Desperate times in Bangkok, Thailand

I arrive in Bangkok with no reservations. This is the first time I've done this. A true backpacker move that I haven't had the guts to make. I've heard the main tourist road is called Kaosan Road, where all the backpackers stay. The first two days are spent pretty much in my prison cell of a room with a stomach ache. Between feeling sick, I explore the area a bit and walk around on the main road checking out the tourist market that lines it. It's kind of nice to be in a tourist area again instead of rural Cambodia where I'm constantly stared at for being white. Don't get me wrong, I still think I like Cambodia more. On the second evening of being in Bangkok I realize that my ATM card has gone missing. It hasn't been stolen because there are no unauthorized transactions on it. I'm down to my last five dollars and getting hungry. Fortunately, my dad has given me an emergency credit card. Unfortunately, nobody takes credit card so I have to go on the quest to find an AmEx office to get cash. The next morning I awake to deal with the problem. I buy a yougurt from 7-11 to get me through the morning. Then I find a cab driver who says he knows where the address is that I have presented to him. We negotiate a rate of ten dollars with two stops. Stops are either at a tailor, jewelery shop, or travel agent. When a cab or tuk-tuk driver drops a customer off to look around, he gets a gas card from that company, so tourists pretty much can't get in a cab or tuk-tuk without being bothered by the driver to go to these places along the way. The good part is that it reduces the fare for the passenger. So I agree to doing two in order to keep the fare at ten dollars.
Chan, the driver, takes me to the location I have provided on a piece of paper. We can't find American Express. He makes a few calls on his cell phone and finds out where it is. I insist on going back to the hotel so I can re-group and work out exactly what to do after calling my dad. When we arrive at my hotel, the cab breaks down. When I call my dad he tells me I'm being ripped off with the cab fare. Oh, hell no, nobody rips me off anymore. I decide I need to go to the AmEx office we have located, so I go back on to the street to find Chan. He introduces me to his cab driver friend who will now take both of us to the AmEx place across Bangkok. I ask him if we can use the meter in the cab instead of negotiating a rate. He says it will be more expensive, and I say I'm willing to take my chances. By the time we reach the AmEx office, which is way further than the original failure location, the meter is at a mere three dollars. My dad was right about being ripped off. I go in and get my money, and return to the cab drivers. From the back seat I point at the red numbers on the meter, and in my most calm tone say, "Chan? What are those red numbers?" "That's the fare." He replies, very matter-of-fact. "So you seriously overcharged me this morning." I accuse. "No, I didn't." He insists. I proceed, again in my calmest tone. I've read it's very un-Asian to lose your cool. "The place we went this morning was nowhere near as far as this, yet it was way more expensive." I persist. He argues that it wasn't but we both know the truth. "How about this Chan, I'll pay you ten dollars, but we have no stops. I think that's fair." Chan becomes somewhat outraged and and says "What happened? Now all of a sudden you got your money things have changed? I helped you a lot this morning making calls to American Express trying to figure out where they were located. I can't believe you're doing this to me!" I approach in a crisp tone, "You are the one who has severely overcharged me, so if you want to talk about who has done what to whom, then you have definitely screwed me over. I am willing to pay a bit more for all you have done for me, but not that much." I ask his friend, the current cab driver, if six dollars would have covered the rate to get to where Chan and I went this morning. He says that it would, so I've trapped Chan with his own friend. We later agree on a smaller fee, but with two stops since he was really counting on them. I do my two stops for Chan, and then they drop me at my hotel with very few hard feelings. For the next few days I see Chan hanging out outside of my hotel among the cab drivers playing checkers. We always say hi, and smile at one another. Oh, Chan, you're as forgiving as a puppy. Or maybe I'm the forgiving one.

Just so you know...

I receive your comments in the comment field. The only problem is that it won't let me comment back. How annoying is that? I can't comment on my own blog. Well you can eat it BlogSpot, because I'm commenting now! I guess I have to set up something else that I just haven't taken the time to do. Keep reading!! If you would like to contact me directly my email is Madissen1251@yahoo.com. I will reach London, where my mom lives, in late September. From there I plan to go to a few countries in Europe, and then make my way home once I'm entirely out of money, and borrowed money. I don't have a return flight to California just yet, but I will eventually.
I still have India, Egypt, and Turkey left before I reach London. My mom will be meeting me in Turkey, and I couldn't be more excited to see her. It's gonna be a dramatic reunion.

The kids/Saying goodbye to the kids

The main reason I've been in Cambodia is to do some volunteer work at the orphanage. I had no idea how much these kids would really change my life. They are very loving, and non-judgmental. When given the opportunity, they will always take me up on an English lesson. I've been told that when asked why they want to learn English, they say that it is the only way to lift themselves out of poverty. We have a couple of villagers come to visit the orphanage and learn English with us some afternoons. Mary is the most common to see floating around the yard. She is a wonderful 17-year-old girl who says she wants to learn every word in the English language. A couple of days before I leave, Mary asks me to teach an impromptu lesson in one of the little classrooms at the orphanage. About ten other children gather while I go over past, present, and future tense, and then begin on items in a restaurant. I ask them to correctly structure various sentences, and help them with word pronunciation. They really seem to be catching on, some more than others of course. Mary (pictured below) asks the most questions and is the most enthusiastic about English. She has learned English over the past couple of years by hanging out at the orphanage and talking to the volunteers. I tell her one of the best ways to learn English is to listen to English music on tapes or CD's. She looks at me with her beautiful cheerful smile and says, "I don't have". "You mean you don't have anything to listen to music on?" I reply. "No, I don't have" she says again in the cheeriest tone. How could she not have something to listen to music on? I thought every teenage girl had something they could listen to their favorite songs on. This breaks my heart as I realize that she could improve her English by leaps and bounds if she could just have a stereo and some English CD's. Okay, new mission, get Mary a CD player before I leave. The next day I take the hike down to the market, and buy her a CD player and the required adapter for a mere fifteen dollars. That evening as I am walking back to my hotel, I see Mary sitting outside of her shop/home talking with her best friend. I'm listening to my iPod and she mentions our conversation the previous day about her not having music. Without a word I take her hand and lead her toward my guesthouse. She says, "Where are we going?" with a huge smile on her face. I say, "If I give you a gift, will you take it?" "You have a gift for me?!" She asks. When we reach my room and open the door the stereo is sitting on the vacant bed in my room. I tell her it is for her and that I will send her some English CD's when I get home since they are nearly impossible to find in Takeo Province. Her smile gets bigger than I've ever seen it and right then I know it was worth the money and the dehydrating walk to the market. She jumps up and down and gives me a hug. She's nearly in tears and so am I since I now realize how much it really means to her. She says "Oh, thank you Maddy! I love you!" We go back to her home/shop and she sets it up. One of the volunteers has arrived with a couple of story CD's he got in the newspaper for free before he came to Cambodia. He lets me give them to Mary. The two stories are Alice and Wonderland and The Wind in the Willows. I tell her these are two very famous stories in the English-speaking world.
On this same day it is Straymach's birthday. She is one of the orphans and will be turning fifteen on Sunday, the day after I leave Cambodia. She has taken a liking to me, and seems very lonely at the orphanage. I ask her what she would like for her birthday and she says all she wants are some shoes that don't rub blisters on her heels. So a couple of us take her to the market and buy her some shoes of her choice. She chooses a pair of flip flops for less than a dollar fifty. She's so happy to just have these foam sandals. Another couple sends money with us to the market to buy her a t-shirt of her choice also. She's loving the birthday thing!! The t-shirt costs three dollars.
A couple of days before leaving the orphanage Josh, Katie, and I decide to take the orphanage tuk-tuk to a school owned by the New Futures Organization, the same organization that owns New Futures Orphanage, where I have been volunteering. It's not the school of the children we are working with at the orphanage, but we've heard it's a classroom of 160 kids, and the teacher is amazing. When we arrive we are stunned. The teacher has them all learn by clapping in unison. Most times they respond to him it is in clapping patterns. He says "Say hello to Maddy!" They clap their laps while saying "1,2,3" clap their hands saying "1,2,3" clap their laps again saying, "1,2,3" and then all in unison, "HELLO MADDY!" He has them do this for each of us and then has them use this same format but say "Hello new teacher!" Katie and I are so overwhelmed that we later discuss how we were both misty-eyed because of the rush of emotion we both felt. It's absolutely amazing. He has them sing songs to us in English, and for us to help teach the lessons. When he calls on an individual student they have to stand up and answer, then he asks them to take their seat again. During their break they all run up to us to give us stacks of drawings they have done. They have questions on them that say things like: Why are you so beautiful? or How many brothers and sisters do you have? We play some hand-clapping games with the girls, and ask them basic questions in English. Many of them just sit and stare at us the entire fifteen minutes. After break the teacher asks us to teach the kids a song. They know most of the basic songs like Old MacDonald and Row Row Your Boat, so we settle on the Barney classic I Love You, You Love Me. At the end we get a huge goodbye and in unison they all say "We love you new teacher!" This day has been absolutely amazing, and I'm so glad I've finally mad the trip out there. As we exit the village, tons of children run out of their home and wave to us shouting "Bye-bye!" With huge smiles stretched across their faces.
I savor every last minute at the orphanage because I don't know if I'll ever be able to come back again. It's so hard to know that these kids will probably live in some kind of poverty the rest of their lives. They are fed small rice meals, and have a strange disease that crops up under their skin causing it to open up. The flies crawl in it and infect it, and often time these septic wounds go untreated if the volunteers don't impose our western standards of health. The kids love to make bracelets out of colorful cord, and put them on the volunteer's wrists. In the end I have about twenty of them smothering both wrists.
The last afternoon the kids treat me to the most dramatic goodbye I've ever witnessed. Mai, the twenty-year-old militant tuk-tuk driver is ready to take me to the bus station. About twenty people crowd around the tuk-tuk, including a few of the volunteers. I've been here the longest of all of them. I take a seat inside the tuk-tuk as people shout various things at me. I swap information with a couple of volunteers, and then Mai starts up the tuk-tuk. I can almost feel myself starting to cry. I'm used to goodbyes, but this will be different. We start to roll away, and the kids walk next to it grabbing at me dramatically, something that often happens when we pull away in the tuk-tuk at the end of the night headed to dinner. But this time I know it's for good. As we make our way out the gates and start the journey down the dirt road the kids run after me as I wave goodbye (pictured). They stop in their tracks shouting and waving. I'm so sad to be leaving. As the kids disappear out of sight, Mai yells over the engine, "Are you happy, Maddy!?" A question commonly asked by the Cambodian people. I say "Yes Mai! Of course I'm happy!" For a second I'm not sure if this is true, but then I think back on all these kids have taught me, all the fun we've had, and the connections I've made, and realize that yes, I'm extremely happy.

Siem Reap and Angkor Wat

Our third weekend away from the orphanage Will, Laura and I decide it's time to see the iconic temples of Angkor Wat, and the small city of Siem Reap. It's two bus journeys totaling seven hours. The entire time they play Khmer kereoke over the loud speaker while the video plays. Not even my iPod can drown this out. The next day is Laura's birthday and the day we have chosen to see the temples of Angkor Wat. It is common to wake up to watch the sunrise over the main temple. We awake at four-thirty and take our tuk-tuk to the huge park where all of the temples lie. We see a ton of other white people up to do the exact same thing. We stand there as the sun slowly rises, but are a little less than impressed with this particular sunrise. It's more like somebody has the sun on a dimmer switch that they are slowly raising. We had pictured oranges and purples. We walk around the main temple which is huge. It's apparently the biggest religious building in the world. It's quite spectacular. We head to the next one which is beautiful. We take disrespectful photos in the temple, putting our hands inside the noses of the giant stone faces and placing our own heads in place of the decapitated heads of the statues. Our favorite one has to be the jungle temple. It has tree roots taking it over in the most majestic way. After our five temples, we are exhausted and ready to head back to the hotel. We take a nap and then go to a pool in the area. On the way back, I decide we need to get Laura a tacky Khmer birthday cake. I hook her up with one and have them write on it in Khmer. That night we go to a butterfly garden restaurant and have a wonderful dinner. At the end I have them bring out the ice cream and cake with candles lit while we sing her Happy Birthday. The cake has a fluffy icing and a strange chocolate/fruit situation going on inside. We're all happy with it because we don't get chocolate in Takeo where the orphanage is. After, we go to Pub Street where all the tourists go to get their drink on. I've decided if I can drink enough to loosen up, I will allow the Doctor Fish to nibble my feet. This is a popular thing to do in Asia for some reason. The doctor fish are supposed to eat the dead skin off of your feet, and you're supposed to be okay with it. My hang-up is that I am not only very ticklish, but I despise fish. So the night continues, and we drink a bunch of different concoctions. We sit around in the warmth and humidity of the night and dance in our seats to Michael Jackson and Queen. We've all grown quite comfortable with each other now, and conversation flows quite fluidly. It's so nice to be comfortable with people, and be way past the "Where have you been?" and "Where are you going?" that is (naturally) so prevalent in the travel world. So now I'm buzzed enough to do the doctor fish thing, but it's two in the morning. Fortunately there's a guy around the corner who understand that drunken tourists might feel the need to have their feet exfoliated at 2am. We sit on the padded edge of the tank and dip our feet in. The fish swim to our feet and begin feeding. GROSS! It takes me awhile to get used to it, and then, after a few minutes in this tank, I decide it's time we graduate to the other tank with the bigger fish. It doesn't hurt, it just tickles, and ever once in a while you'll get a greedy fish who just won't stop feeding off of your arch. On our way home we encounter the world-renowned child beggars of Siem Reap. One of them wraps her arms around Laura and won't let go as she begs for money. Another girl carries her newborn infant sister. It's pretty grim.
The following day we charter our own boat, and go down the river to Floating Village. I know I say I love Cambodia, and the homes out in the country, but this is everything I love about Cambodia except it on water. It's amazing. We pass by boat/homes with people asleep on the wooden floors and in hammocks. Entire families of four or five live on each small boat. We pull over to let a huge boat by, and I snap a photo of a little girl looking out the corner of her eyes at me while her dog barks at us for being too close to their house/boat. It's my favorite picture yet. We pass a school, an orphanage, a flower salesman, and children rowing their own boats. This place is so authentic. We go visit the crocodile farm where we see tons of live crocs waiting to be fed. Somebody dangles a live catfish over them and then drops it while we all watch them scramble toward it. When one crocodile gets it, we hear a crunch as he crushes the fish's head.
That afternoon we go to a pool at a hotel and swim and enjoy the food until a lightening and thunder storm ends our lounging session. The following morning we start the long pothole-filled journey back to Takeo province. That night the kids hold a talent show where they have a huge sound system and stage set up. What a wonderful welcome back!

My Sydney Stud (Update)

You may remember Alex, the guy I met in Sydney. After we said goodbye I hadn't heard from him for about two months. I was a bit worried since I knew he was headed back to Afghanistan, but I just figured he had limited internet access. I recently heard from him in an email and he told me that as he was returning to his base after vacation, his chopper was shot down. He awoke in a different chopper with medics working on him. He suffered a gunshot wound to the arm, and a broken ankle. He told me that unfortunately, neither of the pilots made it out alive. He heads back to base soon to finish sometime around November.
After hearing his story I was shocked, but then realized that he is at war, and this, of course, is what war is about. It just really hit home for me when it happened him. I'm glad he's okay and think we should all be reminded to count our blessings and realize that these men and women are out there serving our country so we can go about our everyday lives. I know he would much rather be sailing his boat along foreign coasts than stuck in Afghanistan, but has chosen to serve our country instead so that we can all do things we take for granted-like go on vacation. Thank you Alex! I hope you make a full recovery and return home safe.

The Second Weekend Away. Phnom Penh.

Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia and the city we all landed in before being taken to the orphanage in Takeo. Most of us go away for the weekend to explore it while doing our volunteer work. This weekend it's me, Ali, Laura, Will, Liza, and Johnny. Six of us. I'm a little apprehensive about having so many since I'm only used to being alone or with one other person. We board the bus and it's a long two hour ride. We bounce over the poorly paved rural roads as if we're on hydraulics, while Khmer pop music plays loudly over the speakers and the music video plays in a loop. At times the road is so bumpy you would swear the transmition is going to fall out. When we make it to Phnom Penh we are bombarded by a dozen tuk-tuk drivers yelling, "Tuk-tuk! Tuk-tuk!" Ali (on the far right in the photo) has been told that if we pay any more than two dollars to get to Mali's Guesthouse that we are being ripped off. She starts in on one driver who agrees to take us for two dollars. When we all pile in the drivers get angry because they apparently meant that we could split up into two tuk-tuks and then pay two dollars per tuk-tuk. He says if we are all gong in one, he is going to raise the price. When I hear this, I get pissed and start to aggressively reason with the guy about how it doesn't matter how many people are in one if it's all going to the same place it shouldn't cost any more. He gives me some bull excuse and we start in on a little yelling match. I tell him if he doesn't take us right this second that we'll all get out and find someone who will take us for two dollars. He continues to argue with me so I make the move to climb out of the tuk-tuk. "Okay! Okay! Two dollars!" He says. We weren't bluffing. Being a tourist can be exhausting since people look at you and decide you need to pay more because you're white. It's affectionately referred to as skin tax.
The following day we do the main tourist attractions in Phnom Penh. We go to the prison (S-21) where the Khmer Rouge held and tortured hundreds of civilians. As we arrive and pile out of the tuk-tuk I am standing face to face with an acid burned beggar. He's well known in front of S-21 because of his horrendous scars and his glazed eye. We are later told that acid attacks, where people surprise their victims and douse their faces with acid on the streets, are somewhat common in Cambodia. We are taken around the prison by a tour guide. The prison was once a school but the Khmer Rouge turned the classrooms into tiny holding cells and torture chambers where people were shackled to the floors and bed frames and starved almost to death. Our tour guide explains that only the final fourteen prisoners were killed on this very site because most were slaughtered at the killing fields. At the end she walks us over to a map of Cambodia and points out where her family members were each killed. Her daughter starved to death and her husband was shot in the killing fields. Photos of the starved deceased stretch across the rooms. A heap of clothing sits at one end of the room as an eerie reminder of many who were lost. It's an extremely grim scene, and one that none of us will forget.
We leave the prison only to see the the acid burned beggar once more. I've gotta hand it to him, the guy's got strategy.
Our tuk-tuk driver takes us to the killing fields next where we go into the small museum of children's clothing and some torture devices as well as a bit more information about the leader of the Khmer Rouge. The killing fields have holes in the grounds that were mass graves. The most bodies found in one grave was about four-hundred. Wooden signs next to a couple of trees reveal that they were used for Khmer Roughe soldiers to hold babies by the feet and smash their heads against the trunk to ensure death. The Magic Tree had speakers hanging from it to play music that masked the groans of the victims. By the end of this day we are sufficiently depressed. We head to lunch at a pizza place and later go out for dessert and drinks near our guesthouse. Will plays pool with a young child name Ravi who beats him and then insists will buy a book from him.
The following morning we pay six dollars to get into a museum that we are less than impressed with. Six dollars is a lot of money in Cambodia. We head to Central Market where we all split off from one another and make our various purchases.
On our last morning we go to a restaurant called Friends. It's a nice little restaurant where they take teenagers off the streets and teach them proper food service. We all love the food as well as the service. It's a bit more expensive than the food we usually eat here in Cambodia, but it's a small price to pay for the benefit of the kids it supports. We rush off to the bus to get back to the orphanage. Everyone is worried that we won't make it, but I assure them that everything always works out and that there is no need to worry. Plus, we all know now that Cambodians run about ten minutes behind on everything and we westerners are operating on normal clocks. We make it, just as I had promised. We take the bumpy ride back home and along the way our tire explodes with a loud bang. It takes about twenty-five minutes and three different stops at multiple rural shacks, for them to fix it. They don't have the proper equipment to fix a tire, so they attempt to fashion a huge piece of iron to loosen the bolts. Finally they replace the blown tire and we move on to Takeo. When we get back it's just as we had left it. Everyone stares at us for being white? CHECK! It's hotter than anywhere in Cambodia? CHECK! People yell "Hello!" constantly? Check! The homeless guy with shredded pants is still crouching on the sidewalk displaying his manhood? CHECK! Yep, this is Takeo.