Cambodia

I’m meeting my mother in Paris for Christmas, but that left a week beforehand to travel somewhere else.  I’ve wanted to go to Cambodia for some time, so off I went.  I flew into Phnom Penh, and then took the bus up to Siem Reap.  The bus was quite nice – attendants, snack boxes with croissants, AC, movies, etc. – and allowed me to see the countryside.  It took six hours, but the time flew by.

Siem Reap is a quaint little town.  The hotel sent a tuk tuk driver to pick me up, and he ended up being my driver for the next four days.  Each day we would leave early (but not before sunrise) and visit one or two temples, go back to town for lunch and to download images, and then go back out again the late afternoon.  The temples are so impressive, not only in scale, but also in design, carvings and other elements.  In their heyday, they must have been awe inspiring.

There were hundreds (or thousands) of people at most of the sites.  I refused to have pictures with people in them, so I’d determine a shot I wanted and then wait patiently (sometimes as long as half an hour) for the scene to empty.  Occasionally I’d get frustrated and just politely ask someone to move so that I could take the picture, and they’d always do so.  I didn’t want to hire guides, since I like to move at my own pace and focus on my images.  I soon discovered that there were kids at every site that would happily show you around and point out interesting sights.  I’d find myself following them and climbing up piles of rubble and across roofs to get great pictures.  They never asked for money, but I’d always give them a few dollars which usually made them very happy.  

Those of you who’ve known me for a long time will remember that I used to love photographing with infrared film.  You filter out all visible and UV light, and the film just sees infrared.  Things with sun falling on them, or that go through photosynthesis, will glow bright white.  The film was ridiculously expensive, and could not be opened in daylight or x-rayed, so you couldn’t travel with it.  It’s no longer available anyway, so I had one of my digital cameras modified to only shoot in infrared.  I wanted to primarily use this camera to photograph the temples to get a more unique look.  I don’t have access to my Photoshop software right now, but am attaching a few images to give you an impression of what I saw.  I’ll post more images in January when I return.

A Trip to the Zoo, or If You’re Sprayed by a Lion, Does it Mean You’re Dating?

The children at the shelter wanted to visit the zoo.  Since another service group was going there on Friday, I decided to tag along and do some reconnaissance.  It was an interesting experience.  Having visited other zoos in Asia, I was afraid it would be full of small cages and abused animals, and would be very depressing.  They do have a lot of problems, but it was much better than expected.

The zoo is very cheap (about 15 cents) and very crowded on a weekend.  It was great seeing all of the families dressed in their best clothing – little boys in suits and young girls and women in beautiful dresses.  Some of you may have noticed that many of my other photos have consisted primarily of men.  That’s because most people you meet on the street are men.  This was one of the few places I have been in Dhaka where there were many women and girls out in public.

Our students were there to clean up the zoo, so they started picking up trash.  This soon drew crowds of observers, some of whom helped and some of whom were more interested in our students than the caged animals.  

The zoo needed some photos of the animals for their website, so I took one of the students and went out to get pictures.  This was somewhat difficult since many of the cages, even the open enclosures, have bars or fencing between the animals and the visitors.  We did get some good shots though.  As we were finishing up, we reached the lion cage.  It just has bars, and there’s only a railing a few feet away to keep people from reaching in.  As we stood there, a big male turned his back to us, raised his tail and backed up to the bars.  I’ve owned cats long enough to know what was coming next.  I turned and started to run right before he sprayed all over us.  I was mostly hit on the hair and backpack.  The student next to me didn’t move quite as quickly and was sprayed all over his back.  Score one point for experience over youth.  I was laughing so hard that the Bangladeshi were staring at me as if I were a lunatic.  I told someone else this story that night, and he said the same thing happened to him as a boy – only he had been resting his head on the railing and got sprayed in the face.  Life is rarely dull here.

 

 You know he's looking at me and thinking - "I've marked you, you're mine bitch." 

The Party Life, or Why Did I Have to Travel 10,000 Miles to Find Good Haggis?

I can’t believe we are less than a week away from Christmas vacation.  It didn’t really hit me until a few days ago when I watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas and the Glee Christmas special, and then tried to plan my lessons for the rest of the semester and realized we only have 8 school days left. 

I went to a few great parties in the last week.  My cook's son just opened a new computer store, which must be a major accomplishment in a country like this.  The store is located on a street with a large outdoor market, which turned out to be the busiest place I have yet to visit in Dhaka.  I arrived at the opening to find that I was one of the three guest speakers, along with the Archbishop of Dhaka and the principal of the largest college (really what we would consider the last two years of high school) in town.  I really enjoyed talking to the principal, and am going to meet with him in January to see how I can help him with an English training program for business instructors.  I managed to ad lib a nice speech thanking my cook and his family for making me feel so welcome in Bangladesh, and talking about the importance of small business to a growing economy.  Then it was off to the next party; that is, after the driver and I battled our way through the crowds to the car.

  

My cook Thomas, his wife and son.

That same night was the Scottish Ball.  I had to have a new tuxedo made since I had somehow gotten here without mine.  Actually I packed a black jacket and non-matching black pants that, in June, I thought were my tux.  I guess the pain pills I was taking were stronger than I thought.   Since I have a few plain tuxedos in storage, I decided to get a pinstriped one.  It took three fittings, but it was ready (if I didn't try to close the pants) a few hours before the party.  The party itself was quite nice – great food (haggis that was not only edible, but quite tasty, beef tenderloin and creme caramel) and a small band and bagpipe player flown in from Scotland.  It’s always fun to see people dressed up and everyone went all out for this one.

My friend Lauren and me at the ball.

We also had our school Christmas party a few nights ago.  Many of the women dressed in saris and many of the men in panjabis.  I had a friend take me out last week to find one.  It has cooled off enough that we had the party on the roof of the superintendant’s building, with great food and dancing.  It was a beautiful night and they had lit the whole rooftop with small white lights.  Many of the buildings here (unfortunately not mine) have rooftop patios, and it’s such a great place to entertain.

 

Repairs

My apartment was full of activity last week.  The school was able to make a bunch of repairs – fixed the leaking ceiling in my bathroom, replastered the blistering walls, installed double paned windows in the bedrooms to help soundproof them and built me storage shelves for the closet and kitchen.  Now I can finally put away everything that I brought.  The new windows do help with the noise, especially the car and street noise, but I can still hear the mosque next door. 

Down to the River.

I spent a traditional Thanksgiving this year – traditional from both the Bangladeshi and American perspectives.  My friend Rick and I woke up early and headed to the riverside.  I wanted to see the spice and fruit markets, as well as the docks.  If you watched The Amazing Race, you saw part of this area when they did the brick or lunch challenges.  I thought the show did a pretty good job of showing Dhaka as it is.  It appears the show was filmed in June or July, which would explain the heat.  I was a little surprised that the contestants complained about the smell – I really don’t think it’s any worse than many places in Asia.  The show didn’t really capture the chaos of trying to navigate in Dhaka, nor did it show the amazing colors you see everywhere.  Nevertheless, overall it gave a favorable impression of Bangladesh.

Here are some images of the docks and riverside.  I’m not sure why the river is burning.  It’s interesting that the river is as crowded with small ferries as the streets are crowded with rickshaws.

My friend and I picked a boat with only two other people in it to cross the river.  Of course, it then immediately filled with ten others.  You take your shoes off when you board.  Have you ever tried to take off and put on shoes in a canoe?  It's a wonder I didn't end up in the river.  Doesn't this almost remind you of Venice?!

 

And this was shot not on the river, but beside it.  The kids here love to be photographed, and have such infectious smiles.

Entrepreneurs

So many Bangladeshis seem to work for themselves – as day laborers, rickshaw drivers, ferry operators, vendors, etc.  Here are some that I saw on my Thanksgiving travels.  By the way, you can click on any image and enlarge it.

Barbers:

 

Bearers:

 

It's amazing how much weight they can bear, and how well they can balance it.  They guy in front is carrying two big boxes of apples and three wooden crates of dates on his head.

Broom makers:

Chai sellers:

Delivery men:

Fruit vendors:

 

The building in the background is the Pink Palace; I have yet to see inside it.

 

The baby was actually moving the fruit from the bowl to the scale for his father.

Laundries:

 

Even though they were washing the clothes in the river, each item had a white tag on it.

Rickshaw drivers.

Spice merchants:

Vegetable sellers:

Chiang Mai

I just returned from a long weekend in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  I enjoy Chiang Mai because it is in Northern Thailand and is much more relaxed  than Bangkok – much like the Florida Keys and Miami.  To maximize my peace, I decided to stay outside town at Butterfly Resort on the river.  Probably won’t do this again.  The resort was really beautiful, and had a fantastic restaurant.  They had the best Tom Kha Gai (coconut soup with chicken and mushrooms) that I’ve ever had.  The rooms were all wood, and had fun features like Jacuzzi tubs and outdoor showers – which unfortunately could be seen by the rooms adjacent to yours.  They ran a shuttle into town every two hours, but it took about ½ hour each way.  The one time I decided to risk a cab home rather than wait for the shuttle and the driver got totally lost and we ended up somewhere far north of the hotel (but eventually made it back).  I used the time to try to catch up on work – it was somehow easier to grade papers looking out at a pond and the river than looking out from my office at home onto the construction site next door.

Here are pictures of the building I stayed in (upstairs), the inside of a room and the main building.

It is good to be home again.  Much like the last Eid in September, Dhaka has been deserted this week after Eid.  So many people return home to their villages that the city is a ghost town.  For a few glorious days we have had no power outages or traffic.  I suspect the masses will return by the weekend. 

Oh, the Amazing Race episode this week was filmed in Dhaka.  Try to watch it and see what you think.  I’ll be very interested to see if it shows the chaos of the place and the friendliness of the people.

Happy (American) Thanksgiving everyone!!