Blogs from Cambodia, Asia - page 9

This is a late add, but even more justified. For the second day, we rented scooters and motored our way to Kep. This is a smallish town on the coast known for its crab and city statues. We enjoyed our time cruising along the water, stopping at the crab market, reading and playing cards in the bungalows. All-in-all a good day, except the one time I parked my scooter and turned only to have my calf touch someone else’s exhaust pipe. IT WASN’T EVEN MY BIKE (which had a cover over the exhaust pipe to prevent rookie drivers from doing such a thing)! Well my skin immediately turned ashen and blistered and throbbed in pain. Anatomy class tells me those are the key signs of a second degree burn. We explored the town a little more ... read more

Did you know there are different types of pepper? Today we visited the Kampot Pepper Farm (La Plantation) and learned move about pepper than my previous knowledge times 1000x. Due to Kampot’s soil composition, pepper grows extremely well here. In fact, at one time Cambodia was known for its pepper quality around the world. However, during the Khmer Rouge, all pepper plantations were shut down and exportation of it was stopped. There is now a revival of the industry particularly in the Kampot area. We visited a plantation which grows normal pepper which can produce: green, red, white, and bird pepper based on when it is picked and how it is fermented. Bird pepper is the most expensive because the grounds are collected out of bird waste. The digestive process (fermentation) in the bird stomach is ... read more

It is a weird thing to say something is the last. So final and clean cut. Today was the last day of volunteering in Siem Reap at Trailblazer, but the experience was exactly what I wanted it to be. Last time I volunteered, I left feeling very burnt by the NGO world, a little hopeless and very doubtful of the continuation of anything. Trailblazer has been the exact opposite. It existed before me and will continue to move forward. We replaced the old man filter of #25 from over 10 years ago with filter number 4226 during my time here. The filters we constructed the first week we got here are now just being delivered. I am but a blip in the progression of its mission. I am very glad that volunteering found its way into ... read more

In case you were wondering, I have a certain fondness for animals, particularly dogs. It seems whenever traveling, they tend to gravitate towards me...my friends may say it is the other way around. Regardless there is usually one or two stories about a pack of dogs following us home because I snuck hotdog pieces I couldn’t finish from an unwanted birthday appetizer or getting scolded for going too near the dogs on the street. The reminder that just because I am friendly doesn‘t mean they are friendly. Anywho, Cambodia has not been any different. There are 3 kinds of dogs here: the true stray, the truly owned, and the your mine dog because you hang out here but every day you go on your merry way and may or may not come back or make it ... read more

Lotus are a flower that grows prosperously in Cambodian ponds and are a beautiful scenery addition. The amazing thing about the flower is 100% of it is usable in some process: teas, thread (clothing), fruit, lip balm, paper and on and on and on. The most common use of the lotus is to cut apart the stem and pull the vertical fibers running through it out and make thread out of it. The thread can then be used to produce clothing. It is soft like silk and doesn’t harm animals in the process. However, it is incredibly time consuming. In one day a skilled worker can make 250 meters of thread. However, it takes 12,000 meters of thread to make one jacket (that is 48 days for some quick math). The thread then needs to be ... read more