Phnom Penh - A Nice Surprise

The Destruction of the Khmer Rouge...

So after lounging on the beach for a few weeks it was time to get back to the sightseeing and boy did we hit the sightseeing hard for a few days. Not that we were go go go everyday it was just the depth of what we were seeing was very hard on the soul. Don't get me wrong we still had fun while in Phnom Penh but I'm really not going to focus on the going out at night. Although, I will tell you the places recommended to us by Mike at the Sea Garden were right in the middle of Go-Go bars which were very interesting to walk into as a western male with three western girls. Definitely an unforgettable experience.

We had a few days in town and decided to ease into the sightseeing so the first day we went to the National Museum and the Grand Palace which by nature are pretty tame. The National Museum has artifacts dating back hundreds of years to the vast empires that controlled what is now modern day Cambodia. So if you are into history it's a place that you would absolutely love. For me it is great to see and I am always in awe of how past societies were able to build massive temples carved out of stone with the most basic of tools. Although you know they had to have been built at the expense of a lot of human lives. The Grand Palace is a beautiful setting much like the Grand Palace in Bangkok but on a much smaller scale. It was great to walk around and see the amazing architecture and beauty but for my money I'd rather be in Bangkok for a palace. Now that the easy day had passed it was time to get my head ready for day two of sightseeing which would be the S-21 Prison and the Killing Fields.

Waking up in the morning and knowing that you are about to go see a museum dedicated to the torture of the citizens of a country by one of their own is a very ominous feeling. My stomach was in knots and I really couldn't eat but I knew this was also something that I had to do for myself to see firsthand the atrocities committed by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. We had hired a tuk tuk driver for the day and off we went to see some morbid history. It was not a very talkative group that morning as we all had ideas of what we were going to see and I think everyone was dealing with it in their own way. Once we got to the museum, which had previously been a school we started our walking tour through the buildings. It is very hard to describe what I saw and do justice to the people who were murdered, starved and tortured in this prison. Suffice it to say that the Khmer Rouge was viscous and brutal in every sense of the words. At different points you are walking through a room and there are pictures of the inmates and you start to see photos of young children and babies. Now the thoughts going through my head are why do they have these photos of such small kids and I came to find out the Khmer Rouge were so paranoid that they killed the children of their "enemies" so that there could be no retribution later in life. Just absolute pure evil in my opinion. One thing that was very similar to the Nazis in was that the Khmer Rouge was meticulous with keeping records, which is why they have pictures and information on every single prisoner from S-21. It is bad enough what they did to their fellow countrymen but to keep the records which basically wrote the history is unconscionable. I made it through every building, every floor and every room that was open because I needed to see with my eyes everything that I could. I know that this brought all of us down that day and the girls were waiting patiently for me but I took my time to absorb the magnitude of all the details that I could muster that morning. 

I finally finished the museum and it was off to part two of our day, which was The Killing Fields. Many people know of this because of the movie with the same name. However, to see this first hand is a completely different experience than watching a film. When you walk through the front gate you see a beautiful Pagoda directly in front of you. As you approach and get closer you realize that this is no ordinary Pagoda but is a memorial to all the people murdered by the Khmer Rouge on this spot. Inside the Pagoda are the clothes, which were worn by the people murdered here, and then the different levels have different types of bone fragments. From one level with skulls to another with hipbones or one with leg bones or arm bones. It is truly a chilling and humbling site. After taking a few minutes to soak all of this in we continued around the grounds, and it is really an eerie site to behold. As I made my way around there was a strange feeling of calm and tranquility even though I knew we were in the middle of mass graves. It was a similar feeling to one I had back in 1997 when visiting Auschwitz. I don't know how to explain this or even do justice to these feelings. The things that you see when walking the grounds of The Killing Fields are some of the most atrocious and heart-wrenching things one could ever see. At one point we walked past a tree and the sign next to the tree stated this was where the Khmer Rouge soldiers would kill babies by swinging them against the tree trunk. Then there were all of the excavated mass graves each with a sign describing the groups of people contained in each grave. With very heavy hearts we finished our tour of The Killing Fields and headed back to our tuk-tuk to get back to town. Now after a day filled of seeing the horrors of what humans can do to each other our tuk-tuk driver started asking us if we wanted to go shoot machine guns or rocket launchers. Don't get me wrong I have no problem going to shoot a machine gun but it was definitely not the right time as we were all drained and we all felt that it wasn't really appropriate considering what we had just spent our day seeing. 

My overall impressions of Phnom Penh are that it is a very beautiful city with a dark recent history. It's also very surprising how nice and friendly the people are when you consider that every family in this country was in some way effected by the Khmer Rouge. I highly encourage everyone to visit the S-21 museum as well as The Killing Fields as I believe they are both important parts of history that nobody wants repeated. The scenes are chilling, haunting, inconceivable and at times they simply take your breath away.

So now we are off to Siem Reap to see the Temples of Angkor which should be a little easier on the mind as far as sightseeing goes.

Brian


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Jenga!!!

Song for this post:

Lost! by Coldplay

So, I don’t know exactly what condensed milk is and honestly, the idea of it is borderline extremely revolting to me – semi-gelatinous milk from a can, um…yuck.  I only mention it because condensed milk is a main component of my newest addiction – Southeast Asian iced coffee.  Oh dear reader, if only you could lick up what I’m spilling out here – take one mug, pour in about 4-5 glops and glugs of condensed milk, add coffee and voila!  You have yourself a cup-full of cold, sweet, creamy coffee goodness.  But the idea of condensed milk on its own merit makes my duodenum pucker and want to crawl up into my large intestine, curl up in a ball, and lay there like a shot put.

The day we left Otres Beach, Aisha and I indulged in one last iced coffee at the Sea Garden bar.  Maybe it was a bad idea to actually watch them open up the rusty can of generic condensed milk that had botchilism written all over it and leave it turned upside down, resting on the rim of the glass to let it gloop out to the desired level of milkness, which took an intolerable 10 minutes in the 90 degree plus 300% humidity heat, while flies swarmed all over it.  Maybe it was just the watching of that whole process that made me feel ill and not the coagulated, over-heated, fly ridden milk itself, but never-the-less, the car ride was miserable.

Thank sweet baby Buddha that it was at least a car ride – private, comfortable, AC and no hobbit hole, squat pot of a stinking, festering toilet (oh the joys of the adventures of traveling!) – and we could stop when we wanted.  And fortunately I only felt sick and made it to Phnom Penh without actually getting sick.  Mike was nice enough to arrange the car and driver for us and even gave us a few suggestions of places to stay in the city, so the driver took us right to the first hotel which was a winner and we unloaded all of our crap and set up camp – easy! 

Now I’d like to mention here that even though I had no idea what to expect of Cambodia, my expectations were quite low.  The beach was really no kind of bar to measure from because a beach is a beach is a beach – you’re either staying in the nice, plush hotels or resorts or your in a hut with a bed and a fan.  But of the city, I guess I was thinking – what with the not so distant history of this developing country – that it was going to be like some dystopic wasteland with shacks lining the over-crowded, polluted streets and Sally Struthers hanging out somewhere in the middle of it all.  What can I say – for all my traveling, I’m still somewhat ignorant.    

Let’s just say that the city was a little more forward than I had expected and far exceeded my expectations and let me further add that when we walked into our pricey $18 a night (well, pricey for our budget and pricey because it was the big city) hotel room, I felt like I’d fallen into the lap of luxury.  It’s funny the things you start to appreciate on trips like this – closets or drawers to put your clothes in, hot water, showers that you don’t have to take standing almost directly over the toilet, bathroom sinks actually connected to the wall – this hotel had it all and more.  It was spacious, clean, had AC, an actual shower stall, big, fluffy towels, new toothbrushes every day, they actually cleaned the rooms every day, AND it had a TV with cable and a refrigerator!!!  AT this stage of the game I can’t even bother with things like closets, refrigerators, and TVs because it’s become the norm to not have them, but it’s nice to know they’re there.

So what to tell you about PP?  Well, the first night we just kind of got settled and grabbed some food right by the hotel, we were all a bit worn out and I wasn’t feeling great.  The next day, B, Aisha, Susan, and I started off to do some sightseeing close to the hotel and not too far into the walk Susan got sick and headed for home while B, Aisha and me continued on to the Grand Palace and National museum.  While at the Grand Palace, we ran into Taig and Maeve – an Irish couple also traveling for 6 months that we’d met in Otres Beach and were staying at a hotel two doors down from ours also - per Mike’s suggestion – and we made plans to meet up with them later that night.   Now I don’t know if I did the illustration of Mike justice in my last post, but I wanted to give you a little idea as to his character so you could appreciate this next part…

The 3 of us met up with Taig and Maeve, went to dinner, and then decided to go to one of the bars on the street where our hotels were since that seemed to be the only nightlife close enough to us that we wouldn’t have to trek around in unknown territory since none of us were really quite sure where to go.  Now, I think I’d just taken it for granted that Mike - knowing that we were backpackers – had steered us towards the backpacker district.  I should’ve suspected when he stated that these were the places he stayed when he went to PP that the backpacker area wouldn’t necessarily be his scene, but I think that I also figured that the city couldn’t be THAT big and Sally Struthers would certainly have some tips on where to go and would point us in the right direction.  I was somewhat curious about the lack of backpackers spotted in our little neck of the woods, but being the self-absorbed egomaniac I can be sometimes I think I just assumed that we were possibly the only ones brave enough to explore Phnom Pehn.  Such was not the case.  What should’ve made me buy a vowel and get a clue was the fact that all the bars on our street (and our street was ALL bars) had names like The Pussycat Club, The Candy Bar, and of course, Club 69.  Yeah, we were staying in the Red Light district.  Our first night out, we pretty much spent the night getting our asses kicked in Jenga by hookers.

The next day was devoted to more sightseeing.  First up – S21, the location that had once been a school that had been converted into a torture and death camp during Pol Pot’s reign.  I don’t know if it was the heat or the condensed milk finally kicking me in the ass (so to speak) or the subject matter we were dealing with or all three, but I only made it half way through the buildings.  I saw the documentary film they show twice a day about life during that time and in that place, I saw the solitary cells where they took people to torture them and the pictures of the bodies that were found in those rooms when the place was liberated, I saw the hundreds of pictures of mug shots of the victims, the pictures taken of them right before they were executed.  

One of the pictures that left a distinct impression was of this gorgeous girl, maybe 16 years old, who had the slightest, sweetest smile on her face.  It was the image of a teenage girl who knows she’s pretty but who is humble enough to understand the power of that beauty and uses it as a gift for others rather than for herself.  It was not the image of a girl whose life was going to be brutally taken her days, maybe even moments after the picture was captured.

We each seemed to have a picture like that, one that really stuck out in each of our minds.  The thing that struck us all about the pictures of the victims though was the fact that there were so many of kids.  Not just kids but toddlers and infants, none of us could understand why they killed so many children.  It’s not as if they were holding onto information that Pol Pot’s people could torture out of them, it’s not as if they were able to rise up against the regime, it’s not as if they were any sort of threat.  If anything, we figured the awful regime would rather keep them, brain wash them, reprogram them, have a whole legion of workers that they could train to do their will.  All our questions were answered later that day when we visited the Killing Fields. 

I had to sit out for a good portion of S21 because even though I’m usually not too squeamish about this kind of thing, I couldn’t bare going on to see the mass cells or the bones of the victims they had on display with the way my stomach was feeling.  I sat down in the shade and got some water and not too long after, Aisha and Susan joined me while B continued to discover the place inside and out.  Aisha spent a good 20 minutes discussing our feelings about the place and reading some of the literature on it at the little bookstand by the entrance.  (I was very interested to learn that the tour guides that work there and are on hand to answer all of your questions about what went on there had actually been guards there – many of them teenage boys at the time – and members of the Khmer Rouge.)  I’m going to mention now that Susan was not at all really engaging in our conversation and at the time I gave her the benefit of the doubt that she just hadn’t been feeling well and was therefore quiet.  It was actually becoming increasingly clear in a very short amount of time however that Susan wasn’t just not feeling well, she was miserable.

None of us had much stomach for lunch so we headed off to the Killing Fields.  When you enter into the Killing Fields, there’s a huge Pagoda that holds the bones of all the bodies they’ve found thus far buried there.  From a distance, the Pagoda looks impressive and enchanting and the land stretched out around it is impressively beautiful and serene.  Even when you start walking around and see the big craters in the earth left by the excavation of the mass grave sites, or the ancient, tranquil trees that have signs on them indicating that they were used to smash babies against, (which we discovered when we were there that they killed all the children so they could not in fact later rise up and exact revenge for what had been done to their families) and you hear the children singing in the nearby school, if you had no clue as to what had transpired there little over one generation ago you would think the place to be an Eden. 

But that idea is quickly smashed as you walk on the marked paths and realize that the hard, white bits just barely sticking out of the dirt on the path are not stones but bones and the scraps of colorful cloth protruding up from the worn down earth were clothes that people were executed and buried in and that every step you take is upon one huge grave. 

That night I was physically and emotionally ill so I decided to have a quiet night in while the others went out for food and drinks.  I didn’t dwell on what we’d seen that day too much; in fact I was hoping they would replay Finding Nemo on HBO that night, just to lighten the spirits a bit.  “Just keep swimming…” If I let myself begin to even entertain the idea of injustice in the world and the unfathomable depths of darkness, hatred, and cruelty one human heart, mind, and soul has the capacity to exact on another, I would’ve done my head in!!!  “Just keep swimming…” But what I was starting to give a considerable amount of thought to was not life or death, but birth and the coincidence, luck, or accident of the whole damn thing is such a fucking kick in the pants. 

By the next day I was physically feeling better but my mind was excitable.  While the others went and got food and massages, I sat in a coffee shop and Skyped with my sponsor, Jill, back in San Francisco.  While at Otres Beach I’d finished writing out the first part of my 4^th step (Made a searching and fearless moral inventory) and was ready to do my 5^th step with her (Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs).  This is a humbling and ego-crushing exercise on its own merit, but given what we’d seen the previous day, I was ever more so humbled about my own outlook and perspective on life.  Jill and I talked for nearly 4 hours and it was a great relief from all the things that had been rumbling around like a tsunami in my head the weeks prior to this.  I cry and whine and fret and worry about the person that I am when really in the grand scheme of things, what we worry about in the western world, what I myself spend so much energy stewing over, is just not that fucking important. 

Jill gave me a lot to think about.  I was already thinking far more than I probably should’ve been, but now I had a little more to chew on.  That night Brian, Aisha and I went to our locals – Club 69 where the three of us taught about 6 of the hookers a fun and simple card game called “Pass the Trash”.  We had a bunch of small bills so we gave all the girls money to put into the kitty and made sure that one of the girls won the jackpot.  (I was relieved and grateful that it was the youngest looking girl who won.)  We also paid all of them about $1 for playing with us.  It was truly a blast – they all really got into and tons of laughter marked the entire event and it wasn’t much money but at least for and hour they didn’t have to worry about draping themselves all over fat, old western men for a pittance and could just have some fun.  After that we headed to the Candy Bar where Aisha and I purchased ping pong balls – actually they were more like rubber bouncy balls – and we stood on the balcony and threw them out to the girls who would good naturedly fight over them as they received 50 cents per ball they retrieved.  More hilarity ensued at this scene – two western girls throwing rubber bouncy balls at a mob of about 20 working girls.

It’s such a bittersweet notion to try and describe how much fun we had that night with all the girls we met and how different and refreshingly enjoyable it seemed to truly be for these women – they were all eager to be around us and the ones who knew the tiniest amounts of English clamored to talk to us, ask about us, tell us bits about themselves, show us pictures of their kids.  It was an incredible, amazing, surprising experience being around these girls but all too easy to forget the reality of what their lives are and most likely always will be.  What detracts from the experience is the fact that what made it such a novelty and at all possible in the first place was the fact that they were hookers, most likely girls from the country whose best hope for providing for themselves and their families is what in the western world is viewed mostly as a worst case scenario, last ditch effort, bottom of the barrel means of support.  It was nothing more than an accident that any of us were there in the first place I suppose.

Birth – what a fragile, mysterious, teetering thing it is – one piece pulled out of order and the whole thing can come toppling, crashing down - and yet we so easily take it for granted.  I have taken it for granted and at times I’ve resented it, something you’ve seen me struggling with on this journey, putting the pieces  back together.  The Cambodians – from what I’ve seen so far – don’t seem to be the kind of people to shout at the rain however.  All the pieces might not be there, but make do with the ones they have and are unshakeable at their core with no expectation or sense of entitlement for better, just a hope for it.  Maybe it’s not about frantically trying to grasp at pieces to fill the holes in us – how would there be any hope if all the pieces weren’t there to begin with?  How would there be dreams if they were all there for our asking?  Maybe it’s about having the foundation and building anew, from the ground up.  Maybe being given too many pieces to begin with makes it even more difficult to forge a strong foundation from the start.

  

What an accident birth is.  In the end I guess we are all winners and all losers from the start.  It all just plays out in the end how you place the pieces together.  Jenga!!!  So what to do with all these thoughts, all of these accidents surrounding you, the walking accident that you are, the jumble of pieces that make up the world?  I guess…”Just keep swimming…”

xoxoM    

Otres Beach, Cambodia

Just a few more days at the beach...


So we finally left Thailand with about a day to spare on our 30 day tourist visas. I think the only way that I got Mitra to agree to leave "The Beach" was by agreeing to go to another beach in a different country. I knew the travel was going to be long but I didn't realize how long it would be as I spent the entire night before we left sick in the bathroom. Not a good way to start a day of travel that would start at 7am and end at 6pm. Our modes of transport for this leg of the trip went as follows...fast boat from the island back to the mainland, taxi to minibus station, minibus to the Cambodian border, walk across the border to a taxi, taxi to bus station, bus to Sihanoukville and then a tuk-tuk to Otres beach. I think this has to be the most modes of transport I have ever taken to get to a single place.

                                               Sea Garden from the beach

We had already booked accomodation in Otres Beach as on our way to "The Beach" Mitra and I met Pete who's brother own's Sea Garden Resort in Otres Beach. Now it's not a fancy resort or anything just bungalows on the beach and it is the cleanest part of the beach, the water is clear and the sun will burn the white people really really fast. We decided to stay for four nights and relax a little before getting into the touristy stuff in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. Otres is a very quiet beach so it was good for reading, swimming and that's about it. There is only power for five hours per day about 6pm to 11pm. So if you didn't get to bed before 11 you got no fan to cool you off. Not always the best thing for me as I tend to always be a bit on the hot side.

The most exciting part of being in Otres was the people watching and the stories that we were able to take away from our few days. First was the guy who was there by himself and just spent all day drinking the $1 draft beers and I can't even count how many he had but it was to the point that he was passing out in the hanging Papasan chairs at about 4pm each day. Then he would have conversations with himself for about an hour before disappearing and then starting all over the next morning. Second was the couple that we refer to as Room 17 as that is the room they stayed in for about two days. The girl was about six months in to and eighteen month around the world trip and her boyfriend came to Cambodia tovisit her for two weeks. The day they showed up I was up about 7am and they had just arrived on a night bus from Siem Reap. They immediately started to pound beers before catching a little sleep and hanging out that day. However, the real fireworks didn't start until the next day when they decided it would be a good idea to eat some mushrooms and drink all day. We were sitting by the beach and about every ten to fifteen minutes they were coming to the bar to get more beers. It got to the point that they didn't even get up but the guys at the bar just took them new beers every fifteen minutes. So as the sun is setting the guy comes to the bar and says that he is leaving and he doesn't like his girlfriend anymore. He wants to get his stuff and leave and go to Phnom Penh that night. At this point the guy can barely stand on his own and somehow gets his pack, pays half the bill, gets his passport out of the lockbox and takes off never to be seen again. After he leaves all the guys who work there decide they need to check on the girl to make sure that she is "okay". Luckily the comedy doesn't end there as the next morning the girl gets her laundry from the front desk and takes out all of the guys clothes which he left there and tells all the guys that work there that they can have anything that they want. I hope the story does this justice it was just amazing to witness this public break up I just wish I knew where the guy went and what happened in the end.

A day or two later we took off in a private taxi to Phnom Penh for a few days where we are going to visit the S-21 museum and the killing fields. Some really heavy stuff but we are here and it's something that I need to see as I'm sure it will be as emotionally draining as going to Concentration Camps in Europe.

Chum Riep Leah.

Brian

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A Protestant, a Catholic, a Muslim and a Jew Walk Into Cambodia…

Song for this post:

Be Here Now by Ray LaMontagne

Enter Aisha and Susan…

So I mentioned in the last post that we met up with 2 Irish girls on the island who were traveling relatively the same circuit as we were on basically the same time line.  The first night we saw them at the resort bar on the island B and I were in agreement that they seemed to be THOSE girls – young, loud, drunk, hopping from city to city in Southeast Asia, looking for the next place to party and we were sure we wanted nothing to do with them.  But as fate would have it, the four of us would be all up in each other’s grills for quite some time to come; well, three of us would at least…

I think I told you before that though we’d seen the girls around the place but never really hung out, never had more than a few passing words until a day or two before we were all leaving (or HAD to leave, as our visas were all expiring on the same day) and making arrangements to get the fuck off the island and to Cambodia.  Brian – being the wonderful little planner that he is – took the reigns and got the four of us organized and at the ass crack of dawn on February 17^th – B and I exhausted and the girls exhausted and somewhat hung-over - we met up in the restaurant and headed off for the pier.  Right as we were about to board the speedboat to head back to the mainland, the 4 of us spotted this little bedraggled figure, with his big, blue-lensed John Lennon sunglasses, Fraggle Rock hair, and bright purple Thai pants slowly shuffling down the dock.  It was Mickey - the owner of our resort who had made us all in our own way feel like family more than guests – coming to see us off.  It was eight in the morning and Mickey’s day off and though I myself rarely made it out of bed before 9:30 (what am I saying – I NEVER made it out of bed before 9:30!!!) and usually wouldn’t catch sight of Mickey until at least around 11, I’m guessing by the amount of pot he smoked, talked about smoking, had other people smoke, and songs he sang and played on the stereo in the bar about smoking, that he wasn’t generally much of a morning person so it was really touching that he got up on his day off to say good-bye.  He gave us all hugs, told us to come back, wished us a safe trip and stood waving as the boat pulled away and we were out of sight of him and he us.

Not much to tell here – no need to recount the gorgeous boat ride or the long ass bus (or was it busses?) ride(s) to the Cambodian border.  If we were in a moving, motorized vehicle I’m pretty confident in saying that I was probably passed out and drooling on SOMEONE.  Any lucid, conscious moments I had, I’m pretty certain were spent getting to know Aisha and Susan better.  I was becoming increasingly pleased to be proven wrong in my initial judgment of Aisha and Susan – they were fucking cool and seemed to be just as sick, twisted, and hilarious as B and I think we are.  Things didn’t really start to get going though until we reached Cambodia.

So, passing through the border from Thailand into Cambodia goes a little something like this – your bus drops you off about 300ft. from the Thai border and you get your exit stamp.  Then, you walk into this strip of road that is basically a no-man’s land with your 30lb. backpack strapped to your back and your smaller – maybe 10 to 12lb – backpack on front.  So there we were, the 4 of us walking side by side (The Protestant, the Catholic, the Muslim, and the Jew) like we were on our way to Oz and about 20ft. into the walk B belts out, “Fuck – I think it’s hotter in Cambodia than it was in Thailand!!!”  It was hilarious but also, unfortunately all too true – the closer we got to Cambodia, the hotter it got.  By the time we made it the 500ft. to Cambodia, we were spent, but laughing.  Once we arrived at the border, getting our visas was an ordeal.  One of the biggest nuisances of our crossing was that we had been under the assumption that we could pay for our visas with US dollars, but the guys at the border weren’t having it.  B and I had just enough Thai Baht to cover our costs but Aisha had to walk all the way back to Thailand to get money out of an ATM to pay for her and Susan. 

Once we got on the road though, we were all in good spirits and joking about the non-sensical (and somewhat corrupt) way things work in SE Asia and how Aisha was the most traveled of all of us, having walked to Cambodia twice in one day.  On our 20 minute ride to our next bus station, Aisha and Susan filled us in on all the gossip from the eclectic, beloved resort we’d all become infatuated with.  (They’d become somewhat closer to the staff there than B and I and were more privy to the behind the scenes goings on there.  I have a feeling that such is the difference between traveling solo versus with a significant other – there are some experiences gained and lost by traveling with a mate – getting approached by or having the need to talk to more people being one detraction of couples traveling.)  I won’t relate to you all they told us but I’ll just say that as much as I adored the staff on the island, I now know way more about their collective genitalia than anyone needs to know about the people who serve them breakfast every day.

We finally made it to Otres Beach (the quieter, less rave-sceney,/partying/ backpacking/gap year kiddish of the 2 main beaches in Sihanoukville) and found The Sea Garden – our home for the next 4 days.  We’d heard about The Sea Garden from an American guy that we met on the bus from Bangkok to the coast where we caught our boat to the island.  Long story short – he traveled to SE Asia about every 6 weeks for business.  Back in the fall of ’09, Pete traveled over to Thailand with his brother Mike (Mike’s first time to SE Asia despite his 60 years) and Mike reluctantly traveled to Cambodia to meet up with his brother who’d left him in Thailand and within a week of arriving in Cambodia had bought a hotel.  In short, Mike is nuts – great, but nuts!!!  He’s 61 years old, loves riding dirt bikes, young Cambodian women – actually, young women in general - and just kicking it on the little, beautiful stretch of beach he’s carved out for himself in this world, talking to his guests about anything and everything, and joking around with the young Cambodian guys he’s got working for him.  He lives his life – no excuses, no apologies, no holds barred – and he lives the life he wants, to the fullest.

There’s not much to tell you about Otres Beach.  I think it was kind of like a travel limbo for all of us – B, me, and the girls.  We’d all just spent a fair amount of time just relaxing and not really being pressed to DO anything but at the same time, I think we were all itching to start Doing, seeing, going.  So I guess we were all just preparing ourselves for the traveling part of our travels to really begin.  There was some swimming, a lot of reading, a lot of laying around, and a whole lot of iced coffee drinking and not much else.  The most exciting thing that happened was watching the drama of room 17 unfold – the couple staying in the bungalow next to me and B who arrived early one morning and started drinking the second they arrived which rolled into the next day where they did mushrooms and continued drinking like it was their jobs all day until they had a big blow up and the guy took off late in the afternoon, the day after he arrived, announcing to everyone in the reception/restaurant area that they didn’t like each other anymore and he was heading to Phnom Penh that night.  We doubted that he made it further than 2 or 3 more resorts down the road.

Other than that, the best part of that little stint was getting to know the girls.  Susan seemed a little shy and stand-offish, maybe just a little too young (at 23) to be really sure of herself or what she was trying to gain by being on this trip, but fun to be around just the same.  But Aisha – come to find out – was and is a firecracker and her and I just clicked!!!  It was great to have that kind of connection with a woman, one that I hadn’t really had face to face in so long.  The night before we left for Phnom Penh, she confided in me about her truly chaotic and surreal upbringing which – I can assure you – is enough material for at least a month’s worth of made for TV movies.  At first, I could almost taste the apprehension she felt in disclosing such personal information to basically a complete stranger.  (What people fail to understand about people in recovery is that we’ve basically heard it or lived all – I heard a guy in a meeting once share that he fucked a chicken he was so high – and there is very little that shocks or surprises us.)  I just encouraged her and tried to reassure her by saying over and over to her, “I know.  Whatever it is, I know.”  Meaning to say that I know about demons and things that dog you.  I know like you wouldn’t believe, I know all too well.

When we got up the next morning, her and I were sitting at the bar having some iced coffees and cigarettes (breakfast) and checking e-mail.  Ironically, she’d received a message from a friend back home that some of her unhappy past had crept into the present and into the newspapers back home.  I felt so awful for her and didn’t know what to say or do for her, she seemed pained, frustrated and maybe a little embarrassed by the whole thing, but what she’d shared with me.  We’d talked about my writing and I’d she’d expressed some interest in reading some of my stuff so I pulled up one of my poems for her, THE poem, the one that is all me, all vulnerable truth and rawness.  As she read it, it was my turn to be embarrassed and pretend to be really involved with lighting a cigarette as she was reading.  When she was done, she looked at me, holding back tears and I just smiled at her and said, “I know.”  She smiled and said, “You do.”  And we hugged and went on our merry way off to Phnom Penh.  But in that whole exchange, something had happened dear reader.  I can’t explain it better than this but finally, after almost 2 months of travel and self-torture and confusion and feeling like everything around me was becoming more and more distant, rather than closer and closer to me, I FINALLY arrived on my trip.

xoxoM    

Picture of the Week!

Sunrise Over The Temples of Angkor.


Neither Mitra or I are early risers or what one would call morning people. So on the rare occasion that we get up at 5am it is great to be rewarded with a sunrise where one can capture a picture like the one below.

                         Sunrise looms over Angkor Wat

Enjoy,

Mitra and Brian                                    

The Beach

Kinda like the book but better...

So after a week in Bangkok we were ready to get to the beach so Mitra could work on fitting in with the locals while I tried not to burn. We took a morning bus which connected us to a boat to the island. On the bus we met an American Pete who was on his way to Cambodia to visit his brother who owns some bungalows in Sihanoukville which is one of our destinations. Pete told us how his brother ended up there by chance on a vacation and has now not left in over 6 months and started running these bungalows. We exchanged email addresses so that we could get the information on his brothers place so that we could stay there when we headed that way in a few weeks. So after a 5 hour bus ride and an hour boat ride we made it to the island around 3pm and found a place to stay and booked a bungalow for a week.

This place was exactly what we needed, a nice bungalow about 15 feet from the beach with a porch with a hammock. The island is very quiet and what I suspect islands like Koh Samui and Koh Phanghan were like 10 - 15 years ago. One thing that we found out from talking to the locals is that they want to keep it quiet and small and don't want the big business taking over. The high season is very short and the life is simple and all the businesses are family run. For me it was the perfect place to get some sun, read some books, decompress and get away from it all for awhile. Every night there was live music at the bar with the local musicians who would invite any guests up to play or sing if they were so inclined. I think by the second day we had decided to extend our stay for another 5 days. We finally ended up staying for 18 nights before finally heading to Cambodia.
                                                                      

                                             

We met a lot of great people from all over while staying at this small resort as everyone just felt like family. I got myself on a motorbike for the first time which was surprisingly easy considering I had to remember to drive on the wrong side of the road. I was able to spend a lot of time lazing on the beach or in a hammock reading books, listening to music and overall just finding my place. While here I personally hit the mark of holy crap this is no longer a holiday but travel is my life!!! It was an interesting point to hit in the travels and really got me appreciating what I am doing and that I have this amazing opportunity.

It's RUSTY!!!

One thing I noticed on this island was everyday at 10am and 1pm a boat would arrive from another island and people would get off at 10am one day and leave at 1pm the next day for another island. The looks on their faces was not of enjoyment rather it was almost a pained look as they were trying to squeeze in so much in so little time. They were not able to find out what a place is really like as they would stay for 24 hours and then gotta go off to the next stop. I did recognize that as the way that I used to travel and am so happy to not be that way any longer.

When we finally got to the end of our 18 days on the beach a little thing happened that really endeared me to the island and the resort. We had to catch a boat at 8am and were up and at the pier around 7:30. As we are standing there waiting to get on the boat the owner of the resort comes strolling down the pier to send us off and say goodbye. He stayed until the boat was pulling and was waving the whole time as we left for Cambodia. We know that we are now a part of the family and can't wait to get back there for another visit.

I obviously did not mention the name of this island in the post and I did this on purpose. I'm hoping that it will be able to keep it's simple charm for as long as possible and I feel that if you go to Thailand and you are meant to be on this island and find this resort that you will and you will love it as I do.                  

Sabaay in Thailand!
Brian

When in Asia!!
_____________________________________________________________________

C’mon, C’mon – Learn to Eat Pad Thai

Song for this part of the  post(Week 1):

Afraid by Nelly Furtado                                                                 

So, dear reader, this is the post about the island that shall not be named.  I think I heard it said somewhere “if you find it, you’ll know it.”  Why so hush, hush about this destination – because we love it THAT much, we don’t want it to be spoiled by droves of tourists.  BUT – if any of what I say truly entices you and instills a deep longing in you to venture there AND if I deem you worthy, I’ll gladly consider revealing this place to you.

            

So we woke up early in Bangkok, caught the Sky Train to the bus station, then a four or five hour bus to where we would be catching our one hour speedboat to – as B has taken to calling it – the beach.  We arrive at the pier and step off and though there’s a bit of confusion due to lack of sleep, a long day of travel, and having arrived without having secured accommodations - only knowing WHERE we wanted to stay and not knowing IF we’d be able to stay there – and trying to catch a ride to afore mentioned accommodations.  Though at the moment it all seemed like a bit of a cluster-fuck, I quickly realized where we were – PARADISE!!!  The island – or what we could see of it – was beautiful, the sand and beach gorgeous!  The sand was white and looked soft and the water was calm and crystal blue and you could see right to the bottom – my dream beach!

           

We got to the resort we were hoping to stay at and luckily they had rooms available.  At the time we booked in, we had decided we’d stay a week.   I think by that night we’d decided to extend another week.  When all was said and done…we stayed almost 3.          

            

We got ourselves settled and showered and headed off for dinner down the beach.  I wasn’t feeling so hot due to traveling, exhaustion, all the anxiety I’d been feeling, or something to those effects so after dinner I went back to our bungalow, got in bed and continued to try and make a dent in “The Fountainhead.”  (B teases me relentlessly about being a slow reader and I have to constantly protest, pointing out to him that he gets hours more of reading time during the day because his Whitey McCracker ass is stuck in the shade most of the time!  I have totally ruined tan lines by reading while I’m laying out.  I consider myself somewhat of a serious tanner and I’m not having ANY effed up tan lines, uneven skin tones, or white patches underneath my chin because I had to read!!!  I’m a professional dammit!  There’s a reason my nickname growing up was Sexual Chocolate!  I belee da childen are da fewtcha…but I TOTALLY digress…) B went to the bar of our resort, which happened to be pretty much, the only nightlife in town and where most of the people on the beach would end up after they ate. 

            

The next morning we got up and that’s pretty much what became the daily ritual for the next few weeks – getting up, eating breakfast, me into the sun to start seriously working on my tan and B in to the shade to seriously work on not getting burned.  Of course amidst all the tanning there was plenty of playing in the ocean and every late afternoon consisted of walking to the store to get beers for B and iced coffees for me and then back to either the porch of our bungalow or the fallen coconut tree log on the beach and sitting and watching the sunset.

            

OK – so paradise, tanning, fabulous, fabulous, blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda!!!  My head was STILL clustered fucked – maybe even more so!  I was STILL feeling extremely fatigued, the kind I had felt for the entire previous year in New York which was beginning to get increasingly infuriating.  So here’s where the aforementioned tension caused my excessive sleeping began to build tension and frustration between us.  And the only effect that the growing tension and frustration had on me was to make my sleep even more restless and short – not to mention the sand flies who’d viciously attacked me within the first few days on the beach and left bites that itched like diaper rash in the desert, it was horrible!!!   I kept asking B to wake me up around 8:30 in the morning so I could begin to create some semblance of a routine (thinking that maybe if I just started to get up early and start moving that I’d be reinvigorated and more inclined to start taking care of myself more) and make it out to the beach before noon.  Every morning he’d try and every morning I’d roll over and go back to sleep until about 9:30 when B would come back in and give me the last warning for breakfast which stopped being served at 10.  We pretty much began to resent the hell out of each other for this little play we’d begun to perform day after day.

            

I can’t speak for B, but with all the extenuating and far from normal circumstances in our lives at the time (as idyllic as some of those circumstances may have been) my resentment was churning and coagulating and snowballing every day.  Something was in me, coursing through me like an infection, feeling alien and dark and disgusting.  I can’t explain it better than just being a horrifying, bitter mixture of fear and rage.  I could barely bring myself to talk to anyone and was busily erecting a craggy stoned wall between B and me. Not to be trite or cliché but at that time I felt like my life was going to choke me to death, that it would crush me like some booby-trapped room in an Indiana Jones movie (ya know - one of the good ones before they made that fourth piece of putrid fecal matter) and the walls were coming in on my from every direction.

            

That first week we met Tom and Gina – an American couple from California with a complicated story but still a lot of fun.  It was a good start at me coming out of my shell.  They were staying on the other side of the island where the beach was even more blue, clear and calm.  I could’ve spent every day over there but there was very little shade for my sensitive skinned Honkey Mc Wonderbread so he could only trek over to that side of the island every couple of days.  We spent some afternoons and nights with Tom and Gina which were a good time and I for one started to finally slip into the mode of “Yeah, that’s what this is about – reaching out to others and sharing the world of travel with complete strangest that you automatically develop this kinship with because you “get” each other.”  Also, I think it was because of seeing their relationship an just the tension that had been boiling up inside myself – and because of that, in Brian – that at the end of the week B and I had a little blow up and finally cleared the air a bit.  So it was important that we meant them…but I was still completely mental and existing pretty much solely from my head.

Song for this post (Week 2):

Empty by Ray LaMontange

            

I’d been spending a fair amount of time in the water every day trying to get some exercising in, thinking once again that starting small with some water aerobics would get my energy to finally kick in.  I’d also started to have more contact with my old AA sponsor from back when I was in San Fran cuz no matter how far apart we are, she’s always sure to let me know what an ungrateful jack-ass I’m being and sets me to work on my program.  Naturally – ugh – she suggested that I do a 4^th step, making a moral inventory of my life and see where I’ve wronged others.  (Just paraphrasing so don’t give me any shit about not knowing the 4^th step verbatim.)  So naturally, I procrastinated doing it for as long as B’s sanity and mine would allow and then I got to work. FUCK!!!  The more I worked on it, the more clearly I began to see what my malfunction was – and that’s never fun.

            

As I said, I was spending a lot of time in the water and though I’ve revealed that I find much about the sea disgusting and slimy, I LOVE THE OCEAN!!!  I think a lot of people may be able to relate to this but it’s just where I feel most connected and serene and that – besides the shower – is where I have my best talks with God and the universe and whatever is out there.  For some time now – maybe the last 3 or 4 years – most of my conversations with whatever powers may be have included a lot of screaming, a lot of anger, a lot of cursing, and usually end with me flipping the bird above my head and saying something to the effect of, “Fuck you, you FUCKING cunt monkey!!! PLEASE – help me.”

            

But one day, out in the beautiful, blue water on a warm, sunny day when the world and the scenery couldn’t have been more perfect, and I was out there doing my Jane Fonda’s and cursing at the sky, something came to me…

            

Dear reader, another all too common phrase you may find falling from a recovering alcoholic’s lips is, “I drank so I didn’t have to feel.”  This is not my experience, in fact it was quite the opposite – I drank TO feel.  Most of my life I kind of crept through like an automaton.  When I first got sober my addiction counselor at the time wanted me to carry around a little chart with emoticons on it and the corresponding emotion written underneath so I could start to assess what exactly what I was feeling.  Most of the time – to this day – I don’t know what I’m feeling.  Most of the time – to this day – I feel nothing.  I feel the truly low lows and the extremely high highs but anything in between is pretty much lost on me and I’m pretty much blasé about the day to day things.  This creates some very unsavory habits in myself that I constantly am struggling to rid myself of.       

    

Out there in the vast water and endless sky, between me and my God, something clicked and I began to fully understand where my irksome behavior had been born from.  If you’re in a serious, committed relationship you may be able to relate to this next part.  B and I – like any relationship – have our ups and downs, but back in the world we only really knew a fraction of each other because you only ever spend a fraction of your time together.  We were now spending 24-7 with each other and we still had 4 and a half months to go!!! Ugh!!!  (It’s my theory that this is why many couples who’ve been together forever split up out of the blue after one or both of them retire.) You know the moment when you realize your parents are human?  Well, I had that moment with B somewhere in the first few weeks of my trip and it had come to a head when finally I just looked at him and thought, “Really, this is my knight in fucking shining armor?  THIS is the rest of my life?”  The moment you realize, TRULY realize that you absolutely cannot imagine your life without one particular person is beautifully terrifying.

            

I love B to bits and pieces, but in my life I’ve had to really evaluate what my definition of love is.  These are the best two definitions that I’ve heard: 1. “Loving someone is allowing them to grow spiritually.” and 2. “Love is an action, not a feeling.”  For a hopeless romantic like myself, at first these quotes will sound like a punch in the gut.  But after you marinate on them for a while – at least for me – I look at them like, “Yeah, that IS how I want to be loved.”  So, do unto others and all that right?  The only thing is, I am never more high than when I have the feeling of FALLING in love.  I’m not quite sure what love should feel like and maybe that’s just as well since love is an action and all.  But I am 100% completely and totally addicted to the FEELING of falling in love.  I think if we were all honest, most people would say the same thing.  It’s the falling that people really want because it’s all promise and possibility and fun and easy and flattering and the whole world seems like it’s yours for the asking and it 

makes your life feel 1,000 times more full and more exciting than an average day and you walk around in this luminescent, gigantic bubble of hope and luck and feeling like you’ve been singled out by the Gods, have been chosen specifically for this perfect and unique gift and there is something in you that feels complete and like you but better.  You have been recognized, acknowledged, connected, touch, your soul finally belongs to something and every morning you look forward to waking up, you spring out of bed because another day of falling beckons you like breath stopping, heart fluttering, light, easy, elated, exuberant twitterpation.  BEING in love is mostly just work.  The reward of being in love is far greater than the falling, but it is work none-the-less.

            

That’s what my head and heart, my ego, and my general chemical make up had been craving these past few weeks – I wanted a falling in love fix, I was jonesing hard and it was starting to undo me.   I didn’t know how to be happy with the being and with that, I was feeling nothing but the constriction of lungs and walls being built up and closing in. 

Some occurrences of note this week:

Meeting Ken and Andrew – a Canadian uncle and Nephew traveling around.  VERY cool and just good-hearted guys who we will definitely keep in touch with!   

Also – meeting Aisha and Susan, two Irish girls who would drastically change our trip.  But you’ll have to keep reading to find out exactly how.

Song for this post (Week 3):

Run by Snow Patrol

Dear reader, I am a runner.  When I arrive somewhere new, I gaze upon hills and streets and steps and paths and beaches and think of myself running them and feeling myself in my body, feeling strong and being connected to my muscles and my skin and my sweat and I love the pain and breathlessness I feel for making me know how alive and how full of energy I am.  I haven’t been able to truly run in a very long time and it pains me to some extent.  But it occurred to me this week, maybe I have worn myself out from running for a while and now I’m meant to rest.  Maybe I’ve grown too exhausted from running hills and paths and stairs and beaches, from all the running from people and jobs and relationships and life and love and myself.  Maybe my body’s recent inability to perform the thing I rely upon to feel alive is to be accepted rather than reviled and resisted. I ran a handful of times while we were here – up a hill, down the beach – and I wanted to die!  Never have I felt such discouraging, shameful, ineptitude from running.  It occurred to me this week that maybe it’s time for quiet contemplation of all that I wish to run to, not from, that all the running I’ve done up until mow has been a lie. I can’t run right now, can’t run from the circumstances around me.  Maybe it’s time to sit still, maybe it’s time for something to change. Maybe the time will come for me to run again, not FROM fear of living, but TO love of life.  After all,  “Love is an action, NOT a feeling.”

xoxoM