an eclipse.

i’m having one of those moments, one of those nights where i feel incredibly restless, slightly annoyed and altogether just uncomfortable.

the unusual and unexpected chill which has suddenly taken hong kong in its grip may have some part to blame….mind you it’s around 10 degrees outside but for some reason it is FUREAKING cold as in i can barely feel my fingers as i type and i’m wearing about 4 layers but still shivering – what the HECK??! i’m from CANADA..this ain’t supposed to be something new..but i guess without my inventory of warm, fleecey clothing that i left back home…it just ain’t the same hence the current status of freezing-arss-off.

anyways, for some reason my mind has been going on a series of introspective trips lately.  i’m finding myself questioning exactly who i am allowing myself to become, digesting some of the experiences that i’ve had more recently and altogether i’m finding it more and more uncomfortable living the way that i do…day in and day out.

 

i think moreso than anything after visiting the orphanage in cambodia and being exposed to vietnam and allowing myself to get lost in these foreign landscapes…i’ve been struck – as if by a train – by a numbing sense of:

uselessness.

i feel as if my life, currently and considering how i live it – is of virtually zero value to anyone else but myself.

a bit harsh…and i’m not trying to beg for reassurance, sympathy or anything of that sort.  it’s a sobering realization and perhaps it’s steeped in exaggeration and maybe i’m just being melodramatic. but the feeling is there and it really does haunt me.  i feel an itch..maybe the flickering of a restless flame which seems to beg to be released…i sound like a cheeseball but bear with me.  i really want to do more for this world.  for the people that have allowed their lives to align and enrich my own with their warmth, passion for life and love.  i want to demonstrate selflessness and somehow allow the training, education and experience that i’ve gathered and will gather in this life time stimulate some change in my community – for there to be some value-added to others beyond the typical pursuit of financial stability and success that i seem to have aligned my feet towards.

i have this indelible thirst to jump out into the world and do something. make a difference. fulfill my promise to the kids i met in cambodia of coming back….helping them along – somehow…how do i begin? where can i even start?

i remember approaching the orphanage in siem reap feeling a bit sheepish…it was pouring rain and i had convinced my travel-mates to tag along on this random pursuit that had suddenly sprung up – i wanted to visit a local cambodian orphanage and bring some treats for the kids…everyone was kind enough to agree and we had spent a good hour at the market trying to get the most and best quality fruits, bread, soccer balls, soap and rice that we could muster..but it was our last day in cambodia and there was a slew of other things that we could’ve been doing.  add to the mix the fact that a torrential downpour decided to coincide with our journey to the orphanage which of course was not accessible by normal roads….in fact, the road to the place was recently destroyed by flooding so all that was there was a muddy mess…our tuktuk got stuck on the way there and i remember a sinking feeling sitting on my chest as i trudged through the foot-deep dredge of clay-like mud on feet towards the orphanage wondering what i had gotten myself and everyone else into….:(

however, once we arrived at the place there was no doubt in my mind that it was probably one of the best ideas that we had had as a group throughout the entire ten day trip.  the kids were unrelentingly warm and excited to see us.  i remember perry, jax and the other girls offering to wash our muddy feet right when we arrived..i politely opted to run my feet under a hose instead…and within minutes i was taken by both hands (a little chain of girls on both sides) to their own rooms. about 4 girls live in a room that is a tiny bit bigger than the ‘closet’ of a room i have back home and the divides between their own territory are marked by the ending of their sleeping quilt.  each girl might have their own entourage of stuffed animals, toys, miscellaneous treasures all kept in their own space.

it took so much to hold it together as i was brought to each little girl’s space and they would show me certain paintings or keepsakes dear to them.  perry had a little book of sketchings she kept adding to and after seeing how her eyes lit up with spark as i praised her work and slowly flipped my way through her work…savouring each page and detail…my heart continually broke and broke into more and more pieces….one for each of the kids that i met and that allowed me into their lives for a brief moment in time.

how can people who have so little be so generous with their hearts?

what is it like to grow up without parents to encourage/praise your achievements and accomplishments as a child?

the orphanage was a new start-up and beyond receiving a small plot of land to build and house the kids…the owner lamented that government support had dried up – due to the corrupted nature of cambodian politics – and the financing situation of the place was unstable as they lacked the regular and consistent donors to sustain the place properly – therefore they scrounged on a month-to-month basis to meet the needs of the kids…so far they were making it but the instability showed in the weariness surrounding her eyes as she told her story.

these kids have so much passion and vigor for life.  their eyes dance with a love and appreciation for the world that i rarely see.  it was overwhelming to later sit and imagine the incredible things that these kids could do given the adequate support, education and resources to achieve their dreams.  boundless.

i can’t sleep sometimes thinking about them….i wonder if perry has kept up with drawing and i wonder if they kept the bracelets we gave them…i wonder if how and when i’ll be able to see them again and i wonder at how i can even begin to help them.

the itch is there and it’s uncurable methinks.  i will go back.  this is a promise i will keep .

returning to vancouver….part of me feels like i want to shed this old skin.  there is something inherently rotten about the way that i typically allow myself to think and conduct my life…something forever steeped in selfishness and emptiness.

how do i start? am i going nuts? whaaat the. blah.

cambodia (yes finally)

i know it’s been almost a month…actually it’s probably BEEN a month and a bit but i refuse to calculate!!! hehe

alright … moving along!

the trip to cambodia featured a 13+ hour bus-ride from ho chi minh city – due to our newbness in planning our trip..we had conceived that it wasn’t possible to take a bus from hanoi to siem reap (it actually was) so we bought plane tickets cheap from jetstar to ho chi minh city and from there we crossed our fingers that we would be able to get a bus out to cambodia.  thankfully, it proved to be quite easy to do so…there were numerous travel agencies just outside of our hostel in ho chi minh and we eventually just bought tickets off our hostel owner who coordinated the whole shindig for us (and thankfully did a pretty good job).

so the bus was set to depart at 830 and as a result…we set our alarms at 7 – set on getting up, having time to get ready, eat breakfast etc…BUT for some reason we all slept through our alarms…ended up getting up around 815 to the sounds of our worried hostel owner banging on our room door…BOOKED it like no other to the bus and feeling groggy/gross/nasty/tired/blah we set off for cambodia.

ended up crossing the border about 3 hours in and going through the cambodia border crossing was a lot less painful than the vietnam customs because our bus drivers just filled out all our forms super quick and processed the paperwork…it was PRETTY sweet.

first thing we did after crossing the border was eat at a sketchy joint a couple minutes past the border crossing.  during travelling – it’s an interesting process to submit yourself to trusting in the good intentions of complete strangers – like our tourbus guides.  we had to switch buses a couple times during the trip…when we finally made it to phnomh penh (which i really wished that we had had time to see because i’m reeally wanted to see the remnants of the pol pot regime but time was not on our side) we had to switch to another tour bus that was half-full that would bring us the rest of the way to siem reap.

cambodia is marvelous, the place has an inexplicable charm and magic to the land.  something that simultaneously allures you…yet beckons you to approach with caution – the land is tainted with a terrible past yet the beauty in the cambodian people is everywhere to be seen.

anyways when we finally arrived in siem reap – mind you in a half-awake stupor…i was drifting in a current of sleep/being awake throughout the whole trip there…night had already fallen and to our surprise…vincent OF COURSE was a superstar and had secretly made plans with our hostel (the siem reap hostel) to send a taxi to the bus station and sure enough a taxi-driver waved us down upon our arrival and we were greeted with a cooler of angkor beer as we made our way to our resting place.

the siem reap hostel was definitely by far my favorite hostel for many reasons: 1) the owners made a concerted effort to ensure that the hostel was truly cambodian in that the construction company contracted was a local firm, the materials were all from the native land and lastly the vast majority of the staff were locals. 2) there was an indoor pool (which we didn’t end up using but meh schmeh still cool to see) 3) it was clean and the room was large compared to our hostel in ho chi minh 4) i’m biased because i was so enchanted by cambodia in general

that first evening we befriended a girl travelling by herself from Britain who had arrived the night before…and headed to pub street – a mecca of tourists and travellers which seems to fuel the economy of the city for the most part -just a brief 10 minute walk away.  i had my first and farrrr from last taste of cambodian amok that first night…along with fresh spring rolls – absolutely heavenly.

the next morning we met our tuktuk driver saron…he had a colorful yet tragic past…we would soon find out.  nevertheless we headed straight to the temples on our tuktuk (a cart that can seat about 4 people…in cambodia and thailand pulled by a motorcycle).

incredible.

i’ll let the pictures do the talking because for the most part what we did at the temples was pay homage to the illustrious ruins that we were able to see.  we avoided angkor wat the first day because we decided to come back early the next morning to watch the sunset but even visiting the other smaller temples and the temple where tomb raider was filmed….i was in awe.  these ruins were firstly enormous..entire cities reduced to the city walls which remain in some cases remarkably in tact…you can’t help but marvel at the spectacular detailed carvings which line the walls through and through. it was alike nothing i’ve ever seen before and i developed a deep respect for the cambodian culture having the opportunity to walk through, to see and touch the past and imagine how grand the ruins must have been hundreds of years ago.

tbcontinued….

macau

dear jenn,

please write your cambodia post because the details are beginning to slip your mind…you lazy slug.

MACAU tmr =)

 

love, your conscience

dust in the wind.

we are all dust in the wind.

nevertheless, it is a relief to be absent.  a patient to the numbing effect.  treat this like an opportune fracture in time that allows one to step out of the eye of the storm for a moment and observe the collision of currents we have allowed to carry us up to this point.

ho chi minh city

we flew into ho chi minh city in southern vietnam, one cloudy Wednesday afternoon and peeking through the window as we drove into the city it was a bit relaxing to realize that the flurried swarm of motorcycles which swirled and seemed to skew my view of hanoi had calmed a bit…ho chi minh city is a more tame less wild version of hanoi – for better of worse.

our hostel, my my arthouse, was literally a hole-in-the-wall.  the service was undoubtedly great as we were quickly snapped out of our post-flight stupor by the crackling wit and sharp business sense of our hostess who helped us quickly book a bus the next morning to Siem Reap (we hadn’t been able to do so beforehand and the flights were quiiite pricey so we were gambling that we’d be able to secure a shuttle to Cambodia) and also give us instructions on how to go about a walking tour of the city – considering we only had a scarce day in hcmcity we wanted to make the most of it.

we had some pho at pho hui (as recommended by the hostess) and it was … epic.  the beef was still red and raw but as the soup was steaming hot..it quickly cooked and my mind was officially blown.  albeit my mango shake suucked…i don’ t understand why people mix fruit with dairy products..it’s just always a no-go plz and thanks.

anyways it was a HOT day…upwards 30 degrees…so we sought refuge in the war remnants museum…although the venue didn’t have air conditioning…and i was dripping in sweat by the end…we spent a good afternoon examining the different exhibits and artifacts from war.

there is always a certain mystique and alluring tragedy which draws me in about wars.  something so fundamentally evil and brutal yet innate and resurfacing in our interactions with each other since the beginning of time.  we allow our differences to become wedges of hatred.

what struck me the most were the agent orange pictures.  countless snapshots of the indirect victims of the vietnam war.  bodies brutally deformed beyond recognition.  missing limbs, sunken faces, shriveled joints.  it was appallingly sad.  and i felt myself choking back tears as i came closer to these portraits and realized how recent they were…that a war that happened more than 40 years ago still trembles and haunts it’s victims to this day.

anyways, since i have so much to say about cambodia…i won’t dwell on ho chi minh too much..we ended the night by visiting a night market, seeing a ridonkulously chubby/adorable baby on the way, befriending some of the merchants and bargaining up a storm and then awkwardly showering with the see-through glass door graciously provided by MyMy ArtHouse Hostel..haha awwwwkward.

one thing – one of the workers heather and i were able to chat with…she was so drawn to heather because she could speak korean (had worked there for 5 months beforehand) and we found out that she actually had a baby daughter in a surrounding town that she barely ever saw because she had to work to pay off her various debts.  apparently, her husband’s family hated her and had thrown her out after they had had a falling out and she had been forced to part with her baby daughter. it was heart-breaking listening to her tear up as she explained that her daughter upon seeing her had told her to “go away” because she no longer recognized her mother…i didn’t know what to say at the time so i just sat for hours listening to her and looking at the small snapshots she had captured of her baby stored on her cellphone in silent empathy.