..21.. conservation

people in this part of the world are good at conserving.

but not because they care about the environment - want to reduce acid rain or prevent global warming.

they're good at conserving because they can't afford not to.

no unused computer monitor is left on, no extra square of toilet paper squandered. the method of conservation that seems most logical, and yet most foreign, is that of keeping the same hours as the sun. amy and i are approximating this. and it's nice.

..20.. ho chi minh city

arrived in ho chi minh city (saigon) yesterday, and found a home to stay at, which rents out the 2 upstairs bedrooms. it's crazy to walk into a tiny alley, past families having dinner in their homes, into a vietnamese home (where the kids are watching simpsons!?!), and go up to my room. this is a good place.

explored the city today. seas of motorcycles flow in unlikely directions, easily navigating around the occasional bus, random-walk pedestrians, or mid-road food stands. with all the transit chaos, one might expect to see accidents constantly, but that's not the case: everyone is fully aware of their surroundings - people are actually paying attention instead of blindly following rules! because almost all people in transit are aboard motos rather than cars, there's a certain intimacy with the strangers of the city in a similar, but faster-paced, manner to a crowded subway. we took a 30-minute ride out to Dam Sen amusement park, which was filled wth families and dates. our driver was a fun lady about our age, and we sat 3 on the moto. we contrasted the park with a visit to the War Remnants Museum (vietnam war). it was hard to look at all the combat and aftermath pictures and to realize how far off-base we had gotten. there were photos of terrified, huddling families, with a caption from the photographer reading "I asked the GIs to wait, took a picture of these people, and heard them shot as I walked away" I'm reading 'Understanding Vietnam' (Neil Jamieson) to get a better idea of how things got this bad.

..19.. pnom phen

the capitol city of cambodia is bustling with motorcycles and funny bikes with cushy passenger seats in front. food and foul smells are everywhere, and it's possible to get a great bowl of hearty soup for about 12.5 cents! the dessert stands consist of different kinds of rice and beans and sweet potatoes and gelatin things. you point to the bowls which contain your desired ingredients. then they mix it with ice and sweet milk, and it's pretty much the best thing ever. between the two of us today, amy and i consumed 6 bowls...hmmmm, guess we should shoot for more entrees :)

..18.. battambang

today we woke up at 5:30 to catch the boat from siem reap to battambang, the second biggest city in cambodia. the boat took us through expansive monsoon-season wetlands, first with stilted houses, then, as the water got deeper with entire floating villages. children were everywhere, unclothed and waving furiously at us. there were no touristy shops or restaurants at all, and our boat was filled with mostly cambodians - such a nice change from the Disneyland at Ankor Wat! floating huts - again, the best kid's fort ever, though questionable shelter from monsoons - housed smiling families, lounging in hammocks or fishing out their windows. we navigated this forest canopy (the tree were tens of feet underwater, just peeking out since it's the wet season) dodging treetops and lillypads alike. most of the people we have seen have been children -half of the population is under the age of 15 because of the recent civil war and brutality of the Khmer Rouge.

battambang has no tourist attractions, so few tourists visit, which keeps prices low and salespeople calm. there's a fantastic food market kitty-corner from our hotel, and i think we've given all their desserts a try :) food is such an important highlight of travel for me -i don't understand how tourists could be tempted by McDonald's or Pizza Hut. tomorrow morning, tai chi on the riverbank, breakfast in the market, and a bus ride to Pnom Phen, cambodia's capitol.

..17.. angkor wat

the most arduous journey of my life so far began yesterday morning at 5am. we boarded a bus in bankok to head to siem reap, near the famous ankor wat in cambodia. one rest stop had a starfruit tree and amy and i climbed it and grabbed some fruit - yum! arriving at the cambodian border around noon, we stood in a very long line while hungry children (whose families lived on blankets on the bank of a river of trash near the border) begged for food and money. we then proceeded to get ripped off for a cambodian visa, and then ripped off at the bank when we exchanged money - it's a crazy experience to be in a place where the government officials are so openly corrupt. we then boarded a bus with approximately wooden seats and started on the journey to ankor wat. we had been warned that roads were bad, but there simply aren't words for the joke of a road we journeyed on for nearly 10 hours. there's no way we averaged more than 3 miles per hour, and even as the bus slowly picked its way along the washed-out roads, it bucked us all from our seats continuously. the shock absorber that was my spine sitting on a hard seat has seen better days :) many buses were stuck in the mud or broken down - we were lucky to get through unscathed. the land along the way was beautiful - seas of perfectly flat, refreshing green rice paddies reached in every direction, contrasted by the red mud road. there were occasional stilted straw huts along the road, which looked like a kid's dream tree-house - very basic. it was quite a contrast upon entering the siem reap area, where the rice paddies and straw huts immediately turned to luxurious hotels and manicured gardens - was there another border crossing i missed?

ankor wat itself is incredible - like a cultural yosemite, you can bike around the main road and see some great sights. by parking the bike and venturing into some of these 11th century temples, you can explore the filmsites of Two Brothers and Tomb Raider :)