Our Southeast Asian Adventure: Part 3 - Cambodia and the Angkor

The hotel in Pakse gave us a great breakfast and then it was off to the airport for our trip to Seam Reap in Cambodia. Our flight gave us some good views of the vast rice paddies surrounding the Mekong river.

Seam Reap definitely got the award for best visa processing. It couldn't have taken more than 20 minutes from the time we got off the plane until the time when we got our luggage and were out the door. Our guide met us in the parking lot and took us to our hotel to drop off our things. The hotel was a beautiful place, tucked away on a side street with lots of plants and a lovely pool. But there was no time to stop and enjoy our new diggs as we had to be off to start our touring of the Angkor ruins.

While most people think of Angkor Wat as the main attraction in the area, the Angkor is actually a huge area full of temples and ruins that represent hundreds of years of rulers in the Khmer empire. There are so many, it was impossible to keep track of them. Unfortunately, it became quickly apparent that our guide wasn't a very good guide. He tried hard, and knew a lot, but presented his information in a very convoluted order and often insisted that we stand outside of a temple while he rambled before letting us see anything. It got very frustrating at times, but the splendor around us made up for it.

We saw everything from colorful modern temples-

- to massive ruins dating back as far as the 8th century.

On our first day, some of the most impressive ruins were the ones that had been overgrown with huge trees over the centuries. Our guide mentioned that once the trees grow into the ruins this much, they actually serve the purpose of holding them together, so it's better to leave them. If they're caught very early, they're best removed before the roots can grow in between the stones.

During the day we climbed almost every temple we saw. It puzzled us as to why the stairs were so huge and steep considering the people are so small. It was a challenge even for us.

January is smack in the middle of the cool season for Southeast Asia and in Thailand and Laos we were very comfortable and sometimes a little cold. But Cambodia was very hot and by the end of the day we were both feeling rather gross. Nonetheless, we wandered into the downtown area for some dinner and found a massage place that was half the price of the massages we got in Thailand - and that's saying something. From there, we made our way to the night market, which was better than the ones in Laos, but still not as good as the ones in Thailand.

One thing we quickly discovered was that Cambodians are much more aggressive towards tourists than people in the other two countries. The constant refrain as we made our way through the market was "Hey lady! Buy something!", shouted at the top of the lungs. Let's just say it got old pretty quickly, so we decided to go back to the hotel and cool off. The pool was empty when we got back, so we had a nice private swim that left us wonderfully refreshed after our long, hot day.

After a wonderful breakfast, we returned to the Angkor for another day of sightseeing. Our second day focused on Angkor Thom, one of the ancient capitals of the Khmer civilization, and Angkor Wat itself. Angkor Thom was surrounded by a wall, three kilometers on each side. We entered through one of the main gates, which was lined by demons on one side and gods on the other, each row holding a Naga, (big multi-headed serpent), to represent the tug-of-war between good and evil.

Inside, we explored a temple with dozens of huge faces built into the stone towers. Each face had a different expression, which made it both eerie and surreal.

In the private area of the city, we saw the temple of the king, where he ascended nightly to sleep with a serpent that could change itself into the form of a woman. I guess a king's gotta do what a king's gotta do.

From there, we took in the amazing carvings at the elephant terrace, where the king would make public appearances before his people.

We even got to see a troop of monkeys in our travels.

After lunch, we toured Angkor Wat. I was disappointed to see a huge section of the front of the temple was covered in scaffolding, (story of my life), but I managed to get creative with the angles and avoid it most of the time in my pictures.

Furthermore, the scaffolding didn't stop us from enjoying the amazing carvings that cover almost every surface at the temple. The carvings tell stories from Hindu mythology, some of which we recognized from the murals at the grand palace in Bangkok.

In the evening, we hiked up to a hilltop temple to enjoy another sunset, but as we reached the top, the sky clouded over so there wasn't much to see.

Back in Seam Reap, we found an even better restaurant where we had the traditional Khmer dish called "Amok", which is a fish curry served in a coconut bowl.

It was a nice meal, but we were a little annoyed because kids came up several times to sell us postcards, and the restaurant staff was unwilling to ask them to leave when we couldn't get them too.

With a full stomach, we gathered our spirits and went back to the night market to do some shopping. In one place we simply had to leave because every time we walked past a vendor, they would follow us around picking up their wares and shoving them in our faces asking us "Hey lady! Buy something!". Even though we saw some things we were interested in, we couldn't stand the hard sells and left for a quieter part of the market. We did some serious bargaining and in the end found some items we wanted, but Stephanie got cursed.

She was looking at some scarves and we finally found a lady who wasn't too pushy. Stephanie took her time looking at the different scarves and debating if she wanted them. The sales lady was very patient. But at the end of it all, Steph decided she wasn't ready to buy and the lady got very angry. "But you spent a lot of time here!" she said. "You're my first customer, you will give me bad luck if you don't buy" (a common superstition that helped us get some good deals earlier in the night). And when Stephanie walked away, I saw the lady curse her under her breath. Pretty scary stuff. Luckily, nothing came of the curse, and we enjoyed another refreshing night swim back at the hotel.

On our last day at the Angkor, we had a lighter itinerary and saw some of the outlying temples. I think the pictures say it better than I ever could.

On the way back to town, our guide stopped to show us how they make palm sugar (which is similar to how they make coconut sugar, but from a different tree). We relaxed at the hotel for a bit before heading out for another evening on the town.

That night, we got our best massage deal yet. For $5, the two of us each got a 1 hour footh massage, plus a 10 minute shoulder massage. it was wonderful, and just the thing after three days of walking and climbing temples.

Then, while Stephanie shopped for scarves (avoiding the lady who cursed her), I got another fish pedicure. The difference in Cambodia is that the fish are bigger (but didn't bite any harder), and I got a free beer while the fish did their work.

After that, we went to a nice restaurant for a 9-course Khmer tasting menu that included banana flower salad, eel, and crispy catfish. We followed it up with one last night swim and went to bed happy.

Click here to go to the last part of our adventure.

You can find all of the pictures here:

SoutheastAsia 2011 JPGS

Our Southeast Asian Adventure: Part 4 - Koh Chang Island and the Journey Home

The nice thing about this vacation was that it seemed to last much longer than it actually was, but still, we were now headed to our last stop. It was a three hour drive to the Cambodian/Thai border and we were somewhat unceremoniously dropped off and left to figure it out on our own. We didn't do such a great job of that. It looked more like a cargo port than a tourist crossing and it was hard to figure out where to go.

We missed the Cambodian exit point and got all the way to the Thai entry point before we found out and had to walk all the way back again. Then, when we finally got across the border, our driver was nowhere to be found.

We eventually enlisted the help of a policeman who called the driver's cell phone and helped us find her. It's funny that we were so reluctant to ask a policeman for help. But given that our experience with police for the last 18 months has been that they only want to take bribes, I think it was understandable.

Once we found our driver, it was another three hours to get to the ferry that took us from the mainland to the island of Koh Change. This driver wasn't a big fan of air conditioning, so between that and her failure to be where she was supposed to be, we were glad to be rid of her. The only good thing about the whole border snafu, was that I was able to buy a bag of jack-fruit to enjoy the car. As much as I enjoyed the mangosteen, nothing beats fresh jack-fruit in my book.

Our hotel in Koh Chang was beautiful and right by the beach.

We explored our surroundings and were particularly intrigued by the little sand crabs running around everywhere, living their little lives oblivious to the people trodding up and down the beach.

We had arrived in time to find a nice little restaurant where we could watch the sunset and enjoy a nice beer.

Better yet, the restaurant had some amazing seafood. We enjoyed fresh grilled mussels, scallops, and enormous shrimp, in addition to other delicacies.

Better yet, we could just walk right down the beach to get back to our hotel. Add in another night swim and it was the perfect ending to a somewhat trying day.

Our last day of touring consisted of an all-day snorkeling trip. We were picked up in a truck with a covered bed and the driver crammed an unbelievable number of people in. We were comfortable when there were six of us in the back and we ended up with 10. Luckily, the truck part didn't last long and we were soon aboard our boat.

The masks they gave out weren't the best quality and mine kept filling up with water, which made it hard to see. Fortunately, my waterproof camera bag worked perfectly and I got some good pictures so I can see what I missed.

Stephanie had a bad experience with a sea cucumber, when one of the guides handed it to her, (she didn't expect it would be so squishy), but she was very pleased that she didn't get eaten, (that was her criteria for a successful snorkeling trip). On the way back, we stopped at a little island to see a sea turtle breeding facility and then got back on the boat for the trip back to Koh Chang.

Our guides were all young guys who seemed to enjoy their job. One of them wore his towel like princess lea and did magic tricks.

All in all, it was a great day. We got back later than we expected and almost missed our last sunset over the beach.

We thought about going in for another swim, but as it got darker, we both lost our nerve.

Once we got cleaned up at the hotel, we made our way back to the same restaurant for dinner. This time we actually got to have our dinner on the beach as they had set up some extra tables below the sea wall. It was very romantic and a perfect way to end our time in Thailand.

We had our last breakfast at our hotel by the beach and then got picked up for the drive back to Bangkok.

We left early because we were told the drive would be 4-5 hours, but of course when you have plenty of time, things go faster than you expect. We stopped for a last lunch and picked up some more odd Pringle flavors for a snack - shrimp and blueberry & hazelnut, which was surprisingly good.

Even with a stop for lunch, we got to the airport about three and a half hours early. Add to that the fact that, unlike on the way in, the airport personnel told us to use the VIP line with our diplomatic passports, and we had plenty of time to relax at the gate. Just goes to show, Murphy's Law is alive and well.

We had an uneventful flight back to Almaty, and I was fortunate enough to sit behind one of those people who leans their seat all the way back the minute the plane takes off. I managed to get comfortable, but gave the guy a good number of jabs in the back with my knees throughout the flight - mostly when I thought he had finally fallen asleep. Stephanie also ended up with a passenger in her lap, but hers was a little boy whose mother was sitting across the aisle. He was very rambunctious in the beginning but finally tired out and went to sleep in Stephanie's lap.

We arrived in Almaty around 1am and got to the hotel for some sleep. However, they informed us that because we were only staying for half a day, that breakfast wasn't included even though it said it was on our confirmation. Not letting that get us down, we went out and found a nice breakfast at a little coffee house.

This time, our hotel was in a better location and we got to see the nicer side of Almaty. There is a general store (Tsum) in every city in the former soviet union, but the one in Almaty was heads and shoulders above the one in Dushanbe. It was like a real department store and came complete with a King Burger...

From there, we went to Panfilov park to see the century-old Russian Orthodox church there. On the way we saw a Kazakh snow bunny.

Ha! Year of the rabbit indeed. The church was beautiful and apparently was built without a single nail.

I was especially pleased when the little old ladies who were cleaning the church told me I could take pictures inside.

From there, we passed the memorial to soldiers of both world wars. The sculpture is made up of soldiers from the different parts of the Soviet Union, but in aggregate, the sculpture forms the shape of the USSR on the map.

We were disappointed that the green bazaar was closed that day, but our attempt to see it took us past the beautiful mosque.

We were looking for a place to eat lunch before returning to the hotel, but didn't think we had enough money. When we tried to leave the restaurant we checked out, the made us a special offer within our price range, which included the best shwarma either of us has ever had.

When we went to check out of the hotel, they had another surprise for us and told us that the taxi price was per person and not for both of us. I was able to play my card about them not holding up their agreement to give us breakfast and they cut the taxi price in half. It still was a bit of a cheat, but the savings on the taxi was far more than we paid for breakfast.

On the ride to the airport, we were both puzzled by a techno song on the radio that seemed to keep saying "Barbara Streisand" over and over again. I know we're a bit out of touch from American culture, but I hope this isn't what things are coming to back home.

Our flight back to Dushanbe was smooth as could be and we enjoyed some more good views out of the plane.

It was interesting to fly into Dushanbe during the day because usually the flights we're on come in in the middle of the night. It's really a sprawling city and you don't really get that feeling on the ground. So there you have it. It was a wonderful trip and it gave us a much needed change of scenery. Feel free to enjoy the rest of the pictures:

SoutheastAsia 2011 JPGS

Barbershop Conversion

I'm still working on the pictures from our recent trip, but have a couple of good local stories to share since we got back. We each got through our first week back at work, me barely, due to the fact that I couldn't eat anything thanks to my 'welcome home' case of Tajik Tummy. By the end of the week, I was on antibiotics, which slowly improved the situation over the weekend.

The snow storm that delayed our departure represented a big change in the weather pattern. It's rained almost

every day since we got back. Given that it hadn't rained since July, it's not unwelcome. But when Friday started out warm with a threat of showers, we weren't expecting snow. I left the embassy around 10am to look

at some new options for the housing pool and it was raining. When I returned at 11am, the weather had turned over to snow. I've never seen anything like it. There were these giant snowflakes (barf-flakes if you prefer),

falling so thick that you could barely see. It took awhile for the ground to freeze and the snow to stick, but by the next morning we had a good few inches.

On Saturday morning, I went for my monthly haircut and this time there were a couple of guys hanging out there who were interested in talking. Early in the conversation they asked me if I wanted to convert to Islam. I politely declined, but a slightly uneasy conversation followed where I tried to convey respect for their religion but also that Americans it's important for all religions deserve respect. I don't think I offended them because the barber didn't cut off my ear and the coversation eventually turned to more mundane topics with a friendly tone. At one point they rennamed me Negmatullo, which they said was as close to Nick as they could get in Tajik. They said it was a very good name because it was godly.

With that out of the way, I came home to work on expanding my digestive capabilities to their former capacity.

This morning, I went to the bazaar to refill our refrigerator. In addition to the normal staples, I found quail eggs and whole rabbits and decided to experiment.

The quail eggs didn't taste very different, but they were fun to cook and eat.

The rabbit went in the freezer to wait for a time when I find a recipe I want to try on it. The only annoying thing was trying to buy onions.

Prices have gone up tremendously, which is normal for winter. But even compared to last winter the prices have gone up from about 1.5 somoni/kilogram to 3 somoni/kilogram. I have to remind myself that it's still only

about 35 cents/pound, but still, it's relatively expensive. What annoyed me was that when I looked around for a lower price, I found people selling them for as low as 2.5 somoni - however these people would not let me pick out my own onions, but insisted on grabbing whichever ones they wanted - many of which were rotten. So in the end, I decided that I'd rather have a whole kilo of good onions at normal price.

Hopefully the next post will be of our trip to Southeast Asia.

Home Again, Home Again...

Despite having our departure delayed by a day, thanks to the first and only snowfall in Dushanbe this year, Stephanie and I had a wonderful vacation in Southeast Asia. We covered Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia and even managed day-long layovers in Kazakhstan on either end of the trip. Four countries in two weeks was a lot, but it made the vacation feel even longer. Of course, there were lots of pictures and I'm working to get those up along with more details about our adventure in the next week or so.

In the meantime, we're back to our routines - including Tajik Tummy - so we feel right at home!

Off On Another Adventure

Well, it turned out that it wasn't the real Verka Serduchka singing at the restaurant last week. It was a local imitator. In some ways I find it more impressive that a Tajik man is able to pull that off here. And the bottom line is that it was still a great night.

Stephanie and I are very excited that we are now officially on vacation and will be visiting Kazakhstan, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos over the next two weeks. That is, of course, if the snow that started falling last night doesn't get in the way. It figures that after 8 months, with nary a drop of water from the sky, it decides to snow right before we take off.

Any way, wish us luck and look for some good stories and pictures in a couple of weeks when we get back!

Just a Sweet Transvestite...

I know it's been awhile and here we are in 2011. There's already lot to cover after less than two weeks of the new year, but I'll try to keep it concise.

We celebrated New Year's Eve at a friend's house, complete with a delicious turkey dinner, karaoke and errant fireworks from the neighbors yard. Of course, there was the usual barrage of young children throwing fire crackers at each other in the streets to be negotiated, but we made it there and home again with all of our fingers and toes attached. At one point I asked some of the kids to stop throwing them long enough for us to get past, but he just laughed and told us not to be afraid. It's all fun and games until someone loses an appendage.

We also enjoyed an extra long weekend because the local government decided to celebrate the New Year on Monday, January 3rd, whereas the U.S. celebrated on New Year's Eve. We put the long weekend to good use with a healthy dose of relaxation and a trip to a coffee house where Stephanie introduced me to one of the best cups of hot chocolate I've ever had.

It was a good thing that I got plenty of rest over the long weekend because work has been extremely hectic. We have a lot of projects going on and a large number of people out on vacation. But I thrive on having too much to do and it's been nice to kick things into high gear after a relatively quiet period between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Of course, we are paying close attention to the goings-on in Washington and the new Congress, waiting with some trepidation to see how the budget will shake out. I'm sure things will work out, but it's interesting to be on the other side of things and I definitely have a different perspective now that I've seen how things work.

The weather continues to be very dry, although we finally got some rain yesterday - the first time I can remember since maybe July aside from the occasional sprinkle. It hasn't been particularly cold either so the beautiful snowy mountains we enjoyed last winter haven't been in evidence.

On Thursday we had a new officer arrive and I ended up going to dinner with him and another officer to the Ukrainian restaurant. We got a little adventurous and in addition to the garlic flavored lard (for which I've developed quite a fondness), we tried pigs ears. They arrived at the table frozen, but weren't bad once they thawed a bit and I learned to eat around the cartilage.

On Friday I had a very interesting marshrutka ride to work. I'll try to explain as tastefully as possible. When I got into the vehicle, no one else was there and the driver, an old man, said hello - which is unusual in itself. But then he immediately launched into a rapid conversation in Russian, which I found very difficult to follow.

The reason it was difficult to follow was because he was expounding on his...um...abilities and considerable experience with women when he was living in Moscow. Of course, that particular area of vocabulary is definitely not something I learned in government language training.

However, the driver was undeterred by my initial lack of understanding and was more than happy to pantomime until I understood what he was saying. Apparently his adventures didn't end with his time as a young man in Russia. He bragged that, despite his age, he has a three-year-old daughter and a thirty year-old wife (not an uncommon situation here). Just as he was getting to the point of saying that he could get milk from a cow when no one else could, (I'm still not sure about the connection to the general topic, and that's probably a good thing), he stopped to pick up a couple of other passengers.

I thought the larger audience might bring about some modesty, but he just continued at a lower volume until they got out. All in all, it was the most entertaining commute I've ever had and I learned a lot of new vocabulary that won't be useful at all in a professional setting.

On Friday night, my team went out to celebrate the new New Year, (January 1st), the old New Year, (January 13th), and the Russian Orthodox Christmas, (January 7th). We went to a new restaurant that happens to be around the corner from our house. It was a very nice place with good food, and of course, the obligatory supply of vodka for toasts. Since it was so close, Stephanie was able to come for awhile before she had to head home for work.

There was also some very good live entertainment including some traditional dance with modern twists and a singer who did an excellent cover of Shakira's Waka Waka, from the World Cup in South Africa. With the vodka flowing freely, we were all out on the dance floor in short order, but the big surprise was yet to come.

At some point we were out dancing and I looked up to see a very tall and robust woman in a very gaudy blue dress at the microphone. She was flanked by some very flamboyant male dancers. Even in my inebriated state, I recognized that this was a transvestite, which might not be notable in New York, but was quite a surprise here in conservative Dushanbe. I was even more surprised that no one else was surprised. But it turned out that she is actually very famous.

Her stage name is Verka Serduchka and she's from Ukraine. Apparently she represented her country at the 2007 Eurovision competition and I could see why - the music was excellent and it was impossible not to dance. I have no idea how they got her to Dushanbe. Here is a picture I found of her on the internet and a link to one of her music videos on Youtube for those of you who didn't see it on my Facebook page.

This is one of the songs she sang at the restaurant. It just goes to show, yet again, that you never know what you'll see in the Doosh. It was a great night out - we were there until about 1am - and I paid for it greatly on Saturday morning. It took about 6 hours before I could get off the couch.

Lucky me, I have a wonderful wife who took pity on me and nursed me through it. What a way to ring in 2011!