Christmas in Vietnam!

We interrupt this slow moving blog. Teaching english can be a bit busier than expected. Here is a special Christmas update from Ho Chi Minh City!

The kids in my class

Some fun facts, about Christmas here.

Vietnamese people seem to think that Christmas Eve, the 24th, is actual Christmas.

Much like in America Christmas is much more of a commercial picture holliday than a religious one.

Light go up everywhere and people flood the streets on motorcycles just to drive around in circles and look at them

"Last Christmas" is the most popular song here... even 7 year olds know the words. There are 2 different vietnamese covers of the song on TV. Most kids don't know "Frosty the Snow Man" or "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer".

All I want for Christmas is
you to put on pants

I can't tell if this is dirty or not?

This holiday peice of pedophelia with anime eyes is outside almost every large mall.

Because christmas trees are somewhat of a rarity. Girls will go to malls and jostle eachother to get as many pictures as they can with them. As well as any other christmas pictures they can think of.

                                                         Merry Christmas from Vietnam!

Tarantula village!

Sometimes in life you are expecting to go see something amazing and end up discovering something even greater. If you go by bus to Angkor Wat from Phnom Penh in cambodia, down what I assume to be the only road, you pass by the greatest places in the world I have ever been to... Tarantula Village!

That's right, admittedly its a tourist trap, but the local people catch these giant awesome spiders in the forest, remove their fangs and play with them! You can take your picture with them, and even eat them deep fried with chillies!

My hands are really that dry?!

It's twilight with better acting

Now before my mother, grandparents, or other now crazy freaked out relatives die of a heart attack; a few quick facts about the tarantula.

These tarantulas are not poisonous, they do bite, and while I'm told it really hurts but you will definitely not die or even bleed much. Fun fact, there have been no reported fatalities from a tarantula bite, ever.

The biggest of the tarantula family is the goliath spider that eats birds... yes it attacks and literally eats birds. Imagine my sad face when I found out they don't live in asia.

Tarantulas mostly live on the ground, they don't/can't jump, and are pretty afraid of these giant really fast creatures called humans.

So they take these huge bowls of spiders, play with them or cook them into what you see on the left.
They are actually pretty good and have the texture of soft shell crab, but the taste is pretty unique. They aren't bad though, I ate about a dozen of them.

 

In addition to just spiders, because that would be a woefully unbalanced breakfast, there are also piles of fried locusts, smaller crickets, and my personal favorite these giant cockroach things.

The locusts and crickets pretty much taste the same, but it takes a lot of work to eat them. First you peal off the wings, then you pop off the legs and head. You pretty much just eat the thorax and it tastes ok but its really chewy... still better than british food.

As for the giant beatle things its the same process but eating them takes like fifteen minutes because they are so chewy... and the taste is not great. But then again I have never really liked the beatles. At least eating them was easier than listening to their music.

I loved these eight legged creatures so much that one small boy in the village, after laughing hysterically at presumably the first foreigner who promptly put one on his face, gave me one of his tarantulas to keep forever... sadly my fellow travelers on the bus were too afraid of not so little Aragog (yes I named him after the spider in Harry Potter) so I had to almost tearfully give him back.

A big thanks to my fellow traveler and photographer Steele Burrow for sharing the pictures of the bowl of spiders as well as the pile of fried spiders. 

Cambodia has king.... but he doesn't live here.

Do you think there will be cake and ice cream?

The King of Cambodia has a wonderful royal  palace... which he doesn't live in. Like most sacred places in Cambodia if you go have your knees and shoulders covered, but considering the mosquitoes you might wanna cover everything. 

 Everyone who walks into the palace, gets one of these. The king has no hairs and his wife has unfortunately passed. He will not remarry or produce an heir due to a Buddhist oath he took. After his wife passed he built hospitals for children in her memory. Who would have thought such a nice guy would have fliers given out saying there was a birthday party...that you aren't invited to. 

Its like Disneyland , just without the rides and with
way more monks...but no lines.

No this is not the set of
"The King and I"....I checked.

The royal palace isn't just some big building, it's like a whole lotta big buildings. Walking around the whole place is the kinda exercise that can get you ready to be Moses. Being Jewish myself I decided to walk the forty years and see all of it. 

One of these things is not like the others....

There are three things you will see a lot of here in the palace. Really big buildings, beautiful gardens, and monks. Sometimes you will see all three at the same time. A minute before all these guys had their smart phones out, which was awesome but I didn't have one and they wouldn't bring theirs out to be polite. Fun fact though, many monks were previously petty criminals. They let them take the monk vows, educate them, and give them work at the monastery. I think they might be better off crowding their prisons and allowing them to become career criminals, because these guys look miserable. Its just hard to notice because of their happy, peaceful, and friendly demeanor. 

Only through the pinwheel of death can mac
users find inner peace. 

With so many Buddhas around you would think there was a lot of Buddhism going on, and there is... good guess. The statues here are amazing. Also really big. These are only a few of them but they are everywhere. It is not allowed to take pictures of some of them so if you go, definitely ask "photo?". Because if you take one then they tell you no, they look at you with enough disapproval to make a movie critic second guess their existence. Plus it's really rude and if you're passing yourself off as Canadian your cover is blown. 

I might sell this to Microsoft as a default wallpaper.

There are a lot of other amazing things here at the palace. There are quite a few of these basins of water. I wouldn't drink out of them though.

What can I say, if I
could make every post
about monkeys I
probably would.

There are also big elephants made out of wood and stone, but I opted to show the picture of the stone monkey about to eat a dragon fruit. It was one of the few painted statues, all of which were red, so I assume the director of "The Six Sense" had something to do with it. 

Never mind, here's one of an elephant.

The elephant behind me is not made out of ivory, its made out of wood. It still has one of the traditional ancient saddles on it as well. The altar in front of it, has many offerings people have left there. A lot of times people will leave money on the alter. The big golden things are money trees. They are good luck and fortune. A little conspicuous, makes me think twice about planting one in my yard. 

Move over Da Vinci!

There is a room filled with murals that tell the story of the Khmer and the elephants. It takes up a lot of space but is amazing. There are two men in the back who play the music and sing the tale that is painted on the walls. The guys are really cool too and will talk with you in English as much as they are able too. I have no ideas what to call their instruments though, I have never seen anything like them.

I'm fairly sure I owe the makers of "The Never Ending Story"
a royalty for this picture. 

Outside of the Royal Palace are these two really cool monuments. The encourage you to stand on the giant stone dragon, and its awesome. Though it is crazy dangerous.

The other is the Vietnam - Cambodia friendship monument. It reaches up to a giant clock tower. You would think after Pol Pot and his communist takeover you would think that the Khmer would not like the communists. But the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia and brought the regime to an end so the feeling is mixed.

Next time, the temples of Angkor Wat!

What is Wat Phnom?

So even though Cambodia has a king it's a lot like england, constitutional monarchy. It is also the capital and centered around a huge man made hill with a temple named after the priestess who founded Phenom Phen

Indiana Jones and the temple of the small hill

This is Wat Phnom The center of the city of Phnom Penh. This is where Lady Phnom found four golden buddha statues inside of the tree. Actually a much more believable story than the one of Joseph Smith, so I'm inclined to believe it. Crazier things have happened, evidence: El Ron Hubbart's religion. It is covered in nagas and inside are like a thousand buddhas and a lot of candles.

I call this one "The Lazy Rocky"

Yes the giant smiling dogs have penises

These are nagas. The khmer people believed they were magic beings that they descended from thousands and thousands of years ago. From an evolutionary standpoint if they came from the ocean they might be kinda right. These ones are really really big. There are also woefully under endowed giant stone dogs at the very top. They have really nice teeth, but then again walking around in cambodia you will see literally hundreds of dentist shops... and no one was able to tell me why.

It's probably for the best that I'm not in one of these

There are engravings everywhere, most of them are a lot like this one. For being hundreds of years old they have taken very very good care of them. I stopped counting after the 8th one. most of them depict these topless priestesses and the lady Phnom.

This Buddha seemed kinda judgey 

This is the inside of the temple, not a level from Soul Caliber, but almost. It is very beautiful, and there are still monks who take care of it night and day. There are over fifty candles, and the Buddha at the back is incredibly tall. The candles are pretty tall too. All the walls have beautiful paintings of khmer ancient history on them. basically the whole place is super nice, historical, and almost looks like it could be a movie scene.

There are quite a few monkeys just hanging around outside the temple. The little leashed one was really cool, we monkeyed around for quite a bit. I tried to take a selfie with the big one and he just got really mad, showed me his "crap your pants big" teeth and chased me around trying to bite me. So I have come to the conclusion that niceness and size run on an inverted scale with monkeys.

Last But not least, is what looks to be a giant homage to the evil cobra from Rikki-Tikki Tavi. It's not, I checked. Also, kudos to anyone who caught that reference. This thing is probably the biggest snake anything I have ever seen before. It's even wrapped around a giant clock and the tail runs up past the temple. It is completely made out of a wicker  type substance, I'll spare everyone a "My Side of the Mountain" joke. I think this was one of the most amazing things I have seen so far on this trip.

There is much more to come, next up, the Royal Palace!

The Killing Fields

One of the more solemn visits so far on my trip has been to The Killing Fields.  The Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia under Pol Pot in 1968. They proceeded to empty the cities completely of people and reorganize the country into work camps. All personal possessions were stolen, and all intellectuals were executed. Doctors, lawyers, historians, and anyone else who possessed higher learning were all killed. People with glasses, or any kind of genetic defect were killed, and when one person was executed their whole family was also executed to avoid creating enemies of the state.

   


           The genocidal center is not what you would first expect.  The majority of it is open air and there aren't many original structures left. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge most of them were torn down out of anger or necessity to rebuild. Every part of the Khmer culture was decimated. Estimates range from one out of every three or four people in the country were killed during that time. It was less than fifty years ago since they were forced out of the country. It's possible to still see the effects of the genocide. Most Khmer recipes were even lost  and it is hard to find most of the amazing cuisine that existed before the devastation.

The front of the museum, unfortunately photography is not allowed inside

             The museum itself is not that large, only a few spacious rooms that house artifacts and biographies of victims and the despots that controlled the Khmer Rouge. Inside are the single outfits given to men and women as they could own nothing else; A single black light cotton set of pants and shirts with a red checkered scarf. Inside are also the field implements that were used by the people forced to work in the fields, and those used to murder them when bullets became too expensive.

       This is a mass grave that housed the remains of over four hundred and fifty victims. The monsoons still to this day wash up bones and teeth and even cloth from the victims. People leave bracelets on the posts to honor the dead who were  buried there. The remains have since been removed as much as possible and given proper burials. This is only one of over fifteen mass graves at this killing field alone, there were maybe even hundreds scattered around Cambodia. Some have been forever lost to the jungles.

 

     This is probably one of the most somber and chilling parts of the genocide museum. This is the killing tree. The Khmer Rouge smashed babies and very young children into this tree in front of their parents eyes. Sometimes this was even done by children who has been brainwashed by the Khmer Rouge. To this day you can still see evidence of the brutality on the tree. It is one of the most horrific things imaginable, right next to it is a mass grave the children were thrown into. If their parents showed any emotion they were also killed, usually on the spot. Pol Pot had the policy that it was better to kill a friend accidently than to miss killing an enemy. Killing whole families was best so no one would be left to rise up and seek revenge. The tree is also covered in bracelets left by those who wish to pay their respects and honor the dead.

     This tower is many stories tall and houses the skulls of the dead who were left here. They have all been cleaned and analyzed by foreign forensics experts from around the world, significantly from germany.  If you look inside the glass you can see the fractures and bullet holes in the skulls. This place is considered one of veneration. Khmer culture requires that one cover their knees, shoulders, and remove their shoes before entering. The design of the temple was carefully chosen and is decorated in Buddhist fashion with nagas on the sides and roofs. Nagas are magical hydra headed snakes who the Khmer people believe they descended from.

    The experience of the killing fields is very somber, at first it is very hard to identify inside oneself. Some things are so unbelievable, it is very hard to imagine that this could happen, but it did.

Cambodia! Nice to meet you!

I am not sure there is a way to be ready or properly be able to imagine Cambodia if you have not been and have lived in the USA your whole life. Cambodia is like if Thailand, Vietnam, and India had a baby together.

It almost looks like I'm being chased by villains in a bond movie

The large majority of people ride around on motorcycles and dirt bikes, they call them motos. So far I've seen a family of four all squeezed on one bike. The craziest thing is that some of these guys no hand their motos and text while driving around in a country which literally has like no traffic laws. Turns out seeing people drive the wrong way down the street is a very common occurrence, I will never complain about Cupertino drivers again!

Toyota needs to pay me for product placement!

You still see all sorts of other cars to trucks and even a prius! It makes me miss my own clown car back home. It is really strange at first to see a honda dirt bike thats older than me then see two prius cars drive by. Fuel efficiency is really important because motos don't use that much gas and there don't seem to be many stations around Phnom Penh, just small clusters of them

You can't say you have been to the ghetto until you have
been to southeast asia... though it is beautiful 

There are huge contrasts in poverty here, you will see shacks and people selling water in old used bottles, begging people who almost exclusively ask travellers. Kids run around barefoot. A lot of people are barefoot which makes for two things.

1. Everyone here thinks my vibram toe shoes are the most amazing thing since the wheel. One person told me I have "magic special shoe".

2. Touching anyones head is a super big no no! Your feet are the dirtiest part of your body and your head is the cleanest. So hats, backpacks,        books, anything that has to do with your head or  brain never ever ever is allowed to touch the floor. It  sounds not that hard to follow until you live it. Us  americans kinda tend to just throw things  everywhere, or drop things like sunglasses.

What's Khamer for puttin on the ritz?

 There are also really beautiful ornate buildings with gold roofs and huge gates in front and guards outside. I couldn't get a good picture, these places are like compounds hidden from the world. I can only assume really rich people live here.

These people don't look cambodian at all... irony!

Supposedly there are seven political parties here but only two are big... I know americans it takes some getting used to. The last election was heavily disputed and there has already been some violence over it. I might finally get to know what its like to live a day in the shoes of Anderson Cooper! Aside from elections there is also a king of cambodia, and yes I've already asked, they won't let me be king.

Their slogan is "energy
for power".... gas for
redundancy

                                       The gas is way cheap here but is in liters, 4000 riel is like 1 dollar american. Most vehicles are motos and cannot hold much fuel at a time.  The khmer response to this to make outside fuel tanks with rubber tubing and plastic gasoline tanks. I'm not sure how safe it is but it seems to work for them. When you ride down the streets it seems like everyone is a master mechanic. All the men and even some girls can fix motos, and oart shops are everywhere. Its really impressive.

Now with life sustaining goodness!

 The last thing that takes some getting used to is only using bottled water for stuff. It sounds hard until you rinse off your toothbrush in the sink and realizing that you really messed up and have to clean it. Also I have almost rinsed my mouth out with sink water a bunch of times, and you aren't supposed to get shower water in your mouth... my singing career is going to take a hit with so little practice. At my hotel you get two bottles a day so I'm playing desert survivor in my hotel room.

Up next...... Famous attractions!

Night of the Empty Airport

Due to an excellent bout of planning I had the privilege of an eleven hour layover in the Taipei airport in Taiwan. So from the hours of 10pm to 9am I wandered the mostly empty airport and got to do some cool stuff, I actually learned a lot.

This isn't even half of  it, makes Costco look like the Quick-E-Mart

 The Taipei airport is larger than most malls and has way more stores. It can take over 20 minutes of fast walking to get from one part to the other and thats only if there are no people and you know where you're going. To walk the whole airport takes just under three hours. Its filled with a ton of stores mostly selling duty free stuff but also has two playgrounds, a hospital, and about 8 museum exhibits and a ton of other stuff.

Taiwan either has a lot of arsonists or took "Firestarter" very seriously

No one notices this until it is pointed out, there are a compulsively insane number of fire extinguishers... in like every room. It is impossible to walk around for more than two minutes and not see a bucket or closet with three to five extinguishers in it. It's good to play it safe but it's a might bit odd.

Speaking of odd safety measures these two take the cake.

Yes that is a evacuation slide...I'm sure it's safer than it sounds

 So yes this one requires some explaining, this is what happens when a safety exit and a laundry chute have an unprotected night together. Ladies and Gentlemen I present to you the safety slide, so you can awkwardly slide to safety... down three stories.

Apparently escape sling is chinese for zip-line, make your escape fun!  

If you thought the safety slide was a fun way to cheat death, but have trouble on playground equipment they have you covered. There is a safety zip line, only for use in very serious emergency situations. The greatest thing about it is that the english instructions on how to use it make no sense at all. I assume they keep the settlement money for your family in the case chained to the pole.

We actually are just pointing at a wall.

Another thing that is unusual for americans is the astronomic number of cardboard cutouts. They are pretty much 99.99% of almost identical looking airline stewardesses wearing different outfits. If you walk the airport you will see these everywhere... I stopped counting them at 26 and that was in the first forty five minutes.  I asked a few people why there were so many, apparently no one even notices them any more. most of the cutouts don't even point to anything significant. 

Below are just a few of the museum exhibits that are everywhere in the airport. Most of them are about Taiwanese culture and the ancient Formosan tribes who lived there before the arrival of Chiang Kai-shek. There are also exhibits of chinese culture and media

Yeah people seriously get killed for bringing in drugs, but I hear it really works for them. Locals say there is hardly any drug problems at all in the city.

I checked and they really have recently executed people.

The plant wall was really cool this thing is like two stories tall and all the plants in it are real. They even killed a bunch of them to write I *heart* TW in big letters. Now that is dedication.

Yes break out your old saloon gear and your ten gallon hat. Apparently they really do sell sarsaparilla... I didn't know that was even a real thing anymore, or who this guy is. 

Smoke Long Life cigarettes, every drag tastes like self delusion!

Cigarettes are huge in asia, despite the gross pictures of rotting teeth, dead babies, cancer tumors and other consequences on every pack. This brand of cigs is really "long life" I'm starting to think there is no chinese word for irony.


Onwards to Cambodia!