Time flies

July 11th, 10:05am - Siem Reap, Cambodia

This trip is almost over and I feel like its barely begun! Just another 3-4 days in Bangkok, then a week or so in the tropics, and then back to Bangkok. Then a short stint in Tokyo and I'm home.

Yesterday was a pretty chill day, didn't do very much. It was so hot and humid in Cambodia to be oppressive, and I spent the day walking around with Dan trying to kill time until it cooled down. We blew $15 in a casino, which they have many of here, and for whom $15 is a decent amount of money. Since we were 'high-rolling' they brought us whiskey and beer and anything else we asked for (it was 3pm).

After the Casino we blew some time at an air conditioned spot called the Blue Pumpkin, which had decently high American dollar prices ($6 for a bacon cheeseburger, which was so good it tasted like HEAVEN). The Blue Pumpkin seems like the trendy cafe hangout for Siem Reap Cambodians: wireless access, lots of people with desserts or drinks and laptops, and just generally more young, hip Cambodians than I'm used to seeing at one place. It was here that my one valuable skill in life surfaced: juggling.

I'm not particularly good at juggling, but I can say I'm a very weakly talented amateur. I can juggle 3 balls pretty smoothly and with some decent tricks, and that seems to be enough to get people talking. I just carry the balls around in my bag, and when killing time on a bus or in the cafe spot, take them out and go for it. At the Blue Pumpkin most of the staff came over and started talking and trying it out for themselves, laughing and joking, which was really cool. An older Japanese massage (Qigong?) teacher and her student tried it, and then gave me and Dan 5-10 minute 'centering' massages, which were amazing. The BP staff also gave us a huge discount on our food, which was pretty cool. I've joked with more than a few people on this trip that juggling is the universal language, because it doesn't involve any words to do it, teach it, offer suggestions and generally share a fun moment with someone. Go juggling!

One thing that emerges as a pattern in these conversations with people around here though, and especially with the students, is that many other people travel for much longer periods of time. Most English i've met have been abroad for months and months, if not years, and the same goes for the rest of Europe and some countries such as Israel. When I told people back home I was going away for a month, everyone was very impressed and thought of that as quite a long time. I can't help but wonder what this does to American citizen's perceptions of the rest of the world. In ways large and small this trip has done wonders for my feeling of connection to the rest of the world, to individual countries, to their citizens, and to individual people. I've made friends with Latvians, Portugese, Swiss, Israelis, English, Spanish, Thais, Cambodians, Indonesians, on and on. Where could this have happened in America? And how much more would I change with something like the Gap Year that many English take, for example? I know there are complexities beyond anything I could describe here, but it really feels like part of the reason America seems to relate so badly to the rest of the world is that we've never sat down and had beers with a Latvian. My two cents, in any case.

Anyways, enough with the political pontificating, back to the Siem Reap description :). The pub and bar scene here is pretty interesting, because its such a small tourist town with only a few streets meant for foreigners. Many (mostly English) foreign nationals who live here meet up at bars and pubs to hang out, and so spending any time in one feels like being in England while America was still a bunch of cheeky colonies. Last night, for example, we heard about a trivia night at the ''funky munky' bar, whose owner was an Englishman named Mack. The bar filled up with groups of Englishman running about 10 deep a piece, with about 2 or 3 Cambodians or Thais filling out the entourages. The questions included more than a few shots at America and its war-making nature, and some funny Canadian jokes thrown in for one of Mack's Canadian friends. Needless to say, we got our asses handed to us and hightailed it out of there.

Today I'm flying back to Bangkok, as another 12-15 hour overland bus would suck, and I can say f--- it for now. I'm going to spend 2 days there and then head to Ko Tao. WOOO. In the one day outside in Angkor Wat I got a lot of color (read: burned) and i'm looking forward to getting some more. Drinks and waves for me, baby!

See you all on the beach,
Zach