Monday, January 26, 2009

A Heart full of Happiness

The soft crunch of a rattan ball being kicked across the street, gentle chirping crickets, the tinny rev of a motorcycle and the soft voices calling tuk tuk and sabidee (hello), the shy giggles from the young girl in the door way of her house, loud music being pumped from a stack of speakers heralding another chinese new year party and the soft sounds of the latest thai soap opera that spill from almost every house and shop along the street. In one of the temples monks have continued their soft chant punctuated intermittently by the gentle tingle of bells and as always the howl of a littany of barking dogs, the gentle clank of cutlery and soft dinner talk and the sizzle of the street stall vendors tending the sticky rice and other numerous 'delicacies'...this is the soundscape of Vientiane at night.

It is my last night in Laos and it has been a slow and easy day. After making a wide detour of the many massage places and herbal saunas to which I have become (already was) addicted and nursing my bruises from the last very 'relaxing' and perhaps a little over-enthusiastic lao traditional massage, today I relaxed with my book by the shores of the Mekong looking across at Thailand, almost close enough to swim. I feel relaxed and at peace with Asia although it has not been an easy relationship for me...every day I have struggled with bearing witness to so much poverty and hardship while carrying on with the comparably trivial business of being a tourist... I have thought long and hard about the merits of capitalism and how it can increase a standard of living but then also about the impact when money becomes a ruling factor in life at the expense of the artfulness and spiritual exercise of living...I have battled with the slowness and inefficiency of asian service and looked within myself to try and understand why it is that I am almost always in a hurry or feel impatient... i have struggled with the heat and the pervading smell of sewer and garbage only to turn the corner and be meet with the sweet aroma of fresh jasmine garlands and slowly burning incense... and on top of all that I really don't like eating fish...i really dont get the fascination with it or why fish sauce has to go in Everything! solution more chilli...woolah - the cooking is good (maybe. when my mouth cools down and i stop sweating)!! Asia has also taught me that you just cant have it all; the shower must have pressure or be hot - never both. oh well, better than a bucket and at least my money buys me that choice...

There is so much going on here. I often feel so overstimulated that I get bored...I look at the animals (great place to come after writing an honours paper on animal rights) and feel their neglect and often hunger and pain and I hate watching them get caught and killed for dinner but then again they have their freedom and a better life than many many animals get at home in cages. Pigs in asia get to roll in the dust, eat your shit and generally do what pigs do, chickens scratch in the dust and dogs roam the streets in packs being.. well dogs.

Its definitely a difficult relationship but one with more love than hate...there are lots of rules; generally disregarded; and there is a gentle fun-loving happiness within the lao people that is infectious... you would be hard pressed to go for more than ten minutes without hearing the sound of laughter...of course the politics and the history are more complicated and I doubt I'll ever come close to understanding that even if I stayed ten years...but these are the kind of people who make new bells for their temple out of unexploded ordinance..

so after a day relaxing and an hour this evening of vipassana at a temple, after contemplating my navel and all the contradications that asia has to offer, i go home with a heart full of happiness as the monk who practised english with me yesterday morning had hoped for me...

....lets hope it lasts through the two day cheap flight epic journey home....

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Nothing to Report!!

The pace of life in laos is slow, especially on a Sunday so there is nothing to report; other than that I am glad the smile on my face lasted the entire eight hour public bus journey with the young kids pulling my hair and pinching my skin (all smiles and giggles) as the only foreigner on the bus I wasnt left alone for even a second....tonight i'll be on the overnight VIP foreigner bus to Vientiane......

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Scary Lao Ghosts

I am sitting in the sun at a really beautiful eco-lodge waiting for my German friends to return from their morning elephant ride; I can hear the sploshing of water buffalo behind me slowly moving through the wetlands munching the grass with big rhythmic ripping sounds and the gentle tingle of the cowbells tied around their necks makes a soft, melodic and beautiful accompaniment to the chirping crickets and bird twitter. Over the past few days we have been trekking through the Xe Pian protected area with a Lao guide enjoying the jungle and the Brun minority villages along the way. We have tried so many different kinds of bush foods (including the base compound for paracetomol) that I have lost track, some, like the fresh raw cardamon stem or the red leaves that tasted like those sour lollies (I forget the name) were tasty, others like the bush bean were not so good. We stayed overnight at a village called Ta Ong in the forest with a project that is trying to convince the villagers that they can make money from tourism instead of poaching the sun bear, asiatic bear and tiger that still lives in their forest...last year they cut down a really large swath of forest to grow more sticky rice (the national dish that gets eaten at EVERY meal) since then there are no more yellow-cheeked gibbons. Although the village guide made no admissions our english-speaking lao guide from town suspects the gibbons were eaten...so there is still plenty of convincing to be done...
We arrived the day after an old man in the village had died and many villagers were frightened of the ghost that was said to be still hanging around the village. This particular village still practise animism as well as buddhism and had strong beliefs that the dead persons ghost was still around. No-one would walk alone for the next few days until the body had been removed from the house and the correct ceremony to convince the ghost that the person was dead now and to leave the village had been performed...the children were really scared and the adults seemed to enjoy provoking them by proclaiming sightings in nearby trees and then laughing at the reactions... it seemed to actually be quite a lot of fun.
We had dinner with a local family but then the generator was started and a chinese movie was played...the whole village seemed quite addicted to the television so we went to bed early because it was difficult to compete with the movie... also we had had a long walk and were a little tired and the interaction was difficult; the children often cried in fear if 'the long noses' came too close so getting the community to relax around us was quite a challenge (but we did manage a few laughs mostly by trying [and spectacularly failing] to learn a famous lao song)...

In the middle of the night I needed to get up for the toilet and as I made my way outside in the moonlight I could hear the ceremony not too far away, the pounding drums and calls and screams of the villagers spooked me out and I had to pee right beside the house rather than walk alone for 100 metres to the toilet...yep. I got scared of the lao ghost.

As I lay awake back in my bed I listened for a long time to the animistic calls and drumming of the village ceremony and as it mixed with the night sounds of the jungle I felt peaceful and transported to an otherwordly moment in time. I felt I was listening to a living and breathing history, a timeless tradition that has been echoing throughout the jungle hills for a long long time. It was a beautiful way to drift back to sleep....

My fear made for a great deal of mirth in the morning and the villagers seemed thoroughly entertained by my reluctance to walk alone...then they explained that the lao ghost is afraid of the long nose foreigner who of course is much taller and bigger than the lao ghost.... but whether taller wins - well, I'm still not convinced and with my time over I am certain that I still would have watered the plants near the room rather than make that 100 metre toilet run in the dark and take my chances with the ghost....

Monday, January 12, 2009

lazy mekong daze

I am now in Southern Laos having crossed the border a few days ago...which was an interesting experience and the first time I have haggled a little with customs officials..in the end I got out of Cambodia for a one dollar processing fee and into Laos for two, which also involved the guy sitting on my passport and folding his arms for a few tense minutes...but it ended in smiles and good lucks and goodbyes...

Angkor Wat was really an experience and quite full on, I went out to the temple to watch the sun rise and at first spent quite a while stumbling around in the dark before the sun came up but it added a bit of mystery to my first approach to the temple complex...I did hope to get a sense of mysticism or to spend some time meditating at the temple and contemplate the sunrise but to tell you the absloute truth even though it was awesome and the temple was huge it just didnt happen for me... I was frustrated in my attempts for quiet by fellow tourists having inane conversations about their trips to Whitehaven beach last month or some ridiculous and loud story about the bad service they experienced last night in one of the many bars and restaurants in town.. when I went somewhere a little more quiet I was faced with a group of older british tourists stubbing their cigarettes out on a thousand year old carving/ statue or the like and it was enough to make me sit there and ponder not about the beauty of the place or the wonder of an ancient Khmer kingdom but rather a human loss of spirit and soul...
and then it started....
before the sun had actually risen just on first light as shapes became more solid out of the darkness.... lady lady you buy something; lady you want breakfast; you buy t-shirt lady???on and on and on...and I thought the tourists had lost their soul but the hawkers were worse; here we are at the symbol of cambodian national pride (angkor wat is even on their flag and often they make claims to modern day greatness because 'we built angkor wat') it's their temple and cambodians were crawling all over it in search of the next dollar... although to be fair I cant say I blame them; they are quite poor but there is no respect at all and the barrage is constant and quite painful...it just made me despair a little for the place...

I spent the day out there with a 'soccer hooligan' from Wales who actually turned out to be quite a nice bloke; he was glad he saw the temples with me because he said that he learnt lots more about them and he also saw a lot more than he otherwise would have (actually i think he was over it by 10am!! but he soldiered on until 3pm; which considering we got there at 5am was quite a solid innings) and he never would have seen the sunrise if I had not insisted... and he helped me keep my sense of humour as I was bombarded by the constant calls to 'lady lady you buy something,,one dollar one dollar' all in all we had a 'good laugh' and really saw some amazing things including the tomb raider temple which is all overgrown with forest (and crawling with tour groups) but nevertheless is a spectacular crumbling and ancient wonder...

I didn't go back to the temples after that but I did spend a nice few days by the pool with some NZ'rs and we had a great night out with karoake and at a local nightclub where they were frisking everyone on the way in and lots of guys were checking their guns at the door...me? I had to check my water .... and then we were allowed inside, the only foreigners there and we were escorted to a VIP table...my god the rich kids in there were totally wasted on drugs and the roof was covered in silk... with seriously big bouncers surrounding the dancefloor and a foreboding sense of danger we didn't stay long..

I did see the Irrawaddy dolphins on my way through Kratie which was a tremendous experience considering they are one of the rarest mammals in the world and we were blessed to witness them at play, jumping right out of the water, most people only get to see a little bump in the water so I was very excited and hardly minding the breakneck motorbike ride back to the guesthouse at night with the bugs smashing into my face and eyes and hair...

walking through villages in the north of cambodia is wonderful, people use lots of donkeys and carts and water buffaloes here and the first time I came across a herd on the path I was a bit nervous because suddenly I was surrounded - I walked so so carefully to get out of that one...

Now I am in Laos and the pace of life is so so very slow and relaxed; I am on four thousand islands on the border with cambodia and it is a really beautiful part of the Mekong - and looks exactly as the name suggests; I have a bungalow and a hammock on the water to which I am compelled to now return...

hope everyone is well --- my stubbed toe is healing well after i smashed it on some rocks badly enough for the german doctor i was with to think about stitches.. but after a local guy stopped, stripped a plant, chewed it up and put it on my foot things are looking pretty fine and I should be good for some trekking tomorrow

much love - janine

Sunday, January 11, 2009

laying low in phonm penh

This post is for all of you whose email addresses I havent updated...sorry to all those that have already read this post...

03/01/2009
Hey all,

I thought I'd go back to the traditional email style for this one because I am having trouble remembering my extremely security concious and complex blogspot password and this feels a bit more personal like I am actually writing to someone even though it's to quite a few of you,

So, sous s'dai? How are you? I am not feeling ""la-ah" (fine) which is the only khmer response I know to the question.

I have been having a challenging time in Cambodia, which is fitting - because it's a challenging kind of place. Christmas Day I spent out at Pol Pot's killing fields and the torture house (which used to be a high school) it is a place beyond description and is very difficult to wrap your head around the absolute horror that went on here in the space of three short years... the government abolished money, emptied the streets of Phonm Penh and killed one in four Cambodians. They bashed babies heads against a tree which still stands in the killing fields and teeth are visible rising up through the soil that covers shallow mass graves that have not been disturbed. I have been having so much trouble understanding the atrocity that finally I guess that I have come to the conclusion that it simply is unexplainable evil madness. Cambodian people refuse to speak about it and hang their head and look at the ground if it is mentioned. An English guy who lives here described the killing of intellectuals as thus.... "you know how Australia is full of those rough neck bogans, well imagine how Australia would look if everyone else had been killed and they were the only ones left...not too smart, rough and ruled by the fist." (cue horror music) could you imagine a country full of Pauline Hansons...or worse ruled and populated by the idiotic drunken mob responsible for Cronulla a few years ago without any sensible people to keep them in check...

Today there are a lot of NGOs in Cambodia but unfortunately they do not seem to be winning the battle, although I have seen some very very good initiatives and also heard some really amazing personal stories. For instance the cook that gave the Cambodian cooking class grew up at Friends restaurant where they train street kids in hospitality and gave him a future to dream about, he hopes to study overseas and then return to Cambodia to work in development and give back to other street kids like him (and here in PP there are a lot)... Five years ago there was no rich in the country but now there is a rapidly expanding upper class - but no middle class and corruption is absolutely rampant...many here are saying Cambodia is at a turning point but thoise who seem to know the place best feel that the country has already turned the corner the wrong way and is heading for another disastraous and corrupt regime...terrible news because on the face of it they are such a happy and smiling people...

so enough of the politics... Cambodia itself is a very beautiful place and in the countryside still very poor, most people use water buffalo and ox to plow the field and to cart goods. It is a place of contrast, there will be a flashy new house suddenly (and by flashy I mean flashy in a style that it seems only Asia can do) amongst old wooden and straw houses and men about town driving brand new lexus' (again with the bling - blue underlights and lexus in bold writing down the side) next to poor old guys pushing cyclos and touting for 50 cent jobs like their life depended on it. (whoops Im back to politics)

All the people constantly say "hello bye-bye" to you particularly in the country side and when you respond there is usually a fit of giggles. I am starting to wonder if it is the local slang for fareng\ or foreigner.

In Kampot in the south I took a walk with a lovely Londoner called Alistair through a small village and turned down a very small track though the most gorgeous fields with a huge mountain range - the Elephant Mountains as the backdrop. The dogs weren't so used to weird looking fareng wandering down the street and we were greeted by a snarling pack of dogs and each house that started to get worse and worse...then we started to get really afraid, for a while we forgot as we got very enthusiastic responses at each house with kids running out to wave and in hysterics as we showed them the photos we took....one guy even came running out with a tape deck and proceeded to record us speaking english to howls of delight as he replayed us over and over...(he only taped over some of that absolutley AWFUL cambodian pop music that is so hard to get away from I think it will give me nightmares for years)..
but then the dogs... bring on the flippin dogs....when we finally got to one house where it was so bad I picked up a rock to throw at the dog because I really thought I was going to get bitten but it made it worse and we had to flee across some putrid water on a thin ladder laid across... we stopped and looked back from where we had come.. snarling dogs still out on the track in front of every house and ahead probably even more to navigate... ahhhhh... well we survived without being bitten. I have no idea how.

The Cardamom mountains were beautiful but very difficult to trek in because the government is actively blocking tourist access (they haven't finished clearfelling over the ridge and dont want anyone to see). It was also the last hold of the Khmer Rouge and many have been resettled here. The feeling is different and edgier...I don't have time to explain in this email but in short it is not as foreigners friendly...and it is on the border so there is a lot of drug smuggling and girls smuggling too I think. Everywhere here you can see the sex trade it is very sad...mostly old caucasian men about town with girls who look to be sometimes no more than twelve. Its disgraceful.

I did make it into the jungle quite a way and it is absolutely stunning what is left - virgin rainforest stretching to the sea.... but sadly not many birds or monkeys, nothing like the forests of Borneo at all... (even though there are tigers, rhinos and bears still living in the far reaches)... apparently when the khmer rouge were forced into the hills they ate everything... I did see some monkey scat though and a beautiful scarlet honeyeater (very small like a hummingbird) and some nice butterflies although I guess they aren't great eating....although if they did eat them I would NOT be surprised, at the cooking class we ate crickets, (a few different varieties) and tarantula....

alright... the yanks there ate the tarantula, I did not. But I did try some of the tarantula eggs and a little bit of cricket. We also spoke about the local fondness for dog and monkey, about which I felt extremely sorry each time I saw a dog (oh you poor thing you are going to be eaten)...UNTIL the above mentioned incident. now i feel almost happy, but not quite... it's a hard one to adjust to when you treat your own dog like a princess... anyway this is now a very long email and brings me to the present which is back in Phnomh Penh.

I was blessed to meet a French couple living here, one an agronimist and the other a public health worker while Koh Kong on the Thai border...I came back in their flashy car with them which was SO MUCH nicer than the public bus I caught out there (a 12 seater mini van with 20 adults and four babies inside and an additional five people on the roof)...and very lucky and a blessing because it was at this time that I was very sick with a high fever and lots of ahem 'runny bum''....they kept me at their house for the night which was so great because its one of the great horrors of lone travel to get sick on your own but they took great care of me until we were sure that I didn't have dengue... I am still sick and will go to the doctor today but the fever has gone so its just a serious tummy bug (probably fixable with antibiotics) rather than malaria or dengue which I would have been very unlucky to have... meanwhile I am splurging on a nice hotel and relaxing as much as I can, trying to recover so that I can continue my travels... I think from here I will see only Angkor Wat and then skip the rest of Cambodia that I was going to see and get my (very sore and overused) arse to Laos where it is so much more chilled out...

with much love - Janine xoxox