First off, I'm heading to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) tomorrow, finally getting my ass off the beach. Been too long here, even if I've absolutely loved it.
Now, I promised some stories and shall deliver. Might have to do this in two installments though, as this is gonna take a while.
First off, on the beaches there are local women and men who walk along the water all day selling tours, sunglasses, massages, food, etc. They're a pain in the ass but they're good people and they learn to leave you alone if you've been there a while. One grumpy woman though spent a couple of minutes berating me one morning for never buying anything, telling me that she thinks I'm from No(r)way (get it? Noway?). Was funny stuff. Anyway, one of the services offered by these people is hair removal by a method called 'threading', in which they basically use a spool of thread to strip away the hairs one by one. Seems legit, right? Lots of ladies have their legs done, all seems well. But one adventurous group of guys decided to have their chests done, their unibrows taken care of, etc. Nobody warned them that the process is actually kinda painful after a while, gets infected easily and that it stings like hell when you get into salt water. The next day these guys had big patches over where they had bled from the hair removal, all kinds of lotions and stuff on them to help it heal, etc. They even had some areas patched up with duct tape! Wish I had've taken a picture.
One night we're sitting in one of our usual spots in the bar when this kid walks in, must've been about 20ish, and literally goes over to a table, and looks at no one while saying nothing. The staff take his order, he sits there waiting for it. The food comes, he eats, he sits for about 15 minutes afterwards, the leaves. Looked straight ahead out at the ocean the whole time. Would have been creepy were it now how easy it is for me to identify another introvert. I kinda wanted to give him a hug, but I didn't.
Hoz and Stace and I play a card game called 8-5-3 that's perfect for 3 players and quite a lot of fun, and I got a chance to teach it to the two German girls that I've been hanging out with. They are bad at it. Like, really bad. I won twice from a position that you should never really win from (and 'winning' can happen any hand, but almost never does), and was generally able to make them cry. They liked the game though, and it only took them one night to grasp it and get much better. I haven't won since. Great to have a card game for 3 people in your back pocket.
One morning I saw a fish jump out of the water 3 times, all in a row. Jumped pretty far too, a solid 4 feet each time. Hearing a splash, then looking over to see a fish suspended in mid air is a very strange thing though. Was one of those moments when the world seems like it's all just for you. I've barely seen any fish of decent size, but this guy was worth the wait.
The German girls that I've been hanging out with have a friend back home who recently had a birthday, and they recruited me to help them make a video (I really should have asked for a copy, I'll see if I can find it on youtube for you guys later). Anyway, seemed like a walk in the park: they asked me for ideas and I suggested one they liked, so we went to work. The premise was simple: just two friends sending a video home and complaining that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be: that the water was too warm, there was too much sand, etc. At the end were some clips from people at the bar saying happy birthday, and that was it. Seemed easy enough, but of course I should have known it couldn't possibly be. Among the snags we hit were needing to download the world's worst editing program to use since windows movie maker wouldn't work with the video format her camera shot in, needing to find a way to rotate some clips as the girls weren't thinking and shot them sideways, trying to find a way to put some audio overtop of one of the clips, etc. All things that I could have done in seconds on my computer at home, but working on a slow netbook with the most painfully basic editing software just made me want to punch things. But we got it done and the friend loved it, so worth it in the end. I tried to explain to the girls that working in TV is good in theory but not usually in practice and I don't think they fully understood what I meant until that process.
Night swimming here is absolutely incredible. I REALLY wish I had a way of taking a photo of this, but the plankton in the area are actually bio luminescent, and it makes for an AMAZING show at 2am. Every time you move your hand, it's like a trail of green magical particles follows it, almost as if it your hand were a green sparkler at night, or as if you just radiated magic. I really don't know how else to describe it, it's just too cool. The night we discovered it, we probably spent about an hour just drunkenly floating around playing with the effect: it never gets old.
On a related note, one night I got out of the ocean and a woman sitting on one of the chairs asked me if I was worried about the sharks. We talked for a bit, she knew Dougie (the bartender where I'm staying, one of those 'knows everyone' type of people) and kept trying to tell me that the sharks come out at night to feed, that she and her husband watch the National Geographic channel all the time. Anyway I'm a little freaked out at this point given that I swim pretty much every night, but a quick conversation with Dougie at the bar revealed that she's pretty damned crazy and had no idea what she was talking about. Quite a relief, once you discover night swimming with bio luminescent plankton, you don't want to give it up easily.
Met a kid named Fred from England who plays poker online professionally. Not a bad gig, given that he can make between 100-200$ per day playing and that he's living out here with 2 other guys that also play poker, renting a flat and such. In other words, living in paradise, paying like 500 per month tops in expenses and living like a king. One thing he didn't count on though was renting a motorcycle and having it stolen. Apparently it's pretty common and this guy screams sucker when you see him (nice guy and everything, but he really does), so I'm guessing he was simply tailed and then had the bike stolen. Regardless, he negotiated the rental company down to a grand to replace it. not the end of the world for him, but it's one more reason that I'm really wary of renting anything in Cambodia, especially a motorcycle. Hell, the number of injured young men I've seen in the last 2-3 weeks has been pretty ridiculous, and every injury happens on a bike, usually in the rain without a helmet. Marlow, if you're reading this then sorry for making you cringe. I'm pretty sure that by the time Nora is old enough for me to teach her to ride a motorcycle (we're talking like at least 7 or 8 here), they'll have some sort of fancy new technology to prevent in juries. Maybe.
Khmer New Years was pretty fun, but more for seeing the locals get out and have fun than for the gong show parties on the beach. The beach parties were fun, but very much not my style (surprising, I know). Just a lot of people drinking way too much, listening to bad music and making attempts at dancing. I feel old after typing that sentence. Anyway, went to one party where the staff decided it would be a good idea to let off fireworks on the beach near the large crowd of people that had spilled out of the bar. I nearly took a firework in the face, it fell short by an amount I'm less and less comfortable about every time I think of it. Worst part was that we were sitting near this tent made of netting with 2 bottles of gasoline that belonged to the fire-stick-twirling performer we had been talking to when the fireworks started. So things could have been bad. Maybe don't tell grandma that story.
Also at the party was another kid who had been hurt when he trashed his bike on a rainy night, and who tried in vain to chat up the girls. I felt bad for the kid because he was barking up a tree he couldn't possibly access, but on the other hand having that knowledge just made listening to his lines and attempts so much more fun. He was a very typical BC kid, and he landed about 0% of his attempts at interesting the girls while I sat there giggling to myself. But I guess that when your opening line is 'Hey, I was standing over there staring long enough that I thought I'd just come and say hello', well, you're setting yourself up for failure.
And last but not least, this one just happened to me today but is so funny that I'm going to include it in this batch despite having more stories left that I'll post on another night. Anyway, I get up this morning at around 8ish as usual and head down to the water to swim. Normally I'm the only one up at the time except for the staff, so I was surprised to find two of the young British guys that are also staying there occupying a couple of beach-front seats. They're both trying very hard to stay awake, with one guy succeeding more than the other and constantly nudging his buddy to wake up. This goes on for about 20 minutes until they start talking to me about their night, etc. They told me they had taken valium in order to sleep, that they'd been smoking lots of weed, etc but that they were gonna stay up. They didn't say why initially, as the conversation turned to other things then went on the most scattered series of tangents I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. About 30 minutes after this we'd been done talking for a bit and I was reading something on the internet when one of the guys turns to the other and says, 'The sunset is yet to come man, wake up'. Now at this I start laughing, getting up and pointing out to the two young scholars that they were facing where the sun sets, and that the sun had been up for well over an hour, more like 2 at this point. They were disappointed for about 5 seconds, then promptly both passed out, where they stayed for the remainder of the morning, crisping in the sun and being painted on by their friends.
So to recap, these idiots took VALIUM to STAY AWAKE and watch a sun rise FROM THE WRONG DIRECTION. I honestly don't know how they could have gotten the direction wrong, the sun sets spectacularly every day in the same sport and they'd been there nearly a week. Blows my mind, and made me giggle to myself throughout the day.
Ok, that's it for now, more to come when I get more time, probably with a recap of the first couple of days in Ho Chi Minh. Until then!
Friday, 26 April 2013
Thursday, 18 April 2013
Still here
Ok, first off I'm not sure if people can see the photos in the new album or not, I've gotten mixed messages. So if you can't, please comment and let me know. Gonna add the link on the right once I know it's working for people. Here's the link again:
Click here for photos!
Click here for photos!
And here are the people I've mostly been spending time with:
Sophia and Nicole are the two German girls on the left that I mentioned in my last post. Beside me in the back is Dougie, who is the manager / bar tender, Pik is holding her young niece (whose name I forget) and is the accounts manager, and Dane is the young man on the right who also tends bar. A very big part of why this particular place pulls you in is that it's run by a family, in their home, and it has that vibe. Actually, as of writing this they'd just completed their new home and a lot of the family are moving out, so it's a good time to be leaving as a big part of the family vibe is the fact that there is total security at this place: you don't mess with Khmer families.
The staff are always right downstairs even overnight and there are only a few rooms, meaning you can leave your door unlocked as long as you trust your neighbours. And since the girls and I occupied the two upstairs rooms while we were here, that worked out nicely. Their guard dog is the nicest dog in the world and loves westerners but will bark like it's gone out of it's mind at locals that it doesn't recognize. In fact this dog has a terrifying history: a Khmer trained watch dog will not have had a happy training, and Dougie tells me that before a lot of the other businesses moved onto the beach (this place was the original in the area), Jenny used to run free and literally murder other dogs from the neighbouring guesthouses. Freaky, and yet another of many weird examples of how violence solves problems in this country.
Pik and Dane are brother and sister and part of the family that runs the place. Dane is a good kid, 22 but looks like he's 14, and studying IT when he's not bartending there. Pik is only 16 and basically looks after all of the money and the various bills and tabs in the place. In Cambodia the women are the business managers and deal with finances, and she\s been raised to do it: she talks to 50 year old Russian vacationers the same as 21 year old backpackers. I give her a lot of credit, she's on top of things and does a great job. She got really attached the Sophia and Nicole and was a little heartbroken and teary when they left today.
Dougie is a great guy, super outgoing and exactly what you'd want in a bartender /host / manage / etc, and he has both the most difficult and greatest job in the world: he has to get completely wasted every night with the people at the bar, then get up at 7am and run the place. He works basically 7am to usually around 1am every day, and is often drunk from about noon onward. I honestly don't know how he does it, and it's impressive in an unfortunate way. One common theme from people in this place is that they seem to get stuck in the area; Dougie stuck here because he met the owners when he got a job, found they got along great and slid right into the lifestyle after doing similar hospitality jobs all his life. At least that's what he says. I have a feeling the lifestyle of getting wasted every day is what keeps him there, and I have no doubt that he's a borderline alcoholic. In fact yesterday night when the place was empty due to a really strong storm, he went to his room to crash for a while and didn't come back out until the morning. he later told me he was having the sweats, brutal pounding headache, tossing and turning, etc: I wouldn't be surprised if he was having mild DTs.
And he's not the first long-tenured alcoholic I've met on the beach either. I met a guy named Johnny from Yellowknife who fights fires and drinks beer like he'll die if he doesn't. Been there 4 months and is the exact stereotype of a kid from remote Canada, right down to the accent and the language. But within 5 minutes of conversation he's telling me that when he tries to quit drinking he ends up thinking about all the terrible things in the world and gets right back on the wagon. Worst part is that the people in the bar who know him all seem to enable and humour him, which is a little disconcerting.
Anyway, I don't have many more pictures because I haven't been taking my camera everywhere like usual, but I do have a lot of random stories.
edit: I have to add the stories later, the power went out as I was writing this and I'm just publishing a draft from the ipod. I'll add the rest when I can, sorry.
Sunday, 7 April 2013
Oh and another thing...
Putting up another link to my some of the photos I managed to upload before the internet kicked out one day last week. Here's the link:
https://www.pictorl.com/#/account/user/338/album?u=40
Please let me know if that takes you to the album and whether you can see the photos (only about 14 in there). Once I know it works, I'll move it over to the side with the rest.
The site itself was developed by one of Rob's friends and it's very solid and smooth to use. I'd recommend giving it a shot if you need somewhere to host photos.
Cheers.
https://www.pictorl.com/#/account/user/338/album?u=40
Please let me know if that takes you to the album and whether you can see the photos (only about 14 in there). Once I know it works, I'll move it over to the side with the rest.
The site itself was developed by one of Rob's friends and it's very solid and smooth to use. I'd recommend giving it a shot if you need somewhere to host photos.
Cheers.
Long Overdue
Been a while since I wrote, so forgive the long delay. I have two thing to blame it on: the lack of reliable internet nearby and the beach. But mostly, it's the beach.
I had decided to spend my birthday in a place called Sihanoukville, down on the southern coast. Good choice. Actually I had decided to spend it on one of the nearby islands, but I was going to have to stay overnight at a guesthouse first and where I ended up staying just sucked me in and hasn't let go yet. I'm thankful too, because the nearby islands don't have electricity but for 3 hours each day, and from what others have told me it's nearly impossible to sleep at night because of the heat. So luck was on my side there.
Now that I've taken a moto into town and sat down to write this, I've realized I left my memory card with the photos on it in the room. Good job, brain. Regardless, the place I'm staying is one of a series of small guesthouse/ restaurant/bars along a magnificent stretch of beach. Good food, great atmosphere, great staff and the beach 5 feet from where you sleep. Doesn't get much better. Spent my birthday relaxing, eating, swimming, and even putting up a few shots on what must be about a 9 foot rim with the smallest backboard ever created and a nasty wobble anytime a shot hits the rim. Still awesome though. One of the best birthdays I've had, and the good days haven't stopped since. I'm still there, and it's hard to imagine moving on even though it has to come soon. Inertia is a wonderful and dangerous thing.
I've got an absolute ton of notes down in my journal since it's been ages since I posted, but I'll keep this relatively short. I believe last time I posted was in Phnom Penh, in between the random power outages that I've noticed have followed me here to the beach. It's great when the power does go out, super atmospheric for a few minutes, and then the generators all kick in and ruin in. Shame. From Phnom Penh it was off to Koh Rong, a sleepy little seaside town that's a base for a lot of trekking and such in the area. Took a bus as usual, another in a growing line of music-blaring monstrosities that make the ride twice as long as it should be. Through them though I've identified that every single Cambodia music video is exactly the same: a bunch of people outdoors, two singers gazing lovingly into each other's eyes, and a group around them swaying back and forth like palms in a breeze and moving their hands continuously as if they were sharks and would die if they stopped. It's really weird. And after the 357th one in a row, very very annoying.
From Koh Rong I went on a 2d 1n trip that sounded full of promise but failed to deliver. Unfortunately that happens sometimes with these tours of treks, and though it was still fun, promises made were not promises kept. The first day involved the sweatiest boat ride ever undertaken, a solid 45 minutes of slow paced meandering through a beautiful mangrove area that would have been amazing to explore with a canoe. The ride took us to the start point for our trek to a waterfall with very little water. Not what I was told to expect, but oh well. Before heading for the water I took off my shirt and wrung out the sweat that had saturated it, freaking out our guides in the process. Cambodians don't sweat nearly as much as we do (obviously), and this was not something they were used to seeing; they kept asking me if I was ok. Anyway, very refreshing to stand under the trickle that was there and the happy consequence was that we could climb to the top and stand where the water usually rushes over for some amazing views. That's where we ate lunch and then continued on for another hour or so to end the trek and head to a local homestay for the night.
What was really lacking was any kind of information or organization to the tour: it was just go here, do this, leave. The guides barely interacted with us at all and taught us nothing about the area, which is a shame. We were also well short on water if not food, and that made the day very long. The evening was spent swimming in murky water and chatting, but nobody had had the foresight to bring a deck of cards, so it was a very tame and slow night. Finally we retired to mosquito-net covered hammocks, which are about the worst possible thing for me to sleep in since I can only really sleep on my sides or stomach. It was a long night. The second day included a morning trek to a small farm that was devoid of people, where we lingered idly for 30 minutes as the guides chatted with each other, and then a trek back. I love the trekking part, but I have no idea why we stopped at the farm. The rest of the day was then spent waiting for someone on another tour to catchy up with us so that we could go back to the hostel. Literally we sat around waiting for 4 hours, constantly being told it would just be a little longer. Very frustrating. Possibly the best part of the trip was the return boat ride back, where we headed toward an impressive weather system that left us drenched while we waited in the rain for promised transport to our hostel that never came. All in all disappointing, but they're not all going to be great, are they?
From Koh Rong I went right to Sihanoukville, where I am now. Met some good people negotiating a tuk-tuk to the same place, a couple of German girls that I drank with for a few nights before they revealed sheepishly that they were a couple, and who were very surprised and relieved when i told them I knew. I had seen them interacting on the bus in the seats in front of me, a covert little kiss here, a tender little interaction there. They told me that they try to keep it under wraps because they've met too many guys who then go on to essentially harass them about their sexuality in exactly the way you'd expect a bunch of horny young America/British/Australian travelers would (their list of perpetrators, not mine). I sympathized, but I can't say I can empathize; that must really be frustrating.
Really great people to talk to though, even though language was a bit of a barrier at times. They also mentioned to me something that made my earlier rant about Chinese tourists seem a little less justified, which is that typically the Chinese (or at least the older generations) save up their whole lives and take one massive trip instead of smaller, more frequent trips. So I can at least now understand why they're trying to cram so much into such tiny amounts of time. Unfortunately it doesn't make them much less annoying, as the Germans agreed.
That's about it, there's been lots more including randomly finding the best tzatziki I've ever had, watching crabs work in the early morning, following fish in the shallows and the weirdness of lugworms and their spaghetti-shaped piles of sand they leave all over after filtering it through their bodies in search of nutrients. Until the next one.
I had decided to spend my birthday in a place called Sihanoukville, down on the southern coast. Good choice. Actually I had decided to spend it on one of the nearby islands, but I was going to have to stay overnight at a guesthouse first and where I ended up staying just sucked me in and hasn't let go yet. I'm thankful too, because the nearby islands don't have electricity but for 3 hours each day, and from what others have told me it's nearly impossible to sleep at night because of the heat. So luck was on my side there.
Now that I've taken a moto into town and sat down to write this, I've realized I left my memory card with the photos on it in the room. Good job, brain. Regardless, the place I'm staying is one of a series of small guesthouse/ restaurant/bars along a magnificent stretch of beach. Good food, great atmosphere, great staff and the beach 5 feet from where you sleep. Doesn't get much better. Spent my birthday relaxing, eating, swimming, and even putting up a few shots on what must be about a 9 foot rim with the smallest backboard ever created and a nasty wobble anytime a shot hits the rim. Still awesome though. One of the best birthdays I've had, and the good days haven't stopped since. I'm still there, and it's hard to imagine moving on even though it has to come soon. Inertia is a wonderful and dangerous thing.
I've got an absolute ton of notes down in my journal since it's been ages since I posted, but I'll keep this relatively short. I believe last time I posted was in Phnom Penh, in between the random power outages that I've noticed have followed me here to the beach. It's great when the power does go out, super atmospheric for a few minutes, and then the generators all kick in and ruin in. Shame. From Phnom Penh it was off to Koh Rong, a sleepy little seaside town that's a base for a lot of trekking and such in the area. Took a bus as usual, another in a growing line of music-blaring monstrosities that make the ride twice as long as it should be. Through them though I've identified that every single Cambodia music video is exactly the same: a bunch of people outdoors, two singers gazing lovingly into each other's eyes, and a group around them swaying back and forth like palms in a breeze and moving their hands continuously as if they were sharks and would die if they stopped. It's really weird. And after the 357th one in a row, very very annoying.
From Koh Rong I went on a 2d 1n trip that sounded full of promise but failed to deliver. Unfortunately that happens sometimes with these tours of treks, and though it was still fun, promises made were not promises kept. The first day involved the sweatiest boat ride ever undertaken, a solid 45 minutes of slow paced meandering through a beautiful mangrove area that would have been amazing to explore with a canoe. The ride took us to the start point for our trek to a waterfall with very little water. Not what I was told to expect, but oh well. Before heading for the water I took off my shirt and wrung out the sweat that had saturated it, freaking out our guides in the process. Cambodians don't sweat nearly as much as we do (obviously), and this was not something they were used to seeing; they kept asking me if I was ok. Anyway, very refreshing to stand under the trickle that was there and the happy consequence was that we could climb to the top and stand where the water usually rushes over for some amazing views. That's where we ate lunch and then continued on for another hour or so to end the trek and head to a local homestay for the night.
What was really lacking was any kind of information or organization to the tour: it was just go here, do this, leave. The guides barely interacted with us at all and taught us nothing about the area, which is a shame. We were also well short on water if not food, and that made the day very long. The evening was spent swimming in murky water and chatting, but nobody had had the foresight to bring a deck of cards, so it was a very tame and slow night. Finally we retired to mosquito-net covered hammocks, which are about the worst possible thing for me to sleep in since I can only really sleep on my sides or stomach. It was a long night. The second day included a morning trek to a small farm that was devoid of people, where we lingered idly for 30 minutes as the guides chatted with each other, and then a trek back. I love the trekking part, but I have no idea why we stopped at the farm. The rest of the day was then spent waiting for someone on another tour to catchy up with us so that we could go back to the hostel. Literally we sat around waiting for 4 hours, constantly being told it would just be a little longer. Very frustrating. Possibly the best part of the trip was the return boat ride back, where we headed toward an impressive weather system that left us drenched while we waited in the rain for promised transport to our hostel that never came. All in all disappointing, but they're not all going to be great, are they?
From Koh Rong I went right to Sihanoukville, where I am now. Met some good people negotiating a tuk-tuk to the same place, a couple of German girls that I drank with for a few nights before they revealed sheepishly that they were a couple, and who were very surprised and relieved when i told them I knew. I had seen them interacting on the bus in the seats in front of me, a covert little kiss here, a tender little interaction there. They told me that they try to keep it under wraps because they've met too many guys who then go on to essentially harass them about their sexuality in exactly the way you'd expect a bunch of horny young America/British/Australian travelers would (their list of perpetrators, not mine). I sympathized, but I can't say I can empathize; that must really be frustrating.
Really great people to talk to though, even though language was a bit of a barrier at times. They also mentioned to me something that made my earlier rant about Chinese tourists seem a little less justified, which is that typically the Chinese (or at least the older generations) save up their whole lives and take one massive trip instead of smaller, more frequent trips. So I can at least now understand why they're trying to cram so much into such tiny amounts of time. Unfortunately it doesn't make them much less annoying, as the Germans agreed.
That's about it, there's been lots more including randomly finding the best tzatziki I've ever had, watching crabs work in the early morning, following fish in the shallows and the weirdness of lugworms and their spaghetti-shaped piles of sand they leave all over after filtering it through their bodies in search of nutrients. Until the next one.
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