The Temples of Angkor

Cambodia is one of the world's most corrupt countries--according to Transparency International's 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index, it ranked 154 out of 178 nations. This Forbes article from 2007 quotes a TI official explaining, "In Cambodia, where two-thirds of the population earns less than $2 a month and one-third earns less than $1, a "substantial portion" of the $500 million to $600 million in donor aid each year is "lost to unofficial fees, an informal system of patronage, illicit 'facilitation' payments by businesses and individuals."

And from my very first interaction with the country, when I had to grease the palms of immigration officers, I could see how that would be true.

Ralph and I took the overland route from Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia, a few days ago and many guidebooks and websites scared us a little bit in advance... the gist of it was, the trip was going to be an almost-hellish, "epic journey" with people trying to scam us the entire way, so we had to be on our guard.

The five hour bus ride to the border was fine, if not a little hot from lack of real air conditioning. We then had to take a tuk-tuk a few kilometers from the bus station to the actual Aranyaprathet/Poipet border crossing, and the guy tried to drop us off at a fake visa office, but we were aware of this particular strategy and got out of there quickly (that was on the Thai side, so can't count against Cambodia). We had no other problems leaving Thailand and walking over to the Cambodian visa-on-arrival office, but once we got there we had to dodge two attempts at officials overcharging us.

Feeling smug with victory over the obstacle course that is Thai/Cambodian immigration, we sat down to wait for the Cambodian visas to be glued into our passports. But just a few minutes later a uniformed officer came over, handed me my passport back and calmly said "no room, go back to Thailand." Whaaaaaaa? (Not to sound like a huge asshole, but...) My passport had no more official room for a full page visa! It only had two pages at the back that aren't slugged with "Visas" at the top.

It was at the end of the day, the crossing was closing in two hours and a sweaty five hour bus ride back to Bangkok to wait for extra pages to be sewn into my passport sounded like not the most fun thing in the world. My mind was racing around trying to think what tactic would work best on this guy... pity me? bribe him? claim ignorance? And how do you even offer a bribe? I didn't have to come up with the answer on my own... seeing our faces he said "Listen, I help you, you help me." OK! He suggested a "fine" of $10. I'll take it!

A two hour taxi ride later, we arrived in Siem Reap, the gateway town to the Angkor temples, the world's largest religious complex and former capital of the Khmer empire. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the major reasons we chose to come to Southeast Asia. (It is also where Angelina Jolie filmed Tomb Raider and picked up her son Maddox.) I originally thought it was just the main temple, Angkor Wat, but as I researched for our trip, found it was way more than just one building, it contains multiple cities... here is a brief description from UNESCO's website:

Angkor is one of the most important archaeological sites in South-East Asia. Stretching over some 400 km2, including forested area, Angkor Archaeological Park contains the magnificent remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century. They include the famous Temple of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the Bayon Temple with its countless sculptural decorations.

We spent two days visiting the temples and I think probably only covered about half the site... every king and empire over hundreds of years wanted to leave their mark! While the scene is hard to describe, two things I did want to note are: 1) when the Khmer Rouge (responsible for the Cambodian genocide) were in control in the 1970's they destroyed nearly two-thirds of the country's temples, but the Angkor temples survived because they were a national symbol that represented the power countrymen working collectively together could accomplish, and 2) the state religion transitioned from Hinduism to Buddhism and back multiple times throughout the centuries, and the intricate carvings and statues around the Angkor complex from both religions have survive to this day... a type of religious sharing/getting-along story I had never heard before.

Overall, Angkor was totally incredible and surpassed all expectations... we were even blessed by two Buddhist monks along the way! Pictures are pasted below to give a better description.

We've been waylaid in Siem Reap for two days longer than expected due to some foodborne illness. We're in recovery, though, and will be heading to Hanoi tomorrow by plane to check out the city as well as our next UNESCO World Heritage Site, Ha Long Bay.

We made it to Angkor Wat!

View from the causeway

Buddha statue inside Angkor Wat

Victory Gate leading into Angkor Thom

Californian monkey helping out at Angkor Thom's protection wall

Ralph's in the middle at the top, climbing the Phimeanakas temple

Buddha statue on the grounds of Angkor Thom

King Jayavarman VII built Bayon Temple with 54 giant faces to 'keep an eye on' his people from every angle

Apsaras in Bayon Temple

Modern day apsara

About to head into Banteay Srey, the 'crown jewel' of Khmer art

Monkeys protecting Banteay Srey

Between the outer and inner walls of Banteay Samre

Entrance to Banteay Samre

Climbing the steps of Pre Rup temple, built in 961

Tuk-tuks, Wats and Bangkok

I did some intelligence gathering before we left, asking anyone who had been to the places we were going if they had any guidance, tips or recommendations. The one piece of advice that kept coming up over and over again was this: Bangkok is a shit hole. Don't stay there longer than 24 hours. And it's true. It's the kind of place that is so hot you want to wear flip flops, but is so dirty you dare not expose your feet... an enticing combo if there ever was one.

However - not one person let us in on the secret that Thailand's capital city is also the "Venice of the East"... tres romantique!

Sadly, though, while Venice's canal water is probably made of wine, Bangkok's canals are its sewers. Hmph. No worries, though, we were mostly taking the boat ride on the Chao Phraya River and it's adjacent waterways to experience the Floating Market... a supposedly totally chaotic scene of small vendors aggressively maneuvering their boats to bargain for the most baht.

Ours was a market of one, though. I'm still not sure where everyone was on a Thursday early in the afternoon. We spent about five minutes haggling down the exorbitant price the one old lady out on the water had quoted for two magnets and a beer... which we still ended up paying around $10 for.

All was not lost, though, because our boat ride eventually brought us to our first Buddhist temple of the trip, Wat Arunratchawararam Ratchaworamahawihan... or Wat Arun for short.

We said 'khob-khun-ka' to our boat driver ('thank you,' feminine form) and got the hell out of Bangkok on a flight to the most northern province, Chiang Rai.

Negotiating the price of the ride

Can you spot me in this tuk-tuk?

On the mighty Chao Phraya River (we kept our mouths closed most of the time so sewer water couldn't get in)

Wat Arun, Temple of the Dawn

MMA + MEM = LUV

I've never been into Asian guys that way, but we just attended a Muay Thai fight and those guys were all hot. And Ralph and I both agree that the only two white guys (Canada and France, respectively) in any of the bouts were brought in to make their opponents look really good.

I've never seen any kind of fight live--of course, not counting the wrestlers of Rye High oozing teenage machismo--and at first thought I would be disturbed by the brutal force. I've taken kick boxing exercise classes, but I've never seen an actual roundhouse to the kidney before! It looks like it hurts very much. But it was so entertaining! And at the end the fighters respectfully hugged it out! (Except for the Canadian who couldn't walk and the Frenchman who likely was concussed... they had to leave the ring immediately for medical attention... hope they have travelers medical insurance!)

Also, the Chinese contenders in tonight's fight were machines. It kept making me think about how Olympic commentators for gymnastics are always like "the government plucked this Chinese gymnast from her village as a little girl and all she has ever known is a gymnasium. She thinks of the beam as her mom and the parallel bars as her brother and sister." See where I'm going with this?

When I get back to San Francisco I'm going to see if there are any Muay Thai fights in town... I mean, as the Ellis Island of the West, there must be.

In other news, we don't have really any other news. We just arrived in Bangkok last night and were previously spending all of our time laying on the beach and reading. This is what we were working with:

Reading on the beach, but not on the sand with the bugs

Our bungalow at Dolphin Bungalows

Ao Thong Nai Pan Yai beach

More Ao Thong Nai Pan Yai beach

Stormy skies at Ibiza Bungalows

Moped!!

'Nuff said

Ao Chaloklum beach

Me and Ralph! In the country where they train their fighters like machines...

Sawatdee Khrab!

Ralph and I finally made it to the beach! And we aren't wearing the same clothes that we were wearing for four days straight! Mama's happy.

After staying awake all night and seeing Dave Chappelle start out strong and then bomb at Cobb's Comedy Club, we left our apartment in San Francisco at 9 a.m. local time on Saturday, April 16, and were in the same clothes until the afternoon of Tuesday, April 19. The reason was not so much because we wanted to really get into the grimy backpacker spirit, but more because Air China "didn't have us in their system." So a four hour layover in Beijing became a 28 hour layover, and included two pump-fake "maybe we can get you a seat on standby." They could not.

At around 9 p.m. on Sunday evening Ralph and I booked the cheapest airport hotel room we could find... and it was disgusting. We hoped that staying up all night on Friday night would help our jet lag, and it did, so we awoke around 9 a.m. and headed downtown to see Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We weren't really sure of the best option to get there since I had done no research on Beijing whatsoever, but after the tourist desk said they could arrange a $200 car for us for the day, we took their city map and saw we were 100 yards from the start of the subway system and so decided on public transportation at a handsome price of $16 round trip for the both of us. On the non-peak hours we were traveling, it was just one notch down from this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w01yQ_idLw. The Forbidden City was very cool... all I can say is that it was like being inside a gigantic, beautiful Russian nesting doll with a narcissism problem... so many squares and palaces, I needed a rest just looking at the rooms left unseen on our audio tour.

Then we got on our flight that landed in Bangkok at midnight on Tuesday morning. We had already booked a flight down to Surat Thani for 7 a.m. and decided the best plan was to just sleep on the floor of the airport. It was a really nice airport, better than most in the States, and other people were sleeping there, too... but it totally killed all the work we had done trying to get adjusted to the time zone. When we landed in Surat Thani we took an hour long shuttle van ride to the docks (they played Iron Man 2 during the ride) and got on a high speed Catamaran just like the Bomba Charger in the British Virgin Islands (a boat that a few years ago made me seek out Stugeron, a motion sickness pill not approved in the US, but I might take up a battle cry for). This boat was much slower and the water wasn't choppy so I didn't get sick, hooray! Earlier in the day we had decided to go to a smaller island off of the bigger island Koh Samui, and so upon disembarkation we took a taxi to the Haad Yao beaches of Ko Pha-Ngan.

We didn't know where we were going to stay, but Lonely Planet suggested Ibiza Bungalows (http://ibizabungalow.resort.phanganbungalows.com/) so there we walked... sweating our asses off the whole 50 yards from where the cab had dropped us. The bungalows are very basic, in the way that there is just a bed and cold water-only shower head over the toilet. But the bathrooms are clean and don't have other people's hair in it like the Beijing hotel's did, so I'm thrilled. Ibiza's restaurant also has the best food. We're definitely coming home with Buddha bellies. We also have a view of the beach right from our front porch, which I love... and all for around $17 a night! Yesterday we rented a moped and drove around the whole eastern coast of the island. It is gorgeous! And very hot! This morning Ralph taught me how to drive one. I think we'll be renting mopeds again soon. Today we just hung out at the beach and had our first Thai massage (on the beach)... which was again a rewarding price of $8/massage. (To every friend I have, get your head out of the gutter.)

I can't finish without giving a shout out to our girl, Lisbeth Salandar. I'm on the third book in Stieg Larsson's trilogy and Ralph just finished yesterday. She's like our third travel companion.

Tomorrow we're heading to the other side of the island for a few more days of sun and reading. Then we're probably heading to Chiang Rai in the northern province and may meet up with our friends Michelle and Breck who are on an extended trip.

Thanks for listening! :) We'll write more in a couple days.

xoxo

Megan

Let's Talk About Rabies

I just injected one-third of my last paycheck into my arm, and am about to spend a couple hundred more on antimalarial drugs, but none of those medicines will protect me from rabies... an outbreak of which has been going on in Bali for the last two years, resulting in over 100 human deaths (according to the CDC). So along with the sun and surf, watch out for foaming mammalian fangs!

Nurse Rhonda was the one who scared the shit out of me this afternoon. It makes sense, though, knowing her background. She got burned as a kid... a feral cat bit her brother and once her dad shot the cat dead they had it tested and it was rabid. All the kids living on and near her family farm then had to undergo a 14 day rabies treatment at the University of Illinois. But it's a good thing they did, because as Nurse Rhonda impressed upon me... you will die within 24 hours of being bitten without an antidote.

Why no protection from rabies when faced with this information? Because I'm a last-minute kind of girl and waited too long to go to the Adult Immunization & Travel Clinic. If you're going to an area where you'll be at risk, I would recommend leaving a buffer of four weeks to get protected.

Because of my attitude of deferring errands to later which I could have done today, I am also only 0% - 40% covered for Japanese Encephalitis, a mosquito-borne disease I just heard about today that can, in fact, "progress to paralysis, seizures, coma and death." (Again, thanks to the CDC.) There was no time for the second shot in the series before I go, and no one really knows for sure how effective just having one shot is.

Which leads me to the action item Rhonda recommended but in all phases of planning until now I have dismissed... Travel Health Insurance. Doesn't that sound expensive? She said I'll need it for the evacuation off Bali if/when I get bitten by a bat, dog, monkey, etc. to quickly get to Singapore, Bangkok or some other locale with "more advanced" health care.

Yeesh. This has seriously brought me back to reality, but has not yet killed off the significant excitement that's swirling around. Now I need to research two good travel insurance options I've heard about, EMF Insurance Agency and American Express. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

Yours in health,
Megan

Why I'm Loving PictoryMag.com

I recently discovered the most beautiful site called PictoryMag.com, it "is a showcase for people around the world to document their lives and cultures." According to the site,

A pictory=

a picture + story=

a captioned image=

a photo story

Each collaborative photo essay moves me with its honest (usually amateur or semi-pro) photography and affectionate storytelling. The contributors are just regular people, who were just living their lives, and likely had no idea that in the time between when the shutter opened and closed, they would be bound together with strangers on a website by their common human experience.

I originally stumbled onto the site when someone Tweeted the essay "The One Who Got Away," which was published in February of last year. Learning about new, interesting people energizes me and I also love love, so each story of love lost or love found filled me with either sorrow, cheer or understanding. And that's the thing about this site... each essay fills you with something.

Here's a link to a recent feature on my adopted city of San Francisco (I mean, you can't take a bad pic of the place) and below is one of my favorite Pictorys in the essay (not least of all because it's taken in my old 'hood).

www.pictorymag.com/showcases/san-francisco

Lead Down the Garden Path

Looking south down Hyde Street from a balcony in Russian Hill, I thought of all the people drawn to this beautiful city from afar for its promise. Not everyone finds the reality as perfect as their vision. Just like in any city, there’s no shortage of melancholy, unrealized dreams, lost fortunes, and lives ending too soon. But in San Francisco there’s also a persistent optimism that stands out even in the midst of hard times. New things are always being created here.

This image was taken with a Nikon D90.

Photographer: Robert Otani - I try to take my camera everywhere with me so that I’ll be ready when unicorns crapping rainbows come flying in from the heavens.

Just Ask

I only studied improv for one semester in college, but I carry with me two valuable lessons from those Friday night rehearsals… the first is to always say “YES, and…” because that’s the only way to move a scene forward, to make it work. True for life, as well. The second isn’t an improv maxim, but logistically can provide more concrete results on the day-to-day; Fairfield’s Director at the time, Heather Parody, told us “you won’t get what you need unless you ask for it.”

And you know when a little nugget of advice plants its seed? That’s what happened.

Six and a half years later I sat down with my boss at work and asked for what I needed: “Can I have six weeks off next spring to go travel?” Without hesitation he shot back “Absolutely, fully support it.”

BOOYAH! I did not think it could be that easy. All that nervousness and held-back hope... and he said YES!

At the time Ralph and I were planning to head to Buenos Aires, rent an apartment and take tango and Spanish lessons, como muy romantico, no? Alas, the major dictator of all budget travel ruled: my financial resources would not cover that destination. No worries, though, there are 5 entire continents (count ‘em) left for me to explore. This time we’re heading to Southeast Asia, where the sun is hot, food is on the street and temples & beaches are bumpin'.

For those of you who are ready to Google “how to ask your boss for time off,” let me give you a few tips to get started:

1. Request a copy of your employee handbook and read through the section on leave. I was surprised to find my company had a policy about unpaid leave (did I mention these 6 weeks off will be unpaid?) that was unrelated to medical and family leave. It should include all the details you need to know on how much time is allowed, what your medical insurance looks like during your time off and also if your job is guaranteed or not upon your return.
2. Soft-sound your HR contact before reaching out to your manager. In my case, my HR manager was able to tell me that people request leave all the time (just not in my particular office) and that she fully supported the adventure. But in the end, it was up to my boss to approve.
3. Prepare “The Ask” for your boss. Make it easy for him or her to say YES. Ask as early as possible and give an outline of a plan for coverage while you’re out. I asked about six months ahead of when I wanted to take my trip and there is ample time to prepare my work to be transitioned to other team members. Then it’s the fun part of the conversation – talking about the trip. Your boss is a big reason you’ll be taking that longer-term trip and if they said yes then they will likely also be excited for you… share your enthusiasm, joy and appreciation.

Now that I’ve secured all approvals, it’s so fun to talk with my co-workers about my upcoming journey: getting tips, hearing stories and connecting. Which is bottom line what makes traveling so enjoyable and satisfying in the first place.