Val's adventures in Asia

2009-11-07T07:49:00.000-08:00

“One night in Bangkok…”

That’s the song that has been playing in my head all day. I was supposed to be traveling to Hanoi, Vietnam today. But I had noticed a month or so ago that the company who processed my visas got the date wrong on the Vietnam one. It’s valid for tomorrow instead of today as I had submitted. So I figured my flight got in around 7:30 pm so I’d just be hanging out in immigration for four hours until midnight and they let me in then. I wasn’t too psyched about missing my transfer and having to get a taxi after midnight in notorious Hanoi where a cab driver drove off with Karly’s bag in the trunk a few weeks ago! But nor did I want to pay hundreds of dollars to cancel and rebook a new flight.

But turns out the airline didn’t even want to give me get a boarding pass for my flight because they weren’t sure they would let me wait or make me return to Thailand. Given all the issues and not feeling that excited about the late night prospects in Hanoi, I decided to play it safe and asked if they could rebook me to a flight tomorrow morning instead. They kindly made the change at no charge! Of course, I have to pay for the extra night hotel, Bangkok transfers, etc but I suppose it is better to be careful. I may try to recoup something from the visa processing company that made the error in the first place. But either way, Bangkok isn’t a bad place to spend an afternoon and night.

So I revisited the Royal Palace (which interestingly has a model of Angkor Wat!) and Wat Pho and just stuffed myself on yummy Tom Yum soup and Pad Thai and am feeling quite happy to be in my comfy clean hotel instead of trying to charm the Vietnamese immigration officials!

It’s hard to believe my Cambodia part of the trip is now behind me! And it’s been a packed couple of weeks. I know you're all dying to hear the latest in my battle with the ants and you'll be pleased to know that my DEET war and ant carcass warnings did the trick! I've seen virtually no ants for a couple of weeks...they've all moved over to Jen's room instead! Sorry Jen!

We visited the Land Mine Museum which was a fascinating and sobering place. As a fan of the Tintin books, I was surprised to see a Land Mine version of Tintin as part of the exhibits.

Last week at the orphanage and our first school, we did Halloween masks out of paper plates and various creative supplies. The orphanage crew really got into it and had such a blast! We took them “trick or treat”ing for candy in the different rooms.

Then later last Friday, my co-teacher Chantha had a field trip with his students to Angkor Wat and asked me to join. It was such a blast riding on the back of Chantha’s motorbike with about 12 other motos filled with two or three students each zipping all around us!

The actual temple part was a bit tough for me since our guide was speaking in Khmer. And I must admit I almost dozed off during the shady sitting on the grass time. But we were up quite late playing Pub Trivia with our new buddies, Stephen and Per from Sweden. It was a very fun night and I was happy to find a trivia outlet on the other side of the world. We even placed second! Jen’s Facebook knowledge and my Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid random info came in very handy. And of course we had to celebrate at our regular bar, the Warehouse.

It was sad to say goodbye to Chantha and the kids from Khmer Help Khmer school. Since the water festival kept schools closed until last Wed, Chantha had given them all the week as holiday. So I had to say goodbye to some of my students earlier than expected. I took a bunch of photos, though I think it’s funny how serious Cambodians can look in their pictures when they grin and laugh all the time in real life. They can treat pictures as a very formal occurrence! Looking at most of the pictures of Chantha on his motorbike or the classroom, you’d never guess how huge his grin is usually!

Saturday we went to Laos, and had a really awesome four days. Our first night was Halloween and we had an entertaining time dressing up a fellow traveler in drag for his “costume.”
We picked a central hotel located right in the middle of the amazing night market. It was filled with lots of really nice stuff and went the length of the street. Laos in general was fabulous. A bit cooler than the non-stop heat of Cambodia, but still beautiful. We rode elephants (and sat on their heads like the mahouts do!), went kayaking and survived the baby rapids, trekked through the mountains and swam and climbed beautiful turquoise tiered waterfalls. We also ate loads of awesome food! And did WAY too much shopping! All in all a great mini-vacation during our travels!

We flew back Wed morning and swung right into school. The last three days have been a whirlwind getting ready to depart Cambodia. I shipped a box home and the DHL cost was almost as much as the stuff in it!

We has planned to visit the orphanage for my last time on Friday, but Thursday, Jen and I had stopped along the side of one of the road trying to snap a picture of a monk on a motorbike (we see them on the backs of bikes in their orange robes all the time, but never manage to get a picture!) While we were there, Mr Tong from the orphanage pulled over when he saw us. I love being here long enough to be recognized! Turns out the kids were going to Phnom Penn for the weekend. So thank goodness he saw us and let us know or we would have missed them! (Bummer the only pic I got of monks on motos was far away behind a telephone pole! So the quest continues!)

And I really wanted to give my final surprise to the orphans in person. I’d printed out some large group shots along with the individual baseball card type pictures of each of them in the Red Sox shirts. So I was able to give those to them that night along with some coloring books (which they always love!) It was great, but really sad saying goodbye. They are just the sweetest kids and the people who work there take great care of them. There may not be much money, but the kids seem very happy, bright and engaged.

Thursday Jen and I had set aside for our last night watching The Amazing Race and ordering pizza. I’ve got her hooked on the show now! It was such fun, but bizarrely later that night I had my first really bad stomach issues. Usually if I’ve had any twinge, one prescription pill does the trick right away. But Thursday night I was just miserable and up half the night alternating between sweating and freezing. Not fun! And strangely Jen felt absolutely fine and we’d had the exact same food. Very weird. I was supposed to have my going away lunch with Mr. Paulie from the second school and didn’t want to be rude and not go, plus it was my last day with the kids at the first school, which I couldn’t miss! So I slept half the morning and rallied for lunch, though didn’t eat much of the yummy Khmer food. Then I had to lie down a little while before school so Jen started class without me. I did still manage to bike though! I was determined!

At school, it was so sweet! Many of the kids had made me little gifts or written goodbye notes of how they will miss me! Lots of hugs all around. Even our chicken friend came into the classroom to say goodbye! We played one final game of Hangman and my message was “I will miss Cambodia and all of you!” Which is absolutely the truth.

Last night was one last Khmer goodbye dinner with Meng and Jen. I was feeling a bit better but still not 100%. We made a last stop at the Warehouse, but my stomach issues kept me to Sprite. Bizarre that I’ve been in Asia for over nine weeks with no real problems and my last day in Cambodia, I’m sick!

I still can’t believe the time went so quickly! I’m going to miss Jen a ton! We had such a blast together. Well I know I’ll see her soon when we do the Amazing Race together! You know we’ll win it “Jenny!” :)

One moment will stay with me from Cambodia. Jen and I were in the night market one night and I was bargaining over the price of some earrings. The woman started at $4, I said $2, etc. As we chatted, she asked about my being in Cambodia and I said we were teaching English to local kids who couldn’t afford to pay for classes. When she heard that, not only did she give me the earrings for $2 but gave Jen and I both free bracelets as a thank you for helping her country. We both were so touched by the gesture! That is pretty much what we found across the country…wonderful people.

Now it’s on to Vietnam and the last two weeks of my journey…

Sunday, October 25th Siem Reap, Cambodia

2009-10-25T10:18:00.000-07:00

It’s almost been two weeks since I last posted – time has flown! The teaching has been going well, though last week was tough since we focused on grammar at our first school (the one where we do all the planning and teaching). NOT the most exciting topic I the world. Is there a more entertaining way to teach singular/plural, past tense, negatives, questioning, etc? Well we do try to at least finish with some games.

At least the rain has diminished a great deal so we’re no longer standing in water to teach. It does mean the mosquitoes have gotten a bit worse, though still not nearly as bad as I’d feared. There is still enough water in the river for the kids to do a bit of fishing during break time, but the fish they catch are about 2 inches max. Our students at the first school are really a range of English. Some grasp it all very quickly while others just look blankly at their paper.

At the second school, I have a co-teacher, Chantha (he goes by his nickname Toy.) So we usually follow his lesson plan and I do the readings and practice the grammar and pronunciation with the kids, who are overall more advanced than our first school. It was a bit awkward last Friday when Toy handed around a sheet with a story he’d written in English about the upcoming water festival. He asked me to read it out loud, which I did, but it was rather filled with errors, incorrect grammar, and run on or awkward sentence structure. I started to make edits on my copy to give him later, but he wanted to try to have the students make corrections real time. He was a great sport and said he was really glad I was there to correct the mistakes, but there were so many I offered to go home and retype the sheet, which I just finished. Even a relatively good English speaker has difficulty, which is why they so appreciate native speakers here.

Outside of school, Jen and I have done more exploring. Sometimes it’s just running errands, getting groceries or school supplies. We just hop on our bikes and navigate through the cows, blaring horns of warning and crazy wrong way moto-drivers wherever we need to go. I am so glad to be biking instead of taking tuk-tuks like the tourists. Much better exercise and much more local interaction. Though more often than not, someone local will start biking alongside either Jen or me and start a conversation to practice their English. Everyone is really friendly, but usually biking these streets is when I need to concentrate so trying to carry on a conversation and avoid running over small children or being taken out by a larger vehicle is not ideal!

Knock on wood, we’ve managed to avoid any serious mishaps, stomach bugs or . Well, I did manage to trip down some stairs and scrape up my knee like a six year old. But more entertaining was my ant battle. Overall, our hotel is really nice and quite clean. But there have been times of little ant swarms. They are teeny, but seem to come in numbers. From my college days and living in Somerville with occasional ant problems, these are not my favorites! So I keep all food in the fridge or thrown out in a trash can in the hallway. Even so, I’ve seen them from time to time and I have taken to using my 30% Deet Ben’s bug spray on them, One day, was finding quite a few of them in the bathroom after school. These were high up and I was afraid they were coming in packs out of the ceiling railing. At one point I put down the bug spray, saw some more and grabbed it again…only to have picked it up backward and my aggressive attack squirt went right into one eye! OWWWW!

Fortunately, I was fine by the next morning, but I left the sticky spray littered with a few ant corpses up at the top of the wall. Figured that would serve as a warning to any other little buggers who try to make their way in! HA! (And again knock on wood, but I haven’t seen any for a few days so maybe my strategy has worked!)

Jen and I have been trying to explore more in and around town. We’ve actually lived it up a couple of weekend days by hitting the pool at the Meridian hotel. Considering we’re talking about 100 degree heat and dripping humidity, a pool is just heavenly. In general, our hotel is far nicer than either of us might have expected. Reliable, though a bit slow, wireless, cable tv, A/C, delivery food options… It’s weird to have all these amenities, though! At least we see the other side with our teaching and our students and I’m certainly not going to complain about air conditioning in this heat We’ve also found a regular bar to hang out and we’ve met some westerners who are more or less local having lived here for a while. Some of them still don’t speak much Khmer though.

We had a third volunteer for a very short period. Karly was supposed to be here for two weeks but on her first day of teaching, she got word that her parents had been in a bad car accident. We’d first heard that one of them had died, but it turned out it was a taxi driver, not her parents. Still, they were in pretty bad shape and she headed home to be with them.

So Jen and I are on our own again. Thank goodness Jen is here! I would be having a very different time without a buddy to experience it all with. Yesterday we saw the artisan center, silk farm and floating villages on the lake. A very cool day!

And we are going to Laos on Saturday to check out another country while we’re here.
That means we’ll bump up our visit to the orphanage to Friday – hopefully we can find some Halloween masks to do with the kids. Our visits to the orphanage have been amazing. We play baseball, do sticker books or just play around with them. The orphanage is small and the kids seem very well cared for. They do hate to see us go though! It will be sad saying goodbye in less than two weeks!

Well, that’s probably more of an update than anyone would have wanted and it’s getting late here so off to bed! Can’t believe I’ll be home in less than a month now…

Miss everyone! Thanks for writing when you can! I love hearing from people.

Val

Monday, October 12, Siem Reap Cambodia

2009-10-12T04:21:00.000-07:00

Greetings all!

First the good news…I didn’t get sick at all from eating the crushed ice last week! Amazing! And I’ve tried several smoothies since then with no problems at all.
The bad news is I did feel a little under the weather today for no reason that I could think of! (Well, could be the Red Sox implosion and lack of sleep made me ill…) But considering there are no viable bathroom options at either school, I decided to play it safe and miss today. So I’ll use the time to catch up the blog a bit.

Thursday last week was hilarious! At the second school (the one with several inches of water on the floor) it started to downpour. Hard rain pretty much means the end of school for the day as it makes so much noise on the tin roof that nobdody can hear! Plus the sheets of rain were getting everyone soaked since there are no walls. So Jen and I got out a little early and celebrated with fruit smoothies at a “fast food” place on the way home. While we were there, it started to rain even harder and everyone stopped under the overpass to try to avoid it. Well, Jen and I decided what the heck and I put the backpack cover on and off we went! We were soaked to the skin in seconds, laughing nonstop and yelling Sou sday to everyone we passed while raising our smoothies in passing! I’m sure the locals all thought they must have been spiked for these crazy American woman to be out in the rain laughing and shouting! It was awesome!

Even better was I had scheduled a massage for after work! They do them right down the hall from us. $5 for an hour. It’s not a Swedish style massage but more like a Thai massage where you wear loose fitting pajama type clothes and they basically contort your limbs and body into all kinds of crazy positions! Almost painful at times, but still great!

The next day was Friday and since I haven’t been gainfully employed for a couple of months, it was the first time in a while that Friday felt like the start of a weekend and something to celebrate. I tried to turn TGIF into TBIF (thank Budda it’s Friday, but not sure it works in translation!) Usually by the time we get home, dripping with sweat and often with rain, we are ready for a shower and bed. But Jen and I had planned to “hit the town” this Friday night. So we got ourselves decked out (relatively speaking!) and went to the touristy area.

Jen’s been here on her own for a month and as our hotel is somewhat far out of town, she’s mostly been staying in and hanging with the hotel staff (who adore her!) So I think she was ready for a little western contrast. And after checking out the restaurant options, we both had a definite craving for Mexican food! And after all the rice and Khmer, it tasted pretty darn good. And since there’s no 21 year old drinking age here, I was able to celebrate Jen’s first legal drink with her!

After dinner, we headed over to a bar for a bit that turned out to be mostly Cambodians. Jen is extremely popular with the local boys (both in our class and out and about!) I don’t know that the Cambodian girls were as happy since there were definitely some there that were clearly “working.” So we didn’t stay too long but it was a great night out and definitely needed after staying in most nights.

Saturday and Sunday were both temple viewing days and I must have taken about 500 pictures! I love the crazy trees the best. I’ll have to watch Tomb Raider again now that I’ve been to the place it was filmed. Angkor really is amazing and each temple has so many hidden charms, detailed carvings, etc. It was great to spend the two days climbing all over. One temple was still quite flooded and we had to pay a dollar to take motor bikes across to view it. Even though the flooding has improved and so far Jen and I haven’t had any more tuk-tuks get stuck and have to get out in lots of water to push! (That was my first day!)

Saturday night it was raining again and we weren’t really feeling like going out. So I suggested to Jen that we try to order a pizza delivery! And it actually worked! Of course, we’d ordered veggie with half mushrooms and got half pineapple and half ham, but a version of Hawaiian tasted good too. And we just hung out watching movies. Jen is delaying her first year of college to volunteer, so we had a little pseudo college dorm experience going with pizza and movies in Jen’s room. Wild Saturday nights here, I tell you!

But one of the best experiences I’ve had was on Sunday when we visited the orphanage. Of course, with the Sox down two games, I pulled out all the stops to try to bring them luck. I’d brought a bunch of Red Sox shirts plus a plastic bat and wiffle balls (or rather Kat brought them over with her when she met me! Thanks Kat!) Since I’d given them Sox cards last week, they at least recognized the Red Sox and when Jen and I showed up in our matching red shirts, they really liked them. So how awesome it was to be able to pull out the bag of shirts for everyone! I had just enough for all the kids and the two staff working there. They were all totally excited and put them right on. And even more so when I pulled out the bat and balls.

I’d brought copies of my old childhood baseball pictures and we took some official Cambodia Team Red Sox pics. I even taught them the “horns of hope” for good luck! Then we used rocks for bases and everyone joined in. Fortunately, the yard area wasn’t flooded anymore. They grasped the basics quite well! It was just a terrific afternoon.

Sadly, the Sox couldn’t respond with a win! I think my Cambodian kids team could have done better. The game started after 11:00 pm my time and I made it until after 2:00 am before falling asleep with the Sox comfortably up by three. Of course, we don’t need to talk about the ninth inning, but I certainly picked a good year to be on the other side of the world during play-off season.

Ok, time to work on school lesson plans for tomorrow!

Later in the evening....
Just finished watching the Amazing Race and they were in Cambodia! They unfortunately didn’t make it to Siem Reap, but still really cool to see while in the country. And I invited Ta, one of the ladies who work in our hotel, to come in and watch it with us. She got a kick out of it and the scenes of Tuk-Tuks, markets and monkey challenges. Guess we’ll try to watch it weekly now!

Val

Wednesday, Oct 7th, Siem Reap Cambodia

2009-10-07T08:39:00.000-07:00

Sou suduhee! (Hello in Khmer)

Well, I’m writing this on Wednesday evening pretty much waiting to get sick later on. I violated one of my basic travel rules for underdeveloped countries and ate a whole cupful of crushed ice from a street food place. But what do you do when your students want to take you out for a “sweet” after class!? It was a very yummy iced treat, kind of like a snow cone with some jelly gumdrops in it. I asked about the ice and they said it was fine, but I’m skeptical. So keep your fingers crossed that I avoid a bout of “block island fever” later on.

I figured I’d better do an update while I can since the days have been so busy! I arrived Saturday night after four flights and a long travel day from Borneo. But I really have to say kudos to the folks at Bangkok Air! My flight from Kuala Lampur to Bangkok was almost two hours late and I figured there was almost no chance to make my connection leaving in less than 30 minutes with a whole airport to cross. I was mentally thinking about how to find a hotel in Bangkok and notify my program coordinator in Cambodia that I wouldn’t be on the flight in.

But when I came out of the jet way at a run, there was a sign with my name on it. I was plopped in one of those airport cars which zipped me across the airport. Then I was handed off about six times to people running with me down various corridors (in heels!), rushed through check in and security and taken to a private van with the engine running to zoom me to a distant runway where I was the last to board! The entire process took only 11 minutes! Six sigma could learn from Bangkok Air.
Of course, no chance for the luggage so that had to wait until the following morning.

Since I’d come in a day early, I wasn’t sure how busy Sunday would be, but it turned out to be packed full! I had my orientation with my coordinator, Meng, was taken to temple to be blessed by a monk (thank goodness fellow volunteer Jen told me the right way to sit in advance!), bought a bicycle (so much for all those skirts I bought to teach in!), visited the orphanage and did coloring and games, visited both schools where I’ll be teaching and had a welcome dinner where I got to try local loc lac and lemongrass soup. And you know – it’s pretty much like the Elephant Walk! Awesome – especially with a local Angkor beer!

I’ve definitely benefited a ton from having Jennifer Hicks also here as a volunteer. Jen has got to be one of the most impressive 18 year olds I’ve ever met! She’s doing a gap year before college and volunteering here for three months and then in Tanzania after Christmas. Jen got here a month ago and has learned the ropes, from figuring out the way the teaching goes (meaning they look at us and ask what we are going to teach that day!) to knowing the routes by bicycle and learning a really impressive amount of Khmer.

Having Jen around makes a huge difference, just to have someone to ask questions of or bounce ideas off of. Plus it’s just more fun!

The schools are both open air partial rooms with dirt floors and a single board to write on. Well, the second school actually has water for a floor right now as flooding from the rains has been really severe. So Jen and I have been teaching in six inches of water, or balancing on boards if we’re lucky. And as we bike through town, you can see all the houses and shacks filled with water up to knees or higher.
In the mornings, I’ve had Khmer lessons though I know I won’t come close to where Jen already is with the language! The mornings are spent preparing lessons for class and what we want to teach. Jen and I share a class at the first school, but at the second there are 2000 students so we’re spread as thin as possible to maximize the English speakers. I had thought there were existing lesson plans that we would just be incorporated into, but for the most part, we are the teachers and the local teachers may help translate. So I’m making it up as I go!

Of course, makes me realize how much I rely on spell-check as now I’m trying to write words up on the boards. And after years of business facilitation, I’m used to writing on whiteboards in all capital letters, which is confusing to the kids! So I’m relearning some of the basics. And also some of the basic grammar terms! Since when do I think of words in Past Simple tense! We’ve been doing body parts this week, which is fun and interactive.

We bike to the schools, which is great to get a bit of exercise and also see the land and people a bit better. Everyone is very friendly, waving to us and trying out their English. The streets can be a bit hazardous, both from the flooding as well as the Siem Reap traffic. Helmets and vehicle safety do not exist – yesterday I saw a man on a motor scooter with a small baby on the seat in front of him held by one hand while he drove the scooter with the other! And people carry everything on the back of bicycles and scooters: three or four people, massive piles of wood, three dead pigs at a time…etc.

The kids are great. Wide range of English so it’s challenging to balance. And especially at the second school, kids are all ages and in and out so you have to be flexible and creative. But they are thrilled to be able to work on their English as it can really open up job possibilities for them. We finish around 7:00 pm (though tonight, my Khmer teacher asked if I could start staying until 9:30! I told him that was a bit late to be biking home by myself in the dark! So we’ll see how it goes.

But overall, things are good. The volunteering is challenging but rewarding. The hotel is nice, though a bit far from the town center. We’re the only guests so they take excellent care of us and love to help us practice Khmer. It’s nice to have regular internet connection to stay in touch better! I’ll be visiting Angkor Wat this weekend, which I’m really looking forward to!

Hope all’s well in the states. And of course…go Red Sox!!!

Val

Friday, Oct 2nd, Tawau, Borneo, Malaysia

2009-10-02T07:02:00.000-07:00

Well, last night in Borneo and it’s been a terrific, action packed week. I was on my own for the first day as Kat had flight issues that delayed her 24 hours. So I did some solo orangutan viewing and got up at 3:00 the next morning for a jungle boat ride. Saw some more wild orangutans and some proboscis monkeys, plus two crocodiles (only for a second before they disappeared under the murky water.)

Kat arrived around lunch after a brutal 48 hours of travel. She was a trooper though and rallied for some pool time and visits to the orangutan center and the proboscis monkey center. The proboscis monkeys are hilarious with their large noses and there were about a 100 of them right by the viewing point. Very cool!

We both crashed early and caught up on some sleep and then it was off to Sipadan the next morning. We were psyched to stay three nights in a really cool resort set on stilts in the middle of the ocean! And the place did not disappoint. The huts were beautiful and clean and we viewed turtles, starfish and other marine life from our own private balcony.

It was entertaining to go through the orientation talk to learn things like where the panic button was in case of pirates! We were also advised not to worry to see the military walking around with machine guns as it appears they have a base at the resort. Though seeing kids who look about 15 walking around with guns might be more scary than the pirates! Guess they had some really issues a few years back with kidnappings, but fortunately, we did not have to call for the guard.

We had an orientation dive that afternoon and it was a little disappointing. We’d heard such amazing things about Sipadan and the beauty that the nearby reef seemed a bit dull. However, we did learn to really appreciate the micro marine life like pygmy seahorses and beautiful tiny creatures that can be overlooked in the excitement for the big stuff.

We had a great time hanging out with our Belgian buddies Christian and Grete, who shared our very bumpy boat ride out to the resort. They are hard core divers who were staying a full nine days so our three nights seemed a bit paltry. We had a lot of fun meals and good times drinking some wine watching the sun go down and spotting turtles from the dock.

We finally got to dive Sipadan island yesterday and it did live up to expectation! We saw sharks the second we dropped. White tip, black tips and grey reef sharks, most quite small but a few were around six feet or so. Also tons of turtles, moray eels, huge schools of barracuda and just an amazing amount of beautiful fish and coral. Really great day.

Last night got interesting as a storm swept through. It felt like the middle of the night and we couldn’t believe it was only 11:30. The wind was howling, the hut was shaking and we could feel raindrops through the slats in the bathroom. Actually, the whole bathroom was pretty much soaked – thankfully Kat rescued my towel!
But all had blown over in an hour and today was another beautiful one.

Kat and I are both fighting sunburns and some ear issues from the full days of diving but it was totally worth it.

Upon getting back to the mainland and checking into the hotel, I got an urgent message from my brother! Of course I was a bit concerned and logged on to email for the first time in six days. Guess mother nature was having a field day all over Asia with a series of earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons and the family wanted to know we were ok. Kat and I were completely oblivious and hadn’t heard a thing about it. So I sent emails home to reassure that Kat and I had not drowned in a collapsed stilt hut under a massive wave while crushed by earthquakes and blowing into the ocean from a typhoon.

It’s been great having Kat visit and she’s amazing for making it all the way out here for just a week visit! I hope her trip home is smoother than the one out here!

And hopefully by this time tomorrow night, I’ll be in Cambodia and starting to get ready for the actual volunteering part of this venture! It will take me four flights and 12 hours to get there through, so we’ll see how it all goes.

And at least the Red Sox are in the playoffs, so all is right with the world…

Cheers!
Val

Saturday, Sept 26th, Hong Kong

2009-09-25T20:44:00.000-07:00

Hello from Hong Kong and for the first time, I can post this myself since they don’t have the same internet blocking as the rest of China. Thanks to my brother Mike for doing all the postings thus far!

This is my last day in China and it’s been a wonderful 22 days! First, thanks to Milly (Ming) our Chinese tour leader on our GAP trip. Milly was just terrific, very organized, yet relaxed and lots of knowledge and fun. She took us to the local places to eat which maybe we wouldn’t have tried on our own and we got much better and cheaper food options, We’re glad we’re the first group she went ballooning with!
And cheers to all my GAP travel mates! I feel very lucky to travel with such a great bunch of folks from around the world. Everyone got along very well and we shared so many laughs and good times. Georgi, remember to triple check this time! Where is Ricky again? – how many 10 yuans does he owe for being late!

Yesterday felt very un-China like as Paul decided to go to Hong Kong Disney on his quest to visit all the parks (along with all the wonders of the world, like me!) Mans and I decided to join him. The park is like mini-Disneyland, a much smaller scale, but many of the same attractions. It had a huge Halloween theme right now and scary houses and alien invasions to visit. The highlights were Mans grabbing MY arm in the scary elevator ride. And when the brave men made ME go first to get jumped on by all the scaries, I could see a figure lurking in the darkness and yelled, “ah, he’s going to jump at me! I have to kung fu him!” Then proceeded to attempt my best kung fu fighting moves. Jill would have been laughing to death at my sad, non-Krav bumbling. But it was hilarious!

Mans kept his serious Mans pose during Space Mountain so Paul and I decided to imitate him for the photo on the ride he skipped! But most all of the food at Hong Kong Disney is still Chinese style, so that was one of the only signs we’re weren’t back in the states.

I thought I’d finish my China part of the blog with a couple of observations about the country and traveling here.

It was MUCH easier to get around with a local guide. There is little English and most signs are only in Chinese characters. I think that’s why so many savvy and experienced travelers came together for the GAP trip, and we all benefited from it.

We rarely saw tourists in the places we ate. Like the stares we drew at the noodle place where each dinner cost about 50 cents and we learned the brown eggs had been hard boiled in tea and soy sauce – yum!

But really we never saw soy sauce on tables and no fortune cookies at all!

The local people love to push and cut in line! It’s like a large family where you have to be aggressive to get anything or it will all be gone. I had little old ladies shoving me with surprising strength to get onto trains first! That part was hard to get used to as Westerners and I won’t miss it.

I was surprised how huge and hazy and pollution filled all the cities were. Even the ones we thought were going to be more small and rural had 6 million people or so. To house everyone, there is an epidemic of huge ugly concrete skyscrapers that can really overshadow the beautiful historic temples.

I was definitely impressed with how industrious everyone is! Everyone works! Even if means having 12 people doing a job that one person could do, like planting flowers, it does give people employment and purpose. And I rarely saw people kicking back or taking breaks. Most all were busy and productive and definitely speaks to this country’s determination to advance on the global economy at every scale.

And nobody is going to lounge around and sleep late in these hard beds! Every hotel was known for extremely firm mattresses that were a bit of an adjustment! When the Chinese go abroad the must sleep horribly in our soft mushy beds!

And lastly, one thing we saw consistently was little kids with an open slit down their trousers! Heck with diapers, these kids were ready at a moment’s notice letting it all hang out! Though knowing babies, I was concerned for their mothers’ clothing during any accidents. However, everyone seemed to have it well down!

Overall, China was fascinating and I’ve truly enjoyed my experiences here. I’ll look forward to cooking veggies with chiles and garlic – yum.

I’ve really liked the Kindle and finished two novels about China while here. The netbook has also been great, as has my trivia game on my iTouch. The camera Eric gave me has been TERRIFIC and everyone has wanted copies of pics. I also have a number of amusing videos. My packs and gear have worked quite well, though I remember my year long trip with just one pack on my back and one little one in front. With all the souvenirs and stairs, I’ve been lugging around more than usual!

Early tomorrow I had for Borneo though I just heard from Kat that there was an issue with her flight and she will have to arrive a day later! Such a bummer that she’ll miss part of the jungle safari time! Hopefully we’ll both get to hold an orangutan like I did a panda! And REALLY looking forward to a break from the heat and humidity with the diving trip.

I likely won’t be able to write until I hit Cambodia in just over a week. It will be wonderful to stay in one place for a while and get to the actual volunteer part of my journey! Hopefully I’ll also be closely following the Sox on their way to their next world series win!

Hope the fall is nice in New England! Miss everyone…
Val

Thursday, Sept 24th, Yangshuo

2009-09-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

Well, finally a bit of free time! Spent the last two nights in Yangshuo and it’s been such a great change of pace from the massive hazy cities. This is the first time we’ve seen blue sky in three weeks! Yangshuo is a travelers haven, similar to places like Katmandu or Cuzco, Peru. It’s easy to get around and plenty of western food for a change of pace. Though since our leader Milly has been introducing us to all kinds of local places, the touristy element feels a bit much. At 300,000 people, this is considered tiny. And compared to the other places we’ve been, it definitely is!

I’ve taken WAY too many pictures in the last few days so there may be more pictures than writing on this one! Since I last wrote, we had a really long brutal travel day. I started the voyage off right with a local egg pancake from a street vendor. Then 4 ½ hours by bus to get to the overnight train (15 hours this time!) But the time went pretty quickly with an intense six hour game of 10 Phases (a game our German tourmates taught us.) Maxi, Daniel, Paul, Christine, Emil, Sarah and I were in a fierce competition with barely time for a noodle soup break! Maxi pulled it out in the end! We’ve also learned Mahjong from Milly and played trivia a LOT, so I’m getting my game fix with all my GAP buddies!

The overnight train was a rough one, then we had more than 2 hours by public bus to Yangshuo. Felt like paradise by the time we arrived!

Since then, we went bamboo rafting (thanks to Peter, our Canadian counterpart for the brilliant idea of bringing bottles of local beerfor the ride!) Nicely done, eh! Plus he’s also a Bruins fan, so Boston sports are everywhere!

Following rafting, we saw the local illumination show by the person who did the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies.

But yesterday was really the packed one. We started at 5:20 with a spectacular sunrise balloon trip over the massive limestone structures all around Yangshuo. Guilan and Yangshuo claim the best scenery in the world and while I haven’t been everywhere (yet!) I’d say they have a fair shot! Paul, Ulla, Georgi, Mans and I got cozy in our basket though Paul and I were of course the ones leaning way out over for the best pics! AWESOME!

Following the balloon ride, we headed out for a countryside bike ride. Apparently we were much faster than other groups, but it was great. I did a good hike to moon palace rock with six of us girls and only one guy. The rest relaxed at the restaurant. Of course, I wouldn’t stop until we reached the peak. We six touch ladies earned our lunch that day.

Next was a calligraphy lesson where I learned to write my name in Chinese. And at night, we went cormorant fishing. Though that was probably our least favoriate as we were packed into a hot boat with a bunch of other tourists watching the birds dive ahead of the fisherman’s raft to catch fish. They tie off the necks so they can’t swallow until their master feeds them. Not really like the Amazing Race bird fishing I was hoping for.

After doing all the activities yesterday, I decided to pass on Tai Chi and the cooking class today and take it easy. We have our final overnight train tonight (yeah!) and arrive in Hong Kong tomorrow early afternoon. Hard to believe China is almost over! They have been a very busy and fun three weeks.

I’ll try to do one more post from Hong Kong before I join Kathy in Borneo for our jungle and diving time.

Cheers everyone!

Val

Sunday, Sept 20th, Yichang

2009-09-20T06:01:00.000-07:00

Writing this, I realize tonight is the U2 concert in Boston that I was supposed to go to. Guess I can’t complain to be over here instead. But I hope all the Killington folks have a blast tonight.

We’ve had a great week since I last wrote. The highlight for me was definitely the pandas! We visited the Panda research and breeding center in Chengdu last Thursday and it was truly amazing. Of course, since there are only about 1000 pandas in the whole world, even getting to see one is special. But there are 60 of them at the center and we got to watch them playing, chomping on bamboo and generally living their relaxing panda life. But the best part was getting to hold one! It was definitely expensive, but makes a nice donation and when will I ever have such an opportunity again! So I had a one year old female on my lap (at one year old, she already weighed about 40 pounds!) She was very content to just enjoy being cuddled and eating her reward apples. She was very sweet and it was really wonderful.

Also in Chengdu, we visited the giant buddha. At 71 meters high, it’s the largest Buddha in the world and clearly very popular among the Chinese tourists.

We’ve also been able to experience several dinners of the traditional Sichuan spicy hot pot. It’s like an enormous fondu pot, but half has a serious kick to it as it’s swimming with chilis and hot peppercorns. So your mouth can be on fire for some of the time but it’s SO worth it. Yummmmm.

We next had three nights aboard a boat floating down the Yangtze river to view the three gorges. First our taxi driver let us off at the wrong spot, so after waiting about 30 minutes, we took our tour leader Milly’s advice and asked someone to borrow their cell phone. I guess it’s not a problem to borrow a stranger’s phone in China! The man was very helpful and even guided Milly to find us.

The boat was quite nice and aside from half the group humming the theme song to Titanic all the time, we all had a blast. We had Milly teach us traditional Chinese Mahjong, which is quite different from the computer version. Continuing my competitive streak, I was happy to win the first game! Walking through a park in Chengdu, we’d seen dozens of people playing Mahjong outside so now we’re ready to join in. I actually did join in a woman’s Tibetan dance in the park for a few minutes. They were very forgiving of my bumbling…

The most hilarious part of the boat ride was having our group take over the bar area. After the second night there was a show and then they played music for people to dance. The boat may have been an older crowd, but this music would put anyone to sleep! So we began a quest to find alternative music, but the selection on the boat was bleak. Finally someone came up with the innovative idea to put a loadspeaker next to an ipod and viola! Modern music to rock out to! A bunch of our crew ended up closing out the bar both nights dancing up a storm as our Chinese bartenders looked on with amusement. Of course, closing out the bar in China was 11:30, not exactly B Haus hours!

The boat was very relaxing and the gorges quite impressive. We didn’t enjoy one of the excursions to the City of Ghosts as it was really just overly cheesy and touristy. Filled with things like pay 10 yuan and find out what your son will do as his profession. But other than that, the boat was great and it was nice to have three nights in one place after all the time on the go. The gorges were definitely amazing with massive rock walls on both sides and we also traveled through a lock series like the Panama canal.

I’ve added to my souvenir collection and picked up a lovely embroidery to go with my Ching vase and globe. I’m going to need to move to a bigger place to house all my acquisitions!

Tomorrow will be a very long day. We have a four and a half hour bus ride in the morning to get to the train station. Then a 14 hour overnight hard sleeper train again. Ugh – back to the train pit toilets again!

Cheers!

Val

Monday¸ Sept 14th

2009-09-14T19:43:00.000-07:00

Greetings! I hadn’t planned to write again so quickly but we had a couple adventures today so I thought I’d jot them down while they are still fresh in my mind!

We visited the Terracotta Warriors today which is really a spectacular sight. They were placed there over 2000 years ago to guard an emperor’s grave from invaders. They and the many tombs were hidden for centuries until some farmers discovered the site while digging a well in 1974. Only a small bit has yet been excavated and restored, while the main tombs still lie untouched. I continue to fascinate and scare small children as a baby was grabbing my hair with fascination until I turned and he realized that the funny yellow stuff was attached to a very odd looking person! Then his eyes just opened wide and he couldn’t stop staring at me!

Following the warriors, we headed toward the massive wall surrounding the town of Xi’an. They are about 50 feet high and goes for over eight miles. We had planned to ride bikes, but the surface was still too wet and slippery. So I began walking with another woman in my group, Ula from Finland. We ended up finding a shop of very nice antiques and other items and after much debate and haggling, I ended up buying a beautiful globe and an authentic (or so I hope!) Ching dyanasty vase in the traditional blue and white ceramic. The price thankfully included the shipping! Of course, I was a bit afraid that I would hear later from our Chinese trip leader Millie (Ming) that they were all cheap knockoffs and I had been totally scammed, but oh well!

Following our shopping, we started to walk assuming we’d finish after a third or so. After an hour or two, we were enjoying a great walk but the sun was starting to get low in the sky and we were looking for stairs down before sunset. We had no idea what time the wall closed to the public but we were entirely alone on our section. A night on top of the wall did not sound very appealing to us!

We had been told there were stairs by the train station, so finally we arrived there and found the stairs just as the sun was starting to set. There were a couple of men watching us walk down and they were laughing for some reason. We didn’t know why until we got to the bottom and through the opening only to find that these stairs as well were blocked by a gate about 12 feet high.

We considered heading back up and looking for another open stairs, but weren’t sure there were any to be had and it was starting to get dark. So we looked at each other and decided – well, we can climb that gate! So sure enough, we picked the section with at least some cross bars and one at a time, pulled ourselves up and over the 12 foot structure….much to the amusement of the many locals lined up to watch the crazy western women climbing gates! Not bad for a couple of 40 year olds! Thank goodness I decided to wear pants today instead of a skirt!

We found Millie back at the hotel and she got a kick out of our adventure! And even better, she knew the shop that I bought my items and thought that I had actually bargained a great deal! Her exact quote was “Did they cry?” So I guess I did ok.

And Ula and I quite happily celebrated our victory with Chinese beers over dinner. J

Sunday, Sept 13th, Xi’an

2009-09-14T19:33:00.000-07:00

Hello all!

Just over a week in and it’s been a terrific time. Finished up in Beijing at the Summer Palace and a lovely time paddling around the lake, that’s where this photo was taken.

Then it was time for our first of four overnight trains. We’re not on any luxury tour here so it’s the “hard sleeper” compartments for us! Actually the beds are hard regardless but the hard vs soft means we had six bunks in a tiny compartment. The bottom bunk isn’t too bad but the top two you can’t even sit up straight. The picture shows our crew sticking their heads out of some of our compartments. There is zero privacy as they open out in to the general area. So I’m trying to be quite careful with my things but so far I’ve felt very safe and comfortable.

Certainly the least pleasant element of the sleeper trains are the quite…uh…fragrant pit toilets available! Yes, pit toilets on a moving train – the joys of adventure travel! But it’s all part of the cultural experience right?

We arrive in Shanghai around noon and spend the afternoon doing a long walking tour of the city. It’s more modern and cosmopolitan than Beijing and clearly in high growth mode. Skyscrapers cover the landscape and the smaller hutong-type buildings where the locals have lived for centuries are quickly being demolished for highrises.

Admittedly, after almost a week of Chinese food three times a day, I took advantage of our free night to just pick up a tuna sandwich at Subway! J

Friday I met up with Kevin Thalmann, a Newport and Killington friend, who is living in Shanghai on an expat assignment. He was a terrific host, showing me some great little areas where the small dwellings have at least been converted into small shops and cafes rather than just demolished. (Of course that meant a bit of shopping!) At least the few heavy items I was able to leave with Kevin since he’s bringing a container home. Wouldn’t have wanted to lug those around in my pack!

After some wandering it was time to do some dumpling sampling! We went to a well known local place and watched them assembling the dumplings. Hundreds of them! There was a line stretched out behind us for the freshly cooked ones. We got our pack of four that I’m showing in the picture and then Kevin taught me the technique of biting just a small hole in the top and sucking all the succulent juice out before it can drain to the ground. Then you pop the rest in your mouth. Yummmmm. Sadly, the terrific local place is also being torn down soon to make way for more subway lines.

Then it was off to experience a different side of Shanghai having cocktails and of course, more dumplings at the Park Hyatt hotel on the 92nd floor of the newly built Financial center. It was a fabulous view, and delectable drinks and food. And the bathrooms were more modern and sophisticated than anyplace I’ve seen with more controls than my car! Quite a change from the train!

We saw the Shanghai acrobats perfrom that night which was highly entertaining, like a Cirque de Soliel show. Then took a break from traditional Chinese with dinner at a fabulous French bistro, with fabulous typical American prices! To give an idea of the contrast, a full Chinese meal split with my tour mates may cost the equivalent of about $4-5 total per person! Slightly more with a beer. So that one French meal cost more than the rest of the trip meals combined but it was absolutely delectable!

Of course the irony is the following morning was the first that my stomach had any bit of nausea! Guess I should stick to the local Chinese food instead of the fancy tourist food! Admittedly, ordering the steak tartar in China may have not been the best choice! But some meds helped fix me up and there was no way that I was going to miss the next event – riding around Shanghai with Kevin on his new scooter!

Scooters and bicycles are everywhere in China and they zip around the traffic and pedestrians within mere millimeters of collisions at every turn! Of course there are absolutely no helmets anywhere. Well, except for the McDonald’s delivery guys! Got to love the American liability mentality!

So just as I didn’t tell my mother I was bungy jumping until after I had already survived, I figured I wouldn’t mention a Shanghai scooter ride experience until after I had lived to tell the tale, as bungy jumping is probably safer! Kevin has a snazzy new bike and it was such a blast to navigate through the crowds and craziness. Though Kevin is far more polite, safe and easy on the horn than any of the locals!

All in all, Shanghai was just fabulous, though all too short. I’ll be looking forward to seeing Kevin again in Hong Kong and then again for a visit in Cambodia and we’re planning a long weekend to Laos too. Great to have a friend on this side of the world to travel with!

Then it was off to another overnight train (16 hours!) My trivia buddies will be pleased to hear that my little trivial pursuit game on my iTouch has become the key activity of the group and we played for hours on the train. Girls against boys (girls won three out of three games!)

Today unfortunately is raining in Xi’an but we are doing a dumpling dinner (sounds like dim sum) tonight so that is sure to be wonderful! And tomorrow is the Terracotta Warriors. All good times!

Zai jian!

Val

Wed Sept 9th, 8:00 am (8:00 pm Tuesday EDT)

2009-09-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

Greetings all! I’m just over three days in, though I feel like we’ve packed a month’s worth of activities during that time!

First, thanks to Mike for posting this! Things like Facebook and this blog site are blocked in China, so I won’t be able to access myself for a few weeks.

Flight over was uneventful, though of course I was seated in the “crying baby” section of the plane. Good thing my years at the B Haus have gotten me very proficient with earplugs!

Sunday was a bit rainy and cloudy and my roommate and I walked over a fair amount of Beijing. Though we kept being turned back from roads by armed guards, which was a bit mysterious. We later found out that they have a big celebration on Oct 1st and are preparing and practicing. But for many hours we just walked along large (Great?) walls feeling like we’d never actually get in anywhere! Many of the guards stood on small platforms and surrounded by Plexiglas up to their thighs. Though what protection that would afford other than from a good kick, we couldn’t imagine.
We did discover a lovely park and lake to walk around and found a series of pagodas each with some dancers or performers. They were just locals doing their usual Sunday morning activities, but it was quite fun to watch.

Sunday evening we met up with the rest of our group, 15 in all. All seem like a good bunch so far, mostly from Europe in their 20s and 30s.

Monday was our Great Wall day. Weather was mostly cloudy though we did get some peeks of sun later on. We fortunately went to a less touristy area further from Beijing so we didn’t feel too crowded. We had the option to take a gondola or hike up to the wall. Of course I couldn’t pass up the chance to hike it, though I probably have 10 years or more over many of my trip mates who opted for the ride. It was a solid 30-45 minutes straight up and the a series of more stairs so quite the workout!

It really was spectacular to see this massive structure along the mountains. Took over 400 centuries to build apparently. And each stone hauled up the mountains!
That afternoon some of us visited the Olympic area, which really is beautiful. Then another traditional meal at a local restaurant. Very helpful our leader Milly is native Chinese.

Yesterday, I still was still waking up at 4:30 (NOT my usual for those who know me!) But I used the morning to walk to the Temple of Heaven to wander around and watch all the locals do their morning exercise, fan dances, tie chi, ping pong and strangely – hacky sack! Then our group joined the hordes at Tienniman Square and the Forbidden city.

In general, been walking about eight hours a day and my legs are feeling it! But hopefully it’s burning off some of the major carbs that are part of the daily diet. The food has been wonderful, very flavorful, but yes, lots of rice and noodles. There is never soy sauce on the tables and nary a fortune cookie to be found! Some of my travel mates have never used chopsticks before but they are learning fast to survive! Though most of us declined the fried sea horses, scorpions, larvae, and other “delicacies” from the local night market!

We’re back in the land of pit toilets – fun fun! At least I should have killer quads by ski season! And of course, only bottled water to drink or brush teeth. So far so good though.

One unexpected occurrence is how I’ve become part of the tourist attractions! At several of the sights, I had local people grabbing my arm and pulling me to their photos. I thought they wanted me to take their picture, but no, they wanted me to BE in pictures with them! Apparently, there has been a big bump in Chinese tourism since the Olympics and many people from small villages and remote area are traveling to Beijing for the first time. So they have never actually seen blond hair or a non-Chinese person before. And yes, I’m probably as far from looking like a native as possible! My tour mates have a great time watching me get pulled into all these pictures!

Today looks like a beautiful sunny day. So far we’ve had more overcast skies and cooler temps. Now we may be in for the expected heat! And I actually managed to sleep until 7:00 today so hopefully that’s it for the jet lag! We have a free day today so likely I’ll visit the summer palace and then an overnight train to Shanghai. That should be interesting, with six of us plus luggage per compartment! Then I’ll be seeing Kevin Thalmann.

Well, that’s enough for now!

Cheers!

Val

Final days in the US

2009-09-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm in my last week in the states and final prep mode. Everything is pretty well set, though the kids Red Sox t-shirts I ordered for the orphans in Cambodia are big enough to fit the actual Sox players! So looks like that will be tomorrow's project to find new smaller shirts or hats to bring.

Thanks to Kat for bringing over the bag of stuff for the kids so I don't have to lug it all over China! And to Eric for housesitting for me while I'm gone!

Looking forward to seeing Kevin Thalmann while in Shanghai - be great to see a familiar face! I'm prepared to be impressed by his Mandarin. :)

I'm bringing a little netbook computer so hopefully I'll be able to post pics here while I'm traveling. And next post should be from somewhere on the other end of the world!

Cheers all!
Val

Countdown

2009-08-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my first blog attempt! I thought this would be a good way to keep people updated on my upcoming adventures in Asia.

I have two and a half weeks to go until the departure. The past couple of weeks have been filled with visas, vaccinations, and buying things for the trip. Well, buying and then returning! How many sport sandals and rain jackets did I need to test drive? But most of the details are done so I'll be able enjoy the last few weeks of summer (with actual sun and heat for a change.)

Below is the planned itinerary, though I usually find the unexpected events make the best memories. There are links as well, though not sure if they will take you right there or if you have to cut and paste into your browser (Mom, I'll translate that for you!) :)

Sept 4th Departure from Boston

Sept 6-26 China Excursion

http://www.gapadventures.com/tour/ACEC&itinType=dossier&yr=2009

Sept 26-Oct 2 Borneo Adventures with Kat

Uncle Tam's Wilderness Camp

http://www.uncletan.com/

Diving on the Sipadan Islands - check out the cool huts on stilts!

http://sipadan-kapalai.com/

Oct 2-Nov 8 Volunteer Program in Cambodia
http://www.unitedplanet.org/volunteer-in-cambodia/

Nov 8-22 Vietnam Excursion
http://www.gapadventures.com/tour/AVBV&itinType=dossier&yr=2009

Back in the states for Thanksgiving!