Day 1: Phnom Penh

We got a taste of what our week in Cambodia holds for us today.  I had an appointment to go to a school to see if I could help with the English teaching first thing this morning.  We managed to call the facilitator and arranged to meet him at the entrance to a Wat (temple) near the school.  We got a tuk tuk and took off through the crazy streets of Phnom Penh, packed with scooters, cars and thousands and thousands of commuters, all with almost no traffic lights or rules, just sharing the streets a la school of fish style, everyone just weaving in and out and managing to not hit each other.  Pretty amazing.  As we pulled up to the Wat, a young man on a scooter asked if I was Julie and we were off.  Turns out the school is in a very poor slum, an area where a company has decided to fill in a huge lake in order to expand the footprint of Phnom Penh.  The people who used to live off of the lake are now displaced and can no longer fish as there is no lake, just a vast dry lake bed.  So, Lakeside School is now dry lake bed school.  There were two very young teachers having about 15 first to fourth graders write down a strange English story, learning English by rote.  It was chaos and no real learning was going on.  Tomorrow the teacher is going to let me plan the lesson and lead two classes.  I'm not sure why I agreed to try, but there it is.

We next went to the Sihanouk Hospital Center of Hope, where Dan volunteered for two weeks last year.  He was very warmly welcomed, many doctors and staff members remembered him and were happy to see him.  We got a tour of the facility, which has improved considerably just in the past year.  They have a new building and much world class medical equipment, thanks to donors from all over the world.  As we were introduced around, I met with Grace, an American woman who is the human resources director, or some such.  She is also trying to cover a full load of ESL classes while the ESL teacher is away for month getting an ESL certificate.  She asked if I would like to teach a class that was going to be meeting in an hour and a half.  I said "sure" and it was off to the races.  It was a great group of eight hospital works, none of whose names I will ever be able to pronounce.  The Khmer language is very unusual!
After someone managed to get the air con working the sweat stopped dripping down my back as I led the class, and it was really a fun time.  Afterwards, I was waiting for Dan to finish going on medical rounds, hanging out in the volunteer lounge, when Grace came in and recruited me to teach about 10 more classes this week.  Guess I won't be watching too much HBO in the hotel.

We'll get some better pictures soon.

J & D

Still on Island Samui

We spent the day today getting soaking wet in a speedboat! We signed up for a
tour out to Ang Thong National Marine Park and went out 45 minutes in the boat to a snorkling spot- with about 500 other tourists. More snorkelers than fish. Then to another spot to see the beautiful
emerald lagoon, but by then it was pouring down rain. We were off to another island for lunch,
which, thankfully was under cover, but then the group revolted against going on the planned (soaking wet) kayaking trip, so we returned a bit early under very rough seas. We were just glad to make it to shore safe and sound, although we did meet a nice, world-traveling German guy, a cute Chinese couple and talked a bit with a Brazilian couple as well. Yesterday we drove our scooter down island a bit to a
gorgeous resort and spa called Kamalaya. I had a 90 minute Thai massage that was almost painful
at times, but must have been really good for me. Sort of like getting one's teeth cleaned. Dan was
happy bird watching and taking pictures while I was being pampered. We came back from Kamalaya, had a piece of cake, I got a pedicure and then we came back to the hotel and closed our eyes before
dinner. We woke up 12 hours later, so we must be finally caught up on our sleep!

Tonight we found the best place to have dinner on Koh Samui:  our hotel restaurant.  Dining right on the beach, not crowded, excellent service, good food, and none of the crassness of Lamai town to deal with.

Tomorrow afternoon we fly back to Bangkok, then on to Phnom Penh! Crazy! Our trip is already 1/4 of
the way over. 

Julie & Dan

Lamai, Koh Samui

We flew down to Koh Samui, an island off the east coast of Thailand, about half-way down the tail of the country, on the Bay of Thailand.  We are staying in Lamai, which turns out to be a very commercialized, somewhat seedy beach town.  Too many hostess bars for our tastes.  But, whatever, we have a non-refundable hotel and our hotel is pretty darn nice, on the quieter end of town.  On Wednesday it was overcast with a huge thunderstorm and powerful tropical rains in the late afternoon.  The electricity kept going out, but somehow coming right back on.  There are plenty of tourists here from all over the world, but we very rarely hear an American accent.  Lots of Germans, English, Russians, and who knows what else.

Yesterday we rented a scooter and had a really great time doing some exploring.  We drove further down the island to Waterfall 2.  We had great timing; we only saw a couple of people on the trail up to the waterfall and none of them went all the way up as far as we did.  Thai workmen were everywhere trying to turn this into a more refined tourist destination.  They have cemented huge boulders together so that it is possible to walk across the falls at mid point and hang out in very inviting little pools.  Dan got completely submerged and I sat on a swing over a falls-  how often does one get the chance to do that?  The weather had turned and we saw beautiful blue sky for the first time since we've been here.  On our way back down there were jeep loads of tourists on "Magic Safari" trips for which they pay through the nose.  They take a short ride on an elephant's back, are driven up to the falls, see the crocodile show, the monkey show, etc.  It seemed a little silly.  In the afternoon we were able to lounge on the beach with everyone else.  The surf is pretty strong this time of year, but no surfing going on or, thankfully, any ski doing, either!  I am preparing for Cambodia by reading "When Broken Glass Float" by Chanrithy Him, who, it turns out, when to Cleveland High School in Portland.  She was a Cambodian refugee and most of her family died during the Khmer Rouge's debacle which happened during the years we were in high school.  I am set up to volunteer during the mornings at a school that is part of an NGO called Youth in Cambodia.

We are not quite in this time zone yet, still waking up far too early in the mornings, but are feeling less tired every day.  Having nothing we have to do right now really helps!

All our best to you all!

Julie & Dan

Day 1: Bangkok

We arrived at our wonderful hotel at 2:00 a.m. Bangkok time after traveling for over 24 hours via Seattle and Seoul, Korea.  Our last flight was full of Koreans who seemed very happy to be escaping their frozen tundra as they headed to the warmth of Thailand for a few days or weeks.  Dan slept the entire last flight, but because it was early morning west coast time, my sleep sensor wasn't activated so I watched a John Lennon documentary instead.

This morning we went in to Bangkok and Dan bird watched and we both watched monitor lizards and groups of chanting, clapping people (Amway salesmen?) at Luphini Park, then were picked up by Tip and her driver, Sang.  Tip is on crutches due to a fall down her stairs and a badly sprained ankle, but she was determined to not let that interfere with our outing.  We stopped a beautiful historic site that commemorates the king's mother, known as the princess mother.  She was a commoner who happened to marry a member of the royal family and circumstances led to both of their sons becoming kings of Thailand.  The current king, Rama IX, who is 84 years old,  is her second son, their first son was king for a short while before he died mysteriously at age 19......

Tip led us to a wonderful riverside restaurant for our first real Thai meal.  Soft shell crab, green chicken curry, spicy shrimp soup, amazing crunchy noodles and great Thai iced tea.  We couldn't ask for more.

Tomorrow we fly down to Koh Samui, still in Thailand, where the weather report is thunderstorms, clouds and a good chance of rain.  Oh well, at least it will be 80 degrees!  We can take yoga classes, read Thai novels and get Thai massages instead of lying on the beach all day.

Flying over Seattle

In the airport

Hil,
I am testing this to see if I can do it!  Thank you for setting this up for us!