''Oh Baby, Baby Blue''

I wrote this blog a couple days ago, but the internet in Cambodia is so sketchy that I couldn't publish. So right now I'm in Bangkok, we arrived late last night and are leaving for Kathmandu, Nepal tomorrow afternoon. Bangkok is one of the craziest cities I've ever been in. It's completely westernized, but more than westernized, it's completely israelized. There are massive billboards in only Hebrew, restaurants, travel agencies, stores, and hotels with only hebrew on their signs. I had heard there were a lot of Israelis in Thailand; I never imagined it would be like this. So this caps off the first 5 weeks of our trip, we're leaving SE Asia, leaving the familiar sights and culture that we've been with, and leaving the same backpackers that we've seeing at every city we stay in. I'm not sure what to expect from Nepal and India, but I am very excited for whatever the change will bring.




Those are the lyrics to the song that some drunken Cambodians were singing while chugging bowls of beer and ice in the pouring rain in the backpacker's alley in Phnom Penh last week. They stormed into the restaurant/bar/''chill zone'' which we were at and demanded that we drink. I think I've mentioned this in the last several blogs, but in case I didn't, my stomach has been moderately upset the last 2 weeks. It has caused severe discomfort at times, but also created some epicly histerical stories which will be told at home. I seem to be better now; I have targeted the several cups of coffee that I had been drinking a day to the reason I was near shitting my pants at all minutes of the day, and have since eliminated this toxin from my body. So back to the guys singing and drinking; I was faced with a decision: plea injury stomach pain and decline, or accept their offer of beer lao and friendship. To the surprise of everyone I was sitting with who had seen me doubled over in agonizing pain with intermittent trips to the bathroom all day, I chose the latter. I took the bowl to the face, and yelled and sung along in liberation. The group of 8 people I was with all began to sing along in jubilee, and we all got trashed that night. And thus, I have decided that the best cure for traveler's diarrhea is...4 vodka red bulls, several bowls of beer lao, and singing and dancing in the pouring rain with Cambodians.

Phnom Penh overall kind of sucked. We spent a day and a half there, a day of which was spent at the killing fields and the S-21 prison, or killing fields museum. If you don't know anything about the killing fields, you are similar to the overwhelming majority of the Cambodian population who knows nothing about the Khmer Rouge, a government which waged genocide killing 2 million of its own people only 30 years ago. For tourists coming to Cambodia, the genocide is a main attraction. Every tourist goes to the killing fields, and every 9 year old book seller on every corner in every big city in the country sells countless copied books on the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. However, for Cambodians, it is a huge taboo. After the Khmer Rouge fell, soldiers who had brutally carried out the killings were integrated back into normal society, and became the next door neighbors of victims of torture and those who had lost family members under the oppresion. It's quite sad, but also understandable that this integration occured. Cambodians were living in a totally wrecked economy, and in the years after hundreds of thousands died of disease or starvation. So rather than continue living in such dire conditions, they had no choice but to forget the past, unite as one country, and try to improve their own standard of living. And it has worked, with the help of foreign aid and countless NGO operations, the country was put back on its feet. However, leaders of the Khmer Rouge, those individuals who brainwashed young soldiers and orchestrated this terrible genocide, remain uncharged for their crimes against humanity, and every year that passes is a year that justice is not delivered. In addition to this, because of all the external help that Cambodia has recieved, the government has become completely complacent and corrupt. NGO's run health care, school systems, and pretty much everything else. Someone who worked for the World Bank in Cambodia captured the government's daily productivity best; "they get to work at 9, break for lunch at 11, get back to work at 3, and leave for the day at 5." The government has even outsourced the management of the killing fields, the museums, even Angkor Wat, one of the most magical and unbelievably cool places in the world.

Which brings me to where I am now, Siem Reap, a small laid back town which is the hub for tourists traveling to Angkor Wat. Siem Reap is awesome. We have spent the last 5 days here, playing pool, watching pirated tv shows that we bought (we're currently on season 1 of the wire), walking around, and playing lots of soccer and volleyball. Every day at 430, some tuk-tuk drivers take a break from hassling tourists and doing nothing to meet at our hostel to play volleyball. For short people, they're pretty good. However, and this is something that makes me mad but would make my good friend J Keesh absolutely livid; every time they set the ball, they hit a blatantly illegal shot. Illegal shot would actually be an understatement, they actually nearly catch the ball, hold it for 3 seconds, and throw it down. It's like watching 9 year olds play "Nukem" at camp. This wouldn't be so bad except that they have so much respect for one player, a player they label as "the best in Siem Reap," and all he does is catch and throw the ball every time. I've stayed away from their volleyball games, and arrive at the court around 515, right before sun-down, for soccer. We play 5 v 5 on a hard mud/dirt court which is about the size of my basement. The game is competitively fast moving yet it has many stops; the ball goes out of bounds nearly every 5 passes. However, it is very fun, and is expanded on my repetoire of different styles of soccer I've experienced since being in SE Asia.

So everything here is great. A couple mornings ago, we watched as the world watched Barack Obama become the next President. We bought Obama Biden shirts written in Cambodian, passed out American flag pins, and sat in a bar with a bunch of Americans, and others. Some people were crying. Some Cambodians were running down the street yelling "Obamaaaaaaaa", others were simply observing the commotion. It was a really cool day, and since then, every time I say I'm American, I get a warm reception and some comment about how it's a good time to be an American. Well f that, it's always a good time to be an American!