July 2006 Archives

the past few days have all been about sorting out my life and my lifestyle. apart from the fact that i almost haven't smoked any cigarettes, i've also gone on a diet. i substitute dinner every day with one of these high protein shakes (you can see 'em here). they're not your shitty weight watchers thing; they are actually only given on prescription! i got them from my mum who followed this super strict diet a while back using them. i'm also taking multivitamins, a herbal diuretic remedy, drinking at least 2 liters of water a day and taking a daily herbal hunger reducing pill. hopefully i can shed those two or three extra kilograms i gained in south east asia. i must be the only person who went travelling as a backpacker and came back fatter than when they left. sigh. all the efforts of my 'being dumped' diet last year have gone to waste. at least i can laugh about it now, eh?
here you can see my new hair. i know i'm being bad and haven't uploaded photos from my last trip yet... but i will do it soon, i promise. probably tomorrow since i only have to go to the doctor's in the afternoon.
i already have my ticket for the eurostar on the 7th; but now it seems my parents are leaving on the 4th and all of my friends in paris are on holiday... so maybe i will just splash out and buy another ticket just to go earlier. at least there's people in london, and i have a few things to do (open a new bank account, which requires me to get some documents from my old bank, get an alumni card from soas, explore oxford, and see a few friends of course).
it's quite silly, i've been talking to this guy quite a lot, on msn and on the phone, and i'm quite excited about meeting him. we'll see how all that goes! i haven't met anyone off the net in a while, so it does make me slightly nervous. ah-uhm.
i've been feeling quite relaxed, and i'm glad to be back, but i cannot wait to be on that eurostar... and i'll be staying in my brother's swanky new flat in notting hill. shame it seems one of his mates will also be there. argh. i guess it's better than nothing though... and there is a half plan to go to cornwall since sophie, kirsty and mini will all be there.
it's good to get back into things after all this time.

- i am blonde again. well not as blonde as i was before. sort of honey blonde. happy though, i missed it (even though i still have that impulse to change hair style completely, i went classic).
- i have done lots of shopping. i have four new pairs of trousers (summer-y ones), lots of new tops, new pajamas, new pants, new shoes, one new jumper (and really tempted to buy another one, polka dot hoodie anyone?!?)... i needed to catch up on nine months of buying crappy clothes to cover myself up. :)
- my jewellery is all organised, and i can't believe how much i have. lots of earrings, necklaces, bracelets... mostly silver, indian things. i love it.
- my room is oh so pretty. need to take photos.
- i'm having a hard time catching up with internet stuff: updating booklog and movielog, keeping this and my blog updated, posting pictures from my trip in south east asia... it will be done soon though.
- i have smoked less than a packet of cigarettes in one week. and i don't miss it. maybe i was never addicted? i know i could fall back into it really easily though. we'll see.
- i will be in london from august 7th to 22nd. i might go to cornwall to see sophie, kirsty and mini. i will need to go to oxford to open a bank account. i will try to organise some sort of dinner/clubbing thing for the weekend after my birthday. i can't wait to see london again.
- alisei still hasn't paid what it still owes me. which pisses me off cause that money would be oh so handy for london and stuff (it's around 850 euros!!!). mpfh.
- i have received my final, official contract from oxford which i will sign and send back soon. i have also ordered all of the books in my pre-requisite reading list. so exciting.
- i am now on facebook. it's quite a cool website actually. apparently everybody from wolfson is on it, so am waiting to get my wolfson email address to add it as a network.

today was stupidly hot (especially when walking in the sun shopping!) but it seems like it'll be over soon - big storm raging outside!
i feel compelled to update this, but really, i don't know what to write. i apologise for me being mysterious lately but it's all about a family issue which i'd rather keep for myself. things are much, much better today though (yesterday was very stressful).
i keep feeling happy i am home.
i walk around paris a discover it all over again, and it's good. it might be hot but the glorious weather makes this beautiful city even more gorgeous.
i'm losing weight even though i'm eating quite normally, which makes me think it was all water retention (or something equally annoying and temporarily fattening) from south east asia.
mango and h&m keep being great shops. and the gap sucks just because it's so damn expensive. and why is it that buying creams and tonics and things for my skin gives me so much satisfaction?
enough random things for one day. there's lightning every few seconds outside my window and i can't keep my eyes open (at 10.50!), so...

every morning i have a hot bath, with bubbles.
i take care of my skin and my hair, use nice products, washing them, moisturising them, pampering them.
i pick clothes carefully, colour coordinating bags and shoes, whenever i can.
i tidy up my room and take pride in all of the objects i have put in it, bought on the other side of the world or not.
i make my bed and rearrange flowers.
i look at the white building in front of mine and the green plants out of my window.
and these are all just silly things, but they make me happy.
(and then there's all the other reasons why i'm happy to be home, well not happy, glad, even though it's so damn hard and sometimes i want to cry)
(and don't worry, i will get through this as well, with my family)

most of yesterday and the whole of today was spent owning this room again; so a trip to ikea this morning, some new furniture, and now it's all been organised and i have all of my things (and my clothes, which used to be in a closet in the other side of the house!) near me. that feels good. i will post pictures when the photo-uploading-laziness is over, at some point (just can't bear the thought of going through the 1,000 photos i took during my three weeks of travelling).
in other ways the situation is much, much worse than expected, in psychological ways more than any other. i am coping though, and i know everything will be fine. it's tough though; never realised how tough it would be. we'll get through though, as a family, and it will all make us stronger.
i'm tired, so tired. still have a cold, i'm still a bit jetlagged... eurgh.

this morning i left kratie, and then my plans changed all of a sudden after receiving news from home.
so i went straight from the lao border to pakse, without stopping at 4,000 islands or champasak, and tomorrow i'll be crossing over to thailand and getting an overnight bus to bangkok. it might be a record for the least amount of time spent by a tourist in laos... argh. anyway, friday night i will be flying over continents, and saturday morning i shall be in charles de gaulle airport, paris.
i'm happier this way anyway; i am starting to be very homesick and to be honest i just want some old europe in front of me. and all of the nice things paris has - like my clothes, dvs, computer, shops, cinemas, etc.
i am incredibly tired (i got up at 6 this morning and got here around 7 with a lot of standing around and waiting) so i don't think i have the energy to say anything more than this...

last night i was so tired, after two days of getting up at 6 in the morning, i went to sleep at 10.30. then of course i got woken up by a group of israeli guys who thought it'd be a good idea to have a very loud conversation sitting on the terrace next to my room (that serves me right for asking for a room with window!). when i asked them to be more quiet they were quite nice though and left after 5 minutes. still, i can conferm what i'd heard about israeli backpackers: they are RUDE. especially to locals, which i find very annoying and absolutely unecessary (especially here, where people are just so lovely).
anyway, this morning i got up quite late, and then organised myself with nadege, this dutch girl i'd met yesterday on the bus from phnom penh (i met her when i heard this cambodian guy asking her to marry him and i thought she might need the help! lol). after some talking we decided to just rent a motorbike which she would drive... so after she learnt how to use a motorbike with gears (in about 5 minutes - errrr!) we were off! it was quite a nice idea actually, to see stuff with someone i can talk to. :) we went through all of these lovely villages, with wooden house on stilts, huge, incredibly kitsch pagodas, and so many kids and people screaming hello and smiling at us. it was not like indonesia, where i just felt harassed; everybody just seemed so friendly. so we spent a good half an hour speeding through villages saying hello to everybody and waving at kids.
the dolphin watching was amazing. i'm not really an animal person, and i never thought i'd like it so much. but they really are cute animals, and the noise they make when they come up for air... and their rounded heads... anyway you can check this if you want to know more about them! sadly i didn't manage to get a proper picture of one, they were just too quick/too far away. but we saw so many of them, we were on our little boat on the mekong for over 2 hours i think. i loved it.
then we thought we would go see this pagoda we'd been told about; shame we went in the wrong direction, and basically got lost! after driving for a while through countryside and paddy fields, we turned around; that's when we started raining. we decided to stop and sit in a small veranda style thingy and wait until the rain went away; we didn't quite realise how strong the rain was going to be! queue the two of us sitting under this riny roof trying to cover ourselves with a single raincoat and getting completely soaked! it was sort of fun though, adventurous. :) after a while it stopped raining (or well, it started raining a lot less...) so we drove back to the guesthouse and got even more soaked. it was hilarious when we got here, really. i could really walk properly cause my ass was so sore (motorbikes just do that to me!) and nadege couldn't feel her fingers...! nothing a good cup of coffee couldn't solve though. :)
tomorrow morning i shall be getting a minibus to stung treng and then a boat to the lao border; not quite sure how i'll get to don dhet after that. it should be alright. i'm starting to think it will take a LONG time though. sigh. at least i'm starting soon though (7.30).
now i am going to finish drinking my royal d (cambodian lemon flavoured rehydration salts, they're great!) and check out some travel info on travelfish... ah, this really is the life.

so this morning i caught the bus from phnom penh, stupidly early as usual (7.30), and it was even late. i had the luck (tsk) of sitting next to a cambodian woman who thought it'd be a good idea to buy just one ticket for herself and her 5 year old child. who was hyperactive most of the time, and then when asleep would push his head into my side. how nice. i moved as soon as possible of course. when we stopped i saw the usual huge bowls full of fried insetcs. i also witnessed first hand a tiny truck piled up with bamboo furniture diving into a ditch, and then people managing to get it up and out of there (it was actually quite funny, and the driver didn't get hurt or anything). i met a couple of dutch people which was also nice, had chats about cambodia, laos, vietnam, stupid airline regulations, minibuses, share taxis, etc.
then i got to kratie (after 7 hellish hours) and oh, what a nice surprise! seeing the mekong in all of its magnificence (being rainy season, it's at its widest), and this lovely decaying colonial town. and the people! the further away you get from phnom penh, the nicer people are. no one bugging you for money or to sell you stuff, just 'hellos' and smiles and nice chats.
i've decided to stay here one extra day since a. i don't want to get up at 6 for the third time in a row and b. i was too tired today to go see the irrawaddy dolphins. so that will happen tomorrow, and then tuesday i will getting a bus to stung treng, then a boat to the lao border and finally another boat to one of the islands (haven't decided which one yet, i might skip don dhet which is the most backpacker oriented one... or i may go to all three... mmmh, decisions decisions).
tonight i'm having a couple of beers, eating nice food, reading my book and chilling out.
shame bloody mosquitoes are killing me...

so i left kampot stupidly early this morning. of course as it always happens the night before an early bus i met some people with cheap mekong whisky (believe it or not, it was 75c for a litre) and got slightly drunk... managed to get into bed before 1 though. :) these guys were crazy; he's one of them, you bet i'm going to be buying his book when i get home. probably shouldn't say this so publicly, but he was also quite fit. errrr.
aaaaanyway need to stop my horny self from saying stuff like that. on the bus on the way to phnom penh i decided i was going to treat myself, so i'm staying in a nice place on the riverside with aircon, hot water and clean sheets, and i had lunch at pop cafe' again (since it's one of the nicest italian restaurants i've ever been to). and then spent a few hours crashing on my bed just watching silly tv series. i needed it, really - and now i feel more prepared for the rest of my trip which will involve, i think, some terrible accommodation (stocking up on luxuries now!). i think by this point i've completely given up on the whole 'roughing it'/backpacker thing. i need a decent room, decent bathroom, decent food, nice staff, etc. on top of that, i've realised how much it pisses me off when i tell people i spent $10 on a room and they're... shocked? think i'm spoilt? it's ridiculous. i was talking about kep with this girl yesterday; she stayed there with a friend, so i asked her if she'd stayed at vanna bungalows (which are so lovely, i wish i had had more time to stay there as well), and she said that no, they were too expensive. too expensive is EIGHT DOLLARS between two people. i mean... what the fuck. and then of course people go off and spend 10 bucks a day on alcohol, but that's alright, that's not expensive. fucked up priorities, seriously. or like rob was saying last night... the too cool for school, hippy backpackers. argh.
sorry, ok, my anti-backpacker rant is over. :)
tomorrow: kratie and irrawaddy dolphins (and a six hour journey to get there).

kampot has made me discover a side of cambodia that i'm loving.
yesterday was spent going to the mountain station of bokor; it was an organised tour which went horribly wrong (the first pick up truck broke on the way up, the second on the way down) but nonetheless turned out to be very nice. i met a few nice people and saw the amazing old hotel; it made me quite sad to see how it's ruined now, it must have been such a luxurious and beautiful place. now it's really like the set of a horror film: fog, walls crumbling down and water everywhere... i cannot even explain, it was sort of scary, in this beautiful and romantic way. if i believed in ghosts, i probably would have seen one there. :)
on the way back we had a small boat trip, on a cute orange boat with potted flowers, looking at the flattest water ever, trees and mountains whilst drinking beer (included in the price, not bad eh). the moment we set foot on the pavement though it started pouring down, and when we got back to the guesthouse we were all soaked - a cold shower never felt so good. i'm even getting used to cold showers...!
and then in the evening i ate and drank fresh lime juice and khmer whisky with coke whilst chatting to one english guy and a swiss/dutch couple who were indeed very nice. i'm being quite lucky this time around, meeting lots of wonderful people.
this morning i woke up to the sound of rain - reassuring in its noise but disappointing for its consequences... thankfully it stopped after a while so i was able to get a motorbike down to the pepper plantations - kampot pepper anyone? had no idea how pepper grew and it's quite cool really. took lots of pictures of it and ended up buying half a kilogram of pepper for my dad - more weight in my backpack. eurgh. after the plantations i headed to the coast to kep (once called kep-sur-mer by the french, who, in order to keep appearences, used to get sand shipped over from sihanoukville since the beach in kep is not actually that nice). it gave me the same feeling bokor did; so abandoned and left to decay, but somewhat beautiful. i took photos of the lady in white (the one who's waiting for her husband, who's actually her long lost brother, who drowned in the sea), the sea and vanna bungalows (one day i'll go stay there, because they are SO nice - you will see when i post pictures) and ate some delicious (albeit expensive) crab.
on my drives around i've also seen many other beautiful things; jungle, bright coloured flowers, paddy fields (have you ever seen the bright green stems of rice moving to the rhythm of the wind, almost flowing like waves?), children running after pigs, young men at the top of trees, monks dressed in all shades of orange and red, cows peacefully eating grass, children waving to me and screaming 'hello!' with huge smiles on their faces, durian plantations, and yes... the red earth. and i've been wondering: why is cambodian earth so red?

finally left phnom penh this morning, stupidly early (for my standards: 7.30!), and four hours later i was in kampot... which seems pretty nice, if only the weather wasn't so bad...
as soon as i arrived in my guesthouse (blissful guesthouse, which is lovely, set in a big house in a nice garden, with terraces, hammocks and big comfy chairs) i had some food and fell asleep in a hammock for a few hours (oh it is so pleasant) as it rained on and on and on. had lime juice, omelette, tea, fruit salad... i am eating too much. :)
finally it stopped raining and i went for a little walk around town - and then got completely and utterly lost!!! i don't know how i managed that considering kampot is pretty small... erm. never underestimate my lack of sense of direction. on my tortous way to the riverside i saw lots of interesting colonial buildings though. overall kampot is very nice, albeit a bit run down.
i've already booked my trip to bokor tomorrow - that shall be fun. the day after i'd like to go see the pepper plantations, and then maybe a daytrip to kep and rabbit island. we'll see.
i'm starting to think i'll have to skip the three days in ko samet at the end. it'd be worth it though, spending more time here and in laos. need to reorganise my schedule (oh! fun!).

here i am. today i did all the cultural things that i had avoided in my laziness of the last few days. so i went to the russian market (i now have a beer lao tshirt! yay!), then S21 (which was appalling, scary, horrible, and i only managed to see half of it) and finally the royal palace (where i managed to take a few pictures even though i didn't buy a camera ticket... ops). lunch was at pop cafe' (grazie francesco per il consiglio!), apparently the best italian restaurant in town - i'll have to agree with that, my pasta alla carbonara was perfect.
tomorrow morning at around 7 i will be getting on a bus to kampot, and i shall be there for a couple of days, and then another day in kep before heading north to either kompong cham or kratie (kratie might be too far for me to get to in one day, due to silly bus schedule).
i shall be back with news of kampot pepper and kep seafood very soon. :)
p.s. i do have to apologise to the people who have written to me - i will reply to your emails at some point, i promise. sometimes writing too much is a bit draining, and today i'm really not in the mood. lots of love to you all though. ;)

that wasn't bad eh - so italy has won the world cup, and this time around i did really get into it. last night at 1 in number 9 guesthouse, phnom penh, there were more than fifty french people and only two italian girls, and we were the ones cheering and drinking a celebratory beer at the end. :) i can't help it, i know it's silly, but i am happy. i was very, very disappointed by zidane though. that was awful, absolutely awful - i am sure materazzi said something quite nasty, but headbutting him in the chest during a world cup final when you're the captain of your team is a no-go. so that ruin it a bit.
anyway, apart from world cup news my day has been spent in laziness, considering i got up at 3 o'clock in the afternoon (the match here started at 1 o'clock in the morning)... i did go to see the killing fields of the pol pot regime with paul; it was... not shocking, but still very disturbing. seeing all of those skulls, reading the people's stories. tomorrow i am going to see S21, the biggest torture centre/prison of the pol pot regime, and i'm getting a bit scared.
i keep noticing all sorts of things about cambodia, so here's a few:
- the countryside is full of cows that look very much like sacred indian cows; cream coloured or very light brown, with floppy (extremely floppy) skin, some of them are made to wear big 'necklaces' which do indeed remind me of india. i need to take a picture of them.
- my latest fashion: khmer women fashion. so, there are the young, trendy girls with westernised clothes (somewhat more conservative than western clothes though): tight jeans, with rips, stains and whatnot, tight tshirts and trendy jumpers of all colours. older women can be dressed both traditionally (sarongs or skirts made out of sarongs, and brightly coloured shirts made with local fabrics) or western (definitely more sober though: dark coloured trousers and sort of large-ish shirts). then there's women going to parties: they wear white corsets covered by see-through, lacey, sparkly short-sleeved shirts, and then bright long khmer skirts, pink, red, purple or blue. but my favourite ones have to be: the girls and women who go around wearing... pajamas. and this is in the middle of phnom penh, and not just any pajamas: the ones with white piping, like the flannel ones i used to wear as a child, just made of cottong, with rabbits, teddy bears, stylised flowers or little girls. it's hilarious. sometimes they even wear nice high heels with them, or really dressy handbags... western thing gone completely wrong there.
i think this is it from me today; but one last thing: who knew buying weird prescription drugs like valium or prozac in these countries was so easy? (not that i did, just someone i know!)

i should reply to the emails and comments i've received, but... i'm being lazy so will do it tomorrow. thank you so much to everybody who left comments and sent me emails though, especially from sigli and thereabouts - i miss you guys too, a lot. sniff.
so this is my third day in phnom penh. today i've been really lazy. :) spent the morning reading my book on a nice terrace on the lake (after having had a nice hot shower in my sort-of-expensive room, lol), waiting for the guys i'm spending a lot of time with to get up. the guys in question are paul, whom i met in siem reap, his uni mate teddy and teddy's friend ben. i'm glad i've found people to spend time with - big cities always scare me a bit in terms of meeting people, so. after having the usual burger for lunch (i've been terrible and eaten hardly anything else, erm) we went to the central market, which is in this really nice building, with this odd sort of cross shape and a big dome (argh! pictures will be here at some point). i've managed to control myself in terms of shopping so far, so i've only bought clothes i needed (my wardrobe was completely inadequate), i.e. two pairs of fisherman trousers and two tshirts, and then a few small things, a box, a silk keyring, three small scarves, and a tshirt for my mum. this is pretty good for me considering i'm one third through my trip. :)
so anyway, we are going to 'the lazy gecko' later to have their famous sunday roast (which is quite funny, considering i've only ever had sunday roast once in my life!) and of course, staying up for the final at two!!! i can't wait. shame it seems like i'll be the only italian around - and there's lots of french people! hopefully i won't get beaten up. erm.
so yes, today has been a lazy day again - but lovely. phnom penh is definitely growing on me. can't wait to go to kampot though, since it's supposed to be lovely... not until wednesday morning though since i'm only picking up my passport with my lao visa on tuesday afternoon.
i miss sigli and i miss home, but at the same time i'm quite happy where i am. does that make me weird?

so there has been some accommodation drama as expected... i moved out of my guesthouse - which, to be fair, had a lovely terrace on the lake, but the rooms were just... argh. and now i'm staying in the poshest guesthouse in the area where for a whopping $10 a night i get a proper bathroom, a towel, clean sheets, hot water, cable tv, and windows...! if i fork out $5 extra i could get a/c but i'm not convinced so i'm sticking to the fan.
i keep being quite relaxed. this morning i woke up around 8 (yesterday was staying up late with these guys i know and having happy happy pizza, don't ask, lol), did the move, had breakfast and then went to do a little tour. saw the national museum, which had lots of amazing temple artifacts (from some of the temples i've seen s well) and a few other things, quite interesting and with a breezy, leafy courtyard. from there i walked to the river and then all the way down the river to one of the wats (...really can't remember the name now), up the 47th street (also called france street, with lovely colonial buildings) and then back to the lake. phnom penh is a lot hotter than siem reap though, so i was sweating a fair amount and had one episode where i felt a little faint - silly low blood pressure. i had some orange-flavoured rehydration solution that i've bought here and things were fine though.
lunch at the lazy gecko and then i fell asleep in front of my tv for a couple of hours, how sad. :)
i've given my laundry in and all of my other clothes smell of damp. eurgh. one of the very unpleasant things about this part of the world. i'm hoping it'll be ready tomorrow morning or i won't have anything to wear. ah ah. also, i never realised how useless long trousers were around here. need to get some shortish ones - maybe i could go to the market tomorrow... ah, sounds like a good idea.
i have plenty of time to explore so i'm being chilled. tomorrow if i'm brave enough i'll go see S21 (the khmer rouge torture centre) and then the market...
i'm glad this is more or less the last big city i go through though. small cities around here are so much more pleasant (don't get me wrong, i'm liking phnom penh, it's just that siem reap was SO much better).

yesterday was an extremely lazy day. i'm glad i decided to stay an extra day in siem reap; it's a lovely place and my guesthouse, the ivy 2, was amazing for its price (plus nice people!). holly the australian, jim the english, the german girl, andy the doctor, and paul the young guy (20! how i wish i'd done all this two years ago!).
so i had a two hour long massage in the morning, then spent the afternoon reading in the leafy ivy 2 bar as it was raining for a long time, and in the evening i went to the pub quiz at the funky munky (for a good cause; getting money for a day centre for street kids - and we even came second!) with a few people and then sat in a terrace smoking and chatting away.
i made the usual mistake of going to sleep very late (2.30 or around that time) and then i had to wake up early since a minibus was supposed to pick me up from the guesthouse at 7.45. with my usual luck they forgot to do so1 so i then had to get a tuk tuk to the bus station (which was fine, since the bus company paid for it). what i thought was going to be the super posh bus (9 dollars!) was in reality quite a poor one. very little space for my legs, but i slept nonetheless. and we did get breakfast, water and history lessons (i'm not joking) included in the price.
so now i am in phnom penh, capital of cambodia, in the local khao san road (which is on the lake, the lake being quite suggestive but not very clean). i looked at a couple of guesthouses and then ended up in one of the 'classic' ones (apparently), number 9. it's definitely not as nice as the one in siem reap, but it's also half the price. i'm considering moving to a 'posher one' but we will see. later on paul the young guy is coming as well (took a later bus) so i shall have someone to go out with tonight, which is nice.
tomorrow i'll do museums, royal palace, etc. for now, i'm relaxing (which seems to be the main theme of this holiday, but then that's the way it should be).
everything at home is good (who knows knows, it's something i'd rather not tell the whole world about), and it's such a relief. i was very worried for a couple of days, but i am feeling better now.

ah, so yesterday i was being boring and didn't go on the internet at all. but here i am.
yesterday was my last day of temples; so i went down to a different complex, called roluos, and then to angkor wat to take a last look. i still only lasted half a day and i'm definitely templed out now! i have also taken over 600 photos in 4 days, not bad eh?
so yesterday was:
17. lolei (roluos group) - just four towers, very damaged, but placed in this idyllic little buddhist temple; so all i remember are monks in orange and birds singing.
18. prah ko (roluos group) - this group is older than angkor thom/angkor wat, which explains why it's a lot more damaged than all of the other temples. still, some wonderful details (which i've become an expert at taking pictures of). it was also completely surrounded by nature, not as ta phrom was, just crickets and grass everywhere. throughout my three-day long temple visit i've done the following things: taken pictures of my feet in almost every temple, as to show the flooring, and taken pictures of all the different faces in the carvings. they're all very stylised but all so different. quite amazing.
19. bakong (ruolos group) - a huge pyramid which does look a lot like an inca temple. amazing. which makes you think - is there something that makes us all really the same, and we end up thinking and making the same things, wherever we might be born? but that was just me being philosophical whilst sitting at the top of the temple and looking out in the distance of the cambodian countryside.
and then i went back to angkor wat, as i said. took another good look at the galleries and the carvings, and when i felt like i was about to die went back to the guesthouse. :) this whole temple thing has definitely left me satisfied - i mean, the whole thing is just so amazing. how people a thousand years ago were building these things, these huge, magnificent structures, and each king would build himself a new small city, with the lives of thousand of people revolving around it. i wish i could already show you me my photos so i could explain better; but then i don't think anyone can understand until he's seen these temples with his own eyes.
the rest of the day was spent chilling out and finishing 'the da vinci code' (interesting enough, but it does sound like a load of bullshit sometimes, and to be honest dan brown is not a very good writer in terms of just... writing). in the evening i had a few beers with holly the ozzie and jim the brit, i.e. two people i've met here that are very very nice. beer lao is my new obsession.
this morning i went to the tonle' sap, which is a huge lake nearby siem reap, and there i took a boat and went around looking at all of these villages that are literally on the water (houses built on rafts, and shops, and schools). i think the thing i liked the best was one of the schools: the ground floor had two classrooms, and the top floor... a basketball pitch, surrounded by net as not to lose the ball! and then, kids going to school in tiny boats (some in plastic bowls), a floating church, women and their tiny boat-shops, full of food and drinks, and so many more. i found it amazing how these people live on and with water their whole lives. they get their food from the lake (apparently the tonle' sap is one of the most fertile lakes in the world), fish, reeds and weeds, they was themselves, their clothes and their plates in the water, they drink it, they also... well, use the lake as a toilet. it must be the most unhygienic lake in the world, but if you don't think about that - can you imagine living your life like that? i didn't even think something like that existed.
i have this list of things i've noticed and found interesting about cambodia in my head, and i keep forgetting them, so i better start writing them down... - cambodians love hammocks. and i agree with 'em.
- i've seen buddha shrines being built, you know that sort of buddha shrine every good buddhist has in front of his house? they make them out of cement, and slowly carve all of the details, and then paint them in gold, red, green, bright pink, silver. they are so kitsch - i wish i could take one home!
- i've bought a typical cambodian scarf (can't remember the name now), and what the guidebook said is true: people here use it for absolutely everything. as a hat, as a scarf, as a towel... they're checkered cotton; mine is blue. i might buy a bigger one later on.

the plan for tonight is to go out, get drunk and meet people. sounds good eh? ;)
hasn't rained today, what a miracle.
this morning i saw LOTS of gorgeous temples:
11. pre rup - with all of its big towers, angkor wat style, high up... the usual scary steps, but maybe i'm getting used to it?
12. eastern mebon - very similar to the previous one.
13. to sam - same style as prah khan and ta phrom, small but pretty.
14. pheak nean - huuuuge pool with a further four pool around it and huge snakes under a buddha shrine in the middle. would have been better if there actually was water in 'em. err.
15. prah khan - BEAUTIFUL. my favourite one so far: i must have taken more than a 100 pictures, so many details, carvings of apsaras, meditating men, flowers, leaves... i could have spent hours in it. i did sit in a corner and read a book in the middle of beauty for half an hour. also, it's huge and flat, which means you can walk around forever without feeling tired. :)
16. banteay srei - supposedly 'the gem of angkor', i was a bit disappointed. really details carvings, very baroque, but the temple itself is tiny! i guess it didn't help that all of the interesting bits were closed off... the stone was a wonderful colour though, orangeish-pinkish.
tomorrow i'm going to see another complex (ruolos) and go back to bayon and angkor wat, most probably.
also, i've decided to stay here one extra day, and later skip sihanoukville altogether since it's rainy season and even though it only rains in the evening, it's cloudy all day.
28 days till i go home.

ah. the temples are amazing, despite getting up at 5 to go see the sunrise (not worth it though, considering it's the rainy season so the sky is always gray, let it be sunrise or sunset).
today i've seen:
1. angkor wat - somewhat disappointing when i saw it because a. it was 6 in the morning b. the light was horrendous and it was very hard not to only to take decent photos but also to SEE properly and c. there were too many people. still, it's magnificent (and i need to go back before i leave).
2. banteay kdei - lovely, small and falling apart, just like i love 'em. it might not be anything special but i found it delightful.
3. ta phrom - beautiful! beautiful! i'm loving the carvings.
4. takeo - incredibly scary staircases (so steep i thought i was going to fall down and die) but incredible views.
5. thommanon - small but perfectly formed...
6. bayon - too many scary faces, too many people. need to go back.
7. terrace of the leper king - didn't look at it too much to be honest, but t'was nice... errr.
8. terrace of the elephants - i want an elephant when i grow up. lol.
9. royal palace & phimeanakas - nice place to chill out (but nothing so interesting to see).
10. bophuon - all closed off, what a shame. :( nice though, and in a beautiful setting (centuries old stoned in the middle of the jungle, nice).
my favourite are i think number 2 and 3, just because of the whole nature vs. humanity thing (they're both being slowly swallowed by the jungle, with trees and grass growing everywhere. but to be honest in their grandiosity all of 'em are amazing. i'm loving it.
my guesthouse is lovely as well, and the food, the food! ah i'm happy.
tomorrow i'm getting up at a far more decent hour (quarter to 7) and doing things in a more relaxed way. shame it rains a lot in the afternoon so i'll probably miss sunsets.
i'm still loving cambodia. i could work here you know... mmh. :)

ah. i'm loving siem reap so far. it reminds me of laos, just a bit busier. people are lovely and smiley, my guest house is slightly rundown but oh so charming... isn't it nice to travel again?
all doubts have disappeared: this is what i should be doing, this is where i should be. discovering a new country, it's always amazing. what i love about south east asia is that everything seems to be so easy, everyone so helpful, it makes things so much better because you're never scared because you don't know what's going to happen. it's never the case around here.
a lovely night last night; met some crazy canadians, and then some crazy english, and some crazy irish, and got thoroughly pissed. was all set up to watch the match but after 20 minutes (and italy's first goal) i realised there was no way i'd get up at 6.30 to catch my flight if i stayed up until 5. so i went to sleep, and did manage to catch my flight (i slept on the bus, on the plane, and could almost have fallen asleep on the bike that took me to the guest house, but that would have been dangerous really...!).
tomorrow morning a tuk-tuk will pick me up from my guesthouse at 5.30 (eurgh) and take me to the temples, and so i'll see angkor wat at sunrise. i think this place is good because there's so much to see, but when you don't feel like seeing anything there's lots of places to chill out in as well, so i'll be doing lots of that.
need to email people now! ah. the joys of travel emails (and travelogues for that matter).
and just to quote my diary, i like the green leafiness of this city, its sleepiness mixed with being oh so busy, the brown water of the river and overdecorated temples, the smiley people and the random 'hellos'. this is fun.