4.26.2005
Boy: Excuse me miss, where you from? Me: Taiwan! Do you know Taiwan? Boy: Taiiiwann...idon't Know Taiwan. I thought you Japan... Me: No...Not Japanese. I'm Chinese, how old are you? Boy: I'm Theteen. Ten and three...therteen. Me: No...really? You look like 8 to me! Boy: See...I'm old, i have to mae money, you buy my postcards? Cold water? Please miss? Me: Um...nope i dont think so. Thank you. Boy: But please...Miss...i show you postcards, see... Me: I don't now...Hey, don't youhave to go to school? Boy: I tomorrow go to school.....maybe...you buy my water? Postcards? Then all of a sudden a group of little girls and boys come surrounding me trying to sell me same stuff. One little girl started to shout: "You came here (Angkor Wat) yesterday, i saw you first, youand your husband (Ryan, i assume)" Me: Oh yeah? Girl: Yeah...you don't buy postcards from him now, i saw you first. you buyfrom meee! Me: What? I don't remember you, sorry. Boy: please miss, very goo prai, only one doler. I will go to school tomorrow, and you buy tomorrow too late!Please... Me: (checing the postcards out and find some that i like), ok...this one, one dollar? Boy: thank you miss, i go to shool tomorrow. thank you. see you later! (big smile on his face) Me:Bye~ Go to school! (i walk away) Girl: (staring at me and starts to shout again) I saw you first and your husband say maybe, maybe.....and you buy from him not me, HUN!!!!!! Me: (turn aound) what? I @*^&#......ok, bye. Have a good day! Girl: NO good day, HUN!! YOU bad luck all the way!!!! Me:what????Ok...See ya. Looks like the battle isn't going to be over for a while...Ah, the "anger" kids...
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i can finally figure out what day is today everyday as long as i check my watch. Today is Tuesday, says my watch, "T".
but...
what is the date? It's April 23th? Couldn't be! Cuz that was the last time i kept my blog. So is it 24th? Doesn't seem like.....myabe it's 25th or 26th, is it really that late?......ah whatever!
Ooh! i just peeped down this page and it says "April 26th".
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4.23.2005
exactly 10 days i haven't touched my blog.
well, we were kinda stuck in a crossing town in southern Laos, Pakse. Had a great room there in a super comfy hotel. Pakse itself was boring (no kidding), except that the market place (which had burn down once last year) that looked like a modern mall....and funny thing was all the vender preferred to sell stuff outside of this modern-looking market. I liked the little town, very breezy and French colonial style houses and wide road and absoluly NOBODY (maybe it's just me, emptiness just felt great when you travel all asia...And when we walked along the Mekong river, for moments i thought i was home again.
After 5 days of wandering in Paske, we started to try heading to the Cambodia border. Before actually reaching the border town, we decided to go Si Phan Don (four thousand island) along the Mekong river, another beautiful place that attract tourists. There we stayed a Don Khong (big island) for two nights. In fact, we have missed out a lot there since Ryan has been sick there and had a fever for the entire stay. I went out alone renting a bike one afternoon only to discover that si phan don deserved more time to realize its beauty. Too bad, that was our last day in Laos, and i was kinda taking care of Ryan, and he was busying sick (and getting better).
So we crossed the border the next day in the small border town near si phan don, suprisingly everything went pretty smoothly than we've expected it to be. Nothing, none of the crossing border nightmare that we heard from other traverlers (about the rip-offs mainly) actually happened on us. There, in half a day, we were in two countries, Laos and Cambodia.
Cambodia feels every different, aside from HOT. my first impression of Cambodia was actually that it reminds so much of Myanmar, dusty, gloomy and poor. Maybe those stopover downs gave the wrong impression, that was always how i felt about a county, the border towns.
So finally, after many boat rides (slow and FAST/speed) and after 12 hours (maybe more) of tuk-tuk, taxi and bus rides, we are finally here in Siem Reap TODAY! Siem Reap looks just like another tourist town, a little dusty, a little too hot, but my first impression of this ancient city is wonderful and i look forward to exploring more of Siem Reap (Angkor Wat), the heart of the South East Asia for the next few days.
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4.14.2005
The Pseudo Magazine: From Our Taiwan Correspondent...
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4.13.2005
Last night.
Last night Ryan and I rode our bikes out around six searching for food. It wasn't an ordinary hot evening...We could see the clouds were getting thicker and darker, and the winds were blowing up the dust on the unpaved roads as the night's getting darker. We found an Indian restaurant and sat down for it wasn't easy to ride anymore. The food was OK, but what's more interesting was the thunder and the threatening of the coming storm outside. We finished our meal fast, so we could go back to the hotel before it poured. Well...Turned out, it wasn't gonna pour like it threaten to be and the rain was just like the water dripping from the sky...However, instead of going into the hotel room, we stopped and watched the amazing Lightening Dancing. So beautiful and powerful yet scary (to me) at the same time...the bright lightening went here and there over the sky and broke out like huge tree branches in about 0.3 second. wow, was it impressive! No rain, the storm turned out to be a paper tiger doing the evening dancing for us.
Today.
Today is a market day. We went out with our bikes and my job was to find me a cheap but workable watch, and Ryan's going for a bikeride, which he's been dreaming to do for a long while. So I started searching the whole market, trying to find what i want and with a nice price, and maybe a sunglasses for him. The morning market was actually pretty fun. There were two floors in it, the first floor was full of electronic stuff where i heard a bunch of Taiwanese mid-age travel group trying to find their dream rollex..es. The second floor was a great place to shop for clothes, well, i didn't have time for that....yet!
After about an hour i found myself a "cool" (according to Ryan, wonder what it really means..) adidas sports watch for 6 bucks and a nice looking (good enough) nike sunglasses for Ryan for 4 bucks. Satisfied for now, there, we (ok, I) spent all our leisure money for today already. Fakes stuff are fun!
The Hotel, actually a very nice Guest House, that we are staying is having a New Year party today...looking forward to that and hoping at some point we can get ourselves splashed! ;P
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4.11.2005
Hey...Apparently i'm on the list of Google "foodfetish" site!! ;-/ Oh well...at least there's one thing to joke about under the forever flaming sky of Vientiane.
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4.09.2005
You probably have heard that Beerlao tastes like heaven, (and it does!) but have you heard of the mysterious "plain of jars"?
Well, i haven't, not until i actually came to Laos at least.
So we spent our last two days visiting this interesting and exciting (to me of course) place which is 9 hour-ride from Luang Prapang.
My first impression of the place, Phonsavin, was PLAIN, bear, for there's hardly any trees or plants on the ground. (interesting enough for a redneck like me who's from a tiny little island) I liked the place immediately just because you could see far far away without any obstacles. And when we actually saw the jars, big big heavy stone jars on the hills, the story just got more interesting, because no one even knows what were those jar sitting there for. Nope, not even our tour guide could explain anything or answer any questions we asked. That's to say the explanations other than the ones we have already "kinda" gathered from the guidebook.
They are something like a.) the jars were there for celebrating an important war victory and people would put wines in the jars and had a feast. One saying from the Laotian historists. b.) the jars were there for the people to put the ashes and bone after death, some sort of funeral function. another saying from the European researchers who claimed that they've seen some remains of human bones and ashes. c.) the ALIEN'S work. there, just like any mysterious signs on earth. Problem solved period
Well, honestly, no one knows or has any clues those jars had been there for how long, who made them or who brought them there. I'd just think the interesting explanations which also leaves plenty of rooms to think about. (Which is the explanation "c", haha!)
And maybe a little of of my own theory that i discovered when we trekking up the hills...that those jar might be there for some sort of spiritual callings that when the jars contented some different level of water (or wine), it might make different sounds, symphony perhaps when the strong wind blew on the hills...Maybe! I just got some inspirations form the hill since my water bottle has made the sounds when we were trekking on the hills. Who knows, perhaps keeping it as a myth will actually attract more tourists for the little town. Oh well.
And another 9 hour bus ride today, we're sooo tired...Thank god we are in Vientiane!
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4.05.2005
Luang Prapang today's a little chilly, and rainy...we ran fast to get in to this internet cafe to escape the rain. Although it rains, although it's a bit cold...the city remains charming. No matter what, walking on the tiny streets here, you understand why it's a world heritage city...the food, the baguette, the tea, the coffee, the french style mixed with the Laotian style architecture...Everything here seems unreal and yet so down to earth you can even smell the brown dirt. What can i say? You've got to come and see Luang Prapang!
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4.03.2005
I still don't believe we actually made it to here, Luang Prapang...
So, we crossed the Mekong river three days ago, and entered Laos. Stayed a night in a border town, and off we went, jumping on the so called "slow" boat (which has proved how slow it really was) for this two days one night trip to get to Luang Prapang.
And no, really, i wasn't too impressed about the boat we took....at all! I remember the first night after we finally got ourselves a not-too-bad guest house (and of course, it was after about 7 hour boat ride) in an in-between town; i told, ok, complained to ryan how stressed i was and how much i didn't like the boat ride (the boat itself) that there was no space at all and we were all packed in a long shitty boat...slow too....
With hopes, we were kinda expecting a better boat ride, maybe a more comfortable seats rather than just wooden benches for the second time. Well, i guess it is really true that when it rains it pores......
The second ride today was actually SMALLER and with almost the same amount of people (say about 60 at least) we all had to fit ourselves into the tiny narrow boat...."well, at least bathroom looks better, a western style toilet".....who knows, turned out that it was just impossible to use it anyway, cuz you could never move yourself down to the end of the boat anyway!
So, yeah anyway, anyways....we made it, i felt like crying when the boat parked in the late afternoon after about 8 hours after we set off. I was just thinking the whole way that, if there wasn't the book, High fidelity and the gorgeous scenery all the way along the Mekong river, and, of course, ryan, next to me...i might just die numming, and maybe forgetting to breathe anymore.
But we made it. So glad that we don't feel like treated as cargos or pigs anymore. Hey...we didn't lost the ability to walk again! It just rained a big...i could feel that the air is getting fresher and i'm sure tomorrow's gonna be a beautiful day in Luang Prapang!
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