อะไรวะ?

Once again I find myself in Bangkok, the City of Angels... and internet speeds are smokin'! I can't visit YouTube though, as the Thai government has blocked it since a video poking fun at the monarch was spotted a few weeks ago.

After 4 months in India and Cambodia, Bangkok seems uber-developed and hyper-westernized. On Tuesday I go to Tokyo... my brain will surely explode then.

Today I took care of business: went to the tailor, had my teeth cleaned, and got a foot massage. I'm very comfortable in the city after having lived here for a year and a half, and it's always good to come back for a visit. Good fruit and pretty girls... what more could you ask for?

I mentioned Japan earlier. I'll be working near Shibuya through July, so the "travel" part of the travelogue might be a strech, but I intend to keep the updates coming to give my readers a peak into the life of an ex-pat in Japan. And of course, expect more travels and adventures when summertime hits!

Indian boys ham it up

I was trying to videotape this guy practicing kung-fu, and this group of Indian boys kept trying to push way their way into the shot. Hilarious...

India Videos!

At long last, here's some of the footage I shot in India. I'll start with this short clip of some girls playing music on a train from Mumbai to Ahmedabad. The clip goes on quite a bit longer than what I uploaded here, but I'll start with this as a test:

Check the Flickr page for newly uploaded snaps - some of my favorites are in this bunch...

Cambodian New Year starts tomorrow so I'm off work until Tuesday. I may head down to the coast and Sihanoukville for the holiday. Happy Khmer New Year!

Teaching in a Khmer language school

I've taken a job 2 hours per day teaching in a language school in Phnom Penh. The name of the school is ELT. Here's a quote from their introductory information for teachers:

ELT popularly stands for English Language Training. It, however, can be interpreted as Enriching Life for Tomorrow as its Motto. We also attempt to translate ELT as Excellent Learning Torch...

Ouch. Yes, it's that bad. OK so the school is crap, but Khmer students are outgoing and eager to speak (compared with my experiences teaching in Thailand and Japan). The level of English in Phnom Penh is, on average, higher than in Bangkok or Tokyo.

My schedule leaves something to be desired: one hour from 6:30 AM to 7:30 AM and another hour in the evening, 5:30 to 6:30. I did this to force myself to wake up early. Teaching 2 or 3 hours per day is about right, really. One has time to adequeately prepare for classes and not feel like a zombie at the end of the day. Mostly I've taken the job for a laugh and to see what it's like in a Cambodian language school, and also to cover most of my expenses during my stay here. It is cheap, I tell ya. One strange thing in Cambodia: The U.S. dollar is the de-facto currency here. They do have riel, the local currency, but it is used interchangably with the dollar at a rate of 4000 riel to one dollar. This means riel are used for small amounts(there's no US coins) and dollars for larger ones.

What's it like in Cambodia? HOT!!! Now is the peak of summer and the new year is this weekend. I'm planning to get out of town for the holiday and see a bit of the Cambodian countryside.

Stay tuned in the next week or two for some videos from India, new photos from Cambodia, and of course my continuing impressions of Phnom Penh.

Cambodia

I'm posting from Siem Reap, Cambodia, which is best known as home of the temples of Angkor. The Angkor empire dominated South-East asia about a thousand years ago, then fell into obscurity. For centuries these giant stone temples were lost to the jungles and known only to the local villagers. Now that the prospect of war has lifted from Cambodian life, the site is seeing unprecedented numbers of visitors, increasing rapidly each year.

I spent the last 3 days touring the temples. It's my second time here, but this time I explored many more of the temples. They cover a wide area at the north eastern corner of the Tonle Sap lake, the massive lake dominating the Cambodian heartland. This unique lake receives an influx of water from the Mekong each year, when the water journeying towards the sea overwhelms the Mekong Delta in Southern Vietnam and backs up into the lake, multiplying it's size four fold. As the water recedes from the lake throughout the year, rice is planted continuously on the newly exposed, highly fertile land.

The Khmer Empire, which had it's capitol at Angkor, dominated south-east Asia at it's height, encompassing large swaths on land in modern day Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Much of today's cultural and religious life is rooted in heritage of this vast empire.

Look at my Flickr photos to get an idea what it's like at Angkor.

From India I spent 10 days in intensive Vipassana meditation at a center outside of Bangkok. There, I put my strength of will to the test. Wake up bell was at 4:00 AM. The days were filled with meditation (about 11 hours each day). We were also forbidden from speaking with our fellow meditators. A difficult but worthwhile experience. This organization has meditation centers worldwide, but Vipassana meditation centers with varying methodologies and degrees of strictness are to be found throughout S.E. Asia.

We are now in the peak of the Cambodian summer. This means a kind of heat that I thought only existed in the lower hells. I can feel the sun cooking my exposed skin like rotisserie chicken. From the 13th to 15th of this month the Khmer's celebrate the Cambodian New Year. I'll most likely be in Phnom Penh for this. This is known as Songkran (or Thai New Year) in Thailand and is also celebrated in Laos and Myanmar. I've been in Laos and Thailand for it in past years.... always an excellent time! I'm looking forward to seeing the Cambodian take on it.

More from the Capitol (Phnom Penh)...