like steamed pork buns like you get in Dim Sum, so I got one as well as a beer called 333 (lots of people were grabbing beers at that point, don’t look at me like that!) and sat down to eat.  The bun was great—it had a kind of meatball in the center, as well as a bit of hardboiled egg or something like that.  The beer was not as great—too dark and bitter. 

Finally, as another Kevin Costner movie started up (called “The Postman” or something), we FINALLY left after being delayed for two hours.  We were freaking out because our day’s schedule had been so packed and we had already missed two things we were supposed to do, which were seeing the National Museum and having a Sunset Cruise on the Mekong River (which was actually super disappointing for me… :().  We got on board and as soon as I closed my eyes we were landing.  I honestly think that we waited four hours for a half-hour flight, which was both hilarious and terrible at the same time!  :)

Then we had to get our visas when we got off the plane at the Cambodian airport.  I had my passport, twenty dollars, and photos at the ready, but there was a MASSIVE line.  We were kind of despairing at this point and hoping that we were still going to be able to make even dinner, as by now it was like 6 at night or something.  Then an official told us that if we paid 22 dollars instead of 20 dollars each, we could bypass the pictures step of the process and get our visas right away in bulk.  Ooookay.  It was pretty much a hardcore bribe, but we all did it immediately because we just wanted to get out of there at that point.   So now I have two new sparkly visas (Vietnam and Cambodia) in my passport, which is beginning to look more and more formidable! 

Then we got out of the airport FINALLY and climbed into one of the two buses.  Our tour guide’s name is Smey and he told us we were still going to go to the orphanage for a little while.  I was kind of bummed out because I hadn’t realized that we were going to an orphanage, otherwise I would have brought my stuffed animals, but was still ready to get out and do things finally.  As we travelled along a busy road, we finally slowed down and got out to walk down a seemingly mixed residential-business street.  Motorcycles came up and down the street, and many people were still out selling food and their wares.  Small children especially enjoyed shouting HELLO! from the backs of motorcycles as they went by the herd of college students tromping by.  And even though the neighborhood was a bit run down, I never once felt like it was sketchy or that I was in an uncomfortable situation.  The people were all smiling and acknowledging us, or were just continuing to hang out with their family and friends.  I really like the environment here in Cambodia so far.  :D

Finally we got to Palm Tree Orphanage.  There was a big courtyard filled with students and the kids, and already some kids had their arms wrapped around their “chosen.”  Immediately I felt awkward—I don’t really have a way with kids.  I kind of treat them like I would any adult, and feel strange just going up to one and talking down.  But then, out of nowhere, a little girl in a bright red shirt and a blue skirt ran up to me and asked me my name.  I asked her what hers was and she said her name was Socheat.  She laughed at my pronunciation and told me it was nice to meet me, and then wrapped her arm around mine and led me off to show me her home.  She showed me a large collection of ancient pottery that the orphanage sells in order to get donations to help the children, the second main courtyard, and a couple of the classrooms that were upstairs.  She was in the fifth grade and had lots of drawings up on the wall to show me—one of them was a brown animal marked PIG.  :)  Her little sister was also leading a girl around.  I met three of her sisters in all over that time.  Their rooms were super small and didn’t seem to have very many beds—they probably mostly had to sleep on the floor.  But all of them were just so happy and loving, and Socheat was always taking my hand to race off and show me new things.  My favorite part was in the courtyard, when we got into a rousing circle of “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” and then into another one of everyone’s favorite, “Chicka-licka-boom-boom” which was a little dance game.  We were always squealing laughter.  There was also a banana game that where it ended you had to freeze and the first person who smiled lost.  IT WAS SO MUCH FUN.  I was basically loving it the entire time and was just dying laughing.  I can’t believe the amount of joy all these kids had. 

But far too soon it was time to go.  Socheat wrapped her arms around my waist and gave me the hardest hug she could muster.  “You don’t get back on the bus,” she said.  “You sleep here tonight!” 

I must admit, my stone cold heart melted just a little.  I hugged her and twirled her around, and gave her a piggy back ride.  I also wrote my email address on her hand, as I saw lots of other people doing that, so hopefully she emails me from their email address and I can talk to her about how our travels have been going.  She was such a sweet girl and now I know why Kenzie told me not to adopt any kids while I was over here in Cambodia—their spirits are just absolutely amazing.

So that made up for the hard start to our trips, as we all came back on the bus so incredibly happy.  Turns out that 30% of Cambodia live in poverty because of the war (the Khmer Rouge and all that) and the main reason why these kids are orphans are because their parents cannot support them.  Then we were off to our dinner restaurant, Khmer Surin.  Khmer is the local food so I was pretty excited to try it.  The drive over to the restaurant was pretty incredible—I was actually surprised at the amount of technology around.  There were lots of neon lights announcing restaurants and bars and things, and it was really clean—I mean, there were still piles of trash near trees, but they were neat piles, unlike in India where many things were scattered.  I really love it here, basically.  :B 

The restaurant was in a nicer little street—it was bathed in red, and had three stories.  I don’t think I saw anyone eating there that wasn’t white, which is kind of =/ but I guess here it means that it’s just high quality food.  We sat down at a long table in the third floor.  Nearby was a man playing the sitar, and lizards crawled over our heads on the ceiling.  Besides us was open air and we could look down onto the street if we were close enough.  The meal was family-style and delicious—springrolls and sauce with cucumber, rice cakes with a peanut sauce, cashew chicken, stir-fry vegetables, steamed rice, soup—it was all there and ALL DELICIOUS!  I ordered a local beer, as per usual, the Angkor—they brought out a bottle that was HUGE!  I was like D: how can I finish this, but the table helped me by tasting it quite a bit.  :)  It was delicious, there was just a lot of it!  For desert there were assorted fruits, like mango,  papaya (which I feel like I ate when I was a baby or something, the taste is just so familiar but I don’t eat papaya), watermelon and banana.  It was great.  I basically stuffed myself and it was all just incredible.  When we got back on the bus my tour guide said, “You liked Angkor?”  We all cheered, and he said “Today Angkor comes and visits you, in a few days, we go visit Angkor!” as Angkor Wat is the famous temple we’re visiting.  I thought this was hilarious for some reason and laughed really hard. 

We drove then to our hotel, the Sunway.  We passed a couple of temple shrines that I hope I’ll be able to check out tomorrow if we have time.  There are lots of pictures of the past king everywhere, especially on government buildings.  I must say though, I’m super impressed with Cambodia so far.  The people are incredibly friendly, and I loved the kids at the orphanage, and the city is absolutely fascinating and just feels safe (within reason, of course).  We stopped at this massive hotel and got inside, where they gave us lemonades that tasted a bit like Shirley Temples  and showed us to our rooms.  No free internet here, but perhaps next time.  It’s fancy and lacks lizards, and that’s good enough for me.

Tomorrow, the Killing Fields.  I’m a little nervous—I hear it’s pretty gruesome.  But it’s something important to see so I’m looking forward to it.