Leaving Asia

Wow. Eleven months exactly, and suddenly -- well not so suddenly, as it took 30-some hours to get to the US -- I was flip-flopped to the other side of the world. I spent my last day in Thailand with elephants, but I spent my last night at a drag show, an equally suitable farewell to Thailand.

Between wats and massages and elephants and ladyboys I visited Tip twice a
day almost every day for the best smoothies I've had all year.

After all of that I went back to Kuala Lumpur to regroup and repack. For the most part this meant lounging around Marta's house, doing some last-minute souvenir shopping, and going out to eat. However, on Friday I got to do something special. Marta has been volunteering as an English teacher for Afghan refugees, and on Friday she took me and her son to meet two of the families she has been helping. They were inspiring people to meet, and I also learned a lot about refugees and resettlement and what different countries offer the refugees they receive (easy since I knew pretty much nothing about this before). Both families have suffered almost unimaginable difficulties, but it was interesting to see how one family seemed to wear their struggles, while the other exuded energy and hope. I wish for the best for both of them, but it is much easier to foresee the latter family thriving when they are finally resettled in Australia. That evening Marta and her family took me out to a farewell dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. Believe it or not this was a welcome and missed cuisine, and I got to play expert and recommend dishes for everyone.

The next day I began my long journey back to the United States. Seven hours took me from Malaysia to Japan, and then I had a nine-hour layover in Narita. With so much time on my hands, I decided to leave the airport and have a day trip in Japan. It was still early in the day, and few things were open when I got off the subway, but I figured I would wander around anyway. I was starving, and I stopped in one of the few open places for what claimed to be a salmon and cream cheese sandwich that ended up having slivers of salmon slathered in mayonnaise.

Getting comfortable on the plane

Welcome to Narita

sights around town

Fortunately, the rest of my visit went better. I walked to Narita's main attraction: Narita-san Shinsho-ji, a Shingon Buddhist temple founded in 940 that was expanded to a massive complex starting in the 1600s. The temple grounds were certainly large and impressive, but I was having a hard time appreciating them, possibly because I had no information about them and also probably in part because of my heavy backpack. However, as I wandered the grounds, leaving the temple areas and entering the scenic garden areas, I made an exciting discovery. Dismembered Japanese rhinoceros beetles were strewn along the path and were being voraciously consumed by ants. They were an exciting and unusual sighting for me, but internet research shows that they are popular pets in Asia, even being sold in vending machines. After that I also found some beautiful yellow and green spiders spinning webs between mossy rocks surrounding a waterfall.

Rhinoceros beetle carapace

feasting

For lunch I stopped at a place that had caught my attention earlier because a man was sitting at the entrance deftly slicing and cleaning live eels. Some of my favorite Japanese dishes feature eel, and so I was excited to see that almost every restaurant on the walk to the temple had an eel special. I went back to the place with the public butchering, which seemed to be one of the most popular restaurants within my price range. The restaurant was bustling, and I was entertained to hear people saying 'domo arigato', not followed by 'Mr. Roboto.'

Expert eel slicer

nom nom nom nom

Along the way to the temple I had spotted some shops where I thought I might be able to unload any unspent Yen I'd have left. Luckily, I did not do that before lunch, because after paying for my food I had little more than return subway fare left. Before leaving Japan I made two more notable sightings: a Mexican restaurant and a fancy-pants(less) Japanese toilet.
 

Enlarge to see the many options the toilet buttons offer

With that, it was a 10-hour flight into the US and another layover and flight until I reached my final destination. Now I am adjusting to eating American food (though I went out for Japanese noodle soup already), gorging on cheese, marveling at high-speed internet, and having days filled with little moments of contrast that remind me just how different a life I led for the last year. The blog may be over, but the adventure continues. Thank you for being a part of it.

"To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted." – Bill Bryson

Insect's-eye view

A collection of the critters I managed to photograph at the spice garden. Not pictured: a spider that would have been quite at home in my Ben Tre bathroom and a butterfly that landed on my camera.

Full circle

"Sometimes you have to go halfway around the world to come full circle." - Lost in Translation

These last few days I've been feeling much like I did when I first arrived in Ben Tre. Overwhelmed, lonely, and confused. Entering into the month of May, I thought that my social calendar would start getting overloaded with people wanting to make the most of my dwindling days. Entering into my last week, I really thought that would happen. It has not. It feels remarkably similar to my first week here, back when I had nothing to do and a whole lot of time in my room and in my head. It's also similar in the number of somewhat invasive and bizarre visits I've been getting. I thought I had gotten better at being patient with culture clash, but maybe it was just everyone else getting better around me, because my fuse did not feel long at all. The worst thing about being in a face-saving culture is that feeling obligated to smile and be polite when that's not what you want only increases the internal desire to shout and make a big fuss.

I spent most of Saturday trying to finish the mountain of final reports required by both Fulbright and Ben Tre College. At some point in the afternoon, I got a phone call. A woman I don't know called me from Mr. Luan's phone, saying that she was his friend and that she wanted to come to my room to hang out with me. I told her I was too busy, and that tomorrow would be better. She understood, and agreed to meet me tomorrow. Before she hung up, though, I heard Mr. Luan asking her questions in Vietnamese and her relaying the replies I had given her during our conversation. Maybe ten minutes later, there was a knock at my door. Can you guess who it was? It was her and Mr. Luan. They wanted to come hang out in my room, and practically forced their way in when I opened the door. Then they looked around at my packing piles and realized that there was nowhere for them to sit. So, we all stood around awkwardly a few feet from the door. We re-discussed whether I was busy and to what extent, and after too long it was concluded that we would do something on Sunday. Mr. Luan had already invited me to do something Sunday several days ago, so our conversation in my room essentially yielded no net results.

The moment came on Sunday and I prepared myself by spending half an hour in corpse pose on my bed, trying to relax. Maybe it worked, because for the most part I managed to be in a pleasant mood. Mr. Luan, his family, Ngoc (the friend from the day before), Ms. My, and a man from the college all took me to visit a pagoda with a tree that is allegedly three hundred years old. Having seen the 150-year-old live oak at the Alamo, this three hundred year old tree looked more like an overgrown shrub. The nicest part about it was that it was the many butterflies that fluttered in and out of sight amidst its branches. When he wasn't taking candid pictures of me doing things like scratching mosquito bites, Mr. Luan summoned me here and there for posed photos by shouting "You! You! You!" until I turned around. I was encouraged to eat a starfruit that was so sour it literally burned the tip of my tongue. And then it was time for dinner. Dinner was good. We all ate more than we wanted to, and then we all went to have dessert.

Pretending to hold up the tree

On the way to dinner, I had an epiphany. In the early days, I had no patience for Mr. Luan. But, I always recognized that he was well meaning and I tried to train myself to have patience with him. This used to require having a voice in the back of my head reminding me to relax and give him a chance during most of the time we spent together. Eventually, this kind of worked. I no longer feel anxiety just at the thought of spending time with him. I have a lot more patience with the many things that are rude in my culture but insignificant in his. I am the guest here, after all, and my culture is the foreign one. I often wondered why he in particular got under my skin so much more than anyone else here. He is kind. He is energetic. He doesn't speak English very well but that's not his fault. Here's where the epiphany comes in. Working for Mr. Luan is like working for a puppy. Puppies are great, but most endearing puppy qualities are terrible management qualities, and being in a position where I am subject to his whims is what causes our problems.

This afternoon I was somewhere between asleep and awake watching tv when I heard some noises outside. I thought they were general outside noises, until I realized that it sounded like someone was saying my name, and that the tapping might be happening on my door. Before I could get up and get dressed, I realized that my door was being opened. A teacher stuck her head in the door and started shouting, asking whether I was inside. Of all the times my door has been impatiently knocked on, no one has ever just opened the door and come right in. I was taken aback. Then I was told that Mr. Luan wanted to take a photo of me and my bicycle with Ms. My. Why? Why now? As I mentioned at the start, because expressing irritation would only cause me to lose face, I resorted to passive-aggressively acting like I didn't understand all of Mr. Luan's pantomiming. It wasn't mature of me, but it's the only way I can feel like I have some control.

Luckily, my day didn't end there. I went out for dinner with Thuy, Trang's sister. I thought it was going to be the last time we saw each other, but by the end of the night we ended up deciding to see each other again on Friday. We had soup and then went out for drinks. I opened up to her about feeling sad that no one seems to want to take the time to say goodbye to me. I've been mulling it over in my head, what with all the free time I've had, trying to figure out why I've had so much free time. Are people worried that I'm busy? Do people not want to deal with saying goodbye? I know it's not that people don't care, but that doesn't mean I don't feel neglected. As close as I feel to Trang, sometimes it's hard for me to talk to her about my feelings or frustrations because I feel like she feels more responsible for them. With Thuy, I'm just talking to a friend.

Lover's lane

With her many visits to Ben Tre and her champagne personality, Violet has developed quite the fan club among my student friends. So, naturally, I had to spread the news that she would be spending one last day in Ben Tre on Monday. We were supposed to meet at four but the rain had something else to say about it and we had to wait it out until almost 445. But, our spirits did not exhibit the same dampness as our clothes, and we had a great time at Kim Nhi, our habitual milk tea place. It has gotten a facelift and now, instead of teenage graffiti, posh international motif wallpaper coats the walls. I feel like it has lost its youthful ambiance, but the drinks are as good as ever.

Our next stop was the supermarket, for another round of photoboothing. Hijinks ensued while we waited for an awkward couple to finish their own photo shoot. We took our pictures and hung out for a good while, and then decided it was time for dinner. Violet wanted to try the gà ác (black chicken/silkie), so we all went there. Since I'd already had it, I decided to try another unusual specialty served at that restaurant: pork brain soup. It was delicious and left me wanting more, though that was mostly because the portion was rather small. We were going to go home after that, but we were besieged by a second rain (breaking the rainy season rules!) and tried to wait it out, but eventually just bought a raincoat and went home, where we were met by a second uprising of the insect plague.

The plague!

Tuesday morning, Violet joined me and Trang for our routine breakfast of bun bo hue. Originally, we had hoped to have Violet participate in my Vietnamese lesson, but we were delayed by rain (noticing a pattern?) and so Violet had to head home to Tra Vinh right after breakfast. In the evening I had the English club, and for once it actually had a positive impact on my mood. I had asked them to prepare to tell me about their moms since it had been Mother's Day on Sunday. After that, I initiated phase one of my sneaky plan. I taught them cooking vocabulary and asked them to prepare a Vietnamese recipe in English to bring to class next week. However, they one-upped me with their own cleverness and decided that instead of having a class next week we will have a cooking lesson/farewell party at someone's house. I am perfectly pleased with this turn of events. Naturally, we women will start cooking in the early afternoon and the men will show up to eat once the food is ready.

Wednesday morning was the moment of truth: my Vietnamese exam. I was a little irritated to discover that most of the vocabulary and the oral part of the test was based on the material I learned back in Hanoi. It did not help my persistent feeling that I have made negligible progress in learning Vietnamese since then. But then, the reading comprehension part was practically incomprehensible. In the end I did about the same as I'd done on the practice tests. I passed decently, but certainly not with flying colors.

Afterward, I went to lunch with Trang's sister. This time, we had frog legs, shrimp, and morning glories. The frog legs were good but my stomach has been ribbiting ever since, so perhaps my innards disagree. I also tried a new fruit, bòn bon. It tastes a lot like a guava, but with a totally different consistency. On the way back into town, as we were crossing the bridge, we saw that we were about to cross into a major afternoon rain.

Frog leg platter on the lower left

 

I had a small Vietnamese triumph when I was getting dinner. I went out to get spring rolls, and after asking the woman at the cart for them, I stood there waiting. Then I heard someone else talking. Suddenly, I realized that I understood what she was saying and that she was talking to me. Maybe it doesn't sound significant, but the fact that I could understand something with half-attention felt good.

In the evening, it was time for the English club. Only four students showed up, the same four who have been consistent for the last several months. Not even the teacher who is supposed to come unlock the classroom showed up. We got the key eventually, and we also talked about mothers and Mother's Day. Somehow this segued into talking about childhood memories and misbehaving, and one particularly mischievous student shared several hilarious stories of her youthful indiscretions. With such a small group, the club just felt like a long chat, and it was nice. Like last week, I invited them out for sinh tos after about an hour, but this time I made sure to declare, "I'm inviting!" so that no one would try to pay when the time came. We had a great time quizzing each other on fruit names in English and Vietnamese, and just generally chatting.

Luckily, I had nothing on my schedule today. I say luckily because I have been sick all day. Boo. Hopefully I'll be well enough to enjoy my first going away party tomorrow. In other news, a skink seems to have taken up residence under my washing machine. I see it several times a day, and it always scuttles away under the washing machine. Also, my bathroom is starting to feel like a cheap motel. I keep coming across languidly copulating millipedes.

Invaders!

This weekend was so dull that the few things worth writing about are mostly bug appearances. It seems that the rainy season is injecting a new vigor into my visitors, or maybe it is just pushing them into my nice, dry home.

A few nights ago there was a millipede crawling on the outside of my mosquito net when I went to bed. When I woke up, it was on the inside of my mosquito net. This might have been alarming, but I was recently caught describing millipedes as snuggly. Of all of the critters that might make it under the net, this one is one of the least unwelcome, as long as it doesn't try to snuggle with my face or any of my orifices.

I had another spider. It was one my bathroom door, and the similarity of colors made it so it took me a while to notice it. Finding a big spider after having been in a room for several minutes is like suddenly realizing that someone is watching you when you've been doing something embarrassing. Alarming, but not the end of the world. You just wish you'd noticed sooner.

Oh hello there! The flash really captures your leg hairs
quite nicely, don't you think?

Two nights ago I was greeted by a very busy-bodied tiny red and green striped hemipteran. I tried to take a picture, but it was too small and moving too fast. But those red and green stripes packed quite the graphic punch.

Crappy photo of my design conscious invader

Next, a host of psychotic ants seems to have taken up residence in or under both of my door frames. The result is that at certain times of the day, whenever I open my door, hundreds of tiny angry ants stream out and rush around in a frenzy. They cover everything within a certain radius of the door frame, and that tends to include my oblivious feet. In case you didn't know, those are attached to my legs. I don't notice the ants until I feel the now-tell-tale tickle on my legs that informs me that I am being bum rushed by ants at an impressive speed. Commence stomping around and swiping at my legs. Luckily, it doesn't seem like they bite. Also, trying to get rid of them makes me sweep more often.

What with the ants, last night I felt like I was being beset by the plagues of Egypt when I got my next set of insects. I heard a strange but persistent sound outside of my bedroom. Buzzing would be too gentle and rattling too harsh. Actually, razzling would be a pretty perfect onomatopoeia. Anyway, it wasn't long before two of the sources of that razzling sound made it into my room, and proceeded to awkwardly fly around, fluttering against me and any other surface that a good flier would normally avoid. I went to look outside to try and figure out where they came from, and there were about a hundred of them hovering around the light right outside my room. Where had they come from? How many more would make it into my room? It seemed if I attempted any catching and releasing I'd probably let 30 more into my room. The plague! I decided to wait it out. Maybe half an hour later, I'd gotten rid of the two in my room and the razzling from outside was replaced by loud thuds. I went to look again. The bugs were gone! More accurately, they were now covering the floor outside, dead or dying. The thuds were courtesy of a cat, who was pouncing on the ones that still quivered. Apparently several of those were clinging to my door, so for a while it sounded like the cat was trying to break its way into my room.

In non-arthropod news, I ate the pineapple my student gave me. Even though no one else would see it, I went all tropical homemaker on it and cut it in the fancy Vietnamese way. It was whitish rather than yellow, and I was worried that it wouldn't be good, but it was perfect. Possibly the best pineapple I've ever had.

This razzler drowned in the delicious juicy remains of my pineapple

Oh right. And the other big news is that I've started buying tickets for my June travels. Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, here I come!

Campuchia!

Tuesday
Like all Solis road trips, this one started well before dawn. I woke up around 230 to be ready for the 330am bus to HCMC that might show up as early as 3am. While I got ready, a pair of provespa scoped out my room. Does this happen every night or is it a recent development? I always feel a little apprehensive about the natural world overtaking my room when I'm gone for the weekend, and I wondered whether I would come back after a week and find out that I'd become a hive queen. It turned out that Trang had to go to the city as well, so we sat together on the bus. I may have been lacking my full faculties, but we were not lacking conversation topics, and we chatted the whole way.

I made it into the city at 5am. Then I just had to find a place to wait until all of the bus companies opened and I could get a ticket to Siem Reap. I watched the sky lighten and the park swarmed with early morning exercisers. Around 545, things started opening, and I started looking for my ticket out of Vietnam. I stopped at one company, and waited twenty minutes to ultimately be told that they only went to Phnom Penh, and not all the way to Siem Reap. I kept on looking. I walked in and out of a bunch of bus offices. A xe om driver overheard me asking about buses to Cambodia and followed me around shouting 'Campuchia!' and telling me he could take me somewhere that would take me there. I was going to give up and take the 630am bus to Phnom Penh and try to figure things out from there, when I ducked into one last tour company. Success! A bus to Siem Reap would be leaving at 730. I bought my ticket, bought some snacks, and waited to get on the road.

A thirteen hour bus ride might sound overwhelmingly long, but it went by quickly. We stopped at the border crossing and stopped twice for meals, so it was punctuated with enough breaks that it didn't get monotonous. For the most part, the Cambodian countryside looked just like the Vietnamese countryside, except that the fields featured a lot of Cambodian palms, and the people were generally darker. I finally made it into Siem Reap at around 8 and took a tuk tuk to my hotel. My tuk tuk driver, Vi, was an English student and managed to convince me to hire him as my driver for the rest of my stay.

Wednesday
The next morning, Vi met me at my hotel and I presented him with the must-see list I had made for myself. Using that as a guideline, he mentally composed my three day itinerary on the spot, and I put my touring in his hands. Our first stop for the morning was Angkor Thom, an ancient capital of the Khmer empire, within whose walls there are several temples. The first one I saw was Bayon, famous for being covered in faces. It was one of my favorites. Early on, I was joined by Gary, another solo traveler, who proclaimed himself my photographer. I had been gearing up to be alone all day, so his company felt like a bit of an intrusion, but not so much so that it was worth the effort to try and get rid of him.

If you look closely, you'll see that this pile of rocks is looking at you

One of the faces up close

Courtesy of Gary

We made our way to the next series of temples inside Angkor Thom. Gary was wearing a tank top so he wasn't allowed in. He then made the poor decision to give me his camera so that I could take pictures for him while he sat and waited. I proceeded to spend the next hour and half at the temples. I met a Frenchman, who gaped at me and tried to replace Gary, and an Italian couple. It was nice to be speaking Italian to someone other than myself, for a change, and I gave them advice for their upcoming trip to Vietnam. 

Baphoun

The top level of Baphoun

The top of Phimenakas

Inside Preah Palilay

By the time I made it back to where Gary sat waiting, Gary wasn't sitting there waiting anymore. Did he think I had stolen his camera? Did he just give up and go on without his camera? How was I going to find him and give him his camera back? I didn't want to sit there waiting for him for the rest of the day. I decided to retrace the path and see if he had somehow been allowed in. I hadn't gone too far when I heard shouting. It was Gary, from inside Baphoun. We reconvened and it turned out that he didn't think me a thief. Rather, he thought I might have fainted. I got guilted into quickly re-doing the whole circuit and then Vi, my tuk tuk driver, helped me make a quick getaway.

We went to a few more temples, most notably Ta Prohm, which is famous for the trees that are devouring it and for the fact that it was featured in the Tomb Raider movie.

Victory Gate of the Angkor Thom complex

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

The most amazing tree in Ta Prohm, took my breath away

After that, it was lunchtime. I tried Cambodia's famous amok, a coconut and curry soup, and my first of several different Cambodian beers. I took my time enjoying the meal and the shade before going back to the temples. I only saw a few more before heading back to my hotel to rest.

Local beer named for the first temple I saw

Fish Amok

In the evening I took a walk to the market and was lured in by a restaurant with a buy one get one free happy hour and extensive beer selection. I had an ABC Stout, which I had tried in Laos, and delighted in the superior taste of a dark beer. I followed up with a Thai Pilsener, Chang. I walked for a while more until Vi picked me up to take me to a dinner dance show featuring Apsara (traditional) dances.

Thursday
I was supposed to be on vacation, yet here I was waking up before dawn yet again. But with good reason. I was going to watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat.

Good morning, Angkor Wat

Watching the sunrise watchers

While we were watching the sky lighten, a rogue piglet appeared out of nowhere and began pillaging a couple's to-go box. Even with the silhouetted architectural marvel and the reflecting pool, it wasn't the most picturesque sunrise I've ever seen. The best part of the experience was being there early enough to beat the rush of tourists, because even though there were a fair few there for the sunrise, the wat was big enough to make them feel like a sprinkling of ants, and they were nothing compared to what would come later. I took advantage of being alone, and took my time. I found places to just sit and look, or sit and watch. It wasn't my favorite wat of the trip, but it's sheer size made an impact. Every time I thought I was almost done I would find a whole wing or floor or courtyard that remained to be seen.

From the outermost point of the wat

About halfway in

Near the innermost ring

Following monks to the very top

Reliefs I almost missed because I skipped the first floor at the beginning

Apsaras covered the walls

I ended up spending almost four hours at Angkor Wat. By the time I left, around 930, it was overrun with tour groups and I was happy I was leaving and not arriving. It was finally time for breakfast, and then headed to Banteay Sray, which was about 30km away from most of the other temples. We stopped at Pre Rup on the way.

Details

Banteay Sray is quite small compared to all of the other temples, and for this reason it is often referred to as the women's temple. It is known for its incredibly intricate carvings and pinkish stones.

Banteay Sray

There were even matching red dragonflies around

It was definitely a unique temple among all of the ones that I saw. It was also incredibly commercialized. There was a gift shop, a cafe, and a nature trail on the grounds around it. On the way back, I went to East Mebun, Ta Som, and Preah Khan. It was a good thing I'd seen some distinctive temples, because I was starting to feel like I was just taking pictures of piles of rocks.

East Mebun

Top of a gate in Ta Som

The other side of the gate

Preah Khan was being restored

and being taken over by trees

Finally, almost twelve hours after it started, my second day of touring drew to a close. I rested for a while, went back to the market and had another new beer, and then Vi picked me up to take me to dinner. I'd told him I wanted to try some real Cambodian food, not just the stuff available at tourist restaurants around the temples. He took me to a street covered in food stalls, told me locals ate there but that we wouldn't, and then took me to a restaurant. No! At least it was a restaurant for locals, rather than for tourists. It was dark and his English wasn't good enough to explain the dishes, so I don't really know what I ate, but it was pretty good.

Angkor draft

"The inside of a cow"

"Kitchen with mango glories" (Chicken with morning glory)

Friday
I didn't see as much on Friday because I went to a temple over 60km outside of town. For increased speed and convenience, Vi took me on his motorbike instead of in the tuk tuk. It was a long ride, almost two hours, but my several trips with Violet had given me the necessary endurance to go the whole way without stopping. Our destination was Boeng Melea. It was similar in layout to Angkor Wat and other concentric ring temples, but it was quite overgrown and also quite collapsed. There were some wooden walkways for the casual visitor, but everything was fair game. I spent a good deal of time clambering around on this temple that, in some areas, really was just a pile of rocks. I felt like I was in a video game, and that if I stood in any one place for too long, the stones might start to fall away from beneath me. Luckily, that was not the case, and the precarious looking piles were made of blocks of rock that weighed several hundred pounds, and my weight was unlikely to shift them.

After a slightly unusual lunch of pork, mango, and fried egg, I hit one more temple, Bakon, before calling it a day. I added two more beers to the list that evening.

Looking down from the sixth (top) level of Bakon

Overall, it felt surreal to be able to easily jaunt over to a faraway country -- far away from home home but closer to Vietnam than driving from one side of Texas to another. It was similar enough to Vietnam that it didn't really feel foreign in that way, and everyone I encountered spoke English, so it didn't feel foreign in that way either. With the number of people swarming the most popular temples, it was easy to forget just what a rare experience I was having. As always, I was mistaken for a fellow Cambodian or at least neighboring Asian. One shopkeeper told me that I looked Cambodian in my face, skin, and build, and claimed that she would give me a good price just for looking Cambodian. Vi told me that if people saw us together they would probably just think I was his girlfriend rather than a client, though that might have been wishful thinking on his part. Now that I am back, and apparently tanner, Trang has told me that I look like a Cambodian girl.

Next stop, Phnom Penh!