Phnom Pehn

We left the touristy town of Siem Reap that was surrounded by country side and ancient ruins and headed to Phnom Pehn, the capital of Cambodia. Like any capital city, Phnom Pehn was busy, bustling, and crowded. Our tour of the city began by visiting the royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. The entire complex was stunning and my favorite part of the city. Later that evening, we took a sunset cruise out to the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers. The sunset was beautiful and we enjoyed our first glimpse into life on the Mekong.

The next day, we toured the Genocide Museum which you can see at the end of the slide show. A former school, this building had been converted into a prison where the Khmer Rouge could torture their prisoners. The exhibits were very hard to walk through. One room had walls of "mug shot" style photos of a couple hundred of the 2 million that were killed while another room showed horrific paintings of torture. I didn't include any photos of the exhibits, just the building itself. Towards the end of their civil war, the Khmer Rouge gained control. The Khmer Rouge forced the people from the cities into the rural areas to become farmers. Their attempt at agricultural reform ironically lead to a famine. The most horrific part of the Khmer Rough was how they selected their victims. They would gather people and tell them they were rebuilding Cambodia and wanted the educated to be the new leaders. The educated were asked to step forward and once identified were later executed. It is easier to control the un-educated than educated. Combined with the genocide of the educated and other deaths under the Khmer Rouge during the 1970's, nearly 2 million people lost their lives, almost 1/3 of the population.

Siem Reap

Although centered heavily around tourism, we were able to gain some perspective into life in Siem Reap and Cambodia. Over 90% of Cambodians are Khmer, the main ethic group and 95% are Buddhist. When walking through the temples of Angkor, we would often see the local Khmer people making offerings of fruit or incense to the various Buddha statues.

Cambodians make, on average, slightly less than $2,500 a year. As we drove past the many small creeks, we would see the men and children out casting nets trying to catch fish or leading the cattle around. We also saw some rice fields and got to try rice right off the rice plant! After farming and the textile industry, tourism is the next biggest market. Almost all of the people that we have come in contact with were in the tourism industry. At each temple there were groups of children selling various trinkets and women selling scarves that would swarm around you trying to get you to buy whatever they could. It would have been nice to escape the touristy areas, but we just didn’t have time for that during this trip.

The pictures below are from around town and of a traditional Khmer music and dance show.

Tom's Favorites: Ta Prahm and Ta Som

This is our final post of the Angkor Temples! Ta Som and Ta Prahm were two of Tom's favorite temples. Over the centuries, the jungle had reclaimed the temples and trees began to grow over and on top of the temple ruins. Seeing such tall trees with large intertwining tangled roots growing on the temples was so neat! The trees seemed to be holding together the ruins, however, when the trees die or fall, they will likely take the ruins with them.

Cambodia is hot!

Cambodia is hot! And when I say hot, I mean that type of relentless heat and humidity that makes you retreat indoors during the hottest hours of the day. Cambodia has two seasons: wet and dry. We were there in November which is the first month of the dry season which runs through March. During the dry season, temperatures can reach up to 104 °F, but when we were there, it was in the mid to upper 90s and humid!

Having just arrived after the end of the rainy season, we could still see the effects of the heavy rains, mainly though the size of the main lake in Cambodia, Lake Tonle Sap. During the dry season, the lake is about 1,000 sq mi, but can reach 9,500 sq mi during the rainy season. As we flew into Siem Reap, we could see that much of the land was still flooded.

For those of you not familiar with Cambodia, it is sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam with Laos to the north. Parts of Cambodia are a part of the Mekong Delta which extends down through Vietnam.

As I mentioned before, the Angkor Wat complex is huge! Here are pictures of Banteay Kdei, Banteay Samre, Banteay Srei, Prasat Kravan, Pre Rup, and Preah Khan. The pictures really can't do the temples justice. Hopefully we will have the chance to explain the meaning behind the individual pictures. Some of the temples started out a Buddhist, but when the Hindus took over, all the Buddha carvings were removed or changed into Hindu carvings, often ones of dancers. If you have any questions about specific pictures, please do not hesitate to ask!

Angkor Thom

Angkor Thom was an impressive complex of temples. Literally meaning great city, this complex built in the late 12th century covers an area of 9 km². The pictures below are of the five different sites within Angkor Thom.

When we first thought of coming to the Angkor temples, I thought, now would be a great time before it gets too touristy. There were more tourists there than I would have ever imagined. Not too many Americans or Europeans, but the Koreans and Chinese came by the bus loads. Our tour guide was funny and said they call the Koreans locusts because they are so loud.  The temples are still nice, bus it sure would have been nicer if we didn’t have to compete with throngs of other tourists!

Angkor Wat

The temples in Angkor (Siem Reap), Cambodia were absolutely amazing! They were so much larger and more complex than we could have ever imagined. We thought we would share pictures of the most iconic temple with you first, Angkor Wat. This stunning temple was built in the early 12th century as a state temple and capital city. Originally dedicated to Hindu god Vishnu, the temple is used today by Buddhists.

We got to tour all around inside the temple, admire the impressive engravings and carvings, and even got to go all the way to the top. We stayed to watch the sun set at the temple. As the sun lowered and hit the temple, it gave Angkor Wat a beautiful gold glow.

We talk more about Cambodia later, but for now, enjoy the pictures of Angkor Wat!

Kuala Lumpur

By the time we arrived in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, we were exhausted. Jet lag had finally set in and Tom's two weeks of 12 hour nights had finally caught up with him. Despite being exhausted and having limited time, we tried to see as much as we could. Burmese refugee friends had spent time in KL before coming to the US. I had been looking forward to Kuala Lumpur because most of my Our first stop was at the Kuala Lumpur tower which looks like the Seattle space needle. From here, we got great views of the city including Kuala Lumpur's iconic twin towers. Our ticket included admission to an "animal experience" which turned out to be animals kept in rather poor conditions so that was rather sad to see. However, I did get to hold 2 iguanas and the bigger one was just about the coolest and most beautiful lizard I have ever seen.

After that, we took a brief trip through China town. The tourist market had just about anything you could ever want. The sites, sounds, and colors were overwhelming in a fun way. I really wish we could have seen more, but we had to get up at 3:30am the next day so we went to bed early. Plus, the humidity was so intense so it was hard to have a long day. Enjoy the pictures!

Our Day in Singapore

Singapore reminds me of New York, only unimaginably humid, cleaner, safer, and friendlier. Singapore is such a safe city because the government imposes outrageous fines and penalties, so much so that people really don’t partake in crime. (Ex. About $800 for smoking in a no smoking zone or $400 for eating in the subway). At only 137 miles above the equator with a tropical rainforest climate, it was humid!

Singapore is a city, country and island all in one. About 6 million people live there, and are mainly of Chinese, Malay, or Indian decent. There are four official languages, of which English is one making it very easy to get around.
With Buddhism as the most common religion, I was surprised to see the city so decked out for Christmas. Beautiful blue and silver decorations lined the main streets while the different malls put out there own decorations. Speaking of malls, I’ve never seen so many in my life. Instead of streets lined with stores, they have streets lined with shopping malls!

In the evening, one of the men Tom had working with took us to the Singapore Flyer, which is like the London Eye. We had hoped to do the night safari, but on a rainy night, it was the perfect thing to do! Afterwards, he and his wife took us to a Mediterranean vegetarian restaurant, yummy! One day was definitely not enough here. If I’m lucky enough to come back, I hope to be able to go to their nature reserves.

The Gardens of Singapore

I finally got to see Singapore, where Tom has spent over 6 weeks combined this year. Our first stop was the botanical gardens. The gardens were so much larger than I expected. It was an enormous public park with many trails and had a smaller orchid garden. We really enjoyed seeing so many different types of plants. The diversity, patterns, and color among the plants was truly amazing.

Our biggest surprise of the morning was when we rounded a corner and saw a big monitor lizard on the trail! I think the one we saw was a water monitor (Varanus salvator). They can grow up to 10.5 ft, but the one we saw was between 5-6 ft. Water monitors are great swimmers and will eat everything from fidh to crabs to snakes and rodents. After we got over the surprise of seeing him and noticed the size of his claws, we left him alone as he swam away. We also saw a swan, beautiful humming bird, and a few curious squirrels.

The Beauty Below

It's been quite some time since my last post here and with a trip to South East Asia, I thought it would be the perfect time to start back up. I named my blog "On the Path Unwinding" after a verse of one of my favorite songs: Elton John's Circle of Life. One of the lines of the song says, "There is more to see than can ever be seen; more to do than can ever be done." I know I'll never get to see or do everything, but I can never pass up on opportunities like this trip to see so many new places.

While there is "more to see than can ever be seen," I I feel what you do see falls on what you choose to see. The views of flight from Dulles to Korea was quite amazing and unlike anything I had ever seen before. Once on the plane, almost everyone either pulled the window blind shut and tried to go to sleep or shut the window and started to watch movies. I did watch my share of movies, but I made sure to look out the window throughout the flight.

When flying from Dulles to Korea, the shortest path is over the frozen waters of the Arctic, northwestern Canada and the vast northeastern parts Russia. As the sun began to rise, you could see the ice breaking over the frozen arctic waters. Russia was the most amazing. Rivers that looked frozen in time meandered their way through the seemingly barren winter landscape. They created such amazing designs through the landscape; it really was quite stunning. I'll probably never get to those parts of the world, but at least I had the chance to see it from the air.

By the time the second flight from Korea to Singapore took off, it was already nighttime. I've never felt so close to the stars! I had a great view of Orion's Belt and the Gemini constellation for some time. I'm sure I had a great view of others, but I didn't know what I was looking at :)

There was one holy crap we are going to crash movement when the plane hit severe turbulence. Look at the last picture of the slide show and I think you will be able to tell when the pilots had to navigate through some challenging air.

Subsistence Farming - Raising Your Own Meat

I posted some pictures a few weeks ago of my visit to a student's house (the one with all the kittens!). Her rabbit recently had babies so she invited me over to see them and take more pictures.

Visiting her house is an interesting mix of emotions. I absolutely love animals so I enjoyed being there and seeing all the animals - especially cuddling the kittens! I also absolutely adore my student and loved spending time with her. On the other hand, it's hard to think that all the animals, excluding the cats and dogs, are raised for meat. Even the baby bunnies will eventually be turned into meat.

Subsistence farming, whether animals or crops, is a large part of life in Padina. People cannot afford to go to a grocery store and buy meat. If they want meat, they need to raise it. Pigs are bought when they are very young. Baby chickens, ducks, and turkeys can all be bought at the local market, usually for less than a dollar. I couldn't imagine raising an animal and then killing it for food, but that is how life is in many countries around the world. Although this concept is foreign to us, it's actually much more environmentally friendly than how we get our meat. Think of all the resources that go into producing the meat that you eat. From the farm to the factory to the packaging and then to the store, a lot of resources are consumed. Even though most of us might have a hard time raising our own meat, subsistence farming sure is a better environmental option.

I would consider having chickens one day - but just for eggs. I saw one chicken laying awkwardly against a wall. I asked her what the chicken was doing. She said it was probably laying an egg. Sure enough, when she picked up the chicken, there was an egg underneath! Many people also used fresh cows milk and homemade cheese. not everyone has a cow, but there is usually at least one person in the extended family that can supply the others with milk.

The last few pictures are from a visit to a church member's house. Her grandchildren had two adorable kittens. The black and white kitten cuddled in my arms for about a half hour. He would meow in protest every time that I stopped petting him. Enjoy the pictures!

Time to Say Goodbye

The last week was a strange mix of emotions. On one hand, I was really sad to be leaving. I felt like I finally got the hang of teaching. English is such a difficult language, there was too much left to cover! On the other hand, I am so excited to be going home! The two emotional extremes basically canceled each other out and I really didn't feel much of anything when I left.

My long round of goodbyes started on my last Sunday in Padina. I attended my last service in Kovacica. That "goodbye" was the easiest because I hardly spent any time there and didn't know any of the adults at the church. I feel really awkward being recognized in public. I am happier just doing my work and not attracting any attention. But since my host viewed my work as sharing God's love, I was factored into the sermon. While he was thanking me for my work, one cute little old lady said, "What about her husband? We need to thank him to!" so for about 5 minutes, Tom was the topic of conversation in a small church in rural Serbia. They said they appreciated the sacrifice Tom made by letting me come here and the support he has given me. So Tom, the congregation of Kovacica thanks you! I got plenty of goodbye hugs and kisses from the members. I think the older people just liked having someone young at their church. The ladies will come up to you, pinch your checks, and give you a big hug and a kiss simply for being there.

Even though I would attend church with them on my last Wednesday, my official goodbye to the church in Padina was later that afternoon. Janko went through the same goodbye/thank you speech as in Kovacica, but this time he also brought up Tom. Padina thanks you as well, Tom! I received a few more hand made goodbye gifts to add to my already bursting suitcase.

The most difficult goodbyes were with the adults students. I enjoyed working with them the most so I will definitely miss them the most. I really hope I can come back in a few years and visit everyone.

Goodbye Serbia, Hello Home!!!

Market in Kovacica

On my last Saturday in Serbia, Liljana took me to the market in the neighboring town of Kovacica. This market was bigger than the one in Padina and had a slightly different atmosphere. Enjoy the pictures!

Italy!

Sorry I haven't posted anything in about a week. My last few days in Serbia were too busy and I didn't have internet here in Italy for a few days. Please continue to check back over the next two weeks. I still have plenty of things to post!

Playing Dress-Up and a Priceless Gift

About a month ago, one of the petite little old ladies from the Church offered to dress me in her traditional Slovak clothes since we are around the same size. I happily took her up on the offer this week! Traditional Slovak clothing is very neat and always very colorful.

After visited the Ethno House, it was really neat to see her house. I have visited a few houses here in Padina, but because most of my students are younger (under 50), their houses are more modern. Her wardrobe looked like it could have been in the ethno-house! She also had the traditional mattress on her bed as well as the typical painted and colorful walls. Both of the outfits that I am wearing in the Pictures were hand made by her around 30 years ago. She still wears the outfits I had on today, but only for very formal occasions.

First, you have to put on the blouse and button it all the way up to your neck. This would not be bad in the winter, but I don't know how they survived the summers. Next, you put on up to three slips that have been treated in starch. I luckily only had one on in this picture. After that, you put on the skirt. Formal skirts, like the ones in these pictures, are heavy because of the amount of material used. The, you put on the apron. The skirts are made with adjustable waste bands so that they can be worn as you get older and bigger. The apron covers the opening in the front of the skirt. After you are dressed, you put on the cap or bonnet. The cap reminds me of wearing a baseball hat backwards. You can see the cap in the second picture. And finally, if you want, you can tie a scarf around your head. It seems like so much effort just to get dressed, but it was a lot of fun!

I think the lady, who is probably one of the cutest little old ladies in all of Padina, had fun dressing me up. We even convinced Liljana to dress up in traditional Slovak clothes. Liljana is Macedonian so she doesn't wear clothes like this. It was really fun seeing her dressed up as well and was definitely entertaining for Janko. He called me "Zuska" whenever I had on one of the outfits.

After dressing up, we had hot cappuccinos in the 90 degree weather. The lady said something to my hosts and then went back inside. They told me that the lady wanted to give me a skirt! The people here are too generous and I was so afraid she would try to give me one of the beautiful skirts that I had on. To my relief, she came back out with a less formal skirt. They have light weight, simple, inexpensive skirts that they wear on a daily basis. The ones I had on were expensive, heavy, and very formal. The skirt she brought out was somewhere in the middle. It is too nice to wear on a daily basis, but definitely not as formal as the ones I had on. I was so honored and grateful that she wanted to give me something so nice and personal, but I felt a little guilty accepting it. I think she made it about 30 years ago. I really don't think it's possible for the people here to be more generous! Hopefully I can find the perfect occasion to wear the skirt at home!

Padina's Ethno-House

Many villages in this area have an Ethno-House. The Ethno-House is a house that is set up to show how people used to live back in the 1800's and early 1900's. My hosts and I finally got to see Padina's ethno-house just last week. The house was very neat to see and was a great example of what the inside of houses used to look like in Slovak villages like this.

You will notice that the walls are very colorful. Walls with painted designs were very common. You can still see some walls like that today, but as time has changed, the walls are becoming much plainer.

The lady who runs the house was very friendly. She even let me dress up in a traditional, formal Slovak outfit. Enjoy the pictures!

More Adorable Kittens . . . and some other animals too

My student, Zuska, that took me to and from Belgrade for the concert invited me to her house because she knows how much I love animals. I had been wanting to see her kittens for awhile so I was very excited to go. Like many families here, they raise their own pigs, rabbits, chickens, etc because meat is too expensive. I took a few pictures of the chickens, ducks, and geese, but I spent most of the time with the adorable kittens. I saw one little kitten swaying back and forth because she was about to fall asleep sitting up. I picked her up and she instantly fell asleep upside down in my arms. Too cute! She slept happily in my arms until her son knocked over a dirt bike. So what could possibly make me happier than holding a precious sleeping kitten? Holding 5 precious kittens at one time! These kittens were so cute! They reminded me of little bobcats.This slideshow is longer than the others, but who can get tired of kitten pictures?


On a side note, the weather here has been brutal the past few days. It has been around 95 degrees and humid for about a week now. Interestingly, Liljana said that summers never used to be this hot. The hot weather only started after they were bombed by Nato so that is an interesting coincidence.

Ethnic Museum

Earlier this week, my hosts, a student and her son, and I went to the ethnic museum in Padina. My hosts did not know about the museum before this, so this was their first time there too! The museum is free to the public and is run by a local couple. The museum included a very large collection of objects from Padina's 200+ year Slovak history. Because Padina was founded by settlers from Slovakia, the items are much closer to what you would see in Slovakia compared to the rest of Serbia. I was really surprised to see how colorful everything was. I was also surprised at how much this one couple had collected over the years! He even has some of the wicker suitcases that were brought over by the original settlers from Slovakia over 200 years ago. There is a picture of them below. You can see everything from traditional dishes to linens to outfits and more in the pictures below. The pictures outside the house show farming equipment, washboards, and other larger household items. Let me know if you have any questions!

I will be posting multiple times a day during my last week here, so make you sure scroll past this post to see all the pictures!

Thursday Market in Padina

Yesterday was my last market day in Padina. :( Although my family at home might not agree, time has gone by so fast! I would have loved to take more pictures at the market but even without my camera, I stand out in this town. People know almost as soon as they see me that I am not from around here. It was just too awkward taking such public pictures in a place that never sees tourists. I saw the brother and sister-in-law of one of my students at the market. (It is impossible to go there without seeing someone you know!) I said hi to them and continued walking through the market. They told me later that day that a stranger came up to them and asked them who I was because they could tell I wasn't from around here. So you can see why I didn't take too many pics!

My first stop at the market was to buy a few things from my favorite vendor. He sells the best tomatoes from Macedonia. Who knew Macedonia produced such great tomatoes? I always go to him because I can trust that he will give me a fair price on everything, plus he is really nice. He is my favorite because he has such a vibrant personality. The people here are wonderful, but they are quiet. This man is definitely an extrovert. He happily shouts out the prices to his customers with a big smile on his face as he weighs their selections. The first time I bought something from him, he proudly said "thank you!" He knows enough English to say the price and thank you, always with a smile of course. I told him I was leaving next week and then said "bye bye Padina" so he would understand.

Liljana went to the market later that day to buy things from the same man. He told her he was sad this interesting period in his life was over. I never thought selling fruit and veggies to an American once a week would be so interesting! He then gave Liljana a "special" price on whatever she bought from him because she is my host. There is one picture of him in the slide show below.

I always love to see the baby chicks and ducks at the market. They are too cute - especially the ducks! I would buy one as a pet, but there people here buy them to raise them for food. People only buy special processed meat at the stores. The majority of people here raise their own chickens or even pigs. You can see two pics below of the boxes of chicks. They are 35 dinar, or about 45 cents.

I have so many pictures to post, so there will likely be multiple posts per day over the next week. Make sure you scroll down so you don't miss anything!

Welcome to Kovacica!

Once a week, I teach an English class in the neighboring town of Kovacica. This towns seems a little bigger than Padina. Kovacica has bigger stores than Padina as well as a few cafes. Unfortunately, I only spend about two hours a week here between the English class and Liljana's Sunday school class, so I haven't really been able to explore the town. The few kids that come to English class/Sunday school are really great kids. I wish I was able to spend more time with them instead of some of the little terrors here in Padina.

The first picture of the blue building is the Methodist Church in Kovacica. The rest of the pictures are from the main square. I also took some pictures of the frogs and snails in the rain ditch/gutter alongside the road in front of the Church. the frogs were so loud! If you look closely, you can see how their cheeks puff out when they croak. My favorite picture is the one of the snail walking into the red pole. He was moving so slow, I don't understand how he still managed to walk into it!