Thailand and now on to Phnom Penh

The last six weeks have been a wonderful experience. I was a little nervous traveling on my own but that quickly abated as I met more and more travelers like myself. I was afraid it would be lonely but with only one or two exceptions, I’ve actually traveled with people more often than not. I met Nuphar from Israel; Brett and Lucy who are British but teach in Kuwait; Corinne from France; Shane from Ireland; Inge, Mark, and Pete from Australia; Claire from Scotland, Eric, Anthony and Kelly from New York… and many others. They each had a fascinating story to tell and many of them were on the same sort of self-discovery journey that I’ve undertaken. As much as I love going from place to place, it’s a relief to put down my backpack for a few months and spend more than one night in one place. But before I tell you about Cambodia, I must fill you in on Thailand.

The last time I wrote to you, I was in Vientiene in Laos. Vientiene is the capital of Laos but I think it’s the smallest capital I’ve ever seen. There are no skyscrapers and it resembles Napa more than San Francisco. Vientiene has a quiet charm and was the first place I could enjoy a bagel and real whole wheat bread with my delicious coffee. I spent probably 8 hours over two days in one coffee shop called the Scandinavian bakery. I partook of their baked good in quantities I don’t want to admit to, but after four months of white bread and rice, the freshly baked sesame bagels and honey wheat bread were a welcome respite. The fact that it rained about 80% of the two days I was there didn’t exactly encourage much exploration. The second day I tried to buy a train ticket from Vientiene to Bangkok at a travel agency. They were writing up the ticket when the train company called to say they didn’t have any tickets left. I later found out that there hadn’t been tickets available for days. I’m not sure why, but that left me with the option of taking the bus. I bought a $25 bus ticket to Mochit Station, took a sleeping pill, and tried to get comfortable on the two seats I’d claimed. There were only about 15 people on a bus with 50+ seats so this wasn’t difficult. I woke up when we were in Bangkok, and was still rubbing my eyes when the bus driver announced, “everyone off”! I’d bought the cheapest ticket available but other people on the bus had spent an additional $3.50 to go to Khao San Road and others had bought tickets all the way to Phuket in the south of Thailand. We all got off at the same intersection whether we’d spent $25 or $50. I would have been pretty upset if I had purchased a ticket to Phuket only to be told to get off the bus at Bangkok with no transfer instructions, but I was one of the lucky ones.

I managed to find my way to the Sky Train and then, following the instructions my cousin Nicki gave me, I took a minibus up to Suphanburi where Nicki is teaching English at a combined junior/senior high school. We had a great visit and I was impressed with the amount of Thai Nicki has learned since October. We went for massages but the women who gave us the massages misunderstood that we wanted full body Thai massages and gave us foot massages instead. We didn’t realize this until they had already started the foot massage so we just went with it. The next day I took another bus up to Kanchanburi in the middle of Thailand. I only spent one night there initially, because the place where I stayed had what seemed like cardboard for walls: I could literally hear everything my neighbors were doing and saying. The bedbugs also kept me company for the duration of my stay. It was not a fun night, but those happen every once in a while.

Kanchanburi is known both for waterfalls and for the bridge over the River Kwai, and the movie of the same name, which was built during World War II by prisoners of war. The bridge was part of a railroad constructed from Burma (present day Myanmar) to Thailand by the Japanese. Thousands of POWs died during the building of the railroad so it is known as the death railway. The waterfalls are 65 or 70 kilometers away, and I had already visited at least 20 waterfalls in the course of my travels, so I decided not to do those on this trip.

The next day I took a bus five hours north to the border of Burma and the little town of Sangkhlaburi. The town overlooks the Mekong River and a village that was flooded and destroyed many years ago in the course of building a dam further up river. During the dry season, you can still see the top of the temple and a few other remaining buildings. This is the rainy monsoon season so I wasn’t able to see any of that, but it was still neat. Sangkhlaburi is also known for having a Mon Village, two beautiful temples and a wooden bridge crossing from one part of the town to the other. Apparently kids jump off the bridge but it was so high that I wouldn’t dare. Because Sangkhlaburi is near Burma, there are also several refugee camps nearby. There was a wonderful bakery with delicious homemade granola and WIFI up the road from my guesthouse, which was operated as a non-profit to benefit Burmese refugees. The woman who ran the bakery was a Burmese refugee learning English and other skills so she could live outside of Burma.

The people in the Mon Village had great smiles and the kids happily posed for photos and then giggled when I showed them their faces on camera. I found it fairly hard to meet people here, so I didn’t spend a lot of time in Sangkhlaburi, but I visited the major sites and walked all over the town. Many Buddhist worshippers come to meditate in one of the temples along with a huge number of both female and male monks. I received some strange looks from various people while visiting the temple, but because I couldn’t speak Thai and they couldn’t speak English, I wasn’t sure why they were staring. Who knows, maybe they were wondering, as others have before them, if I have some strange disease all over my body in the form of little brown dots. Many Asians have apparently never seen someone with freckles so mine attract significant attention and many funny questions. No, I don’t have a disease, no I didn’t get them in Asia and yes, I’ve had them all my life. No one has asked yet if my freckles are contagious. If I’m in a joking mood, I might tell them yes and see what kind of response that will elicit.

After two days is Sangkhlaburi, I decided to check out a small town about two hours south called Phum Tom Tum. I got off the bus and tried to find a guesthouse but I could only find one person- a police officer- who spoke English and one guesthouse was quite expensive and another seemed pretty dirty. The town is stunningly beautiful and surrounded by huge limestone mountains. However, I decided it wasn’t the place for me, so I flagged down another bus and returned to Kanchanaburi. Once there I checked into a much better guesthouse with lots of adorable kitties, got a massage and enjoyed a gin and tonic.

I had walked around so much that day carrying my 40-pound backpack and 20- pound front pack that I had big red painful grooves in my shoulders. When I was planning this trip, I took the advice of the not always correct Rick Steves, who said in a presentation that travelers should always try to take the smallest bag possible. Well the smallest backpack I could find at 40 liters was not as great of a fit to my body as the 65-liter backpack I had previously purchased. When my Mom comes over in November, she will bring the 65-liter backpack, a waterproof camera and a new Ipod. I’ve decided that as much as I love my Canon Rebel, I worry about it too much here and after my small camera’s two dunkings in waterfalls, I think a waterproof one is in order! My Ipod was another unfortunate waterfall victim so that also needs to be replaced. Oh well, all part of the journey.

I spent only one night in Kanchanaburi and then took a local bus down to Bangkok. I spent two nights in a very nice hostel in the Sukumvit district and visited the Grand Palace and the Siam Discovery Center and Paragon. The Grand Palace is quite expensive to visit, about $12, and I’m not sure I would do it again. It was a national holiday so not everything was open. The previous day was the Queen’s birthday and mother’s day, but both days counted as national holidays. I had heard that a must-do in Bangkok is to visit the Sky Bar at Sirocco at the LeBua Hotel. I met a guy from Washington DC on my Grand Palace tour and spent the day with him. It took well over an hour but we finally reached the Sky Bar only to be turned away because my flip-flops were deemed “not fashionable”. I tried everything I could think of to get in but was assured that with my footwear choice (I only had flip-flops and running shoes with me); I was not eligible to enter the bar. Needless to say, my opinion of this bar plummeted. Oh well.

On Saturday, I flew from Bangkok to Phnom Penh to visit my fourth country in Southeast Asia and my fourteenth country overall. The flight was easy and I made it to my very nice guesthouse, which coincidentally was in the little Vietnam section of Phnom Penh. I treated myself to a room with air conditioning, a TV, wifi and a big comfy bed for $15.

This morning Kim, the volunteer coordinator for the Harpswell Foundation, picked me up from my guest house and brought me to my new home for 10 weeks at the Boeing Trabaek dorm off Monivong Boulevard in Phnom Penh. Last February I applied to be a leadership resident for the Harpswell Foundation, a non-profit NGO founded by MIT professor Alan Lightman. Dr. Lightman wrote an international bestseller called Einstein’s Dreams and has joint teaching appointments in physics and creative writing. The Harpswell Foundation was created to offer housing; leadership training; English and current events instruction and mentoring to female Cambodian college students. Approximately 85 students and four leadership residents live in two dormitories in Phnom Penh. I am the leadership resident for the smaller Boeing Trabeck dormitory.

I’ve already met at least 20 of my 32 residents who are from all over Cambodia. Many study law at a nearby university while others study politics or English. My home for 10 weeks is an approximately 12x12 square foot dorm room with three other students. There are two sets of bunkbeds, several fans, four desks and chairs, a dresser and a massive amount of clothes, books, toiletries and other necessities crammed into every nook and cranny. There are bathrooms down the hall with cold showers and western style toilets and a kitchen and “living room” on each of the three floors. We teach classes in the “living rooms” which are also equipped with libraries, two computers and a TV/DVD player each. There is 24 hour security for the gate, which is locked all the time, and a fence around the dorm. I feel very safe and secure here. Phnom Penh has an amazing number of great restaurants, markets and cafes, which I look forward to visiting in the upcoming months. I’ve already visited the local supermarket, which clearly caters to westerners with all prices in dollars, to buy peanut butter and jam, toiletries, soymilk, oatmeal, bread, vegetables and coffee. The girls do all the cooking and the cleaning, although I will help where I can. While I’m not the first leadership resident to be vegetarian, it is still a somewhat foreign concept. I thought it would be better to be safe then hungry. I made a salad with local lettuce, tomatoes and bell pepper but the girls weren’t sure what to make of it. They had never tried any of those things and were wary of uncooked, unflavored vegetables. I think I might offer a class in nutrition too. Every meal is made with rice, some cooked vegetable and meat. My food is whatever they have minus the meat. There isn’t a refrigerator in the dorm, but they have an icebox, which is simply an ice chest filled with ice blocks. Anything I need refrigerated can go in there.

The girls are wonderful and very talkative! They are excited about the things I can teach them and have many ideas about potential topics, which is a plus for me. Over the next two weeks, there is a lull in classes, so I’ll be doing a lot of tutoring and small classes. We will also meet several times a week to read and discuss the Cambodia Daily newspaper and there is a weekly leadership seminar, which I will lead several times over the course of my residency. At the beginning of September, we will begin a new curriculum instituted by Kim, the volunteer coordinator, based on an English Language Teaching program. I am very excited for my leadership residency and all the things I will be learning and experiencing. If you’d like to learn more about the Harpswell Foundation, go to www.harpswellfoundation.org.