Okay, so I suppose a blog isn't the best way to assure people that I'm alive. But since I've received no alarmed emails from anyone, I'm guessing you've all just intuitively chalked up my non-blogging to extreme laziness. Awww it warms my heart that you all know me so well. And as we also all know, the easiest way to make up for non-blogging is to bombard a post with photos!

We last left off at...my flight. This is going to be a long post. Let's just take this one step at a time then, yes? YES!

 

First, a quick tour of my room. The "quick" part is not by choice, but because my room can pretty much be covered by, like, two photos.

The smallest single room my villa offers comes with a king-sized bed. I physically counted and I could fit 4 of me on this bed. I literally just sleep at the end of it. I wish I could chop off the rest of the bed and turn it into a sofa or something.

Here's my bathroom, for those of you who are interested in that kind of thing. One time, I was squatting on the ledge of the tub and stood up too suddenly, and the shower rod came crashing down on me. I know the interesting part of this tidbit is why was I squatting on the ledge. I don't really remember. I think I was trying to dry my feet in some new way. This is too much information. Sorry.

There's a random ladder in the bathroom. I don't know what this is for, so I converted it into a towel rack. Maybe that's what it was meant to be all along. Because if it was meant to be an actual ladder, what is the point. If someone climbed in from my bathroom window, why would they need to also climb a ladder instead of just walking through the non-existent bathroom door? I suppose peering over the top of the wall there would exponentially increase the creepy factor.

Before I left the States, my travel assessment nurse gave me all kinds of warnings about the tap water here ("Do not drink the tap water! Keep your mouth closed while you shower! Don't even look directly at it!"), so I brush my teeth with the complimentary bottled water provided. Super Hi-Tech water. My teeth are sooooo gonna be cooler than your teeth.

This is the before picture of my desk until I got tired of the TV taking up precious space. As far as I can tell, it doesn't work. And as far as I can tell, I don't speak Khmer even if it did work.

So after about a week, I turned it into this:

The hotel staff placed it back on the desk during one of the clean-ups, but I put it back on the floor and I think they just relented. One time when I ordered food to my room, the guy asked if I needed help putting it back on the desk. I said no.

My room is on the second floor and this is the balcony right outside. Mmm, plants in bulbous pots.

View from the balcony:

I get a complimentary breakfast every morning. This is it. This is only it. Luckily, I have a deep love for eggs and bread, because it is the same breakfast every day. The gray slices are dragonfruit. Mmm, dragonfruit.

So it turns out that the IOM office is literally 50 seconds away from where I live. I've done the math, and that is approximately 90 times quicker than how long my commute was to Columbia. This is also great because:

CRAZY 

MANIAC 

TRAFFIC 

OH

MY

GOD 

WHAT 

IS 

GOING 

ON 

I 

WANT 

MY 

MAMA!!!

Every time I successfully cross a street here, I send a little prayer to Zeus. Traffic lanes are taken as a mere suggestion. Also, there are often no sidewalks, so your neck gets quite the workout from looking back, then front, then back, repeat ad nauseum, for all those motorbikes and cars coming your way as you're walking. You thought Manhattan was crazy. Manhattan has sidewalks.

The most popular form of transportation here seems to be the motorbike. I believe the legal age to drive one is 18, but there seems to be no legal age to be a passenger, because I've seen babies riding on them. I saw one particularly bad-ass baby STANDING on the front portion of it and holding onto the handlebars. That's when I realized that babies in Cambodia are braver than I am.

There are motorbike drivers that offer you rides, but if I do venture out, I usually opt for a tuk-tuk. I don't have a photo of a tuk-tuk, mainly because if you even make eye contact with a tuk-tuk driver, they will very, very enthusiastically and persistently ask if you would like a ride. So whipping out my camera and stopping in front of one to snap a picture would probably be unwise. But here is a quick Google image of one:

Pictured: Tuk-tuk, creepy passenger dude in sinfully ugly shirt not included.

The tuk-tuks travel on the same roads, at almost the same speeds, as the cars and motorbikes, and riding on one during especially hectic roads can feel like one of those amusement park rides where you're sure you're going to fall off, but you don't. Or you haven't yet. Heh heh heh.

OH! I made a video of a tuk-tuk ride. Man, this post is kicking the last post's ASS!!!

But luckily, like I said, I don't have to experience that if I'm just going to the office, since I could probably hop from my balcony onto my office's balcony: 

Our humble little office in the IOM building:

Paparazzi shot of fellow intern Elenor!

A colleague in the office, Ross, was appalled that I had not visited the famed FCC club, located on the Sisowath Quay riverfront with a FANTASTICCCC view:

The Tonlé Sap River, the only river in the world that flows both upstream and downstream! I believe that now, during the wet season, it flows north, but come November or so, it changes direction and flows into the Mekong. Pretty amazing.

Where the two rivers meet. Prettyyyy.

Shall I keep going? Is everyone still awake? We're on a roll, let's keep carrying on, eh?

Last weekend, I had fun times doing some touristy stuff.

The Royal Palace is very, very crowded on Saturdays.

The Royal Palace is big.

Oh God, I just realized that when I have to pose awkwardly by myself, I turn into my dad:

King Norodom Sihamoni happened to be home when I visited. In the following photo, the raised blue flag on the right indicates that he was chilling in his bedroom.

I would recommend going to the National Museum only with a good English-speaking guide. The museum's guide that I had was a tiny Cambodian lady who was very pleasant but unfortunately I could only understand about 40% of what she was saying. And the place cards by the exhibits are in Khmer so I couldn't even sneak peeks to get a better understanding of what I was looking at. The sculptures are pretty amazing though, given that most of them originated from ages ago (I think I could make out that one was from 2nd century B.C.E.) and have been put together again so completely.

Wat Phnom temple -- since I will not make it to Siem Reap on this trip to see the Angkor Wat temple, this is probably the only temple I'd have been able to visit. I'm an architectural neophyte, but this temple, like the other buildings I saw, is lovelyyyy.

I have to be honest though, the best part of the day was when I got to take a quick trip to the supermarket. My driver, like 90% of the people I've come across here, was extremely nice and took me to this lovely and modern market. 

Groceries!!! I can make sandwiches again!!! And I did. Oh, I did. I even found Laughing Cow cheese.

I'm kind of exhausted and I bet you are too, so I'll end this with a lovely meal I had the other day. There's a youth-oriented program called Friends International that works to help street youth by enrolling them in vocational training and then employing them at their restaurants for three years until they "graduate." They have two establishments, Friends the Restaurant and Romdeng, which is where I went.

The wait staff all wear t-shirts that either say "Teacher" or "Student" and the students take your order and serve you while a teacher stands behind them. I think our young waiter was particularly new because he seemed pretty nervous and unsure but it was lovely and he was endearingly great.

Unlike the tips-crazy mindset of America, where a cranky bartender who serves you a watered-down $12 cocktail expects a hefty tip, Cambodians generally don't expect tipping at all and they certainly don't ask for it. This really was a lovely meal though, and I happily stuffed their tip box.

Okay I think that's enough visual imagery to prove that I'm alive and well. Final note, it's easy to not read about home and just sort of ignore all the political knee-jerk stories associated with September 11th, but man despite all the problems that Cambodia is still going through, I can't help thinking that some areas of life are just so much more simple and earnest here. There aren't people constantly stirring up emotions and reactions for the hell of it because people are actually focused on, oh I don't know, food and work and school and family and friends. I'm sure that's a pretty general, ill-informed, blanket statement, but it's just the vague feeling that I get from my short, short time here. And that's my soapbox. Hopping off now.

MORE LATER, BUDS!!!!!