hungry?

snacks and such in Cambodia. yum yum!Morning Glory (used in cooking)crabssugar cane (peeled, cut up into small pieces and sold out by the scoop from street vendors)misc. fruits, vegetables and suchmisc. kabobssnakesfruitpomelo (SO good!!!) they are HUGE!!!!!! They grow up to 30 cm in diameter and up to 10 kg!!! The peel is very thick. The inside part itself was bigger than a standard large grapefruit! They cut off the peel like that before selling. You just finish peeling, then peel each section. The juicy pockets can be picked off the sections in bunches or one at a time.bamboo rice (not as good as the ones along the roads near Siem Reap)tasty treats?giant cricketsHUGE cockroachesfrogsbaby birds and cricketsgiant water beetles

Did I try any of these things? Well, the vegetables, fruit, and rice, yes. The other stuff? Sorry to disappoint, but no. I think if I was there with friends I probably would have, but I wasn't brave enough to try them alone.
:S

Toad

This is the friendly fellow that hopped under my feet at the Riverside Bistro in Phnom Penh. I do love frogs and toads. I think they are so cute!

Cambodia - Wat Phnom

I checked out Wat Phnom on my first day in Phnom Penh, in the midst of the VISA confusion. The temple was okay, but nothing spectacular. I was sort of disappointed, I suppose. Maybe because I've seen so many temples in so many different countries.
I was there for sunset, so by the time I got down the back side, it was too dark to take pics of all of the monkeys that were everywhere.I DID like the cats that were everywhere!

a tree

This tree was in the Royal Palace/Silver Pagoda area in Phnom Penh. It is such a cool tree! It is a Shorea Robusta Roxb, which is also known as a cannonball tree or Sal tree.

frustrated... again.

The Korean embassy here in Cambodia really sucks. When you phone them, they will answer your questions. But when you actually go there, the answers that they gave you on the phone were not true. They will say it is easy to get the VISA and all you need it the VISA issuance number. But no. They actually want the official blue document from the Immigration Office in Korea. They will then say that it only takes a couple of days to process the VISA. But no. Then they say it will take more than a week. WHAT?
STRESS!!!
My school sent the document with FedEx. It was supposed to arrive at my hotel here in Phnom Penh on the 16th, and I would be here on the 19th to pick it up and go to the embassy. I arrived here and the hotel said the document didn't come. Several people there said it didn't come (it's a very small hotel with not many people... I think almost all from one family). I talked to my school, they contacted FedEx, who said that the document was delivered to my hotel on the 15th! So back to the hotel to ask again. It turns out it was delivered, but the woman that signed for it locked it under the counter and forgot who it was for and then forgot about it. She also didn't tell anyone else that it had arrived. SHE is the first one that told me that it had not arrived! So one more day wasted.
Then, document in hand, I went to the embassy and applied. Fine. No problem. BUT, the date that the woman wrote on the receipt as to when I could pick it up was the 28th! More than a week! I told her I have to fly out on Friday. I have to phone today to see if they can rush it. ARGH!
This weekend is a huge All of the hotels are booked for the weekend, and everyone is busy getting ready for the boat races and other such festivities.
So this week is a write off. I should have just come here for the 15 day flight sale that the airline was offering and then gone to Japan for the over night VISA run. It would have cost the same, I would have been able to see more here, and wouldn't have all of this crap to deal with. Who knew?

silk

Yesterday morning I went to a silk factory. Very interesting.
They show the entire process from the eggs of the silk worms all the way through to the end product.At first, the worms are white. They eat mulberry leaves.Once they get big enough, they stop eating and turn a yellow color.They are then placed on either dried branches (traditional method) or a basket (modern method), where they spin their cocoons. Both the branches and baskets are still used, only the basket makes collecting the cocoons much easier. Cambodian silk worm silk is naturally yellow.
Once the cocoons are fully made, they are collected and then processed. Two kinds of silk come from each cocoon. The outer silk threads are thicker and rougher.The cocoons are placed in boiling water and unwound (I forget how many are used for each thread).Then the inner silk threads are unwound. You can see the difference in the silk texture if you look at the spindles. The silk is then bleached and colored using either natural or chemical dyes. The natural dyes are made using a variety of things such as leaves, bark, rusty nails, etc.The combinations are interesting, and looking at the raw materials for the dyes, the resulting colors are sometimes surprising.
Some silk is dyed using the tie dye method, dying the threads with the pattern before weaving. It is a quite complicated and time consuming process.The threads are laid out and tied in spots, dyed, re-tied, dyed, etc. according to the colors of the pattern. Once dyed, the threads have to be woven in the correct order.
The weaving is mostly done manually.The threads are threaded by hand into slots in the loom. As the threads are so fine, good eyesight is a must, so only younger adults (18-25?) do this job.Once threaded, the weaving can begin. The time taken for each item depends on the complexity of the pattern. Some are done fairly quickly, some take up to a day or more for just 1' of material. The more complex the pattern, the more poles/bars (?) are needed in the loom.Newer looms are very basic and plain. Traditionally, they were very ornate.

time flies!

I've been in Siem Reap for more than a week now. I was so busy that I lost track of which temples I went to which days and such. I will have to try to figure out which pictures were from which temple! That will take a while. I'll have to go on the net, I think to find better descriptions of the temples to help. And I'll ask my driver, of course, as he has a better idea of where we went, I think.
Yesterday I went to a silk farm, the War Museum and then had lunch. After lunch, I went to the Killing Field (just a memorial full of bones), but started to feel sick. Back to the hotel I was then VERY sick the rest of the day. sleeping, throwing up, sleeping, throwing up. I went out around 9:30pm as I was starting to feel slightly better. I needed something more than just water. I had a coffee cream ice shake (sort of a coffee flavored cream slush) at Bubble T and then sat at a Net Cafe for a while. I was going to head back to Phnom Penh today but as I was sick all day yesterday, hadn't arranged anything. So tonight I will go to another wedding party with my Cambodian friends and I'll go to Phnom Penh tomorrow.
Unfortunately I don't have time now to go to Battambang as I had originally planned (my original plan was to only spend about 1 week here and then a couple of days there before going back to Phnom Penh). Oh well. I'm getting to see more than just the tourist side of life in Cambodia, which, to me, is more than a fair trade off.

Cambodian Soup

One evening I went out for dinner with Be (my driver) to a Cambodian soup restaurant.The broth is boiled and then you add all of the stuff to itvegetables, meat (beef and egg, misc. beef parts - stomach, tongue, etc), garlic and something else, pork rind, mushrooms, noodles.

It was very good (although I couldn't make myself try the misc meat bits in it).

Hmmmmm.

Just so you know, all is well. busy busy busy.

Not in any order:

temples, ruins, sugar palm candies, sweet bamboo rice, rice and banana cooked in banana leaves, eel soup, misc beef parts soup, other Cambodian food, dancing Cambodian style, beer, zipping around everywhere on the back of a motorcycle, monkey bites, fish bites, swimming fully clothed, waterfalls, throwing bones and garbage on the floor, more temples, free food and alcohol, non-stop comments about my skin (including gasps, shouts, hoots, etc), spiders, Cambodian karaoke, more beer, making Cambodian friends, making other friends, ANNOYING children, ANNOYING people, beggars, old Buddhist fortune tellers, etc.

busy busy

Well, you'll have to wait for any bit updates. I'm a bit busy doing sightseeing and such.

My driver has been showing me a little bit more of the Cambodian side of some things. :)

Tomorrow's destination - a mountain with a waterfall.

Cambodia Day 3 2007-11-08

The VISA issues had me so stressed out but I didn't want to just sit there waiting doing nothing. So I decided to start seeing what I came to see.

I kept waking up and going back to sleep from quite early. With no window in the room, I had no way to judge, so I kept having to turn the tv on for some light with which to see my watch. I eventually just got up once it got closer to 8. I wanted to leave Phnom Penh that day but thought it would be best to stick around until I had things figured out. I made a few phone calls from one of the little Internet Cafe's along the street. That eased my worries a bit. It was still a bit up in the air though. Had to wait.

I decided I would check out the museum. On the way, I felt the need for some breakfast so I stopped at Bojangles Bar & Restaurant. It is a fairly small establishment, but quite nice. It seemed to be busy almost every time I had walked past it. They serve breakfast dishes all day, among other things. I had a Vietnamese Coffee (basically just drip coffee; the other option was Traditional Coffee - Nescafe instant coffee) the veggie breakfast - scrambled eggs, vegetables, a hashbrown (sort of a patty/pancake type thingy) and beans. It cost me $4. At some places you can get fairly cheap meals, but some charge a bit more. I find it a bit odd that a meal can cost the same as a night in a decent but cheap guesthouse or hotel.

Walking anywhere gets very annoying very quickly. I love walking, but I hate being hassled ever two steps. "Hey Lady, you need tuktuk?" "Hey Lady, you need moto?" "Hey lady, wanna buy a book?" "Hey lady, wanna buy a post card?"

If they only asked once, it wouldn't be such a big deal. The fact that they keep asking makes it unbearable. The same person asks the same thing about 5 times (or more). Sometimes they will follow you, asking you. ARGH!!!

The National Museum of Cambodia is made of terracotta and looks so cool. It was interesting but definitely not the best or most interesting museum I've been to. Mostly it contains statue heads, headless statues, and well preserved pieces from Ankor Wat and other temples. There are also a few other things such a some jewelery, bowls and textiles. You are not allowed to take photos in the museum, but if you pay $1 at the gift shop, you get a receipt that allows you to take photos in the little central garden that the museum is built around. The garden is beautiful. I think I might have enjoyed the building and the garden more than the things in the museum. But it is still worth going (it costs around $3? - I forget).

When I had had enough of wandering about the garden taking pictures, I headed for the Royal Palace. I was a bit early, though. And I didn't know where the entrance was. As I was walking along, a young girl ran up to me and said, ''Over there! Open two o'clock." Then she tried to sell me water. I didn't want water as I had a drink in my bag from the museum garden. As I had about 15 minutes before it opened, I just walked along the walls. She followed me and was just talking. She asked about my family, my home, my life. She told me about herself, too. She is 12 years old and has 7 brothers and sisters. The eldest, her 20 year old sister, is the only one that is married. She goes to school in the afternoons. She wishes she was prettier. She has been learning English since she was 5 years old (and was also selling things at that age, too).

Every once in a while, she would run off as foreigners started arriving, hoping that they might buy some cold water from her. Nope. So she'd be back again talking to me. Cute.

Most of the palace compound is closed to the public. Too bad. What I was allowed to see was very nice. The thrown room is so beautiful. You have to remove your shoes before you enter, and you are only allowed in a small area in the back and along the sides up to a certain point. The ceiling is all painted in beautiful pictures. Unfortunately, cameras are not allowed in that building.

Next to the palace compound, but connected, is the Silver Pagoda/Wat Preah Koh/Pagoda of the Emerald Buddha. It is called the Silver Pagoda because the floor is made of silver. It is covered in over 6000 silver tiles, weighing about 1kg each. Most of the floor is covered with carpets so that the visitors don't ruin it, but some is left uncovered to see. Even walking on the carpets on top of the silver tiles was interesting. It was easy to tell that metal tiles were underneath the carpet, as they weren't completely stuck to the floor, and shifted slightly with each step. Inside, there is an emerald buddha, said to be Baccarat crystal, and a life-sized pure gold Buddha covered in diamonds (9584 diamonds, up to 25 carats!) There are all sorts of other interesting, and probably very valuable things within the building. Around the building are numerous plants and trees and some more beautiful structures and buildings.

Walking around the palace and pagoda, I met Nadia. I recognized her. She and her boyfriend were sitting a couple of tables over the previous night at the restaurant I went to. She was also at the museum when I was wandering around there. As we were both walking alone, we ended up talking a bit. She is from Belgium. Her tour group (including her boyfriend) went to the killing fields and other places that day. As she didn't want to see the killing fields, she stayed behind to do some sightseeing on her own (the were also going to see the museum and palace that day). After we finished with the palace etc, I walked with her back to her hotel. She had a little book/magazine for Siem Reap in English, that had a lot of good things in it. Wim, her boyfriend, was back from the trip and was taking a bit of a nap. We sat around for a while talking, and found that we had the same plan for the evening - checking out the sunset from Boeng-kak, the lake. We took a tuktuk and ended up at the restaurant (and hotel) called No Problem. Not bad. The hotels and restaurants along the lake side of the street, are mostly built over the water (you could see the water through the spaces between the boards). The menu looked fairly good. Some interesting things, that seem to be fairly common here were present on the menu. The "Happy Pizza"for one. Well, close to that. They have a fair number of pizzas to choose from. If you want to make it a "Happy Happy Pizza"you have to add $1. For those of you that don't know what I am talking about, it is marijuana. From what I have heard, they actually use it in some traditional Khmer foods.

The sunset wasn't as great as we had all heard it was supposed to be. Well, blame it on the clouds, I suppose. There were some low clouds along the horizon, so the sun sort of disappeared before it set. So not much color, and nothing spectacular to report.

Cambodia Day 1 and 2

I arrived here on the 6th very late, so all I did then was find a hotel. I just picked somewhat randomly out of my guide book. Well, not that randomly. I chose one that was near others that were listed, just incase it was full.
I've been staying at the Indochine Hotel. It is okay. The first night, my room was quite small, up a back staircase to the first floor rooms (room 103). It had air-conditioning, a fan, hot water, etc. Okay for $10. But NO window. I ended up sleeping until 9 (which was fine as I didn't get to sleep until around12). I probably would have woken up much earlier if I had a window!
Then next day I changed rooms, to one of the bigger ones upstairs on the 2nd floor. As there was someone still in the room with the window, I still have a no window room. Still $10, but bigger than the last one (there is more furniture and the ceiling is about twice as high). A room with a window costs twice as much, and there are only 2 in the hotel, I think. I will stay there tonight again. I had planned on changing hotels today, but last minute decided to stay where I was. I will go up to Siem Reap (or, at least, that is the plan) tomorrow. When I do return to Phnom Penh, I'll find another hotel.
The VISA problem is getting sorted out, sort of. My school will send the document to me. They already talked to FedEx and figured out how long it would take to get here - about 3 working days. Fine. They also talked to the embassy in Cambodia and were told that it takes only 2 days for the VISA processing here. Good. So I can get it all done in my last week here (they will have to send it next week).
Almost my entire day yesterday was spent trying to figure out the VISA situation. Ugh. What a waste of a day. I did manage to check out Wat Phnom around sunset. It was okay, but not as good as I had expected. The most interesting parts were the cats that were everywhere and the monkeys down the back side of the hill. As it was getting later in the day, there weren't as many people there, and the children that I have heard are usually there following people were not there. Only a few legless/handless/what ever mine victims sitting along the stairs up, asking for handouts.
Every where I go there are guys calling out asking if I need a moto or a tuktuk. A moto is just a motorbike with an extended seat meant for passengers. Generally, men sit normally, women sit sideways. No one wears helmets. They don't go all that fast, as it isn't really possible, with the number of vehicles on the streets and the fact that every intersection is unmarked, cars, tuktuks, motos, bicycles and pedestrians all going at will. Kinda fun, actually. A tuktuk is a little motorized carriage (like a motorbike with a trailer almost). There are also cyclos, which are bicycles with big seats on the front where the passenger(s) sits.
Yesterday I saw a little moto with a family of 5, all of the children looking under 5 years old. Kinda scary.
I had dinner at a fairly large restaurant along the river, about a block down from my hotel. I think it is called the Riverside Bistro. They have seating both inside and out. I sat outside near a little stage where a woman was playing a xylophone type instrument. My mango juice was quite nice, although not as nice as in Eygpt. The Khmer fried rice with chicken was very good. I sat there for a while. I was startled a couple of times, both by a rat. I jumped when it first ran under my table to the next table, and then back again (no one else seemed to notice, especially the girl whose feet it stopped at). Then a while later, I really jumped as it ran in again OVER MY FEET. And then back out again under my chair. I suppose it was nothing unusual there.
There was also a fairly large frog/toad that crawled out from under the wicker chair at the next table. Kinda cute, actually. It crawled out and then back under again. A while later, it crawled out again, across the ground, under my chair and then into the plants that were next to me (between me and the street).
When I got tired of sitting in the restaurant looking at my guide book, after stopping in at a net cafe to check my email and make a couple of phone calls, I decided to check out a little cafe/bar that was on the corner of my block. The Metro looks fairly posh. My Raspberry Mojito was nice, but a bit chunky. It had crushed raspberries, chopped lime, shredded mint leaves, some sort of raspberry liquor (I think), and white rum.
I had never sat in a bar alone before. Can't say I like it.

VISA problems

Vacation should NOT be this stressful!!!!! I am in Cambodia now. I had decided to take a vacation from Korea while waiting for my new job to start. I decided to get my new work VISA here rather than doing a VISA run to Japan. I know people who have done VISA runs in Thailand and other such countries. The process seems to be the same everywhere. BUT, in Cambodia, unlike almost every other Korean Embassy, they require the actual VISA issuance document and not just the number. I found this out TODAY when I went to the embassy to apply for my passport, all set with my application form, photo, money, and VISA issuance NUMBER written on a little piece of paper that my school gave to me on Monday. So now what???

The embassy says I should get the school to send the document to me at my hotel. WHAT hotel? When? I'm here on vacation. I don't want to sit around waiting for a stupid piece of paper. I checked the various couriers on the net. I think the EARLIEST it would come, IF the school sends it tomorrow, is next week Monday. Not that bad, I suppose. I think the easiest/best way is for the school to send it as a pick-up rather than having it delivered to a hotel. That way I can pick it up and take it to the embassy in the same day (when I am in the city). I think that is the only way that I can actually still do some traveling while waiting. Also, I am still waiting to hear back from my school. I sent them an email this afternoon after I found out, and then again after I checked out the couriers on the net and such. Waiting sucks.

No matter what, I have to re-think my planning on when I am doing things here. I want to spend more than a week in the Siem Reap area, but now I'm not sure how, unless I do it in two halves. That kind a sucks. I can't put it off to the end, as I'm not sure how long I'll be waiting here. And I can't just go up there now and stay and then leave the VISA stuff to the end, as I'm not sure how long it will take for them to actually PROCESS the VISA. As they the website for the Korean Embassy here isn't very informative, I have NO information.

What to do.