I was up at 5:00 AM for a 5:45 pick up by the Sam Veasna Center. It was me, the guide, a Khmer guide, two Canadians, a Portuguese, and a Rastamerican. We drove out to a river in a van, then boarded a standard tourist boat. We took this boat past floating villages, up to a more major floating village to present ourselves for permission, then across Tonle Sap Lake and through a private fishing lot to a river on the other side. There we progressed for about an hour and transferred to three shallow-draft wooden boats, each poled by a guide, roped together and propelled at times by little outboard motors on the first two boats. These motors were quickly fouled by water hyacinth stems and needed to bee cleared, and the water hyacinths and ... read more

As promised, some photos from last night's performance. Today I took what turned out to be a fairly long tour, The Villa Siem Reap Hotel's "Make a Difference" tour. It was me and a couple from Hawaii, so there was plenty of time for conversation. We began at Artisans d'Angkor's silk farm and craftperson training site. They do some really beautiful work there and I've been happy with the silk items I bought in 2006. Although Cambodia used to have a silk trade, during the Khmer Rouge period the mulberry trees were chopped down and the silkworms were eaten. Replacement trees and larvae have been reinstated. The training institute focuses on talented youth, often rural, often with little education. We next stopped at the Khmer Ceramics and Bronzes Centre but I didn't see evidence of bronze ... read more

Last night I had dinner with two people named Ali, both associated with Travel Blog. We watched Apsara dancers for a while and then talked about travel. It was a lot of fun and not something I'd usually do. Ali lives in Malaysia, whereas Ali (Allie? Alie?) lives in Australia. Today I visited a local school, Phoum Stung Primary School in Stung Village, Bakong Commune, Prasat Bakong District, with an agency called Schools for Children of Cambodia. It's about 18 kilometers from Siem Reap, which we accomplished with 5 people in a tuk tuk (and, at times, 5 people walking next to the tuk tuk while it negotiated potholes). We talked a great deal about Cambodian education, teacher salaries, and community development. The outgoing Marketing, Public Relations, and Volunteer Coordinator Cate, and the incoming person, Nikki, ... read more

4 February I was thinking this morning about how traveling and living in another culture can increase our mindfulness and intentionality as well as our self-reflection. Remembering not to drink the water, not even to brush your teeth with the water or open your mouth in the shower—these are reasonable health precautions that I tend to follow even in countries with potable water, at least until I'm acclimated. I rarely get sick, and it's worth it to me to be a little over-cautious since I'd feel pretty annoyed to spend part of my trip ill. However, what I actually value about the practice goes far beyond the health issues. Thinking about not drinking the water raises many questions: Do local people drink the water successfully, or do they also become ill? Where does the water come ... read more

2 February I got up early this morning, determined to get to downtown Bangkok one way or another. Otherwise, it felt like visiting Brooklyn and not going to the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. I've done this (both in Brooklyn and France, where I've been three times but never to Paris), but it felt like I was letting the fact of traveling alone keep me from exploring. I'm not especially adventurous, so I had to push myself a little. The hotel's solution was to take a taxi (they have a taxi desk) to the On-Nut Rd. Skytrain station (the elevated train). This ignores the fact that the Skytrain doesn't go within three miles of the old part of the city. It's an expensive, multi-vehicle transaction. Instead, I caught the hotel's free airport shuttle ... read more