Weekend in Kep

This past weekend some friends and I went to Kep, on the southern coast of Cambodia, to celebrate a couple PCVs' birthdays. We spent a couple of days taking in Cambodia’s ambitiously self-proclaimed “most beautiful bays in the world” – swimming in the ocean (and trying not to cut our feet on the “beautiful bays’” jagged rocks), eating some pretty good seafood and pasta, and relaxing. It was a good time and nice to get to know some PCVs I had previously not hung out with too much.

Before I left, Ohn mentioned to me that Kampot, the province right next to Kep, is known for its delicious durian. “Oh” I said, not prompting elaboration. “Oh man, I would just love a durian…” Ohn said looking pointedly at me as I took a sudden interest in the state of my fingernails. I finally looked up. “…would you like me to bring you back a durian?” “That’d be great! Thanks!”

In case you didn’t know, durian is probably the most disgusting fruit in existence. If its pointed, spiky exterior isn’t enough to deter you, it emits a foul smell repelling anyone with an ounce of common sense in them. Hotels actually ban durian from their premises for their rank, persistent smell: “No guns, no prostitition, no durian.” Despite this, Cambodians can’t seem to get enough of this fruit; the larger, spikier, and smellier, the more delicious.

I waited until our last day to buy the fruit because I knew it’d smell, even if left whole and not cut open. Late in the afternoon a couple of friends and I went to the market; we scoped out the selection and bought what we (as non-durian lovers) perceived to be the most big and delicious of them all (for $7 no less- not only does durian smell like a decomposing onion but it’s also expensive). Jump ahead to the next morning- I’ve just come back to our room and noticed a putrid smell the moment I walk in. “Ugh... What is that?” I ask Amelia, momentarily forgetting the obligatory purchase I made the day before. “I think… it’s the durian” Amelia said and our gaze slowly shifts in horror to the demonic fruit sitting unsuspectingly between the bed and the nightstand.

The fruit continued to be the bane of my existence as I lugged it from Kep back to Phnom Penh, and then to my village. Its spikes tore into my leg as I lugged it towards the bus; the bus driver put his arm out to block me from getting on, pointing to the undercarriage of the bus to which I moped away in shame to banish my durian. In the Peace Corps office, the first thing an unwitting PCV said when Diana and I walked in the lounge was “What smells like durian?” Luckily, Diana was willing to share my burden and was a good sport about the looks of loathing and disgust we got as we made our way back to our province. On our van to get back to site the durian got buried under the weight of 32 (!) people’s luggage, the smell being overridden by the very human smell that accompanies that many people in a hot, crowded space. Fortunately, the durian is now out of my custody having been handed off to Ohn who couldn't be happier about it.

A few more pictures:

A sunset so beautiful we were prompted to sing the national anthem (four of us who had sung at our swear-in were there), only to hear clapping from behind us as we finished and discover a Chinese tourist who had, unbeknownst to us, been enjoying our singing and recording us on her phone haha

Diana and I befriended this pup on our way back to site. He kept shoving his head between the headrests until Diana and I picked him up and let him sit with us, which is apparently where he wanted to be.

It was a very tightly-packed van. "I say we get rid of the fat guy" Diana suggested of the fourth guy in our row who was the straw breaking our PCV backs

That's all for now! More soon.

Bali Details

Hello again!

I e-mailed Giri, my friends' and my guide while we were in Bali, with a few questions about some things I was unsure about regarding what we saw in Bali and its significance to Balinese culture/spirituality- I wanted clarification from him as opposed to just going along with what Wikipedia had to say. I thought you might be interested in his responses, so I've attached them to this post. I've taken some liberties with his English so it's more easily readable, but have left the meat of his responses as is.

Balinese roofs on the pagodas in temples are tiered in numbers of either three, five, seven, nine, or eleven. Why is that? And does it have any correlation with the use of the pentatonic scale in Balinese music, or are these two things totally unrelated?

The reason roofs are tiered in odd numbers from three to eleven is related to the Balinese concept of God, which is pantheistic. God is one but many, many but one. He is inside every object and outside of them, like cotton soaked in water; water is inside the cotton as well as outside. In odd numbers there is always one in the center with one on each side, becoming three, five, seven, nine, and eleven. Eleven is the highest number of roofs there can be because it is the maximum number of directions in our cosmology: eight directions outside and one in the center; one up, and one down. From this perspective- our Balinese spiritual orientation- the cosmos is round.

I think it might also be related to pentatonic music but am unsure.

What is the relationship between energy, fire, etc., and the different layers of the body?

Five elements of the cosmos, Panca Maha Bhuta (panca= five, maha =great, bhuta =nature): 

1. Apah (liquid, water)

2. Pertiwi (solid, soil)

3. Teja (heat, fire)

4. Bayu (air, wind)

5. Akasa (ether, space)

Five layers of our body, Panca Maya Kosha  (panca= 5, maya= illusion, kosha= layer):

1. Ana Maya Kosha: physical body

2. Prana Maya Kosha: energy layer, nerve system

3. Mano Maya Kosha: mind layer

4. Wijnana Maya Kosha: memory layer, (knowledge and character are saved here)

5. Ananda Maya Kosha: layer of sublime happiness, (here is the home of our soul (Atman) which is a spark of The Divine (Brahman))

* These five elements of the cosmos (big world) are also the main elements of our body (small world).

Trip to Bali

Hello! First of all, sorry I have been MIA for a couple of weeks, but I have good reason, which I am predicting will make all of you groan with pleasure and jealousy. You see, I have been on my first annual leave vacation with my friends Amie and Amelia, to the lovely country of Bali… (cue groaning). We left on the 4^th, from Poipet, Cambodia (possibly the worst city in all of Cambodia- never go there, there is nothing to see), crossed the border into Bangkok by bus, stayed the night in the Bangkok airport, and then flew out at 6:30 AM, arriving to Denpasar around 11:30 AM. We spent six days and seven nights in Bali, exploring around the island, lounging around Legian and Kuta beaches, taking a couple of day trips to explore Ubud, the cultural epicenter of Bali, and to see parts of the countryside. Since pictures are more representational of my experience than words alone, I’ll cut to the chase and just narrate along the way.

In the foreground, Cambodia. In the background, Thailand. The immediate change in infrastructure and aesthetics was striking. (Thailand is much more wealthy and developed than Cambodia).

In Denpasar airport, arriving in Indonesia!

view of the beach between a mountain divided, a recurring symbol in Bali.

BEACH! White sand, rolling waves, clear sky, and ocean breezes…

My friends and I took two day trips while we were in Bali, with a guide named Giri. Our first day trip started out with white water rafting on the Ayung River with a guide named Radi. We forward paddled, back paddled, and stopped! on Radi’s command, and had a relatively smooth ride, except when Radi would gleefully lead us down some treacherous patch of water, giggling loudly in the back of the raft and saying, “I’m sorry! I’m lose control!” when we would scream and hack up the water we’d just swallowed unwittingly.

The ride was so serene and green… We were all awed to silence by the flowing water and singing birds, the only sounds punctuating our journey.

Multiple waterfalls broke through the rocks

The second leg of our journey took us to an elephant park, where we rode elephants with a guide.

Mine was called “Happy” and my guide’s name was Matty.

Matty would take my camera from time to time and document what he interpreted as being memorable to me. I have no idea who this little girl is.

Matty. While I was riding behind in a sort of bench-like seat that lumbered back and forth with Happy’s every move, he just sat right on top of her back and so was able to conform to her movements. I think I would have liked this better- my ride was very bumpy.

Amie and Amelia with their guide

I’m not really sure if Blogspot will do this picture justice, as I’m not sure you can zoom as much as is necessary to get the full effect of the moment, but suffice it to say that all of us are laughing gleefully and in utter merriment, and I love it.

Matty took a lot of pictures.

Just me, hugging my new friend, Happy the elephant. 

the three of us with Happy and “Sen Sen,” “Hello” in Balinese.

Next we stopped at a coffee plantation. That’s Giri, on the left. In the bush, if you know what you’re looking for, there are cinnamon plants and cacao trees.

grounding up the beans. Bali is renowned for its Arabica roast.

Sampling the varieties. From right to left: cacao (basically hot chocolate but more bitter), Arabica coffee, red ginger tea, white coffee, ginseng, and lemongrass tea. The teas were very sweet and delicious, the coffee bitter and strong, and the red ginger tea sweet and spicy.

At Taman Ayun, a moated temple.

Multi-tiered pagodas, called Muri. In Balinese tradition these either have three, five, seven, nine, or eleven roofs, according to the status of the gods to whom they’re dedicated.

Our last stop of the day: Tanah Lot temple, a temple that’s set in the ocean. The sunset was surreal.

And there was a full moon…

Oh, we also ate a lot of great food! This fruit plate cost 25,000 rupiah ($2.50) and was a refreshing snack pretty much every day we went to the beach.

Amazing red snapper…

Amelia got the prawns, which inspired a lively debate over what exactly prawns are.

*cue drooling* - don’t be fooled, though. The chocolatey, moist-looking deliciousness on the left actually turned out to be far inferior to the black rice pudding with coconut milk and sliced banana on the right.

this beautiful piece of coral just sort of floated into my hand while I was in the ocean.

AHH!! Ok, so my friends and I tried surfing while we were in Bali… It was something that Amie had always wanted to do, and Amelia and I, uncoordinated as we are, just sort of went along for the ride. We got lessons at this informal surf school with a few Balinese instructors and had an hour of personal training, with the instructors by our side in the water, telling us to PADDLE PADDLE PADDLE, and STAND UP! at crucial moments. As you can imagine, these detailed instructions left us gasping for air and choking down salt water much of the time, but miraculously, we all did end up getting up.

Those are our surf instructors- mine is Eddy, in the middle. Note the giant boards; if you’re a beginner, your board is very long, up to ten feet. As you get better, the board gets shorter, as short as 5’6. Thanks to these ginormous boards, we all managed to catch a few small waves.

The sunsets in Bali are incredible…

Our second day of touring with Giri we started off at a temple, called Tirta Empul.

the Banyan tree is a sacred symbol in Indonesian culture.

This temple is known for its holy springs

giant spider on the side of the springs’ outer wall. My khmer mom says this is a cicada… I don’t believe her.

Brahma and his wife, Saraswati. Brahma is the god of creation, but he can’t create without Saraswati, who is the goddess of knowledge, music, arts, and sciences.

Our next stop was Kintamani, an active volcano in Bali (last erupted in 1974. “And today,” Amelia joked). This is a view of Mount Agung and the surrounding lake Batur.

Here is Kintamani.

More delicious food: fish curry, stir-fried veggies, fried rice, fish satay, and spring rolls, with a perfect view of Kintamani and lake Batur from our table’s window.

We didn’t actually stop at the terraced rice fields because we were running late, but we slowed the car and rolled down the windows for pictures. Tiered fields like this are common in Indonesia for growing rice.

…And then we got a two-hour spa treatment (*shields herself from the tomatoes and other rotten fruit you are indubitably now throwing at your computer screen*)

The view from the bathroom of my massage room…

I got a one-hour Balinese massage and a pedicure, and Amie and Amelia did the former with a facial.

Our last stop of the day was to see a traditional Balinese music and dance performance in the cultural epicenter of Bali, Ubud. The instrumentalists played the gamelon and the djembe, and the music was played using the pentatonic scale.

I might have developed a small crush on this guy…

The dancers wore traditional Indonesian costumes and the dances comprised jerky, spider-like movements that were emphasized by waggling fingers and darting eyes.

Two of the dances incorporated masks. This one, “Jauk,” was about a demon-like figure. Again, lots of jerky, spider-like, and almost "feeler" like movements of the fingers which here had long fingernails attached.

Aaaaaaand we’re on our way back to Cambodia! The trip was too short in some respects (we all could have stayed in Bali longer), but it was a good amount of time for a break, and came at an ideal time when we’d otherwise be sitting in our rooms, sweating and bored from having too much time on our hands from being off of school (I’ve heard from a friend that we may not start again until mid-May…)

Bali is exceptional, and I highly recommend it as a vacation spot! The people are notably welcoming and helpful, the sites and scenes refreshing, and the food delicious and memorable. If you are ever planning a trip and need any recommendations or suggestions, don’t hesitate to ask!  I will endorse this place endlessly :)