Remember how I told you traffic was impossible to negotiate in Phnom Penh? Well this is one traffic stopper. Houses aren't built here to accomodate fiestas or family events and particularly not the traditional three day weddings. So families (who occupy every single room in their houses) rent tents for their occasions.

These tents get set up, literally, in the middle of the street in front of the family house. Huge sound systems belt out the latest Western and Khmer tunes and food, food, food is the evidence of the bride's family wealth and security.

Ankor Wat is preserved by the World Heritage Fund in part as a the thewori place of a living religion. That the Wat (temples) are still active as places to worship is evident in the alcoves where one finds Buddhas "dressed" and incense sticks burning.
Some of you know my little friend D Wayne. He came a long and wanted to see the sites. This is the southern bridge to Ta Prohm where 52 gods adorn one side and 52 demons the other. D Wayne thought it would be better to side with the gods. (Mighty Western of him huh.... since Buddhists believe that both gods and demons are necessary to make a complete life.)
These hallways and hundreds of others at Ankor Wat are adorned with carvings telling the tales of hundreds of myths of ancient Hindu and Buddhist antiquity.

At the Bayon fortress, built hundreds of years after Ankor Wat the faces of multiple religions' gods were built into turrets to beg their protection against the Champa hordes. Interestingly enough, the faces of the gods (seen on the right and left sides of this turret) actually attracted the invaders rather than stopping them.

Between myself and the English- Khmer (pronounced kh-may) interpreters (one man in blue shirt and the two in white shirts...more about them later) are pioneers in the field of sign language interpreting and my heroes. They are the only full time Khmer and Cambodian Sign Language interpreters in history.

I was honored to talk with them about the subject of collegial feedback. They talked about the struggles of working alone.

Sunrise at Ankor Wat was glorious. Waiting with hundreds of others while listening to the monks chant morning adorations could not be a stronger reminder of what ties us together.

What ties us to our ancestors is our history like that Ankor Wat represents. The temples at Ankor demonstrate how hard humans must work to tell their story. Thousands of slaves labored hundreds of years to build a stone representation of Hindu and Buddhist mythology. Simply keeping the landscape open to the public requires hundreds if not thousands of personnel: ticket takers, tuk-tuk drivers, stone masons, architectural archeologists, gardeners (remember when the world's largest religious monument was encountered again in the 1850's much of it was overgrown with brush as you will see in subsequent photos), artisans, performers and even monks and nuns who keep its history real reminding practitioners of the ritual and values long ago set in the stone of the now deccrepit structures.

Tomorrow I go with Matias and Tashi to Ankor Wat. We will spend the 25th exploring the remains of the world's largest religious structure. In the words of an American priest who lives here, "The world's largest monument to slave labor." Beauty can be so ugly.

Around the corner from the apartment is a lovely funeral parlor. Ready for use and on very visible display to the public are various kinds of coffins and a funerary transport... not quite a hearse. When they roll down the street loud music blares from the speakers. They travel so fast I haven't ever been able to get my camera out fast enough.

Uncle Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet loves the little child and leads her to a bright future.
Gallaudet University, Washington DC

Uncle Ho (Chi Minh) loves the little children and leads them to a bright future.
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Christmas in Ho Chi Minh City. This is outside one of the largest malls in HCMC. While Vietnam is a socialist nation, and after all according to Marx, "Religion is a drug" Christmas is a popular holiday and everyone brings their kids to these displays to take their pictures with the snow beasts. I don't understand it even the Catholics have plastic stars in their churches.

Ho Chi Minh City traffic at the Ben Tranh roundabout. People think crossing Dupont Circle is tough to cross. At least in Washington DC the circle has signals. The only way to cross this traffic is to step out into the street and trust that no one can afford to hit you.

I am back in Phnom Penh. I thank the Divine!

The entire Vietnam trip, though only two days in city was the exsperience of a lifetime. Three things learned very quickly. Use exact change, agree on price before an experience and never open your wallet in front of people trying to sell something.

This I first learned while sitting in a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City. A pregnant young woman selling a huge stack of books ambled in and offered to sell me any book she had. Interested in a Lao phrasebook (I learned some Lao while at BYU teaching English as a second language to Lao refugees) I asked how much while pulling out my wallet. She noted the number of bills in my wallet and grabbed a ten dollar bill and a 20,000 dong note (about $1.20.) Surprised I demanded the money back but she had already put it in her pants. The store value of the book was about $11.95 USD and should have sold on the street for half. She then tried to sell me a tour book on Laos for twice that much... bargaining ensued (giving me an opportunity to get "even.") I offered her $25 USD if she would give me my ten back... She retrieved the $10 and held it out while with my left handf I held the $25. Grabbing the $10 back. I pushed both books back to the sales person and refused to buy.

The street sales woman stood inf ront of me in the restaurant while I ate some Americanized version of anchovies and sweet sauce... Ugh. It was horrible food so it took me about half an hour for me to eat and she was there the entire time. She finally left me when I left the restaurant and walked directly into the Socialist Party branch office across the street. (I am not stupid... socialism scares the heck out of mini capitalists.)

Another stupid moment was when an older man offered me a cyclo ride (bicyclepushed rickshaw) to the War Remnants Museum (warning if you ever want to have nightmares... go to any war museum and look at their prison exhibits.. little did I know.) The gentleman pushed all 200 lbs. of me up a hill and on a busy street so I felt sorry for him and though we negotiated a 15,000 dong price for the ride I was willing to give him 20,0000 (80c for the first and $1.20 the second.) As I opened my wallet he demanded Dong 100,000 then Dong 200,000 ($6 USD and $12 USD) reached into my wallet and grabbed the 200,000 dong note.

As some of you may know I dislike intensely being touched unless its consensual (agreed upon by both parties). (smiles) Every other second a moto driver was grabbing me to ride with him. I have never been so grateful to be back in a temporary home like Phnom Penh. Here the drivers of both moto and tuk-tuk respect a simple no and acknowledge it with a smile. God bless them all.

I spent the day today wandering Ho Chi Minh City after Sunday services. Just getting to services by taxi was an experience since in Vietnam as in other places, sometimes folks build in cities without regard to municipal regulations and end up having the same address as others. There were two of the addresses I wanted to get two.... about three blocks away from each other. We arrived at the first and I knew that warn't where I wanted to be. So I instructed the taxi driver to move further downt he street. We did and found a second of the same address.

Walking around downtown was an experience in hellish maneuvering. Like Phnom Penh, Ho Chi Minh City has no rules about traffic that anyone obeys. But this city is as big as the whole of Cambodia. So there are zillions of motos ripping around everywhich way. To cross the street one need merely step out into the intersection and hope to not be run over. I almost was twice in two hours. Oh by the way, the best falafels I have ever tasted (ever) are to be had at 97 Nguc Pham Lao, HCMC. For three dollars I had hummous and salad and falafels and a Diet Coke. The tiny store was filled with obviously South Asian (Probably Pakistani or Bengladeshi) customers but the staff was clearly Vietnamese. If for no other reason come to HCMC for the falafels at Falafellim.

So Now I'm in Ho Chi Minh City. I'm typing from a lovely Vietnamese language keyboard with blogger (the web program that supports this blog) in Vietnamese. I'm screwy anyway I look at it. oh well. It was an eventful six hour bus trip from Phnom Penh to here. I saw many examples of the wooden architecture that the architects/archealogists talked about my first night here. (If there are typos here... blame the Viet nam ese keyboard.)

I'll put them up as soon as I get back Phnom Penh on Monday. The difference between the two cities is night and day. But regardless, I prefer Phnom Penh because I have friends who live there and it looks more like Santa Cruz Bolivia than Mexico City. Though the streets are cleaner here, the people seem more contemporary, still the sense of entitlement is greater here. Thanks for putting up with my rants..

The windows in the National Museum are shuttered by hand painted scenes from Hindu and Buddhist mythology. This in a edifice built by the French during the pre-independence occupation.
The outside of the shutters is ornately carved.

This is the Royal Palace where the present king and his parents live.
The National Museum was built in 1918 to house some of Cambodia's treasures.

The National Museum from the window of the apartment where Tashi lives and I am staying.

One of the things that helped the young Siddharta Gautama realize that his was not the only reality was that while driving around the city one day he glimpsed men in different conditions... sick, old and dead.
Today, and even in that day it wouldn't be so unusual for someone to see those conditions. After all another teacher, Jesus said, "The poor are always with you." But Gautama's father, a rich prince, had made every effort to prevent his son from seeing such dire conditions. He ordered that his son's carriage be veiled and that no one inside could see anything going on outside.

It was as a result of young Gautama's disobedience to his father that he decided he needed to leave his father's house and seek greater light. It is from that search that Gautama became enlightened and has since been called the Enlightened One, Buddha. Buddhist sects of different kinds build learning temples and worship temples to him around the world. Here is one, a 'Wat" near my Phnom Penh house. Every morning hundreds of monks and nuns leave to beg their sustenance and return for meditation, prayer and learning.

Some might be familiar with this particular kind of architecture. It seems way out of place here in Phnom Penh. In fact, it seemed so out of place that I immediately recognized it for what it was even though I had gotten completely lost in the city. Near the corner of Mao Tse Toung Blvd. and Street 63 I happened across this very large building. If you will double click the right hand column you will see the name of the building in Khmer. Khmer as you may know is the parent language of Lao and Thai. Both of the writing systems are descended from Khmer and their vocabulary is very similar to Khmer though both of them are tonal languages and Khmer (ever so gratefully) is not. Some might know I stumble around in Thai. When I get completely lost in Khmer (which is every 20 seconds) I default to Thai................... Ugh................ You may know the two kingdoms are at war and there isn't much more you can do to insult a Khmer than to mistake her or him for Thai. Oh well, so much for being bilingual.

Oh back to the bulding. Read the left column and you will see the name of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is the North District building for the church. There are about 2000 LDS people in Phnom Penh divided into two districts (diocese(s?) For those of you who aren't LDS, the building is classically Wasatch Front architecture except for the two stories. (Sigh, for those of us who aren't classically Wasatch Front the imposition of American culture on others has been a struggle.) Nevertheless, in church meetings Khmer LDS do keep a unique part of their culture. When beginning a talk they first clasp their hands in front of their chest or face and bow slightly in the traditional Khmer, Lao, Thai and Burmese way... called in Thai "wai." (There I go again inserting Thai into Khmer....sigh.)

The men of Sovanna Phum perform a part of Khmer mythology.

Meet my host and housemate! Tashi Bradford Nataluti is the linguist advisor to the Cambodian Sign Language dictionary project of the Deaf Development Program. She has had this role for the Vietnamese project as well, having spent four months two summers ago in Bien Hoa.

In Washington DC we shared a wonderful big apartment in the Adams Morgan neighborhood. Every time she went abroad or home to her parents during her Phd studies, I would fly in from Honolulu and take her place. It was a wonderful arrangement, although it didn't give us much time to get to know each other since we only saw each other as one was leaving or coming.

It's wonderful to get reacquainted with her and to work "together" at Deaf Development. We seem to come and go in much the same fashion as our DC housemating. I come to work after she arrives, usually about the time when she's leaving for meetings or lunch. She leaves in the middle of the CSL class I'm taking. More than that we only see each other over the dinner table.

On major intersections of Phnom Penh you can see sales of just about everything including "soda pop." I wouldn't drink this particular soda. In fact, if you aren't Khmer I would definitely ask before even buying from a "soda pop" sales person.

What's in the bottles here is gasoline. Gas is sold by the liter for moto drivers in need along with the two or four stroke oil that needs to be mixed in. In Phnom Penh even in the center city you can buy gas in this fashion...this stand happens to be at the corner of Mao Tse Toung and Phreah Norodom, a major intersection in the urban landscape.

A reminder. You can see the photos in greater detail by simply double clicking each photo.

Oh and please leave comments as we go along this fantastic little journey.

Phnom Penh is quite literally exploding with people. Every day new people from the countryside move to try their luck in the city. So, the city is overcrowded and getting moreso. Thus the gentrification of certain parts of the city has been inevitable.

In this picture you can see a larger number of cars than I ever see in a day's time. That's because this apartment block is across from one of the city's many open air markets. The real means of transpo around here are motorcycles (not much bigger or faster than my electric scooter back home.) or as taxis---tuk-tuks, motorycycles trailing a covered carriage. All in all whether getting around by bike, moto or tuk-tuk you can ride quite in fashion Khmer-style.

Every morning you can see hundreds of monks walking the streets, many carrying yellow or orange umbrellas. They stop occasionally, not to chat, but to beg their daily rice from shop owners, well-to-do visitors and just individuals ont he street. In this picture a sidewalk restauranteur literally offers this pair of teenage monks a bowl of rice apiece. (Cooked rice right out of her pot.) When their bowls are filled the monks offer a prayer with the donor and then walk on their way.) Every young man in the Thai and Cambodian Buddhist tradition spends at least some time in a monastery learning the basic principles of the religion and passing it on to others. (Sound familiar?)

Riding around the city you get to see the most interesting things. One of the major side streets in Phnom Penh runs along this canal. See the blobs in the water? Garbage. See the water draining into the canal? Toilet effluent. Yep, this is an open sewer. Like many developing countries Cambodia is still struggling to find a way to remove what remains after human use. BTW, in Cambodian Sign Language one does not call streets by their names (since many don't read), but by landmarks, hence this is Street that Stinks.

Those of you who know me and my wacko travels know that every time I land in a new city, I buy a bike. Most of the time it has been someone's old hybrid mountain/city bike (bike stores call them comfort bikes...you might realize that because I'm Japanese I'm a little uncomfortable calling anything "comfort" when it comes to things from Asia. If you don't know what I'm talking about read your Asian history from World War II.)

So coming to Phnom Penh was no different. I need to get around and I'm not particularly thrilled about spending a dollar a ride on a motodup (motorcycle taxi.) So, I bought a friendly Bridgestone counterfeit from China. A one speed with no center diamond (some would call it a women's bike) it's exactly like a thousand other bikes here in the city. It's a light shade of blue (I guess it could be called gray or some such) and had the equipment for a gray basket just like every other bike here, but it doesn't have one. That's why it cost me the outrageous sum of $30 USD. In this picture I'm standing with my Bridgestone counterfeit in front of the offices of Maryknoll's Deaf Development Program.

One cool part of the bike, and one reason I bought it is that it doesn't have a chain. Instead there's a latex or rubber band that winds gear-like between the pedals and the wheel. It is absolutely smooth and noiseless. It's da bomb. Phnom Penh is so flat that riding a bike is smooth as glass. Except...........

Phnom Penh traffic is anything but smooth. Riding here really does require the navigational skills of an Italian/Moroccan driver. Nothing anyone or anything says or does changes people's determination to get from one place to another in the most direct manner here. That includes riding or driving on the wrong side of the road (although even that seems to have some logic...more on this in a second.) People ignore traffic signals as if they were simple admonitions to eat their vegetables. The only thing that impedes most scooterists and bicyclists is the presence of something in front of them. Therefore maneuvering to get in front of other vehicles is the name of traffic game here. People stick themselves into the middle of traffic right or left of them as if it were a football game and it's 3rd and forty and the only way to stop the ball is to commit an offside and not get caught.

On riding on the wrong side of the road here. Folks who moto or bike on wrong side of the road seem to do it simply to get from a left turn into the flow of traffic in their direction (so rather than cross traffic they simply ride into it for a short time.) Another reason to ride on the wrong side is turning left into parking. It's not wise to stop or slow down in the midst of traffic here. One is liable to incur the wrath of the entire your-direction-bound-flow of traffic. So it's easier to move into oncoming traffic and maneuver as quickly as possible to the curb on your left and then make your turn. Oncoming traffic respects the maneuver by simply pulling left of you so as not to force you to face traffic directly. (Makes sense when you see it.)

• 

• Cultural events keep coming. Tashi and I went to see what we thought would be a shadow puppet performance by a wonderful troop Savanaphom(sic?) We really wanted to see the story of Hanuman, a Hindu hero who leads a monkey army to defeat a demon king, Ravana. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanuman) Instead, we g0t to see a wonderful percussion performance including several dances and a monkey rampage skit/dance performed without the traditional masks.
  

Then, on an opposite end of the cultural spectrum we went to Miss Cindy's Bar to see young performers in drag belt out (if lipsynching can be belted) in Mandarin, Cantonese and English various numbers. The interesting part of this was catching them trying to synch without understanding a single word. (Ahem, mostly it didn't work except in this pictured number were two women fight over a boyfriend.)

It's Saturday by Phnom Penh standards. The Tashi-sis dragged me out to breakfast at the local market and we had a fish, beef, pork, noodle soup. I wouldn't normally eat that much meat in one setting, but what the heck. I am here to experience Kampuchea and Kampchuea will teach me experience.

Where I am staying is on a major tourist thoroughfare and so I see Americans every 20 seconds. Last night Tashi and I attended a presentation at a Rockefeller Foundation sponsored arts installation on historic wood architecture in Kampuchea (Cambodia). Wood was the prototype for all architecture here, including the temples at Ankor Wat. The Royal Palace across the street was originally a cement and stone walled collection of wooden buildings including the throne room which was open to the outside so the public could view the audiences going on inside.

This is a picture of post-colonial architecture made of brick and stucco much prized by Cambodians today. It is the Council of Ministries building which is opposite the Royal Palace to my right. I just had seen some of the American tourists I keep talking about try to ride into the Palace grounds with moped. (See my red face?) The palace police were roundly reprimanding the young folks, but in a typically Khmer way by smiling and saying no.... I'm sure you can all relate to how some people take smile to mean yes, but accompany it with the word "No" and you have just about thrown any American off. (Big smile here.)

The lecturers last night detailed how they had taken a wooden house being vacated by its owners apart dowel by dowel and plank by plank and moved it several hundred kilometers to Siem Riep (the modern town near Ankor Wat.) They then reassembled the whole thing, plank by plank including its stilt-like columns supporting the whole house about three meters (ten feet) off the ground. The entire structure was made by wood pre-1950 and now was reassembled in toto with the exception of the kitchen which was built ground level with stucco and brick. In previous times almost all houses were built several feet above ground to avoid the problem of flooding. Because the architecture was very open incluidng the floors and the rooms, the building was always cooler than the outdoors because of the roof but at the same time comfortable because of the breezes that flow unimpeded through the house from the floor and the windows. The current British owner of the house (an " preservationist and museum archealogist) says the only changes made to the structure in its current location were the kitchen and the 42" flat screen television he has. (OH must we all have the creature comforts?)

I have arrived safe and sound in Phnom Penh. It's a great joy to see my housemate Tashi Bradford again. (We shared a house in Washington DC for three or four years ... though we never lived together since I would come to stay whenever she went abroad or to her family's home.) It was a great way to split a house.

The trip here was marvelous. Simply marvelous. I took off 9 a.m. Wednesday morning from Honolulu having had only 1 1/2 hours of sleep the night before. Ten hours later I was in Narita Japan Thursday at 1 p.m. (Wonderful how jet lag is huh.)
Given that Japan is wice.as densely populated as the United States is, you would think that the whole country is one big city. Instead, as you land in Narita you see miles on miles of farmland. I found a way to spend a six hour layover from an internet site called Mike Newman's Narita Layover Page. You can access is at www.mgnewman.com.

I had a wonderful day today. Most of it was spent in a tube hurtling towards Japan. Once I got there I was overwhelmed by my previous experience at the airport when a facilities specialist (aka a woman responsible for cleaning) told me i must be mentally retarded 'cuz I didn't speak the linguo. Now I was there mid-day and everyone spoke English. I was embarrassed again that I don't speak Japanese, though nearly everything everyone said to me was crystal-clear.

I took a walk around Narita town, window-shopping and looking at Naritasan temple. I'm exhausted so I will load the pics I took tomorrow...

Here are my best little friends. Miki Dee and Fossil. A friend from college reminded me that the bears remind me of the goodness of childhood and that even in hard times as a child Someone watched over me and still does.

Miki Dee and Fossil love reading books about other animals.