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Suzanne Pace and Tim Kaulen of Polish Hill spent two weeks trekking around Thailand and Cambodia last month. Along with the bug spray and sunscreen, they took their 8-month-old child, Sophia.
Were they daring -- or nuts?
In short, they not only survived, they thrived, despite the occasional mishap.
Suzanne (writer) and Tim (photographer) chronicled the adventure in this space, with selections in print. (Suzanne pitched the idea by asking us: "Don't you think people will want to read the travel journal of a 40-year-old tattooed woman taking her infant daughter to walk around Cambodian ruins and attend a two-day Thai Buddhist wedding of my friend from college?"
We agreed.The dispatches are arranged in reverse chronological order, starting with Suzanne's grand summation once back on Pittsburgh soil.
Re-entry was not such a breeze.
The weary travelers arrived at JFK airport early on a Sunday morning, Feb. 24, to find their connecting Delta flight to Pittsburgh canceled due to bad weather. Next available flight: Monday, 6:30 a.m.
They spent a desperate day at JFK, trying to make new arrangements, while the world-weary Sophia performed multiple baby meltdowns. After much hysterics, they ended up buying tickets for a JetBlue flight to Pittsburgh that night ...
Two hundred thirty dollars and three hours later, we're at the baggage claim area at Pittsburgh International Airport.
Emily, my best pal, picks us up. Seeing her after those two weeks and hellish past few hours was a great relief. Tim and I are George Romero characters -- pale, lumping along, disheveled, unable to speak, occasionally grunting. Emily loads us in the car and we head back to Polish Hill.
I have absolutely no memory of the next 48 hours. Somehow our dog, Eli, is home, but I have no recollection of retrieving him from the boarder -- which cost us, by the way, more than Sophia's airline ticket to Thailand. Good God. What a racket.
When I awoke from the post-travel haze, I was at my desk at work, on the South Side, trying to wrap my head around Board of Director reports and budgets. And now, with a few weeks home under my belt, I think I can safely say I have made a full recovery.
The first week was rather difficult. Mostly for Sophia. But Tim and I were both so completely excited by the positive response we have gotten from our neighborhood in Polish Hill, as well as others in the city, it made being home pretty nice. All of the neighbors recognized baby Sophia and were excited to read about her adventures. It was just so sweet.
But besides that, readjusting in general was tough. She and Tim both usually fell asleep around 8 p.m. and slept long and hard til about 4. Then they would awaken and want to talk, play, read, eat and, basically, be entertained.
Sophia was actually much easier to deal with. Poor Tim went through a sort of time disconnect for about a solid week. Every night he slept a bit more, and a bit longer, but it took time to moderate. I, too, was having some difficulty, but not as extreme.
In the end, I have to say, we would do it again, for sure.
Honestly, we did in fact choose fairly navigable places, ones in which a Westerner would do well with a little patience, interest and, of course, moxie.
Not everyone could go to Cambodia with an 8-month-old child. (She turned 9 months during the trip. These milestones matter in babyland.) And I'm certainly not suggesting that one should. Or feel obliged to. Or advocating the safety of it. One wrong turn, one misplaced step -- and it could have all gone incredibly wrong.
However, I do think that some people, especially new moms, need an adventure like that to make them feel somehow connected with reality ... which, as most moms know, goes bye-bye when your own child occupies 110 percent of your mind space, 110 percent of the time.
For some people, getting away for the weekend accomplishes this. But for Tim and me, I think doing what we did (or do) -- that is explore, travel, have adventures -- is also who we are as a couple and why we have a bond, and makes us really like each other. When traveling and exploring, you are really forced to trust your partner. And we do trust one another immensely.
Schlepping a baby along took that trust to an entirely new level. You know what? We did great. It was really refreshing. It was like two full weeks of make-up sex.
Considering the confusion, doubt, frustration and downright anger that accompany being a parent (especially a new parent who is over 40), you better believe that reconfirming and rediscovering both the adventure and trust in our relationship through travel have done wonders for us.
Hey, we do have a life here ... and it's fun, and includes doing fun stuff with the kid.
I get it now.
In conclusion: Tips for young parents embarking on an adventurous journey with infant in tow:
• Prepare for the transitions: Food, drinks, independence, sleep, new needs -- they will surface. Once out of the regular schedule, our kid seemed to go in many new directions, such as wanting to eat by herself, wanting to crawl more, needing to see everything all the time. We had to adjust to her and fast.
• Double-check airline policies for infant travel and any surcharges. Make that triple-check: We thought we had checked, but discovered at the point of departure that young Sophia needed a flight document to Bangkok (414 bucks, please).
• Double check with pediatrician, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and any resource for updated info on health and safety issues. For instance, if we were staying longer than two weeks in Cambodia, and exploring the country, Sophia would have gotten shots for malaria and hepatitis.
• With a little tiny, non-ambulatory kid, a backpack-style baby carrier is essential. Just get one.
• Stay away from risky foods. Tim and I love weird, spicy, adventurous food. But we both stayed away from street vendors and carts while in Thailand and Cambodia.
Why, when a huge part of the culture is built around street food? Because one bad bite would have put either him or me or both of us down for the count. Sophia would have really paid the price. We needed to be healthy all the time.
Street foods would have to wait for another vacation. Instead we had wonderful regional foods in cafes and restaurants.
• Accept that French people are attractive. This is just a fact. We saw enough of them. They look better than you and I do when traveling. Get over it.
• Splurge for decent lodgings. The rule of thumb: Take your usual and do about a $25 upgrade. Hey, if you have the cash, then by all means, hello Four Seasons! But if you can't, at least upgrade.
You absolutely need a clean water source. If you have to share showers, that's your call, but your room must have a toilet and sink. For one, you don't want to leave your kid alone when you go to the bathroom. And second, in the event of projectile bodily discharges (not unusual), you need to have water to clean.
• Budget-minded travelers, take our advice: Don't scrimp on tips. Of course, you'll be polite and respectful with hotel staff: you're a nice person. But especially when traveling with a little kid, you're going to need all kinds of extra help and kindnesses. Tip well, early and often. You won't insult them. There is no shame. It's a service industry.
• Save extra dough for the exit tax.
• Make sure you pack the familiar blanket for snuggle time. The feel and smell will be familiar and your kid will appreciate that.
• Get Valium.
This was Suzanne's last dispatch from the travel, posted on Feb. 25:
Woke up to another beautiful day. Got our gear together and made our way downstairs to the open-air dining area at our hotel to eat breakfast before meeting our driver and heading to the temples for the morning. This is the last day at the temples for us, as our three-day pass runs out. I am torn because there are so many smaller temples and sites scattered around the main artery of Angkor Wat -- most of them at least a day's trip there and back again, and I'm sure, empty and super cool.
But we now have Sophia's schedule down and dare not divert. She's a total trooper all morning but by the time the sun is high, noonish, she crashes and burns and we need to go back to the hotel for rest and food. Staying close to base is essential for the trip.
Today we are going to Ta Prohm all morning, and then back to Bayon in the afternoon/sunset. Pate meets us at 8:30 and we are on our way.
Sophia snoozes in my arms in the tuk-tuk and Tim snaps shots of the streets. We go a back way to the site, not the normal route past the upscale shopping, the boutique hotels, the fancy French cafes. We go out and around the enclaves of housing for the Siem Reap residents.
The area is big and flat and blown open. No green, no trees, giant concrete culvert, cows wandering, lots of weird cafes and essential stores and markets. There is virtually no construction happening here, as opposed to the seemingly unlimited work happening in central Siem Reap, where there are hotels, museums, homes and shopping centers, as well as green spaces and parks.
Ah, the contradictions. I think they're beginning to wear on me.
After about 20 minutes, we arrive at the infamous Ta Prohm, the temple people can't help but associate with Indiana Jones (although he was never there) and Lara Croft. I love seeing nature reclaim structures so I'm especially excited to visit this set of ruins. We arrive to the usual fanfare associated: young kids trying to sell us crappy postcards, women shilling bags of cut pineapple, teenagers demonstrating rudimentary musical instruments and other "handy-crafts."
We make our way past them and enter into the temple grounds. Sophia is wide awake and is really looking around the area at the trees and strange plants. We pass a group of men who are playing music together on the path. They are land mine survivors who are now playing indigenous music to tourists for money instead of begging, so the sign read.
We stopped and listened. They had their very primitive-looking prosthetic legs off and out in front of them, next to the tin for collecting money. It was surreal. The prosthetic legs were hand painted and really bizarre. They had green socks painted on them.
It freaked me out a little. But I gave them some cash and moved on.
The temple was not as intact as some of the others, and there were blocks of carved stone all over the place. There were a fair number of tourists, mostly Japanese, who as per usual were more interested in Sophia than a 2,000-year-old ruin. She's like the living Hello Kitty.
The enormous trees stretched their roots across entire sections of the temple. Covered with moss and lichen, it looked green and slightly gray. I was trying to imagine what this place would look like in the middle of the rainy season. On the way in, we passed giant culverts along the road and so I knew that this entire place is smack dab in the middle of the flood plain that gets buried. I would love to see the temple stone wet and shiny with the rain.
But that's about it. Nothing more. I have no stomach for the gross water. Unfortunately in Cambodia there is so so so much raw filth -- raw sewage, garbage, plastic bags, animal dung -- that the dryness at least keeps it somewhat intact. During the rainy season this place turns into one big bucket of wet, watery disease.
Maybe the country should take some of the money being put into the fancy Cheesecake Factory-looking hotel development and invest in infrastructure like sewer treatment plants or clean safe wells. Easy to say. I'm just as much a part of the problem. No easy answers here.
We spend about four hours or so at this site and head back to the hotel. We had lunch, Tim got a massage, and I took Sophia to the pool and let her dangle her feet in the cold water. After a nap, we headed back out to Angkor Thom and the Bayon temple.
These faces are just too much and we wanted to see more of them before leaving. We took a roundabout walk behind the temples and were the only ones there. It was pretty cool. The jungle area around the temple is pretty clear, but just beyond the clearing was another world.
As it began to get dark, we could see and feel the jungle taking back. Birds began to come out again, monkeys began to roam the trees, and the insects were starting to come out. It was so still and quiet. I was sure we were going to get attacked by bears or lions or something. But we didn't. Instead, the three of us walked around and enjoyed the noises and private time before heading back to meet Pate and the tuk-tuk.
Back in Siem Reap, we have an excellent meal of traditional Khmer curry and cold Tiger beers. The Dutch woman we were sitting next to was leaving in the morning. She has been in Cambodia for about four months volunteering her services to the outlying schools, teaching English to the kids so that they would stand a better chance of getting work and a career, instead of farming.
She loved the country and told us that when she returned home, she would begin to get ready for her next trip -- Nigeria, where she would resume teaching.
She was 72.
The hardest day ever.
We made arrangements with Pate to visit the floating village in Tonle Sap lake, about 20 miles south of Siem Reap. I did a bit of reading on this and it seemed pretty cool. A nice break from the temples and a chance to see another part of the country.
I knew this would be a tourist place, but I wasn't much bothered since it's near a wildlife sanctuary world-famous for its protected bird species. Maybe we could get come cool souvenirs and just chill out on a boat. I was thinking something like a Colonial Williamsburg of the water -- maybe a little touristy kitsch, but in a pretty setting. Tim and I both love to fish, and love the water and being around weird boats and fishing culture, so we were incredibly excited.
The river itself is a critical part of Cambodian life as the fishing industry as well as farming is all contingent of its flowing and flooding.
Side note: I can't get a song ("Wild Thing") by Tone Loc out of my head. The spelling similarity to Tonle Sap suggested it. It's been two days of internal aural torture.
We slathered Sophia with Burt's Bees lemongrass bug spray (not toxic and works great) and sun block, loaded up on waters and snacks, and were on our way.
We rode in Pate's tuk-tuk. The road stopped about 5 kilometers outside of Siem Reap, of course, and in its place was some funky red dirt road suspiciously like the one we all rode in on. Sophia was fast asleep in my arms despite the bumps and jarring turns. We passed through little towns and followed the mini-river that was always on our left.
At times it seemed more like a creek. Tons of garbage. Mostly plastic bags. There were little shops and food markets, and we passed a section Tim loved -- small roadside garages that was like the industrial section: welding huts, scrap metal huts (seemed like most of the scrap was bike parts), machine shops with little drill presses. Some of the machines were run on car engines. It was pretty cool.
Every once in a while, a very decorated footbridge or small vehicle bridge would cross the mini-river and connect the village with the road. All of the homes were on stilts, most were thatched, and there were tons of kids playing in the dirty water. Carved wooden flat boats lined the river, and they were not unlike the flat boats that I have seen in bayou waters in the South. It smelled like fish all around.
The road began to get really bad and we approached some heavy equipment like bulldozers and other earth-moving devices. They were building a port.
A port?
I don't claim to understand, but I think the deal is controlling the water to improve industry, transport of goods and, most importantly, getting tourists to and from Phnom Penh and Siem Reap by water and not land.
Like I said before, I wish I were seeing a sewer system or a clean water treatment plant being built, and not a port in the middle of nowhere. The investments are being made by South Korean developers and trouble is brewing. Something not right.
I knew this -- call it a sixth sense -- as we were driving through the few miles of newly dug and cleared area before the water's edge. Passing the crappy drawings, billboard style, of a pristine new port was annoying. This is a sellout, I thought. I knew it would mean dislocating the literally tens of thousands of people living in and around the lake. Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian all lived and worked here. Their livelihood is fishing. Most of them lived on the water in their boats. But more on that later.
The more I see this place, the more I don't like what I see.
Pate agrees to help us to wrangle a boat. The place is a rogue's gallery of fishermen. Not the happy faces of Siem Reap. Rough. It's smelly, like the old Meadowlands garbage dumps in New Jersey.
The wooden boats, though, are so super cool and the damn things are run by car motors and these crazy props with extended arms for shallow water steering. Necessity is the mother, as they say. Sophia was awake at this point and looking around. No one really paid too much attention to her.
At last we found a boat and driver. Pate, Tim, Sophia and I piled on, ready to tour the waterways. The water was dark chocolate milk brown. Seemed deep but I suspect otherwise as kids were in and out, throwing lines and gathering something from the shore line.
The boat guys tried to help me on board. One reached up to take Sophia out of my arms but I refused. I help lady, he said. I just said no thanks and took my own chance with the kid in my arms.
I didn't want to pass my kid to the grubby sailor with no teeth. Is that awful or what? It's true though, in all of its racist and classist baggage, it's true.
We passed several tourists who came by buses. They rented larger boats. I was happy not to be part of that tour and have our own vessel, even if I didn't want the crew to touch my kid. I'm a mess.
About 20 minutes through the channel, we break for the open lake water, brown and muddy.
I look out on the horizon and couldn't believe what I was seeing. An entire city made up of boats just floating, anchored, but floating in the open water. Not just a few, but thousands. A city. A boat city.
Some boats were super nice, painted with plants and flowers, and clean and with a personality. Some were gross and dingy and barely floating. The bathroom was the river. The kitchen was the river.
I saw people (and dogs) peeing -- over the side. A young women was washing herself -- over the side. Someone was doing the dishes and the food that was being cooked on the boat was disposed of -- over the side.
Imagine, if you will, the entire population of Polish Hill and Bloomfield floating on little vessels on the Allegheny River. Maybe that's extreme, but so was this.
After meandering through the village proper, we came to a large platform in the middle where a tourist station is open for people to have cold drinks, a snack (fish cakes) and look at the captured crocodiles. It's also the time when all of the kids paddle up to the platform on boats, plastic bins or tin bowls and try to sell you bananas and other fruits.
It was at this point too much for me. I was wrestling with sensory overload, guilt, frustration and anger, and being freaked out by dirty children trying to get to Sophia to pet her.
I signaled to Tim that I needed to leave. Within minutes, we were on our way back to shore.
I was expecting something else and got hit hard.
When I was walking to the tuk-tuk, I got sick and wretched a little. It was the filth, the dirty heaps of plastic bags and human waste; it was watching people drink the same water they urinated in; it was the heat. It all got to me.
We made our way back to the hotel and rested. I couldn't eat and needed to have some time to process and chill out. I gave Sophia a sponge bath and took a nap.
(The following was posted on Saturday, Feb. 23)
We arrived late in the afternoon yesterday and pretty much slept, took a stroll, had dinner and chilled out. Woke up eager to get things started and visit the temple. Ate a decent breakfast at the hotel (another freebie) and were on our way.
(Travel Tip: So I flipped the dishwasher 5 bucks so she would hook me up with clean bottles and dishes for Sophia. We had brought along dishes, bowl and spoon, but hot water is a tough one here. This was a very wise move on my part. We kept us supplied throughout the entire stay and without so much as a snarl. Five bucks goes a long way and I was happy to give it to her. I can only imagine how many gross dishes she has to wash to make it.)
Our driver, Pate, met us at 8:30 a.m. and we piled into his tuk-tuk and were on our way.
The temples -- Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and others -- are in a large Archeological Park about 6 or 7 kilometers from the hotel. At the entry gate, Tim and I bought a three-day pass for 40 bucks each, the most money we have spent so far.
Sophia was passed out in my arms by the time we reached the site. Waking her was tough, poor thing. She has over the past week really become comfortable with riding snugly on my lap and I shudder to think what she'll do when we have to strap her into her car seat once home again.
Nothing could have ever prepared me for what I begin to make out through the trees.
Insane bulbous rock-carved temple tops, like inverted pine cones, were on the horizon. Angkor Wat was in sight. As were about 5,000 other tourists, and a gang of dirty Cambodian kids trying to sell me postcards and bracelets. It was a sensory overload.
The biggest hit was Sophia. A small, pale, white sleepy baby wearing a Beastie Boys T-shirt about sent both tourists and native Cambodians into a frenzy.
We got slammed. At first I smiled, and Tim, bless his heart, told everyone thanks. About 10 minutes later, I was just giving plain old mean looks and telling people a firm No! Once inside the proper temple grounds we didn't have to many problems.
Tim and I walked around and were super excited about the carved reliefs along every single surface in that whole damn place. Fricking insane.
Not sure what happened next, but Tim and I got into a big fight and found ourselves outside, in front of some giant Buddha statue in what appeared to be a cemetery, if they even have such a thing there, arguing with each other. It was great. Sophia was crawling around on the ground picking up leaves and dirt. Tim and I were in some super ancient holy place calling each other names.
After about 20 minutes of that nonsense -- I call it blowing off steam -- it was back on the road to more temples.
We spend fours hours wandering, then met our driver, who then took us back to the hotel for naps and lunch. Sophia really dictated our day and, in some ways, allowed us to really focus on what we did with our time out. It was so hot and so muggy that the morning. Hours were precious. By noontime, we were spent.
At about 3:30, the driver swung by once again and took us back to the sites. The later afternoon light was amazing. It put an edge on everything, and allowed the true colors and shapes to reveal themselves. We stayed until 6:30 and pretty much got kicked out by the guards. Pate took us to a good Khmer cafe and we inhaled yummy curries and beers.
Back to the hotel for rest-in bed and asleep by 10.
It was a good day in Cambodia.
So we liked Pate so much we asked him to drive us for the next three days, I felt like I was proposing marriage. It's quite a commitment. Trusting the person, making sure it's an equitable relationship, good communication a must. I think all parties were happy, and Sophia definitely was comfortable with him.
Actually, the kid is comfortable with everyone. She's delightful -- not shy, communicates, pretty content. It's been easy. And I have to say, were it not for the very accessible, Western comforts that this part of the country has, I would be singing a very different tune. It's almost too easy. I mean, Siem Reap is like Vegas. The giant lux hotels, off the hook services, food, booze … whatever you want. If it were not this comfortable for me, I would be on my way.
So I can say, if you have means and the interest, bring the kids: It's super hospitable and very easy, even if you're more spoiled than we are.
Went to Angkor Thom, the walled village where the the temple Bynon is located. This place was even more insane than Angkor Wat.
Tim was driving me crazy because he would not stop talking and saying stuff like, "This is insane, can you believe this? Suzanne, look at that…" All I really wanted to do is quietly walk around and look at stuff and process, but he was more excited than I have seen him in a long time.
I think it was the carved faces, and the very organic shape of the buildings. Plus, a big bonus is the fact that is smack in the middle of the jungle and so there are tons of 2,000-year-old trees and weird bushes everywhere.
We climbed through the ruins, up and down stairs, and through old passageways. Sophia was doing great. I'm not sure she's understanding any of this, but it's at least fun for her and she likes the game we play, ducking in and out of spaces and rounding corners.
Same deal as the day before, Pate met us around noon and we went back to the hotel for lunch. I got a massage, which was not that great, but relaxing. I almost fell asleep instead of getting the knots out of my back, but the full body oil treatment was a slice of heaven for my tired naked old bod. I signed Tim up for one the following day and told him he should consider wearing underwear or else he would come out of it with an enhanced experience.
Back to the temples. The relief carvings are definitely my favorite. It's like storyboards on sandstone.
Wars, love affairs, fishing, dancing, marriages, funerals, elephants, fish, birds and bears … all carved and depicted perfectly. In the later afternoon, temples were not crowded at all. Saw monkeys, tons of them.
Sophia got excited by the meandering cows. She squealed with delight as the beasts slowly loped by. I think she thinks they are some weird version of a dog.
We found a quiet patch around a grouping of lesser temples. They call them the tightrope-walker temples because the king watched as from his special place the tightrope walkers go from mini-temple to mini-temple -- there were 12 in all. I was picturing Ben Sota and his Zany Umbrella Circus folks here doing their thing.
In the trees there are tons of lower primates -- sort of dark brown and orange, jumping from tree to tree. Lemur-squirrels they looked like.
Found another good place to eat and said goodnight to Pate.
Walked back to hotel and fell asleep early. Tomorrow is the last day we will be able to use our passes to temples. We will go to the big one in the jungle, the one Angie Jolie made famous in "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider."
Yea, that's how we roll here, Angie J and us, hangin' in Cambodia, livin' large.
(These dispatches arrived at the PG on Friday preceded by a short note from Suzanne:
tired
ready to go home now
want pizza and Straub
They begin heading back to Polish Hill this weekend.)
(The following was posted on Feb. 21)
and gets their minds blown.
We woke at 6 a.m. in Surin to the early light, noisy roosters, chilly air, and most important, the butterflies in our stomachs. We were going to see the Englishman to get our ride to the Cambodian border -- about an hour and a half away. My kid, Sophia, turned an official 9 months old yesterday -- the same day Chris and Na got married. I was sure luck was with us.
My friend Maya, another wedding guest and someone I hadn't seen for nearly 10 years, was meeting us. She was gonna hitch a ride and chip in on the border action. We arrived, got a coffee, discussed logistics and climbed in to the spotless Toyota Camry and began our drive. Easy.
For 30 bucks I felt like we got off easy compared with the stories I had heard. For once I could kick back, check out the countryside, and let someone else do the worrying.
The drive from Surin to the Cambodian border is fairly simple. The road is a straight shot, paved, and busy with traffic from people taking wares to markets, to schoolchildren on bikes, to the odd commercial truck loaded with workers and strange equipment.
We drove through what seemed like 25 little village towns that although small, were never really seemed provincial as there were plenty of banks, shops, food stalls and of course, people. We stopped to use a bathroom and bank machine and were on our way.
Sophia was super chill. She was sitting on my lap playing and eating, what else, Cheerios. No worries.
By 9:30 am we were at the border.
The driver, a Thai woman my age, and the old grouch Englishman's wife, was immediately met by a young man. He told her he would take us through the process and find us a car on the other side.
This border is crossed pretty infrequently compared with others near Phnom Penh and such. I was told and I read that guys make a living by taking individuals and their belongings through the border -- assisting with whatever is needed. I was only too happy to have someone help, and I knew he would assist us in finding a driver to take us on to Siem Reap, our final destination.
I should say this now, as I think I skipped a bit. Although Tim and I were very certain that we would get to Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, sincerely wanted to go and convinced ourselves that it would happen, we had no plan, no itinerary, no secure transport.
We did not pre-arrange anything. We were winging it.
We simply showed up at the border and walked across thinking that we would hitch a ride to Siem Reap, about 150 kilometers, three or four hours away.
Now walking across a border is a pretty easy thing to do. Certainly folks do it all the time in other counties, but this was a little different, I guess, because I had an 8-month-old child (although she's all of 9 months now). I didn't have any contacts in Cambodia and don't speak a lick of Khmer. I was a little nervous. The unknown, however, was fueling us.
The border was pretty bleak. The first thing I saw was some creepy bottom section of a dog jaw just lying in the street. It was gross.
I changed Sophia's diaper using the suitcase as a handy changing table. Fresh and ready, we were ready to go. Not much there save for some weird casino (illegal to gamble in Thailand so they come to Cambodia to party like it's 1999), the customs and visa stations, and a parking lot. Not a whole lot of people either, maybe 30 in total.
The only other non-Asian was an Australian couple. Of course they looked healthy, and chill, and happy-crunchy-hippie. We talked to them as we filled out our visa applications at the dirty window. They told us they were just coming from Laos where they spent the past month hanging out and tooling around and exploring.
I turned green with envy and suddenly I felt the need to take my husband and kid to some remote Laotian village and live there for a few years, fishing and carving and tending rice fields.
After paying roughly 25 bucks (plus a small cut off the top for the visa official), we got our stamp and were free to cross completely over. The helper was trying to get us to use his car, but was asking way too much, 2400 baht. Even the sign taped to the visa window informed the traveler to take heed and not spend too much. It read:
Taxi to Siem Reap 1800 baht [about 40 bucks or so]. If some ask for more it too much. See me and I take care for you.
I give him props for at least trying though.
Lucky for us Maya, a very experienced and smart traveler, went to another driver, began to haggle a price, and came back to our guy with it. He relented and within 5 minutes we were packing up his car and settling in. All said and done, it took about a half hour to do paperwork and cross. Easy breezy.
(Travel Tip: Obviously, doing this is not for everyone. In as much as I said it was easy, the downside is the fact that sometimes not having a plan, especially for control freaks like me, can be more stressful. Although everything worked out just fine, it was a little bit stressful. Onwards.)
So were all crammed in a stripped-down Toyota. It's about 10 a.m. The sun is beginning to be felt.
The minute we begin to drive in Cambodia, the minute I realize how completely crazy weird this country is.
First of all we enter in the middle of fricking nowhere. It's the equivalent of some mountain village in West Virginia Appalachia. The roads, if you can call them roads, are red dirt clay roads with ruts, and holes, and potholes the likes of which I have never seen. We need a 4-wheel drive and we are in a 1983 Toyota. It's sick.
Sophia falls asleep within minutes from the rocking motion and the heat.
The air, landscape, vegetation, sounds -- all completely different from Thailand. It's hot and dry and dusty and red. There is absolutely no infrastructure out here, We are heavy in the sticks. Heavy. The only other travelers are on small motor bikes and trucks. Not very many cars.
The motor bikes, scooters really, carry people to and from trading markets. The trucks carry people to and from work, presumably on farms, or some construction.
About a half hour into the ride, we pulled over to assist a young women who tipped her bike, which was top heavy with stuff from the market. Tim said it felt like it weighed about 500 pounds and I can believe it -- both sides were packed to the gills with food, pans, water, crates.
The road is sandy dirt and a mess. Although it appears that the country is building bridges, literally, everywhere, they are just skeletons of poured concrete. There is no metal to be found -- nor are there any workers. Only poured shapes in the middle of nowhere. The fields will fill up once rainy season begins, but now it's so dry and dusty I can't imagine green or water at all.
This is what we saw on the road:
Filthy water holes with naked boys happily swimming
Hindi-looking roadside religious paintings
Mini food stalls selling corn on the cob
A man and a women on a motor bike with a small child in between them. The women holds an IV bag with clear liquid inside way above her head. The hose is attached to the boy's arm. We pass them in the dusty road.
A open bed truck full of about 25 workers, all of whom are wearing back ski masks pulled over their faces
A man on a motor bike with five large dead hogs tied to it
A man on a motor bike with about 40 live chickens tied by their feet, upside down, on a wooden holder.
Little children on big clunky bikes going home for lunch from their schools wearing pristine uniforms of navy blue and starch-white.
A bakery with fresh breads and rolls
Houses on stilts
Signs what read: "Cambodian Worker Party"
We continued to travel on the crap road in the middle of nowhere for about three hours.
My butt hurt so badly I was wincing each time we hit a bump.
We get to Siam Reap after three-plus hours on the road.
Another world. It's like the Disney of the Third World. Is that possible?
It's all facades. It's like one great big Cheesecake Factory -- big modern fake elegant hotels with lush foundations and trees and flowers. Men and women in tidy uniforms out in front waiting to serve tourists.
A colossal mind warp. From freakishly poor farm country with no clean water sources -- to $1,000 a night hotels with swimming pools and foundations.
I did manage to prearrange a hotel and we were dropped off right in front. It was late in afternoon and so the three of us went to the room and took a nap. Maya found a guest house nearby and we arranged to meet up later for dinner.
The place is lovely. Spacious, clean, friendly and with a pool, spa and, most important, a bar.
We nap for a few hours and get up in time to make dinner hour local time.
Although the journey here was a pain in the butt, literally, it's well worth it if you have the time, guts, and extra little bit of flab on the arse to pad against the harsh elements of the modern Cambodian highway system.
The countryside is not anything like the place we are in right now. But I am amazed and grateful that we all got the opportunity to check it out. Makes counting blessings all that much more important. True that.
On a Sophia note …
She is now completely uninterested in eating anything even slightly resembling mushy baby food and insists in eating what we do, which of course, is not happening. Instead, we find things like tofu, pasta, fruits to keep her both busy and healthy.
What a kick in the butt …. my kid chooses my vacation to voice her discontent and go on a hunger strike until we meet her demands. Talk about a chip off the ole block.
We hired a tuk-tuk driver for the next day to take us to the ruins and generally be our guide. We agreed on 12 bucks for a full day, sunrise to sunset. Although it strikes me as a weird deal, it's a good price for him.
We will definitely sleep well tonight. I can only imagine what those temples are gonna look like. So excited.
Oh, by the way, I'm convinced I have dengue fever, or malaria, or some other foreign illness, as does Sophia and Tim, for no other reason than we got eaten alive by bugs including mosquitoes. I mean I feel fine, but still, I'm sure I'm in the throes of some exotic illness.
Should be an interesting next few days. Cambodia. With Tim and Sophia. Who knows?
Last night Tim set the alarm for 5:30 a.m. in order to make the 6:30 van to Chris and Na's wedding ceremony. I knew then how difficult it would be to wake up and deal with no coffee, a full-on wedding and a fussy, confused child.
But I entirely underestimated the extent to which the previous evening's celebrations would impact my ability to feel like a healthy human being at 6 a.m.
More exhausted than anything else. Tingly and hazy. Excited and curious. It was wedding day.
We stayed up late (well, late for me) dancing to the most insanely intense and beautiful traditional Khmer wedding band, eating weird delicious Isan food and drinking really cheap Thai beers at Chris' house near the reservoir.
Got dressed and went to the Majestic Surin Hotel breakfast buffet next door -- a freebie with every room and now essential to Sophia's daily routine. We strap her chair on and spend a good hour eating, talking and driving the staff crazy with our weirdness and requests. Insist on having a slice of cheese every morning to compensate for the fact that I don't eat meat and tofu is hard to come by.
I know it makes no sense, but I'm trying to balance the diet here. Sophia eats her nasty jarred food, Tim pounds the weird bacon and Denny's-style scramble, and I drink coffee and eat corn flakes. And cheese. Just as I poured the milk over my cereal, I get the signal that the bus was leaving.
Breakfast would have to wait. The monks would not.
About 11 of us pile into the van that Josh and Hillary rented for the week They will go on to Ko Chang for a few days, a small beautiful island off the Thai coast after the wedding with their families. We toyed with that idea but, given Sophia's age, we thought a beach might be too risky, too much heat and sun for her little body.
Instead, we opted for the overland trip into Cambodia for a week. We are jerks.
Driving to the wedding, Chris's 72-year-old aunt (his late mother's sister) is alarmed that we are late and will miss the monks. She and her sister, Mae, and their two kids, Chris's cousins, are also there. They are troopers. The love and support is astounding.
We arrive and the sun is over the horizon. The monks, about 10 in total I think, have already arrived. As we pull up, they begin to walk together toward the house.
The timing is near perfect. They are clad in a lush yellow-gold robe, not the usual saffron color, and I suppose that this might be the ceremonial garb.
The color is rich and seems to have texture and weight to it. They are men of all ages and generations. The oldest, perhaps 60 or so -- who really knows though -- seems to be the leader. There are men as young as 20-something, but mostly 30 to 40. Thin, dark skinned, shaved heads and barefooted they came. They carry the leather-clad rice bowels with them -- they look like a bongo drum. The light is clean and the morning is just beginning to have a personality. It's 7 a.m. sharp.
The ceremony, however, was supposed to begin at 7 a.m. But I knew better. Thai Time.
No rush. Relax.
Plus, the monks forgot the incense. Whoops.
They sent a guy on a motor-bike to the store to get some. I laughed and thought, man, I shoulda asked him to get me a coffee or while he was out.
Chris and Na are seeming calm but I could tell they were both exhausted and frantic at the same time. People were arriving from the nearby village. Friends, family, co-workers. All of the American contingent were present and accounted for. Bleary-eyed but happy.
The incense arrives and the family takes their seats behind the couple. The monks line up and sit in a long row. At their feet are the rice bowls and the soft drinks they carried in with them. I think I see a Fanta and some generic cherry soda. All very bright.
Chris and Na kneel and face them together. Behind them are family and friends. The traditional Thai wedding garb is gorgeous. Simple, elegant silk.
The colors they choose are off-white, gold and rich earth tones. Na wears a long sarong made of embroidered silk. It looks patterned with an ornamental floral design; her bodice is a solid off-white garment with a very feminine cut. She is so small, so slight, and looks elegant in her dress.
Chris wears a very simple Thai-style linen shirt, off-white like Na. The decorative sash looks royal on him and with his peppery gray hair and dark, dark skin, I look twice trying to see in him the man I knew 15 years ago in a black hoodie, baggy black jeans and Chuck Taylors.
The monks begin to chant and at various intervals, the bride and groom join in, as do the Thais present. It's pretty cool. Sophia definitely is interested.
So this goes on for a long time.
Like almost 45 minutes or so.
And just when I thought I would go nuts, the cooks, who had been busy preparing food in the yard since we arrived, begin to bring up the dishes and place them in front of the monks.
The monks were gonna eat.
We all about died.
Here we all were, tired, hung over, starving and confused. And now we were watching a dozen men in silk eat a ton of freshly prepared food such a sliced pineapples and papayas, wonderful rice, vegetables such as cucumber wedges, stir fry meats and poultry, as well as sauces and dips.
And didn't the monks tear it up. They were as hungry as we.
About 45 minutes later, the plates were cleared, a little more chanting, incense and some family exchanges, and we took an intermission.
Next the guests got a chance to eat, and after everyone broke bread, or rice or whatever, the vow part of the ceremony began.
I'm not sure what was happening, but I suspect Na's family was giving her away -- her father was near her and the monks were speaking with him.
Next, all of the guests presented themselves to the bride and groom, like a receiving line, but not as annoying. We knelt in front of them, never allowing our heads to raise above theirs. It was pretty funny to see people contorting their bodies and doing queer crab-walk moves.
More chanting and other things I didn't understand, and then we got to tie little golden yellow pieces of thin yarn around their wrists and tell them how much we love them and how happy we were for them.
I loved doing this. Tim and I did it together -- each of us with one of them, and they we traded places. I got all warm and fuzzy and, of course, I'm crying. Everyone was crying. It felt good, and we all did it with no inhibitions whatsoever.
So it's now about 10 a.m.
We've been there for three hours and I still have no idea what's happening.
It seems like break time, but just as Sophia, Tim and I were watching the water and spacing out, we get called over the bride and groom. We kneel in front of them once again and are presented with gifts. Beautiful wraps and fabrics from Surin, one for each of us. They thank us for traveling so far to celebrate with them.
And after doing this with several of the guests, combined with a little more chanting and incense, it's over.
They're married.
We eat some more, mill around, marvel at the Buddhist altar that is decorated with marigolds and other flowers, sit on fancy pillows and just hang out and take all of the sensory delights in.
The monks begin to gather their gear and in a single-file line, walk down the stairs, onto the road and out of sight.
We pile back into the van and head to the hotel for a nap and a swim.
Tim, Sophia and I take one more turn in the town -- it's just that cool there. We went into some cool hardware garden store that sold homemade woven fish bait traps and hand-tooled shovels. Hey, some people go for the silk and gems, others fish traps and tools.
We spend the rest of the day lazing around the pool, talking with pals, relaxing. Back to Chris and Na's for a late dinner where we all sat on the floor and ate a ton of food -- all family style, sharing curry cooked in a coconut shell and yummy veggies in a spicy sauce.
We all say our goodbyes and take the final drive back to the Surin Majestic Hotel. Tim and I make it an early evening as we have a 7 a.m. appointment with an old bitter English man who claims that he can get us across the Cambodia border for $30.
It's a remote border crossing south of Surin and north of Siem Reap Cambodia in Oddar Meanchey province -- about 150 km all said and done. Once over the border, we have to roll the dice to get another car to Siem Reap-Angkor Wat.
Overland is not optimal but from Surin, it's the only way. Most people laughed at us. Except of course the English guy who stands to make a fast buck or two from our stupidity.
The other choice would be to go back to Bangkok.
And that's just not gonna happen.
Onwards:
To Cambodia, by car, over land, through the farms and villages, to the temples of Angkor Wat!
(The following was posted on Feb. 19):
Saturday night around 5 p.m. we all headed out to Chris and Na's home near the reservoir, for part one of the two-day wedding festivities.
We were greeted by large bundles of red flowers tied to the posts that lined the drive, and the candles that lit the way for the visitors. The house is a two-story building with a large porch/deck area where Chris and Na do most of their living.
It's a lovely place, with a super good energy, friendly, and relaxing. Overlooking the vast reservoir, the house is always cool and airy with the breezes from the water. Simple, practical, and clean are good words to describe the way they live. Nothing unnecessary, unlike Tim and I who collect and horde and consume everything we get our hands on from books and music to weird plastic junk from the curbsides.
Chris and Na's family members, people from town and friends from all over the globe have gathered. Tonight, we party; tomorrow (Sunday), the ceremony and monks
There is a buzz in the air. People are excited. The count has gone up -- there are now close to 26 people from the states here for the wedding. They just keep coming in.
In the backyard, there is the makeshift kitchen which consists of a BBQ fire pit sort of thing with a huge skillet/wok on top, a large metal can with a terra cotta lining that serves as an oven, and a few large tables with chopping blocks. There are many people involved with the food preparation, most of whom are either his students, Na's family members or neighbors.
The men help with the heavy stuff and drink beer on the side while the women dig in and chop, and mash and grind and skin whatever is in front of them. It's a food frenzy in the open air with only a hose and a few large shallow buckets as sinks.
All of the food prepared is in typical regional Isan style of Thai. Spicy, maybe a little more similar to Cambodia, than the Thai we know with curries and sweet flavors. This stuff was blazing hot and not for the faint.
Up on the porch, things are getting started. The beer and wine are flowing and people are taking their seats in the woven mats that line the floor. Simple woven tables about 3 inches high are strewn around the floor, with brightly embroidered pillows for sitting around them. Small vessels with simple orchids picked from the fresh market are on each table and it's looking really great.
The sun is going down and it's getting dark suddenly. A bass drum kicks in, as does a weird fiddle-like sound.
It sounds like a sound check for a rock band. It's not. It's a traditional Khmer wedding band and they are playing on the bed of a large tow truck in the backyard. I thought I saw Marshall stacks, but than I thought about it and realized that would be ridiculous. Wrong again.
So the band consists of five people: a bongo player, a drummer, bass player, a fiddle-saw player and a singer. The singer stole the show.
Older, maybe in her 50s, this women was rockin' out. The music has strong back beats, very Western in sound, but her voice was like a cross between Tuvan throat singers, Janis Joplin and some Bollywood superstar. Everyone stopped with they were doing, and ran to the truck. I grabbed Sophia and held her out and danced with her to the amazing sounds. She kicked her little legs and screamed with delight (or maybe she was so freaked out by the bizarre new sounds and was wanting to hide). Very Indian-like with hand gestures, and swaying dance movements. She was wonderful.
And in no time, the entire party was dancing together. The great cultural melt. Music and song.
Not what I was expecting in terms of a wedding band. Chris later told me they are a popular local band, Isan specialty (regional).
Sophia crashed. We propped pillows together to form a nest and put my jacket over her. She slept through so much noise -- she was pretty tired.
All of us have officially broken through the jet lag crap that was making our lives miserable. But now we have new problems.
With all of the new food we have been trying, we are a little on the sick side. Nothing serious, but a little inconvenient. Especially when the food all looks so yummy, and tastes yummy, but just doesn't stay around, if ya know what I mean. Plus I'm drinking beer. I will not win this one. Good thing I packed plenty of handi-wipes, Imodium and water.
After drinking several cheap watery Thai beers, I'm done. Tim and I get a ride back to the hotel . We call it a night. Inasmuch as I wanted to stay and party till the break of dawn, I'm glad Sophia is here to give me the cover to scram.
We are home and in bed by 10 p.m. and set the alarm. We have an early call: 5:30 a.m. to be back at the site by 7 a.m. sharp when the monks arrive and the ceremony begins.
Written at Thursday, Feb. 14, 3:15 AM
Obviously I am having sleeping challenges.
Tim and Sophia are sound asleep in the big bed while I sit here and write and wait for 5 a.m. to roll around so we can go to the train station. It stinks really, I wish I could fall asleep but I just can't. I'm a little neurotic plus I can't help wish I were out in the streets exploring and checking out the underbelly of Bangkok.
Inasmuch as I am adoring the time Sophia and I are spending together, which is unusual as I am a full-time working mom, I do wish I could have time to check out this incredible city.
The sheer density of the crowds as well as the colorful wares, foods and services being sold was incredible. Like the sirens luring sailors, I heard familiar market cries and sounds that made me almost forget I had an 8-month-old kid needing to go back to the hotel to rest.
So that's the struggle: my moments and my lust for independence. Which I'm discovering Sophia has inherited from me. She may look like her dad, but she got my temper.
Just outside our window, in the monk's garden, I can hear so many different birds, in the streets, tuk-tuks and bikes roll by, as do the walkers all speaking different languages, sometimes laughing, sometimes yelling at one another. It's 3 a.m. and is busier here than a Saturday morning on Smallman Street. I guess after living in NYC for so many years, I came to regard that as comfort. Since moving back to Pittsburgh, I have been doing without and forgotten how much I respond to it.
Sophia is having some challenges with eating. It's pretty frustrating for both her and us. Her Cheerios have become a staple, as the jarred baby food is just not making sense to her any longer She is demanding her independence, and feeding her has, in the past three days, become primary. We ordered white rice and bananas for her and made a mush for her to eat. The rice was not such a big hit and she spit it out as quickly as I spooned it in. It was pretty funny actually. I think the texture freaked her out.
Bananas and other fruits are great. She loves pad Thai but is tough for her little fingers to grasp the slippery noodles and then coordinate them into her mouth. But at least that's a food she can handle.
(Travel Tip: Our pal Geb got us a portable booster seat for a shower gift before Sophia was born -- collapsible and with straps -- and at the last minute we decided to bring it along. It's a total lifesaver as we are able to all three sit and eat together. There are no booster seats, highchairs or accommodations for babies in the Bangkok we are experiencing. Although I have heard that the Four Seasons offers childcare solutions for guests, guess we'll do that next time around. Wink wink. Also … in the same vein, no car seats. Sure, they exist, but I have not seen one.)
Oh yea, I almost forgot. I stole a roof tile from the monks and the sacred Buddhist temple..
I will go to hell, but I could not help it. They were green and shiny and needed to have it.
Friday, Feb. 15
It's 5 a.m. and we are on our way to the train station where we are getting the express train to Surin, our next destination, and the place where the wedding will take place. The Bangkok station looks like something out often 19th century: a classic neocolonial facade wraps the interior tracks and it reminds me for a minute of something in a small town in Europe, not south Asia.
It's really beautiful, although the layers of dirt and grime give an almost sinister look and feel. The station is mobbed with people on their way out of Bangkok. Teams of young women in army fatigues -- on their way to basic training? -- that look like they just graduated from high school, sans giggles and smiles, fill the space.
I grabbed us some bad coffee and a couple of rolls and we headed to Track 5 to catch the express.
The three-car express train to Surin train is ridiculous. It's about 40 years old and smelly. The car fills up quickly, Tim and I have seats 25 and 26, which we thankfully purchased the day before. Everyone takes turns making gag faces at Sophia, who is now an expert at working it and thrives on the extra attention she is receiving from the curious Thais.
She is somewhat of a novelty. The women pick her up and hand her around. One walks off with her showing her to the other women on the train as if a proud grant auntie. While Tim and I are nervous, and just a tiny bit annoyed, we take the three minutes without her to stretch our legs and marvel the passing countryside.
It's not beautiful. That would be too strong. It's interesting. Yes. Some parts green, but mostly dingy and dusty and dry. It's not lush, and green, with miles of rice fields like I somehow thought I would see. Every once in a while a temple would pop into the landscape, or some weird giant 50-foot-gold leafed Buddha would appear in the landscape, but for the most part, it's sort of bleak. Like the train.
Oh, and the express part. It's not. We stopped like every 45 minutes to pick people up. We could have taken a tuk-tuk and been there sooner. Well, maybe not that, but it was like riding in a Pinto with a full load.
The further away from Bangkok the more interesting it got. Mountain began to appear on the horizon, and we wound our way through a papaya grove which was really cool. Saw some livestock, some sort of cattle things with horns, and packs of roving dogs, and schoolchildren. The state train employee served us a little box lunch consisting of some unidentifiable mushy thing that looked suspiciously like chicken. I passed and instead ate a handful of nuts and raisins.
If I sound annoyed or somewhat dismissive it's because at this point I am. I'm tired and want to see beauty … or at least something cool that doesn't make a ton of noise.
The train creeps on and we are nearing the end of the trip. I know at the end of the line my friend waits for us and so does a good hotel, good food, and a wedding! Excited.
(Travel Tip: pack plenty of toilet paper, handy wipes, water and food for ANY train in Thailand. They ain't pretty. And if you're considering an overnight for that distance, opt for spending a few extra bhat and fly -- save the time for fun things, and not overly romantic ideas about train travel in this country.)
After the Bangkok smackdown, we hit Surin running and in full force. I got off the train and the first thing I saw was Chris Luppi, the happy groom, standing at the station track with a big smile on his face.
This is what I traveled a thousand miles for.
He quickly dispensed hugs to us all, loaded us in his car, and drove us to the hotel. After some rest and food and a bath for Sophia -- her first in some time -- we finally kicked the jet lag weirdness and began to see and experience a new land.
My friend Chris has been living here in Surin for about a year, although he is been in the country for nearly 10 years. The women he is marrying in two days, Na, grew up not far from here, in a small village, and so Surin is the place they choose to make home.
He teaches here, and they live in a beautiful home about 6 miles out of the city. I say city because it is city-like in that it's bustling and thriving and had a population of around 150,000. But it feels more like a village in that is quaint, and peaceful, and comfortable.
So if Bangkok is like NYC, than Surin is like Pittsburgh. How's that for a cheap analogy?
The hotel is the brand spanking new Surin Majestic Hotel -- full-on lap of lux and a whooping 30 bucks a night. I'm in heaven.
Big bed, balcony that overlooks an ample swimming pool and bar, and great café and bar, clean bathrooms. Whatever. I'm not going to pretend I don't enjoy being comfortable. It's like your generic Hampton Inn, but in the middle of some weird little city in Northern Thailand. So it appears to be more like a W or Mandarin Oriental. It's all about context.
Because Surin is home to the elephant roundup -- which you have to look up because it's awesome -- they get thousands of visitors a year. Great hotels like this one is what keeps them coming back.
So the wedding is a two-day affair. On Saturday, all day, we will go to the house to have a celebration, meal, party. On Sunday, at 7 a.m., the ceremony will be preformed by the monks. And then more celebrations. So it's like the reception before the wedding, which I like because one can get all liquored up and then, while hungover the next day, get the serious bit taken care of. And resume drinking.
This wedding has another level of seriousness, and meaning, and importance. About two years ago, Chris' mother was over visiting him and Na. During the visit, she was struck by a motor vehicle and died shortly thereafter.
It was, needless to say, a shock for everyone, especially Chris and his brother, who was in the U.S. at the time. According to Thai custom, she was cremated right after her death at a nearby Wat. Chris took her ashes back to the states for a family memorial service.
His mother had came to Thailand to meet Na, the woman her son introduced to her as his soul mate, the woman he wanted to spend his life with. Thankfully for him and all of us, they were able to meet one another, and spend time sharing and learning.
This wedding is in some ways a closure, while at the same time a new beginning for Chris, Na, the family and the many, many friends who have traveled thousands of miles to be here with and for them.
There are about 20 or so of us. Some people I have not seen since college. Some a year or so. We all look older, to be sure. Kids, wives, husbands, mortgages, real jobs … hard to believe at some point in time we all lived in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, were going to school (all different, but all in the city), spending money on CBGB's, pool games, beer and Knicks tickets and spending time -- all our time -- with one another.
We spend the morning having coffee. The men took a van and went to a Khmer ruin about an hour away. The womenfolk went shopping to buy gifts and flowers for the bride. Sophia and I piled in a tuk-tuk and went to the local "mall" in Surin with the ladies. I lasted all of 10 minutes, bought a bra and sexy underwear for Na -- the dumbest, most impractical gift ever -- and then Rene and I stepped outside to the park, sat on a plastic stool and ordered a spicy salad and beers.
It was 11 am. This is happy.
After an hour or so, we caught up with the rest of the gang and headed to the "fresh market: a covered market, not unlike a sok, filled with live animals, plants, fruits, veggies and other assorted market items.
Of note: a pink plastic bin of eels swimming around dirty shallow water, a yellow tub of dark gray water snakes, a white tub of fish that resembles koi, but not that pretty, and another yellow tub of frogs, one of which was albino, and a red tub filled with red eared slider turtles (I know they were red eared sliders because I used to rescue them from Chinatown). The man who presumably owned the stand was sitting in a small stool, almost squatting, with a butcher block made of a cut tree section, and a massive clever. He was chopping and skinning and gutting as per order.
After the market, we piled into a van and headed about 7 miles out of town to a cafe near Chris and Na's home. It was on pylons, in the water, multileveled, with thatched roofs and open seating, cobbled together with odd planks, metal sheeting and whatever the owners could find to keep adding and keep it together.
It was beautiful. There was a monkey in the kitchen and birds in cages, and a giant (empty) wasp nest, the biggest I've ever seen there was some crazy catfish-furry tentacle Mothera-head looking fish in the water that at first glance, looked like a crocodile.
And there was enough food to feed a small army.
We sat at a rickety table and gorged on yummy, spicy Thai food while watching a very overwhelmed bride open her gifts. It was wonderful.
Sophia slept, and ate (her eating is back to normal … we think it was the heat and jet lag, but now, after a few days, she doing awesome), and marveled at the new environment. People took turns holding her while I ate, and she didn't seem to mind at all.
By now it was close to 5 and the day was coming to an end. We said our goodbyes, and headed back to the hotel. I was happy to be back as I needed to rest and wash my face and hands. Sophia needed a proper nap and to relax.
This was the first day I think all of us -- Sophia, Tim and I -- felt truly well, and rested and eager to continue to explore our new surroundings.
Cambodia now seems doable and less daunting. We have our wits about us and are ready to get our minds blown. I just have to stock up on diapers and wipes before we venture out … oh, and restock my nuts and raisins, just in case.
Tomorrow… Thai wedding, part one.
(The following covers Days 2 and 3, posted Feb. 14)
Or depending on how one looks at it, full day one. I'm not entirely sure if it's Tuesday or Monday. Seriously.
It's really Tuesday. I have been up since 4:30 a.m.
The neighborhood we are in is called Banglamphu, or better known to the locals as Old Town. Once a beautiful neighborhood, home to artists and crafts people, it's now home to backpackers and some very scruffy expats.
We landed here last night around 7 or 8 local time on Monday, in a haze of jet lag and utter exhaustion, but somehow managed to find our hotel, sleep a bit and eat. When we woke up this morning, or rather, finished being passed out, Tim and I both realized just how bad the place, The Green Hotel, was.
The name is deceptive, as it is certainly not a hotel (toilet paper extra) nor is it green (more like yellowed with age and grime). But rather a youth hostel flophouse run by a young guy trying to be hip with the kids. No weird drug or sex thing happening there as far as we could tell, but it was just, well, gross. Definitely not our game.
And to make matters worse, I was feeling mother guilt. I was thinking that the flophouse may not be the best thing for my 8-month-old daughter and the Thai equivalent of CYF may be round the corner, waiting to ask me some questions. I know, I know -- insane, but I have my limits.
So we wandered a but until we found a guest house not far away that looked both clean, safe. Our benchmark was this: if there are middle-age Swedish or Germans staying, we too will stay.
This place had both. The notorious porch is a virtual respite from the non-stop foot traffic of the road it sits on, and we spent hours on it watching people shuffle by with their carts full of sliced fruits, ice and water, weird stickers and decals and assorted fried insects.
Of particular note are the grasshoppers -- not your average puny American grasshopper, but more like some giant Land of the Lost bug, seemed to be BBQ'd in a dusting of spices.
Although tempting, I passed and opted for … ummm, er, nothing, but thank you.
Great cafe;, open, airy, and right across the street from a wat (a temple)-- so there are gardens and animals everywhere. The saffron-clad monks were walking around earlier and we passed two as we entered the space.
We walked the Kao San Road, which was like Vegas and Times Square with a dash of Amsterdam and Daytona Beach thrown in for and annoying good measure. Hot, sweaty, loud, crowded, pedestrian-only row of shops, bars, vendors, it was a freak show for sure.
Sophia, I think, was so overstimulated she passed out in her little backpack mid way through the walk. Although a snapshot, I can imagine that that particular stretch of road is a minireflection of all that Bangkok has and is -- including the confused 20-year-old kid from, let's say, oh, Nebraska, getting his hair rolled and combed and teased into fake dreadlocks by three old Thai women in the middle of the street.
Battery in my computer is low so I think I will find another instead of trying to charge this one as I almost blew up the hotel this evening. Whoops.
Tim and Sophia asleep. I am still out of sleeping sorts. At least this new hotel is comfortable. Good lord, last night seems like some weird David Lynch moment to me.
It's lightly raining, and I can hear the roosters and peacock next door at the monks. It's pretty cool. Although there is a really annoying pipe that needs to be tweaked as it's screeching and moaning and working on my last nerves. Guess I can't complain too much, as the Green Hotel didn't even have fricking pipes. (That's an exaggeration.)
Sophia is doing OK with all of the new sights and sounds. Seems like she's taking them in stride. I worry about her food holding up -- we packed organic jarred food, a big departure from the food we make her, but I wanted to be sure she was eating here. Also the heat is troublesome. She's an ace with the water bottle and we have been keeping her hydrated … which of course means tons of diaper changes, but I know she's well watered.
I have seen a bunch of pregnant moms, women with wee ones, and in general, traveling kids in slings, backpacks, strollers and other carriers. Completely do-able. However, I bet staying at a decent hotel helps.
As I stated before … and I can not overstate this …. save the shoestring for another time. If traveling with a young child, spend a little extra for the essentials like in room shower, toilet, AC and a big bed. Those few extra bucks go a long way.
(Written on Wednesday, Feb. 13. 10 p.m.)
Things better today. My body has stopped swaying and I can eat. We are sleeping and resting as the new place is terrific and the folks who work here are more than happy to help make us comfortable with Sophia. She is great.
The weird thing is she seems to not want her typical food-rice cereal mixed with pureed fruits and veggies. She defiantly wants more solid finger foods and has been putting up fights. Which normally would be super? But given the finger-food alternatives here -- grasshoppers, grubs, fish balls, or corn on the cob (who knew?), we're trying to stick to the baby basics with pureed prunes and bananas, or pastas with garden veggies.
I desperately want to give her some Thai rice or noodles, but even I am adjusting to the smells, textures and effects, so I dare not. At least for now. I have to get over my own culture bias and fears. It's hard, but I'm trying.
Inasmuch as I've traveled and live abroad (Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Russia, Romania, Ukraine for pete's sake), I feel more vulnerable with her -- it's as if she's allowing me to express and experience my own fears and sensitivities in ways that I never did while traveling.
Can't play hard girl when there's a kid who supersedes your issues. Ahhh. Love those golden learning moments. That's Dr. Phil.
(Practical Traveling Tip: Pack an assortment of transitional foods if your kid is in the transitional stage -- don't depend on old habits -- things change in an instant -- be flexible but plan ahead. Basically, do what we didn't.)
We slept and work, slept and woke. Then woke for real really early -- like 5:30-6 a.m. Had a light breakfast and flagged a three-wheeled motorbike carrier also known as a tuk-tuk.
Now I'm certainty not advocating that parents rush out and put their kid on a motorized vehicle, especially one with no sides and drivers who don't speak a lick of English. But I have to be honest -- it was sort of fun holding Sophia in my arms as we sped off to Wat Pho to see the Buddha and monks.
She laughed and sometimes gave a little gasp when the wind hit her little face. It was pretty wild, that little moment. Tim captured it on video and hopefully we can post it. The utter carelessness of our parenting coupled with her delight is pretty funny to watch.
The temples and grounds were super cool. We walked to the palace and it was such a mob scene, we ducked across the street to a quiet courtyard where there were no tourists, only quiet young Thai kids sitting around having lunch at the tables.
Art School! Tim landed on the motherland, as he is a sculptor, and this place we stumbled into was none other than T-lands best and most respected art and sculpture center.
He made his rounds and distributed his cards and networked in the hopes I'm sure of landing a connection to come back and … I dunno, install a giant Space Monkey or build a 40-foot Deer Head in Bangkok?
Anyway, it was a pretty excellent space, the school was beautiful, old, wooden buildings with great slanted roofs. Some of the students were playing with Sophia was we snacked on rice crackers and gorp. A nice rest after a busy morning visiting the Buddha.
Took another tuk-tuk ride back to the hotel and was there by 1. Sweaty and tired, Sophia took a long, long nap as did Tim and myself. She slept harder and longer than I have even known her too and I have to admit, I scared me. I kept feeling her forehead and wondering if we pushed her too much. But in the end, she was just pooped and when she did eventually wake, she did so in vintage Sophia manner: smile, babble, roll over and begin to try and stand, demand something to drink. Whew. Another sigh of relief.
Got our train tickets to Surin, a five-hour journey, and will head out at 5 a.m. Thursday. Called my friend Chris who lives there and he will meet us at the station. He was excited to hear my voice, and I his.
The train is supposed to be very comfortable, modern, and a great way to see the countryside. We are headed to a virtual village-countryside. (About 30 or so odd miles from the Cambodian border. From there we are to go into Cambodia and travel to Siem Reap, home of the famous Angkor Wat temples.)
Not a whole lot happens in Surin except in November. That's when the elephant round up happens -- giant festival celebrating the noble beasts. But it's February. There are no parades or sideshows now. Only a village, its people and a wedding of an old friend.
If Bangkok was the smackdown, what on earth will this place bring to the table?
Here's the first dispatch from Suzanne, which launched the journal on Feb. 13
4:49 a.m., Tuesday, Feb. 12
Good morning from Bangkok
Jet lag. Kid asleep. She is sweating and periodically wakes and makes a strange noise, and then falls back asleep. Husband awake, making flight calculations, talking -- no, make that muttering -- to himself. And I'm trying to get perspective on why on earth we are here right now.
But we made it.
Left Pittsburgh Saturday morning, 11:30 a.m. Flew to New York, JFK. Spent night in hotel in Queens, which as you may imagine, was super fun. And sexy. Just joking. We got soggy Italian food delivered to our humble room and watched cable TV.
Sunday morning, got the free shuttle to the airport, boarded nonstop flight to BKK (Bangkok International Suvarnabhumi Airport). In what seems like days later, we are here in a really, really crappy hotel, trying to keep our heads together.
Personally, I'm a wreck.
Off-balance because of time. My body keeps moving or at least feels like it's moving, rocking really, as if I were on a little boat. My equilibrium is gone. Hunger pangs, but am so nauseated I can't bear to even look at food.
I still have my head cold, which I left Pittsburgh with ... sinus infection allergy thing. Lost my voice on Friday. As you might have guessed, flying for 17 hours is awful.
My nose continues to drip and when I sing "I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly" to Sophia -- her absolute favorite, especially with the animal sounds I make -- she cringes as my voice sounds like a 72-year-old woman who smoked two packs of Camel straights her whole life.
But we made it. Tim, Sophia and I are together on this hard, lumpy mattress in this smelly, stuffy room, in the backpacker ghetto (thanks, Lonely Planet) off Kao San Road in Bangkok.
Polish Hill seems really, really far away right now.
First, a bit of backtracking:
The flight got off to a rip-roaring start. We learned that Sophia needed a $414 ticket, even though she'd be on my lap. No one had told me that. Out came the plastic, and there went the budget.
At least we got a four-seat row to ourselves. We took it over and set up shop. Sophia had her books, Cheerios, red bird toy and binks. Tim had headphones and endless movies. I had a Valium. It worked out well for everyone.
(Helpful Traveling Tip: As our pediatrician had advised us, children's Benadryl makes kids sleep. Sleeping kids on airplanes is a good thing. One teaspoon, and sure enough, Sophia dozed for a few golden hours.)
We touched down on Monday afternoon, Thai time (that's 12 hours ahead of Pittsburgh). The airline folks helped us with our gear and we cleared immigration and customs in no time at all. Relatively speaking, of course. We got a cab, tied our gear on (taxis are small) and headed into the city, which is about a half-hour from the airport.
It took us almost two hours. Traffic was INSANE.
Part of the reason was the Thai police academy graduation, which blocked up traffic for about 45 minutes. But we did get to see hundreds of happy Thai families with newly graduated Thai cops in their very smart uniforms holding enormous bouquets of flowers as they paraded down the sidewalks and streets.
And so here we are. A backpacker's dream. Were I a backpacker, and 20, I'd be in heaven.
Downstairs, there is an Internet station, pool table, little cafe, bar and 20 or so grubby hippie kids from Germany, New Zealand and the U.S. all hanging out, watching Will Ferrell play the 1970s anchorman Ron Burgundy, drinking Singh beer and talking about Phuket, the party beach.
We head out on the busy streets. It's 9 p.m. It smells rank with food from vendors cooking chicken and fish. People on motorbikes whiz by, and mangy dogs laze about.
Tim and I begin to do what we like best, wander. We watch and listen and smile. Sophia is snug in her backpack atop Tim's shoulders. As she glides through the street, the crowds smile. She watches everything with wonder and amazement.
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