J on the Flip Side

A long long time ago, I saw some magical looking photos of ancient stone ruins that were engulfed and entwined with the roots of huge trees that seemed to sprout from within them. It was hard for me to believe that such an incredible place was actually real. But it is real. It is a temple complex called Angkor Wat built hundreds and hundreds of years ago as a holy place for prayer in Cambodia. Over the centuries, it had been ravaged by war and then abandoned for 200 years, until it was rediscovered within the jungle that had overgrown it in that time. It has been one of the top places I've wanted to visit ever since I saw those photos when I was young. But all throughout my life Cambodia seemed like such a far away place that would be nearly impossible to get to! So when I had about 5 spare days in between my trip in Bali and the beginning of my India trip, I figured it was my time. Cambodia here I come!

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

My friend Frederica exploring the ruins

We got blessed by this monk

Although later on my trip I was questioning whether he had actually cursed me...

There are tons of kids who want to sell you magnets and other stuff outside each temple.

Angkor Wat was totally amazing, breathtaking and unreal. But the rest of my time in Cambodia pretty much sucked. After Angkor Wat I went to the capital, Phnom Penh.

I hopped on the night bus, and was at first happy to see sleepers! They looked pretty comfy! Until I got on the bus and got to my assigned place, and uh oh, there was already a giant man in the bed. Sudden realization hit me that 2 people were sharing each sleeper and me and Mr. giant man would have to basically spoon all night to fit in there. Ugh. So anyway, I arranged my stuff and got into spoon position.

I stole this photo from the internet, but this is pretty much what the inside of the sleeper bus looked like. I shared the bottom bunk with the man. I am still traumatized.

In the middle of the night, we stopped for a bathroom break. Most of the people were still sleeping, but I had to go so I just hopped out of the bus and went to the bathroom. When I got back less then 5 minutes later, I noticed my backpack (that was hidden at the bottom of my bed and behind the curtain) was askew. I checked inside, and realized, oh shit!!! My stuff is gone!! Someone had gone into my purse that was inside my backpack and taken $100 US from my wallet, and my cell phone. The money, not so bad. But my beloved iPhone!!!!! NOOOOOO!!!! Cue Coldplay **Tears stream down your face, when you lose something you cannot replace** and also GFY night bus thief. This is a Buddhist country, karma WILL get you.

The man beside me had also gone to the bathroom, so I don't think it was him. I talked to the bus drivers (who seemed sketchy - probably them) but they pretended not to know anything. Oh well, it could have been worse since I also had $300 that they hadn't found, my camera and my laptop in my backpack. Thank you baby Jesus that they didn't take that stuff as well. That would have been completely devastating and I would have had to immediately go home and cry in my mommy's arms!

So after that horrible night on the bus, I finally arrived in Phnom Penh and I decided to check out the Killing Fields. For about 3 years during the 1970's the Cambodian people went through a holocaust style genocide, where their crazy leader brought 4 million innocent people to prisons where they were tortured and then sent to fields where they were brutally killed. It was very sad to see the gravesites, where there are still teeth, bone and clothing fragments surfacing from the ground when it rains. It was one of the saddest things I've ever heard about.

At this site, 450 bodies were excavated.

I spotted this tooth coming out of the ground

This tree was used to swing babies against to kill them. They found blood, brain and bone fragments on the tree when this site was discovered. I don't cry a lot, but this made me cry.

Archaeologists have analyzed the skulls from the graves to determine who the victims were.

So after that visit to the killing fields I was in a really sad mood. And I had to head straight to the Indian Embassy to try to apply for my Visa for India. Well, they informed me that I would have to wait 5 days before it could be processed and there was no way to do a rush. I tried to explain that that meant I would have to change my flights I'd already booked and miss the beginning of my tour. I even tried to bribe the man with US$. But he didn't care, he wasn't having it! So I left feeling even more dejected than before.

Later that evening I was walking down the street looking for a restaurant to eat at. All of a sudden I saw a motorbike kinda swerve, causing the woman on the back to fall off onto the road in the middle of horrible traffic. It looked like she hit her head on the concrete. A second later, a tuk tuk ran right over her. OH MY GOD! I thought she was dead. My heart was pounding. People rushed over and traffic came to a halt. Another bystander helped her up and she seemed ok. She limped back to the motorbike and got right back on and they took off!

Just to lighten the mood, check out how much stuff this guy has on his tuk-tuk!

So I decided to get out of the city and headed to a small seaside town for some relaxation while I waited for my visa to be processed. When I booked the bus to Kep, they said the bus would pick me up at my hostel. Well I waited 30 mins and the bus didn't come. So finally I got my hostel to call the number on the ticket. Apparently they didn't know where my hostel was, and started yelling at me as if it was my fault, even though I had written it down for them specifically. The bus company man drove me to the main bus stop on a motorbike with my big backback squeezed in between us, and of course I was terrified because of the woman I'd seen the other day! He kept on yelling at me the entire ride as well, which was lovely. The bus had already left by the time we got there, so after much discussion about who's fault it was (It was definitely their fault!) I just asked if I could get on the next bus, and that was fine.

While I was in Kep, I finally got a case of the shits, which I haven't had at all on this trip. And it turned out to be a town with no pharmacy, so I basically spent my relaxation time sitting on the toilet. Also, the number one tourist attraction in Kep was the Welcome to Kep crab statue, so I don't think I missed too much!

Before I got sick, I hiked in the national park and got this lovely view!

Cambodian wildlife!

I visited a pepper farm... this is pepper growing on a tree!

They dry out the pepper cherries on this table.

I also visited a salt farm where they basically dry out seawater in large fields

Cambodian girl at the salt farm

So all in all I didn't have the best time in Cambodia, but I do know a lot of people who love it so maybe I will give it another chance someday.

I'll end off on a happy note with this super cool kingfisher I saw hanging around the salt farm :)

All of the volunteers I worked with at the Matang Wildlife Sanctuary were invited over for dinner to Richard's house. He and his family live in a traditional Borneo longhouse, which is basically a really long building divided into dozens of family homes. It seems that everyone in the longhouse is related in some way. There is also a long covered porch, where all the kids congregate and play together. Family and friends seemed to move freely from one house to another, and the longhouse had a really chill family vibe where everyone was welcome. It kind of seemed like it was a giant community sleepover!

Our evening began with a lovely home cooked meal of traditional Bornean curries and stir fry's cooked by Richard's wife. Several of the local kids came over to the house for dinner and joined in for the feast as well. The food was delicious! After dinner, Richard's wife began passing out shots of their famous family moonshine. It was impossible to say no to this woman... she was literally chasing us around the house pouring shots down our throats! So, naturally we obliged, had many, many shots, and ended up having a dance party with all the local kids in Richard's living room. I spent the whole night either dancing with a few of the little girls who loved to be dipped upside down (over and over again!) or running around outside giving the kids piggy back rides. Things got a bit crazy when Bron broke her toe and Kerri got in a minor fender bender... but all in all what a great night!

The Matang Gang!

No more moonshine, please!!!!

I've already written a lot about Mulu in my last post, but I didn't get to tell you about our homestay yet. When I got stranded in Mulu National Park with a few of my traveling buddies, we got one night in the posh resort for free, but we decided to stay an extra night to try to go through one of the advanced caves. Unfortunately the caving didn't work out since the water level was crazy high due to the flooding, but we ended up staying at a really cool homestay in Mulu. The house was marked by an old rusty car, and no real sign to speak of, so I was glad that my friends knew where it was. Because of all the rain, we had to take off our flip flops to wade through a muddy field carrying our giant backpacks to reach the entrance of the guesthouse by the river. Our host Monica lived there with a bunch of her family members who were all really friendly, even though for the most part we couldn't speak each other's language!

Monica made us a traditional meal of jungle ferns and wild boar, just hunted by her husband that day!

Monica's father getting ready to load up a boat at the front of the homestay

The back room, complete with a child tied to the wall...

The not-tied-up older sister

She loved to play with Steve's ipad, and she kept screaming "apple, apple!"

After Mulu, I made my way to Mabul Island for some scuba diving. I stayed at Uncle Chang's. I would not recommend Uncle Chang's. They ran out of toilet paper for the whole hostel. Then they ran out of running water. While the water was still running, the toilets and showers drained directly into the ocean. The free breakfast, lunch and dinner consisted of plain rice, noodles, and fish heads. FISH HEADS!! Ugh. The diving was super disorganized, but at least my divemaster was a super cool Malaysian chick. Anyway, I became a bit of a hobo and adopted myself to another place, Scuba Junkie, on the other side of the island. I may have snuck one or two (or 3 or 4??) of their buffet dinners while no one was watching. I made some great friends at Scuba Junkie and loved hanging out there every day!

Totally agree with this quote scrawled on the wall at Uncle Chang's

The best thing about Uncle Chang's was the sunset view!

Uncle Chang's

Hung out with this guy a lot... he was cool, just unfortunate about the double chin... haha :)

Scuba Junkie's beach, so gorgeous.

The boardwalk back to my place

Mabul local life

Gorgeous local kids

My yoga pose is better than yours!

I left the island life after extending my stay for days and days, and headed to the mountains. The last thing I did in Borneo was tackling the climb at Mount Kinabalu. Mount Kinabalu is the highest mountain in Malaysia, and at 4095 m, is about half as tall as Mount Everest. Isn't that cool? I hiked up a mountain half as tall as Mount Everest?! Life accomplishment! The hike up was tough. But I was glad to have some awesome company in my guides and climbing partners, Sarah (who is a grizzly bear attack survivor!!) and Casper (a really cool, handsome, strong but silent type sailor from Denmark). We started at 9 am and hiked straight up. Straight up over giant steps. The whole way. We reached the guesthouse at the midpoint of the mountain at about 2 pm, had a buffet dinner at 4 and watched the sunset before heading to bed early. We woke up again at 2 am, had some brekkie, and started the rest of the climb. It took another 3 hours of climbing in the dark to reach the top. There wasn't too much of a sunrise because of the clouds, but man the view was impressive when it got light out. We were above the clouds on top of a jagged peak, looking down at all the other lower peaks below us. We enjoyed the view, and then began our descent. Well, nature wasn't my friend that day, and it started pouring rain as we did the last 2 k. I thought we were friends, nature, WTF?? I was totally soaked and tired at that point and just wanted to be done. But just a little while later, it cleared up by the time we finished and though I was at the point where I could barely walk anymore, I was so excited to have summited my first mountain!!