first glances of Phnom Phen, Cambodia

CAMBODIA:
the view from the balcony of our hotel :)
The river view of across from our hotel
Sleep til you're hungry, eat til you're sleepy....inside a restaurant we ate at :)

Those things on the ceiling? Geckos. Five of them (probably more) on the ceiling. It's normal in most public type buildings....and hotels. There was one in our bathroom the first day.

Phnom Phen, Cambodia

I'm in Cambodia. Woot.
We got out of the airport and it was immediately completely different from Hanoi, Vietnam. Everything is in dollars, and not nearly as cheap as Vietnam. It's much quieter.
We were sitting in the cab on the way to our hotel, and I was so much more at ease! Then Hailey pointed out how much more room Phnom Phen has compared to Hanoi.
She said Hanoi had an abundance of everything, and that was totally true. Hanoi had too many motorcycles, too many buildings, too much trash, people, bread, flowers, noodles, and lakes.
Phnom Phen is kind of quiet, moderate traffic, and much more space to breathe.

We got here and are living in triples, so it's Hailey, Emily and I. I napped until supper time, and we ate a block away at a French style restaurant. A woman who had no legs, strange arms, and was malnourished rolled to our table and asked us to buy something. And then throughout the rest of the meal, at least 6 kids came to our table to hassle us to buy books about SE Asia (many of which we have already read for class). It was pretty difficult to process. Our hotel is right on a river, and Bob said if we walk along the main strip on the river, we'll see children who are sniffing glue. I haven't seen it yet, but it's only the first day.
There are bugs everywhere at night, which is going to be frustrating. Overall though, I haven't experienced much of Cambodia yet. These are just first impressions.
At this point, there is some catty fighting amongst the group, which is probably to be expected. I'll update again when I have more to say. We start teaching English on Monday.

just some excerpts

some excerpts from my journal:

March 8th, Monday
Went to school today, via taxi. We were invited with gummy candy, crackers, and lots of important people. "Volunteers" seemed to surround us the entire day as we were given a trou, an introduction to the university, and a cultural communication class.
The "volunteers" are English majors-all girls except one boy, who are super nice. I met Van (pronounced "vun") who will be my host family person. We agreed that I would stay with her for a couple days next week. She is SUPER cute and adorable.
The weather was freazing today, but a nice change from the hot, steamy temperatures of Thailand. I got a little annoyed because our food was ordered for us and either had shellfish or peanuts on it. That was tough and awkward, because I had to refuse everything. But they bought me a loaf of bread later, and were really kind. Professor Ha is probably my favorite because she put up with us during the weekend at the Pagoda, and still showed up to help us our first day at the university. I respect her hardcore. My first day at the university was exponentially better than the weekend at the Pagoda (with the heat, goat meat, and boring pagoda).

Wednesday, March 10th

Today we went to a museum and had the most boring tour guide ever. Luckily, we had Bob who told us the interesting stuff. Whe I thought were done, we went outside to this like playground area, which was mostly just a bunch of reconstructed old Viet houses from different eras. So we got to PLAY! The volunteers set up a yard game for us to play. They are so nice, we played it with poles (like jump-rope, but with lots of poles instead). We all had a blast. Then, we took way to many group pictures, and Barbara told Bob to buy us all coffee and cake :) So he did. It was a very good day.

Ho Chi Minh is in WHAT building?

At the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum :)
cAlex and I at the One Pillar Pagoda, one of the Vietnamese girls commented on this photo on facebook and said we look alike. :)
This was at the Ca Tru Live show. This form of music is old, highly respected, and very difficult to do. Lots of chanting and moaning, it takes about 10 years to actually be good at it.
Hailey gave Hoang a book (Twilight), and Hoang got super excited. We were walking through the pottery village (Bat Trang).
This is Vun and I at her house (it was hot and humid), in the middle of singing karaoke with her friends.




As I get ready for bed the night before my Vietnamese final...I twiddle my thumbs and think of how we're going to be in Cambodia on Saturday! There, we will be the teachers :)

On Thursday we have a Gala show with the Vietnamese volunteers. All of us are performing, so Jacquie is going to sing a lullaby, while one of the volunteers is going to sing a Vietnamese lullaby. There's apparently going to be a fashion show of cultural clothing and cool ao dais. Linh wants me to sing You Are My Sunshine with her...so we'll see if we can get that together. All the Coe girls (minus Jacquie) are performing Wannabe, by the Spice Girls :) We practiced tonight, it'll be quite the performance.

Today, I took Alex and Emily back to this fruit shake stand that I went to with two of the Vietnamese girls, and we had fruit with condensed milk and coconut cream and ice (sounds gross, but actually very good). It was only 15,000 dong (75 cents). As we're sitting there, these old tourists come by and just stare (tourists do that), so I told them it was good and they should try it. I explained in English how they could order, and what it was. It was really weird because I know that we're tourists...but I very rarely feel like one.
There are a few times when it's awkward because you're the only white person, and EVERYONE is staring at you, but that's rare. Our first weekend at the pagoda, a man wanted a picture with me, and he put his arm around me and made James take a picture....speaking to us in Vietnamese or some other language the entire time. It was really awkward. Another time, at a restaurant, Jacquie and I were talking to one of the English teachers (who was Vietnamese), and a man came over and stared at us, pointed, and started talking to her about us in Vietnamese.
We're space aliens over here.

HULLO! where are you from? Do you like Vietnamese food?

VIETNAM:
So this is Emily Cameron hanging out on the top of our boat in Halong Bay, Vietnam. It's a famous place in Vietnam, and beautiful. We spent the last 2 weeks in Vietnam running around, and our first weekend was horrible. We arrived around 9pm on Friday night, and were told that we were leaving at 5am to spend a weekend somewhere else...and looking at a Pagoda. So we did, and Saturday was super hot, and the pagoda was underwhelming, and we had a terrible first impression of Vietnam.
The people here constantly honk at each other, no one is patient, and they don't obey traffic laws or signals. Thus, crossing the street is ridiculously terrifying. That weekend was not pleasant, they kept giving us goat meat...so I lived on bread and fruit. But when we got to the university Monday, we were welcomed by like 20 girls (one guy) who had applied to be our friends basically :) They come to our Vietnamese classes when they can, and go on field trips with us. It was awesome.
But we had class all day everyday, and have to wake up early to get a taxi that takes 45 minutes to get to the university. By the second weekend, we were EXHAUSTED, and we went to Halong Bay.
Papa D got us our own boat for two days, and we sailed through Halong Bay.

We stopped in a cave that was huge! It was called SURPRISE cave.

Here is a group picture of us and the Vietnamese English majors :) We had a field trip to the Ethnology Museum.

We learned how to play an old children's game there. It's like jump rope, but with long poles. It was a lot of fun.
There were all sorts of life size houses that were different styles from different time periods in Vietnam.
Our last week in Vietnam is this week, and we leave for Cambodia on Saturday. The girls who signed up to work with us made Vietnam so much better. The experience here was a million times better, and more meaningful because we have spent to much time with them. Last night they took us out to supper and then we all sang karaoke. Hoa met me Saturday morning at our hotel and took me to send stuff to the states at the post office, and then Thanh got us Alice in Wonderland in 3D tickets, and helped us see a movie in Vietnam :) It's been so much fun and even though the weather sucks, and the country is kind of unfriendly, the girls have made it fun and worthwhile.

VIETNAM

Hoa, Hang and I after walking around the Old Quarter of Hanoi, Vietnam (we had fruit and tea at some street stands :) )
I'm standing next to John McCain's flight suit at a museum in Hanoi, it was a museum for the prison that he was held in during the war.
a cathedral in Northern Vietnam
our first weekend in Vietnam, we rode boats around and saw beautiful mountains and caves

some pictures to help your imagination

Makha Bucha Day (well, night) at the temple in the forest

AND

the meditation center where Emily and I spent two days

Slowly going to catch up :)

You've missed so much!
I'll let you in on a little secret...I'm in a new country! Say hello to learning about Vietnam :)
I'm learning Vietnamese language, society, and culture while here, and overall just having cool adventures. Our last week in Chiang Mai, Thailand was bittersweet, but lovely. Emily Cameron and I went on a meditation retreat Tuesday and Wednesday. We showed up to Wat Suan Dok around 2 in the afternoon, and forked over 400 baht each (12 dollars), and they bussed us to a meditation retreat center about 40 minutes from the heart of the city. It was a really nice facility, and I had no idea what to expect, except we had to wear all white.
Well they rang the gong and we got our first introduction to meditation with a seasoned monk who was in his late 20s. He had us chant in Thai, and taught us to bow down to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. I think that was my biggest learning experience. I read the sheet we had that told us in parenthesis, the time when we were supposed to bow down to pay respect to the three gems. I was so nervous, because stupidly, I had chosen to be in the first row, right in front of the monk.
I wasn't sure how to not offend him, and I didn't want to create any problems within the first hour of arriving. The problem was simple; there was no way I was going to bow down when everyone else did. It wasn't even something I debated. God's kind of clear on that, he's a jealous God, and I'm not supposed to be bowing before any others. There were plenty reasons, justifications, and rationalities I could have tried to make it ok...but in my mind, it wasn't, and I was not going to. As the head monk said in a super smooth, soft voice "and now, bow down, touch your head to the floor, and pay respect to the Buddha" I stayed still, and kept my eyes forward while everyone around me touched their heads to the floor.
Let’s go back to the reason I was even at this retreat. I think Buddhism is FASCINATING. It’s not nearly as easy as any of the books make it, the people who practice it follow so many traditions that aren’t specifically Buddhist, strange things that to Westerners are pointless. I love learning new things about it. When Emily and I were talking to the monks about the meditation retreats they had, I figured hey, it’s like yoga, a way to clear your mind. I had no intention of actually becoming Buddhist or anything, so I thought it wouldn’t conflict with my religion. I was sort of wrong. The rest of the time we were at the retreat center, we said the same chants and were supposed to bow down to the triple gems at least 4 times. After the first time, I decided to hang out in the back row so that I didn’t appear to be blatantly disrespecting the practice. The monk said that some people didn’t bow down to the Buddha because they were too egotistical or unfriendly. That sucked, because I don’t see it that way at all. I’d been living in Thailand for two months, taking off my shoes in temples, and being polite and respectful of this whole other culture that was deeply infused with Buddhism. I kind of wished that the monk had tried to understand other people’s reasons for not bowing down (by the way, in our group of 15, I was the only one who didn’t), instead of just classifying it as unfriendly. It was a meeting of cultures, and a situation that was misunderstood, but it taught me a lot about myself. I realized that as much as I love learning about other religions, there isn’t any way I’ll be able to shirk my own long enough to partake in others and understand them on another level. Huston Smith was apparently criticized for joining other religions and studying them for extended amounts of time, while all the while considering himself…Christian I think. I realized last week I’ll never be able to do that, and I’m kind of glad. As interesting as it would have been to be able to fully partake in the meditation retreat on its fullest level, as a person studying other religions, I will be drawing my line at actually partaking of things that compromise my relationship with my God.

here are some pictures :) of Sukothai and Pizza noodle (Phitsanluk)

the second temple we went to. very large Buddha
Hailey, Me, and Emily
saw this in Pizzanoodle along the river, eventually there was like a family of 5 really cute puppies :)
Jacquie, Emily, and Hailey exploring the ruins in Sukothai
Me (with a super sweet temple in the background)

emilee and i with our babababaw ("crazy" in thai) horse, he tried to go without the driver, and we almost hit a couple cars :)


these supports are for the bo tree. people pay for and donate them to make merit. the idea is that you're helping support the tree under which buddha attained enlightenment (not THE tree, but it's the idea of the thing) there were a TON of these supports, it was really cool
SUPER CUTE puppies at the temple
really old paintings on wood about Siddartha's life (buddha)