I'm off to see the wizard

Cambodia? Siem Reap?

So much to write about and so exhausted. Well I am in Siam Reap right now, yeh thats right Cambodia. I've never even thought about coming here but everyone that I met in Thailand raved about it and said you can't come to southeast asia without seeing it. For those of you who don't know what it is heres a link (http://www.angkorwat.org/), I didn't check it out so don't blame me if its crap. Just check out google for yourself! Anyways I really want to write about my day but I'll try to do a quick recap of the last few days, which will be really hard. I've spent 31 hrs in the last 5 days on trains so I've seen so much of the country and covered a lot of ground. So I left of in Khorat after my nasty meal, which still makes me sick to my stomach everytime I think about it. So the train ride to Ubon Ratchathani was a couple hours and I had the pleasure of sitting next to a monk who enjoyed plucking his nose hairs with his fingers and then examining his catches. I ended up in second class but they served us breakfast, this was the first time I've had this. They served us a big thing of rice with green curry chicken and some nasty fish patty thing. It was around 8 or 9 in the morning and spicy green curry isn't something I really enjoy first thing in the mornign but at least it was good curry. I arrived at Ubon around 1 and wondered around in the blazing hot sun to find the guest house. When I finally found it there was no one there and these little children from the restaurant next door kept running up and yelling "farang, farang" and running away. They were so cute and I was surprised that they weren't used to seeing foriegners there, I know its really not a common place for tourists to visit, infact when I mention thats where I'm coming from no one knows where it is. Anways eventually the lady comes and shows me a single room, which was just a bed and 4 walls and a shared bathroom, which put the last one to shame. It was so nasty and later on I found out it was full of mosquitos so I couldn't even shower in there. The sink was outside in the common room and also covered with mosqutios, something I wish I noticed before taking the room. After I got the room I decided to head out to Ubon b/c I was actually staying in a smaller city called Warin Chamrap so I had to take a pick up taxi into the town. I got out at what seemed to be a huge market / fair. It turned out it was the end of the new years celebrations plus students day so it was packed with kids and lots of smiling faces. I walked around for a few hours and was so exhausted from the heat and walking that I couldn't think straight. I went to an internet place but didn't have the energy to type up a blog so I just took a pick up taxi back to my room. When the taxi pulled up I saw the inside was full but there were also about 5 guys hanging off the back. Its hard to describe what they look like but imagine a pick up with seats and then an extra foot or two attached to the back with handles. I couldn't beleive how many people were on this thing but after I got on we stopped to pick up at least 5 more people. By the time we got back to Warin there was around 35 people and at least 12 where on this little attachment on the back. I stopped by the soccer stadium on my way back and there was a tourniment and some folk music and dancing on this big stage. Not my style of music but really cool to see. Anyways I went to bed pretty early but the bed was harder then anything I've ever felt and I felt like I was being molested by mostquitos all night so I didn't get a good sleep at all. At 7 I got up to head out to Wat Pah Nanachat, its a forest monistary with mostly farang (foreign) monks. I walked out to the market to catch a bus heading for Si-Saket and it took me a while to find out where I was going. I just asked one lady and see took me to this other guy who led me across the street. Everyone there was so nice and friendly and went out of their way to make sure I got to where I wanted to go. I got on this "bus", it was a converted delevery van and about 20 mins later it just stopped at the side of the highway and they told me to get out and pointed down this random street. There were no signs or anything so I got out and paid and thanked the driver before heading down. At the end of the street I came to a paved path leading into the forest, there was a sign but not in English so I went in anyways and as soon as I walked in the temperature dropped a few degrees. It was so beautiful in there and quite and peaceful, I can see why they'd want to practice meditation there. After a minute walk I saw some thai people and thought I was just in a park but then I found the Sala (main hall) and saw about 20 western monks coming out. They lined up and there was a huge (maybe 20 feet long) table with tonnes of thai dishes all over it and they went along filling their bowls with food. They went back into the Sala and I went and sat at the back. It was sunday so there were lots of locals from Bung Wai village and the Ajhan (head monk) gave a dhissana (like a serman) but it was all in thai so I have no idea what he said. I sat in the back in polite thai seating position, which killed my knees and I would regret later in the day. After they finished all their buddhist stuff the local people left the monks to eat and they lined up to eat what was left of the huge feast. I didn't feel right eating it so I went and walked around the place and then an old lady came up to me with a plate and shoved it in my hands with a smile and gestured for me to eat. I went over to the line and tried to go to the back but they wouldn't let me, one lady took my small plate and got me a bigger bowl and spoon and made me go to the front of the line. There were so many amazing things and I have no idea what half of them where. I filled up my bowl and went back to the kitchen area where they were all eating and got out a mat and sat by myself. Another lady brought me a glass of milk and then this nice boy, Bee came to sit with me b/c I was by myself. He was a local from the Bung Wai village and he goes into Warin Chamrap to teach younger kids english every Sunday and he invited me to come with. I obviously accepted the offer and when he went home to change I went and spoke to one of the monks. It was really nice talking to a monk in english b/c I could really have a good converstaion with him, its always difficult with the thai monks b/c their english isn't the best. After that Bee and I went to teach his class but three of the kids were sick so I just checked one guys homework. Then we decided to go into Ubon to see the festival that I went to the day before but it was too hot to walk around so we went into the Ubon museum, which was really small but cooler then being outside! After that we wondered around looking for an internet place and he took me to meet his Aunt in the market. It was one of the most hardcore markets I've been to, there was food everywhere and hardly anyroom to walk. After that I went to go wait for my train and he bought me two pomelos for good luck. I could only get a 3rd class ticket on the overnight train, which was a very umm interesting experence. Not to go into too much detail but there were 10 people crammed into where I would think 6 would sit comfortably. I didn't really get too much sleep if any at all and about 6 hours in my butt was killing. At around 10 hours my whole body wasn't too happy with my and when I got off at 5:30 am this morning at the airport I couldn't have been happier. I went into the airport and straight to the food court for a whopper meal, *drool*, the breakfast of champions. Then I went and picked up my ticket and killed a few hours. At one point I was sitting watching the news, and a whole troop of chinese muslims pulled up with about 30 carts beside me. They took up all the seats in the section I was sitting in. I was also working on updating my journal and the two guys sitting beside me were leaning over trying to read what I was writing. Then right behind me another guy leaned over my shoulder to see, it was really odd. I looked up at them a few times and they just smiled and kept trying to read it. So I started writing about them even though I doubt they could read my writing. Then after they stopped a differnt one from their group came right up in my face and bent over and tried to read it upside down, I just started laughing at that point. So after 6 hours of sitting around at the airport I finally got on to my plane to Siem Reap and slept halfway here. When we landed I met two other guys who were back packing and we shared a taxi to the guest house. After relaxing and finalyl showering and shaving we set out at 4:30 to go for a hot air balloon ride to see the ruins at sunset. We got there aorund 5 and they made us go up then b/c the sunset flight was already booked up but it was still very nice. It wasn't a real hotair balloon like I expected it was teathered to the ground so we just went up and then got wetched back down but it was still really cool and a great way to see the ruins for the first time. After that we stopped for a drink and watched the sunset and chatted with the tuk tuk driver about the history of Cambodia. There is so much and I'm out of time now so I'll write about it tomorrow. There are tonnes of internet places here and its pretty cheap.

posted by Brandon Share @ 8:19 PM