One Sandal

I'm uploading everything I have - so take a look at my ofoto page when you are bored. As I upload them, I'll add links to this posting.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=97qw432f.9o37e9gb&x=0&y=-cqx9vo

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=97qw432f.5wo3l9cr&x=0&y=nfux24

While I didn't see hardly a bit of Hong Kong, 'twas a proper town full of Argonauts with which to end the story of One Sandal.

My original plan was to get into Hong Kong, partake in a spell of its famous shopping, then head off to an all-night district until sun up, with a return to the airport in time for my 1130 plane to Newark's Liberty airport. However, I misread my ticket, and instead of arriving in China's "Special Administrative Region" at 6 pm, I left Bangkok at that time, which meant an arrival in HK circa 21:00. By the time I cleared customs and immigration, and dropped off my luggage, even the Asian Tiger's night markets had closed for the evening. What to do? Find a train to the city, head to a bar, and find out whether HK is truly 24-hours.

It did not disappoint.

What I soon discovered - and with the benefit of hindsight, I was a fool not to think of this beforehand - is that 24 hour bars don't pick up until the rest of the bars in the city close. (Visiting the city with only a 10 year old version of "Rough Guide: Hong Kong" was certain to result in a handful of strategic errors.) As a result I ended up spending a few hours of bar hopping in Wan Chai district solo, without much chance of meeting anyone. Alas, I eventally met up with an English resident of the former colony, and soon found myslef stumbling around Asia's City That Never Sleeps. Ended up out with some Filipino lasses until sun up around 7 ayem, at which point we headed to breakfast at one of Hong Kong's famous dim sum restaurants. These places are delightful - and all look like an elite country club from the inside - but was cheap, tasty and quick, and left me ample time to get on a bus back to the airport. Unfortunately, the bus ride back to the airport was the only actual sighsteeing I did in Hong Kong. There's always next time.

And as I begin the process (and inevitable depression) of dealing with the adjustment to my life without a Backpack, I'm in general taking solace in that notion. There's always next time. I haven't formulated some grand plan, I've not become some world changing radical, and I don't really know what life will have in store for me for the long term. But I do know this - I'm not done with the beauty, chaos, rewards, trials and adventures of living my life out of a rucksack. If anything, my travel skills (and motorbike riding prowess) need to be honed more in my lifetime, because travel just gets better when you know what you are doing. I've returned Stateside, faithful bloggers, and it's good to be home. But keep your eyes on the internet, because while the maiden voyage of One Sandal has come to its conclusion, there's always next time.

And thanks for checking in - I hope this blog has been fractionally as fun for you as it's been for me.

I met a group of travellers last night that tell me that HK is a 24-hour kind of place, so the plan is to forego a hotel room and just spend 15 mad hours touring the place overnight. I'm sad to leave Thailand, Chiang Mai was really starting to feel like home.

I've booked a ticket to Hong Kong, so I'm painfully prepared (as least practically speaking) for my return to the United States. For those of you who are interested (and more importantly for whichever of you shmucks picks me up at National Airport) I'm due to arrive on Flight 815 (Continental) from Newark at 6:18 pm on Tuesday, Apr. 26. And bring my mobile phone, please. I should be at Bootsie's wedding, as well.

I'm sure I'll have some sort of final post reflecting on my journey, but at this point I'm just trying to enjoy what bit of it I have left, pick up some souveniers and not think about the fact that it's all almost over.

I suppose the repeated postings about how fun and beautiful it is to ride a motorbike around the north of Thailand must get a little dull, but it's really something I can't seem to get enough of.

Last night I overate a delicious Thai meal, and was wondering around Pai to try to aid my digestion when a pair of backpacker girls asked me if I knew where they could find Mexican food We became fast friends (as is the general way things work with backpackers) and ended up at a trivia night at one of the local pubs, then off to the Bamboo Bar (Pai's only late night venue), then off to the middle of the Pai High School soccer field until sun up (along with a few other random people). Ah, and keeping a permanent marker in my bag was a very good idea, because if a dude passes out in the middle of a soccer filed at 5 in the morning, he simply must wake up with a tattoo that says "I love men" scrolled across his legs.

As a result, I didn't get up until almost noon, but I (unsurprisingly) got me a motorbike and began racing around Pai's environs. First it was the hot springs, which are basically a REALLY hot stream of water. Then I doubled back to see a waterfall, but ended up driving half the way back to Soppong because the serene mountain scenery, and winding roads, were too much to force me back to this den of backpackery. I ended up buying a funky tribal hat from a villager working a rest area atop a mountain, then headed back to Pai. On the way, I turned off into some random little road, which turned out to be but 50 meters from a lovely set of rocks in a river, perfect for swimming and lounging around (I love finsing a place that isn't in Lonely Planet!). A pair of Thai army guys (this close to the Burmese border there are plenty of members of the Royal Thai Army around) were sharing a Chang on the middle of some rocks in the stream, and there were some 11 year old school children who spoke remarkably good English swimming nearby. The kids sauntered away, but not before convcing me to take a dip in the cool, fish-filled waters. Next thing I know, I'm sunning myself on a rock in between the army guys, each of whom speaks maybe 15 words of English (plus counting). After we had exhausted our Thai and English vocabluaries (which took a suprisingly generous amount of time) I swam back to shore and grabbed my Thai-English dictionary to fill in the rest of the gaps. Alas, duty called these good soldiers back, and I returned to Pai.

The bus ride from Mae Hong Son to Pai was about 4 hours, so I decided to split it up by staying last night at Soppong, a market town en route here in Northern Thailand's mountains. It wasn't a particularly impressive place, but I splurged on a guest house with pool, which was worth every baht. I mostly just lounged around yesterday, and this morning I rented a motorbike and visited some of the surrounding villages of "hill tribe" people. [By way of background, this part of Thailand has a variety of non-Thai ethnicities, mostly nomadic people from all over Asia who live in rather insular mountain villages. In addition, there are tribes of people known as Tai Yai ("Big Thai") who are more like a traditional Thai people rather than a disitinct ethno-linguistic group (but wear colorful clothes and live in small villages as well, so are often included when one speaks of the hill tribes).

Riding around in the mountians on a motorbike is fun (and the scenery spectacular), but I have to say when I got to the villages I was both a little disapointed, and felt a little strange. For one thing, most of the villagers were off tending the fields or at market, so there isn't all that much to see except the children playing, and most of the young ones don't wear the interesting clothing that is so indicative of these different peoples. And these villages are small places and much of the life is done outside, so you feel a little like you are riding a motorbike through someone's living room.

I made it back to my guest house (and took one more dip in the pool), before heading off to the "bus station" (the same stretch of dirt and gravel where I was dropped off the day before) to get the bus to Pai (pronounced, "bye," hence the title).

Fortunately, my bus was rather late, so I got to sit and watch the Tai Yai, Lisu and ordinary Thais conduct business at the markets, which was a much more natural and comfortable way to view these interesting people.

Now, my ride to Soppong was rather interesting as there was actually a dude on the bus with a chicken on his lap, but this ride to Pai puts that one to shame. There were no seats available, so, following the lead of a soldier who climbed on in front of me, I propped on top of the luggage pile at the back of the bus. It's also the time of the year for harvesting onions, which made for an entertaining scent when riding through one of the hill tribe villages, but it was quite a different thing for a 2 hour, winding, up-and-down bus ride though the mountains. The tribal couple in front of me had a sick five-year old with them, and eventually he, too, was piled on the luggage so he could sleep through whatever it was that was ailing him.

But I'm in Pai now, which is a nice enough place but after being one of 5 or so farang in Soppong, I was a little overwhelmed by the backpackerness of this place. The skies look rather ominous as well, so I'm inclined to see the town a bit, rather than rent a motorbike, with hopes of better weather tomorrow. On the other hand, as I've indicated earlier I'm starting to get turned off of driving through people's living rooms, so I might just lay around here tomorrow for a bit and push on to Chiang Rai.

An entertaining final day in Chiang Mai. One of my friends from my trek (from my first trip to Chiang Mai) was passing through on her way back from Burma, en route to Bangkok. Brenna had about four hours to kill in Chiang Mai before her bus left, and I agreed to be her host for the layover. We sat down for a couple of drinks at a backpacker bar near the Tae Pae Gate, and didn't get up until the two of us had polished off "see Tai beer yai" (the only sentence I can actually say in Thai is ordering drinks) and a small bottle of Sang Som. We barely finished dinner before we had to get a tuk-tuk back to my guest house to get her bags and get her to the travel agency for her bus. But alas, off she went to Bangkok, and I spent the remainder of the evening wandering the Chiang Mai Sunday Night Market (and got a great deal on a pair of rather stylish leather sandals.)
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This morning I was off to Mae Hong Song, a rather busy, if tiny, town near the Burmese border. There isn't all that much to see here, so I rented a motorbike and headed out of town. About 50 kms from MHS is a Chinese village right on the border with Burma. It turns out that not all of the Chinese Nationalists fled to Taiwan when the Communists won the Chinese civil war: quite a few of them set up camp here in Thailand (among other places). The journey to Mae Aw (Chinese Name)/Ban Rak Thai (Thai Name) cut through some rather twisty bit of mountain, and the motorbike was frequently confronted with chickens, horses and an occasional pig along the way. The scenery was remarkable, although the mountainous panoramas were occasionally blocked by the smoke of slash-and-burn agriculture that is so prevelent in this part of the globe. Towards the top of the mountain, about 8 kms from the village, the cabbage patches of the bottom gave way for the lush greenery of tea plantations. The village itself isn't particularly remarkable, but it does sit on a pleasant, small reservoir and there are about a half dozen shops selling trinkets, teas sets and Chinese noodles, as well as ching sing tea that is branded (in Thai, English and Chinese) "Made by the Chinese KPT" [Nationalists]. It was actually a rather long day of motorbiking, but after today I really feel like I've gotten the hang of it - and it's just such a sensible form of personal transport. Perhaps tonight I'll find a place for Thai massage before bed, as I hope to set out early tomorrow for a visit to a Hmong village and maybe go see the famous long-necked women.

I actually spent most of yesterday revelling with one sandal.

I'm hanging out near the Tae Pae Gate in Chiang Mai with my water rifle, sipping a can of Chang, enjoying the sun and waterfun. A truckload of Thai college kids and I exchanged some water ordnance, and Bobo - the leader of the gang - ended up offering me a beer and a ride on the tailgate of their truck - an offer no sane person could have refused. As the dozen of us zipped around Chiang Mai, some of my new Thai friends stopped off to buy a block of ice (to both keep the beer cold and the filthy moat water icy, as it's all the more fun to dump icy water during Songkran.) The block of ice was huge, and they were unable to get it onto the truck without dropping and breaking it. Somehow in the melee I lost my right sandal, and I wasn't ready to give it up. Picture this: I hopped off the moving truck (I'm soaking wet and have a bright colored water rifle strapped over my shoulder), run back to get my sandal againt the traffic, and pick up the last chunk of our ice that is lying next to my flip flop. I then sprint back to the truck (a la OJ Simpson in the 80s Avis TV commercial) all the while being doused with water from the trucks I'm passing with my (American) football sized chunk of ice under my arm. When I caught back up to the truck, my new Thai friends were thoroughly impressed.

However, the sandal was not meant to stay on my foot, because a short while later, it fell off when exiting a gas station. So I found myself crossing the waters of Chiang Mai, with one sandal.

After a few more hours of water fighting around Old Chiang Mai, I discover that I'm riding on an expressway off to the campus of Majeo University, where all my Thai friends go to school. I ended up eating at some Thai restaurant (and this was authentic: I was the only farang and there was no English menu) and staying at Bobo's place. Bobo's funny, when we were leaving his apartment complex this morning he was showing off to the Thai girls that work there that he had made a friend from another country. The songthaew back to Chiang Mai was a little scary, as I had no idea where is would drop me off, but I can pronounce Tae Pae Gate well enough in Thai that I made it back to my Guest House without too much trouble.

Even funnier is that one of the Thai girls gave me a pair of sandals to wear to the restaurant that are about 3 sizes too small for my (rather large) feet - I look absurd and my heels are half exposed when I walk in them.

I thing I'm going to stay in Thailand for the rest of my trip, Laos seems like too much work with the short time I have left.

Songkran, from what I've learned, originally came about as the time to wash your Buddha. But Thailand is quite sweltering during this prelude to the rainy season, and it makes more than a bit of sense for Thais to spray water on all of their compatriots in mid-April. Chiang Mai is a rather ancient city, and the old city is surrounded by a brick wall in the shape of a square. Outside of that wall is a moat. Truckloads upon truckloads of Thais (and a few farang as well) drive around the road along side the moat with huge vats of water (many of them also filled with ice), buckets, and water pistols. Along the moat, are oodles of Thais as well, you continually fill up thier vats, buckets, and water arms from the moat (and also add a bit of ice on occasion). In addition, many of the participants are full of beer and rum. In a nutshell, tens of thousands of people spend all day engaged in what must be the world's largest water fight.

Yesterday, I spent the morning walking around, shooting people and being dumped upon. You cannot stay dry at Songkran if you want. Eventually, I found my way into a salon for a hair cut (which was no easy task, as most of the businesses in the city are shut down right now). The lady working there, while she spoke English, did not cut men's hair, so I had to hang out for about an hour waiting for some Thai lady to come from the other shop - but I got to hang out on the street corner and chat in broken Thaiglish with several of the revellers. When the lady did arrive, I got talked into a shave as well, and when we were all done the ladies invited me to have lunch with them - right there in the shop. The Thai people are so darn friendly.

After returning to my Guest House (very wet), I met up with Damien and Boom and had sushi, followed by a rather exuisite two-hour Thai massage. Then, off to the VW busbar and a couple of nightclubs. How Boom made it to work at 9 ayem is beyond me.

I am very content with my decision to come back to Chiang Mai for Songkran.

Songkran is really an enormous party all over Thailand (and I observed quite a bit of that from the 5 hour bus ride yesterday), but here in Chiang Mai they really know how to celebrate the New Year. I got in rather late last night, and found Boom at one of those VW bus/bars that seem to be quite popular parked along the streets of Chiang Mai. Boom's the best - she even found me a rather nice, inexpensive guest house here in the city - and I found her at the busbar along with Damien, a San Franciscan chef, and Sarah, an Aussie (also all alumni of the Chiang Mai Cookery School.) Anyway, Boom also left me a water gun at the reception here at the guest house, so I'm off to cause some trouble!

I'm soaking wet, and I'm not even in my final destination of the day (Chiang Mai) and it's not even 10 ayem! Everyone is driving around in the back of pick-up trucks with buckets of water, water guns, and heaps of talcum powder. What great fun! I just got off the island, and am waiting for a bus to Bangkok (today's itinerary: songthaew to ferry to songthaew to bus to subway to skytrain to train to airport to plane to tuk-tuk to guest house). Yikes!

The beach is a rather nice place to be, I must say. I'm staying at some rather inexpensive bungalos here on Ko Chang, that are but a stone's throw from the water. On the other hand, the bungalos have neither electricity nor running water, and the "shower" is a stone hut with a large vat of water and a bucket for pouring over your body. Travelling with a pair (but not a couple) of English people, having a grand old time. Actually met some Americans last night - seems like the first in ages - but they've been living in China for over two years. However it was nice to be able to make some American cultural references without having to explain them!

Going to try to get a dive in tomorrow before I head off. I'm actually flying from Bangkok to Chiang Mai for Songkran (the Thai New Year/Water Festival) on the 13th, and it'll take me around 7 hours to get to Bangkok, so I'll have to be up early then. I can't believe I have only 15 days left!

The roads in Cambodia are horrendous. Actually, the roads from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville and Siem Reap are fine, but the road to the Thai border is atrociously bad. My minibus was an old Toyota, which leaked (it rained) and had virtually no suspension system. And we had to stop once because the battery inside the cab lit one of the seats on fire, and another time when the radiator shot some hot water into the carriage. We had to stop four times to cross rivers by ferry, and the ferries were handmade constructions of wooden planks and poles, plastic barrels, and outboard boat engines. The trip to the border took almost seven hours. To make matters worse, I took a hard landing on my keister yesterday flopping into the fishing boat used for the snorkeling tour I went on. There was only one Cambodian on the minibus, and she was about 13, but fortunately she sat next to me so I was able to stretch my legs a bit (in exchange for her using my shoulder to sleep on.) She spoke no English, but was very sweet. She got a big kick out of me using my inflatable travel pillow (one of those horseshoe shaped ones you sometimes see for sale at airports) to wedge between my left knee and the minibus wall and seat in front of me to minimize the bruising from the bumps in the road. But that didn't save my left shoulder or my right knee, which are in pain right now. (It might be about time for a Thai massage.) Cambodia was a good experience, but it sure ain't easy travelling compared to Thailand. One odd thing is that the country, in general, is more expensive than Thailand, despite being significantly poorer. Food is rarely less than one or two dollars for a rice dish, and in Thailand you can routinely find (much better tasting and safer) street food for 50 or 75 cents. Bottled water in Thailand is about 10-20 cents, there it is about 50 cents. Guesthouses are often even a dollar or two more per night. (However, I met one guy who was paying a dollar a night to sleep on some elevated wooden planks next to a bar on the beach in Sihanoukville for a dollar a night; if you have your own mosquito net, it isn't a bad way to live, really.) Sihanoukville is odd because there is all this tourist infrastructure, and not that many tourists. I was staying near a place called Serendipity Beach, and there had to be 20 different bar/ restaurants on the beach; no exaggeration, 3 out of 4 in them were empty save the staff. It was like Ko Pha Ngan, with no tourists. Really odd. But I will miss all the silly little kids peddling me crap and telling me the same silly jokes in English. And the bagettes - certainly the best enduring legacy of French colonization. Thai food is the tops, but they don't really eat bread here. Some travelers I met convinced me that 2+ additional hours of transit and finding a guest house in the dark simply wasn't worth it. Anyway, there is a night market here in town to get some food and shop (haggle) for useless junk, which I've just returned from. Very tasty street vendor food :) For those who are curious, barring a major change of heart, I think I'm skipping Vietnam and going to Laos instead. Nine days might be fun there, but I'm better off waiting to go some other time and spending three weeks or so to really get a feel for the place. I've just heard such amazing things about Laos, and being so close again by going back to Chiang Mai, it seems foolish to fail to go.

I'm sitting at an internet cafe literally on the beach here in Cambodia (I can hear the waves lapping at the shore). Cool.

I rented a motorbike for the day ($4), and spent most of the afternoon zipping about the various beaches. As fortunes would have it, a Canadian fellow named Shane - whom I met playing pool at a bar in Siem Reap 5 or 6 days ago - was eating breakfast at my guesthouse this morning after I returned from a walk on the beach. He'd already biked around the island, so he served as a nice tour guide. The beaches are nice here, and of course they are full of funny little Cambodian kids peddling overpriced junk. But my skills of negotiation swindled 2 bananas with the purchase of my cambodian flag bracelet this afternoon from a 10 year old Khmer girl :)

Tomorrow I'm taking a snorkling tour of the islands around Sihanoukville.

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The Killing Fields and S-21 were remarkably moving places, but I can't say that I can really describe them. It's hard to believe that with all the horror caused by the Khmer Rouge, there has yet to be any sort of tribunal for the nation of Cambodia. I actually didn't take photos, but the job of exhuming the bodies is incomplete, and you can still see plenty of bits of bone and clothing in the dirt around the ditches that used to contain mass graves. It's really unspeakable what went on there.

I'm going to go back to Thailand. However, I'm reserving judgment on Vietnam until later. I would like to go, but I'll be so close to Laos, I might just go there instead. (Unlike Vietnam, I've unequivocally heard good things about travelling in Laos.) If nothing else, it will save me a good amount of dough, as it's around US$400 return to go to HCMC or Hanoi from BKK (and that's assuming I can get my flight back to the States changed from Hong Kong to Bangkok - it's even more one-way to Vietnam and one-way to HK.)

Someone in Cleveland needs to find out if Phnom Penh Restaurant on Lorain Ave. serves amok - a tasty dish of steamed fish in a coconut milk sauce. Khmer food, quite frankly, isn't as good as Thailand's, but that little dish, if done right, is awfully tasty.

I'm off to see the local sights here in the capital this morning, and I'll probably hire a motorike to take me to the Killing Fields this afternoon. Places like Dachau, Auschwitz, and Choeng El here in Cambodia are a little strange - turning the horror of man's inhumanity to man into tourist sights - but it still seems to make sense for me to go.

I had a dash of trepidation coming to another Asian capital on the bus ride this morning, after being somewhat overwhelmed by KL and Bangkok. And our first bus stop within the city did little to alleviate my uneasiness, with about a half dozen motorbike drivers literally running next to the bus door as we pulled to a stop, all desperately offering their services. My final stop in Phhom Penh was only about 5 blocks from the guest house I wanted to check out, and I probably refused the service of 20 motorbike and tuk-tuk drivers in the 15 minutes it took me to cover that short span. ("You want motorbike? Massage? Lady? Marijuana cigarette?") On arrival, I decided to splurge, and my room has air-con (A/C, air conditioning, however you like it) and what a sweet hum that machine of chilly goodness was after a hot walk through a tropical cityscape. And I've even got cable television (2 English channels!) in my room with a private hot water shower-toilet, all for the outlandish sum of eight (8) US dollars per night.

As I arrived rather late in the afternoon, I was unable to engage much of the formal sights here in Cambodia's capital, but a leisurely walk in the late afternoon sun turned out to be just what I needed. Phnom Penh is a bit frantic, to be sure, but it's far more navigable and pleasant than either KL or Bangkok. It boasts something that neither has, as well: a very pleasant river running along the edge of downtown with parkside along it, and rows of bars, hotels, internet cafes and shops opposite the park. A group of 4 shirtless 10-12 year old boys stopped me along the riverwalk to show off the tiny live birds they held in their hands, and I fell prey to their charm and agreed to buy them a bag of (overpriced) dried fruit from a woman vendor walking along the riverbank with a wicker basket of sweets and treats. That's one scam I'm OK with falling victim to.

But the city is rather lovely, the French colonial architecture blends well with the river and (what's left of) the Buddhist Wats that are about town. (In addition to essentially evacuating this entire city in the early 1970s, the Khmer Rouge's arch-Stalinism did bry allow for religious expression, and in addition to the murder of thousands of monks, many of the religious structures of Cambodia where destroyed). Despite the fact that Cambodia, like the rest of the world (and especially in the ASEAN countries) is moving towards universal English education, this whole country is full of French tourists.

Crossing the street is a skill I'm slowly getting used to. It's rather simple, really. Find something resembling a traffic gap, and walk, with confidence and swiftness, and assume (pray) that the cars, motorbikes, and bicycles will slow down for you. I'm actually getting OK at it, but my heart still skips a beat at times.

I'm still uncertain how I'll spend my my remaining days in Asia, with the intrigue of Vietnam and the party of the Thai New Year wrestling with my internal day planner. One unmentioned element from my last post is that the cost of getting to Hong Kong is turning out to be much more than I had planned. It's actually much cheaper for me to get to and from Bangkok, and I plan to call Continental Airlines to see if I can switch my return flight to BKK, regardless of what I decide upon. Thanks for your input on that (and there is till time for more comments!), and I'm leaning at this point to heading back to Thailand, and figure out the rest of it as it comes.

My day began around 7:30 in the morning, when Sari, my motorbike driver, and I climbed on his Honda and sped out of Siem Reap, dodging morning commuters of every mean of locomotion one can imagine (foot, push bike, motorbike, tuk-tuk, car, and truckload of people). There was quite a powerful thunderstorm overnight, which kept the temperature at a reasonable level, and the roads with significantly less dust - yet with potholes of water to avoid. Needless to say, motorbike riding in Cambodia is not for the faint of heart. Traveling the 12 kms to the first temple of the day, we eventually began traveling upon a new road leading out of Siem Reap. One cannot doubt that investment in infrastructure leads to economic development, as the new road was full of new looking plants, storage facilities, Western-style housing/hotels under construction, and Khmer commercialism in a way unlike the older streets of Siem Reap. The motorbike hummed through farms of dry rice paddies, and pastures of grazing (and gaunt) cows and water buffalo, where we were greeted by the occasional smokiness of slash-and-burn agriculture, as well as the warm sweetness of a fruit tree whose name I cannot pronounce. The indirect morning light cast a pleasant hue on the ancient crematorium, our first stop, and the climb to the top was a hair-raising way to begin the day's activities.

Sari, a single man, is a shameless flirt with all the girls on bikes that we pass by. He likes to let them pass, toot his horn, then catch up and chat away. I asked him why he doesn't have a girlfriend, and he said, "Girlfriend, she take all my money."

Children, and whole families, linger near every temple, and along the roads thereto, eager to sell you "cold drink,""postcard, Misser, only 10 for one dollar," "scarves,"and "bracelets, if not for you, for your girlfriend." Sari and I stopped on the side of the road to purchase a sample of one of those unmentionable fruits, and were warmly gazed upon by four adorable, filthy little children. "Hi, Hi," they said, smiling and staring all the while at the exoticism of a tall, white man (and the older one also had his hand out, having seen this sort of thing before). They have such warm smiles, and curious eyes, and the innocence of their youth seems to obfuscate the harshness of their young lives. So many of the youngest ones run around without any clothes at all - mostly, I think, out of preference rather than poverty. This nation is so young, both as a result of being a developing nation, and of the harshness of the Khmer Rouge and Civil War, and the young are inescapable - but I can't see why one would want to escape them, these silly, dirty, funny little people.

(As an aside, it's easy to see why Angelina Jolie ended up taking one of the children home with her after staying here in Siem Reap while filming Tomb Raider; if anyone in the blogoshpere knows her email address, please send her a link so that she and I can have dinner to talk about the situation here in Cambodia, and our future life together.)

All of this makes the tragedy of both child sexual exploitation and landmines so painfully obvious. (Of course, one of the girls near one of the temples said, "Misser, please buy bracelet from me, I want go school and not have to make boom-boom.") On the landmine front, on the way home from today's temple visit I stopped by the Cambodia Landmine Museum, literally a wooden shack on a dusty, unpaved road on the outskirts of Siem Reap. (http://www.cambodialandminemuseum.org/) A sad, yet at the same time uplifting place (for the children supported by the place might even have a bit of a chance). I'm trying to keep this blog apolitical, but I just cannot fathom how any country - particularly my own, which is responsible for so much of the death to and maiming of innocents here in Cambodia - can fail to ratify the Ottawa Convention on Landmines. It's genuinely shameful, and I politely urge each of you - regardless of your political persuasion - to consider writing your elected representative regarding this important step to prevent an expansion of the millions of tons of anti-personnel landmines lingering throughout the developing world.

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As a funny bit, I feel compelled to mention "Happy Food." While marijuana is (officially) illegal in Cambodia, it is permitted to be used in food as a seasoning agent. (Supposedly, it has been used for a long time in that fashion, but I'm skeptical of that claim.) Anyway, throughout the backpacker/traveler section of town, you will find signs that advertise "Happy Food," or more specific items like "Happy Pizza." In a nutshell, if you want cannabis on/in your food, just order it happy, as in, "I'll have the omelet, but I'd like to make it happy."

Tomorrow is my last day here at the Temples of Angkor Wat, and the crown jewel (unsurprisingly called Angkor Wat) had been saved for last. I have many more pictures than I will ever need (or that would ever be interesting for anyone but me to examine), and I'm sure tomorrow will test my camera's memory card.

And don't forget to weigh in on my traveler's dilemma below!

I'm considering a radical departure to my itinerary. I was planning on heading from Siem Reap down to Phnom Penh, and then off via the Mekong to Saigon/HCMC. However, I've been hearing quite a few nasty things about backpacking in Vietnam (although the scenery get very high marks). Moreover, I'm enticed by the Thai New Year celebration April 13-15 (biggest festival is in Chiang Mai). Evidently the whole theme of the thing is to walk around dousing other people with water (there is a symbolism there of washing away the old for the New Year). Farangs, I'm told, are aggressively targeted. So, I've got three options as I see it taking into account my flight back to the US is on 26 April in Hong Kong.

(1) Forget Thailand, and stick to "the plan"and head from here south to the capital, get my Vietnam visa (single-entry is the outrageous sum of 65 dollars!), and head off down the Mekong and work my way North into Vietnam, catching a flight from Ha Noi on the 24th or so into Hong Kong.

(2) Head south from here, and after seeing Phnom Penh, check out the southern coast of Cambodia, and southeastern Thailand, working my way back to Chiang Mai by the 13th via Bangkok. At the end of the festival, fly to Vietnam (probably Saigon) on the 15th, which could still allow me up to 9 full days (excluding travel days) in Vietnam.

(3) Forget Vietnam altogether, and after the festival head into Laos on the 15th and eventually find my way back to Bangkok for a flight to Hong Kong around the 24th.

I know there are some pro-Vietnam factions out there, but does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Cambodia's a rather poor country, I must say. Of course, the temples are just as spectacular as I imagined, but one cannot get away from the fact that this country has a ways to go before it even gets to Thailand/Malaysia level of development. On the other hand, it leads to some very amusing elements to visiting here.

Siem Reap is a dusty town, and everyone is constantly using their homemade wicker brooms to sweep, or running water, to get the dust off the sidewalk. It's a losing battle. But the people are friendly, the children (even the ones who aren't trying to sell you something) all scream, "Hulow, hulow," and giggle when you reply. Whole families, including the very young, all pile on motorbikes to get around, and I actually saw a 10 year old buy driving an oxcart this afternoon.

Along the side of the main roads, every 50-100 meters or so are racks of old booze and water bottles filled with a yellow liquid, lying on rusty metal racks. For whatever reason, Johnny Walker seems a rather popular carafe on these steel pushcarts. They are filled with fuel for your motorbike. Now there are regular filling stations, but they appear to be solely for the use of the fancy air-con buses used in the non-backpacker tourist industry. My motorbike driver today stopped on the side of the road, told the guy he wanted 2 liters, gave him $1.60, lifted his seat, and the guy pulled out a funnel and filled up his tank with a Johnny Walker Red bottle of petrol.

I'll post more on the temples after I'm done seeing them.

They call Thailand the Land of Smiles, and it's easy to see why (and I don't mean the wide availability of opium). What a charming, beautiful, delightful nation. Of course, there are too many people trying to rip you off, and it was way too hot at times, but it's no wonder at all that Thailand is such a backpacker haven: private room accomodation for a dollar and a half, free flowing (and strong) beer and rum, wonderful sites, the world's best cuisine, massages, amazing diving, and a warm, friendly people. I've left Thailand, but there is no way I'm leaving this planet without another journey back.

Funny bit about the heat in Ayutthaya. It's a pretty small town, and there is only one bar open late (after 10) in the Guest House district, and thank God it had air-con. Anyway, while zipping around the wats on a motorbike was a relatively good way to forget how hot it was, everytime Guy and I started putzing around the temples on foot, we quickly became aware of how oppressive the sun was. Back at the bar, Guy and and Irishman were talking abour how hot it was, and mentioned with near incredulity that the mercury had reached 40 degrees. Of course, as an American educated backpacker, I had no idea what that meant. Fortunately, everywhere in Thailand they keep a calculator, often so that a merchant can tell you (or negotiate on) a price if his English isn't very good (15 can sound a lot like 50). Anyway, despite the fact that I was on about my fourth Chang, I was able to remember the 5/9 +/- 32 calcluation from science class. Of course, I had to do it several times because I didn't know if was 5/9 or 9/5, or plus or minus 32, but I eventually figured it out. Anyway, in the end, they were right: forty degrees is D@MN hot!

The highlight of last night was actually performing for the bar. Some drunken 40-year old traveller guy wanted a singer to go along with his electric guitar playing, and I was happy to oblige. I ended up singing with the guy (and later with a drummer) for a couple of hours last night, and my voice was fried this morning. (It was the bartender's birthday, and after she "closed" the bar we continued drinking and performing for several hours with the metal shutter door to the outside closed. Some drunken Thai guy - who spoke almost no Enlgish - kept feeding me (literally, as in holding the glass) beer (that he bought) in between songs to keep us going. What a grand time.

For whatever reason, I seem to be doing quite a bit of singing on this trip (my trekmates in Chiang Mai had quite a bit of it as well).

I got up this morning and went to the train station; thankfully the trains from the North all stop @ Bangkok's airport, so I didn't need to make another trek through there. Had a bit of trouble at Passport Control, however. Some of you may remember a few years back my ID had expired and I was using my passport as my proof of age at bars in the States. As a result, it's pretty beat up and is peeling right next to the photo. The guy in the booth found me so suspicious that he sent me over to his supervisor for inspection (you think they would have done this on the way INTO the country, no?) Anyway, stuff like that always makes me awful nervous - even though I had no contraband and my passport is legal. But I made it through, and had a rather luxurious Bangkok Air flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia. (It's rather funny to me that I'll drop 5,500 baht on a plane ticket, yet I'll walk away from a street vendor or tuk-tuk driver over 10 baht; the truth is, I just hate being ripped off.) The airport here in Siem Reap is quite small, but I was able to get a visa on arrival, and my guest house is quite charming, clean, and my room is enormous. I rode in on the back of a motorbike in from the airport ($1 vs. $5 for a car) and of course the driver tried to (a) take me to a "better" guesthouse, (b) take me somewhere to eat, (c) offer to be my driver for the temples tomorrow. Nice enough guy, but it's a good policy over here never to buy anything from the first guy that tries to sell it to you. The contrast of dodging a few cows wandering the road, and shortly thereafter driving by all the fancy Western hotels on the way into town was rather amusing for me. The rain started to sprinkle as we arrived at my guesthouse, and by the time I checked in it was a full-fledged downpour, which was very welcome after the "40 degree" day yesterday in Thailand. My room actually has a very nice patio attached, and listening to the rain for a spell was awfully relaxing after a day of travelling. I hope it doens't rain tomrrow, seeing the temples in that condition does not sound particularly appealing; I can rent a motorbike with driver for $8, but a car with driver is $20, and hey, 12 bucks is 12 bucks. And motorbikes are fun.

So today will be a lazy afternoon in Siem Reap, maybe meet a few travellers and read a bit. Tomorrow, I conquer Angkor Wat.