Man, Cambodian Kids are Cute!

Man, I could just watch that video at the end of the last post over and over again. It never fails to make me laugh out loud. So, we are on our way out again - this time to Japan - so I decided to wrap up Cambodia before we left. You must forgive my relapse in posting but I've been busy saving the world. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

The temples at Angkor are very spread out so you can't just walk from one to the next. You wouldn't want to anyway, it was about 5,000 degrees Celsius out there (I'm really bad at conversions). Lonely Planet seemed to suggest that you could rent motorbikes but we found out that is no longer the case. I guess one too many tourists wrecked and the government put the kibosh on that much to the enthusiasm of the local trishaw drivers. Ours was named Mr. Vanna and he charged us something like $30/day to scoot our butts to as many temples as we wanted to see. Mr. Vanna was the bomb!

He would even drop us off at the hotel so we could wash all the grime of 1,000-year-old-temples from our bodies and pick us back up again for dinner. The main square in town was really laid back with tons of great little restaurants. Dinner cost us less than $20 including alcohol and dessert - you can't beat that except maybe in Thailand! There were also some really great galleries that sold black and white photographs of the temples but I swear some of Marc's pictures could go on those walls.

The following day, Mr. Vanna picked us up bright and early because we wanted to take a hot air balloon ride. The balloon is tethered to the ground but it does give a great view of the surrounding temples. We had tried to go on it the previous evening, but they claimed it was too windy. Well, we got there in the morning (as per their suggestion) and it was too sunny. Hmmm..... not sure I understand why they need 6 full-time employees to tell everyone that they aren't flying today because of Hurricane Ike hitting Texas or El Nino or whatever other lame excuse they come up with on a daily basis.

No worries though because we just kept on trucking in the back of Mr. Vanna's trishaw. We were off to the country-side to see the farming villages and check out a few more temples. Our first stop was Banteay Srei, the most ornate of the temples but also a temple for little people. We felt right at home.

It looked liked a miniature Angkor Wat but with those funky monkeys outside and intricate carvings on every square inch.

Afterwards, our trusty driver took us on a tour of the farming villages on the way to the next temple. We really got a good look at how most Cambodians live. Their homes are barely more than a few wooden planks for walls and a thatched roof. They don't have electricity and only some are fortunate to have a well donated by a Westerner who visited Cambodia. You could see the signs proudly displayed near wells stating the donor and his country of citizenship.

But what really touched my heart were the children. They were running around, playing, smiling, unaware of their dismal surroundings. In fact, they really made the best out of what they had. In the picture below, rainwater collected in a wide ditch on the side of the dirt road has become the community swimming pool.

Our final destination was Kbal Spean where we were going to do a little hiking. The Lonely Planet guidebook says it is 1 1/2 hours from Banteay Srei on a "sandy track." Um, there was nothing sandy about it. In fact, in some places, I was sure we were going to have to get out and push Mr. Vanna's trishaw out of the muddy mess. It's not like that thing has 4-wheel drive!

Luckily, we got there in one piece and we trekked up to see the "River of a Thousand Lingas." According to our descriptive Lonely Planet, the lingas, or "phallic symbols of fertility" were shaped into the rocks on the river bed. And there are a THOUSAND lingas? This I had to see. Unfortunately, the real thing was quite disappointing, although the deities carved into the rocks were pretty cool. Those bullet shaped carvings on the front are supposed to be the lingas. Not exactly what I had envisioned...On the way back, we needed to stop and get some gas for Mr. Vanna's motorbike. So, we pulled over to the local gas-station-stand-cum-barber-shop where he purchased gas in empty 2-liter bottles of Sprite. Next to the gas station was a sign that indicated the minefield had been cleared by CMAC, Cambodia Mine Action Centre. I hope the gas station came after the mines were cleared!

After our eventful day, Mr. Vanna was nice enough to make reservations for us to have dinner and see a show. The Cambodian dancers were reminiscent of the Indonesian dancers we saw in Bali but they had enormous headdresses!

Who let this nut-job up on stage?

The next day, we begrudgingly made our way to the airport to head back to Hong Kong. The airport security searched our bags thoroughly and made us return these 4 Cambodian children. I *still* contend that I have no idea how they ended up in our suitcases, I swear!

Cambodia - No, It's Not Just a Place to Pick Up a Cute Orphaned Child

Place: Siem Riep, Cambodia

Language: Khmer

Hello: Johm riab sua/sua s'dei (jome riab su/su sduee)

Thank you: Aw kohn (aw gowne)

Standing at a whopping 5'2", with normal sized lips and nowhere near a 36DD, Angelina Jolie I am not. However, I did fall in love with Cambodia and, if HK Immigration would allow me to smuggle in one of those adorable dark skinned Asian children, I would have.

I'm not going to lie, before moving here, I had no idea where Cambodia was and I probably wouldn't have known it was an actual country if Maddox didn't exist. I'm not dumb, I just never had world geography in school and the existence and location of third world Asian countries just didn't factor into my life in the States.

So, for those of you in my same boat, Cambodia is a small country sort of squished between Thailand and Vietnam. Its capital is Phnom Penh and unfortunately, its history is quite a bloody one. I had heard about the Khmer Rouge but I really didn't know where it was. Well, it was in Cambodia. Different estimates say that the communist Khmer Rouge rebels assassinated between 1 and 3 million people out of a population of 7 million. It is hard to know for sure because the rebels would bury thousands of executed bodies in mass graves called the killing fields. It's embarrassing to admit that I really didn't know much about this genocide until I visited but now I do and I am in awe of the resilience of Cambodians.

The average worker earns $30/month and many women and children are pushed into prostitution. But despite their bloody past and destitute present, Cambodians are a fiercely proud, hard-working and happy people. They are hopeful for the future and you often see children playing and laughing in seemingly dismal conditions. It's hard not to be thankful for what you have and want to give something, anything, to the locals. During our 2 full days in Siem Reap, we were approached by dozens of children selling little trinkets, water, books, etc. for $1 each. It took all the willpower I had to just buy 2 bottles of water at a time, knowing that if I bought from each child, I wouldn't be able to climb to the top of the temples!

We went to Siem Reap in Cambodia, again tempting the valid threats of malaria, dengue fever, typhoid fever, et. al., to see one of the wonders of the world: Angkor Wat. Not knowing that Cambodia existed, I didn't know about Angkor Wat either but I did my research (read: I watched Tomb Raider) before I got there and I wasn't disappointed!

The ancient temple ruins of Angkor are what remains of massive temples built for the gods from 900 and 1200 AD. The most famous is Angkor Wat which is the largest religious building in the world and one of the ancient wonders of the world. Its magic is apparently best captured at sunrise when the sun rises up from behind the grandiose temple but those of you who know about my nocturnal biorhythms know *that* wasn't going to happen, so we settled for 9am-ish. Not bad and definitely a much less grumpy experience for Marc.

Cambodians are so proud of Angkor Wat that it is featured smack dab in the middle of the Cambodian flag.

Angkor Wat was first a Hindu shrine dedicated to Vishnu, then it became a Buddhist temple and you can still see Buddhist monks in their regal orange robes. For all the fun I poke at Marc for his trigger-happy finger, I seriously think he could win a photography contest with this pic. It's one of my all-time favorites.

Of course, not to be outdone, I managed to nab the camera for a minute and snapped this one outside Angkor Wat.

There wasn't a shortage of amazing picture-worthy shots so we actually had a little contest going on who could take the best picture. And as I told Marc, it's not how many pictures you take (ahem Mr. 230 pictures in 2 days!), it's the *quality* of the pictures. So, as usual, I could just post an entire blog with nothing but National Geographic worthy snaps, but after a while even these magnificent temples all start to look alike so I'll just post a few of the very best and let you guys decide on a winner.

As regal and imposing as Angkor Wat was, my absolute favorite was Ta Prohm. The temples here have these huge silk cottonwood and strangler fig trees seemingly growing from within the ruins. Their long roots crawl spread across stones like a rash and it's hard to tell which was there first, the temple or the trees. Their symbiotic relationship seems to imply they both established their territories at the same time as at some points it seems that the temple might crumble were it not for the trees, and vice versa. For you Lara Croft fans, you may recognize this shot. It was when Angelina first started seeing the ghostly children scampering into the tombs.

If you can't picture it, maybe this pic will help. If you squint a little bit, tilt your head to the left and imagine my "finger gun" is a real gun, you can see Lara Croft, waiting to pounce on some bad guys.

OK, so maybe not *all* of our pictures are award-winning photographs.

To give you a better perspective, check out this picture. Those roots are massive!

In some places, you had to look really hard to see some of the apsaras, or celestial nymphs, peeking out from between the roots.

Next up was The Bayon, or as I liked to call it for absolutely no reason other than I couldn't remember the name, The Banyan. The Bayon was the King's state temple and it is known for its towers with four divine faces smiling in meditation on each side. Remarkably, they all look like King Jayavarman VII who was in power at the time. Narcissistic much? There are 54 towers in total with a staggering 216 faces. Can you imagine people back 1,000 years ago making these things???!?!?

Here is a shot from afar, showing many of the still intact towers. Even though it is a national treasure and over a thousand years old, we got to walk all over this place, climbing steep steps without any guard rails whatsoever and popping in and out of the maze-like hallways that looked like they would collapse on us at any second.

Equally unprotected are the apsara carvings (left picture) and bas reliefs (right picture) which miraculously have survived inclement weather conditions and throngs of tourists' grimy hands.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures from our first day in Siem Reap. I will leave you with a video for you to watch while I slip away to the Philippines for a long weekend of diving. The video was taken on our trek up to the top of Phnom Bakheng (yet another temple) to watch the sunset. We were pretty tired from traipsing all day in the heat through the temples so we got a friend to take us up. Life lesson #481: Always ride on the first elephant in the line. Make sure to turn the sound up for optimal viewing. Enjoy!

Happy American Labor Day! Please Pass the Water Buffalo.

Greetings my loyal fan. I know you must be understandably upset about the degrading quality of my blogs and I sympathize. Since many of these trips happened months ago, I can only go by the vague recollection stored deep in my cranium. Sadly, I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday so the details of a trip long past are as "hazy" as Beijing air.

Alas, I recognize the deterioration of my writing style as well as the increasing length of time between posts, so in order to keep you, Mom, I mean my loyal fan base happy, I have taken a drastic step to remedy the situation:

I quit my job.

Now, you will no longer click on "Marc and Brina in Hong Kong" on your list of favorite websites and be met with a stale story on Malaysia. No siree Bob, I am ON it now. I will devote all my days to providing quality blog posts because THAT is how dedicated I am to you. Oh, and I hated my job to the point that I had taken to drawing sad faces on my calendar for every bad day I had at work. There were more frowny faces than smiley faces, so something had to be done.

Today is Labor Day in the US and, of course, we don't get that holiday here. We've already celebrated British Labor Day, Chinese Labor Day and Hong Kong Labor Day, I don't see why we can't tack on one more. That's OK, next week is Mid-Autumn Festival so we're going to the Philippines. Man, I need a vacation like a crack addict needs, well, crack. It's been TWO MONTHS people! Granted, we went to Shenzhen for a weekend to stock up on fakes and I went to Macau for a day trip last week, but that's nothing. As Marc's dad said, when we move back to the States, I'm going to throw rocks at Marc when we don't go out of town every month. He better learn to duck.

It's funny how, having been here a full year now, some of these crazy holidays are actually making sense! Remember Hungry Ghosts' Day last year? Well, they had it again this year and I was paying attention this time. Apparently, the older Locals burn paper money (no, not real paper money but like Monopoly Hong Kong Dollars) so that the ghosts of their ancestors can "use" the money to buy things they need in the afterlife. They better get with the times before I get there because I'm telling my descendants to burn paper Visa cards. They also burn food like oranges, in case the ghosts are hungry and perhaps have a slight case of scurvy. For the more important necessities, they burn paper replicas of items from the material world, again for use in the afterlife. These items can be bicycles, cars, refrigerators, even computers and mobile phones. The other day, I passed by a store that sells these replicas and I saw a replica of a window AC unit. Man, I feel bad for whoever's ancestor needs an AC UNIT in the afterlife, if you catch my drift.

In other news, Batman: The Dark Knight came out last month. Have you seen it? If you haven't, it is super awesome, you should go see it! You heard about it here first, ladies and gentleman. The part in the movie that shows Hong Kong is short but action-packed and most importantly, it shows Marc's office building and the Escalator where we walk every day. So what are you waiting for? Go!

You still here? Good because it is time for the always hilarious "This Only Happens to Marc and Sabrina" story of the week. About a month ago, as part of Brina's countdown to that awful time in a woman's life when she realizes she can no longer put a 2 in front of her age (sob), we went to an out-of-the-way beach on Lantau Island. You might think that the stretch of beach that we walked on where every man we saw was wearing a black mesh g-string leaving nothing (and I do mean nothing) to the imagination is the hilarious part of the story. But you'd be wrong.

Picture this: Marc and I are laying out on our beach blankets in the hot mid-afternoon sun. We've each fallen asleep reading our respective books when all of a sudden I, the lighter sleeper of the two, hear uncontrollable laughter from a crowd of people around us. Wanting to see what the commotion is about, I open one eye and see two large shadows near our blankets. I sit upright and realize the shadows are made by none other than a pair of water buffalo coming straight at us! I frantically wake up Marc and point, unable to make the words "Marc! Wake up! There are 2 large water buffalo coming our way!" come out of my mouth. He wakes with a start as the buffalo are walking by just 1 1/2 feet from us. Yes, the people on the beach were laughing at us, the sleeping gweilos that were about to be trampled by the rampant water buffalo. Man, it just doesn't get much stranger than that. Only in Hong Kong.