Not So Deep Thoughts from a Beach in Thailand

I'm currently on Ao Thong Nai Pan Noi, a bay on the northeast side of Ko Pha Ngan, which is an island in the Gulf of Thailand. After 3 days on the beache of Phuket with the girls, I left them earlier this week to head here for some scheduled relaxation. I know, scheduled relaxation probably sounds quite ridiculous and obnoxious coming from a girl who has no plans to work for the next few months. But we did keep up a fairly blistering pace for 3 weeks, and let's face it, Heather's been due to destress for a couple years now.

Phuket was, well, excellent for the purposes of tanning your backside, but absolutely overrun with tourists, mainly the middle-aged Scandinavian variety. We spent a day early last week on Patong Beach, and while we were pleased that our faces had begun to lose the deathly pallour inflicted by Canadian winters, let's just say it was really easy to tell who the new kids on the beach were. Apparently Scandinavians have the capacity to tan exceptionally well, though some of them seem to take it to an unnecessary level and begin to resemble overdone spring rolls, extra crispy. Speaking of my favorite Thai appetizer, what's fantastic is salespeople walk up and down the beach selling spring rolls for lunch. I mean, how perfect is this place?

After a 4 day trip to Khao Sok National Park we returned to Phuket, this time to Kata Beach. Kathy, the smart woman that she is, booked us into the superswank Kata Beach Resort, one of the few resorts right on the beach. Except for the place being absolutely littered with ancient European men with pendulous guts hanging over their speedoes and their scantily clad wives, the resort was lovely. Our biggest commitment of the day was getting up early enough to claim prime lounge chairs by the pool.

The trip over to this side of the mainland was a bit on the long and sweaty side. The bus ride from Phuket over to the ferry crossing was somewhat torturous - 5 hours of moving at a snail's pace on a bus that used the term 'air-conditioning' very loosely and incorrectly. An hour and a half on a ferry got me to Ko Samui, a large island about 45 minutes from the island I'm currently on. The transporation highlight of the day was the ride by sawngthaew around Samui island to get to the hotel I'd booked for the night. Transporation can be a scam here - there's no doubt about it. Taxis rarely run on meter willingly so they quote ridiculous prices when they see a foreigner with luggage. So most people bypass the taxis and go to a more affordable option. Sawngthaews are basically small pick-up trucks which have bench seating along the sides of the truck's bed. The locals cram into the back in alarming number, so often you'll see people standing on the back bumper, holding onto railings. This is exactly were I found myself a few minutes later, as by the time I found one heading in the right direction, it was crammed with Thais. So I spent 40 minutes driving around the island standing on the back bumper of a truck, one arm clining to the rail, the other clutching my bags. It was pretty fantastic - sunshine on my back and me with basically no idea where I was going.

The next morning I took a ferry over to Ko Pha Ngan. The average age of the passengers was about 22 by my estimation. Ko Pha Ngan is famous for its monthly full moon beach parties when several thousand foreigners converge on a beach for copious amounts of alcohol, drugs, etc. It turns out I inadvertedly scheduled my arrival to coincide with full moon party night - probably the only fool on the ferry that found herself in that situation. I felt positively geriatric, but in a really good way.

The roads on Ko Pha Ngan are pretty basic, and I've since seen it described in a guide book as 'jungle roads'. That's pretty accurate as most of the 45 minute ride was on windy, crevice-laden dirt roads that wound up and down hills. A series of interconnected ginormous potholes and long, snake-like gouges are eaten into the road during the rainy season, which made for a bumpy ride. But it wouldn't be a quiet and isolated beach if it was easy, would it?

So I'm now more than halfway through my scheduled navel-gazing - 8 days on the beach. This is the longest I've stayed anywhere since I arrived in Asia and it's quite lovely. It's a very quiet spot and a positively tiny beach, but it's exactly what I was looking for. I find I've slipped into 'all-inclusive' mode - my sister Jayne will know what I mean by this. While I spend a couple minutes every morning pondering the merits of various day trips, everything seems like too much of a commitment and instead I meander through the day laying on the beach reading a book, breaking things up with the occasional cool drink or walk along the beach.

I was just flipping through my journal a few minutes ago and found an entry from mid December. After a week on the farm I was going a little stir crazy and was a giant ball of tension over 'trip-planning' - which I attacked like some stressed-out workaholic. Anyway, I quote my ridiculous self here - 'I just need a fucking break from myself'. Well newsflash braniac, going to a tiny beach in Thailand solo doesn't exactly provide the desired break from yourself. Yes, after 5 short days alone, I am tired of my own company. (I'm trying not to contemplate the implications this has for the rest of my trip!) This is probably why I'm getting off my biniki-clad bottom tomorrow and going to ride an elephant. According to my schedule, I'm also supposed to be engaged in a red-hot holiday romance right about now, but maybe I got the dates messed up. I think the marajuana from my neighbour's front deck may be affecting me.

But I just had a very positive thought. It's January, I'm on a beach in Thailand, not stressing about work. No worries everyone, I've just slapped myself upside the head!

Lusting after a Lazy-boy

I'm in desperate need of a Lazy-Boy chair, or a piece of furniture that isn't made of bamboo. On a guided walk last week in a national park we were told that bamboo is a magical building material used to make many practical things. Comfortable furniture is not one of those 'practical things' - and as a result, the minor pain in my lower back that I was experiencing before I left home has turned into something altogether more sinister. Yes I know I sound like a geriatric drama queen.

But don't feel too sorry for me folks, because I can roll from my beachside lounger (yes, that's right, made of bamboo) right onto a massage mat. You can't walk two seconds anywhere in Thailand without coming across a massage house. So the other afternoon to mix things up a bit, I had a Thai massage on the beach. It's sort of creepy, but on the beaches in Phuket the poor massage ladies massage sweaty old men who are clad in nothing but their speedoes. I'm sorry, but for $8 an hour, that's unfair working conditions.

For those of you who've never had a Thai massage, its quite different than the Swedish variety that's popular in Canada. Not a remotely relaxing experience either, though after the pain fades, you do feel better. The best way I've heard it explained is 'assisted yoga' - you lay on a mat on the floor and the masseuse contorts you into a human pretzel, while contorting herself into one simultaneously. They tend to use their own body weight to knead your muscles and create tension, so when you least expect it they might crawl up on your back and start digging into your shoulder with their elbow. The first time I had a Thai massage was after a three day hike in northeast Thailand - I was pathetically hobbling around, and my calf muscles were staging a most vigorous protest at being asked to do anything at all. In the ensuing weeks I'd sort of blocked the experience out of my mind, so I was initially traumatized as she began to manipulate me the other day. She started with a lot of aggressive massaging of my hamstrings, which are perpetually tight. But covering said hamstrings is a whack of cellulite, and it doesn't really take kindly to being prodded and twisted. It enjoys its privacy and likes to lay in a dormant state - occasionally ridiculed by its ower, but otherwise it just minds it's own business. So being the star attraction for the first 20 minutes of the massage was understandably unsettling for my cellulite. And that my friends, is the invisible line in the sand that my brother would consider to be too much information - and I just crossed it.

And the back? I would pay gobs of money for an hour in a Lazy-Boy, sad though that is.

Mammals that Swim

I've lost all sense of time. I know it's still January, and I think it may be Saturday, but honestly, I'm not so sure. So I think is was probably early last week that I learned that monkeys in Thailand can swim, and that the Thai people make absolutely to-die-for fruit shakes. But let me back up a bit. I learned these two fascinating pieces of information in Khao Sok National Park, which is where Jen, Kathy and I lazed about for four days last week. About a 3 hour drive north of Phuket, Khao Sok National Park is quite a breath-taking part of the rainforest, featuring a range of limestone mountains, lazy, winding rivers and some gorgeous lakes. We booked this trip before we left home, lured in by the promise of a two night stay in a a tree house. I mean, how can that be resisted? Clearly it could not. We arrived at Art's Riverview Lodge on the edge of the national part in time for lunch on the first day. A few people have asked how the food is here. It is unbelievably fantastic - the Thai food that is. But they do weird things to sandwiches, as I learned from the tuna sandwich I ordered. So the lesson is, stick to the Thai food - order Western, and you will be disappointed. (Though this all makes sense - I don't care what they think, pubs in Toronto likewise do not do Thai food well). Okay, digression.

Upon checking in, the boy at the counter told us we were very lucky because our tree house was only one month old and featured a very romantic outdoor bathroom. Having see a few outdoor toilets in Thailand, all of which were pretty much the furthest you can get from being romantic and still be on the same planet, we were skeptical. But the kid knew what he was talking about - it was a toilet paradise. The backend of our tree house opened onto an open-air (walls, no ceiling) posh bathroom with a waterfall cascading shower, and stone floor. This bathroom is the reason why I need to move somewhere with a tropical climate - so I can have an outdoor bathroom that would instill jealousy in all who were lucky enough to use it.

Aside from revelling in the magic that was our bathroom, we spent two very lazy afternoons on the river, winding amongst the limestone cliffs, the first being chaffeured about in a canoe (a guide sat in the back and did all the work) and the second, floating down the same river in an innertube. While I hestitate to call these 'activities', as I failed to break a sweat, after these activities we would retire to the lodge's deck, partake of fruit shakes, and watch the monkey's 5:00 show. The lodge's restaurant looks out onto the Monkey Waterhole, and without fail, every afternoon around 5 a band of macau monkeys emerged from the hills and proceeded to entertain the tourists - they'd climb all over anyone who wanted to get up close and personal, they play fought, chasing eachother up and down trees and over the limestone rocks that led down to the waterhole. And, much to our surprise, they also swam. (Now I can't quite see them signing up to swim the Thai equivalent of swimming across Lake Ontario, but is was very cool to see.) And, if you're not careful, they also made heir way over to the restaurant and tried to steal any food they could get their paws on. I kept my own paws firmly gripped on my watermelon shake, just to be safe. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to recreate the magic when I get home, but I'm going to unpack my blender and try really hard.

On the third morning we were picked up by our driver (one of the few larger Thai men we've come across who continually seemed to have the munchies) and Deng, our guide for the next day and half. We didn't actually realize that we were going to have a guide, so it was a little shocking for him to suddenly be all guide-like and continually feeding us with facts about the national park while I was trying to sleep. Our destination, Chieow Lake, was created by the installation of a dam some 30 years ago. Arriving at the lake after an hour of guide-talk, we piled onto the longtail boat for a scenic ride on the lake. A longtail boat is sort of like a really long row boat, and they seem to take the motors out of cars or trucks and strap them on the back. They also feature really long things that I would call a propeller, but I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. The lake is surrounded by the limestone mountain range, highly scenic, so Kathy took a bezillion photos. After about an hour of sightseeing we finally arrived at our home for the next 24 hours - a series of floating bamboo huts, interconnected by docks. The huts and an accompanying restaurant, stretched from one small island and another. The huts featured a mattress, mosquito net and a small amount of floor space on the inside, and a tiny front porch that let out to the dock. In between the bamboo slats that made up the floor you could see, well, water. And when anyone in a neighboring hut moved around, the whole structure squeaked something awful. (No nocturnal washroom breaks without half the residents knowing it!) There was a generator that was powered up during mealtimes and for a few hours in the evening, but otherwise there wasn't any power. Feeling like complete sloths after 2 days of fruit shakes and floating down rivers, Jen and I went for a quick kayak tour before lunch. In the afternoon we took a longtail boat to a nearby shore, hiked up and down a pretty tame hill and ended up at another natural lake, 500 Rei Inside Lake. I'm not really sure why, but I really like the name of this lake, though its name is completely practical and unimaginative. Apparently 'rei' is some sort of measurement that reflects the size of the lake - I can't now recall the specifics. Anyway, we took a motorized bamboo raft (yes, very cool) to a cave and toured limestone rock formations, which were bizarre looking and interesting. If any of you remember a news story from last summer, it was in a cave in this same national park that 8 people drowned during a flood in the rainy season. Since this accident the government has decided to close the caves during the rainy season.

Moving on to happier subjects - the restaurant sold overpriced bottles of Australian wine, so Jen and I enjoyed splitting one over a fantastic dinner. We cut ourselves off after one, partially because we were cheap, but more importantly, who wants to be the idiot who stumbles in a drunken stupor off the dock, and into the lake? Over dinner our neighbours from a couple huts down told us about the monkeys that run from rooftop to rooftop at night, and who also had attempted to get into their chocolate the night before - they'd apparently found what they interpreted to be paw scratches on their chocolate wrappers the next morning. They also mentioned in passing, just before Jen and I wandered back to our romantic hut, that there were rats that came out at night. Having lived through my mouse problem a couple years ago and being somewhat scarred by the ordeal, I was suspicious that it had been monkeys that had been scratching at the chocolate. Needless to say, falling asleep was problematic. I try to keep my knowledge of rats at bare minimum, but I do remember from history class and lessons about the plague, that the bastards swim. And we were on a freaking lake, with just a thin layer of bamboo between me and them! I did not sleep well. I periodically awoke to Jen spraying herself with bug spray. I mean, that's saying something if you're happy to sleep with a bottle of Deet clutched in your hand! I also awoke frequently, as I could feel something crawling on me.

Dramatic pause.

Not rats thankfully. Tiny, obnoxious ants though seemed to be more at home in the hut then Jen and I. I did at times hear the squeak and rustle of what sounded like either rats or monkeys nearby. And visits to the toilet on the island were seriously spooky in the pitch black. Jen told me the next morning that as she'd been on the way to the toilet in the middle of the night, just beyond the light of her flashlight she'd heard tiny scurrying feet and a splash as something launched its body off the dock and into the lake. Now, that could have been a monkey, and just a day earlier we'd seen evidence that some monkeys do swim, but I seriously doubt it. Over breakfast our chocolate-hoarding neighbours admitted that they'd awoken in the middle of the night to see a rat scurrying across the ceiling beam in their hut.

I still cling to the idea that it was just Jen, the ants and I in our cozy little hut and prefer not to think more deeply on the subject.

T.P.

I'm not embarassed to admit that toilet paper has long been a bit of a personal obsession. It's not about the softness, or thickness, and I have no firm opinion for any debates about the merit of 2 ply versus 1 ply. I just have a bit of a phobia about, well, being caught unprepared and unsupplied.

So knowing about this little quirk, (I consider it oddly charming, myself) you'd probably be surprised to learn that on our 3-day hike in the hill country above Chiang Mai (northeast part of Thailand), I actually skimped on toilet paper supplies. Faced with having to carry my own pack, a pack which need to hold enough warm clothes for 2 nights of freezing temperatures sleeping in bamboo shacks, I opted for thermal underwear and went light on the t.p. supplies. I did some calculations and projections in my head based on the number of days I'd be in the bush, and packed a modest amount of t.p. for the hike.

If you've never travelled to Asia you may be wondering why I'd be packing toilet paper. I'm not going to be so stupid as to say that Asian-style toilets are inferior to Western, they're just different. But to our sensitive Canadian bottoms, its a bit of a shock at first - though an excellent way to strengthen your quad muscles and improve your balance. Asian-style toilets are squatters, so regardless of the business you're there to conduct, you'd don't sit down, you just strategically hover over a hole, a couple inches from the ground. Fancy ones are porcelain, flush and there's a spray hose to clean up, which makes t.p. redundant, if you can get the hang of things.

We've developed a rating system for the toilets since we've been here, and sometimes, even if you don't need to use the facilities, if a toilet has been given a good rating, you make a visit just to sort of take advantage of the situation.

Elements of the Rating System
1) Is it Western? Being in mostly touristy spots, we do sometimes go days between needing to squat. Western doesn't always mean better though, as cleanliness and disrepair can sometimes bring down the rating. As a result, sometimes a pristine squat toilet is a real treat.
2) Is the toilet paper supplied? The fancier spots supply paper, no extra charge. But you perpetually wander around with a wad of t.p. in your pocket, just to be safe.
3) Locking System? It's actually shocking how this now seems like a complete luxury, and I could really care less if someone walks in on me.
4) Light supply? Scary things lurk in the dark corners of outhouses - this is not unique to Asia. A flashlight has been critical at times to take stock of the surroundings, pre-squat, or simply just to find the facilities in the middle of the night.
5) Proximity of livestock? In one village on a trek I had to dodge a large hog, who was loitering in the yard near the toilet. Talk about performance anxiety, when you can hear a 300-pound pig snuffling near the doorway. (In a outhouse that clearly doesn't lock.)
6) Hose or bucket? As I said, fancy toilets have the hose, or as Jen phrased it, the butt spray. Most toilets have a bucket of standing water and a small bowl to 'wash' and flush. It's surprisingly refreshing, but actually not that traumatic at all.
7) Sink and soap? Hardly guaranteed, so Purell becomes your best friend.
8) Garbage Pail? Only really super-swank places actually let you flush the toilet paper. So a garbage pail is usually nearby for disposal. When the garbage pail is missing in action, you are left facing a moral dilemma.

Ah, but back to the 3 day trek and my scrimping on t.p. Let's just say my projections were a touch off. And all careful calculations and rationing can be blown to smithereens by a bit of homemade chili sauce consumed in the bush. By the third morning I was completely without t.p. and had to resort to the bucket or begging supplies from Jen. Kathy was similarly unsupplied - a small comfort that I wasn't the only idiot. About 2 hours away from civilization we stopped at a waterfall in a national park. Unforseen circumstances 'wiped' out all of Jen's t.p. but a solitary square and a half. I don't think I've ever seen her quite so disappointed with me when I broke the tragic news. A sign of a true friend though, willing to part with her last few squares of toilet paper - a friend for life, I would say.

One Night in Bangkok

I have never been a fan of cabaret shows. I don't know if they typically lack a plot or it's a matter of the plot irritating me, but cabaret shows too often feature what seems to be simply too much dancing about. An endless series of songs about a melodramatic romance, which really just serve as backdrop to endless costume changes, each more impressively-sequenced than the last.

But make it a lady-boy cabaret show, and well, that's a different thing entirely.

For my mother, and anyone else who may be wondering, a lady boy is a gifted performer, who also happens to be a transvestite.

The setting of the Calypso Cabaret in the Asia Hotel in Bangkok was very over-the-top in a early 90's Vegas-meets cruise ship sort of way. I half expected Isaac from the Love Boat to be serving us drinks. The theatre for the show itself was all red velvet plush chairs, disco balls and bad red wine - it really was quite fantastic.

The costume changes were frequent. Sequence, feathers and elaborate head-dresses were numerous. The camp factor was painfully high. And I have to say, my opinion of cabaret shows is unchanged - the lack of plot is annoying. But all of this is irrelevant. Because the real show was about something else entirely - attempting to decipher the gender of the entertainers. To make things interesting, some of the performers were women - real women. And a much larger number were lady-boys. But obviously they don't wear signs on their foreheads explaining the specifics of their gender, so the audience is left to speculate.

Its cruel and perhaps juvenile, but when my sister and I go to the beach we often amuse ourselves people-watching, or more specifically, playing the game 'are those breasts real?'. The skills I have honed at first were quite useful and I admit, I spent the first 10 minutes of the performance oggling breasts. The rule is basically this - if it don't jiggle as the performer shimmies and jives across the stage, it isn't real. However it took me the same 10 minutes to piece together that fake boobies do not automatically equal male. So clearly I needed to look past the breasts to see more of the women in question. (Strange reversal of positions, you have admit!) The Adam's Apple wasn't a universally helpful cue either, as it was inconsistently visible. Age was a bit of an indicator, as older lady boys require more make-up to cover things up and end up looking somehow harder and used, and, well, male. Height was also helfpul as some of the performers were freakishly tall for Asian women. (Most were slim, small and toned - hateful really, and I don't care what gender they were!) Even using all of these features as clues, I was still confused about the vast majority of performers. About 45 minutes into the show I had a revelation - hips. Men just don't have them, as far as I can tell. The problem of course is using any feature isn't enough. So while the hips may appear masculine and the boobs might be unnaturally firm - the facial features and body structure may scream female. What's fascinating therefore is you question every performer on the stage and walk away thinking some of the real women were actually men.

You may be wondering about the obvious - the package, the genitalia, the boy bits. Tucked, taped, tortured - I'm not sure, but nowhere to be seen.

But despite my doubts and speculations, there was no denying that all of the performers were exceptionally attractive. A tip for any real ladies out there who may be considering taking in a lady boy show - make the effort to do your hair before your big night out. Pretty much every day in Asia is a bad hair day for me. Complete absences of hair dryers and my total indifference means I'm either sporting a sloppy ponytail or a just-rolled-out-of-bed look. The night in question was a pony tail sort of night. While I was somewhat prepared for it - I was still surprised how frumpish I felt compared to a bunch of men.

But male, female, whatever, it doesn't matter. They were attractive and talented. Cabaret shows still suck though.

The Killing Fields and A Lazy Saturday Afternoon in Phnom Penh

As I sat on a patio a few minutes ago, sipping my second mango shake of a very hot afternoon, I was very conscious of how lucky I am. Since we arrived in Phnom Penh yesterday we've watched a depressing pack of small children continually roam up and down the broken sidewalks, rushing past in their ripped t-shirts and filthy bare feet, emploring tourists to buy postcards or a guidebook. I now have more postcards then I can cram in my backpack, and because I have moments of extreme cheapness at the thought of the postage cost, most of them will remain unsent. A little boy barely taller than the shrubbery that separated the patio bar from the sidewalk, poked his head and hand through to us a couple minutes ago and asked in broken English for some money. And then there's the sex tourism industry. With disturbing frequency we see young Cambodian women wander past on the arm of a fat, old Westerner. I shudder in horror and attempt to imagine what sort of life has forced them to prostitution, but know I can't even begin to imagine.

If all of that wasn't depressing enough, we visited the Killing Fields of Cheuk Elk this morning. (I'm sure I've just spelled that wrong, but currently without my guidebook.) About 20 minutes outside of Phnom Penh, the small property was once an orchard, but for a period of 3-4 years in the late 70's it was a concentration camp where thousands of Cambodians were tortured and brutally murdered by the Khmer Rouge. As you enter the camp there's a large monument in the center, which houses the skulls of hundreds of victims. Placed on top of each other, in a series of shelves, the skulls are labelled by sex and approximate age and form a tower of disturbing proportions. You can walk right around the shelves, and many of the glass partitions are open, so if you disobeyed the signs, you could actually touch them. A heap of clothes found in the camp lay at the base of the tower of skulls, ragged, worn, and stained. Throughout the grounds of the camp are mass graves, 100s of bodies in one location - one held 100 women and children, all beheaded, another held close to 500 people. The spot now is peaceful - with the sound of children laughing from a nearby schoolyard, and cows lounging in the remains of the orchard.

It seems incredibly frivolous, but we've essentially just spent the afternoon lounging on patios, trying to keep cool, and kill some time before our flight leaves tonight. The biggest concern is whether we have enough American cash left to buy another round of tasty banana & mango shakes. Not fair at all, is it?

Piglets, & Party Cakes, & Pillows, oh my!

The ladies and I just started a fun game as we sat watching rush hour traffic and sipping mojitos in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The games called 'what have we seen strapped to a motorcycle in Cambodia?'. I'm not sure what the percentages would be, but the motorcycle is, without doubt, the preferred mode of transporation here in Asia. For those of you who will remember, I went through a period right after buying my car where I longed for a Vespa scooter, and toyed with the idea of moving to a tropical location so I could drive said scooter all year round. It appears anywhere in Asia would fulfill that criteria. But I've just realized another criteria needs to be added when choosing the location for my future scootering - to be specific, somewhere that doesn't involve me shitting my pants in fear anytime I got on the road. The traffic is insane. We rode in a taxi from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh today, about 320 km. I was convinced that the blinker on the car was broken because it was continually on, the whole way. But Jen had keener observation skills then I - it seems the driver would turn the blinker on then leave it on for like, 20 minutes, as he kept passing everything. While the lanes are 2 way, all that really matters is which direction has the most volume, and the direction that has the most traffic will take up about 80% of the road, and whip over into the tiny section at the side when they need to pass. But Í'm rambling. Suffice it to say, I will never, ever drive in Asia.
But back to the fun part.

Items Seen Strapped to the back of a Motorcycle in Cambodia:
1. Live piglets and chickens in baskets.
2. Families of 4 or 5 people. Often tiny toddlers under the age of 2. In Siem Reap a 4 year old waved to us from the back of a moto, while she clasped her 2 year old brother in her other hand, so you can imagine our horror.
3. A monk, 3 other people, and the driver on his cell phone.
4. 4 adults and a party cake.
5. A driver, 2 helium balloon tanks and about 20 blown-up balloons.
6. A driver and a wall of pillows. They were strapped together to form a solid structure at least 5-6 ft over his head and off to the sides in both directions.
7. Two full-size hogs, strapped into cannon-shaped bamboo baskets, piled on top of eachother behind the back wheel. They looked oddly peaceful, but were missing the surgical masks that most people wear to avoid pollutions. They didn't seem too fussed though. I'm off pork for awhile though!

Ice Cream and other ramblings

Heather's alive, happy, and eating well in Asia. We discovered a lovely ice-cream shop in Siem Reap yesterday afternoon, called the Blue Pumpkin. It's more than just a ice-cream shop, but they really, really excel at delivering frosty treats to the sweating tourists. So we're in Cambodia, if that wasn't obvious. Siem Reap's claim to fame (at least in my ignorant Western knowledge) is being the jumping off point for Angkor Wat, which according the tour book I got ripped off buying, ís the largest religious monument in the world'. 'We've spent the last 3 days being driven around in a tuk-tuk, moving from one temple to the next, snapping photos, reading up on the history, being awe-struck, and attempting to dodge small children who are the savviest negotiators on the planet. ''Lady, you want t-shirt, I have t-shirt for you', echoes through the temple enclosure, in high-pitched, sing-song voices. They swarm you as you emerge from the tuk-tuk with offers of scarves, t-shirts, postcards, cold drinks, etc, etc, etc. My strategy yesterday got a little underhanded - when asked my name, I supplied the name Jennifer. As soon as you provide your name, you're in trouble, because you haven't given your name to the little girl who you first met, but you've actually given it to 5 little kids. And as you emerge from touring the temple a small herd of them stampede towards you yelling, in this case, 'Jennifer, I remember you. You promise to buy my cold drink. I have cold drink for you.' So my plan obviously back-fired. While they weren't screaming my name, they were headed right for me. And I'm a sucker, there's no other way to describe it. So the already over-flowing backpack is quickly getting filled up with Cambodian silk scarves.

Anyway, back to the ice cream. I had mango and caramel cashew nut yesterday, and creature of habit that I am, I may just order the same later this afternoon. Siem Reap is an interesting spot. It's as though extreme poverty and Western tourism have been shaken up in a blender and you're left with this disturbing yet fascinating combination that seems to work. There's obviously been a huge amount of investment in recent years, and large, up-scale hotels that cater to Western tourists are sprouting up everywhere, right beside modest shacks. I have mixed feelings about it - obviously tourism is driving money into the local economy and that's good, yet there's such a great divide between what is acceptable living conditions for a local person and me, as a spoiled Westerner, it's not really fair. But I'm not Angelina Jolie, so I don't have $5 million in pocket change to donate to the country. So I don't get too fussed when I know I've just paid too much for a scarf or the cleaning staff steal the money I stupidly left in the room, and eating ice cream is putting money into the economy too, isn't it?