A little bit on Cambodia

Tuk-Tuk ride.

About the time that I wrote my last post about the meditation retreat, is when I first arrived in Cambodia. We did the overland travel thing crossing the Thai/Cambodian boarder at the most talked about boarder crossing in SE Asia.  Basically all you need to do is show up, and pay US$20 to get a one month visa. Sounds easy, but actually it is quite difficult. Even in Thailand on our way, the tuk-tuk driver stops a couple miles from the boarder and brings us to a place to fill out the immigration card.  Then they start hassling us to get the visa there, express, for about $30.  They say it is unavailable or will take hours at the boarder.  We know better, and good thing Nico was doing the talking cause she is good at keeping her ground when the "experts" are telling us otherwise.  Then we make it to the boarder and immediately there is a guy who comes up to us to help us through the process.  No matter what we say, he wont leave us and even follows us all the way into Cambodia.  We make it out of Thailand, and then to where we buy the visa.  The officials in Cambodia say it is 800 baht ($26)... even though there is a big sign overhead that says the tourist visa is $20.  When we point that out he says $20 and 100 Baht.  Good thing we knew about this too, cause we showed our wallets and that they were empty other than a crisp US$20 bill.  I do feel bad that these guards need to bribe people to get a bit of extra cash, but then again giving into the bribe only supports the corrupt government and lets this go on longer.  Then we are taken on a "free" bus out the middle of nowhere where our only option to Siem Reap is a taxi for $48.  For SE Asia, this price is ludicrous.  For example... in Thailand to get from Bangkok to the boarder, a 6 hour train ride, cost less than $2, and Cambodia is poorer than Thailand.  Anyway, after waiting about an hour to find people to share the taxi with we were about to give in and get it all for ourselves.  Luckily just then 2 more people wander in and we jump on the opportunity to share.  $12 a person is bad, but not as bad as it could be for the 2 hour ride to Siem Reap.

Surprises about Cambodia.  Now I am not sure that all of this applies to all of Cambodia.  My experience is mainly just in Siem Reap (closest city to Angkor Wat), which is a small city, but completely thrives on tourism.  For this reason, everyone speaks English really well.  Anyone who intends to get a job takes the time and effort to learn English.  Another thing I noticed right after entering the country is that they drive on the right!  After 9 months of being in countries where you drive on the left, it was actually quite strange to switch again.  In the first couple days here, we almost got run over multiple times looking the wrong direction when crossing the street.  And also the de facto currency here is the US dollar.  The Cambodian Riel is not so stable, so everyone prefers to use US dollars.

A couple general things I've noticed so far about this country is that everyone has a positive outlook and really wants to make it.  For the culture here, this land has often been in control of either Vietnam or Thailand or France.  It was not until the 1950's that Cambodia existed as a country.  There have been power struggles and a nasty civil war, and there has not been a stable government until almost 2000.  Due to all this, there is not nearly the cultural pride that you'd find in other SE Asian countries.  So although things have only been stable here for about 10 years, and it is a very poor country, and the government is rather corrupt, I still feel quite safe.  Nico and I have walked through some neighborhoods here at night feeling perfectly safe, but if it was something similar in NYC I certainly would not.

Cooking with Bati

The food here I dare say is better than Thai food.  You can get a large bowl of curry (with lots of veggies and all natural ingredients) and a side of rice for just $2.  They also have this Khmer spice here that is unlike anything that I've used in the US, and it they add it to many of the foods here.  Also they dont make everything spicy, which is quite nice for me.  I thought maybe that is just because they are cooking for westerners, but apparently everyone does their own versions of a dish and everyone likes different amounts of spiciness, so they just provide chilies on the side.

Floating houses

Mainly we came here to Cambodia to go to Angkor Wat.  It has now been about 10 days and we are still hanging out in Siem Reap even though only three of those days have we gone to see the temples.  Its a nice city to chill in, and at this point both Nico and I are kinda ready to move on from SE Asia.  So we are just relaxing a bit and doing some planning for the next few months.  We've certainly kept busy by doing some stuff like renting bicycles and just riding, we took a cooking lesson at our favorite restaurant, and we have even gone a couple times to a local monastery to help this one monk that we befriended teach his English class.

The young Monk

One of the first days we were here, we wandered around the city just to explore.  We came upon a couple temples, and at the second one we saw a couple monks hanging out in their little house.  The older one right away sent the younger one to go show us around.  It was nice that it did not feel like he was doing it to get money (as many interactions are here), it was just good for the younger monk to talk to us and practice his English.  After the tour we talked to the older one for a little while.  Seeing this, made me appreciate the monastic life a little bit more.  This guy is 27, and has been a monk for 11 years.  He goes out to the country to teach English 5 days a week, and also runs night classes at the temple 6 days a week.  He is also working on a project to teach villagers about farming vegetables.  (They all farm rice in the wet season and used to log in the dry season, but now there are no forests left... kinda sad).  He has a phone and even a computer that was donated to him.  Here it is easier to see how the public can help out the monks, and the monks in return actually do a lot for the public.  So anyway, Nico and I offered to help him with his evening classes a couple times so that the students can practice talking with a native english speaker.

The first class was quite interesting.  Basically Chia (the monk) showed us where they were in the book, and then handed us off to totally run the class!  Good thing Nico has some teaching experience, cause I have no idea what I would have done without her.  We started off by doing some reading and listening to what they all have trouble pronouncing.  Apparently the “th” and the “v” sounds are very difficult for them, so we focused a bit on that.  I realize that in only a couple sessions we are not going to make a big difference in their English proficiency, but I do think that it may renew their excitement which would certainly be worthwhile.  Is was cool to see though by the end of the class, they were getting better at the difficult sounds that they are not used to.

Then yesterday we were to go back for a second class.  I was thinking how it was good for me to teach the class, but I dunno if I really could have done it without Nico.  Then she helped answer this for me... when after biking around Angkor for our third day there, she got a migrane and was down for the count.  It was too late to back out of the class... so there I go all by my lonesome.  And I think it still worked out!  Phew!  Maybe not as smoothly as if she was there, but I did teach the two classes on my own.  And I think it was good that I did not have all day to worry about it.  Even I would have trouble “living in the present” if I knew I had that to look forward too later in the evening.

Siem Reap sunset

Okay, I think that's enough for now, more to come on Angkor Wat soon!