Candystore Collective. And the ground shakes.

via Dream Collective

Candystore Collective, based in San Fransisco, is having a closing sale and offering 40 percent off all their brick-and-mortar and internet stock, including all Dream Collective baubles.  Tempting. Use code: thebig40sale.

It's Sunday morning in Bangkok.  We woke up to our condo swaying.  I had flashbacks to earthquake drills in primary school.  A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit Mandalay, Burma and rippled through to Bangkok.

My weekend: A taste of Burma

This weekend, my colleagues and I went to Sankhlaburi, near the Thai-Burmese border.  It was lovely and green.  We visited a refugee camp and then explored the town.  It brought me back to my travels in Burma . . . 

Khmer New Year and epic bus rides

I have had my share of epic bus rides - the kind that go on and on, up, down and around mountains, for long distances (or just really, really long periods of time).

In fact, I associate my Burmese travels with epic bus rides.  Imagine over 100 degrees, a non-air conditioned bus, 17+ hours of travel, screaming babies, and night-time checkpoints where the regime checks identification and passports.

Or, there was last summer's travels through western China, particularly the ride from Kashgar to Urumqi, which was to take 24 hours, but really took more like 36 hours.  Train tickets were sold out for a week. We had no choice.  I recall waking up in the early morning hours, just on the cusp of consciousness but aware  enough to register that the bus was rolling back and forth. I looked around.  Except for Ethan and me, the bus was emptied of its passengers.  They were outside, pushing the bus. A fire raged outside amidst screams of jubilation. It was the month of Ramadan. The other passengers had just had their first daily meal (and last since after sundown).

This Khmer New Year, Ethan, Vy and I went to the far-off province of Ratanakiri province in Cambodia.  Our friend Anna recently moved there.  Neither of us had been before, so we thought it was a brilliant idea.

Except it was Khmer New Year, a holiday that empties the streets of the city.  And the bus depot was utter bedlam.  We were pushed off our 7:30AM bus and after a few non-confrontational responses by staff, allowed to jump onto the 8:45AM departure instead.  On the way, the bus broke down.  Our 10 hour trip turned into a 17-hour trip.

We arrived at the Ratanakiri bus station a few minutes shy of 1AM.  The Tree Top Ecolodge driver had been waiting for us for hours.

Looking back at Burma

I'm rummaging through pictures from Myanmar/Burma.  Last week, I saw a friend, who was returning to the US.  She had journeyed through the country a few weeks ago, a short 10-days sprint and from her accounts, it seems that change is afoot in some parts.

It feels so long ago that I traveled in that country.  I remember the constant power outages that left you in the  oppressive heat and darkness in the late hours of the night, the sound of the generator amping up, the fan blowing again, lulling you to sleep - random memories housed in the cramped, very simple guestrooms  in which I sought temporary shelter.

I became very sick on my last day in Mandalay, so sick I missed my bus back to Yangon, where I had a connecting flight to Bangkok.  Traveling alone, I really did rely on the kindness of strangers.  And that was present in abundance, in many corners of that country.  

Looking ahead, the next 6 months will bring a heady dose of self-selected and self-inflicted uprooting and uncertainty.  Did I mention I stress out a lot over change?  But these pictures remind me that I've never regretted the chances I've taken in life.  I've grown richer from these experiences.  Ethan and I often joke over dinner what past-life stories we would tell our children.

Still, all this moving business makes me a little nervous.  Just a tad.

365 days, weeks #44-46.

How is it mid-November?  Someone please tell me.  For the past 3 weeks, the pace of life has been go,go, go. I'm almost at a loss for words, but in my attempt to document, here are a few thoughts today, disjointed just like the images above:

1. It's the early morning of day 3 of a crazy week, filled with: me kicking unethical journalists out of meetings, who I then chided for endangering already threatened community members; me and others just completely frustrated by the lack of progress by key stakeholders, by an apparent absence of due diligence (wish I could say more here, but I cannot); me writing frantically, harkening back to the late nights I often pulled working as a lawyer at a firm, except this time the subject matter is so emotionally taxing, the mechanisms unpredictable, inaccessible.

2. Last week, craving urban space, Ethan and I took a circuitous route through Koh Kong, Cambodia, with its verdant mountains, crossed the border into Thailand, and headed into Bangkok.  Again!  It was like many of our journeys: one of movement.  I've been fortunate to travel as much as I have this year, while working as much as I have - this would not have been possible except for the crazy Cambo holidays that riddle certain parts of the calendar.  In Bangkok this time, we observed the flooding preparations (sandbags, new concrete mini-walls in front of shops), and I probably had the best bowl of ramen since my last trip to Japan two years ago. I also scored a pair of yellow Worishofer-esque clog/sandals.

3. I started taking cyclos around the city, when I can find them.  They are much slower on movement, but I don't know how these men, usually much older, compete with the ubiquitous motor bike operators. I associate cyclos with Yangon, Burma.  One memory I have is of riding around one in the city after sunset, pitch black because of the common black-outs, the high-pitched cyclo bell ringing, cutting through the dark.

4. I really hate farewell parties.  

5.  I picked up my SFS Circle Top at the post office. It arrived in Cambodia from San Francisco in less than 1 week, although it took the Cambo post system some time to inform me.  Score 1 for the US Post.  The top is airy, the print is lovely.  

6. In one month, I travel home.  Wow.

Lephet Thoke - Burmese Tea Leaf Salad

via flickr

Two nights ago, I had dinner with two incredible women at the Burmese restaurant in Phnom Penh, Irrawaddi. Both women work in human rights law in the region and have been in Cambodia for years longer than me. We spent the evening catching up and generally laughing. I am astounded by their ability to balance their life and to remain seemingly healthy and happy. How do people stop the work from sticking?

But this post isn't about the tolls of work in this country. It's about the tea leaf salad. No lettuce - just red chili peppers, roasted peanuts, lime, cilantro, fermented tea leaves, tomato, and garlic. It doesn't sound like it, but it is good.

Happy Australia Day

via Gourmet Traveller

Oh, I've been a bad, bad blogger. Life threw a tornado at me (primarily, the good kind) when I returned to Phnom Penh. I'm still dizzy.

And then there was the day that blogger was cut off in Cambodia, as is the case in countries like Burma and China. Sketchy, indeed.

Yesterday, I celebrated my first Australia Day and was introduced to the joys of hamburgers with beetroot and lamingtons (coconut-covered sponge cake).

Burma Blue

Back in Phnom Penh. On my mind today: memories from the streets of Yangon.

Right Now

I'm taking a cue from the talented Jennifer. Sometimes, I forget to take stock.

Reading: Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Again. And recently, this NYT article, forwarded to me by Connie.

Eating: Sweet, dappled pears from the local market, where my Canadian flatmate and I walked to last night, in search of fruit, despite fatigue. I wish I had a block of sharp cheddar to accompany this treat, or gorgonzola. And a hot cup of barley tea.

Listening: Camera Obscura and Grizzly Bear.

Thinking: Of yet another farewell dinner tonight. Of the Indonesian meal I will have. Of new friendships and warm farewells. Of the transience of life in this town. Of time, which seems to rush right past me, leaving me dizzy and out of breath. Of friends back home. Of my family, my grandmother. Of the pair of cognac-colored brogues my flatmate had made at Beautiful Shoes. Of Burma. Of the love letter I delivered, from the lovesick Danish girl I met there, who picked wildflowers as she walked along the hillside of Kalaw, to the engineer in Phnom Penh. Of the bird I released, in front of the wat in Yangon, as a customary blessing of luck, and how, as soon as it took flight, a hawk came down and snatched it up. Of the possibility, slowly unfolding in the periphery, that I can enjoy the idea of work, be moved by it, even find meaning in it.

Stunned

Shwedagon Paya, in Yangon. Enough said.

Kalaw

One downside of rushing straight from my short travels in Myanmar/Burma to my new life in Cambodia was the absence of time to reflect on my experiences in what has, in retrospect, become one of the most stunning, if not fascinating, countries I have ever visited. I acknowledge the debate between going and not going, between supporting an oppressive military junta through tourist dollars and not, and the reality that a dichotomy between the two choices does not exist. I will not use this space to rehash the debate -- it is a personal decision, hopefully one made after some thought, and my decision was to go, and to go responsibly.

Beyond the oft-debated politics of travel in that country, there are the oft-forgotten people, those eking an existence out of a dwindling tourist industry, those who still have to live in the country. As a whole, the Burmese were the warmest and most hospitable people I met on my travels. During my time there, I was invited to dine with families, offered gifts (such as the orange flowers, given to me by two children during a walk in the red-soiled mountainside town of Kalaw), and thanked by fiercely proud locals for visiting their country. There was an openness and a sincerity I encountered that thawed my jaded traveller heart -- I believe I'm fairly open-- and that this existed, in light of the current political climate, was humbling.

Fragments

The weeks are flying by. Between the constant motorbike zigzagging, the growing pile of work on my desk, the many meetings catered with Khmer pastries, and the varied social gatherings, I barely have a chance to catch my breath, to drink it all in, in measure, quietly and slowly.

The rain has arrived. This week, it pounded the streets of the city, relentlessly, accompanied by gusty winds that toppled outdoor furniture, the sound of rumbling thunder, and brilliant flashes of light. Once, I watched for the storm on my terrace, but all I could see was indistinguishable grey above the tiled rooftops.

This is kind of a more disjointed post than my usual -- I'm just checking in. I'm on a mission this weekend: a $5 massage and sauna, a pedicure, a few dresses made (more on that later), a movie, and the usual exploration. I am determined to find sun-dried tomatoes in Phnom Penh.

But before I go, and to add to the disjointedness even more, a few random pictures of life in Myanmar.

Temple Hop

Evidence of the 114 degree heat in sleepy Bagan--not ideal for temple-hopping--still shows on my skin, now a reddish brown wash. The crumbling temples were beautiful and full of life: locals beating the heat by napping in the shadows of the cool stony alcoves, families sharing a meal of varied deep-fried vegetables and tea, children laughing and running, and youth touting postcards and laquerware to the few foreigners who passed through. Most of the time, however, I had an entire temple to myself.

The Local Market

Exploring local markets in foreign countries is one of my favorite things to do -- they can be great places to drink up color, texture, and movement. These are sights from a small market near Inle Lake, in Myanmar.