Jeremy and Maisy in the Middle East!

Jeremy and Maisy are heading to Israel and Egypt!  Stay tuned for more photo blog fun!

 

We Did Dalat, Hung Out in Hoi An, Boated in Ninh Binh

It felt good to be back in the Mountains.  The Vietnamese call Dalat the Land of Eternal Spring.  High altitude and misty weather make it a nice cool climate for growing things like strawberries and grapes.  Dalat boasts vineyards and wineries and though I’m no real connoisseur of wine, I thought it was pretty good.

It was in Dalat when we started to feel our time in S.E. Asia was running out.  We formulated a plan to make the most of the rest of our time and only spent one night in Dalat.  Leaving in the late afternoon we got to experience the Asian oddity: the Sleeper Bus.  27 reclining bunks and 2 big bunks in the back, some intrepid driver braved his living cargo down the winding mountain roads in the dark.  We arrived at the beach town of Natrang around 9pm.  Luckily for us, the bus was not full and we took advantage of the 5 joined bunks at the back of the bus and got to lay full flat the whole night through and got woken up at dawn at our stop in Hoi An.

Uncharacteristically for the both of us, we went a little shopping crazy in Hoi An getting custom suits and shoes and dresses made.  I love Hoi An and it’s narrow streets, ancient buildings ad bustling tailor shops.  We stayed just long enough to transform ourselves into the best-dressed backpackers around and then got back on the train north bound for Ninh Binh.

Ninh Binh is a quaint little area still largely unspoiled by throngs of tourists.  Called Halong Bay with out the ocean, it felt really good to be out of the Hustle Bustle of the big cities and towns.  In Ninh Binh we took two riverboat trips.  A local woman with a tin rowboat oared us up to the Tom Ca caves.  The river flows under limestone mountains through cave after cave.  Beautiful shrines are set up here and there along the river.  Our oarswoman had an extra paddle and I helped her power the boat the whole way.  She complimented me on being a good strong paddler, but she rowed the whole time with her feet!

Our second trip was down a river that had longer cave tunnels and the whole trip was a loop that took 3 hours.  We spent almost as much time under the mountain as we did beside them.  We made a stop at a shrine and climbed 450 steps to a lookout high above the river.

Vietnam has a charming culture based around the places called Bia Hoi.  Set up on the sidewalk is tiny low plastic stools and tables.  For fifty cents you get a pitcher of draft beer.  We visited the local Bia Hoi and caused a sensation with the locals who cheered us on to chug down one glass after another.  “100%” is the translation for the cheers they shout in Vietnam.  After one pitcher we decided we had entertained our new friends long enough and left them to their drunken camaraderie.

Visa Run

April 22 – May 1

We made the choice to head south.  Jeremy hadn’t seen Saigon and I was keen on checking out the Mekong Delta.  We got back on The Reunification Rail for the night train to Ho Chi Minh City.  We waited a few extra days in Hue just so we could get the low-bunk sleepers.

The trains in Vietnam are great.  Even on the hard bunks, you have a little table and a big window.  Porters regularly come by with cold beers and an array of MSG filled chips or assorted meats with rice.  The funny part is the timing.  We left Hue in the morning and got to Saigon in the wee hours before dawn.  Hopping into a taxi we found one of the only hotels open at that hour; a place called the Maivy.

We spent a few days wandering around Saigon.  We found a great military surplus market that had all kinds of vintage army gear, old Zippos from the war days (though I read a lot of them are fake reproductions), and all kinds of fun army-type stuff.

It came time to renew Jeremy’s visa and after looking into it we found out that it expired during a 10 day long Vietnamese holiday.  If we were to renew it, we’d be stuck in Saigon that whole time, which didn’t suit us, so we opted for a visa run to Cambodia.

On the way out, we visited the Mekong Delta, the fruit basket of Vietnam.  We spent a nice day on a boat visiting the floating markets of the Mekong near Canthos.

On the way our driver took us to check out a noodle factory.  It was a simple and fascinating little factory with only one motor operating both the rice mill and the noodle cutter.  7 people operated the whole process from making the batter for the noodles, cooking the rice flour crepes over a fire of rice chaff, drying the crepes on long bamboo racks out in the sun, running the dried crepes through the slicer, and packaging up the fresh noodles into 5 kilo packages tied up in brown paper and string.

It amazes me how everything in Vietnam is done largely by hand.  The noodle factory made me think also about the ladies I saw harvesting the rice by hand, using a scythe to chop tiny sheaths of grain to thresh also by hand.   And also the ladies I saw tossing the dried grain in shallow bamboo baskets to separate the chaff from the grain.

Unfortunately, Jeremy came down with tonsillitis while we were in Canthos so we spent out the remaining days of his visa nursing him back to health in our little room at a humble guesthouse.  Thanks to communism’s cheap medical treatments we got Jer to a doctor to and for $1.50 we had him diagnosed and prescribed with antibiotics.  Just as his health was mostly restored we made for the Cambodian border.

It was a short bus ride from Canthos to Chau Doc, but one of the scariest rides ever.  Our bus driver seemed intent on running everybody off the road.  With the horn blasting the entire time, he passed every car and truck and moto forcing oncoming traffic to stop as he swerved into their lane to overtake one vehicle after the next.

In Chau Doc, we got on a boat that drove us up the Mekong to a riverside border, and then further upriver and eventually to Phnom Penh.  We got passage on a nice wooden boat with just a few other passengers. The border crossing was un-crowded and easy.

My second trip to Phnom Penh was not like my first; all the friends I made there had gone off to Ho Chi Minh for the Reunification Celebration.  But I got to show Jeremy all the sights and I got my computer’s crashed hard drive replaced.  It only took a couple of days to get the Vietnam Visas and Jet-Set Jeremy had to make a trip to the US Embassy to get more pages sewn into his passport, having filled all his allotted pages already!

We made the choice to go out of the country a different way we went in and so took another trip up to the Mekong to the Cambodian town of Kratie.

On the way up to Kratie, there was a mishap on the bus.  There’s always a few bumps on the road, you know.  Someone had packed a motor into the luggage compartment and it leaked gasoline all over Jeremy’s backpack.  While we were sorting the situation out at a rest stop, I foolishly left my small bag on the bus and got my camera stolen.  Sadly, I never backed up any of my photos or videos so all is lost.  I already know well enough not to leave bags unattended in poor developing countries, but it’s hard to always keep your guard up…oh well!  I’ll keep the memories as long as my mind allows!

Our first order of business in Kratie was to get the gasoline out of Jeremy’s bags.  The ladies at our guesthouse showed us to the washtubs out behind the building.  With advice from the Internet we tried everything from vinegar to Coca-Cola, dish soap and sun baking.   It all worked a little, but not completely and the smell of gasoline haunted the rest of our trip.

Kratie is one of the few remaining places in the world where you can see the rare and nearly extinct Irrawaddy Dolphins.  Kratie is kind of a dumpy, crumbly French colonial town with a dingy market but great sunset views over the Mekong and a blossoming eco-tourist economy.  Those dolphins are the only thing keeping money coming into the town and the locals have some knowledge about protecting their environment.

We took a fun moto ride up to the boat launch and spent two hours with the motor off, floating mid-stream amid the beautiful, rare and strange freshwater dolphins. Knowing their few numbers made me feel honored and full of admiration to be there.  The Irrawady don’t do playful archs like their cousins, the Bottlenoses; they only come up for air.  You had to keep a sharp eye out and listen for their breath to see them.  We saw many.

On the way back we visited a few temples and and watched a rather beautiful sunset dust storm.  We missed the rain as we rode back to Kratie.

We chanced the adventure to cross at a tiny border crossing near the town of Snoul.  A quick bus-ride with a load of friendly monks, eager moto drivers picked us up and took us with our bulging backpacks to the little shack that was the Cambodian Border Patrol.  Kindly, our moto driver waited and brought us to the giant new shiny Vietnam Border.  We seemed to be the only ones crossing there.  The guards took a quick peek in our bags, a glance at our passports and we gathered up and walked across into Vietnam.  Eager moto drivers on the other side took us the 20 km to the nearest town with a bus station and we made it back to Saigon by the early afternoon.

Jeremy’s Birthday

April 19-22

The Telluride Academy had put us up in a great little hotel near the Children’s House called the Dien Bien, named after the battle that the Vietnamese won over France.  Every morning that we stayed in Hue, we were woken up early in the morning by the sound of smashing bricks, grinders and skill saws.  The hotel was adding a third storey right over our room!    We jokingly gave the hotel a “5 mushroom” rating because of the fungus growing out of the walls of some of the rooms.  After the Mudd Butts left, Jeremy and I stayed on at the Dien Bien for a few more days to enjoy Hue as tourists.

Hue is an easy city to explore on foot.  The town occupies both sides of the Perfume River.  The Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War claimed the lives of hundreds of American and ally soldiers.  Both banks of the Perfume River have been turned into big parks with sculpture gardens to honor the dead, which lie beneath.  Hue used to boast a bridge designed by the same man who designed the Eiffel Tower, but it was destroyed in the war.  There is another bridge that has a wonderful display of morphing LED lights that flash in sequence over the many arches of the span.  We crossed that bridge and head down stream to walk around a neighborhood that holds some of the oldest buildings in the city.  We followed a canal that was full of machines working to dredge it and came to a little old Pagoda that had a large yard and garden.  Thousands of sticks of incense were drying on the sidewalk outside.  Over the wall and through the gate, we could hear the sound of monks chanting.  We were drawn in.

While we were sitting on the steps, enjoying the chanting, a smartly dressed man came up and introduced himself as Tony.  He was a local, said he taught English.  He was surprised to see us at a “locals only” spot; we were way off the tourist strip that was on the other side of the river.  Tony chatted us up while his kids ran wild around him.  He invited us over to his nearby home.

We were equally curious about each other.  This was the first local friend I had made and Tony seemed very authentic and charming, not trying to sell us anything or hustle us in any way.  He told us he’d be taking his wife to see some traditional Vietnamese singers on a Dragon Boat that night and invited us to come along.  We agreed and as we were leaving to get cleaned up and ready at our hotel, Tony offered to loan us his old motorbike to use.

A few hours later we moto-ed back to his house and the double dragon boat picked us up right at Tony’s house.  His wife and son stayed on deck and we hung out in the stern drinking beer.  The show was okay but I loved the musicians and their exotic instruments.  Five ladies in fancy ao doi took turns singing and dancing.   The audience was obliged to buy roses to throw to them.  One funny passenger took the opportunity at set break to put on a show balancing stacks of beers on his forehead!  Before the evening was over, tiny paper boats with little candles in them were offered to us to release into the river for good luck.  I chose a green one and made a wish for love and understanding.

Our captain dropped off all the passengers at the landing and then drove the boat back to Tony’s, house to drop us off.  At the landing, Tony kept us on the boat chatting and drinking beers for an hour more.  Before he would let us leave he insisted that we come back over for lunch tomorrow.  We couldn’t refuse.

We arrived for lunch the next day with a bouquet of flowers in hand.  We met Tony’s wife, Quee, on the street and she brought us up to her mother’s house next door.  Her mother’s house turned out to be neighborhood temple.  People from all around gathered into a tiny room, occupied on both ends with shrines that reached form the floor to the ceiling.  Smoke from burning incense filled the room.  Our boat captain from the previous night was there decked out in full ceremonial gear.  He was putting a lady into a trance.  She was swaying back and forth with a scarf over her head waving a whole fistful of burning incense in the air.  Burning embers were raining down and the observers, seated on the floor, were extinguishing the ashes that fell nearest to them.

The musicians that lined the wall opposite me calmly smoked cigarettes while they played tunes that sounded almost like the Blues to me.  When the lady came out of her trance, she drew some characters on a piece of paper and put it on the shrine.  Then she handed small denomination dong to each person in the room, including me!  I had a chance to glance at the alter and noticed a pyramids of beers and fruits, an entire pig head, jars full of flowers (including the ones I had intended for Quee), boxes of choco-pies, piles of counterfeit $100 bills, and golden statues of the Vietnamese Buddha, who has a mustache and pointy goatee.

Quee took us downstairs to eat lunch, noodles with large hunks of meat and more beer.  We graciously ate what we could stand and made motions to leave.  We were getting ready to take a moto trip around the area.  Tony once again kicked us the keys to his moto and though it was old and hadn’t been run much lately, we took it, on Tony’s insistence, over the Hai Van Pass to Hoi An.

It was the eve of Jeremy’s 36th birthday and I wanted to have a birthday suit made for him in Hoi An.  Hoi An is a beautiful place.  Both sides of the war agreed to cease fire in Hoi An and it holds some of the oldest buildings in Vietnam.  It is a bohemian town filled with tailors and artisans, attracting tourist from all over the world.  It was historically an important port, just up river from the China Sea.  Sailors and Pirates from all over the globe stopped and traded there.  It is quiet and quaint, with narrow streets and candle lit lanterns.  Little boats with eyes painted on them line the shores of the tidal river.  There is an ancient covered bridge and buildings that are over 200 years old still function as homes and store fronts.

At a shop called Thin Than we had a horizontal striped, 3-piece suit made for Jeremy.  It is odd, unusual, custom and I must say he looks very dapper in it.  We even found for him a matching horizontal striped tie!  Not to be left out of the custom-made fun, I had a pair of red cowboy boots made for me.  Everything was all ready, re-fitted and finished in less than 24 hours.

Next day and back on the moto towards Hue, we drove again past China Beach, past the Marble Mountains, through the city of Da Nang and over the Hai Van Pass.  This amazing stretch of road reminds me of Big Sur, California.  The winding road climbs and twists offering views at dizzying heights over cliffs and long views off as far as you can see over the China Sea.  We saw train tunnels and deserted beaches, an old American Army base, a few shrines and not much traffic, since a tunnel for cars and trucks has been built.

Back in Hue, we returned to Tony’s to give back the moto.  He insisted on taking Jeremy our for a birthday dinner.  He even bought a cake.  We followed on the moto to a restaurant inside the walls of the old citadel.  Huge trees in unmovable planters told me this place had been around a while.  Poor Quee was sick and after Tony ordered for us, he left us alone with his young son to go back home to check on her.  The boy started running wild as soon as his dad left.  He tried to escape and run down the street, he tipped over every glass on the table.  Jeremy had to hold him in his lap very much against the squirming boy’s will.  We couldn’t tell him anything!  He didn’t know English!  Tony came back, at long last, just in time for dinner.  The waiter served us two unusual looking things that turned out to be  BAT AND EEL!  I had mentioned to Tony as he was ordering that I am a vegetarian, but I guess that got lost in translation.   There are some meats I can tolerate, out of courtesy, but bat and eel?  I just couldn’t!  Jeremy barely got a few bites in, we devoured the plate of spinach and Tony ate nothing.  We found out after the meal was over that he was vegetarian too (most Buddhist are).  After that ordeal, Tony brought out the cake.  It was over-decorated with mouse/dogs made of frosting and about a pound of sprinkles.  His little boy ate most of it!

A memorable birthday dinner for Jeremy for sure!  We left Hue the very next day.

All The Way to Hue

April 10-21

The overland trip to the Vietnam was uneventful; I slept most of the way.  The border crossing was a little confusing.  4 busloads of people stopped at the border.  The bus driver collected all of our passports.  Then we all waited in a stuffy, hot waiting room for our name to be called.  I stood wearily wilting with my backpack to be one of the last names called.  Then, they scanned my bag and I was in Vietnam!  Back on the bus I snoozed off the heat with the A/C blowing in my face.  It was late afternoon when I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City.

The bus dropped us off on some tourist strip and we were bombarded with offers from hoteliers, taxis and moto drivers.  I was keen on a train ticket to Hue, to meet up with Jeremy and the theater crew from Colorado, so I dodged all offers and ducked into a tourist office.  It was Saturday night and I’d hoped to party it up in the city one night, but I had to make other plans because tomorrow’s trains were all full.  If I wanted to get to Hue before Monday, I had to go that night.

With a train ticket in hand, I still had a few hours to spend in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon).  Hanging around the tourist office was a tiny Vietnamese guy with a moto for hire.  I hired him to take me on a whirl-wind tour of the city, ending at the train station.

The man called himself Dan, and though he spoke very little English he told me his father had been an American soldier, his mother still lived in Saigon and he’d never been to the States but he had an American flag key-chain.  Dan took me passed the American Embassy, the big American run hotel, some American made skyscraper and the war remnants museum.  We got off the bike and looked around at all the tanks, trucks and planes left over from the war.  A few of them were just twisted wrecks.  It made me feel uneasy.  Dan was apparently on the side of the Imperialists and patted my arm to let me know Americans are okay with him.

Sensing my dislike for war remnants, he beckoned me back to the moto and we zoomed off to the zoo.  I paid for our entrance and Dan pulled me by the wrist the whole way, pointing at the poor caged animals and oohing and aahing at everything.  We bought cold drinks and sat by the river until it was time to go.

I had left my bag back at the tourist office and while I gathered my things, Dan ran out somewhere and bought me a little beaded bracelet.  It was so touching!  I rummaged through my things and found the gold one-dollar coins I had brought and offered him the one with the Statue of Liberty on it.  He took it and looked me right in the eye and said something in Vietnamese, I’ll never know what, but he was clearly moved by the gesture and secured the coin away in a secret pocket in his wallet.

After that is was a quick ride to the train station.  Dan had gotten me there with seconds to spare and I ran to the platform with my heavy pack bouncing to arrive at my already full sleeper car just before the train pulled out of the station.

Having bought the last ticket available, I guess, the ticket I had was for a 3rd tier hard bunk.  6 hard bunks per cabin, not spaced out enough to allow for comfortable sitting, my third bunk just barely below the ceiling.  A whole family occupied the other bunks: a coughing old granddad, a grandma, a mom, a dad and a baby.  They were already settled in and seemed to barely notice me as I heaved my heavy backpack up to the third bunk and lay down.

There is no view from the top bunk, but it was dark anyway, so with my i-pod plugged into my ears to block out the sounds of coughing and crying and train tracks rattling, I was lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the train.  I was dimly aware that porters came by often with offers of food and drink, but I felt rather shoehorned up in there, and just laid up through the night until morning.

Morning came suddenly and the din from below woke me up instantly.  Not being able to sit up in bed, I climbed down to stand in the hall and watch the sunrise through the train windows.  The early morning mist shrouded the rice fields where ladies with cone shaped hats bent to hand cut the grain.  Buffalo stood near, thoughtfully chewing grass.  Gray mountains rose up in the distance; it was beautiful.  I felt like I had entered a postcard.  Later we passed through little towns which each had an elaborately decorated pagoda.  I watched countless motos back up at the train gate as we passed;  some of the motos were stacked 4 deep with ladies in pajamas, babies and men with shiny shoes.

This was a 20-hour train ride and though the scenery fascinated me: the bridges, the factories the fields and towns, I eventually retired back to my bunk and snoozed the ride away.  My fellow passengers were suddenly all absent and I noticed they were all in the hall, looking out of the window.   I climbed down just as we plunged into a tunnel.  When we came out we were riding a cliff edge beside the big blue South China Sea.  We had just left DaNang and were on the final stretch to Hue.

I arrived in Hue and followed the directions to the hotel where Jeremy was staying but he wasn’t there.  He had taken the group to the beach and wouldn’t be back till Monday afternoon!  I wandered around the city, my head full of funny memories of Cambodia and my excitement for the theater project mounting.  That night I sat at an internet cafe that had a live piano player tinkling away at a baby grand while people pecked at their laptop, as I did, sipping Heineken through a straw.

The next day I walked over in the afternoon to the Children’s Home where the Mudd Butts International Mystery Theater Troupe had taken headquarters.  In through the big glass doors I could see my American friends in  a board room.  I felt timid to enter because the organization had made a great big exception in allowing me to join the program.  Though I was only there to volunteer, traditionally girlfriends are not allowed.  Jeremy and Luke and Sally went out on the line for me, so I felt I had to really shine and be low-key at the same time.  But I bucked up, walked in and was delighted to see Jeremy, looking good and healthy and all the fresh young American kids sitting quietly and orderly and smiling when they saw me.

I was put right to work helping Mike, our props guy.  There was only a week left till show time and still lots to do.

MBI is an organization out of Telluride that takes teenage kids from America to do a bi-lingual play in a different foreign country every spring.  The American kids have a counterpart of local cast who helps build the sets and props, learn all the dances and the lines in their native tongue. The show is put together in 2 weeks and performed, this time, in the big city theater, 700 seats, for the entire community.  And it’s no small production.  There are many characters and loads of props and costumes, masks, and big synchronized dance routines.

Up in the workshop is was about 100 degrees and poor Mike was suffering from the heat.  I stood around pointing the fan towards whatever direction he was standing, trying to be helpful by staying out of the way.  I got in to some paper mache, some painting, but mostly I facilitated the kids to do the work.  It was amazing to see their culture and perspective coming out in their art work. As Mike says, it’s folk art, and it is put together at magical speed.  The Vietnamese kids love symmetry and loads of colors.  The Dragon Boat was very authentic and the big old elephant came across really well I thought.  While some kids were practicing their lines, I fit masks and hats onto the actors with elastic and foam.

This is the second time Mudd Butts has come to Vietnam.  Seven years ago, Wendy, Kim, Sally and Mike came to put on a show and changed Hue forever.  They were the first Americans to have home stays in the town.  Several of the kids that performed then have returned to help us now and without their translating and hard work supplying us with everything from glue to bus drivers, the show would have probably flopped.

One night we were invited over to the house of a representative of the Communist Party.  We piled into a taxi and head over, not knowing what to expect.  We walked through the gate and in the courtyard was a big artificial rock fountain that had morphing LED colors, one table over-loaded with beer, two others with food and a just inside the house, a karaoke singing party in full swing.  Our beers were kept full all night, we all had a go at karaoke, and Sally and Kim tore up the dance floor.

After a while, the party ringed up in the courtyard and we all sat facing each other, taking turns singing songs.  They requested we sing “Oh My Darling Clementine”, “Scarborough Fair” and “House of the Rising Sun”.  One gentleman had a harmonica and he really held court with it, demanding attention when a song came to his mind to play.  It was at this party that we learned the charming custom of “Hanoi-Hue-Saigon” which tells you how much beer you drink from your glass.  All the way to Saigon means you empty the glass in one gulp!

Show time came up suddenly and no one felt really prepared for our dress rehearsal.  Armed with a script and a pen, for I was to be the stage manager, we did our first time run through in front of a live audience!  Though it was really rather rough, the kids pulled it off with much adlibbing on the part of the Americans.  I laughed out loud when our main character, playing the part of the king, missed his cue, came on stage late and quipped, “Sorry I’m late, I was in the Royal Bathroom!”  What talent!

The next night was the real show and we moved set, props, backdrops and everything into the Hue City Theater.  It is a real, proper venue with orchestra pit and vaums, big backstage, lights, the whole bit!  While Sally, Kim, Jeremy and Luke dressed the stage, I was invited to represent at a banquet held by the Communist Party back at the Children’s House.  Many strange dishes were served and I dutifully tried them all, pork rinds and everything.  I was given a hat tack with the Hue symbol on it.  Many people gave speeches in Vietnamese and the translations were almost just as hard to understand.  The gentleman at the table kept trying to serve me beer, but I wasn’t ready, at lunchtime, to “go to Saigon”.  As soon as the banquet was finished, I loaded all the kids into a bus and we headed over to the theater.

It was impressive how professional and composed the kids were.  Show time was in 4 hours, we had another run through to do and everything had to be in place.  It came together perfectly and that evening’s show was the best of the lot!  The next night’s show was almost just as good, but the sadness of the impending goodbye and the excitement of the cast party afterwords  had the kids buzzing on the wings of the stage.  But really, the program is not about putting on a show; that is only a by-product.  The mission is intercultural relationships and forging world peace through understanding and interaction.  On this level, the trip was a smashing success.  Luke, Jeremy, Sally, Kim, Mike and I all missed the cast party because we were breaking set.  The next evening, as we said goodbye for the last time to the home stay families, the kids were all in tears.  Saying goodbye is never easy.

On Location…in Cambodia

March 26 – April 10, 2010

I got the invitation to come to Cambodia before I ever left Telluride.  My friend, Richard Linnett, was coming in from New York with a film director, John Pirozzi to work on a documentary film project about Cambodian Rock and Roll from the early 1960’s, called “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten”.  John already has more than 130 hours of footage in the can, but they have come back for some final days of shooting.  Richard told me to come check it out, meet the crew; maybe they could put me to work.  So I left Siam Reap, southbound down the Tonle Sap and landed in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The span of territory between the bubbles of Siam Reap and Phnom Penh shows a different version of Cambodian life.  On the lake, there are floating villages, where people eke out their living, hardly ever to touch dry land.  Down along the Tonle Sap River, little stilt shacks line the banks, each with a long, low boat parked on the river out front.  As we passed, I saw people bathing in the river, washing their clothes, foraging for riverweeds.  There are many people fishing with nets.   Our boat got tangled up in a net and our trip was delayed while a crewman dove under the boat to clear the propeller.

Soon, rustic shacks intermingled with houses made of concrete and tin, and then we went under a bridge and then we landed at Sisawath Quay.  I put myself up at the Okay Guesthouse, between the river and the Palace, and I have been tagging along with the film crew ever since.

I met up with Richard my first day in town at a bar called the Cantina.  Run by an ex-pat named Hurley Scroggins, the Cantina is the hangout of Western journalists and ex-pats that have put a root down here in Cambodia.  That first night I met Michael Hayes, the man who created the Phnom Penh Post almost 20 years ago.  Hanging around there are all the current journalists and the famous ones from back in the day, like Tim Page, when the city was being pulled between the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese.  I got to be in on the breaking news about legendary Sean Flynn’s Bones.

Hurly’s Cantina is a great little riverside hangout and at night it is pleasant to sit and watch the parade of people, tuk-tuks, motos, cyclos and cars go by.  The conversation seems always to be about the heyday of Cambodian journalism and the missing bones of Sean Flynn.  I have returned there most every night, the starting point of my ritual drunk since I landed in Phnom Penh.

That first night I spent in Phnom Penh, there was a big storm; thunder and lightning filled the sky all night.  I put my pillows at the foot of the bed so I could face the windows and watch the rain come down in sheets.  It rained most of the next day too, and I went out in it, got soaking wet, and visited the National Museum.

Along for the ride is a camera operator named Nicholas Hahn.  It is also his first time in Cambodia and we’re all here to volunteer to make John’s film.  Our first few days here, while our director sorted through archives, Nick and I got to explore the city by moto, meeting up with John and Richard for lunch, and then going out at night.  Richard took us to one great bar, across the river, run by a guy named Snow.  To get there, you go north to the Japanese Friendship Bridge, take the dirt road that runs under it south past what I call Butcher Row.

Every night, late, the residents of Butcher Row each slaughter a cow in front of their houses.  On our first visit to Snow’s Bar, I noticed this happening to one cow.  But Butcher Row has become a touchstone and we have returned almost every night since to witness the varying degrees of disassemblage accomplished by the butchers.  I don’t know why this fascinates me so much.  If it is that it is just out in the open, late at night, on the street or if it is because they clean the bones so completely, making neat piles of meat just inside the door, the white skeletons glowing in the street lamp light.  One night, we finally bucked up the courage to stop and watch while they butchered a cow and then a horse.  They were so neat and efficient.  The stab to the neck instantly killed the horse.  Next, they jumped on the side of it to get the blood out.  Within 10 minutes the whole thing was skinned and we watched for a little while longer as they squeezed out the entrails and made the cuts of meat.  Now every time I pass a roadside barbeque, I wonder, is it a cow or a horse?

Here’s a little background in case you are wondering why anyone would make a film about Cambodian Rock and Roll.  Before the Khmer Rouge sacked the city of Phnom Penh, the city was bustling and lively, creating a rock and roll craze all of their own.  Performers like Sin Sisamouth and Ros Serey Sothea were creating a Rock and Roll sound that was Cambodia’s own unique twist on American and British Rock and Roll.    The fashion and hairstyles recognizable from the early 60’s were popular.  Boys and girls danced together and screamed to the performers.

Recordings and film were made to document all of this, but it was not safe.  In 1975, the Khmer Rouge took over the country.  The elite who couldn’t leave in time were sent to work camps and killed.  Most of the footage from Cambodia’s Rock and Roll heyday was destroyed.

John told me a story of one family of refugees who came back to their house in Phnom Penh in the 1980’s.  They had hidden film reels under the floorboards along with some other things and wanted to come reclaim their belongings.  Upon return, they found country folk living in their home.  They told the family that the house was theirs; they only wanted their stuff.  It turned out the family has uncovered the film reels, destroyed the film and recycled the aluminum cases for money.  So went some of the history of the glory of Cambodia’s Rock and Roll.

John has spent hours in archives, searching out the bits he needs to tell the story.  He interviewed many of the surviving musicians before they died.  He had spent hours in the studio recording music for the soundtrack.  And things in Cambodia never really go the way you expect.  It has been a hard road for John Pirozzi: a labour of love.  His little crew has assembled here to get footage of the scenery, and to recreate the feeling of being there during the frenzy of the concerts at the time.

John uses a Bolex camera, which uses 16mm film.  He won’t know what he’s got until he gets the film developed back in the states.  To get the film out of Cambodia, he has had to collect letters from various ministries at offices spread throughout the city.

We are under the care and protection of our driver named Srah.  He carts us around in his little Toyota, translating and guiding us all the while.  He is a smart and funny guy, has a great music collection and he starred in two Hollywood films, “City of Ghosts” and “Holly” that were both filmed in Cambodia.  If you come here and want a tour guide, call him up!  (855) 12 978 049.

When it came time for us to roll the tape, we loaded up in Srah’s car and went north of the city about an hour to the beautiful Udong Temple.  The stupas and the wat are high up on a hill, looking down at the flat fields dotted with houses and palm trees.  One of the stupas is very old, and one is very new.  The new one supposedly has the little finger of Buddha enshrined in it.

We arrived in the heat of the afternoon sun and when we got out of the car, four young boys carrying fans greeted us. We could hear music playing over a PA away in the distance.  The boys were dancing and singing along.  They were little rock and rollers, and instantly part of our crew.  They helped us to carry the gear up the many stairs to where we did the shoot.  They entertained us all day with their songs and their war-play antics.  And the fanning felt great, too.  It was HOT!  John was filming some time-lapse footage of sunset and full moon rise.  Even though it was hazy, I think it’s going to look really cool.

Our next shoot was down in Kep City, a little seaside town, famous for crabs and the bombed out shells of chic French colonial mansions left behind by the Khmer Rouge.  I went down a day ahead of John and the others to cast the shoot.  I cruised around all day looking for beautiful young men and women to be in our beach scene.  When the crew arrived, I had them all checked in to Kep Seaside Guesthouse. We went out and ate some crabs cooked with the famous Kampot Pepper.   It was heavenly to be by the side of the sea with the sweet ocean breezes blowing in.

The day of the shoot I brought John and Richard to the Aspeca Orphanage to select their actors.  The most beautiful among them refused to be in the picture, no matter how sweet John’s offer became.  The ones who ended up with us were really the only ones we could convince to do it.  They are so shy and demure.  John had costumes for the boys, but the patterns on the sarongs that the girls had were too modern.   Srah had to run me over to the town of Kampot to get sarongs for the girls in our scene.  We had to have them custom made, since the scene takes place in 1958.  The ladies in the market whipped them up quick and we were back on set after a couple of hours.

The first scene was at the Villa Gardenia.  Two of our actors had to walk down a flight of stairs.  It was the heat of the day and John made them do it several times while Srah coached them to smile, act natural, don’t look at the camera.  The kids were great and we treated them like stars, holding a shade umbrella over them between takes and bringing them cold water to drink.

The next scene was at the Kep beach.  We had all 6 actors picnicking on the sand, peeling and eating mangos, and then boys got up and ran into the water.  John filmed them doing it over and over again.  I helped them to dry off between takes.  Setting the stage and having the camera equipment out attracted quite a crowd.

Finally, we went up to Sihanouk’s Palace, which is now a bombed out shell of a mansion inhabited by squatters.  One of the residents was a strikingly beautiful girl with a baby in her arms.  John decided then and there to shoot her looking over the balcony, which was draped in bougainvillea, at the sun dipping into the sea.  I had a black sarong for her to wear.  The other residents of the place came to watch and tend her 3 babies.  She was beautiful and acted perfectly.  It was a wrap!

At dinner that night, John told me he wouldn’t need me for a couple of days and that I should go out to Rabbit Island off the coast of Kep.  I took his advice and spent two days swimming in the ocean, eating shrimp and lazing in the hammock.  A friendly little cat kept me company and even brought me a dead bird!  It was so charming and relaxing out there with no electricity or cars or noise, it felt like a fantasy.  I caught a boat back to the mainland and a bus back to the city and it felt like I had been gone for a week.  I was glad to see the crew again!

Our next big shoot happened the day after I got back.  This time we had 15 actors in 1960’s clothing dancing in the only remaining floating bars in the city.  It’s called Chak Tomok and it is a big old boat with a stage, a bar, a bunch of tables and a dance floor.  When we scouted the location earlier in the week, we went at night when a band was playing, the dance floor packed, the floor sticky with spilled beer.

Today is was bright and we had to make it look dark.  We covered the windows, pushed tables around.  It was hot in there!  I helped our stylist, Melanie Brew to collect the girls from the salon.  They had all been given great 1960’s hairdos.

The house DJ played Sin Sisamouth songs over the PA and John got his club scene action shots.  Those kids could really dance!  It is great to be swept up in the excitement and glamour of movie making, even with a paired down little crew like ours and in a sweltering old boat.  We had dinner together with all our actors on the boat and then a few of us retired to Hurly’s Cantina for our last libation of the night.

On another day off, I went and visited the Killing Fields.  I have read about the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge and I didn’t really feel like I needed to go see the place, but our camera guy talked me into going over there with him.  We cruised over to the memorial pagoda that holds almost 9000 human skulls.  I felt sick and angry watching gringos take photos of the place.  I hated how mass graves were left untouched with bits of bone and cloth coming up out of the ground.  There were piles of bones and teeth here and there, left there just for people to gawk at.  It was the worst tourist trap I have ever seen.  I guess for some people seeing is believing, but I wish they would close the whole place down, leave the dead in peace.  The tragic occurrences of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia should not be forgotten, but nor should they be memorialized, if you ask me.

Cambodia is reinventing itself and the signs of progress are everywhere in the city.  Refugees are coming back home again and bringing with them arts and culture that the K.R. deemed elite and had tried to exterminate.  I feel that John Pirozzi’s film, “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten”, is a part of the reconstruction of Cambodian culture, celebrating their uniqueness and reminding the population of young Cambodians that their country knows how to rock!  Plus, the music is amazing!

My last day in Phnom Penh came quickly, and I was sad to say goodbye to the crew, but I was in a hurry to meet up with Jeremy again.  For my final night on the town I was the fifth wheel on the double date with Richard, Nick and their two beautiful Cambodian girls.  But Richard knows I love to dance and so brought me along with them to this great Khmer nightclub called Golden Town.  To my surprise and delight they had a real live band!  The dance floor was packed and Sun Lin taught me all of the traditional Khmer dance moves.  I picked them up quickly and got approving nods from the other dancers.  Then the band played some rock and roll numbers and I got to show them some moves!  Sun Lin, So Veit and I cut a rug all night while the boys guarded our purses.  We went out for late night Chinese food and then I packed my bags and got ready to say goodbye to Cambodia.

I am writing all of this after 15 days in Phnom Penh, and I’m leaving out many of the finer details.  We did a lot that haven’t mentioned and I really could have made several posts.  Let’s get together when I get back and I’ll fill you in on all the rest!  And I hope you will all keep your eyes out for John Pirozzi’s movie, “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten”.

Thanks to Nicholas Hahn for all the great photos!

Bangkok Bluegrass Boys

Hello, dear readers!

Do you know how awesome my boyfriend is?

This is what he got into after we said goodbye in Ventiene, Laos.

Please click over to read this funny and amazing story!

click here:

Jeremy’s Blog

Angkor Wat

March 21-24

Here I am in Angkor Wat, Cambodia!

Instead of hiring a driver or a tour guide, I decided to go it on my own by bicycle.  It’s all flat terrain here, and though it is rather hot, the breeze I got from pedaling made the effort rewarding.  It’s 3 miles from my guesthouse to the entrance, the main gate of Angkor Wat.

But there are many temples in the area.  I have heard it is the highest concentration of religious sites in the world.  It is truly amazing to be here.  It’s way bigger than it looks in the pictures.

There are two circuits for viewing the temples, the Petit and the Grande.  I did them both.  I made up my mind to save Angkor Wat for the very end.

Each day I went out I cycled about 30 miles.  Boy, is my butt sore!  But I saw everything I wanted to see, took my sweet own time, and got some good exercise to boot.

At some of the main temples, I opted to hire a guide on the spot.  For $1 – $3 dollars, I got a tour by a local in English.  I always bought them a cold drink afterward.

It’s really amazing how big it all is. How much work went into it!  Every inch is carved in bas-relief.  There are lots of parts missing though; the Khemer Rouge chipped out every single Buddha, thousands of them, and took the heads off most statues to sell during their regime.  They also shot at the whole place with guns, blowing the roofs off many of the buildings.  What a shame!  It wasn’t even that long ago!

But what remains is awesome enough for me.  I hope you enjoy my self-portraiture.  I was really there, ya’ll!

Siam Reap, Cambodia

March 20-23

After so many long bus rides in Laos, and now with Jeremy back in the States, I decided to splurge and catch a flight from Vientiane to Siam Reap.  Though I was sad to just skip southern Laos, I was happy to be missing the 20 plus hour bus ride.  But to ensure I still suffer a little, Laos Airlines made me get up at 4 in the morning to make it to my flight.

As we descended in the plane I could see the big, flat expanse of the area, dotted with trees and houses, surrounded by dry-looking fields.  I was scanning the ground looking for the archeological site, but it was hazy and I didn’t know exactly where to look.  We landed at the slick, modern airport with its fountains, gardens and shiny stone interior.  It didn’t take long for them to paste the visa into my passport and then I was in Cambodia!  Outside, I hopped on a moto and got driven to the house of the Marc and Tracy, the people I was couch surfing with.

Straight away I rented a bicycle and Marc took the time to show me around.  The city is clean and modern, with traffic lights and sidewalks.  Ankor Wat looms in the distance, a symbol of grandeur that has past. Siam Reap is a small city that is easy to navigate with a river running north /south through it.  The river is flanked by green grass dotted with statues of elephants and jaguars; the bridges have delicate arches and carved statues on the ends.  There are many fancy restaurants, hotels and spas made of wood and painted gold.

Siam Reap is an international tourist destination on account of the temples.  Lots of money from Western society trickles into this town like nowhere else in Cambodia.  It is a bubble of western comforts and entertainment.  Down on Pub Street, clubs stay open late and serve cheap drinks (50 cents for a beer) to the tourists and international NGO workers living here.  Marc and Tracy volunteer at the NGO called New Hope.

My second day here, I went with my hosts to check it out. The school is located outside of Siam Reap in the ghetto.  The roads to get there are dusty and bumpy. The little shacks that line the roads have people sitting outside, cooking or washing playing games.  All the little children wave and say hello as we pedal by.

The New Hope Organization, Marc tells me rather cynically, is a foundation that raises money to spread around to the family members of the man who runs it.  In the village where they do their work, many of the women are prostitutes and most of the men are hustlers; there is not a lot of work available here it seems.  People who do have jobs in the tourist industry work 10-hour days, 7 days a week for about $60.

The organization houses a sewing room, a free clinic and a school.  They want to educate the women about family planning and teach the children English so they might have access to more job opportunities.  40% of Cambodia’s population is under the age of 15 and these young people desperately need education and positive role models.

Marc’s class had about 40 kids, stacked 4 deep at a desk.  They were ranged in ages between 8 and 12, and had all levels of learning.  Marc and his Teacher’s Aid, a local high school kid volunteering also, did their best to keep an order and flow, but kids bore easy when the lessons move so slowly and they are easily distracted because they are all so packed in.  I went around and helped them with their penmanship and pronunciations.  Later, we all sang songs together including London Bridges and Mary had a Little Lamb.

The kids were great.  Grubby but sweet, they all want to be there.  They all wanted to give me hugs and high fives.  They all came to introduce themselves in the polite way they were taught.  The school could use a lot of improvement, like soap at the sinks, more desks, better math classes; but they have a soccer team, some art supplies and some dedicated staff.  It felt good to be there and to help out in some tiny way.

That night, the New Hope staff went out to Pub Street for dinner. While we chat and sit at cloth-covered tables, grungy kids continuously come begging at our table.  Some are trying to sell bracelets. Some are just begging.  My hosts encourage me to harden my heart to them, not to encourage the parents who send their children out begging at late hours to tourist bars.  It was an endless barrage of beggars and one of the group got annoyed and told a beautiful little girl who couldn’t have been more than 6 years old to go fuck off.  I almost cried.

It got even harder as we left the club, having paid a collective $14 bill for food and drinks all around all night.  Kids pulled my arm, saying, “I’m hungry”.  A young girl holding a baby begs for me to buy formula at the corner store.  Marc tells me it is a scam, that she sells it right back to the store.  I am broken hearted over these poor children, born to hustle, to later become hookers and mothers to many.

It is lucky for me to have a European guide who knows the ropes, speaks a little Khmer, telling me to harden my heart to these hapless beggars or I would give something to every one of them.  He works with their families everyday and gets me to understand that giving in dooms them to a life of begging.

I came here to see the mighty ruins of Ankor Wat, the world famous civilization that was once the stronghold of Asia.  I had only been here a short time and the true ruin that this country has become is weighing heavily on my mind.  The one-two hit from America and the Khmer Rouge has left this place devastated.  How could some one restore the grand empire that was once Ankor?  Small gifts of giving don’t solve the problem.  What this place really needs is some long-term dedicated individuals to parent an entire generation.  The amount of need here overwhelms me.

P.S. Sorry no photos from the school.  I literally had my hands full with the kids!

Tubing in the Vang Vieng

March 14 – 16.

Throughout our travels we have seen practically every teeny-bopper spring break tourist sporting tank-tops that say Tubing in the Vang Vieng.  Laos people are very demure and local custom says to dress modestly, so why they even made these shirts is a mystery to me.

Jeremy and I both love tubing and it is a great summer past time in Colorado, but even so, we were put out by the blatant tourist trap that Vang Vieng seemed to be.  But as our time together started to run short, so did our options for adventuring.  So, on our way to the capital we decided to stop off for a couple of days to see what all the fuss is about.

The town of Vang Vieng was probably once a beautiful sleepy river village.  Now it’s little more than a couple of dusty roads lined with loud bars and hotels competing to obstruct the view from one another.  Look beyond all that, and the rising limestone mountains that line the west side of the river are striking, and the Nam Song, the river that flows down from the mountains, is sparkling.

The morning after we arrived, we ambled down to the nearest tube rental place to check it out.  A large board in front of the shop declared tubing as a communist venture.  The prices have been set and 1500 families collectively benefit from the operation.  There are rules and regulations about dress code and intoxication, which, apparently, were not strictly enforced.

After renting our tubes, we boarded the already crowded tuk-tuk and the 11 of us (including the driver) made the short trip 3KM upstream.  We were dropped off at a little cluster of bars built into the side of the river.  There were towers built up everywhere, suspended by cables for people to climb and swing off of.  Every bar was competing for volume and playing a variety of American pop songs.  They were also all offering free shots of Tiger Whisky.  We decided to go with the flow in every way and had a couple of shots before jumping in the river to float down stream.

We hadn’t got very far when the next series of bars started to literally reel us in.  Workers at the bar take a rope with a plastic bottle tied to the end of it and fling it at tubers going by.  You only have to grab ahold and they pull you in for free whisky shots and over-priced beer.

The river was low and we lazily, boozily drifted down stream.  I was never brave enough to scale one of the towers, but I did climb out of the river to try a water slide.

The bucket at the top of the slide was almost empty of water, though, and the shelf paper that lined the wooden slide had peeled up in a lot of places.  It wasn’t very slippery so I just crab walked to the end and cannonballed in.

Slowly drifting down the river, past these amazing limestone mountains, we came at last to the Last Bar.  We allowed ourselves to be roped in by a little old lady in a moo-moo.

Some of our fellow tuk-tuk riders were already there drinking beer.  Jeremy pulled the soggy dollars out of his pocket to buy another beer.  The lady of the bar started to pull her Beetle nut kit out of her purse.  I expressed my interest and she shared with me.   After that Jeremy and I explored a cave nearby.

The afternoon was wearing on and the whisky was wearing off so I paddled the whole way back to our landing.  A little boy swam out to meet me and pulled my tube into the unmarked spot that was the end of the line.

All in all, I have to say: Tubing is Awesome!

P.S.  Jeremy flew back to the States today to do some photography work.  We took all the photos from this blog post with my point-and-shoot camera that was inside of a zip-lock bag.  I’ll be taking the photos from here on as I travel into Cambodia.  If you are reading the blog just for Jeremy’s amazing pictures, tune back in in April when I re-join Jeremy in Vietnam.   Thanks, ya’ll!