Filed under: Travel
01/07/08 Siem Riep,Cambodia
There is hot water at the hotel buffet. The ability to make my own Taiwan green tea & organic oatmeal makes my day. Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, and Germans line up at the buffet for omelets, noodle soups, porridge, and muesli. A beautific boy plays music in the lobby. We spend the day visiting UNESCO sites, the ancient ruins of
Angkor, beginning with the pink stone Bantey Srei, the Citadel of women. Pink lotuses bloom in the moat.
Ta Prohm temple is the landscape of my dreams, banyans and figs oozing over the walls and reclaiming the 12th century temple into nature. 
Atop an ancient temple we meet a bright lad selling postcards and carved flutes. He is whipsmart and smiling. “California? Sacramento is your capitol. The President of the United States is George W. Bush. You have 300 million people. Cambodia has 24 million people.” A band of musicians with prosthetic limbs plays haunting, lovely tunes. These are the landmine victims’ bands.
Ordered fried frog for lunch but are told apologetically, “sorry, no raining, no frog. Not in season.” A woman sells me a t-shirt with a land mine warning on it for one dollar. We cruise to Ankor Thom where gods and demons wrestle eternally at the sides of the great gate. Climb steep stone steps up towers and temples. Past the elephant terrace. Awestruck by the great serene stone faces of Bayon. I leave money under a stone and burn incense in front of a stone buddha, missing those who passed from this world last year. An atheist’s existence is a lonely one at times. My cousin tells me he believes his father is in a better place, watching us. The smoke curls off the incense I wish it sends my love to wherever that place is.
Sunset is spent sitting at Angkor Wat. The scope of this place is so immense, yet every detail so finely crafted…I can only imagine how breath taking it was thousands of years ago. Gorgeous Apsaras dancing, dramas and war and daily life, beasts and societies all carved into the endless walls. A sun browned elderly woman collects plastic recycling. A chubby white tourist with big jewelry slips her money.
Every meal in this country has been included with our tour and consists of: stir fried vegetables, rice, a tom yum style soup, spring rolls or tod mun appetizers, and amok. It is curious that our guide feeds us the same meal constantly, but we are hungry and appreciative each time. We’ve tromped up and down ruins from 8:30 a.m. until sundown. We’re head to toe clad in red dust, and toasted by blazing hot sun. We decide to try massage in Cambodia. At the hotel, we shower and book our $15 an hour massage.
I ask P if he wants to try the “4 hand massage”, two masseuses working on you at once, for a mere $25 USD an hour. He declines. The tiny woman cracks my aching back thoroughly, and they chatter in Cambodian while they work…it sounds so familiar to me after all those years at ACMHS, but I still don’t understand. They teach us to say "Thank you" in Khmer, and I spend all the next day thanking everyone. "Au Gun"
01/09/08 Patthaya,Thailand
We gave up on the idea of a Coral Island Outing. Sweetheart K has been flattened by a mysterious gastrointestinal foe, and P & I are exhausted. After 3 days of dust and sun, and picking carefully at meals in
Cambodia, the plates of Thai rice noodles and my club sandwich on rye is like heaven on earth. (so is the Perrier). We arrived last night to the serene Woodlands resort. Were dismayed by the 24 hour booze joints that lined the streets across from us, and by the preponderance of 300 lb. white tourists with suspiciously young local women on their arms and barstools.
Curiously, at the beach we find that we are the sole non-Asian bipeds (other than locals) on the entire shore. Over here, enormous German bellies spill over Speedos, over yon, strong brown women provide Thai massage and pedicures, and vendors with buckets balanced on lean backs sell everything from bikinis to grilled shrimp. It’s beautiful here, and I sunbathe on a seaside rock while P calls friends. But if U look closely, there are dead fish and plastic bags in this water. No one is caring for the famous beach. The flotsam grossed me out, and we flee back to the resort where I have the last swim I will enjoy until winter ends back home.
We spend the evening at "The Tiffany Show" - Patthaya’s 30+ year transvestite show. The "girls" were simply gorgeous- sparkling, undulating, winsome, charming. Performances covered themes ranging from Bollywood to Korea to Tina Turner. What more can U ask for? Why, wait…there’s more! At the glittering Tiffany theatre-one can pose with the lovelies by the fountain! Be delivered to and from the show in a star spangled cross-dresser van! And, (this is the clincher) blow shit up at the Tiffany shooting range where gunshots crack out through the big doors with the rifle motif. Had fun. But suffice to say, Patthaya is not my style. It was very…
Cancun meets Bankgok. In drag.
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