penhomenal

this morning's first outing: a trip to the killing fields outside of the city. little more than a field with a thoughtfully constructed memorial, the site was rife with emotion still. placards marked the three onsite mass graves, a tree where a loudspeaker designed to drown out the sounds of the executed, a pole where children were beaten, and a stack of skulls that reached three stories high. there were butterflies everywhere, starving cows whose skin provided little more than a membrane to shield bones from the street side dust, a few water buffalo ambling around, and lots of children offering there service as subjects of photographs for a dollar. it was depressing, needless to say.

and then it was back on the bicycle. at first i just wanted to go north of town to see wat phnom. but that was silly, depressing, full of dollar gorged beggars and americans who have still failed to notice that pointing feet directly at buddha, pointing at people, and leaving the functional volume on digital cameras are all no-nos. it was a freak show. so i headed even further north to check out some random wats, hung out with a few kids for a while and jumped rope with them, fumbled through the eight lanes of traffic, got a little sunburnt, ripped through the central market before realizing i was going the wrong way, and just returned to my hostel sweaty and dirty.

i'm loving the city but longing for air sans melting plastic, corrugated metal sparks, and dust. maybe a few paved roads, and a respite from the ubiquitous motorbike.

poly-lanes and pseudo temples

okay so all of you who might have been worried that i wouldn't be able to brave a bike again (and sorry to all of you who had simply hoped i wouldn't) rest easy. i rented a bicycle early this morning for 2US and cruised around the city. literally all around the city. at first, i was mortally afraid of the steady flow of mopeds, motorcycles, tuk-tuks, buses, vans, dump trucks, and cyclotaxis. and then i sort of figured out the system of what i have dubbed the poly-lane. its so organized, and i was moving so slowly. the farthest area from the center of the road is reserved for those going against traffic: once you figure that out you're set. slower vehicles stay toward the right, and to cross the street or turn you just have to head steady in one direction and don't make any sudden moves. or else....SPLAT! its like a ginormous and neverending game of frogger.

so i cruised to several wats, and they were homesteads for many squatters, young monks, old beggars, and trash. lots of trash. the structures themselves are beautiful, but the city hasn't really had the time, money, or energy to preserve its landmarks. the city itself is the landmark.

everywhere i go i have a hard time not picturing the not so distant past when all of the streets were full of soldiers dragging people out of their homes and evacuating the city. THE ENTIRE CITY. the buildings and silent streets were left vacant for four years while pol pot et al redefined the society by destroying it.

i went to tuol sleng today, which was the main torture center for the khmer. it, appropriately enough, predated the prison as a primary school. the devices of torture, many skulls, some original beds, cells, and photos were on display. it was profoundly painful to see. the gallows are still intact. young soldiers used to hang prisoners by their arms upside down until they passed out and then dunk their heads in fish water to wake them up and commence interrogations. there is one mass grave on the site, but most of killing was donw in the fields, one of the main sites i'm going to go see tomorrow.

i really like this city. my hostel is kind of bunk, but i've made friends with some brits, a czech, and two security guards who fed me dinner last night.

i also went to the royal palace and silver pagoda which are odd replicas of bangkok's. the concrete, gray painted nagas are a sign of how new the history is.

funny moment of the day: a chinese family asking a monk to take their picture. he obliged, and i chuckled. other funny moment, all of the tuk-tuk drivers who are supposed to be notorious for heckling and following tourists around to offer them rides laughing at me incessantly for the bicycle. other funny moment: the backs of my hands are sunburnt. not so much funny as very strange looking.

so i'm headed to bangkok on tuesday, and then on to penang, and then back to singapore via the jungle line from khota baru in malaysia. i really love this city though, and plan to come back...

phnom penh

headed to the capital today...

back in cambodia

my journey started at 4am this morning, shower, packed, took a taxi to the train station: eerily quiet and full of sleeping beggars. a five hour train ride turned into an eight and half hour train ride, but it only cost a dollar to get from bangkok to the cambodian border at poipet so i'm not complaining. split a tuk-tuk with a japanese backpacker to the border, the driver tried to rip us off, but failed miserably and was oddly resigned to defeat, after several direct orders to take us straight to the border he relented and no longer wanted us to play cards with some of his friends and get a visa from them.

a mean immigration man wanted a lot more money than i knew that we had to pay, but again, after a few, okay fine i will go back to bangkok to get a visa and you won't get any money from me, he relented. crossed into cambodia, and boarded a little bus through a mob of so called "mafia taxis" met a guy that i trusted for some reason, he took me by motorcycle to his house, arranged a share taxi to come pick me up and i sat in a camry, that if you switched the driver and passenger seats, and tacked on a "bkends" license plate would have been susan daigre's car. felt bad for the pack of brits in front of me at immigration who were boarding a so-called ksr scam bus. in this scam passengers are taken to a remote location , the driver feigns the car's break-down, kicks everyone out, and then his friend shows up charging them ten times as much to just get them back to where they started. atleast they weren't traveling solo, so they have good company in their abandonment.

thumped along on highway 5 for two hours, and slipped around a massive rainstorm, trash heaps, children with distended bellies, gas stations comprised mainly of whiskey bottles full of petrol, and the putrid smell of burning plastic that has been consistent since the outskirts of bangkok. but for five dollars, a mildly painful lesson in cambodian music, and an introduction to an adorable family and the lengths they go to to milk the tourism bribery schemes without directly ripping anyone off, i have arrived in battambang.

in the morning, after a HOT shower, and some early morning bathing in air con, i am taking the bus to phnom penh.

so i made it. and now after an ankor beer and some khmer food, i'm headed to bed.

photos of the grand palace...

grand? you bet your ass.

so i went to the grand palace today. gad its amazing. and i saw the most revered buddhist shrine in asia. all gold and a little buddha (2 feet tall) of solid jade. and i saw the largest reclining buddha in the world, and i tell you wat (get it?) that sucker was big. huge in fact. but the jade buddha was discovered like 100 years ago, when the stucco it was smothered in was chipped away and someone noticed that there was something hugely valuable underneath. a massive treasure hunt ensued, but it was just the one found. i took a water taxi on the chao prayu river (sp?) which was clogged with tourists, most of the german and chinese persuasion, skuttled along and walked around the city shrine which is basically a massive and ornate homage to the current king. haha, white house. try GOLD COMPLEX. it is amazing how young america is.
a tuk-tuk driver tried to rip me off. he didn't succeed and when he realized he couldn't scam me he left me at the second of the three stops we agreed on. before i paid him. so in the end i made out with a nice trip across the city free of charge.
they say nothings free here: but i got out of the situation with my wallet, my dignity, and a FREE ride.
i'm dizzy thinking about my day. and getting amped up for the temple of dawn and the trimuvit wat tomorrow. i wish there were someone here with me to experience all of this but i feel that my life skills are in a rapid growth spurt, even though i'm constantly worried about getting robbed, beaten senseless, or just getting a sunburn!
so far i've avoided all three and that was my wish at the lucky buddha today, to continue the streak of good fortune that has led me here. i am so thankful for getting to see all of this. and do all of this. and learn all of this. thank you everybody who has helped me get this far. hopefully i can get postcards to all of you, although i doubt i would get much else done if i were to commit myself to thanking everybody who has made this possible.

so this is asia?

i've never experienced culutre shock before, because i've never had this feeling before, which i'm pretty sure is culture shock. i walked and walked to get my bearings yesterday, and i felt dizzy from the frenzy of people whizzing past, but moving so slowly. finally after getting a little bit oriented i set myself a task: subway to the lumphin park and then to the moon bar. so i hopped on the skyway train, hit the subway, got off two stops later and voila. pure silence. the park was full, but everyone, no matter what type of clothing they were wearing was jogging around this massive path. there was a free exercise gym outdoors with rickety rowing machines, pull up bars, and whizzing stationary bikes. there were so many people exercising in the heat. in the middle of the park was a big lake that wrapped around under skyscrapers and housed tones of massive turtles and atleast one GINORMOUS moniter lizard. it was like the size of me.

so after getting some peace and quiet, i headed to the banyon tree hotel in the financial district. On the 61st floor of the second tower is the worlds largest open air bar and a spectacular view of the city. i wathced the sun set there along with a few other obnoxious westerners, paid the equivalent in one nights accomodation for a gin and tonic, and then headed back home.

ugg. so now on to the central pier to catch a boat tour of the sights of on the banks of, you know, bangkok.

the science of berth

so, i just arrived at my hostel in bangkok after a day in georgetown and a 20 hour train ride through the top of malaysia and the tail of thailand. i have decided that i love riding on trains which is funny because i fly for free...anyway. about to tackle the city and this ridiculous heat

batu caves

13 km north of kuala lumpur in the southernmost part of a limestone bed of southeast asia lies a massive cave with roughly 300 steps carved out. they lead into a massive hindu temple. i climbed the stairs at noon, so that when i got into the inner chamber the sun hit directly on the temple. water dripped from jagged tips of calcified spikes and monkeys ran around snagging whatever they could manage, mostly coconuts. i took a local bus (U6) and paid about fifty cents for a days pass to get there. it was awesome.

i took the bus back in to town, and found a little nasi stand and ordered some tom yam soup. spicy but sooooo good. i then headed to the kl sentral train terminal to get some info on my trip to penang tomorrow morning. good thing; the local train isn't running so i'm going to have to take a bus. i got off at a random stop on the monorail and ended up in the thick of chinatown. zigging and zagging alleyways of louis vitton and dior, fruit stands, dried fish heads, speeding motorbikes (which have an odd habit of ending up on sidewalks here), and lots of kissing noises.

i stumbled across all of the things i thought i wasn't going to have time to see: a massive hindu temple on the edge of chinatown, a huge chinese medicinal shop in traditional architecture, merdaka square, the national mosque, central market, and the largest chinese temple in malaysia whose name i can't remember. the clouds started hovering ahead as i raced through the square and found a nice taxi driver to take me to the monorail stop just as i felt the first raindrops and heard the first clap of thunder.

i rode back on the monorail in the heavy rain and wound all the way through the city. several views of the twin towers later, and i ducked off a few blocks from the hostel and skirted back "home." to penang tomorrow and thailand the next day...

one more thing...

i found out yesterday i have been accepted at university of oslo for their media studies masters program...!

kl

so the rain and a hostel with free computers is making ye ole blogging easier. i wondered the streets today and headed to the city's main mosque by train: it was a veritable compound (15 acres) of beautiful architecture and men wondering in and out. i was there at the bewitching hour when the call for afternoon prayer rung out over the streets of downtown. i watched men flurry across the road and flood into the gates as i stood on the train platform drively above the entrance. it was pretty awesome. and then i wondered the chow kit market for about two hours, which is a rather dingy conglomerate of fruits, dried fish, wallets, motorcycles zipping along sidewalks, and something that smelled putrid. i walked in and out of little alleways with vendors and ever time i ducked outside the twin towers stood hovering. and then all the sudden i couldn't see them. and then all the sudden it started POURING! i was unprepared, and walked for a while longer before i had to duck in to a few places for a respite. i accidentally ate the signature dish i was supposed to be tracking down. all i knew when i got into the restaurant was that "ayam" means chicken and i couldn't understand anything else on the menu but "roti" (duh) and "tom yam" soup. so i ordered, under the roti section, "murtabak ayam." and it was awesome. thin bread under and wrapped around a dense concoction of onion, egg, chicken, and some other stuff. all the while to be dipped in a red curry gravy that was freaking amazing. and my lunch cost 6 RM, or 2 US dollars. sweet. so tomorrow, i'm off to the train station to pre-buy tickets to penang, check out the towers, and wander around somemore, maybe go to the main city park?
selamat!

malacca (melaka)

still not sure how to spell the name of this quaint little town. it was the biggest sea port in the world like five hundred years ago, and now its a tiny town with a few 500 year old buildings. the people are wonderful, the religions are mixed: buddhist and chinese temples, sit next to hindu temples, which sit next to mosques, which sit next to christian churches. a river splits the town, and my mom, a friend, and I stayed overlooking the river at a tiny little cafe downstairs hotel upstairs combo. while eating dinner one night, we saw a monitor (sp?) lizard slither out of the water and climb up a moss-covered embankment on the other side. probably two and a half feet long. so i'm headed to kuala lumpur by bus today...

hiatus = imminent Xplosion

So its been awhile since I've posted anything, Singapore has been keeping me very busy: from stumbling through neighborhoods that giveway to cultural authenticity unlike I've ever seen, to passing out midafternoon to recover from a seemingly long but surprisingly short day walking in the heat, to the food. I've been tasting everything, watching people, guessing nationalities (and failing miserably) getting used to the mass transit, and getting acquainted. And now I'm off for another mini-epic journey that I promise I'll keep all of you up to date on. Below is a picture of the train routes in southeast asia. So far, I know I'm going up to Melaka, to Kuala Lumpur, to Penang, to Bangkok, to Battambang, and then to Phnom Penh. We'll see about Laos on my way back. All on the rails, all by myself. But, this is backpacking fodder so I'm thinking I'll make a few friends along the way who are in all likelihood fun, funny, and wielding great stories! Just cross your fingers that they speak fun English. Two important notes: don't get too jealous, and don't worry: I'll be just fine.