Go Go Lightly!

Just before our Mui Ne debauchery (see last post), Jill and I spent a month volunteering in Cambodia’s bedazzled capital city, Phnom Penh, and it was a damn fine place to unpack our bags for a while. Before we could even properly spell Phnom Penh without doing a Google search, we both fell in love with its barely-controlled chaos, and as we savored our brief taste of the Cambodian expat life our awe and love-struck giddiness grew.

We didn’t expect to settle in as comfortably as we did. Especially upon arrival: tired and irritable from a 12-hour bus trip from Laos, we quickly planted ourselves in a basic, dropped-tiled, fluorescent-lit budget room in the PP backpacker strip known as Lakeside, and immediately we were taken aback by the area’s seediness: as we headed out to find dinner that night, not-so-subtle whispers offering weed and assorted drugs just the other side of the gateway seemed to sidle up to us from the shadows of every roadside tuk-tuk. Realizing that this would get really old really quickly, we set out the next morning in search of a budget option in a less opiate-laced place.

But instead of settling on an alternate budget option, we somehow ended up in a not-so-budget, brand-new, two bedroom luxury riverside apartment that sparkled and shined sort of like this:

with a view from our large private terrace that looked something like this:

Oops. But also, YAY! And in the YAY! spirit we immediately celebrated our infrugality by hosting a terrace-top housewarming party with our old friends Max and Kris, who were in town for a few days, and our new friend Rachel, whom we met on the bus from Laos. (Rachel had to catch the several hour bus to Siem Reap at something like 7:00 the next morning. The party broke up at something like 3:30 am (???). Sorry Rachel!)

After recovering from the housewarming festivities, we turned our attentions to setting up a proper expat life: we descended upon the buzzing markets in our neighborhood to haggle for fresh veggies and dairy (where I learned to steer clear of the fertilized eggs, i.e. eggs with mostly-formed chicks nestled inside), and we hit up the French market and deli on Street 278, aka Expat street, and stocked our kitchen full of freshly butchered meats and imported cheeses. And, to tone down the damage from our frequent feasts on bacon-wrapped tenderloin, we lined ourselves up monthly memberships at the super glitzy megagym, The Place, which offered us yoga, step aerobics and toning classes and a gazillion brand-spanking-new machines. Remarkably, I even showed up for twice-weekly 6 am personal training sessions with the excellent and fun Swedish fitness queen turned personal trainer, Maria Alhberg (http://www.mariaahlberg.se/) (Hi Maria!).

And the final step in setting up our proper expat life? Adopting a pet. Our Phnom Penh pet was R. Kelly, the Friendly Bathroom Roach. He was a fairly large cockroach, colored a warm, dirty Mekong brown, and he showed up most nights somewhere on our bathroom floor to alternately terrify and delight us with his stealthy, scurrying antics. (He wasn´t as welcome a pet when he became overly confident and ventured into Jill´s bedroom.)

Our next task: learning to navigate the streets. Which was really a process of un-learning every traffic rule we´d previously obeyed. Look both ways before you cross the street?? Nope. Yield to oncoming traffic?? Not if you plan to get anywhere anytime soon.

In PP there´s only one traffic rule: Go and Don´t Hit Anything. Or rather, Go and Don´t Get Hit, depending on who you ask. This rule indiscriminately applies to cars, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, pedestrians, chickens, diesel engines, balloon-chasing children and terrified tourists who idle away dozens of confused and insecure curbside minutes as they await a never-arriving break in the zipping and sidewinding traffic.

And so quickly enough, we learned the Go and Don´t Get Hit technique: like the tenacious little amphibian from my favorite 80s video game, we had to hop, sprint, duck and tumble our way across the various “lanes” of speeding motor vehicles that careened, loomed and slithered and threatened our squashing from every possible direction. And amazingly, it somehow worked, every time.

How the motorbikes are able to manage this precarious dance remains a mystery. Motorbikes in Phnom Penh (or motos, to those in the know) are loaded up and bogged down with every imaginable configuration of people and possessions, such as:

Driver, two women, two children, one baby.
Driver, three monks.
Driver, two men, five foot row of inverted chickens hanging from pole.
Driver, two women, ten speed bike.
Driver, full sized mattress.
Driver, several chopped-up trees.
Driver, large adult male, whole roast pig.
Driver, me, Jill.
And even Driver, entire contents of kitchen, like so:

Thankfully no one in Phnom Penh ever wears a helmet, so at least the poor little motorbikes are spared that additional burden.

Our various means of traversing the city proved to be among the highlights of our time in Cambodia – deciphering the kinetic confusion of Phnom Penh street life easily provides a month´s worth of non-stop entertainment. Overloaded motos, neon-splashed tuk-tuks, street-side slow-aerobics sessions and never-ending badmitton tournaments (it seems PP’ers LOVE badmitton), pick-up trucks full of monks on the move, women selling featherless baby bird corpses and mismatched shoes….and it just so happens that the playground for this cacophonous mess is accented by the gorgeous, highly ornate Cambodian royal architecture and traced casually by the mighty Mekong. Sensory overload, to be sure.

Phnom Penh street life didn´t always leave us wide-eyed and giggling, though. Notwithstanding its expat conveniences, Phnom Penh is the heart of a developing nation with a very recent, very troubled past (if there ever was a hell, it was run by Pol Pot), and even the most willfully blind tourist can´t ignore its economic realities. Our apartment was on Sisowath Quay, a street that is jammed-packed full of tourist-geared bars and restaurants and just as many tourist-geared street kids. These grade-school-aged kids are typically very cute and very smart, and they can fast talk several dollars out of unsuspecting tourists (aka me and Jill?) before he or she (um, Jill or I?) masters the exchange rate. After talking to some local friends, Jill and I learned not to buy what these kids were selling (postcards, books, newspapers, assorted Khmer bric-a-brac), because, despite their promises to the contrary, they most likely are NOT in school, and the money is most likely NOT going to them – often it´s going to a sort of pimp for street children who holds kids as human property and forces them to do this work.

There are various reputable NGOs that are geared toward helping Cambodia´s street children, and they provide a reliable means for well-intentioned travelers to provide meaningful help to these highly sympathetic kids. One of the best meals we had in PP was at a restaurant called Friends, which is a culinary and hospitality training restaurant run for and by former street children (those kids sure know how to cook up a curry!). The restaurant is one of the many endeavors of Mith Samlanh (www.mithsamlanh.org), an organization that runs health, education and training programs for Phnom Penh street children.

Unfortunately, walking past begging mothers with their naked infants splayed out belly-down on the dirty concrete is easier said than done. And on the sidewalks of Sisowath Quay, this sort of desperate poverty is all too common. Also a little too common for my taste were the frequent sightings of sixty-year-old men walking hand in hand with teenaged Cambodian girls. Bars all around our neighborhood catered to this dirty old man/young dude crowd (Candy Bar; 69 Bar; Cathouse; Up and Down – promising beautiful girls and one lady boy!), and after several weeks of grimacing and suppressing an internal riot at each sex tourism sighting, I found myself very very late on Halloween night, dressed as Pat Benatar´s Backup Dancer #14, chasing a wrinkled, cackling old man out of the bar and down the street and hurling obscenities and idle threats his way as he swept a lovely sixteen-year-old girl onto his motorbike and off to his hotel room for the night. Probably not the most effective way to wage war with the seedy underworld of Cambodian sex tourism.

Thankfully there are organizations like AFESIP (Acting for Women in Distressing Situations), the incredible anti-human trafficking organization for which we did pro bono legal work while in PP (read about their work at www.afesip.org), that are a bit more effective in the fight against sex slavery. AFESIP was founded by Somaly Mam (www.somaly.org), a Cambodian woman who was sold into sex slavery as a young girl, and who, since her escape several years later, has devoted (and in the process risked) her life helping girls and women who are similarly forced into prostitution. AFESIP´s mission is to rescue girls and women from sex slavery and provide them with housing, health care, education and skills training in order to reintegrate them into their communities. Jill and I visited AFESIP´s centers for the girls in both Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, and they were full of bright and lovely girls (and their children) who were very excited to show us their fashion and beauty handiwork. Of course, we fell in love with the babies.

Through AFESIP Jill and I were able to meet Somaly Mam , which was a big highlight for us in Cambodia (she´s an international celebrity now, read about her at http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1894410_1894289_1894268,00.html). And through AFESIP, I accompanied a huge cadre (including the very intimidating chief) of the Cambodian National Police during the raid of brothel full of sweet and lovely 13- to 18-year-old girls. Whoa. Scary. Crazy. Highlight.

Among many Cambodian highlights. Phnom Penh nightlife (Magic Sponge, hi Eran! Riverhouse Lounge – where Jill loved her some bad Katy Pery tunes on a regular basis. Talkin´to a Stranger – dumb name, great bar, super awesome bartender, excellent popcorn and perfect gin and tonics.). Expat dancing awesomeness (Hi Arielle and the Cambodia Daily crew!).

Weekend beach trips to the stunning tropical beach paradise called Otres in Sihanoukville. The mind-blowing incredibleness of the temples of Siem Reap and the buried jungle treasures at the dilapidated temple Bang Mealea. And the people – friendly, funny, cheerful, welcoming, and perhaps the cutest kids on the entire planet.

One little month for this big, beautiful place definitely wasn´t enough.

Much love!

Heather and Jill

Breezes, bikinis, beers, boys, beach…

In early November, after Heather and I finished our month-long stint volunteering and living it up expat-style in Phnom Penh, Cambodia we decided to completely switch gears by heading to the coast of Vietnam for some fun in the sun.

Our destination: Mui Ne. AKA kitesurfing central in Southeast Asia. It was my goal, after approximately eight hours of lessons, to successfully attach a board to my feet, harness myself to a ten meter inflatable power kite and eventually use said apparatus to propel myself through the surf (and not to accidentally fly to Indonesia in the process). Heather, probably wisely, decided to forego this one of my adventures du jour and instead observe the circus act (with occasional mocking laughter) from the comfort and relative safety of a cushy beach lounger.

Anyway.

Besides the kites, we weren´t quite sure what to expect from Mui Ne (the Lonely Planet kind of glosses over the destination) so we had originally planned to spend only a few short days there. [Side note: we had decided to forego a longer visit to Vietnam in favor of more time in Laos at the suggestion of a number of acquaintances who had recently traveled to the region. In retrospect we think this was probably a huge mistake-- Laos is lovely but neither of us completely adored it.] Vietnam on the other hand… Both of us fell instantly and madly in love with the little slice of heaven on the coast known as Mui Ne… Enough so that on the morning of our planned departure instead of boarding the bus that was honking its horn impatiently outside our guest house, we groggily and hurriedly phoned our travel agent, two airlines and the bus company, shelled out extraordinary amounts of money to cancel, change and/or re-book tickets, cancelled our week in Tokyo and successfully extended our time in paradise by a mere three extra days. So worth it. In total we spent nine amazing days soaking up the rays, (attempting to) fly kites on the beach and enjoying the insanely high hot boy quotient as much as possible before having to jet to Peru to hike the Inca Trail. Such is life.

So what is so great about Mui Ne, you ask?

Exhibit I: The breezy, sunny, perfect beach.

White sand. Beautiful warm turquoise water. Waves lapping at our feet. Hundreds of gorgeous colorful kites flying gracefully over the water (and sometimes not so gracefully dive-bombing precariously close to our sunbathing heads)… And perhaps more importantly, hundreds of equally gorgeous boys attached to said kites.

Exhibit II: SANKARA. Restaurant. Bar. Kite school. Our home. Our love. Most perfect beach hangout ever.

Soon after our arrival we stumbled upon this oasis of perfection and the crew at Sankara instantly became our community. We happily spent 90% of our time lounging by the beautiful infinity pool, sunbathing on the beach with cocktails in hand, devouring delicious meals (often breakfast, lunch AND dinner) under the restaurant´s flowing white curtains, drinking too many Russian beers with the kite crew (all of us waiting impatiently for the wind to pick up) and enjoying cocktails at the illuminated beach bar or stumbling down to the raucous nightclub not-so-cleverly named DJ Station and dancing the night away with the amazing cast of characters who frequent Sankara.

EXHIBIT III: The Crew. xoxo

The lovely Ms. Helenita owns the divine Sankara, Greg is its cute chef and resident entertainer and the gorgeous Steve and Luna own and run Sankara Kitesurfing Academy (hi all!). Steve was my kite instructor, which meant we met at the kite school each morning around 10:00, possibly had a brief lesson on the beach, ordered iced coffees with the rest of the instructors and students, realized by mid-day the wind wasn´t going to cooperate, switched to beer and settled in for an afternoon in the sun.

Our crew also included Evelein the lovely and precocious 19-year old Dutch world traveler, Tony the cute British kite devotee, Shane (aka Silver Fox), the very handsome entymologist-turned-firefighter-turned-kite instructor from British Columbia and, last but not least, “Punk Paul”, the hot and very charming UK teacher/skateboarder/fellow beach bum.

Heather and I had a whirlwind romance with Sankara and Mui Ne… and possibly a boy or two… and will absolutely definitely without a doubt return some day (SOON) to continue the affair.

We spent our last night in Mui Ne with all of our partners in crime sharing several bottles of wine, enormous steaks, yummy sea scallop and truffle risotto and the Sankara specialty… an absolutely orgasmic cheesy potato gratin (sounds like perfect beach fare, right?) and then engaging in a raucous round of Jagermeister-fueled farewell minigolf (you lose, you shoot).

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

Missing Mui Ne.

Love and kisses,
J & H

After the tubing madness in Vang Vieng, Heather and I had planned to travel to Tha Khaek in central Laos for a multi-day trek in Phu Hin Bun National Protected Area and to visit a 7 kilometer-long cave called Tham Kong Lo. However due to the constant influx of news reports concerning super typhoons, tsunamis, flooding, mudslides and other weather-related insanity further south, we begrudgingly decided instead to check out some of the more wholesome activities surrounding Vang Vieng and then to make our way to higher ground in the north.

As it turns out, we discovered a mutual love for an adventure sport involving steep cliffs, finger-breaking handholds, ropes, bolts, tight harnesses, and LOTS of sweaty, sore muscle goodness.

Our new obsession:

The rock climbing in Vang Vieng is supposed to be some of the most challenging in Southeast Asia… but, really, when have we ever started small? We signed up for a course with Green Discovery (www.greendiscoverylaos.com/climbing/vv.html) and after a day of rest and rehabilitation following our tubing escapades, we woke up early in the morning and set off by tuk tuk to climb and conquer the local limestone. Since it’s rainy season and the “beginner” routes are not sheltered from rain and hence too slippery to climb, we started off on an intermediate section (climbable year-round because the limestone forms overhangs at the top of the karst that block the rain and keep the rock faces dry). To reach the rocks, we first had to climb up a wet, slippery jungle path near the riverbank, which provided some very close calls with certain creepy crawly wildlife species. Heather valiently took the lead and cleared our path of the slimy, slithery creatures which will not be named but which may or may not cause me to be overcome with shaking, hyperventilating, crying and HIGHLY embarassing panic.

Once we reached our destination we suited up and wasted no time in getting started. Our instructor taught us basic knots, handholds and climbing methods in about seven minutes flat before sending us scurrying up our first route. I volunteered to go first after learning to belay our instructor on his lead climb– a free climb to secure the rope through the anchor at the top of the face. From the very first handhold I was in love with rock climbing. Turns out I’m also really good at it. Heather too, despite her previously mentioned fear of heights. I initially had some doubts despite her enthusiasm, given the Bloukrans Bridge anxiety attack, but she eventually overcame her fears and climbed like a pro.

The routes in Southeast Asia are graded using the French rating system, which is slowly becoming the international standard. The French system takes into account the overall difficulty of the moves and the length of the climb. Grades range between 1 (very easy) and 10 (absolutely insane). The numerical grades are subdivided by adding a letter (a, b or c) and, in some instances, a plus sign. Because we started out on the intermediate rock, our first climb was rated 5a. Our final climb, 6b+. This is not how most people begin their rock climbing careers but, like I said, we’re not ones to ease into things. At the end of the day we were hot, tired, sore and energized. Enough so that we decided to do a full day of kayaking the next day, followed by a trip further north through the mountains to Luang Prabang, more rock climbing and a two-day hike in the jungles of northern Laos.

The narrow road to Luang Prabang meanders over and through stunning mountains and around sharp, terrifying curves and we (or rather Heather, since I had opted for Xanax) experienced gorgeous views of lush, expansive green valleys and fluffy cloud-drenched peaks. I was initially less than excited about spending time in Luang Prabang, having been looking forward to exploring the landscapes of central Laos, but I ended up enjoying the lovely French-influenced town on the banks of the Mekong. Backpackers and affluent holidaymakers alike flock here to enjoy the laid-back atmosphere, great food and beautiful architecture, which blends Lao traditions with structures built by European colonizers in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In Luang Prabang we enjoyed leisurely walks, taking in the sights, sounds and smells of this charming little town. We had several fantastic meals, including BBQ fish and vegetable buffet (50 cents!) at the local market and a fantastic Friday night Lao celebration feast at Tamarind (www.tamarindlaos.com), the highlight of which was a whole fish marinated in local herbs, stuffed with lemongrass and steamed in banana leaves. The town also hosts a surprising number of wine bars, ice cream parlors and Mac-filled internet cafes. The handicraft night market is expansive and busy, with vendors selling homemade quilts, clothing, arts and crafts. Fortunately for our livers, the town shuts down completely at 11 PM (as in lights out, guest house doors locked, backpackers report directly to bed). The one exception is the annual Festival of Lights, which happened to be taking place during our brief stay in town.

The Festival of Lights celebrates the end of Buddhist lent and is marked by a procession of elaborate and intricate paper boats, each constructed by a different village, school or temple and lit by hundreds of candles. The boats are huge– usually about two to three meters long– and decorated with fresh flowers, banana leaves and some even with impressive mechanical accoutrements. Each is carried down the main street by a team of men from the relevant locality and accompanied by large groups of singing, dancing, costumed women and children. Revelers gather to watch the procession and follow the boats to the riverbank where they are set off down the Mekong (before or after some tense firefighting exercises are performed in and around the highly flamable vessels). Small foam-based flower arrangements containing small candles and sticks of incense are offered for purchase on every street corner. Heather and I each bought one and were advised to make a wish before sending them, along with thousands of other twinkling lights, down the Mekong (as the beautiful little trinket floats away, with it are supposed to go all of your troubles). The festival is an occasion for the entire town, young and old, local and tourist, to party in the streets and continuously set off multitudes of frighteningly loud fireworks (contributiing to about a dozen heart attacks and potentially permanent ear damage). By the end of the night the air was thick with smoke and sulfur. The entire evening was magical and exciting and entirely unexpected.

Another highlight of our time in northern Laos was our two-day trek and village stay. We chose to book our trek through Tiger Trail Outdoor Adventures (www.laos-adventures.com), mainly because the company supports the “Fair Trek” initiative by engaging in sustainable tourism, eco-friendly adventures and even donating a portion of its profits to local villagers. On the first morning of our trek our guide introduced us to the numerous resident giant millipedes (terrifying and gross but basically harmless, unless you have a slithering insect phobia, AHEM) and nonchalantly advised us to keep an eye out for scorpions (yikes!) and king cobras (double yikes!), both of which are common on the trails. Lovely. Despite our fears we set off into the dense, mountainous, jungle terrain. Two hours in and I have never been so hot and sticky in my entire life. It felt like I was swimming in my clothes. The sun beat down through a cloudless sky, the humidity was something like 739 percent, and the trail? The trail was virtually nonexistent. Our guide walked a meter or so in front of us, hacking his way through vines and bamboo with his field knife. Even when there was an opening in the plant life, he still made sure to loudly announce our arrival to the resident wildlife, luckily ensuring that we did not run into any friendly or not-so-friendly king cobras along the way. When questioned about the dangers of snake encounters, our knowledgable guide advised us quite succinctly that king cobras “usually… never” bite people but if they do, the bite is “sometimes… always” fatal (surprisingly, this did little to calm our nerves). I did, however, narrowly avoiding stepping on a large scorpion, get attacked by a mess of giant red stinging ants and, several times, get whipped in the face by sneaky low-hanging vines. Given my tendency to clumbsiness, I call this a success.

After seven hours of intense hiking (and a few stops at small villages along the way to play with and take photos of the always-excited local children), we made it to a quiet little Hmong village where we would be spending the night. There we met an American couple, Michelle and Peter, who had also braved the jungle (and who, unlike us, had not been so lucky as to avoid an encounter with a king cobra). After possibly the most appreciated showers of our lives and a yummy local dinner, the four of us were exhausted and ready for bed before sundown… but the villagers had alternate plans for us. They were excited to offer us some of their homemade lao-lao whiskey (mmm… smells like lighter fluid, feels like fire), turn the volume up on some local tunes, and begin the welcome party. The adorable village kids were in high spirits, dancing around our table, smiling and laughing despite (or maybe because of?) or inabilty to communicate… maybe also because of our grimaces upon throwing back a shot of the local firewater. As the evening progressed they would also gain extraordinary pleasure by torturing us with enormous insects and laughing when we screamed, hopped onto chairs and hid behind Pete for protection (thanks Pete!) when the random praying mantis came flying in our direction.

After a too short night’s sleep (the resident roosters very impolitely woke us at 3:30 AM), we packed our bags, bid our new friends adieu and headed off in the direction of a massive and spectacular waterfall called Tad Sae. Tad Sae features several levels of bleached white limestone worn smooth by centuries of rushing water, forming numerous crystal blue pools. It looked like something out of an animated fantasy wonderland of gorgeousness. The water was shockingly cold, but we couldn’t resist diving in to celebrate the end of our hot, muggy, itchy, scary and wonderful jungle trek.

Another day of rock climbing followed (!!!)… and then we decided to test our luck with Mother Nature by heading to the southernmost part of Laos. Our destination: the island of Don Det in a region known as 4000 Islands. Our goal: to rent a stilted bamboo bungalow with a balcony over the river and plant our bikini-clad butts firmly in a couple of hammocks for a few days before we were expected to arrive in Phnom Penh to start working. Success! Turns out the flooding had mostly subsided, the rains had (mostly) cleared and the bungalows and hammocks were plentiful. Our balcony connected with those of a British couple and an Aussie dude (hi Nic!), all three of whom were perfect neighbors and equally devoted to mastering the fine art of hammock-swinging. None of us minded that the island has no electricity except by generator in the evenings, no indoor plumbing and no hot water. A few cold Beerlaos, a good book and pack of cards was enough to keep us all happy for several days.

Don Det was a beautiful, relaxing, breezy and perfect end to our time in Laos, a land of ups and downs, insanity and serenity, smiling children, a few monkeys, constant sunshine, nonstop adventures and (as promised, Moms and Dads) lots of detox and relaxation.

Next up: Phnom Penh.

xoxoxo,
Jill & Heather