Lazy Beach!

This past weekend five of us decided we wanted a break from the insanity that is Phnom Penh so we booked a bungalow on an island off the coast of Sihanoukville for a few nights...and we had an ADVENTURE!  It started when we had to take a two-and-a-half hour boat ride to the island.  When we got there they said, hey sorry but the surf is too rough for us to land at the pier, so you're going to have to swim ashore...So that was cool.  And he was right, the water was rough!  Big ole waves and craziness, but we made it to land and were totally wiped.  So we solved that with fish and chips- literally any problem can be solved with fish and chips (and one of those ice creams you get with the flake, oh man!).  And it also helped that the beach was GORGEOUS!!

We got to stay in a cute little bungalow- two beds with mosquito nets (thank goodness), a bathroom, hammocks on the porch, and these little guys hanging out everywhere (and by "little" I mean crazy HUGE foot long lizards!).

Our cute little bungalow!

We spent two days on the beach, relaxing in the sun (not getting burnt at all, I wish!), reading books, playing in the waves, exploring a bit, and snorkeling!  I haven't been snorkeling in ages, so it was super fun!  I wish I could have gotten pictures of the cool coral and sea urchins and neon fish we saw!  I felt a bit like I was watching the reef in Finding Nemo, there were so many colors and different kinds of fish (including Nemo-esque clown fish).  It was great fun!  And they had a cute cabana area where we could hang out and get food.  The last night there we had the craziest thunderstorm ever!  It was literally right above us and sounded a bit like we were being bombed (huge loud sound and massive flashes of light, right? plus I was a bit sleep deprived). And thankfully, we didn't have to swim out to the boat to leave the next morning (instead we just took a little boat out to the bigger boat. very logical, right?).  And sadly we had to leave the Lazy Beach and head back to the city, but hey, my ROUS had been missing me!

Basically our private beach and cabana.

Probably the most pathetic little pier I've ever seen!  I was much happier to swim to shore!

One of the little boats we took to the island (the ride wasn't two-and-a-half hours because the island was far away, but because the boat was so dang slow!).

R.O.U.S (Rodents of Unusual Size)

For all of you who have seen The Princess Bride you may remember the large rodents you saw in the fireswamp (which were actually tiny people in rat suits) which, while scary, you never believed were real.  However, I can now tell you THEY'RE REAL!!!  They exist in Cambodia!  And I'm only SLIGHTLY exaggerating.  So now on to the story: there are mice/rats in our room!
So three nights ago Clarissa and I were peacefully asleep in our host family's house (after listening to the horrifying sound of cats fighting right outside of our window).  We thought we were safe!  Then it began.  Little sniffling sounds.  The sound of tiny feet pitter-pattering across the floor. The rustling of a bag.  The scratching of tiny paws on wooden surfaces.  It barely woke me before I returned to sleep.  We woke up the next morning to find the little trails the rodents had left behind everywhere!  So we deep cleaned the entire room (thanks to my environmental health class lessons on pest management!).  We went to sleep that night confident we'd outwitted the little monsters!!  Little did we know...
At 5am we woke up to the screeching of rats in our room! They were so loud and sounded so close, we both freaked out!  We couldn't see them and neither of us wanted to leave the safety of the bed and turn off the light.  So we made loud noises, but as soon as we stopped they'd come back out!  When we turned the lights on on our phone they eventually stopped, so we left the lights on all night!  But we didn't sleep soundly, every little itch was a rat biting us, every tiny sound was an army of rats ready to attack!!!
Last night we didn't even try to sleep with the lights off but left them on all night, and guess what, no rodent problems!  Of course, I also had my headphones in and was blasting music all night, so I may not have heard them!  But I finally saw one and it was HUGE!!!  Of course, my sleep deprived, already horrified mind may have exaggerated it slightly, but I'm pretty sure it was an actual ROUS...I have never had a fear or animals- spiders never really bothered me, I like snakes and other reptiles-- but now, I have developed a rat-phobia...thanks Cambodia.

 

 R.O.U.S. (not actually mine, but pretty close!)

Tuk Tuk Goose!

This title actually is a very poor description of what I'm going to blog about, mainly because tuktuk is not pronounced like 'duck' but more like 'Took' a clan of the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you should immediately go out and rent the entire trilogy and watch it....but more specifically for this reference you should watch Bilbo's speech at his birthday in the Fellowship and feel ashamed you didn't get my clever reference before!)
Basically, I love tuktuks.  They're essentially moto/motorcycle drawn carriages...although carriage makes it seem fancier than it is.  And BYU owns one!  Seyha, our driver, basically will drive us wherever, whenever for FREE (actually he's paid by the program costs...so not quite for free)!  And it's awesome!  His tuktuk has BYU decals all over it.  And boy, it's fun!
In a tuktuk, you're right in the middle of traffic and you can just watch the chaos happen.  On a bike you stay as far away from the traffic as you can, sometimes even driving up on the sidewalk!  But in a tuktuk you are right in the middle of the roads, swerving around bikes and motos, blasting in front of cars.  The rush is crazy!  And maybe not entirely healthy....but I still love it!
Here's an article about the BYU tuktuk from BYU Magazine: http://magazine.byu.edu/?act=view&a=3312

The BYU tuktuk and me!

My Little Bathroom Buddies: A Poem

Yes, yes I realize how strange that title sounds but it's true.  The bathroom in my host family's house has windows to the outside...but they lack screens or glass.  So odd and ugly little critters decided to move inside and make it their home.  So in a moment of pure creativity (for which I apologize) I wrote this poem about them...

Those Friendly Little Critters

In my bathroom I can find

many species of all kinds! 

They're (sometimes) friendly and special to me!

When they crawl across the floor,

occasionally on my foot or something more,

then they start to see the ugly side of me.

The mosquitoes I will squash

as I continue to wash.

On the spiders I will trod

if they try to get near this bod!

The centipedes I fear and then I smush

often with an accompanying squeal as I rush.

There's a baby gecko on the wall

that I always fear will fall!

But the worst of these "friends"

are the ants that will spend

their lives tormenting me to the end!

They scurry across my feet

regardless of how many I beat

they will always win in the end!

No matter how many I kill dead 

or send down the drain with a shower head

they always replace their lost friends.

So I've stopped trying to squash them and their kin

Congratulations ants! You win!

That's it now---THE END!

Yes, I know how disastrous this poem was, so as a consolation I've attached a picture.

Yes I know the quality is poor, but if you look closely, that big thing above the light is our friend, the baby gecko, who has been named Francis for reasons unknown.

What Wat!!

Cambodia is a primarily Buddhist country (95% to be specific!), which of course means monks are everywhere traveling the streets in their right orange robes receiving donations and giving blessings.  It also means there are a lot of wats (temples) around.  There's a temple on literally every block in Phnom Penh.  Some are small and kind of run down, others are spacious and elaborate.  All have intricate designs, lots of shrines and graves, lots of gold paint, and lots of monks!  There's a wat about five minutes from where we live.  Ohm, chief host mom, visits it almost daily so we ventured out there the other morning and it was pretty nice.  Here's some pictures of it...

It's basically half dragon-half wolf

Someday I will have stairs in my home that are this ornate

This is the wat itself, next to one of the graves 

Literally no idea what it is, it just looked like a cool kind of throne

Why America Needs a King!

Not even a king, just any sort of monarchy would do!  I'm sure my dad will be so proud I've seen the light!  But actually it's for one simple reason: holidays!  Sure, we have President's Day I guess, but it's nowhere near as good as the Cambodian celebration of the king's birthday.  They king's birthday is May 14, so naturally they get it off...but one day is too short to really celebrate his life so why not add each day on either side of the 14th...But you know that means there's a holiday from Tuesday to Thursday, so people only are going to work Monday and Friday.  Where's the sense in that?!  So let's give them Monday and Friday off as well!!  That'll do it!  Oh, but the next Monday is another holiday, Plowing Day, so we'll have to give them that day off too!
That's right, they get a whole week off for the king's birthday and then the next Monday off too!  I don't remember any holidays like that in America. So yes, I'm totally in favor of a monarchy (as long as the holidays come with them)!!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year....

...Well, actually as I've been told repeatedly, this was the worst time of year to come to Cambodia (of course we arrived in THE HOTTEST month!!!  Typical tourists!)  I've always complained about Virginia's heat and humidity, but it's even crazier here!  I just want a huge bag of freeze pops and a pool to swim in, however pools here are very expensive and hard to find and I don't think they have freeze pops here (but I don't know for sure yet).  I've literally sweated gallons while I've been here, which is probably a good thing because we have been eating so much!  The food here is SPECTACULAR!  Ohm, the most chiefest of all host moms, cooks us two fantastic meals a day!  They're always stirfries, soups, curries, and all the delightful really heavy foods in life!  But probably the best part is all the fruit here!  They have so many exotic fruits I've never seen before or heard of.  And it's definitely fruit season!  Yesterday I ate the most delicious mango I've ever had in my life, and I was told it wasn't a particularly good one!  So clearly, the best is yet to come!  We drank straight from coconuts, bought our own lychee, and carved out our dragonfruit, devoured jackfruit, and had so much mango I could just burst!

To make things even better this week we took a Khmer (pronounced Kh-my, not Kh-mer) cooking class!  We had the cutest instructor, San, who spoke great English and showed us the way around the market, which was a hot, sweaty adventure.  Then we cooked four delicious courses with the food we had bought.  We made spring rolls, fish Amok (a spicy curry cooked in banana leaf that is SO GOOD!), banana flower salad, and last and definitely best, mango and sweet sticky rice!  I could just eat mango and sticky rice all day, everyday!

Homemade spring rolls with taro and carrot!  Yum!

 

Banana Flower salad (yes, I actually managed to use the chopsticks this time...)

Mango and sweet, sticky rice

Literally the dorkiest looking chef you will ever see!

We made it!

That's right!  I am now in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and I have been for all of 11 hours!  And I'm already in love with it!  It's been an adventure from the moment we landed and got driven in the BYU tuk tuk from the airport to our host family's house.  The traffic is probably the most insane that I've ever been in!  There are basically no rules of the road other than to generally drive on the right side, but if you don't it's fine!  I guess the only other rule would be not to get hit!  And if you get hit, to just keep moving!  Stop signs and stop lights are all stoptional...And of course, you can fit four or five people onto a tiny little moto!  And don't worry, you can carry an enormous ladder, or car windshield, or live chickens on the back as well!
We got bikes almost as soon as we'd arrived and jumped right in!  Basically you just have to be aggressive and get where you need to be, other people will move around you.  Of course we're wearing helmets though (just to reassure you mom!) so of course we look like touristy Americans...but I'm okay with that.  I can't understand what they're yelling at me anyways!
Don't worry, pictures will be posted soon!  And there will be more to follow just as soon as I'm not completely jetlagged and exhausted!

A Summer in Cambodia

That's right! I'm back in the blogging world!  But only because I'm going to be doing something fun and exciting this summer.  I am going to be spending this summer (May 8-August 4) in Cambodia.  I'll be living in the capital, Phnom Penh, with a host family and interning for RACHA (the Reproductive and Child Health Alliance).  I'm going through BYU with a group of 8 other students and we're going to have all sorts of crazy adventures traveling all around Cambodia! I leave tomorrow evening (May 6), and after basically 24 complete hours of traveling, will arrive for one amazing summer!  So stay tuned!!!!