Procrastination Station

B-school essays are hard, maybe if I write all wordy and fun in my blog and on yelp I'll be able to write in b-school essay speak...or at least will just get to put off writing essays for a little longer.

This weekend I was meant to spend all my days writing, here's what I did instead:
caught up on Grey's Anatomy (well, almost anyway)
caught up on Gossip Girl (folks, that means watching FOUR episodes, ew, gross)
watched the Harvard Yale Game (really?)
Fixed two of the three necklaces I've been meaning to fix for 6 months
ate half a box of cereal
bought turkey broiling pans in an effort to see if my oven would fit two birds at once (no, it won't if you're curious)
spent a lot of money on oldnavy.com
wrote a yelp review
sent pictures of my nephew eli to all my friends
looked at pictures of eli (x4)

Oh, and made some progress on my 'activities list' and wrote half of two essays.
Awesome.

It's much more fun to make fun of myself and my antics, or let you know that fundraising is going well than to try to say how great i am without sounding conceited--I mean, how do you do that? I have yet to figure it out, especially when the question is: what do others admire most about you. "they love my good looks and sparkling personality" yowza, we're gonna need some work there.

The good news is, hard work pays off, I went to the doc a few weeks ago and was told my lungs are normal! Like, they are as functional as a person without CF--wahoo for pulmozyme, my vest and hypertonic saline. Keep it up CF foundation and researchers.

Oh, and in case you are curious, the event at Rogue was great. Everyone loved trivia and drank a lot of beer. Nice work people.


CF Young Professionals will be back and better than ever in 2009-so stay tuned :)

Write Write Write

Let's talk about the fact that writing in a blog about the funny things that happened to you in India, and summing up your life's ambitions in 450 words is VERY different. I really like writing on a blog. Who knows if anyone reads it, but I tend to babble on with some silly story about something I forgot or some adventure I went on, or some fundraiser I am hyping, make a funny comment and add some pictures, presto, blog post.

Applying to Business school is not like that. Writing application essays means every word counts, I can't just type and type till my fingers are tired and weighed down by the massive rings I bought from that funny jeweler guy in Jaipur. I have to calculate what I am saying and figure out what kind of impact my words have, and make sure whoever's reading it won't just throw it in the 'no'pile, or sadder, the 'dull' pile. As a wise man once told me, you are up against people that went to Africa and worked with AIDs patients, what you say has to pop. Ok, I get it. I didn't go to Africa.

But I did go to india, and I do live everyday with a pretty tough disease. I work hard every day to fight this stupid thing, to do my vest, to take my pills, I can write about my life in 450 words. Hopefully those 450 words will just be an introduction. They'll like what they read so much they'll have to let me in....right?

I guess we'll see. If not, at least I am darn good at raising money for CF. Speaking of which, we have our last event of the year coming up! See the cool gadget below--we'll be at Rogue on Oct. 25th, you should join us.

Our Big Event

I'm back!

After a long hiatus I decided that blogging is kind of fun, and the original idea of this thing was not to make you jealous about all the cool places I traveled, but to let you know about my fundraising efforts for Cystic Fibrosis. I have a feeling readership might go down just a tad, and I'm not promising to write every day (or really every week) but a girl needs a way to get her creative juices flowing right? I don't look at a computer screen enough everyday anyway, right?

So here goes. As you see from the picture in my previous post, I got more than double the teammates to climb stairs with me this year than last year! Go Team Aly. I had suggestions that perhaps we could think of a more creative team name next year, suggestions are welcome.

Here's what made me happy about the stair climb:7 of my really good friends came out to walk with me, and two coworkers that I know pretty well even made it too--Rewaks, you can now be my really good friends too! Not only did that many people come climb, I personally raised over $1000 for my climb. THANKS FRIENDS!

It means a lot, since lately I've been struggling with this whole Adult Cystic Fibrosis thing. It gets a lot harder as you get older, and knowing you have support from your friends and family is really important. AND pouring money into research is pretty important too--I stay healthy, raise money, and one of these days they find a cure, which I am healthy enough to take and be, well, cured!



So what's next? On Oct 18th I am giving a speech at the black tie Unmask the Cure Gala. Fancy pants. Writing the speech now, it's tough, I've done this once before and pretty much slayed em, now I am trying to top my previous work--we'll see how that goes.

Then, October 25th we are having a Trivia party at Rogue in SF--Fun times! Drinks, appetizers, a big deck outside in the San Francisco Indian Summer sun and trivia (which I am totally abysmal at, maybe I'll just be the photographer...)

Welcome back AlyTalksAlot. Stay tuned.

A Successful Climb for a Cure!

THANK YOU to my friends who came out to climb and those who donated!!

From Point B Climb for a Cure

No, This is not an April Fool's Joke

So everyone started leaving me, but I was in this bubble of excitement getting ready for Agra, Jaipur, Nepal and TAYLOR AND EVAN! Friends from home! Couldn't wait to see them. I'd bought the airplane tix for Nepal, arranged the car for Jaipur/Agra, the guest house in Gurgaon, and even a room for us in Agra and Pokhara. I felt pretty on top of things, I was even mostly packed a day or two before I left--not bad for miss Aly disorganized.

So, at 4am I head out to the airport. The night before on the way to dinner I'm sitting in Gopaul's car and one of the drivers, who I think is Muti b/c I'm not paying much attention and he was just driving us the day before, pops his head in to tell me he'll be driving me in the morning. Ok, So I walk down stairs to where we always get the drivers, and there is a car there that usually isn't this early in the morning, but no driver. So I wait a few minutes, then start getting nervous. Ok, well, if he's sleeping in the car I can call and wake him up, right? So I do. I call Muti. After almost the whole hindi song that is his 'it's ringing' tone, Muti picks up, a bit discombobulated to say the least. 'Muti, it's Aly, aren't you driving me to the airport?'

'Hello ma'am, what ma'am?'
'The airport Muti, aren't you driving me?'
'Yes ma'am, on my way ma'am'

Hang up. Think for a sec. Get TERRIBLE heartburn, hear something moving in the car and see a foot. Oh shit. it was GIRI. Shit. Shit Shit, how could I do that? What is my problem? I know these guys, they've been driving me around and chatting with me for three months, and I can't figure out who is supposed to drive me to the airport at 4am?

I knock on the window and wake up Giri, I then call Muti and tell him how I am stupid and he should go back to bed and I was confused from the night before. Giri has to explain to Muti what I did in Hindi, and my guess is that he said something along the lines of 'Stupid white girl thinks we all look the same and got us confused, it's ok, I'm driving her to the airport, we are on our way now'...And I don't say he said this bc they are mean, bc they are some of the sweetest guys ever, I say it because I am stupid and should have known better.

So no, that was not the not April Fools....it gets worse. Halfway to the airport in the wee hours of the morning I am going through everything I needed to bring. And I got heartburn, again. The tickets to Nepal! Shit. Shit. Shit. Giri hears me gasp, asks what's wrong, asks if we need to go back. I look at my watch and realize that because of my earlier antics, we do not have time to go back. I can't miss my flight to Delhi.

I know what you are thinking, why does it matter? print them out again at the office. NOPE. In India they do paper tickets. If you don't have the paper tickets, you are SOL. And so, I stress and I stress and I think of all the possible things I could do. Namely call my friends, ask them to overnight them or interoffice mail them or something, we aren't leaving for Nepal until Friday, and it's only Tuesday. But, I won't be in the office the rest of the week. In fact, I won't really be in Gurgaon during business hours either. Shit, Shit, Shit. Plus, it's way too early right now to call anyone.

I try to calm down, relax on the plane. Eat my omelet, thank you Kingfisher Airlines for your lovely service. And sleep as much as I can.

I arrive in Delhi and find my driver, Ramesh. He has a sign for me and everything. Aaah, Google India, thank you for everything you do. I ask to go to the guest house. I figure he knows where he is taking me. He doesn't. Lovely. I pull out my computer and try to pull up the email with the address--I find it, we get there, I shower and am at work by 11, still a little stressed out.

In the meantime I text Jason and say 'please call when you wake up, I need your help (no, I am not hurt)'
Jason calls, I tell him what an idiot i am and he says he'll do what he can, but that i should talk to the travel people and see if i can have the tickets reissued.

ok. I can do that. I find the travel people as soon as I get to the office. Kamal tries to calm me down, I am a little hysterical. How could I potentially have ruined this trip for us? we were so excited for Nepal, were there other places we could go in India--sure, but then we are each out 300 bucks, that's a lot of money to not fly to Nepal. I will get the tickets, there has to be a way.

Kamal says interofficing works just fine, and he can talk to the travel desk in Hyderabad and have them send the tickets via courrier to him, if they get in the mail by 3pm today, they will be to him tomorrow. Sigh of relief. Only, how do i get the tickets? I am going to Jaipur and Agra, I will get back late thursday night and our flights are for 6:45am friday morning. Don't worry he says, the office is open 24 hours, I will leave them for you. Wow, lifesaver.

And now comes the part where my friends don't believe me. Priz refuses to let Jason into my apt b/c she thinks he's playing an April Fool's joke on her. I mean, who wouldn't--on April 1st when we keep talking about playing tricks on each other, I do something no one would think of, esp after traveling for 3 months and having to remember tickets every time.

I call Priz, and try, without sounding mean, but without trying to laugh at my stupidity (for if I laughed she'd think I was joking) and explain that is in fact true, that I am in fact that irresponsible, and I did, stupidly, leave the tickets in my desk drawer at home.

Priz, Jason and Brian all head to the apt together at lunch time, they call me as they walk in. I tell them exactly where the tickets are, realizing how much other weird random crap is in that drawer. Jason finds them and they all give a sigh of relief.
'Dude,' he says, 'You have no idea the retaliation plans we had for you if that was a joke.'

Yeah, I know, but it's not and I'm an idiot.

Thank you Jason, Priz, Brian, Kamal and Krishna for coming to my rescue and helping me, Taylor and Evan get to Nepal!

Icky Bugs

Back from Cabodia, only a one week left with the whole crew in Hyderabad, and I caught something nasty. That's not fun. Went to work on Tuesday with high hopes for the week. Kick off HTML store building. start wrapping up my projects and shop, go out etc pretty much every night of the week. My how that was derailed.

Tuesday Phoebe was there visiting, we had a meeting, she wanted my bargaining skills. Left work at 2pm for Shilparamum, this great outdoor market in Hyderbad that's only 5 min from work--scarves, bangles, bedding, pottery--you name it, they probably have it, and all at the right price. Also, I have a friend there. He calls out 'Googles, Googles' when you walk by. I mean, as if I didn't stand out enough as a white person, I also apparently stand out as a Googler, even in India--sweet. Well, something worked b/c after sitting in the heat sorting through Pashmina scarves for a half hour, we ended up with about 12, and bargained him down pretty low, even on the nice ones. YIppeee, finally I learned something in India.

We returned to work and I realized something wasn't quite right. I felt feverish, had the shivers in the 40 degree heat (celsius people--imma go with about 104 degrees), and I was sweating. Immediately I blamed Jason and figured I'd caught the fever he had. And so I headed home to rest up--there was a managers dinner that night I didn't think I should miss.

A/C on full blast, still really really hot, slept for two hours, somehow made it to dinner. Left early and went straight to bed--woke up in the morning with tummy pain. ugh. Today was our big training day, I needed to go in. Only till noon, and then i couldn't make it anymore. Back to bed, where I slept all day again, only I kept waking up bc of the pain in my tum. To be graphic--it was just this terrible gassy feeling and gurgling. At least I didn't have a fever anymore?

Thursday I saw Alysia at our last 'Thirsty Thursday' dinner at Fusion 9...I'd only ordered chicken soup--how terrible to only order chicken soup at Fusion 9! Alysia's eyes about popped out of her head when i told her the kind of pain i had--she convinced me I had a bacteria and was probably bleeding internally. Awesome. Apparently I needed to go to the doctor, again.

Friday morning Sayeed and I head to the doctor, not Apollo, the 'fancy' hospital where all the expats usually go, but Care hospital--the hospital that used to be a 4 star hotel, and is now super busy and confusing. They'd told us to arrive at 10, but at 9:45 when we arrived they doctor was still doing rounds, and would be for another 45 min. I showed Sayeed my pictures, he loved them. That was fun. Finally we see a guy who's white coat says Dr. Mohammed something something, my doc--and Sayeed follows him back into the room where he'd disappeared. In we go, past the others waiting. I have to explain to the doctor (and Sayeed who'd come with me to translate just in case) what was going on, the tummy pain, the other stuff I won't make public to the entire internet....Doctor FREAKS out because I was in Cambodia, asks if I am on prophylactics--well, umm, yes. I have Cystic Fibrosis I say, my doctors from home told me to start taking Cipro, so I did last night. No he said, Malaria pills? Oh, yes, Malarone I say. No, no, not strong enough. No fever, not dehydrated, still he wants me tested for Malaria..umm, doesn't malaria involve a fever i ask? No he says, there are kinds you can develop in Cambodia that will be resistant to your malarone and do this to you. If you'd stayed in India, I wouldn't worry, but you went to Cambodia. Interesting, tell that to mom.

Ok, upstairs, doc wanted me to get a blood test, and at this point I just want to know what's wrong with me. So I do it. I mean, it's not such a bad hospital right? Indians survive this kind of medical care, I can be tough, right? We go up to the lab and the guy does not wear gloves, nor does he wash his hands before he begins to put the strap thingy on my arm. NO I say, please wash your hands, Sayeed says it in Hindi, he rolls his eyes and grudgingly goes to the sink. I then watch what he's doing with the needle, notice that it's taken out of a plastic container, but not a plastic sealed bag--new, right? Sayeed sees the needle and makes that noise he makes, sucking in air thru the sides of his mouth, shocked at it's size. Sayeed! I say, Don't scare me like that, you just said I had to be tough!

And that's it, I return home with more antibiotics and these weird electrolyte packages. When I tell Priz and Jason I got blood taken they freak out and start sending me stories about kids who got HIV from used needles in Indian hospitals. Thanks guys. I am going to bed.

I missed seeing Race with the team that night bc I was too sick. I ate noodle soup for about three days straight and I missed all the fun 'out' nights before everyone left. Luckily though I recovered enough before meeting Taylor and Evan for our weeklong adventure. But let me tell you, being sick in india is no fun, even with your surrogate family and everyone there to take care of you. Oh, and when you are sick, stay far away from WebMD, it has a great way of freaking you out and thinking you have just about any disease that even remotely resembles the symptoms you exhibit--Giardia? Dengue? you name it, I was convinced I had it.

A little behind

I cannot tell a lie, I am writing about history and not exactly the recent past. I am currently in the Hong Kong airport (thank you free wireless) on my way back to San Francisco. The adventure has ended, and I'm a lot sad about it.

On to the next chapter right?

Well, on that note, I'd like to let you know that I will be back to my old tricks...walking for Cystic Fibrosis on May 5th in Crissy Field in San Francisco!
Please join me or just donate to the cause!

Here's the Great Strides Page

Oh and don't worry, there are still about three trips or so to talk about, and some fun Indian idiosyncracies....

Yes, we did make it to Temples

I realize I named the last one a bit prematurely--but Siem Reap, while known for it's temples, has a lot more to do than just that. So, as with most things I do, I got sidetracked.

Anyway, the next day we woke up for temple hopping. We grabbed a tuk-tuk that could fit all five of us (it was a bit of a squeeze) and headed to the Angkor Wat complex.

Our driver seemed super sweet, and knew what he was doing--which was fortuitous. We stopped to pay and get our photos taken for our passes, we bought three day passes so we could go back as much as we wanted. And with the Lonely Planet South East Asia and our driver as our guides, headed to our first temple.

First stop: The temple with all the faces--Bayon.

Pretty cool. Really big faces. But it was hot, and covered with tourists--mostly b/c this seems to be the first one everyone goes to. We were looking for the terrace of Elephants, but it was tough. We did see this long cool walkway thing to a temple that was currently closed for renovation. Interesting.

Then we saw the Terrace of Elephants. As you would be able to tell from many of the things I bought here--I like elephants a lot, so this was a fun one for me--a whole wall of them--it's where the kind used to look out on his victorious army or something.

Next we headed to what was definitely one of my favorite temples, the jungle one or umm, Ta Prohm. They left it as the found it (or mostly) so there are these amazing trees growing out of, around and through the temple. Beautiful. Also, it's being 'restored' with the help of the Indian Governmnent--Go India.http://picasaweb.google.com/asudow/TinTinAuCambodge/photo#5182328067644368498







Not bad right?

You might be asking why we didn't go see Angkor Wat right away--I mean, that's what we were there for right? Well. The thing is, we were saving it. We had grand plans to see Angkor Wat at sunrise, because apparently that's what you are supposed to do. And isn't that when all those beautiful paintings you see all over Cambodia are painted? With the red and yellow sky and the stones just glowing in the early morning light? Yeah, saving it.

I think we went to one more temple that day, just a bit off the beaten path and well worth it. We felt like we had the temple all to ourselves. AND We got to have a nice little lunch in a field.

That's me having the temple to myself.

Thing is, at all these temples there are these little girls, women, boys, everything, selling postcards, books, Khmere scarves, handicrafts, bottled water. They've all got the same sales pitch. They call you lady, ask if you want what they are selling, shove it in your face, ask again, when you say, no, I want to go to the temple, they say 'lady if you buy, you buy from me?' And then somehow you get away. And then, when you walk back out of the temple, there they are as promised, selling what you apparently promised to buy only from them, because their Khmere checked scarves are somehow better than the one of the not as cute girl who was also selling them. In true Jason and My fashion, they'd have fun with the girls. My would be sweet and ask their name and age, and the girls would love the attention.



Jason on the other hand would jokingly mess with them. They'd ask his name, he'd ask theirs, they'd try to sell a scarf, he'd tell them he could buy it for 1/3 of the price somewhere else. And for this reason, since the girls had so much fun with them, they followed us across the street to where we had lunch, and watched us eat for a while...

The other great thing about being in almost English speaking countries is their spelling. Most signs. menus etc are in English (and sometimes Cambodian and French too), since most tourists speak English, and a lot of the Cambodians do too.
So, sometimes, the English translation is just a bit off...'Think you somach!'


And this is why, conversly, I don't want to buy one of those shirts with cool Chinese/Cambodian/Thai writing on it unless I am with someone who will tell me (without lying) exactly what it says!.

That concluded day one of temple hopping. After the sun, walking around and just being out all day, we were pretty beat. We headed back to the guest houses to freshen up, sit for about 12 min, and decided it was worth going to see the sunset from another temple--on one of the people at the ticket booth's suggestion. Bad idea. Or rather, good one, but too many people had it. The walk up to the temple was so crowded it was like being on the streets in India, only without the cows and autos. At the top of the temple, it was just so crowded with people ready to see the sun sink behind the forest, that you could barely have a place to sit--or any peace and quiet. Plus, Let's be honest, I've seen sunsets before, what I wanted was the sun setting against the stones of the temple and the way it makes them glow...well, the sun set over the forrest, and while it was pretty, I could have benefitted just as much from watching it from a balcony in town with a cold beer in my had away from the masses.

We were all, as I mentioned, beat. We headed to the guest house once again and thought about what sounded good for dinner. Meanwhile, Priz had caught a tummy bug of sorts and was not ready to join us :(

Our foursome headed to town and realized that we'd had enough noodles and lok lok...somehow we all were thinking the same thing in our heads, PIZZA! Wow--can you get good pizza in Siem Reap or what. We found a little Italian Trattoria and feasted.

We needed our strength as the next day we were planning to get up before the sun to see Angkor Wat at sunrise. Well...Only Jason, My and I made it--and for me, the photographer, it was worth it. Talk about magic light time...and, on top of that, unlike the sunset experience, the temple wasn't totally overcrowded as I assumed it would be.


..and so I played with light







but wait, there's more! After rest and breakfast we headed out again--even 'further afield' as the Lonely Planet says than Bantey Samre the day before. Bantey Srei is the women's temple, and Hindu. But before we saw that, we drove about 2 hours on a dirt road to a place where you take a 45 min 'hike' to some rock carvings. And, as with most of that day, the journey was more interesting than what we walked to. We saw cool lizards, had fun with each other, and got to be in the woods.
See how much fun we're having?
The carvings, well, they were a bit, umm, underwhelming...


After lunch we piled back with Buntuhn in the tuk-tuk and headed down the dirt road to Bantey Srei. We saw small villages, lot's of nakey babies and goats and cows!

this is probably my favorite pic of the trip.

Bantey Srei, while small, was really impressive. Intricate carvings depicting Hindu gods Ganesh, Vishnu and prolly some others if I was better at knowing my Hindu religious facts. The other interesting thing about this temple (I overheard a tourguide say) was that there are bullet holes in it. The reason these temples weren't destroyed during PolPot's regime was that they were used as army forts. So, people shot at them. Wow.

Ok, so at this point I bet you are getting a little templed out? Yeah, me too. Priz and I hopped off the Tuk-Tuk about a km from our guest house to walk thru a small village/slum along the water. We'd been driving through it every day and wanting badly to shoot it. This was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip. Everyone smiles, everyone asks where you are from, and the pictures...well, see for yourself.







We headed back to our place to get ready for a night on the town. In talking to the guy at our guest house we found a great way to surprise Jason and My....Dinner would not only include feeding ourselves, but also some crocodiles the restaurant keeps in the basement!


Dead Fish (yes, that's it's name, catchy right?) was also just a really cool restaurant--lots of different levels and platforms. You sit on the floor on cushious and can kind of see all the other levels--we had our level all to ourselves! We also got to see a traditional Khmere dance--it was like half vegas showgirls (they were dancing for us on a raised platform above the bar), half high school dance recital (they were fully clothed and looked about 16).

We headed to another bar for a few more mojitos, and happily headed home!

The next day we slept in a little, I saw Angkor Wat again--with the lazies that couldn't wake up at dawn, and then headed to town for some shopping, aux byciclettes. Fun times. It's funny to bargain when you are paying in dollars, things feel like they cost more simply b/c it's not like monopoly money!

The only thing I couldn't get just right at the market was the Tin Tin au Cambodge shirt--luckily Tay was there the next week and picked me up a sweet one ;)

Temples temples and some more lok lok

Siem Reap, where all the temples that make up the pride of Cambodia are located.

We arrived in the evening and headed to our guest house, Rosy's, just outside of the main area of town. Great spot, nice rooms, friendly staff and a cool upstairs sitting area, with hammocks! Hammocks are totally the thing in Cambodia. They have them everywhere, restaurants, roadsides, patios, and at any given time, you can usually find someone sleeping in one.


After dropping our stuff we headed into town for dinner--nice walk along the river on to crowded 'town.' At once we were bombarded by tuk-tuk drivers asking if we needed a ride (don't they realize we just walked 15 minutes and now only have two more till we get to dinner on a street thay can't drive down?), women (umm, girls) asking if we want massages, and tourists everywhere. We head to pub street and walk into the first restaurant we see, mostly b/c we are pretty hungry and it had a cool roof balcony area. My got super excited because they had Vietnamese food on the menu, so combine that with lok lok and some other goodies and you've got quite the meal (don't forget the super fruity fruit shakes-mm watermelon).

On the way home we thought it would be stellar to have a massage--after all, as Jason says, we deserved it-it had been a rough day of shopping and hopping from one city to another. Now, knowing that sometimes Cambodia can be kind of sketchy in this area, and wanting to make sure we did not get, umm, taken advantage of, we made sure to go into the most established looking massage place on the street--or so we thought. Let's remember though, it was about 11:30pm, anything is sketchy at 11:30pm....

So we walk in, we ask for just head and shoulder massages, and we are told to have a seat. My, Priz and I sit down in the foot massage chairs, and as Brian is about to sit down the boss says, no, you, sit over there. Commence giggles and bickering in Khmere from the massage girls in the corner. Hmmm. Five minutes later the boss comes and says, we need to go across the street. Why? we ask. 'Upstairs here is...umm, well, it's occu-busy.' right.

Across the street we go, upstairs, a bunch of mattresses. 'Change.' Into what? (mind you, there are five of us, together, they did not separate out the boys as they'd hoped, 2 boys, 3 girls. 'Change!' they say again. No no, we just want head and shoulders, no oil. The girls massaging Priz, My and I acquiece, we can keep our shirts on. However, the girl massaging Brian persists. 'Sir, Change!' she says forcefully. Brian asks, 'do you want me to take off my shirt?' Yes she says, change. Brian does as he's told. Jason begins to follow suit until My says, also forcefully, 'J, don't take off your shirt.'


So here we go, massage. You coud tell someone had sort of told them what a thai massage was like, and they tried, but mostly it was a lot of a girl sitting on my butt trying to rub my shoulders and crack bones that should not crack, ie, not a good massage. Well, there was also a peanut gallery. Brian's forcefull sargent began asking if Priz was his girlfriend, no we both giggled, and then she just asked, do you want to go to sleep with me? umm, NO! 'You me, go make baby?' NO...giggle giggle with the girl next to her massaging Priz. This keeps up for the full 45 min we are being massaged.

After they asked if we wanted tea. We said NO thank YOU. And ran out of there as quickly as possible.

The walk home, while we laughed about the whole experience, it was also kind of saddening. How old we these girls? They really looked like they were no more than 15. And do most people walk into the VIP Massage looking for sex instead of an actual massage? Do all these places do that? The sex industry Taylor leads a trip about suddenly became very real. It was just so in our faces.

We stayed away from massages the rest of the trip, we didn't really feel like, 'Taking the memory home.'

Tin Tin au Cambodge

Yes, that's right, on trip 5 to Bangkok airport we were en route to Phnom Penh (after spending two days in Hyderabad and one night in that comfy bed of mine in the guest house)...why might you ask did we have such a quick turn around time (or TAT as we would say at Google), don't ask.

Anyway, Google India had a long weekend, so we took full advantage by spending 5 days in Cambodia. We went to Phnom Penh for one night, two days. After a nap in our hotel, Indochine 2, we headed to lunch, I don't remember the name of the place, My took us, as it was one of her favorites when she was living there--comfy red pillows, Elephant coffee pots--sadly not the size of elephants

...and Lok Lok.

Lok Lok was definitely my favorite Cambodian food--stir fried beef in a really good sauce--I am down for that. Esp in this beef deprived body.

After lunch we tackled the depressing part of the day and the trip. We headed to S 21 and the Killing fields. I learned so much in that afternoon about Cambodia's recent past and why it is the way it is now. Basically, Pol Pot came to power, told everyone they should be rice farmers and killed all the people that were educated and into art and culture. He was kind of like Stalin in that if he didn't trust you, he killed you. And, if he thought you knew something, he tortured you. Pol Pot took people from the cities and brought them to prison--we visited one such prison-It's now called Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a primary school converted into a prison and interrogation center. Classrooms were used as cells, some were divided into multiple cells. It was eerie, in some rooms there was still blood on the floors. And Pol Pot and his regime took pictures of all their inmates. So lining the walls and rooms full of black and white headshots of cambodians young and old who spent what were for many of them, their last days starving in harsh treatment in this prison simply because someone thought they were traitors. Really harrowing. The other thing that was harrowing to me was that the structure of the school and how much it reminded me of the second school we visited in Chiang Mai, where all the girls were happy and in their uniforms smiling and telling us what they were learning about. How could a happy place with so much hope become a prison for people who didn't do anything wrong?

Well, After that happy trip, we headed straight out to the Killing Fields. A site outside the city where they brought people to dig their own graves, and then bludgeoned them to death--this was of course to save ammunition. Again, harrowing, and scary how much it reminded me of the way the Nazi's killed the Jews on death marches at the end of the Holocaust. How can things be so planned, so methodical? And how can it happen in many places all over the world with different dictators.

...I never said all my entries would be happy. If you're depressed keep reading, it will get better.

Exact numbers of how many people were killed during Pol Pot's reign are uncertain, anywhere from the high hundreds of thousands, to over a million. Most people assume it was about 1/3 of the Cambodian population. That's a lot. (I didn't say it would get less depressing right away).

So what was left? Well, the Cambodian people feel a strong tie to their Khmere heritage, they are proud of the Angkor Wat temple and palace complex and are some of the friendliest people you'll meet. So now they are working on recovery. After all, this only ended about 20 years ago, and it took some time with UN occupation and unstable leadership. It also doesn't sound like the current leader is the most, umm, straightforward of leaders.

The rest of Phnom Penh was spent seeing the city, meeting a few of My's expat friends from her time working for Pepy Ride. There is a large expat community in Cambodia and especially Phnom Penh b/c there are so many NGOs that have come in to try to solve the problems in many different ways: Teaching kids and women how to make money from the local crafts they make, teaching them to be waitors and waitresses, leading bike trips across the country to raise money for schools and the environement. A pretty big range, most of them focusing on using what makes the Khmere the Khmere to make money--I like it.

We went to the FCC for drinks. FCC stands for Foreign Communications Center (I think)--it's where all the journalists used to hang out and write and file their stories. The newsie in me was a big fan, especially of all the photojournalistic pics on the wall. The french fries with aioli did not hurt either ;)

On to the Friends Restaurant. One of the NGOs both teaching waiting skills as well as handicrafts. Decent meal, but worth it b/c you knew you were doing good--and the waiters were great and trying so hard to impress!

The next day in Phnom Penh was spent at a long breakfast with 16 coffees among the five of us (yeah, we like good coffee when we can get it), and wandering around the markets before hopping on our plane to Siem Reap. Shopping is fun.









Fattest fat monkey hangin out in the park

Bangkok Airport

Yeah, that's right, I said Bangkok airport. The crew has now been in the Bangkok Airport 6 times without actually going to Bangkok, yes, one of the times I had a Whopper from Burger King and thoroughly enjoyed it.

This was all within about 6 weeks....Sewatee Kaaaah



The weekend after Dubai we headed to Koh Samui. Beaches, hammocks, Mai Tais etc etc. Not so bad right?



Fun times. I can't even remember now--there were floaties, there was a boat, there was a shark...or two. No don't worry, we didn't see the shark in the Ocean, we just ate him for dinner. The strange thing was, as we were eating delicious grilled shark steak (and baracuda as well) Sharky's head was hanging out on our table. yeah, that's right, Brian, Jason and Steven had picked out which shark we wanted to eat, and then watched as they separated the head from the body (ie chopped it off). They then proceeded to take pictures with sharky's head. They had such a hard time parting with sharky, they asked the butcher (is that what you call someone who cuts fish?) if he could bring the head to our table. Low and behold, he did.


Well, the next day, we hadn't had quite enough shark. So when Priz was bargaining for a charter boat to take us around some deserted islands (doesn't sound so bad right?) The boys bought her a special present...


This was just in case anyone needed help swimming...Sharky was there to save them. He came with us on the boat and took up most of the space in the hull.

That's why we all sat up front...and you could feel the waves better up there!


You know I never liked snorkling untill I did it at Koh Samui. The water was warm, I didn't feel like I was coughing up salt water, and the fish would swim right up to you! I even followed around this rainbowy fish for a little as it hopped from one coral to another.

We also had our own private lunch on an island with the boat. They just kept bringing us food, it was amazing. Thai food is pretty good, especially after being in India for so long (please read Chiang Mai entry for more details).

who doesn't love fried shrimps?


We also got to hang out on our own private beach. Sadly this part of the day was cut a bit short because our captain seemed to think a storm was coming...Umm, or he just wanted to get back home in time for dinner. But, nonetheless, he had a cute kid and took us to a beautiful beach that we didn't have to share with a single soul!



On our last day we decided to do a litte Island exploring. Saw a really big buddha, did some shopping,
and ate our way through the local town we walked through.


So while I quite enjoyed Koh Samui, it was beautiful, and we ate great seafood, got a tan and saw beautiful fishes and beaches, I do think I've learned I quite like the exploring and seeing the 'real' version of a place, instead of being a tourist in a resort...We'll file that away for next time.