(if yer lookin' at this first, stop & go to the end of my blog section & start with #1&2)

My first of two stops in Cambodia was Siem Reap, the closest city to Angkor Wat & it’s surrounding temples. I had to switch flights in Phnom Penh. At any other airport I’ve used in the world, this is a simple matter of getting off the plane, and walking over to the gate where yer connecting flight is. In Cambodia, though, they want you to pay a six dollar fee to use the airport at Phnom Penh. So after getting off the plane, I had to leave the terminal, go outside and then walk back into the departures section and go through x-ray security again, all just so they could collect their six bucks along the way. Couldn’t they just have had someone collect it at the gate? I guess some things just need to be complicated. Seeing as how shaky the Cambodian gov’t is (shaky = fucked up & corrupt), I’m not surprised they have such silly red tape shenanigans going on at the airport.

So I get into Siem Reap, walk outside the airport & get swarmed by scooter drivers wanting my business. They all wave their scooter keys in my face & babble non-stop at me. I look past the crowd & spot one small dude quietly holding up a key in the back. I make a beeline for this patient & relaxed individual & we take off on his scooter. His name is Sophal, and I use him as my diver for the next few days, ‘cause I appreciate anyone who knows how to get my business. After all I’d been through for the past few days, I decided to check into a nice hotel with freezing cold AC & lots of English channels on the cable tv. I needed the comforts of home dammit, and Cambodia was a frikken oven. Seriously, on the way to a group of temples with Sophal one time, we kept driving through pockets of air that felt like I had just opened the door to a kiln. Serious heat.

The next day, we head out on Sophal’s scooter to Angkor Wat & it’s neighboring temples. For those of you that don’t know, Angkor Wat is the world’s largest religious building, and it’s quite impressive. Built during the same time period as the Khajuraho temples in India, and the thousands of temples at Bagan in Burma, it is definitely on the top of anyone’s “must see” list fer this kind of stuff. I have to admit, though, that as impressive as it was, I liked some of the surrounding temples more. The problem with Angkor Wat fer me was that it was so big, that once inside, and on it actually, there was no way to really take in all of it all at once. It was just too big. But at Angkor Thom, an ancient city nearby, there is a temple called the Bayon. The Bayon is famous for all of these giant faces carved all over & around it. In the late afternoon light, these faces make fer some pretty creepy images. Another temple up the road from the Bayon was famous for being in the Tomb Raider movie, due to much of it being overgrown by the jungle. Another great spot in the late afternoon light. Imagine enormous trees shooting up to the sky, their entire root systems intertwined with the walls of an ancient sprawling temple. Watch yer step Indy.

I spent four days in Siem Reap exploring temples & taking it easy. The food at my hotel was great, and it was only a buck a dish - so the livin’ was easy. On my last night, I decided that I was sick of my nose hairs growing so long, and not having the means to cut them, I plucked them out. (how strange, I wonder why he mentioned that little bit about personal grooming?). On my fifth day in Cambodia, I fly back down to Phnom Penh, so I can visit the Killing Fields, and the museum at S-21, which was a high school turned into a prison by the Khmer Rouge in the 70’s. I woke up that morning with a pain in my nose. It feels like one of those annoying pimples that’s not on the inside or the outside, but just painfully growing in yer nose with no way to pop it. By the time I get out of the airport in Phnom Penh, my nose is pulsating with pain, and I have my driver take me straight to a pharmacy so I can get some pain killers. For the next three days, I am in complete & utter agony because of my nose. It has slowly but surely blown up like a big red clown nose, and is extremely painful to the touch. This is no ordinary pimple, I realized. It hurt so much it gave me a splitting headache, and a toothache. So my three days in Phnom Penh were basically spent flat on my back in my guest house room. I would pop massive doses of pain killers so the pain would go away long enough fer me to get out of bed & go visit one of my destinations. I could only go out fer about two or three hours at a time, and then the pain would be too much to handle. So I managed to get to the Killing Fields on one trip, S-21 on another, and the National Museum on a third. And that was it - the rest of the time miserable (actually, I was kinda miserable during those times, too). I kinda figured I had an infection worse than a pimple by this point, and went to the pharmacy & bought some antibiotics & started taking them. They actually helped a little, and some of the swelling went down. But I knew I was going to have to see a doctor. Lemmie take a moment and talk about Cambodian pharmacies. Apparently, things like Valium, Codeine, and other hard to get prescription drugs over here in the states are available over the counter to anyone with money in their hand. Seeing as how I had money in my hand, and valium was three bucks fer a box of thirty pills, I stocked up on that & some other nifty cordials. Talk about cool souvenirs!

Although my time in Phnom Penh was miserable, I have a feeling what happened was intervention from a higher source. See, Phnom Penh is kinda famous for three things when it comes to westerners: drugs, guns & prostitutes. If you know me at all, you can imagine how much I was looking forward to having some fun there. As it turned out, I had no fun of any kind there, and I really think it was meant to be. Who knows what kind of trouble I might have gotten into at one of the many underground shooting ranges available to westerners? What kind of disease or altercation might have gone down dealing with “a lady of the night”? And drugs - well, that’s a whole can o’worms waiting to fuck my shit up. I’ve got a permanent scar on my nose now, and every time I see it in the mirror I think to myself “man, I am so glad to have this than whatever else was in the cards fer me back in Phnom Penh”.

Anyhoo, with my nose brighter & bigger than Rudolf’s, I fly from Cambodia to Bali. I won’t go into the gory details, but let me just say that at high altitudes, the puss inside my painfully inflamed nose wanted out, and wanted out bad. Multiple trips to the bathroom helped with this need throughout the two flights to Bali. I get in in the late evening, and catch a cab to the town of Ubud, nestled in the mountains in the middle of the island. I got a small bungalow in a beautiful place with winding paths leading through gardens & small fish ponds from this bungalow to that, finally ending at a swimming pool overlooking a gorgeous tree & vine clogged gully. I was also able to rent a peppy little scooter from one of the cleaning boys there, too. The next day I headed to one of a few doctor’s offices along the main street. He gave me a local anesthetic & gave my nose a proper cleaning out. When he was done, I was left with a gaping crater, which he dressed & bandaged. He also put me on different antibiotics, anti inflammatories, and a couple of other helpful pills. For the next four days, I visited him twice a day so he could change my bandage. And for that next four days, I walked around with a HUGE white bandage across my face, keeping a rather large wad of gauze in place. Oh, I was sexy, baby, sexy!

With my nose finally taken care of and the splitting headaches just a bad memory, I set out to explore Ubud. The reason I chose this town was because in Bali, Ubud is known for it’s arts & crafts. And boy howdy, were there a lot of art galleries all over the place. My friend Mike warned me that the art in Bali was amazing, but I had no idea what was ahead of me. Masks, statues of wood & stone, carvings, paintings, what the hell - do any of these people do anything besides create?? I felt like a kid inna candy store, and spent the next few days finding all sorts of amazing pieces of art. I managed to max out ALL of my credit cards. I bought so much crap that I had to have it all packed into a giant crate & shipped home by sea freight. When my ‘shop till you drop’ frenzy finally let up (aka: no more money), I packed my bag and headed for the north coast to a group of seaside villages known collectively as Lovina. I got there by paying a fella five bucks to drive me there on the back of his scooter - two hours away. What a fun ride it was. We stopped at a beautiful lake temple where we rested & had some refreshing beverages, and further up the road got caught in a major downpour while winding our way through the mountains. Lovina is considered a budget seaside resort area, as tourism dropped significantly after the terrorist bombings in southern Bali in 2002, and so Lovina kind of got a little dilapidated on the whole. Which was fine by me, as there weren’t too many tourists, and the prices were a-ok. The beaches were volcanic black sand, and there was very little surf, as all of Lovina is protected by a reef. I had an amazing dinner that night at a sweet little restaurant down the road from my hotel: fillet of barracuda, fillet of snapper, prawns, calamari, green veggies, rice and five, yes five, different kinds of mouth watering Balinese sauces - all fer four bucks. Sweet. Walking along the beach later that night, I passed by a group of locals hanging out around a tiny campfire. They called me over & insisted I have a drink with them. Two hours later, we were all hammered & having a great time. I then took my first swim in the ocean since I had been on my travels. And it was amazing. The water was dead calm (due to the reef), and was full of whatever it is that phosphoresce under water. It was really amazing, it was pitch black out there, but when you waved your hand or foot around under water, it would light up like a christmas tree. Absolutely fantastic.

The next morning, I was up before dawn in order to get a boat ride out past the reef to watch the dolphins frolic. Had to go early, as they only do it at sunrise. Just me & my boat driver, and the most stunningly beautiful sunrise I’d ever seen. Seriously, when we started seeing dolphins cavorting around, sometimes I had trouble deciding whether I should photograph the dolphins, or the sunrise. So, I did both. Sadly, every time a dolphin would surface right next to the boat I was never ready with the camera, but I got a few good shots anyway. And being out there amongst them was a thrill that no photo would do justice to anyway. I spent the rest of the day lazing about, and then met up with the folks from the previous night and went to a party at one of their houses. What a great bunch of people - lots of food, and everyone sitting around in a giant circle eating, drinking & chatting - with youngsters running around here & there. After a while, a few guys grabbed guitars, and everyone sang and clapped along with all kinds of cool local songs. Another great night thanks to the incredibly friendly people of Bali.

The next morning I was up again early (not dawn early, thank god) in order to go out on a boat once again, this time to snorkel at the reef. Now I did some snorkeling in Hawaii, but lemme tell ya, that was nothing compared to what was going on here. Even though we were out a mile from shore, some of the reef was so high that I could stand on it & my head was out of water. I had a small bag of bread pieces, and when I would pull it out, I was swarmed by all sorts of amazing fish wanting snackies. I can’t even begin to describe the amazing colors some of these fish had - the word electric comes to mind, though. And when all my bread was gone, these cool little brown fish would come up to my fingertips & kiss them looking for more. Ahhhh…'''. paradise. I spent over an hour just swimming around & diving down to the ocean floor. I really think once I’m more stable financially I wanna learn to scuba dive - ‘cause being out amongst the fish by a reef is an experience that the Discovery channel can’t do justice for.

The next day I headed back to Ubud in order to meet up with a group going white water rafting. I was supposed to get a ride with the same guy I rode up with, but he flaked. I waited fer a while, and then hired a car to drive me back down. Got in just in time to drop off my bags & catch the minivan. I was dismayed to see the van was full of an entire family on holiday from Australia. “Great” I thought “a bunch of loudmouths with a bunch of whiny kids.” The trip to the rafting spot was an hour and a half away, and by the time we got there I felt really stupid. These guys were really great - what a fun bunch with none of the dysfunction I’m used to dealing with when I normally encounter family units. We all piled into two rafts and headed down the river. It was super fun traversing the rapids, but the real treat was the scenery. Rising up hundreds of feet on either side of the river was a giant gorge that was either fully overgrown with dense jungle, or, spotted here and there with neat little rice paddies, stacked up level after level. Oh, and every couple of hundred yards it seemed there was yet another waterfall feeding the river. We all had a blast, and had fun on the drive back to Ubud as well.

My trip to Bali was somewhat of a whirlwind tour - I was there only eight days. Had I gone there earlier in my travels, I would have definitely opted to stay much longer. It’s a stunningly beautiful country, with the most friendly people I’d experienced in all of my travels. While it’s part of Muslim Indonesia, Bali itself is a Hindu island, and the care given to temples, statues & other public displays of art is phenomenal. Almost every traffic circle there has an impressive statue of some imposing looking deity. And on special days, people dress statues up with robes & decorate them with flowers. Delightful.

The next morning I flew back to Bangkok, where I spent a day getting all my stuff out of storage & doing my final packing & gift buying sorties. Managed to lose my bankcard on my very last night - thankfully after withdrawing what I needed for the next day. Caught a plane the next day bound for San Francisco, and voila! my journeys were over. I got home on April 27th, after a little over five months of traveling. Boy was I glad to see my cat!

Thanks fer reading.

(photo above: the jungle taking over a temple at Angkor Thom - click onnit fer full view)