We Should All Be a Happy Guy with a Harmonica

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So I woke up at the ass crack of dawn…5:45AM to finish packing and since I now have so much crap…two paintings and an extra camera and a bunch of books. I figure I don’t have that much time left and I will just have to deal. I am glad I sent stuff home with James though…for about a week I only had two bags to worry about! But shortly after I left my freaking northface bag broke…the zipper connecting the smaller pack that zips onto the larger one broke on both sides…so now its just a royal pain in the arse. I deal. Will probably try and ship stuff home from Bangkok, but I cant imagine it will be cheaper than Beijing and that was expensive as to why I sent it with JG.

Anyhoo. Had a crap breakfast, lunch and dinner on Wednesday. Did not like anything! But I get ahead of myself. I made it to the “taxi” on time in Phnom Penh. It was yellow so I figured it would be kosher, psh. Anyway, I was given shotgun so that calmed my nerves a tad…we had about 12 people but I was pretty cozy until a third guy, who substituted as a second driver, sat up front with me and the first driver on a bench. I’m not sure he has ever seen a white girl before. He kept staring and pointing at things that he was noticing about me…first there was something about my arms, and then my legs and my nose and finally my ring. I chalked it up to curiosity but it got so annoying and I would look at him and shrug what? Oh, but all he did was give me this stupid grin and it was difficult not to smile back since he looked so goofy, he had no concept that it was bothersome…he was just a happy guy with a harmonica, which he played every so often. I just started to chuckle and relax about it. OHH and the music! They BLARED it … about 80% of the time…I eventually put my headphones on…I can only take so much of international music at that high of a decibel…or any for that matter. I was also a little concerned about the first driver of the minibus whose fingernails were longer than any woman I’ve seen.

Driving along there were many houses that were so primitive…they almost looked like tree houses but instead of in a tree, they were on stilts. It’s amazing that development hasn’t reached here…they are building new homes, but they are the same style and appear to use the same material. Maybe its same same but different…

After 11 hours (with the last 4 being slightly unbearable road conditions…pot holes and red dusty roads) I arrived in Ban Lung. The place I decided to stay is quoted as the backpacker place and has a restaurant that turns up the best food in town. Well I will say that the staff is SUPER nice…my dinner was yucky and oily…I felt badly not eating it as my waiter asked if I didn’t like it…I got awkward… my room is essentially a dump but I guess I am not expecting much for $5. I am going to ignore the fact that something that felt pretty damn large just fluttered on my head and disappeared. Ughhhghghg I hate bugs… but I really love that base vibrating through the floor from the club below me…wont bother me at all when I head to sleep in the next few minutes…FtLoG.

So one of the guys that works at the hotel, Sothun, took me around Ban Lung. I had wanted to do elephant trekking but apparently you need to book it in advance and since I didn’t arrive until late the night before it couldn’t happen…the owner of the elephant was too busy working on his plantation when we arrived. All the better…I did the elephant ride at Angkor and I happen to think motorbikes are more fun. So the morning was GORRRRGEOUS! Absolutely beautifully temperate, not a cloud in the sky and just fantastic. A morning you are happy to wake up to! We left to head to three different waterfalls…I’m not sure what Sothun was talking about as it was noisy on the bike but we turned around a few times…which confused me a tad. We ended up at the first waterfall, Ka Tieng…hidden off in the forest, as they all turned out to be, with a beautiful sapphire blue sky as the backdrop. I took a little dip, which was incredibly refreshing…not cold at all as I had first suspected. The other two waterfalls, Kinchaan and Chaa Ong were just as serene and nice. The latter is the one most people enjoy as you can “shower” under it. I played the let’s play it safe card and avoided it…wet rocks under a powerhouse of a waterfall don’t really translate into safe in my book as I experienced at Tiger Leaping Gorge. The colors today were just so vibrant…the bluest of blue skies with the lush greenery and yellow flowers and the red dirt road. Along our journey we passed the rubber factory and a few plantations…I guess rubber comes from a tree and you could see all along the roads how they were collecting the active ingredient, which was neat. Sothun also pointed out the prostitutes that work at the hotel I am staying at…doubly neat. Well they work at the Snooker bar downstairs that plays that loud music. To end the morning we stopped at a little restaurant across from Boeng Kansaign, which is a nice little lake in the town, for a coconut shake…yummmmmm.

For lunch, I went to another hotel and then we moved straight on to Boeng Yeak Lom, or Crater Lake. Crater Lake is believed to have been formed some odd 700,000 years ago by a meteorite crash since the lake is pretty much a perfect circle. We did an uninspiring once around the lake which took a little less than an hour and then I went for a dip and hung around for like two hours…either soaking up the sun, swimming or chilling out on an inner tube. Seriously, it was perfect…. However, the STRANGEST thing happened…I still don’t understand what went on, but three girls that were at least 20 years old jumped in the water…unfazed by this. I was on an inner tube and one of the three girls had one as well…two of them got on theirs and the other one just sort of hung on one of the sides. At some point, that one saw me, said hello and made a bee line for me and my inner tube. She threw her arms on the side to rest…I think um, ok. Then this is just weird…she raises herself up higher and leans over the top of the tube and puts her face in my chest and pretty much starts crying…as we’ve learned before, I don’t do the germ thing with people I don’t know and I didn’t want her snot falling all over me, not addressing the fact her face is in my CHEST. I also didn’t want to be completely rude and jump and run away so I tried to politely move her. I don’t know what she took that as, but she proceeded to put her hands on my stomach and that is when I casually rolled off the tube and swam away. She jumped onto the inner tube and sort of started to laugh. If all she wanted was an inner tube there were about TEN free ones TEN feet away from her…maybe she thought it was funny but it was the most bizarre incident that has happened so far. A little bit later, like 5 minutes, she comes out of the water and gives me the inner tube, ignoring that there are still twelve right next to me. Seriously, what just happened?!? No one else seemed to notice or pay any attention and there were about 15 people there.

We left there just before sunset and drove back to Boeng Kansaign for another coconut shake and sunset. Perfect way to end the day. It was just lovely! Although dinner not so much…I felt badly again cuz it just wasn’t good! So you ask how do you screw up pineapple fried rice? The answer is an excessive amount of garlic and salt…it was inedible. I asked if they could make me another and the poor guy, which I didn’t realize went out to try and buy another pineapple since the last of it was used in my first dish but everything was closed. I had no idea that he did that…really nice. So they made me something similar without the extras and still comped the first one. Since its like no money I gave him the comped portion as a tip...

So I am in my room at this relatively dumpy hostel and something just fell from the sky, out of nowhere. I saw where it landed and killed the little bugger. It must have been that thing that flew across my head last night…not sure what it is except dead under a spare flip flop that comes with the room. Actually I think it was a flying cricket…do those exist? And I also just found a bug in my sleep sheet sack…I wonder what else has crawled into my bag…wah wah waaaah!

I know I’ve probably said it before but the Cambodian people are SOOO nice. They are all so excited to see tourists and wave hello and ask how you are. I ran into a whole bunch of kids when I stopped for a photo op at the rubber plantation. They just want their photo taken and to see the digital picture of it on your camera. Then they laugh hysterically like it’s the funniest thing they’ve seen ever! It’s so much fun…their laughter is contagious and I have a ball taking tons of pictures and showing them. The best part is, when you leave they will still all say “hello, what’s your name?” I think they are trained for that. I am pretty amused. It’s also nice that the adults are just as friendly for the most part…they all will smile and wave as you pass…its incredible. I think people in NYC would think I was a wacko if I waved and smiled at everyone on the way to work in the morning…I’d probably have like 10 starbucks thrown at me and 15 looks that would kill with the occasionally person who wouldn’t be able to ignore the stupid grin. So I guess, yes, we should all be like my friend with the harmonica.

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