Life Is Scary...Let's Go Shopping!

Isn't this just the most awesome picture? I found it .here. It looks like TG and me this week as we gallivant from one thing to the next. I'm really not a social butterfly and we have a small circle of friends versus a herd of chums who spend every waking moment of leisure with one another. Which I think of as one of the many "Lesbian Behavioral Traits" and one I lump in the category of cats and sensible shoes: not for me. I don't like spending that much time with anyone except maybe myself and then she gets a little whiny and self serving and preachy and obsessive a lot of the time and you have to pointedly glare at her and say something like: "STFU, K? You're not only annoying but you are super boring, too!"

So between the necessity of a job, our surprising social events, the teenager and young adult rodeo that seems to be my household; I'm running headlong into a big project that I've invested actual real money into so I can't turn back or quit because I'm scared. And whenever I invest actual money into a dream the first thing I want to do is go shopping. Just like those precious slogan tee shirts say: "Life is scary, let's go shopping."

So I want to grab TG and go shopping like these jaunty girls swinging their hat boxes. TG isn't exactly a clothes horse (not room for two in a relationship) but she likes to go shopping and she has beautiful taste. Her bubbling enthusiasm and sense of fun is infectious, too. It's especially fun to watch her in places that play dance music because she is prone to stop what she is doing and dance. In the aisles of any given store. And when she dances, she doesn't dance like she normally does, it's a caricature of how white people dance. I have witnessed the stopping in tracks and dancing in two foreign countries, and three separate states. The Khmer stall keepers in Psar Chaa didn't think we were funny as danced to Lady Gaga in the middle of their market.

See the disapproving stare?

But usually people just give us a wane smile as they move on with their lives…quickly away from the obviously deranged dancing middle-aged women. She did induce one of the Sephora goddesses to dance with her a week or so ago. This woman was a gorgeous sixy-something and could bust a move. Sometimes, I pretend to be all eye-rolly but really I'm charmed. The funniest thing she does when she shops is pointedly keeping her hands in her pockets. The woman stops at the door of the shop and you can hear the dialogue: “Now Girl, keep your hands in your pockets so you don‘t touch anything.” I asked her about the whole pockets thing and she told me: "I have to or I'll just touch everything and I don't want to break stuff." TG has the most remarkable self-insight into her behavior. That we all had such insight…therapists would be forming bread lines because I watched her stores when she forgot her rule and she really does have to touch everything while she whispers to herself: "oOooohhhh that's nice...I like that...ohhhh I like that..." It isn't particularly dangerous if we are looking at sweaters or blouses or lawn mowers but the other day she made me really nervous in Crate and Barrel. I had to ask her to put her hands in her pockets but she didn't because she was too busy swinging the little brass watering can back and forth . I gave her a "mom stare"and then belly laughed at her as she was about to swing the damn thing into a giant wine glass with a microscopically thin stem standing in the middle row of the precarious Pyramid of Big Glasses That Would Shatter Into A Million Pieces If Dropped. In fact, I think Crate And Barrel should be renamed that: "Pretty Things That Break Easily". I feel much safer with her when we are in the Cephalon section…but it just occurred to me if we actually bought one those behemoth pans I would have to carry it so she wouldn’t be tempted to take out a display of glassware and china with one big swing of a frying pan as she sang to herself and grooved to “Rock That Body“ or Ke$ha.

Yeah, I think we need to work in a trip to the mall this week because she’s just so damn fun. And frankly, I need to dance.

The Wheels On The Bus Go Round and Round

Thursday started for us at dawn when we said good bye to our hosts in Siem Reap and started the The Big Bus Aventure. We clamored on board and noted our fellow travelers weren't old women with chickens for market but bleary-eyed college students. I guess the good news was we weren’t on “the chicken bus” and the bad news is I was spending the day with teenagers. Fortunately, it was early so they were quiet and my guess was they hadn’t been to bed yet or had scant sleep the night before. We wound our way through early morning traffic; I was surprised there was so much traffic before seven in the morning. The bus station was a large parking lot, littered with people waiting for busses to run and vendors selling baguettes and drinks. The bread here is the best bread I’ve ever had. Probably because Siem Reap’s weather reminds me of living in a proofer: Hot and damp but not hot enough to actually bake. We found our bus, loaded our extremely heavy backpacks and The Girl went in search of baguettes and cheese for our journey. I wasn’t really sure what to expect: had the rainy season started to the south and the road under a few inches of water? What would we see? Would the villages be horrible or picturesque? Would I die of boredom on a ten hour bus trip? Most importantly, the bus was leaving late…would we make our connection in Phenon Phen?

The ditches were full in places but the road was dry
Lots of cows.
Both.
Absolutely not
Yes and we even waited for a bus later than our own.

We had covered a few miles on National Highway 6 a few days before when we were making our way through the temples. I knew what to expect: small houses on stilts, cows and people working at various tasks along the road. Our bus was comfortable, cool enough without being over air conditioned. The scenary flashed outside my window like a dream at times and a green blur at others. The Khmer pop music playing in the background was the perfect accompaniment for the countryside to unfold and tell a story of a day in Cambodia. A few of the songs were very catchy and at times I felt like we should sway, sing along and perhaps wave lighters in the air as a tribute to the moving lyrics and power ballad cords. Stirring stuff. Too bad I hadn’t a clue what was being sung.

As the landscape rolled past me, I snapped picture after picture trying to capture exactly what it was I was seeing. Sometimes I captured the scene but most of the time I was so close but so far away. The voyeur in me loved watching the lives pass as we made our way through the country: children on their way to school, helping in the fields, men tinkering or planting, Women working in the small garden plots, babies tied to their sides. I watched groups of women sitting in circles, performing small detail oriented tasks, the younger women always turned towards the oldest who sat higher than the rest. Sometimes they looked deep in thought other times they had the easier continence of telling stories or gossiping with one another. The small shops in each village held a clutch of men who were working side by side fixing things or loading trucks. Each village had a small primary school (at the least) and by the time we were out of Siem Reap, morning school had started and the bicycles were neatly parked by the classroom doors. The schools were low slung one story buildings, built around a common area and almost always next door to the village temple which were always the most ornate and largest buildings in the village. The school windows were unfettered by glass with only simple shutters to protect the classrooms from wind and water. I imagined the afternoons in the classrooms were stifling. By ten, you could see kids playing in the common area: boys on one side of the playground and girls on the other. I’m not sure if this was the rule or just the universal way children are until they are teenagers. The games they appeared to play were just like the games our own children play. Some of the schools were in more prosperous villages than others and had real playgrounds with the old fashioned equipment my generation grew up with before it was considered too dangerous to have a merry-go-round and climbing bars.

Many of the villages seemed to specialize in one craft or task. One village had wood and wooden building materials; everything from firewood to furniture. Another specialized in cement and stone masonry. Masons were working on decorative images of Buddha and some of the characters featured in the bas reliefs we had just seen in Angkor: Garuda and Apsara dancers. A few days before we went though a village which specialized in sticky rice cooked in hollowed bamboo shoots. Stand after stand of this special rice was featured on the side of the road. It was amazing the women recouped their outlay on rice and bamboo. But then they probably gathered their own bamboo and grew their own rice. Every available spot of land appeared to have rice growing on it and as we moved further south it seemed like the rains were beginning and the rice fields had become paddies. Rice as it is growing is a surreal shade of green, too.

As the day progressed the microcosmic worlds I witnessed progressed, too. At lunch time, people were gathered sharing a meal; often it was simply a man and a women. One couple were seated close together, heads almost touching, laughing about something together; the intimacy evoked in those few seconds is remarkable to me. It also brought home the idea there is joy to be had even if you are a sustenance farmer in the middle of a developing country. Probably more joy than most of us in the cities know. These homes were without evidence of electricity and I know they don’t have running water. Their lives are uncluttered by the things I take for granted: just now I’m typing on a computer, television playing in the background and Air Con humming to keep the cloying night heat and bugs outside. This is not to say I’m romanticizing living conditions I witnessed. Some of the farms were unspeakably littered with trash and often surrounded by a moat of nasty looking water. By and large the filthiest places were adjacent to larger towns and perhaps the most desperate living conditions I witnessed were outside Phenom Phen. It was in these places the people looked dirty, unhealthy and poorly fed. It puzzles me why this would be the case: the larger towns had health clinics, large schools and a temple or monastery at the center of the activity. Why did those people appear hungry? And when I say dirty, I mean truly unkempt. On the most rudimentary farms, the children had cleanish hair and the women appeared recently bathed and their simple sarong skirts and tee shirts were well cared for. I’m actually very troubled by what I witnessed in PP’s outskirts. The city itself wasn't much better and it was a busy, mad and desultory place.






As we pulled into the bus station the Tuk-Tuk drivers and tax drivers rushed the side of the bus, screaming at us to purchase rides from them, pounding on the sides. It reminded me of pictures I've seen of riots in the Middle East as the mob descends on American military convoys or press convoys. These guys were like piranhas and made the kids at the temples look like Doctor fish. The city was a disorienting experience and I felt so very green and gullible. Like I had just come in from the provinces. I can't even wrap my head around what this city must feel like to someone who has spent their life on one of the farms in the country. It must seem like Hell. I haven’t been overwhelmed by a city since 1984 when I walked up the stairs from Penn Station and into Midtown Manhattan. I was 23 and it was one of the most intimidating moments of my life: I was completely alone in an alien place. This is how I felt in PP. I’m so glad we weren’t staying there or looking for a place to stay because I would have simply withered into a puddle of babbling frightened goo on the side of the street. Changing busses was nerve-wracking on it’s own.


The rest stops were like episodes of Bizarre Food. The Cambodian delicacies offered to us included crickets, worms, freshwater snails and crab (from the rice paddies), deep fried bat on a stick (no, really). I expected to see Andrew Kimmern around the corner snacking on the bat and crabs. The most exotic thing I tried Thursday was sticky rice, banana and a little coconut milk congealed and baked in a banana leaf. It was a little bland but filling and I would eat it again if I could douse it with Khmer ketchup (“Mild Hot Sauce). Just walking through these mini markets was a day’s worth of memories and images.

After leaving the mad crush of Phenom Phen we crept our way up into the mountains. I couldn’t take pictures because the bus we were on was like a school bus and the windows were small and had large bars across them. I’m hoping for a different bus on the way back to Siem Reap next week because the countryside was breathtaking, a cross between Switzerland and Maui. The farms were well tended and clean, the cows were fat and healthy looking. I’m not an outdoorsy person by any stretch of the imagination but this place made me want to strike out on my own, walking stick in hand and climbing the mountains just to witness the views from the top. I wanted to rest in the lush fields and climb the tall trees. Never mind the wild boar, snakes, insects and land mines. There was large monastery in these mountains and just imagining the quiet in such a sacred place gave me a great sense of peace and was a drought for the degradation and frenzy of the capital city.

As we moved closer to our destination, I could feel the anticipation mount in the Khmer people on the bus. They knew we were getting closer and started talking more to one another, excited to be either returning home from the capital or beginning a sea side holiday. Our first glimpses of the Gulf of Thailand were unforgettable: the mountains rising on side and a lovely light blue sea, off in the distance on the other. It was a little gift before we entered Sihanoukville, a miniature version of Phen Phen.

“Snookie” is a beach town and it is geared for “Broads, Booze and Boys”. This place feels ready for action as you enter into the downtown, each side of the main drag flanked with tall spindly guesthouses and open air restaurants. Twenty odd years ago I would have welcomed this scene and been the first off the bus looking for the all night Beach Rave (it’s on Serendipity Beach, in case you ever want to go) and a cold Angkor Beer ready to groove to the pounding music and let my freak flag fly! ‘Snookie is a gritty beach town. Really gritty. Like Atlantic City before the casinos gritty (I’ve seen pictures). Like Progresso Mexico gritty. Ok…maybe not thatgritty. Even after PP and Snookie, Progresso remains the grittiest scariest place I’ve ever spent a night. The third rate carnival that was in town that night just iced the cake which was decorated with disheveled cross dressing boy hustlers who were turning tricks in the “hotel” we were staying. When we told people where we were staying in Snookie if they were at all familiar with the town their unanimous response was: “Why there? It’s really far from everything. Don’t you want to be in the middle of town? Close to the beach bars?” Um…no…because when I look out my window in the morning I want to see this.

Nose To Nose With Buddha And Having Local Fry

Yesterday and today are our "free days" in Siem Reap. We finished our Saturday through Monday three day tour of the temples early Monday afternoon. I think the high point of the Temple Tour was stopping at a Buddhist Temple near Buphuon Temple. The Buddha was one of the largest we had seen and dated from the late 19th Century. That this beautiful statue had survived Pol Pot was miraculous. The elderly women, three nuns and a laywoman, had also managed to survive those terrible years, too. I paid tribute to the Buddha and laid a few dollars where other’s had given offerings. I’m not one of these women who seek out that woo-woo metaphysical Power of Womyn. I think the whole “Goddess Within” movement is, frankly, a bunch of BS and a bastardization of several cultures. But the feminine energy. The Woman Energy I felt at this temple was palpable. After I paid tribute to Buddha: I turned to walk away and one of the nun’s, ancient with Betel stained teeth, grinned widely at me and motioned for me to approach the alter again and she waved The Girl up as well. We both bowed before them and the women gathered around us: bowing, waving incense and chanting joyful sounding sing song verses over us. It was easily one of the most sacred moments I have experienced in many years. When they were finished they tied red yarn bracelets to our right wrists. Our guide told us they offered us prayers of peace, prosperity and joy. I was extremely touched they allowed us, both Western and Christian, to partake in such blessings. I think Tida--our guide--was moved we were interested in doing such a thing. She has a sense of reverence for the stories each temple tells and touches her own spirituality each time she visits. Sharing the temples is something she wants to do and the temples still take Tida’s breath away. I was even more proud of my red yarn bracelet after she told us this.

Tida’s story unfolded over the course of three days and I think she is easily one of the most remarkable women I’ve ever met. Her father had been a physician and lied to the Khmer Rouge: told them he was just an assistant and then refused to go to the “retraining” school (aka The Killing Fields) but would gladly become a farmer. Her elder brother and sister didn’t fare so well. They were professionals and were disappeared when she was very young. We aren’t quite sure how Tida managed but she resisted her mother’s pleas to quit school at 16 and marry like the other girls in her village. Tida managed to make enough money to finish twelve years of school and learn English. She put her self through three years of university and trained to be a licensed guide through UNESCO. She did marry but is divorced with a daughter who lives with her parents, a day’s journey away. Tida has no interest in marrying again: “I can go anywhere and do what I want if I’m not married.” Her next goal is to learn yet another language. I have no doubt she will accomplish this. The Girl and I were amused Tida was a favorite with all the young men working at the Angkor complex. You could hear their hearts speed up when she spoke to them. Our driver Kriss is hopelessly in love with her and watching the two of them was a Rom Com waiting to happen but Tida is not budging so they’ve only met cute and disagree cute and haven’t arrived to the hook up cute place.

It’s a well known fact I like to watch people and there are certainly lots of different people to watch. The children at each temple with their pleas to buy a scarf, cold drink, bracelets, books, flutes, puppets and other what-not are all very sweet and extremely incessant. A few of them try to tug at the old heart strings: “Buy from me so I can go to school. . .” We happened to know school is free when you are eight so this didn’t work with us. I imagine it works with many people. There were so many of them I felt like if I did buy from one of them I would be swarmed and never heard from again, buried under flutes and scarves and puppets and cold bottles of water. So you ran the gauntlet and waved them off with “no thank you’s” and “not today” sorts of replies.




We did have additional guides at the first temple we toured: Beng Mealea, an example of a temple that hasn’t been rebuilt. The young boys greeted us in the center of the temple and led us on a “special” tour, oblivious to our advanced ages and well used knees. But it was worth it, they knew were all the good stuff was: bas relief fragments, tree root sculptures and things our guide hadn’t seen before. All of this was done free of charge: they were just killing time exploring and practicing their English before afternoon school. This was their home, their kingdom and their playground. They could rehearse the history because they had spent so much time hearing the history in several different languages. The oldest boasted he spoke a little German and French as well as English. It was a lovely welcome into the Khmer culture, people who have welcomed us each step of the way.



The other tourists aren’t too dreadful; the usual American Frat Boy hijinks in Pub Street, beautiful young Western women, scantily clad and then upset when they garner leers and catcalls (WTF did they expect?) ; middle-aged folks like us somewhere between cruise ship and intrepid mentality; young families from Australia and certainly NOT America because the tuk-tuks don‘t have care seats and the little precious dears might eat something with dirt on it or have a less than pristine experience. There are a couple of billboards around town reminding people--Western men specifically--if they abuse a child not only will they be arrested in Cambodia but they will be turned over to their home governments. We’ve only seen one blatant example of this sort of “tourist”. He was outside of Bayon and was trying to gain the attention of a young woman: “You really should untie your hair, it’s too beautiful to be hidden.” was his oily, British come on. It made my stomach turn and I will go to my grave kicking myself for not marching up to him and demanding he bugger off or I would alert the officials. I did notice an older woman was hovering close by. But this young woman was obviously uncomfortable. Later, at the temple, while I was being blessed I prayed for forgiveness and protection for the girls Sir Perv was coming in contact with. And yeah, I confess I later whispered a beggy evil prayer that I would see him again and step on his toe or spit on him because I’m not quite to the level of Buddha and Jesus and don’t walk the path of peace when it comes to people exploiting other human beings.



Fortunately we haven’t exploited our gastrointestinal systems with the "local fry". Yet. Buddha knows I’ve tried: iced tea, iced coffee and every flavor of amok available from the dodgiest of market stalls to Air Con luxurious restaurants. But the best food we’ve had was at this restaurant outside the last temple we toured. Of course I don’t remember the name of it and can’t find the picture of the menu but trust me it was an Anthony Bourdain meal: interesting but straightforward “Local Fry” made especially for us by a woman and her two eldest daughters while the younger girls played quietly and tormented their baby brother. Ahhh the international language of siblings. Nice to know in a place so foreign to me some things remain same-same.