New Zealand Road Trip

This is 6 months late, but...better late than never!

In August and September 2023, I spent time with my partner in New Zealand (also called more commonly there as Aotearea). In the first week, I worked with a client in Auckland, and we extended my trip by 11 days to explore the North and South Islands. We moved around for this trip - we were practically in a new town daily! Overall, we had a nice time on this trip! New Zealand is beautiful and full of lush rolling hills and rocky mountains that can be dramatic. But it wasn't our favorite trip to date, partly because we overcommitted ourselves and planned on driving a lot, and it wasn't as whimsical as our previous trips because we had a lot of distance to cover.

Overall Reflections

We had some impressions of things worth sharing before getting into some details.

• A Mix of Aussie and Brit: When experiencing the culture in New Zealand, we determined that the country was between the laid-back vibes of Australians and the pressure for proper systems of Brits. This is not surprising, as it is part of the Commonwealth and has a Pacific Island culture similar to that of Australian Aboriginals. What this also meant was that there were a lot of meal pies, slow speeds, and quiet places.
• Sparsely Populated: It seemed to us that the country was largely not populated even though some cities exist. There's just a lot of land and people living remotely in the country. Partly this was due to many farms with lambs and cattle, but there was also a lot of quiet land otherwise.
• Seasons Matter: We came in its off-season, which was a bit out of our control because I was there primarily for work, but it made our trip very cold, wet, and windy. We were either always cold or hot, which made us come down with some colds. We have agreed that we should come back sometime in the summer, which is also peak tourist season - we now understand why.
• Driving Wasn't Fun: We were also in the car a lot because New Zealand is larger than we expected, and the roads are much windier than anticipated! Much of our driving was for hours weaving around mountains and hilly terrain, making it not terribly relaxing to have a road trip across the country. It also meant we had to forgo places we were interested in seeing because we needed more time. For example, we wish we had seen more of the northeast of the South Island. Ultimately, we agree we should have planned to see less and probably focus on one island for our trip.
• Animals Everywhere: We saw a lot of animals on our travels, from keas harassing us for food on the South Island to other birds everywhere. New Zealand's native animals are all birds, many of which are flightless, like the little endangered kiwis. We also saw a lot of roadkill on our trip.
• Quirky Accommodations: On our drive, we stayed at many different kinds of lodging - all of them slightly quirky! From a trout lodge to a shipping container and a BnB in a Slavic-cum-American-cum-Kiwi household.
• Beautiful Public Toilets: The country seems to pride itself on having good, reliable access to public toilets. Even in less-populated areas, we can always find a clean, functioning, and nice-smelling toilet building. Many are decorated with whacky art and designs, which appeal to toilet nerds like me.

Travel Notes

Auckland

During the first five days in the country, I was bound to Auckland, facilitating workshops. I really liked it - the weather was pleasant there, and we enjoyed a quiet lake outside the city in Mount Wellington. We went into the city for a night and enjoyed a lovely meal at the pier. The pier in Auckland is peaceful and has a fun park that includes an installation of old silos that are now art. I was surprised to see a public swimming area in the heart of the city, as well.

Queenstown & Milford Sound

We then flew to Queenstown, marveling at the snowy mountains below us. We then drove down to the Milford Sound for a few nights. The drive showed us just how winding the roads are...and how dramatic the South Island's landscape really is. We enjoyed the Sound in the lodge there, though it was constantly raining while we were there. We took a treacherous boat tour of the sound's fjords - it was windy and rainy - and while the visibility wasn't all that great, we saw many waterfalls pummelling water down the fjord cliffs. We also saw a few penguins from far off, enjoying some rocky shelter. At the lodge, a baby kea kept coming over to us to look (and sound) pathetic and hungry, but we followed directions and didn't give the poor guy anything to eat.

On the day we were going to leave, the weather cleared up in the morning for a few hours so we could walk to the port and see the fjords in all their majesty. It didn't last long, though, and we had to leave early because they announced they were shutting down the area for a few days due to an incoming snowstorm. We drove out a few hours before the full closure started, and the snow started falling on us slightly. The idea of driving on snow on those winding roads terrified me.

We returned to Queenstown and stayed at an old dairy warehouse before continuing our drive north. We enjoyed hopping around the downtown area and strolling through its parks, even with the chilly breeze getting to my bones a bit. We also spent some time in the Kiwi Park to see some kiwis in person, but they shouted at our tour group when we entered the dark room. I could have spent more time there, though I'm not big on skiing or heights, including the other major tourist attraction - a funicular.

Lake Tekapo

We drove towards the central part of the South Island, and it was surprising how much the landscape changed from craggy mountains to a browner range of large hills covered in brush and distant mountains. We then paused at the badlands - Putangirua Pinnacles - and looked at the surreal structures. I felt a bit nervous, and my gut warned me of something I didn't like, so we bounced. We also saw beautiful blue reservoirs along our drive.

Once we got to Lake Tekapo, we were hit with a brutal cold wind that made us feel freezing! And the town looked half unmade. It was as if the town had been built a week before we arrived - our hotel was made of shipping containers. We had three restaurants to get into for dinner with a slew of confused-looking foreigners from tourist bus groups. Fortunately, we accomplished our goal of visiting the lake - we took a late-night stargazing tour and looked up at a really incredible starscape that almost seemed impossible. This area held many of the country's observatories because of its clear skies and limited light pollution.

Christchurch

We drove to Christchurch for our final visit to the South Island. It was an interesting city but not a place we felt like staying. It hasn't fully recovered from the 2011 earthquake, and the city felt silent and empty...and tired compared to the other areas we had visited. It almost felt like a Kiwi version of Cleveland. It was pleasant enough, though, and we saw some pretty waterways. The old university was rebuilt after the earthquake to become a town recreational area.

Wellington

The next day, we flew to Wellington, the bottom of the North Island. Our flight got delayed, and we learned it would be a bumpy hour. A Kiwi from the area told us to gear up to be jostled around like never before, and we all started talking about things. His name was Justin, and he invited us (after a windy landing) to lunch at his favorite spot near the airport. It was pretty tasty! He then gave us a quick tour of Wellington in our rental car before we dropped him off. We also dropped off our luggage at the hotel so we could start cleaning our laundry.

Our trip north changed slightly, as we found disappointing news that our big planned adventure—visiting Kapiti Island to have a night tour of kiwis in their natural habitat—had been canceled due to the weather. We're sad about this but made the best of it and toured Wellington more than planned. That town is really windy, and that's normal!

We walked around a lot, and saw some fun things like the lobster toilets that Lonely Planet made famous years ago. We also visited Te Papa, the national museum that shared the country's history and interactive areas about its nature that had Maori influence. It was lovely - probably one of the best museums I've visited - and we stayed warm there for a bit. After, I ate some delicious fish pie and pavlova at an old local restaurant, and we ate dinner with a colleague friend who lived in the area.

Before we continued our journey north, we also visited the nature reserve - Zealandia - but had to cut it short because the sky opened up on us in the middle of our visit.

Turangi & Rotarua

We first drove to Turangi, which didn't have much there. It was a trout fishing mecca popular with octogenarians, and I ran into them while walking around town and past the river. And our lodge was covered in trout art. But the river was peaceful, and the quiet was a nice break.

The next day, we continued our drive north towards Rotorua. Our first stop was Wairitomo Glowworm Caves to see the glowworm caves. We really enjoyed this! The first part of the tour included a visit to the stalagmites that resembled a cathedral, and then the guides cornered us into the back, turned off the lights, and showed us all of the blue, glowing worms hanging in the back of the cavern! We then got into a boat and floated around the glowworm caves in darkness for a few minutes before heading back out - all very pleasing to the eyes.

In Rotarua, we stayed at an odd little BnB that was more like a guestroom in a heavily populated family house—not our favorite, but it was just for a night. At night, we agreed to go to Te Pa Tu, a Maori village that they transformed into a dining experience. There, we learned about Maori games, snacks, and old house setups. They performed songs before bringing us to dinner in a pretty dining hall.

The next day, we also visited Te Puia, where we saw active geysers in a park with Maori artists building big pieces of art before heading out again.

Driving to Auckland

We stopped at the Big Dog/Big Sheep buildings on our trip back to Auckland. I was so pleased to see that they were public toilets! These buildings on the side of the street were shaped with corrugated metal like a dog and sheep. They have since added another building that looks like a ram. This stop was right before we headed to a farming town for dinner.

Our dinner was at Hobbiton. I know, people complain about how over-commercialized it is there, but we were really pleasantly surprised!! We started with a slow walk through the Hobbit movie set area, with the tour guides sharing detailed and interesting stories. We ended up in the tavern, where they fitted the tables with a hobbit's food feast for all of us. Honestly? It was really delicious! Probably one of the best meals we had while in New Zealand.

They also apologized to us for some construction work they were doing and gave us free hobbit mugs, but honestly, I barely noticed it because they do such a good job keeping the magic there, even with the construction.

Afterward, we drove for a few hours, and we stayed in an apartment complex that perplexed me tremendously for about an hour before we found the entrance.

Beyond Auckland

For our last night in the country, we drove up from Auckland to Ruakaka for my sake. There are a lot of cool public toilets further north around there, and I was determined to see them. The first one was in a small town with beautiful, artistic toilets that looked like the hulls of fishing boats. The next stop was at Ruakaka, where we could see the Hundertwasser toilets. These toilets were some of the first famous public toilets in the country, and apparently, the government used them as inspiration to make other pretty toilets, like the others we saw along our road trip. The town had also put in a newer model of the toilets nearby to house a library, art center, and RV showers for the transitory guests they see regularly.

We stayed in a community halfway between there and Auckland, at a quiet couple's house that wasn't near much but had a lovely sunset view next to the water. Once we woke up, we returned to Auckland to grab some curry pies and visit the Botanic Gardens before our evening flight home.

An African Xmas Venting

I just need to get this off of my chest before it's too late.

In the office, I've heard some of my non-Kenyan colleagues complain that it just doesn't feel like Christmas here in Nairobi/Kenya. Even though the many malls here are decked out with fairy lights and Christmas trees and local school groups carol regularly in front of stores (very western, indeed), they just don't feel the holiday spirit. The only time that they say they felt the holidays were coming was when I recently baked sugar cookies.

I think I know why this is the case.

Even here in Kenya we listen to popular western holiday songs. With sleigh bells jingling in the background and words like "snow" sprinkled through all of the songs' lyrics. This can be really confusing to the mind while in Africa - even though I'm hearing snowy vocabulary being sung in songs, I'm surrounded by tropical plants on warm and sunny days. What's more - Kenya is extremely close to the equator, which means it doesn't boast the normal four seasons you find in the west. No snow, here. And for places south of the equator, its summertime right now anyway; case in point is Australia scorching in heat while the US is piled in layers and shivering.

Therefore, of course it wouldn't feel like the holidays to someone if they're relying on wintry music to fill their holiday playlist.

In response to this, I started looking for weather-neutral music (or even tropical music) that is Christmas focused for a new playlist. I've found a few songs that are neutral to weather for the holidays, like Wham's "Last Christmas" and John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War is Over)". The only popular non-snowy song with a tropical twist (and was written by a band in a region outside of the west, sorry Tim Mitchen) I could find was (my mom's favorite) Boney M's song "Mary's Boy Child". It's a great example of something I can happily listen to in Kenya and start feeling festive. The only problem (for our African-situated and minded folks, here) is that they're a Caribbean band. I have struggled to find African holiday music.

I did go to a holiday festival last week that helped me somewhat scratch my itch for a tropical holiday vibe. A group of popular Kenyan singers sang regular Christmas Carols and wove fun local Kenyan songs into them, which gave the songs a cheeky flair. It was wonderful and brimming with holiday joy....but I haven't found much else that gives the holidays its own local feel to it.

I hope that African artists can start creating and popularizing their own holiday songs soon - it would help improve the tropical holiday vibe and increase the diversity of songs to listen to over the holidays that aren't rehashes of old classics that we keep hearing re-sung by new people.

Last note to share: I really resent the 1980s holiday hit "Do they know it's Christmas" nowadays, while I'm at it. Though extremely catchy, its lyrics are ignorant and pretty much underline all of the foolish things western folk say about "the rest of the world". The phrases "and there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime" infuriates me every time - of course not because it's summer, you idiot!

An Indian Week

Please stop honking. Why are you honking?

I ended up going to India last week for a conference in Pune on the Sanitation Economy (aka nerdy toilet folks talking about how to make toilets more profitable). I had decided to pad my trip to Pune with a day at both ends with a stay in Mumbai since I had never been before and had heard so much about it (and since that's where I'd land).

I landed in Mumbai on Saturday and was reminded that India is hot. Very hot. I foolishly thought that Mumbai was going to be balmy and spring-like during the winter months. I was wrong. Mumbai was hot and humid like any other time I've been to India. I felt like it was jarring transitioning from the dry 78F/26C sunny days in Nairobi to the 97F/36C and humid heat of Mumbai.

Also, the air quality was pretty awful; while Nairobi at the time had an AQI of 9 (which is pretty good), Mumbai's was at 170 (which is really bad). And don't even get me started on the noise pollution in India (though this article is about Delhi) - it's honking all of the time, all day, every day, no matter where you are, and music is played in arbitrary places everywhere. It can give you a pretty big headache if you're stuck in the constant traffic on every street.

I was staying in the shopping street called Lamington Road and walked around Southern Mumbai for my day in the city. I walked to the beach area and strolled about 10 minutes before I relented and got a cab to drive me to India Gate...but in those few minutes of walking I saw run-down buildings  with humidity taking tolls on their external structures and dirty corners with questionable smells that I have come to associate with most major cities in the country.

I took a 1.5-hour boat ride to the Elephanta Cave, which is a UNESCO Heritage Site on an island off of Mumbai. While on the boat, I was dismayed watching the other riders; many of the people on the boat were eating bagged snacks and were (1) throwing pieces of food into the water to the seagulls then (2) discarding the bags and wrappers right into the water like it was a giant rubbish bin. I think if we're going to talk about saving our oceans and changing behaviors to manage climate change, we have a long way to go yet.

On the island, I hired a young tour guide to show me around the famous caves for an hour under the bleaching sun. We walked in the sweltering heat and climbed slowly up the 100+ steps to get to the caves at the top of the hill. It was pretty great once we got up there - there are several scenes of giant Lord Shiva's life carved into the cave walls, all intricately detailed. My guide explained that the cave carvings were around 1500 years old. Unfortunately, the Portuguese once stationed on the island 500 years ago and took to shooting at the carvings for target practice. The good news is that they're still amazing to see, even with a few bullet marks in Shiva's thighs.

After about four hours of touring, I gave up on braving the heat and sought refuge in a beautiful coffee shop nearby with WiFi and worked for a few hours before grabbing some Persian food en route to the hotel for bed.

The next day a colleague and I shared a car for the 4-hour drive to Pune. I slept for this drive, so there's nothing for me to share.

Pune is different than Mumbai. For one, it's much cooler - about 10F/6C degrees less than Mumbai. Pune is also much cleaner and better planned than Mumbai, as Pune has a strong campaign to clean the city with the government's Swachh Bharat mission and use smart technology to keep the city running. They have clean public toilets on the sides of the street, as well!

Someone on my trip explained to me that much of Pune's residents are the wealthier people from Mumbai who tire of the city and want to move somewhere cleaner/nicer than Mumbai. They may still do their business in Mumbai, but they live and breathe in Pune. Honestly? I can't blame them.

I didn't see too much of Pune since I was at a conference most of the time, but I liked what I saw.

The conference was also lovely and went well. I was busy with networking and talking about new projects with sector partners. We also visited the Pune Smart City Control Center, which was neat.

A few conference attendees and I shared a ride back to Mumbai afterward. The hotel one of my riding partners stayed at managed to lose her bag for three hours. After the chaos, they sent us to Mumbai in one of their cars and with bags of food - all complimentary.

The next day before I went to the airport, I tried out a pleasant coworking space near the terminal for a few hours. I left in a rickshaw to get to the airport, meaningless waiting in the airport for 3.5 hours for my flight.

And now I'm back in Nairobi.

This trip helped me realize what I have loved about India in the past, and it's not been the cities. I love the natural beauty in much of India, and the rural areas are peaceful. The cities in India, though? I could do without them right now. Pune is better than many I've been to, but I'm still not that wild about urban India if I'm honest.

A Ghanaian Funeral

I didn't go to this funeral.

I was just in Ghana for a few weeks working in the field on a project. During my stay, I was asked to join my team to attend a funeral for one of our colleagues who had passed away, over the weekend. Of course, I agreed to join....but it was clear during the experience that I was wildly unprepared and still prone to culture shock.

According to my Ghanaian colleagues, weekends are for funerals. You attend lots of funerals, here - for people you know or people you knew of from others - so that eventually you'll have a sizable gathering for your own funeral. Because in Ghana, funerals are big deals - much bigger than weddings.  I mean, they're big enough to the point that some think they can be a bit excessive.

Perhaps you've seen on social media one or two videos from a Ghanaian funeral? You know, one of the pallbearers dancing with a coffin bouncing on their shoulders?

I find it almost impossible to explain the Ghanaian funeral I attended by comparing it to anything we have in the US...but I found myself comparing it a bit to Indian weddings. It had a lot of pomps and circumstances (like an Indian wedding) and it was long. And apparently, by Ghanaian scale, this funeral was a very small one.

But I'm ahead of myself.

The funeral was in the Central Region - about a five-/six-hour drive from Accra. My 60 Ghanaian colleagues and I sleepily piled into a VIP bus at 2am (!) on Saturday and started our journey. If you've ever driven down Ghanaian roads, you may recall that speeds are managed via ample speed bumps and potholes (every mile or so?). Sleeping on the bus was difficult.

A few towns before we reached the funeral, we stopped at a guesthouse to dress for the service. Ghanaian funerals are formal events - no jeans or sneakers! The standard colors are black and red (with a few exceptions for those in church groups with costumes - yes, costumes - and etc.). Women wear tailored outfits with a flared blouse paired with a mermaid skirt, while men wear smart kente shirts or elaborate "togas". Apparently, in the Ashanti region, funeral attire is so strict that one can be refused entrance if the outfit isn't up to code. Luckily for me, we weren't in Ashanti and I was allowed to wear simple black pants and a modest shirt.

When we arrived, we had to line up and start a procession to the funeral (women in the back, of course) and around the corpse of our late colleague before sitting down.

Okay, so this is when the culture shock for me started during the funeral. There much to unpack in my culture shock, so I will explain the uniqueness in my favorite format - a list:

• The (dressed) corpse was laid out in full view on a table in a clear tent. I was not expecting the body to be on display as fully as it was. In Western funerals, *if* the body is on display, it's only from the torso up. This body, however, was not covered at all - I saw the rigid legs leading to the stiff upper body of someone who has been moved into position after Rigor mortis set in. There was no way to deny death at this funeral, for his body was so clearly visible to all who attended at all vantage points.
  
• The corpse was a month old. In a country that is hot and so very near the equator, I was baffled to see the body in such a well-preserved state...and that they had taken so long to bury the body. My colleagues explained to me that burial customs in Ghana sometimes prohibit bodies from being buried for quite a long time, which means families and morgues will do what they can keep bodies on ice if there are delays.
  Why would there be delays? One example I heard was that if a local royal died before your loved one, you can't bury them until the royal is. And, since funerals are such big deals in Ghana, funerary ceremonies for royals can last weeks/months/years! Which means you just have to wait to mourn your loss until the royals are buried. I'm not entirely sure why this funeral was a month late, but it was - and that was not abnormal to anyone but me.
• There were hundreds of people at this "small funeral". In the West, a large funeral may have 100 people or so; in Ghana, large funerals have more like a few thousand. I was in awe that so many people turned up at the funeral, but was even more surprised when I was told that it was a tiny funeral. The reason why thousands of people didn't show up was that my colleague died rather young and before his parents - in Ghana, burying a child requires a smaller, not-very-spectacular funeral.
  
• The service had lots of emotions expressed. I'm used to funerals being somber, sad events. Ghanaian funerals have (potentially professional?) wailers and sobbing/moaning family members, of course, but there was also a lot of singing and dancing. The church that ran the service brought the chorus. They banged tambourines, sang joyfully to songs about Jesus (I think? It was in Twi, but "Jesus" sounded the same...), and danced in a parade around the center of the funeral grounds - sometimes even around the body. At some point during the funeral, the corpse was moved discreetly into a coffin, which was then placed in the middle of the compound, and more dancing circled it. Some periods of the funeral had rowdy songs juxtaposed with people crying loudly. I didn't really know how to process the information during this service because I felt overwhelmed with emotions at the moment, but I think I was glad to have some levity in what normally is a dark event...even if the contrast was so stark.


• The service was quite long. In my world, funerals are for about two hours. Max. We ended up staying at this funeral for six hours before hopping back in the bus to return to Accra...and we had left early! Once again, funerals can last a long time, and apparently, I only got a taste of all that would be included in the ceremonies. To me, it was extremely long; understanding only a smattering of words - mostly being "Jesus" - probably made it feel even longer.
  
• We had to go through a lot of formalities. So much of the funeral included people moving around, shaking hands of everyone else attending the funeral. And much else of the funeral were different people making speeches (again, in Twi) in what appeared to have been normal standard operating procedures. I'm not sure most of what happened, but there seemed to have been some kind of formula to go through for the event. We did a lot of standing and sitting for songs and other parts that I didn't understand, as well.
  There was one part of the ceremony that was in English: the eulogies. And it was heartbreaking to listen to several people read out their written eulogies in between sobs.

After the initial religious part of the ceremony and people moved around the coffin a few times, it was time for the pallbearers to lead the hundreds of attendees to the burial. We were in a rural community, so everyone piled onto the road and slowly walked to the cemetery off on the shoulder of the road, at the end of the village.

Did I mention that it was hot out in rural Ghana? It was probably 100F/37.8C outside and as the sun climbed the sky, all of my colleagues and I started to pour sweat (I won't lie...I was comforted to see that I wasn't the only one sweating). There was a point during the day where I wasn't sure my clothing would ever come off again from my sweaty body. I wasn't sure if I'd ever know what it felt like to be cold again, either. There was some cooling wind...but not much.

At some point after the burial, I realized I had an urgent need to urinate. A few of my lady colleagues helped me find a village toilet, which was harder than it sounds as Ghana is known in my sector as having low sanitation coverage. Anyway, somebody showed us to a roofless structure with walls that wrapped around like a spiral and told me to have at it. I walked cautiously through the spiral to find a stained floor and a small hole in the side of the wall that outputted into a divet near someone's home. This was the only toilet in the community apparently, so I took off my pants and squatted...and proceeded to urinate openly and indiscriminately. It was so hot out I couldn't tell where my urine was going, but I would be lying if I said I didn't get any of it on my person. Oh well.

The happenings continued.

Our organization wanted to donate some money to the bereaved family, which meant the formalities continued for us. All 60 of us were ushered into a family compound where we sat and waited for the bereaved family members to greet us. My understanding is that we first had the widow's family leaders come to greet us and asked us our intentions, to which someone on our team represented us and stated our intention to donate money. The widow's family left, satisfied. Afterward, we waited for a while until the bereaved blood family joined us and we went through the same formalities again. Each time a new group or family came to go through this process with us, there was handshaking. Everyone had to give each other handshakes. Which meant I shook a lot of people's hands that day. Many of them seemed quite pleased to have shaken the hand of a foreigner at the funeral - it appears I added some prestige to the funeral and showed that our colleague had had an international network.

Once the handshaking ended, we then had to do the process all over again, this time in public at the official ceremony where donations were publically announced. Again, someone had to state our intentions to give money to the family, and we had to shake hands. The difference with this version was that afterward our team had to dance around the altar that replaced the coffin before we were able to leave the funeral and head home. 

We finally got back to Accra around 9pm - about 20 hours after our days started. But, of course, not without me peeing on myself one last time (this time at a gas station) while we headed back.

Overall, it was a fascinating experience. I wish I had thought to have read up more in what a Ghanaian funeral would entail, and I wish I had prepared myself better to deal with an overwhelming cultural experience in blistering heat. But it is still a memory that I will not forget and is giving me food for thought about my own future funerary experiences and last wishes. I'm sure I got some of the details mixed up or misunderstood, but based on my understanding of what happened that day, the Ghanaians hold their deceased in the highest of esteem and respect.

One last note: I found this article about how some of the funeral calls in Ghana can be quite comedic - enjoy!

A Malaysian Wedding Trip

Murals in Penang

Malaysia was Stop Three on my flight around the globe. Malaysia was originally going to be Stop One, as I was going to join up with a few friends to attend one of our (Denise's) weddings. But then my work trip was tacked on. And here we are.

Jetlag & Confused
When I arrived, I was confused about where I was ("Which country am I am? Who am I?"). I realized while in the immigration line that I had arrived a day earlier than I had thought and realized that the connecting flight I had to Penang wasn't until the next day.

My friends, mystified that I didn't know where I was or what day it was (and that I was a day earlier than I told them I'd be - surprise!), took me out for dinner at an outdoor market. We feasted on all kinds of fish and vegetables and chicken dishes. Eating with friends and soaking in the heat of KL melted my confusion.

I found a KL boutique hotel for the night in Chinatown that was beautiful and had outdoor bathrooms, which was delightful. My toilet and shower were in a private courtyard! There were shades that kept any guest staying above or below me to peek at me. There was rain falling down on the courtyard next to the courtyard when I showered.

The next day I hopped in a car with friends from Colorado for a road trip to Penang. We had decided to remove ourselves from the wedding chaos so Denise could have one less thing to worry about...and so we could travel around the country some.

Once we got out of KL, driving to Penang felt a lot to me like driving through much of the US, aside from the tropical vegetation everywhere. There was a lot of open space with small towns hugging the highway. Much of the drive to Penang was pretty uneventful.

In Penang
We got to the island of Penang and drove in the rain to the UNESCO town of Georgetown and waited for our Airbnb host. Our Airbnb was outside of the tourist areas, which meant that it was quiet and had a nicer view of the water. After we checked in, our host insisted on cramming us into his car and give us a tour around town for a while. While it was a nice gesture, we were starving and really weren't interested in getting a full-on tour. We wanted to gorge on street food, which is what Penang is known for! We finally got let out in a food alley, ravenous and eager to eat something. Anything.

Luckily for us, "anything" in Penang is worth trying. And so we did. We ate a lot of great things while in Georgetown: assam laksa, duck sausage noodles, chendol, laksa regular, nasi lemak, and so many other things of which I don't remember the names. Everything was fresh and bursting with flavor. I didn't know half of what I was eating....but I was pleased as punch with all of the the tastes.

We seemed to arrive there on a quiet day for the town. We saw a lot of tourists (which, with its UNESCO status, isn't very surprising), but things were not open for tourists to do. We managed to find a small museum - the Museum of Glowing Image - where we walked around under purple lights for an hour. It was ridiculous, but we had fun being silly while glowing in the dark.

We were still fighting off jetlag, so we went to a night market for a bite to eat and quickly walked back to the Airbnb to crash hard.

The next day we decided to drive around the island to see what is happening in Penang outside of the tourist-centred area. We visited the local snake temple (it is a temple with snakes in it, and you can hold them!) and got lost driving around because Google Maps gave us directions to roads that didn't exist (or were lost to the jungle overgrowth). That's when we stumbled upon the Tropical Fruit Farm. The title of the farm tells you exactly what the attraction was - a farm of tropical fruit...but we had a blast on the tour, tasting and learning about the plants along the farm.

We spent another day in Georgetown before heading back to wedding ceremonies. It was a supremely hot and exhausting day. We walked around to see all of the tourist sites like the murals, ate some not-so-local cakes, visited the Cheah house, and walked around the port neighborhoods with drop toilets on the edge of the docks. Walking around in 90F degree heat and 95% humidity, though, can be trying on the body. We slept early and hard that night.

Back in KL
The next morning we drove back to KL to get ourselves fitted in saris for the wedding and have amazing ice cream with the bride-to-be and some other international people. The couple had a group of us foreign friends attending their wedding, and we quickly became an international group of friends (I'll call them "The Friends"). We agreed to go touring around the next day to stay out of the couple's way while they ran last-minute errands for the wedding.

Batu Caves
The Friends arranged to visit the Batu Caves in the morning. We got there before it was too hot outside, which to be honest isn't saying much because it was still very hot.

The Batu Caves are an impressive sight because there is (1) a large, steep staircase to the caves (there are two) that loom above the tour buses and (2) a massive statue of Lord Murugan that guards the height of the stairs. The climbing....was treacherous. Not because of the number of stairs to climb - I mean, I'm a New Yorker and we climb stairs a lot - but because the stairs were narrow and uneven. To make our trip up to the caves more precarious, there was a mound of sand next to the stairs and a pile of small plastic buckets next to a sign requesting tourists to carry full buckets of sand to the top (for construction...which, of course, we did).

Once we reached the top of the stairs and went into the cave temple (the popular cave), we were all appreciative of the gaping hole in the mountain, but I kept thinking "...was this why I lugged two buckets of sand for?!" My travel partners agreed to go to the more sciencey cave (the other, less popular cave) and take a tour that walked us deep into the darkest crevices inside the mountain. We were loaned hard helmets and penlights, and off we went with a tour guide into the depths of the cave. It was beautiful and so well worth the expense. We got to explore different rock formations and got to an area where there was a skylight into the cave that lit up a gorgeous, quiet, mossy nook of the cave that made me think of some kind of magical backdrop to a fairytale.

Upon leaving we saw an armada of tour buses coming to the caves and watched hordes of tourists drip with sweat as they crawled up the stairs. I'm so glad we went early.

Before we made our train back to KL, we visited the only other tourist site nearby - the Ramayama Cave. This cave was ground level, and a wild(ly strange) sight to behold. There, the Hindu community took a natural cave and carved it out so that the inside of cave walls became platforms all along the perimeter to showcase a life-sized 3D display that unfolded the story of the Ramayama. With statues and paintings. Most of The Friends didn't know much about Hinduism, but even my knowing smatterings of the story didn't keep me from being bewildered and amazed.

Once back in KL, another friend of Denise and mine - Alicia - joined us getting our hands henna-ed for the wedding and partaking in essential tourist shopping in Central Market. Later on, she led us to a local restaurant that served Chinese food and ordered us a whole lot of foods that were delicious and fascinating and things many of us had never eaten before - smelly fish soup and congealed pork knuckles. It was family-style and a local hangout. We had so much fun we shut down the shop.

Wedding Time
The big day finally came - the day for Denise's wedding! And it was all day, so it was a big deal. Why was it so long? Because of the cultural mash-up that was going to happen; she is Chinese and he is Hindu, but both are also Malaysian. We had three different chunks of wedding celebrations to experience before the day was over.

The first part was Chinese. We arrived at Denise's family's house before the sun rose. We met a lot of bleary-eyed family members setting up the buffet (it felt so weird to eat spring rolls so early) and prepare the festivities. This part of the day was when the groom had to play games with the bride's family and friends and persuade them to let him into the house to find his bride. This took a few hours and a number of different "obstacles" for him to overcome. It was all in fun, luckily, and he was successful in retrieving his bride.

Once that happened, The Friends (and some of the bridal party) shuttled over to another home to get changed into saris and kurtas for the Hindu festivities, which were scheduled around lunchtime (based on the celestial alignments the Hindu priests deemed appropriate). The sari changing took a while - by the time we were fitted and ready to go we hurredly drove into town to the temple.

Once we got to the temple, we were pleasantly surprised to see one of our other girlfriends (Pritha). She flew just that morning there from India with her husband to attend this part of the weddings.

A few hundred other people also decided to observe the wedding at the temple.

It was fun to watch the Hindu wedding because it was a whirlwind of noise and processions that none of us understood (and apparently not even the couple fully comprehended). There was flowing music and vibrant colors that made it still exciting to witness. AND we all got snack bags during the ceremony. The Friends sat in a clump and were fortunate that a few of the older aunties sat near us and explained in English as best they could what on earth was going on. The rest of the crowd seemed just as bewildered about us being there as we were watching the ceremony.

The public wedding processions ended after a while and people grabbed plates of buffet food before heading off. The Friends slowly shoveled food in our mouths as we sweated it back out again and left for a long break before we rejoined the now-married couple. I napped the entire break

The final part of the wedding was the reception in a restaurant and felt a lot more Western than the rest of the day. There, we ate even more food and danced the night away. We also watched some of the FIFA World Cup game when we needed breaks from the dancing. It was a wonderful ending to the wedding, and more intimate than a lot of the rest of the day.

But I was exhausted and burned out. Not as burned out as the married couple was, of course.

The next day I requested a day alone. I went to the Patronus towers mall (oh the irony of finding quiet time in a big mall). After my break, we met up for dinner one last time with the married couple before my flight out. The dinner was a lot more low key than the rest of the wedding festivities - we hung out at tables in the groom's front yard and talked about nonsense, and caught up on each other's lives. What was so extra wonderful about this trip and wedding was that we ended up making more friends.

End Thoughts
The trip to Malaysia had a few themes that I will reflect on more as I continue my life of travel:

• I prefer slow travel. This trip, albeit fun and action-packed, was not slow. A lot of my fellow travelers wanted to see everything, exploring all of the things and walk all of the roads. That path is not for me - I was exhausted so much of this visit. Instead, I like taking my time while I travel. Maybe I won't see everything (read: all touristy things), but I get to go at a relaxing pace and see the things that really mean something to me. And often, I don't find the touristy stuff very interesting. This does mean that I do more research about where I am going before I get there, normally. Oh yeah, and mid-day naps are the best, even when I'm missing out.
• I love SE Asian food. I love the unique flavors smashed together in one dish. I love that the desserts are funky and not chocolatey (even though I love chocolate). I love the comfort in even the spicy soups. I love everything about them. It is amazing.
• Hot and humid is hard. I already knew this from my previous trips in SE Asia, but it bears a reminder, especially after scaling Penang in 95% humidity and 95F heat. Hydration salts are my saving grace on those kinds of days.
• Malaysia? It's Okay. Surprisingly, Malaysia is not my favorite place, despite it having amazing food and some very interesting spots to see. For me, it was culturally not too far away from the US, which to me is a mix of a bunch of cultures to the point where there is a missing keystone to the culture. It is an odd place of rigid laws and lax customs, which is a bit confusing. I can't say I would ever want to live in Malaysia, but I was glad I got to see more of it with my friends and see my friend at a joyous occasion in her life.

Perth

I know I'm over a month behind on writing blog posts. I have been finishing my masters thesis...and consulting...and tying together the pieces before I leave for the US. Better late than never?

I should probably start from when I reentered Australia.

I came in through Western Australia, stopping in Perth for a few days. It so happens that stopping over in Perth from Southeast Asia before heading back to Brisbane saved me hundreds of dollars, and I have a friend in the area I was keen on visiting. Also, I had the rare opportunity to see one of my absolute favorite animals in the world, wild! It was a pretty good deal.

My friend met me at the airport. Upon seeing me at the gate, she handed me a sweater. After putting it on, she got me into her car so I could drop my heavy bags off at her house before adventuring around the area.

The weather in Perth compared to Phnom Penh was shockingly cold (I was shivering a bit). All of my heat rashes (I had quite a few on my limbs)from living in boiling Cambodia started to heal immediately after landing. I felt ill-equipped to deal with weather, though, as I had packed only tank tops and light shirts that breathe well while sweating. I was cold.

The culture shock from SE Asia to Australia was subtle and easy. The cleanliness of the streets surprised me for a while, as I was now used to streets lined with dust and dirt and litter and other curious objects (eg, half sets of sandals). I had learned how to listen for oncoming traffic so that I could leap out of their way and avoid injury. Here, the streets had grass and trees to divide the pedestrians from the cars, and the only trash you see is safely contained in bins, ready for pick-up. Here, everything looks so shiny and polished compared to what I had gotten used to.

The other surprise I had was the lack of people on the streets. There were so many streets, but I wondered where all of the people were. In SE Asia, it was a rare moment to be alone and free of other people. Now, the place seemed empty while we drove.

And we drove around a lot. For those who don't know, I am easily carsick and don't personally enjoy being in cars for long periods of time. This has been the case in Brisbane all year, where everything is accessible by riding in buses through long stretches of suburbia. Perth seemed to be formatted like Brisbane, with lots of roads and highways to drive. Aside from the discomfort of long drives, driving around did help me get to see the area quickly; given I only had a few days to see everything, I was glad to see the country gliding by my window.

We explored Freemantle a bit. Freemantle is kind of like a cute, quiet area of Perth that grew legs and walked down the shore a few miles. It is an adorable area with cute shops and pleasant cafes down small streets. It also used to be where a big prison was located, which is now a museum and performance space. We didn't get to go to the prison because of my limited time, but we visited the harbor area with a few older stone buildings we could walk around before eating fish & chips for lunch at an open-air harbor joint called Kaili's. Oh yeah, I was also having culture shock (and still am) to the high prices of Australia. This place is not cheap!

The second day in Perth was the piece de resistance of my trip. We woke up early, got to the port, and hopped onto a ferry to Rottnest Island. This, my friends, is where the adorable, angelic, absolutely amazing QUOKKAS LIVE!!!!

To say I was beside myself with excitement would probably not do justice the giddiness I had all day. I mean, I have been loving quokkas from afar for years! Finally, I got to go to quokka paradise and pet them! I got to potentially love them and rally the quokkas to happiness and freedom, with me, forever!

Well, I didn't expect the quokkas to be little sugar junkies, though. There are bakeries and sandwich/candy shops dotted near the harbor, and the little quokkas by the shops have grown accustomed to tourists dropping tasty things on the ground for them to try. The quokkas near the shops rummaged around for little morsels of chocolate or sugar or other highly-addictive substances that could cause major damage to the health of these succulent-eating marsupials. It was heartbreaking to be turned down by quokkas while holding a succulent leaf in exchange for someone nearby who had sugar-coated hands and a piece of banana (other tourists were idiots and kept feeding quokkas things that are not good for them). One local guy came over and told me that some of these quokkas by the shops have been losing chunks of fur as a result of eating sugary sweets instead of succulents. I was devastated to hear this. Later on, I saw a little quokka huddled in the corner of a shop's alley with Snickers wrapper in its delicate little paws. I shouted and ran over to grab the wrapper from the poor little fluffball, and it gave me a confused and sad look as I threw away the wrapper saying in near-tears, "No, quokka, no!"

Outside of the shop area, the beaches on the island were gorgeous and wild, and less-addicted quokkas came over and investigated our squee-ing selves for a little while. We tried our best to master the quintessential quokka selfie without intimidating the meek little things. They were sweet and gentle, and I was in love so much I barely could get myself to leave them. We also went for a quokka tour to learn more about their lifestyles and stumbled across a heavily-quokka-ed area where we oggled and awwwed for a while, trying to lure them to love us (I wasn't alone in this endeavor!). It was a heavenly day, and I could not have felt more accomplished in life.

We also enjoyed some snacks and toured the island on a bus, finishing our adventures with lunch at the port - I got myself an unprecedented amount of chili mussels for consumption.

I got another surprise during my short visit to Perth - I had found out that an old friend from NYU I hadn't seen in a decade lived in the area! We ended up meeting in Freemantle and enjoyed drinks and dinner with each other as we caught up on life over a few hours. I was so pleased to hear how she's doing and what has changed for both of us since last time we met. Reconnecting with old friends might be one of my favorite things in life.

On my last day, we visited the CBD of Perth. The buildings in Perth are big and loom over the streets in silence, but the city overall is a pretty small and compact place. Most of the places we wanted to visit (like museums) were unfortunately closed for the day, but we wandered a bit and I took in the quietness of the small city before getting on another plane to get back to Brisbane.

A Quiet New Year

About a week ago was the Khmer New Year. Most of the foreigners (aka expats) fled the country for holidays in cooler climates, and locals headed into the provinces to visit family over the holiday. I, on the other hand, opted to stay in Phnom Penh and work on my research project, furiously coding transcripts and trying (with tired eyes) to interpret my codes into a tangible story. I’m still working on making sense of the data and putting together my analysis, so I’m glad I stayed behind.

People here asked me what the city was like during the week everyone was gone. Honestly, I didn’t venture out too much because of my research, but I did go outside here and there. Simply put, it was hot and empty.

Firstly, it was hot. Of course, this is not an interesting observation; it is consistently in the 30s C / 80s-100s F. But that week was exceptionally hot – most days wavered between 39C / 102F to 40C / 104F (and that is not including the increased degrees for the “RealFeel” measurement). I hid in my bedroom with the aircon  nonstop in order to avoid melting; going outside seemed extremely unappetizing.

Also, Phnom Penh was silent and empty. The quiet meant I could sleep longer into the morning, which I found rather pleasant. And the streets were free of parked cars and people; only a couple cars would be driving down the main roads, whereas normally it’s packed and congested traffic nonstop. The reduced number of people made it easier to walk down the streets because there was no competition for space.

Actually, this walking around on the street was short-lived. Whenever I tried wandering more aimlessly up and down the street, I would get some tuk-tuk drivers’ attention. Normally, this attention includes someone shouting, “Hey lady want a tuk-tuk ride?! Where are you going??”, trying hard to make a transaction. Over the New Year, though, the attention was more tuk-tuk drivers’ adamantly yelling for me to get back on the sidewalk and put my phone away. It seems that some people take the week’s emptiness as an opportunity to speed down empty streets recklessly. Also, someone mentioned that theft goes up in the New Year because people want nice things like smartphones and will ride down the street on their motorcycles to snatch your belongings if you’re too close to the street.

The tuk-tuk drivers weren’t asking to give me rides, they were just genuinely concerned about my wellbeing. Which was a strange change of pace for me, being used to politely declining constantly as I walk down the street.

Despite the emptiness, I did have a little bit of a social life. There may not have been very many things open or people around (every restaurant I like to go to was closed), but I had a few friends who stuck around as well, and we'd go out to enjoy each other’s company over cold beverages (Brown Coffee was open, of course).

One friend had a dangerous allergic reaction to some strange ingredient in a meal while in the city that week. I tried to help that friend find an EpiPen or some allergy help so that they could figure out what happened to them. Just to let you know: Cambodia doesn’t have EpiPens. Try all you might, you will not be able to successfully source EpiPens in this country (and if you magically can, I am going to guess it’ll cost a lot). Luckily, this friend went to an embassy and sourced an EpiPens that way, but otherwise was looking at having to go to a clinic for a stab of adrenaline if anything else happened. This medical mishap was alarming for me in some way. I wonder, if someone has a child who is allergic to some food, what do you do? If someone is deathly allergic to some kind of insect or surprise allergy (and is a baby?!), what happens? It reminded me how some things that work in countries like Australia and the US are far cries from how things work in countries like Cambodia.

Don’t get me wrong! Cambodia is progressing and evolving at lightning speed. There are so many developments happening here, even for the 3 months I’ve been here! And so much is happening that it’s very exciting to be here and watch it change and morph into a new kind of society. That said, I do miss the immediate healthcare of other places. 

Field Research Fun

Cow grass

Last week I got into a quintessential expat vehicle (a white Jeep...with a driver) and drove a few hours out of Phnom Penh for interviews with local, rural government staff. Being the child that I am, as soon as the car started pushing out of the city, I fell asleep until my driver kindly nudged me awake in our first area for interviews, Kampong Speu.

During our few days in the field (meaning my friendly driver and me…and when I wasn’t lulled to sleep by the humming of the car), we spent many quiet hours having broken conversations with each other. We drove from Kampong Speu, out to the other side of the country in Kampong Cham, through Tboung Khmum, and back to Phnom Penh.

I’ve tried to learn Khmer while in Cambodia. Normally languages are pretty easy for me to grasp. Par example, je parle français (grossomodo). Some Spanish speakers have thought I can actually hablar español. I can read some Arabic like a first grader. By the end of my month-long stint around Thailand, I could hold basic conversations with people (krup koon kah). In Laos, visit to Isan proved good for me to understand a good amount of things (krup chai de). 

But when it comes to Khmer, even though it is of the originating family from which Thai and Laotian stem, I am utterly useless.

Khmer, for me, is incredibly difficult. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to remember the complex pronunciations and complicated consonants that surprise me when I hear people talking. I’ve managed to clutch clumsily around a handful of words - “Hello”, “Thank you”, “Stop”, and “Turn”- but for the most part what words I am taught dribble out of my brain as easily as football statistics. And it infuriates me!

This is especially problematic when in rural Cambodia, where English is not as important as it is in the city. Here, I am in the wrong for not trying to learn more Khmer, and I agree with that – I should be much better at the language by now. Alas, my brain has shut the vaults to Khmer, and my attempts to use Thai words as alternative vocabulary are kind of silly.

One instance while in Kampong Cham that was amusing around my inept Khmer skills was around my breakfast. My driver, bless him, after I rambled on about wanting bobor (aka rice porridge) found a place in the city where I could order it for breakfast. I have discovered a deep love and affection for the comfort food feel I get when eating it. They put ginger and scallions in it, and often meats, which make it basically like eating a nice, creamy, thick soup. 

I go into the restaurant and order a bobor. The waitress, being a good and thorough waitress, started listing off in Khmer the bobor options they had at the restaurant. I panically ask for, “English?”, which gets me a chuckle and more Khmer words thrown at me that lodge into my pride. A meekly repeated request for “Bobor….?” was met with the repeated list of options I couldn’t understand. I started to cluck like a chicken, using my hand to represent a beak, in hope that it would give the effect of my desire to have chicken in my porridge. After a pile of waitresses and patrons finished their giggling at the stupid foreigner’s chicken impression, the waitress gave me a knowing smile and walked away from me.

Soon after, I received my bobor, only with fish instead of chicken. Don’t get me wrong, it was a tasty dish! But after my embarrassing attempt to impersonate a chicken, I felt baffled that my performance was received with an animal that did not make any sounds at all. I went back the next day to try again my request for chicken in my bobor, armed with the word chicken from my caring driver, and I was successful in eating bobor muan.

Another amusing language mishap that happened in the field was a bit more costly for my interviews. Well, I have not confirmed that this is why the complications occurred, but I am assuming that this was the hiccup. 

Anyways. 

So, my name is Kim. Of course, in the Anglophonic world, my name is short for Kimberly, which usually doesn’t cause too much confusion about my identity. In Cambodia, however alarming, I have been mistaken for Korean a couple of times. If you know me, I look in no way Korean, nor Asian by any stretch of the imagination. I burn in 10 minutes, in the shade – my hair is a mix between blond and brown – my hips are most certainly not of their typically sleek physiques. And yet, I have had people ask me to my face if I am indeed Korean, upon hearing my name. It is a phenomenon that floors me every time.

How does this relate to my interviews? My interviews were arranged with the rural districts via email, where my name was indicated as “Kim” (because that is how I identify in correspondences). Kim, it so happens, in addition to being a Korean name, is also a common nickname for a few names in Khmer. It is not, apparently, a common name for visiting Westerners interested in going to rural areas to talk about government. 

Despite my supervisor’s Virak request for a translator for me, I think my name made that important request not register for people. I arrived to each district with a request for translators, and people looked stunned that I was who I was, and that I did not have a translator with me already (or speak fluent Khmer). 

Every district scrambled to find the most English-speaking staff member they had and thrust the poor soul in my direction. Some of the translators were good and knew how to navigate my questions for me in both language. Some of my translators were shaking a little bit as I spoke to them in a very slow, simplified version of English. Some of my translators kept apologizing, which did not boost my faith in their skills. Even so, they all did a decent job in helping me collect my data, and I thanked them for taking time to interpret the conversation between me and groups of government staff.

Oh yes, there’s that other thing, too. I had asked for one-on-one interviews with certain government staff, because it would make my data collection and analysis easier. All of the districts did not understand that, though, and my interview participants would end up collecting a few more relevant staff people to join us in the interview room. Stunned, I decided it was disrespectful to forbid the other people to participate, and my already anxious translators didn’t need to feel more stress with having several different conversations between me and other people (the less I talked, the better). So, in each of my surprise focus groups, I had everyone sign a consent form, and rolled with it. 

By the third surprise focus group, I was hardly surprised.

In the end, I now have twice as many interviews than I had expected, and I was successful in collecting some pretty interesting data from my field visit. Overall, a success.

Other things that I would like to note about my trip into the field for data collection:

• I am left handed. I know that I am, but I didn’t remember that Obama is, as well. One of my translators remembered that, though, and mentioned it almost immediately after I picked up a pen to write down a note. “OH! You write like Obama!” It took me a few beats to figure out what he meant by that. I remembered some memory from seven years ago when someone mentioned to me that Obama was a southpaw. I wanted to ask him how, in all of the vast ocean of knowledge to remember, did he remember that one pretty obscure fact about POTUS?
• I was interviewing people about their work around improving rural sanitation. At about half of the places I visited, I was surprised to see male staffers urinating either on/by one of the buildings, or on a neighboring tree on the compound. At one district of these districts I also asked to use the toilet. They hesitated uncomfortably, informing me that their toilet was not working very well. I found this ironic (and unsettling), considering the reason for my visit. I went into the broken toilet and did what I had to do as hygienically as possible. It was an interesting observation to have while working on sanitation-related research.
• Something I love about Cambodia is the style where women where brightly-colored, fully-matching button-down pajama outfits while out and about in the steamy days. Some of them have penguins or flowers, depending I suppose on the person. They are always colorful and look nicely pressed when I see women in the pajama sets. Sometimes I’ve seen children in pajamas, as well, running around and hopping into motorbikes in superhero patterns. My hypothesis is that pajamas are cool and airy enough for the hot tropical weather…and they do have a certain pleasant air to them. It is unsurprising they are colorful, as everyone had to wear black pajamas during the gruesome Khmer Rouge regime.
• While we drove, we went by countless weddings on the sides of the road, under wedding tents with vibrant colors and upbeat bands playing. Considering the dreadful heat and dust in the dry season, I asked my driver why weddings seemed so popular right now. He explained that people would rather be hot at a wedding than soaked/flooded by the rainy season, so dry season is the only decent time to celebrate marriage.

Southern Laos

My entry into southern Laos was a bit curious. I took a bus from Ubon to Pakse. After four rather confusing hours of stopping at check points and other village stops that remain mysterious to me, we ended up in Pakse.

My introduction into Laos at the border was a sharp contrast from Thailand – on the Thai border, it was very ordered and the road was paved and the air was cool, but I went through the border tunnel and came out onto the Laos side with surprising heat and a large, confusing dirt path to a broken building. That broken building was the customs office.

I paid for my visa on arrival with a team of Europeans, but I was the only one that got interrogated about my visit to Laos. A man came out and pointed to my US passport, sternly (and rather loudly) asking me why I was in Laos. Confused and nervous, I stated truthfully that I was just a tourist visiting Pakse and Luang Prabang. Finally, he handed me my passport with visa (in a bit of a huff). I think there is some old hostility in some of those custom guys.

Reading the Lonely Planet SE Asia guide, I was in denial about its description of Pakse not being much. Once in Pakse, though, I learned to not doubt updated tour guides that much. Pakse is a dusty town, with hotel restaurants and enough foreigners to shake a stick at, but not much past that. Luckily, most of my time in Pakse had to be on a laptop for work and assignments anyways (or waiting around doing my laundry in the sink); I felt better knowing that I was not missing anything when I was isolated in my room for long days.

At the start, Laos did not wow me like I had hoped. I struggled for the first few days, trying to get things to work for me and my job – wifi, phone data, etc. Also, getting ointment for a minor skin infection was frustrating as I bounced between shops (and even ended up in the local hospital for English speakers to translate for me what I needed) with some medical creams precariously stashed in glass cabinets, and buying things for rashes I knew I did not have. With the increased heat and frustrating encounters (where English was even more useless here as it is in Thailand), I was sweaty and tired in a matter of minutes. I was irritated with the systems in Pakse early on, but I kept reminding myself that my travels would bring me to other places.

Being a solo lady traveling in Southern Laos (well, Laos in general), people try to help me out and make sure I’m safe. I found that I easily endeared myself to the people around me by using just a word or two in Lao (or ordering a Lao dish). In restaurants, though, this could backfire and instead they would try to prove to me just how spicy their food can be for local people (level: agonizing). I ended up eating at my hotel a bit, to protect myself from vindictive waiters. Luckily, the hotel manager where I was staying was so impressed with my interest in Lao culture and food that he even made me local meals, including grilled frogs, fermented fish, and eggy rice soup. Every time I ate I would have a group of Laotians surrounding me, in awe of my eating of their local foods. Apparently most “falang” don’t bother trying to eat traditional foods from the region; to me that just sounds like missing half of the fun of travel.

A few days in, I made my way further south to the border of Cambodia to stay in the 4000 Islands, on a little yet popular island called Don Det. Getting there, again, was an adventure, as I sat in a packed 40-year-old bus in the extreme heat with a pile of hippy-backpacker youth types that in discussions seemed more interested in partying on questionable substances than relaxing on a remote island.

After the bus, we trudged through a tired town and got onto some long boats that brought us to the banks of the island, which meant we had to quickly problem solve getting off of the boat (or climbing through several boats next to each other) and hope that our balance would get us to dry land before falling into the river with our belongings.

Off of the boat I was met by some locals selling things and more of the same backpackers casually strolling along. One of the downsides of being there was that it was hard to enjoy being in a foreign country because it felt like an extremely tropical western college town. The island is lined with souvenir shops, tourist agencies, and restaurants that cater to foreign mouths. One of the restaurants played “Friends” nonstop – another played “South Park”. A lot of the town was starting to feel a bit like Cancun spring break, if you catch my drift.

Other than that, Don Det is beautiful, as is the rest of the area. I was surrounded by peacefully rolling water and green little islands dotted the waterways, with looming green hills in the distance.

There is bank erosion on the island, which means there are little haphazard bridges made of wooden planks around the island that you (hopefully successfully) walk or ride over. I tried riding a bike to enjoy more of the island, but the roads were treacherous (cliff-side dirt paths with wooden bridges of death) and full of other bikes/animals/motorcycles/people using the same narrow paths. I became full of anxiety and stopped riding soon into the adventure, and decided to relax on the island for my stay. Instead, I’d focus on naps and sunset boat rides.

I got to make some new friends! which is most excellent for the traveling social extrovert I am. I met two Germans on my first night, and we sat in a restaurant having fun talking about foreign policy and academics. They are studying in Bangkok, and helped me understand more of the region than I had known before. I also ended up making good friends with a guy from Belgium (Belgian Elkana), who I get along with famously, and he became my southern Lao travel buddy for a few days. He has traveled through the region quite a bit, as well, and has given me a lot more insights into the culture and quirks of SE Asian travel since we met. We also talked about other things, like life and death and society and other light subjects. He’s great, you should meet him.

I wish I had stayed longer in Don Det, but I had things to do in Pakse (namely, work) and my relaxing and sweltering holiday in the islands came to a swift end.

Fortunately, I had one place to tour when I was back in Pakse – the Wat Phou in Champasack a little further south of the city. Wat Phou means it’s a temple of some sort situated by some natural area like a mountain or trees, I believe. I was told it was a good taster for the beginning of my Khmer Wat visits, and I am glad to hear that as it was enchanting. I met up with travel buddy Belgian Elkana, and we explored the beautiful and hilly area around an ancient temple that predates the Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The ruins were grand and elegant. The only problem was my fear of heights and the Khmer architecture’s sagging steps up a steep hill to the Wat. Luckily Elkana helped me down the stairs as I whimpered and paced like a puppy going down stairs.

After a week of travel and working, I got myself to the tiny airport and made my way to northern Laos, in Luang Prabang.