follow up: old man skin

An awful patch of my random old man skin disease reappeared on my shoulder yesterday and has been bugging the ever living crap out of me (it itches like the dickens). I was complaining to some Russian friends of mine and they looked at it and immediately went to interwebs for translations.

They kept telling me it was "the mange", which I didn't know of as a disease, but turns out it is- a disease for dogs. The human version is called demodicosis and is commonly associated with pityriasis, which my dermatologist said I had when I went back to the States last fall.

Awesome = finally being confident in knowing what I have and knowing that since one of the Russian guys had it and kicked it, I will too, after almost a year.

Not so awesome = knowing I have a dirty dog disease, and I'm almost certain it came from these guys in Cambodia. Thank god I'm not losing my fur like they are.

random photos: misc Cambodia

I thought this was the funniest thing ever. A billboard for a brand of condoms called "OK"... first off, "OK"?!?! That's the best you could come up with?! The brand of choice for abortion clinics and date rapists. Secondly, why are there four guys at a ktv with no girls on the billboard?! What is going on here?!

These little shrines were everywhere in Cambodia, every business or home has them.

Even though it rained frequently throughout my time in Cambodia (it WAS rainy season after all), it really wasn't bad. It didn't hamper any plans at all.

This was the most bizarre fruit ever. The second you put it in your mouth, you had the worst case of cottonmouth ever. It instantaneously sucked all the moisture out. It didn't really taste good. It was kind of an all around fail.

A bug bit my foot like the second day there. Then about 4 days later my foot started turning black. It was no bueno. We drew a circle around the black and said if it spread any more we'd go to the hospital (I hate doctors). Luckily, the smiley contained the black and it went away, eventually.

Phnom Pehn (days 6-8)

The next morning we got up early to catch a bus to Phnom Pehn, Cambodia. Our hotel was really sweet and gave us all scarves as a sort of going away present when we left.

When we got to Phnom Pehn, we went for a short walk around our neighborhood and then the girls decided to go out wandering while my friend from the States relaxed at the hostel for a bit.

Why is there a cave in this garage? Who knows...

Us girls ended up at a grocery store and had an absolute blast. I think we scared some people there with how excited we got about some of the things we found. Coming from living in China and South Korea, because Phnom Pehn is a pretty big city, we were able to find things we hadn't seen in months (and naturally there was some new stuff that was fun to look at also).

H-TWO-O? And it's a soda? What?

Um, yes, that IS "Sugar Daddy" brand sugar. And he is a luchadore.

Gross. This is right up there with the corn juice they drink in China.

That night, we had to do it up right, because it was my Songyuan friend's last night with us. Phnom Pehn isn't a big party city, most things close down early, but we somehow managed to stay out until about 4am and cram like four night's worth of activities into one. We started drinking at our hostel and got a pretty good start there. Then we tried to go to the market because my Songyuan friend wanted to eat crickets, but it was already closed so we went out to eat instead.

As soon as we got to dinner, I told my friends I'd be right back and walked off. While they ate, I went in search of crickets. I went down a side street, talked to a hooker who helped me hire a guy on a motorbike to take me around, and after about 45 minutes, stops at at least 12 different barbeque stands and a good tour of the city, I returned to my friends the successful victor and plopped a bag of crickets on the table. They had no idea where I had gone, so they were a little upset, but the crickets were completely worth it. They're mostly just crunch and taste like barbeque.

After that, we went to a reggae hookah bar, then we got fishy pedicures and then we ended the night at a tranny hooker dance club called Heart Of Darkness. Naturally, none of us girls noticed the trannys or the hookers, only my friend from the States.

The next day, my Songyuan friend left and the other three of us were feeling pretty rough, so we just hung around the hostel and went in the pool (yes, the hostel had a pool, it was awesome). We didn't really do anything that night either.

The one thing my States friend had wanted to do was check out the genocide museum and the killing fields, so we did that the following day. That might have been one of the most depressing experiences of my entire life. Afterwards, we got in the tuk tuk and didn't even speak to each other for at least a half hour.

This might be the coolest tree ever. It also happens to be at the killing field.

Cambodia (first impressions)

When I first flew into Cambodia, I changed my RMB at the airport and they gave me riel. This ended up being kind of stupid, because they also use USD in Cambodia. 4,000 riel = 1 USD and you're constantly doing the math, you can pay in a combination of both, and you'll often get change in a combination of both. I actually had a harder time using my riel than using the USD I accumulated.

Cambodia is a really poor country, that might have been the one thing I heard from my students when they heard I was going. But for being so poor, it was definitely more expensive than I expected. You can find a decent hostel for maybe 8, 9, 10 USD, which isn't much, but all things considered it was surprising. Food and such was actually more expensive there than in Songyuan.

Along with USD, I also found a lot more foreigners and a lot more English spoken amongst the locals than I was expecting. I can count on maybe half of one hand, the number of my friends in the States that I have ever heard mention going to Cambodia, or just mention Cambodia at all. We saw so many young, say college aged people, on our trip, and many retired couples as well. One would assume this is why there is so much spoken English. That part was a bit overwhelming for me at first. I'm used to not understanding and tuning out 99.5% of the things around me. Being able to eavesdrop on five conversations simultaneously is quite a bit to take in in contrast to that.

Along with all the foreigners, there is a lot of foreign food. I can't count how many days while I was traveling that I had banana pancakes. Real, western, banana pancakes. It was great. The French had a huge influence in Cambodia, and it was so nice to have that influence in the food as well.

One of the most interesting things for me though, was to see how Cambodia is both ahead of and behind China. For example, China is more developed and has a lot more buildings, but the buildings aren't built to last. Cambodia's are much fewer, but the construction is more solid and enduring, and you can find more older architecture.

Last but not least, I wouldn't be me if I didn't talk about the bathrooms. Siem Reap has primarily western style toilets, though we found more squatters as we moved on. What they don't have so much is toilets with flushers. Almost all of them (western and squatters alike) are manual flush toilets. There would be a big bin of water with a scooper next to the toilet, and when you were done you had to scoop a bunch of water into the toilet to force your business down. And almost all the bathrooms have butt guns (yes, I am SURE this is the technical term). They're like the poor man's version of a bidet. Mounted on the wall next to the toilets, there is a hose with a sprayer on the end that looks just like the sprayer and hose combo you would find at an American kitchen sink.

boo to the Kindle Fire/Blogger (ps, I'm in Laos)

Naturally, right after I get back into the groove of blogging regularly, I leave for a two week holiday and don't post ANYTHING for a really long time. This is my first holiday here that I haven't brought my laptop on, and while I feel a bit naked, it's been really liberating (and good for my shoulder to boot). I was planning on blogging a bit from my Kindle Fire, but the interface with Blogger doesn't let me add content into a new post for some reason. So boo to that.


In other news, my holiday so far has been phenomenal and completely reinforcing the fact that I cannot go back to live in the States (sorry mom). I met a friend from Songyuan on June 25th, and my plan was to travel with her for about six days, and then meet up with a friend of mine from the States that's on holiday here as well and bounce around with him for another week or so. I started in Siem Reap, Cambodia where my friend from Songyuan and I actually met up with my friend from the States there too.


We spent three days in Siem Reap, two days in Battambang, three days in Phnom Pehn where my Songyuan friend departed and yesterday we crossed into Laos to head to 4,000 Islands. In Battambang we picked up a lone, stray traveler who was actually teaching English in South Korea, and she just left us this morning as well. And then there were two.


I came on this trip with absolutely zero plans or even vague ideas of things I wanted to see. My friend from Songyuan was meeting me coming off a month of traveling southeast Asia with her boyfriend and his mother, so I had no idea what she was going to be up for. My friend from the States is actually an ex and is traveling here for about two months with a pretty specific itinerary and set list of things he wants to do, so I figured I was set. I didn't even have a ticket back to China until a few days ago.


It feels like I've been traveling for so much longer than I actually have, and I've had so many amazing experiences in the past 10 days. When I get home and back to my laptop I'll have tons to post and some ridiculous pictures to share as well.


Even just  living in China, at some point almost every day I look around me and think, "This is my life," and am constantly struck by how happy I am and how coming over here was the best decision I have ever made. On this trip, that feeling is almost constant.