The Volunteer Vortex

For those not in the know, an NGO is a non-governmental organization; basically the international equivalent of a non-profit. These babies abound in Cambodia as this country is in need of so much to rebuild after the death and destruction of the Khmer Rouge. While Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were only officially running the country for four years, they managed to kill over two million people (1/3 of the Cambodian population - all of the educated, foreign language speakers & even those with glasses).

Since the NGOs, like non-profits, are typically underfunded and understaffed, they jump at the chance for some quality free help. We've noticed a common theme from our own experiences and with others with whom we've talked about their volunteer stints.
Job descriptions, cultural trainings, introductions, explanations, or even a little hand-holding do not exist. Beginning a volunteer stint is more like jumping into the middle of a situation and starting to run at top speed, don't forget to tie your laces tightly.

When Stephen and I inquired into teaching English at an orphanage we'd read about, the director told us to come for a visit and experience a class. After watching the class for a few minutes, the next thing you know, we are co-teaching that class and teaching on our own the next day. No talk about what level English, how long the kids have been studying, what are the goals or focus. Get 'er done because everyone is too busy to help.

A local NGO was planning a fundraiser and I stepped in to help for a week while the main event planner was on vacation for a week. On my first day "in the office", I'm contacting CEOs of local businesses about ticket sales & ticket deliveries, asking local businesses for sponsorships and sending out press releases all without really understanding the nature of the event or understanding much about the actual NGO itself. And, of course, there are the techical problems of working in a developing country, e.g. constant computer issues not to mention cultural and language barriers with the co-workers.

Before you know it, the main event planner has quit her volunteer position and I'm the new expert on the event, being asked questions and telling people what to do. To say I found it stressful is an understatement.

We have been staying with a former CBS TV Producer who is volunteering for a month to make a PR video for another NGO. It is a project that under 'normal' working conditions would take 4-6 months to complete with an entire team dedicated to the project. We've witnessed her struggle with the local film crew while attempting to learn the scope of the project without much internal help.

Needless to say, volunteering can be very challenging, but it is also incredibly rewarding. Stephen and I found the teaching in the orphanage to the be the highlight of our trip so far and were heart broken to leave all the kids.

AS THE TUK TUK SPUTTERS...

After and oh-so-sad send-off from our kids in Phnom Penh (we needed party for them, so we staged a fake birthday bashed w/ hot dogs and a baked a cake - interesting load on the Moto that morning), we are off again and landed back in Bangkok - familiar ground. We have a few interviews here in Bangkok and then meet our newlywed friends, Brett & Kimberly fresh from India. Then it's off to Railah Beach for climbing (again) and then Indonesia for more surf and sand....running from the rain! peaceout!

Angkor Wat-ITIS

We've all experienced it in some form or another. Whether you've visited one too many cathedrals in the capitols of Europe or pehaps it's occurred while getting your money's worth at the Smithsonian Museums or maybe after touring the National Parks of Utah.
The symptoms are all the same - glazed eyes, sore feet & a particular lack of interest in the amazing sites in front of you. We've seen people exiting the temples who appear to have just attended a funeral - looks of anguish on their face and rubbing red puffy eyes.
Angkor Wat-ITIS is a worse affliction that Cathedral-ITIS, Museum-ITIS
or National Park-ITIS. There are several reasons why it is to be feared.

First of all, there is the heat. Cambodia is a tropical country and even the most acclimated will soon be dripping in sweat. While attempting to savor the intricate carvings at your third or fourth temple, these thousand year old engravings all start to look the same. You begin to think, "I can revisit these in my guidebook", or "How dangerous is heat stroke, really?"

The next factor is the sheer enormity of Angkor Wat - over 25 temples in the area close to town, plus many more in outlying areas. The 'temple loop' is spread over 20 miles and most visitors use the ubiquitous tuk tuk to make the circuit. As the day goes on and enthusiasm wanes, these three-wheeled chariots become more and more comfortable. There are more temples than one could absorb in a month, let alone the two to three days most visitors allow. Unfortunately, the awe of these wonders of the world fades more quickly than one might think.

The third and possibly biggest contributing factor to Angko Wat-ITIS is the incessant singsong wails of "Do you want to drink something", "Do you want to buy a guidebook", "Do you want to buy a postcard" and the swarm of women and children who accost you as you arrive at each temple. I'm still haunted by these eerie little voices. You can be sipping from a bottle of water, thumbing through a guide book and they will try to sell you the exactly what you already have in hand. This is especially dangerous when some of the cutest kids you've ever seen will count to ten in fifteen languages for you or tell you the capitol of your state or the population of each Australian country all to get you to part with a dollar for their postcards or guidebook.

Each of these little entrepreneurs is tyring to sell you the exact same thing and after a few temples, you are out of patience and out of money. It doesn't help that westerners have "ATM" stamped on our foreheads.
Despite the widespread affliction of Angkor Wat-ITIS, we haven't heard of any hospitilizations or deaths from this disease. So, get yourself to Siem Reap, Cambodia and visit these wonders of the world. But, be sure to pace yourself - drink gallons of water, get plenty of foot massages & order a big bottle Angkor beer at the end of every day!

Remote, remote, remote

Stephen and I thought we'd been off the beaten path before, but never like our trekking adventure in N. Laos. After a six hour mini-bus ride and an hour boat ride on the Nam Ou River (a Mekong tributary), we arrived at the beautiful Khmu village of Muang Ngoi in N. Laos. This village has one dirt road, no cars, and only has power from a generator 6 PM to 10 PM each day. The setting is pure Shangri-La - steep limestone cliffs surround the riverside village and looks similar to the Amazon basin (check out the sunset shot!).

With four others, we set up a two day trek for the whopping cost $18, including meals, accomodation and guide. Since it is the rainy season, we had been warned that it might be kind of muddy - that turned out to be the understatement of the year!

Not even 15 minutes into the trip, we started walking through ankle deep mud, literally filled with leaches and buffalo shit. The hike led us through a maze of rice paddes. We saw local farmers working the paddies under the beating sun with water buffalo cooling themselves in nearby creeks. Throughout the day, you could hear someone in our group yelp as they discovered a leach stuck on their leg or foot as they furiously tried to dislodge the little bloodsucker.

Our trek led us through several villages until we arrived in our homestay village. Our journey encompassed a 6 hour bus ride, 1 one hour boat ride and 8 hours of hiking through the mud, heat and mountains. The village was on a ridge, nestled in the mountains encircled by a wood fence to keep the animals from escaping. We set up shop at a local villagers house and got to know the town. The village was so alive - kids, pigs, dogs, chickens, roosters, and chickens everywhere. We got a fair amount of stares as the only westerners for miles.
Let the festivities begin - soon enough, our host Papa was pouring us shots Lao Lao, homemade rice wine. We were served an appetizer of freshly slaughtered chicken claws & innards. Dinner was actually delicous and many local villagers came for the feast. Before you know it, our guide, Moon, was playing the guitar, shots were flying and everyone was singing "Hotel California". Totally surreal to say the least.

After killing too many bottles of Lao Lao to count, we all slumbered peacefully side by side in the hut, until the village came alive at 5 AM. Roosters were crowing, pigs were snorting, babies were crying, music was cranking and the day was beginning. We waved good bye to our new friends and set out to hike for another 7 grueling hours through the incredible setting before we took a boat back to our jumping off point.

The Buy/Sell Dance

Although backpacking around SE Asia is pretty darn amazing, it takes a lot of logistical work on a daily basis. This can be uncomfortable, tiresome and embarassing at times.
Anytime you want to buy an item, not including perishables, you need to bargain for it. SE Asia isn't a region of hard-core bargaining and offense can easily be taken by locals if you start out with what they consider an outlandishly low price. In the land of not losing face, it is important not to cause a loss of face.
Also important is not beginning the bargaining process unless you are serious about buying. Nothing pisses of a vendor more than that. Stephen was literally kicked out of a store while trying to bargain for some t-shirts. The woman thought he wasn't serious, althoughhe was, and she yelled at him and told him to leave. The customer is NOT always right in these parts.
I find the buy/sell dance the most uncomfortable when looking at hotels and guesthouses. It goes something like this - you walk in, see if there is availability, get a price, you get a key to look at a room, usually accompanied by the proprietor. While being stared at by the person holding the key, totally put on the spot, you have to decide if this room will be the place you'll hang your hat for the night.
Often at this point, you are sweaty, hot, smelly and very tired of carrying all of your worldly possessions on your back. The proprietors are aware of all these mitigating factors in your decision-making process.
When there are two of you making the call, you don't really get a quick minute to huddle and make an informed consenual decision. Instead, you either say no if the place is too awful or sort of shake your head and agree to it. If you say no, you must face the walk of shame back to the lobby and leave, usually mumbling something like we may come back after looking around. You and the proprietor both know there isn't a chance in hell that you'll be back, but hey, it's all about saving face.

Tubin' Laos, Dude

Throughout our travels, we've been told about the wonders of Laos - cheap, beautiful, fun, outdoorsy & how SE Asia used to be. It seems to be the #1 destination on the established backpacker trail through Asia, which is fed intravenously by Lonely Planet books (see future blog entry).

No matter what else anyone said about Laos, without a miss, they all mentioned tubing in Vang Vieng. We had even seen backpackers proudly sporting their "tubing Laos" t-shirts in S. Thailand. Who are we to buck backpacker tradition in Laos and not go tubing?

Here's the drill - you go to the tube shop, give them $10, with $6 of the $10 a deposit, returnable if the tube is back by 6 PM. The giant tractor inner tubes are then loaded onto a tuk tuk and off you go to the river.

Let Spring Break Laos-style begin. Bob Marley is pulsating up the river valley and the first bar can be visited before even dipping a toe in the water. Nothing like a little beer or cocktail to get you situated for your day of tubing, sans life jacket. This is Asia after all.

Signs at the put-in say "Dont tip the children as it encourages them to skip school." We weren't exactly sure what this meant, but we would soon find out.

We set off with an Irish trio, a Finn & a Swede in the fast-flowing brown river in a light rain. Not 200 yards into the tubing experience, while our butts were still relatively dry, we spotted the second bar. Small children stand on bamboo pilings at the shore and throw water bottles on strings or pass long bamboo rods to passing 'tubers' to reel them in like giant fish. This can be both difficult and comical as the river is flowing quickly with lots of swirling water close to shore.

Each bar along the way is essentially the same rickety bamboo structure on the side of the river cranking Bob Marley, selling Beer Lao & giving away free Lao Lao shots, Laos rice whiskey, something akin to moonshine. Some of the bars even have second story towers with trapezes to swing out into the water.

It is utterly surreal. The Farang (Asian name for foreigners) are eating this up. Drunken Farangs are falling out of their tubes while being pulled to shore by 75 lbs. grade school children. After successfully landing on solid ground and having a drink or three, Farangs are then swinging from trapezes, narrowly missing the originating bamboo towers when they hang on too long.

Prior to tubing, we had noticed quite a few limping, bandaged backpackers around town and now we figured out why.

We decided to pull over at the third bar. Stephen and I got off the river with relative grace, although the two third-graders pulling me to shore almost gave themselves a hernia.

Not so for our Irish friends. The first Irish lassie pulled a child into the drink who was attempting to reel her in and a second child aborted his rescue mission after he too was pulled into the river. We were to see her eventually way down river. The second Irish lassie lost her tube while being pulled to shore, but her husband was able to dive in and save the tube.(see photo) Complete and utter hilarity.

After drinking the requisite Beer Lao and doing one swing from the trapeze, we set off down river with no other stops at the eight plus bars offering refreshments to the parched tubers. About 7:30 that night, we saw a barefoot girl in a string bikini stumbling around town in the dark with her tube. We don't think she got her $6 deposit back.

After speaking with many experienced tubers in our travels in Laos, we heard horror stories of near drownings, people stuck in reeds in the river until midnight and about many a trip to the hospital in Vang Vieng.

AS THE TUK TUK SPUTTERS...
We are back in Luang Prabang, having just spent some time in a remote area of N. Laos. We trekked to a hill tribe only accessible by foot through mud, rice fields, mountains and jungle. We overnighted in the village with a family and had the unique opportunity to learn more about the culture of the various tribes. We leave for Vietname on Saturday and are still having a fantastic journey.

Notes On Turning 42

42 - double the legal drinking age. If that doesn't make you feel old, I don't know what does.
However, spending your 42nd day in Laos is definitely the way to go.
We woke up in Vientiane, the sleepy capitol of Laos. Laos is a former French colony and it retains some of the old world European charm, including good coffee and baguettes. A plus in the land of rice and nescafe.

After slurping down a creamy cappuchino, Stephen and I took a tuk tuk, basically a motorcycle pulling some enclosed seats, to the bus station. The buses consisted of small Toyota pick-ups with a covers and benches in the back. This was our transport for the next several hours. the pick-up was loaded down with more produce than your average Safeway sells in a week, including 20 lbs. of green onion inside the passenger area. Stephen got to snuggle up to the onions for the journey.


Riding in the truck, called a sangthew, is close quarters at the best of times. At one point, we had ten people in the back and four up front, plus the driver. Our 'neighbors' were so gracious despite the complete language barrier; they shared fruit and baguettes with us and we shared baby wipes and gum with them.

After a few hours, we left our new friends to hook up with our kayak guides. We paddled in inflatable kayaks on the Nam Lik River. The river was brown due to the monsoon rains that seem to pull down half the riverbank everyday. The riverside was jungle - green, luscious & wet.

After a great day on the river, we were driven to Vang Vieng in the back of another pick-up truck. Vang Vieng is a former military airstrip turned into backpacker central. Think international Spring break.

Restaurants all serve the exact same menu of international greatest hits - pizza, burgers, fried rice and the potent Beer Lao. Each of these places plays episodes of ''Friends" repeatedly throughout the day and night. You can be at one restaurant and literally hear four episodes of Friends at other places, all different episodes, all with the same annoying laugh track.


Vang Vieng is famous for 'tubing'- more on that in a future blog. What the town itself lacks in charm, the setting more than makes up for it. After a dinner, had a three dollar massage and then settled down for the night in a riverside bungalow with a couple of Beer Laos and took in the view. Not bad for an old lady!

AS THE TUK SPUTTERS...

We are in Luang Prabang, definitely our favorite place in Asia. It is a charming, French colonial town set in the mountains of Laos right on the Mekong river. It is littered with Buddhist temples, beautiful architecture and excellent food. We've trekked to hilltribe villages, shopped for handmade Laotian goods in the night market and just relaxed in this beautiful setting. Tomorrow we are off further North to spend a few days living a treehouse surrounded by Gibbon monkeys.

Climbing in Thailand

First word - SWEATY.
Imagine being blinded by water pouring off your own eyebrows while reaching for a hold. Think of coming off a climb and literally needing to wring out your shirt. Picture chalking up simply to stop the water flow on your palms.


Second word - MOSQUITO

Imagine belaying with mosquito coils burning at your feet with the sweet toxic smell burning your nostrils. Think of being bitten while hanging on for dear life. Picture coming home at the end of the day covered in itchy red bumps.

Third word - POLISHED (as the British climbers would say)

Imagine reaching for a nice big hold only to have your fingers slip off it because a thousand other hands have been on that same piece of limestone. Think of shiny, pretty rock that is hard to hold. Picture an area filled with Thai guides while white clients sweat all over the climbs.

Fourth word - MONKEYS

Picture starting to climb only to be stopped by a pack of monkeys scurrying up the rock wall with ease. Imagine jumping out the way to avoid being peed on by a monkey thirty feet over your head. Think of monkeys literally blocking your path to a climbing area.

Fifth word - GARBAGE
Imagine arriving at the climbing sight to see a pile of styrofoam to-go boxes, water bottles and cigarette butts. Think of Thai guides belaying with cigarettes in mouth and casually tossing the butts aside. Picture random bottle tops, mosquito coils and glass around the belay station.

Sixth word - PARADISE

Imagine jaw-dropping views of crystaline turquoise waters with limestone cliffs in the backround. Think of living in a $9/night bungalow on stilts with the sound of monkeys in the background. Picture swimming in the sea after a challenging climb.

Climbing in Krabi at Railay and Tonsai beaches was absolutely our favorite part of the trip thus far. We met amazing people from around the world, challenged ourselves mentally and physically, and loved the outdoor playground we spent seven days exploring.

AS THE TUK TUK SPUTTERS...
After 10 plus days in Southern Thailand, we are now in Northern Laos. Laos is amazing. It is really mountainous with lots of rivers. The people are super-chill. They call themselves lazy. We have been kayaking and tubing so far in Laos. Tomorrow we head to Unesco World-Heritage site, the city of Luang Prabang.