Cambodia -- a Dental Odyssey

At last I'm feeling better after that crazy month I spent in Phnom Penh going to the dentist. I actually had a good month there, and as well as going to about ten dental appointments and moving hotels seven times in an attempt to find one that was relatively quiet, I  got to do a bit of sightseeing. 

Phnom Penh apartment building

The main tourist attraction in Phnom Penh is a gruesome one. When the Khmer Rouge was in power they used a local school, called S21, as a prison and torture centre, and it has been preserved as a museum. 

It's quite disconcerting, because it looks quite peaceful from the outside and is right in downtown Phnom Penh, so it doesn't look as sinister as it feels once you go inside. They've tried to preserve how the rooms looked when the Vietnamese found them when they invaded and overthrew the Khmer Rouge. There are hundreds of photos of inmates displayed, most of them young men and teenagers. (There were 12,000 inmates and only 9 survived). 

The grounds of S21 (with graves of the last victims). 

I was telling the receptionist at my dentists about my visit and she said that she'd only been for the first time last year, but only because her university was hosting some overseas students and she went with them.  She said that until she saw the centre she really didn't believe that what the Khmer Rouge had done was real.  (There are former members of the Khmer Rouge, including the Prime Minister, who are currently in government, so there are many powerful people in Cambodia who would prefer if people just forgotthe genocide ever happened).  So, I realised that it is really important to keep this evidence of the Khmer Rouge alive (just like they do in places like Auschwitz), so that people can't just brush history under the carpet and pretend it never happened. 

I was staying outside the tourist district and had my normal problems finding food to eat. I eventually came across a place with an English menu and then wished I hadn't.  I'm was praying I hadn't already eaten "Fried cow's dict with ants". 

Pig shopping for Chinese New Year

I took this photo in the meat section of a market. All the meat here seems to be sold like this -- it hangs out in the sun for hours (and it is really hot here) with flies all over it. In the photo you can see that the sun is directly on the meat. What I can't understand is how no-one gets sick.  Maybe the heat cooks it?!

I left Phnom Penh and headed 3 hours south to a coastal town called Kep. It used to be a tourist resort for wealthy locals French colonialists and they built a housing development of modernist, concrete, 1960's houses.  When the Khmer Rouge arrived they just torched them all. The town today is just guesthouses, a market, and the burnt out shells of houses. It's quite eerie. 

Burnt-out house in Kep

They have a big crab market at Kep where you can buy crab and have it cooked on-the-spot over an open fire. I took some photos of the women who spend all day in this incredible heat, stoking fires and cooking crab. The whole scene looked like something out of Dickensian England.

The day before yesterday I finally started feeling a bit better so, to celebrate, I rented a motorbike and went about 10 kms out into the countyside and stayed by the river for a night.  Here are a few photos I took on the way.  (I love Cambodian kids because they are the only people who talk to me! They can only say "hello!!!" but it's a lot more than the taciturn adults will say).  

Typical countryside, flat and scrubby. 

This is where I stayed... very peaceful! 

Travelling knife salesmen...I imagine he gets a wide berth on the roads.

Bar or petrol station?? 

Playing Food Lotto in Phnom Penh

Hi all,

I landed in Phnom Penh and had organised a pickup from the house I was going to stay at. I was envisioning being one of those business travelers who arrive at Tullamarine ans get whisked away to their limosine. Here was my limo: 

This looks like something Tone and Aidan created using stolen work-supplies and  rope. 

A few minutes later this family passed us. Four people on a motorbike is no bigy, but the mum is holding a saline drip attached to a wooden pole which is going down into her daughter's arm!  The next time I hear some talkback caller complaining to Jon Faine about Australia's third-world standards of health-care I will email in this photo. 

I stayed for a week in a house completely outside the tourist area. No-one spoke English, it was chaotic and dusty, and I played food lotto all week because I had no idea how to order food or what the dishes were. I do know that they eat an an awful lot of offal here -- as depicted here in this delicious intestine and cubed congelated blood curry. 

To make things just a tiny bit more difficult, they use two currencies here, the US$ and the Cambodian riel. How it works it that you pay in dollars and get riel back. But, you don't just pay, for example $2 and get 1 riel back... You pay $2 and get 12,000 riel back. Siobhan and Brett probably would have worked out a way to make money from this exchange, but I think I ended up paying $10 for a deep-fried banana.

Ate these every night and have no idea what they are.

As well as losing about a million riel in fried-banana and intestine curry  transactions, I went to the dentist three times in a week. For some reason, they have a lot of good dentists here, and Cambodia is starting to build up an international reputation for dental tourism. I absolutely earnt back my airfare just through the one filling I had (compared to what it would have cost in Australia). 

One thing I noticed straight away in Cambodia is how young the population is. The Khmer Rouge came into power about 40 years ago and killed anyone who was a professional, educated, artistic, or even wore glasses. Essentially, anyone who had skills beyond farming was lucky to survive. So you see a lot of people under 35 here, but not so many people over the age of 50. 

  

The dentist I went to was in his 30's and his father, who is a doctor, survived the Khmer Rouge. He talked to me a bit about it and said that though it was 40 years ago, you can still see the impact of those five years the Khmer Rouge was in power. They basically cut the country off at the knees, because they killed people with a whole range of skills in a very short time, and then left the country with hardly any teachers, artists or university professors who could pass on their skills to the next generation. 

Now I am off down south, to the coast. Hopefully it will be little less dusty! 

Bye-bye Phnom Penh!

The Flying Men of Mexico

Hello Henry, Callum and Aidan!! 

I saw something very cool a few days ago and thought I would send you some photos. There were some men who climbed up a VERY tall and skinny pole. 

Can you see the yellow rope around the pole? They wound it up and wrapped it around the pole. Then...they tied the rope around their waists and jumped off! 

They spun round and round and their friend stayed on the top playing the flute. As they spun around the roap got longer, and they got closer to the ground. 

And finally they reached the ground again! They are called the "Flying Men of Mexico" (because "Mexico" is the name of the country I am in).

They really love magic and spells and ghosts in Mexico. You can buy special magic spray-cans which you spray around your house and it will bring you money or whatever you want!

Here is a photo of a man in his magic store. He is selling lots of herbs that you can use to put a spell on someone, and behind him you can see the magic spray-cans. 

Here is me with my New Mexican friend. I think she might be a skeletont! Should I be scared?? 

Would you like me to bring back something magic for you? I will see you all again in about a month. I am so excited! 

I will say goodbye with some more scary stuff...skulls! 

Xoxo em

Breaking Bad: Mexico

Hi all! 

A few photos from my last few months in Mexico. 

I started off in Mexico City, which has about 20 million inhabitants (so, almost the same as the population as Australia). It's a cool place (in both senses of the word). I think it's the world's highest capital city, around 2000 metres, and it's often called the "City of the Eternal Spring," which I think is a bit generous. I was there in the hottest month of the year and the sun came out for about an hour a day, so I'd call it the "City of the Eternal Extremely-Early-Spring (Practically still Winter)" 

Cathedral in the Centre of the City

I stayed in an apartment in an area which reminded me a bit of North Fitzroy: crumbling 1920's mini-mansions covered in vine, trendy cafés selling tofu-stuffed tacos and - of course - yoga and meditation studios galore. 

Easter Sunday in Mexico City

Then I flew to the coast to a city called Puerto Vallarta and stepped onto the set of 'Breaking Bad: the Burrito Edition´. Breaking Bad is a big US show about a chemistry teacher who became a meth dealer to fund his cancer treatment, but in my version of the show we had a guesthouse owner who was trying to become a pill dealer in order to fund the creation of a rehab clinic (or perhaps a ´healing centre´).  Yes, it was that insane. 

I spent a whole month listening to the other members of the house sit at a table outside my room while they talked  about their  various addictions, compared rehabs, spun conspiracy theories  and generally mastered the art of giving opinions without fact. 

View over Puerto Vallarta at Sunrise

This is the sales-pitch that the owner would give to try to sell his pills: "So guys, do you know anyone who's in chronic pain? A buddy of mine, who got shot in the face when he was four, sold me some of his extra OxyContins...so I can sell them to you for fifty pesos each. They're great for pain!"

Yeah...they are great for pain, because they're morphine.  They're highly addictive and the US has a huge problem with them at the moment because people get hooked on them really quickly and then can't get off them. So, this guy was importing Oxys into Mexico to sell to any random person who wanted to try them...as if Mexico doesn't have enough drugs!

 The whole month was totally depressing and I couldn't wait to get out of there. On the upside, the place had a nice pool, which the owner was planning to drain and fill with flesh-eating fish that he would then sell to beauty parlours in Mexico  --  who would use them to nibble the dried flesh off customer´s feet during pedicures. (Did I already say I couldn´t wait to get out of there?)

The pool, which has probably been drained and filled with pirahnas by now. 

Then I moved two hours up the coast to a little town called Chacala which was right on the beach. I stayed at a beautiful B&B where I got a lovely room at a bargain price, because it is summer here and for some reason no-one wants to come to the beach in Mexico in summer. 

Chacala Beach

So, for $440 a month I got to experience B&B life and discovered you meet a whole different type of traveler in B&Bs (basically, people with proper jobs). I met a psychotherapist from the US, a Dutch couple who run a fair-trade business in Mexico, a couple running a rehab centre, and a woman who works with migrants and refugees across Mexico. Lots of stimulating conversations! 

The view from my room at sunset. 

The woman running the B&B is originally  from the Ukraine and is currently setting up an online business selling fair-trade clothing -- so she was really interesting to talk to and we had a great month hanging out together. 

Jenia, the woman who was running the B&B

Last week I took a four hour bus-ride inland to Guadalajara, Mexico's second biggest city. Wet season has just started here and here are some photos from the bus -- it looks more like Ireland than Central America! 

I think I'm going to stay in Guadalajara for the next few months, because I really like it here. The people are really out-going and even though it's a big city they are still really friendly.

I haven't got a TV so I've just been watching World Cup matches on the TV's that are set up in the local markets and stores, which has been a great way to get a taste of the World Cup fever. They all give me a pitying look when I say I'm from Australia and say, "Ya se fue!" (They've already gone home.) 

So then I have to explain that soccer isn't that popular in Australia and we are pretty happy just to get to the World Cup. Anyway, Mexico has "ya se fue" by now as well, so people aren't feeling so sorry for me anymore. 

And, I can´t finish without my latest embroidery!

Last Weeks El Salvador

Hi everyone! 

I´m leaving Suchitoto in the next week and heading for Mexico, via Guatemala. To give you an idea of how small these Central American countries are, it takes 9 hours in a bus to cross half of El Salvador, go all the way across Guatemala and the cross the border into the bottom of Mexico. Of course, from there, its about a 346 hour bus ride up to the USA (Mexico is huuuge), so I´ll definiately be doing that part in a plane. 
  
 I have no idea where I´m going to stay in Mexico.  I had decided on a city but have since been told by Edy, who runs my house, that it is a den of people traffickers, illegal migrants, drug smugglers and Mexican cartels. (Poor Edy didn´t realise that this would just make the place sound more attractive to me...but since it is also stinking hot I think I´ll give it a miss). 

I had my last meditation classes this week, and one of the groups found out it was my birthday  and even had a surprise cake for me.  

At the end of the class I gave everyone a little embroidery, so there were surprises all round. 

Fly!

The meditation group at the Arts Centre, holding their little embroideries

Surprisingly, it has been the women in the other meditation group -- who all work at a local sewing cooperative and come from little villages around Suchitoto -- who have been the ones who have taken most enthusiastically to the idea of meditation. The other day I taught them a couple of little meditations they could do at home with their children. In one, you had to imagine that all your limbs were as light as a feather and you were floating up to the ceiling. After we´d finished, one of the women said, ¨I just floated up and up...through the ceiling and I could see the whole world and I was saying, ¨hello world!¨ and I didn´t want to come down again!¨ With this group, the wackier the meditation, the more they seem to like it.

Marina, one of the women from the sewing coop. (She just made this top for me).

I have been hanging out a bit with a refugee family from Mexico who are here for a few months trying to work out where they will go next. The dad is a lawyer and seems to have got into some trouble with a Mexican cartel. Sheila, one of the daughters, appeared at my window yesterday with half a banana and a pineapple...so cute! The day before this photo she had her hair cut - for the first time in her life!! 

Her elder sister, Dulce, is doing a bit of embroidery with me. They aren´t able to go to school here, so the mother is very keen on keeping the girls busy with little projects.  

Dulce and Leo in the ¨craft section¨ of my enormous bedroom

Dulce´s first embroidery

My friend Amy, who used to live in my house but is now doing volunteer work in the capital, also stopped by to get a little embroidery, and then we went out for pupusas - the national dish. I can´t get into it at all, it is just maiz flour stuffed with a tonne of cheese and pork rind, then fried. People here often eat these for breakfast AND dinner...the diet here is just appalling. If it´s not fried, salted, and stuffed with cheese then it´s not food in El Salvador.

The local pupuseria - this is where everyone eats. 

Talking about food, I was having lunch the other day with Edy and she was telling me that her brother died last year in his late thirties.  I asked what he died from, assuming it was something like a heart-attack or diabetes (very common here of course), but it turned out that he was murdered by four gang members. He was a farmer and was working, and the gang came to get money from him and ended up killing him. 

Other people saw it happen, and Edy said that by the end of the day all her family knew exactly who the killers were. I asked what the police did, and she said the family were all too scared to press charges -- her father works alone on his farm down by the lake and she has four teenage boys (and one of them goes to school with one of the gang members).  

But, there is some kind of ¨justice¨ in El Salvador: Edy told me that within three or four months two of the gang members had been killed because of internal fighting within the gang. She knew one of the boys quite well and asked him why he had killed her brother.  He told her he needed money; his mother and father were both in the USA and no-one was looking after him.  SUCH a familiar story here. 

This is Edy´s father, one of the original cowboys! 

Yesterday I came into town and there was a very raucous parade going on -- once a year the local school kids have an annual games day and they start it off with a marching band and lots of craziness.  (Check out the girl walking along with the xylophone strapped to her!)

There were also heaps of soldiers and policemen on the streets yesterday.  When I asked why, someone told me that a woman had be killed during the night a few blocks away, and one of her children went to the local school.  So, that gives a pretty accurate slice of life in El Salvador ...street parades, marching bands...and a bit of murder.

My favorite embroidery - this is a present for Edy

And, to finish, here are some photos from my going-away lunch...