The juxtaposition of amazing Asian culture and an inordinate amount of sweatiness makes this my "pictures says 1000 words" shot of the summer.
So since I last posted I've finally made some trips out to the Cambodian countryside. The most recent was a trip to Kampang Chhnang to visit the factory that my NGO started to build our ceramic water purifiers. It was a pretty incredible experience, and I blogged about it here: www.idssummer08.blogspot.com. This blog is being shared by all of GWU development classmates, in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. What I was writing about felt more at home under the rubric of development issues, but I'd encourage all of you to check the blog out, both for my stories and the stories of all my friends that are out in some very interesting places.
So last weekend Pete and I took an overnight trip to Kep, in the Kampot Province. It's a beachtown in southern Cambodia; Sihanoukeville is the most well-known beach town, but we'd heard it was dirty and loud (even though the beaches are nice) so we opted for the quiet/sleepy beach town instead. For those of you familiar with, or from, the South, you might say we chose the Outer Banks over Myrtle Beach.
So we took a bus early Saturday morning, me with either a stomach bug or adverse reaction to my malaria medication, and Pete sleep deprived and hungover. I'm glad we forged on though. The ride out was amazing; it was my first glimpse at life in rural Cambodia. Lots of farms, small houses, and malnourished cows everywhere. We got to Kep in about 4.5 hours (compared to the advertised 2-3), got settled into the bungalow we were staying at, and made our way out to a pier where we chartered a boat to take us out to Rabbit Island. This is a small island off the coast of Kep inhabited by a couple small restaurants, a slew of hammocks/wooden mats, lots of livestock, and a bunch of Westerners laying out. It was quiet and gorgeous. We stayed there a few hours then headed back to our hotel, where we sat in the restaurant, drank beers, and watched the most awesome sunset I've ever seen.
The next day we headed down to the waterfront to hang out and wait for our bus. I had heard that Cambodians are notorious picnic-lovers, and this proved to be very true. All along the sidewalks on the road above the water were these shelters that had wooden mats and hammocks that families would rent out. They'd drive into Kep from out of town and have these enormous picnics; it was an extremely social event. People were playing in the shallow water, or just sitting up by the road eating crab. It was great to see an activity so endemic to Cambodian culture, but removed from Phnom Penh. After an even longer bus ride in an almost air-conditionless bus, we were back home.
I'm probably getting backed up with stuff to talk about. My friend Alicia came into town this weekend, which involved an inordinate amount of shopping and eating delicious food (Alicia, your new nickname is Bag Lady). We just got back from a trip to Wat Phnom, an awesome Wat on a hill in northern Phnom Penh where we got to see monkeys and an elephant, as well as of course touring the Wat. And I'm headed to Laos on Wednesday, so there should be some stories coming from that as well.
So last weekend Pete and I took an overnight trip to Kep, in the Kampot Province. It's a beachtown in southern Cambodia; Sihanoukeville is the most well-known beach town, but we'd heard it was dirty and loud (even though the beaches are nice) so we opted for the quiet/sleepy beach town instead. For those of you familiar with, or from, the South, you might say we chose the Outer Banks over Myrtle Beach.
So we took a bus early Saturday morning, me with either a stomach bug or adverse reaction to my malaria medication, and Pete sleep deprived and hungover. I'm glad we forged on though. The ride out was amazing; it was my first glimpse at life in rural Cambodia. Lots of farms, small houses, and malnourished cows everywhere. We got to Kep in about 4.5 hours (compared to the advertised 2-3), got settled into the bungalow we were staying at, and made our way out to a pier where we chartered a boat to take us out to Rabbit Island. This is a small island off the coast of Kep inhabited by a couple small restaurants, a slew of hammocks/wooden mats, lots of livestock, and a bunch of Westerners laying out. It was quiet and gorgeous. We stayed there a few hours then headed back to our hotel, where we sat in the restaurant, drank beers, and watched the most awesome sunset I've ever seen.
The next day we headed down to the waterfront to hang out and wait for our bus. I had heard that Cambodians are notorious picnic-lovers, and this proved to be very true. All along the sidewalks on the road above the water were these shelters that had wooden mats and hammocks that families would rent out. They'd drive into Kep from out of town and have these enormous picnics; it was an extremely social event. People were playing in the shallow water, or just sitting up by the road eating crab. It was great to see an activity so endemic to Cambodian culture, but removed from Phnom Penh. After an even longer bus ride in an almost air-conditionless bus, we were back home.
I'm probably getting backed up with stuff to talk about. My friend Alicia came into town this weekend, which involved an inordinate amount of shopping and eating delicious food (Alicia, your new nickname is Bag Lady). We just got back from a trip to Wat Phnom, an awesome Wat on a hill in northern Phnom Penh where we got to see monkeys and an elephant, as well as of course touring the Wat. And I'm headed to Laos on Wednesday, so there should be some stories coming from that as well.
3 comments:
picnicking = the international language of love
if i've said it once i'll say it again: jarrett, you look like my JV lacrosse coach.
Still laughing looking at your photo....if only everyone else could see that the puddle of sweat was up to your kneecaps!
Post a Comment