Kids on the block

I have to write again. It's been such a good day. Whole PP seems to be in a good mood today. I tried smiling for the first time in while when dealing with the tuk-tuk drivers and I'll be damned, it worked! The guy said, okay, with your smile, 2 dollars less. I was trying to get to the Killing fields where the Khmer Rouge slaughtered people. It's a peaceful place now but you can still see bones and clothing everywhere.

The drivers was good (meaning quite). No weird laughs or creepy pick up lines! Just the basic questions. Excellent!

Yesterday I went to visit an orphanage. The kids were extremely sweet and nice. But I realized that I'm really not good with kids!

When the guy working there had giving me tour in the place, he was like, okay, now you can go play with the kids. I freaked! What do I do? Every time I meet a child, I try to have a conversation with them. I ask what do they wanna do when they grow up, what kind of movies they like etc. But if their English is limited to very basics, I'm totally lost. But this guy there told me there's hope. It just takes a bit getting used to.

Because it was Christmas and all that I bought them rice for 30 dollars. I have to say that made me feel good. Even if I'm totally handicapped with playing, at least I can give them food.

One kid I do get a long with is this girl selling books on the street where my hostel (if you can call that crappy place that) is. When I first met her, she looked really starving and I bought her a bunch of bananas. Ever since we been on good terms. Last night she came to sit with me while I was having dinner. She was just smiling, drawing and drinking an orange juice. I think she didn't like it but was trying to be polite.

I asked her how old she was and I hope she answered wrong. She showed me that she is 13. That freaks me out because to me she looked more like 10. But then again, I don't know anything about kids.

That's the benefit of staying in one place for a while. You are a familiar face. I guess I shouldn't be so negative towards people approaching me. If they don't touch me (some do) I am fine. Anyways, in Finland I will probably miss people telling me I'm beautiful on the street.

Ps. Heli! Ostin just Valkoiset hampaat divarista! Tuli fiilis, etta se ois kiva lukea taas ja alkuperaiskielella... Meilaile, babe!

WTF?

I was planing on not writing for a couple of days but I really have to tell you guys about my Christmas Eve. Around seven o'clock when I got back to my hostel I heard music from the bar. I went to see what's happening and to my surprise there was a band playing and people singing in stupid Christmas costumes. Kids were running around, people were eating, drinking and dancing. Everything, including the Buddhist altar was decorated with neo lights and all kinds of other Christmas shit.

There was maybe 15 of us, who were guest at the hostel. Rest of the maybe hundred people there t were the people working there, their families and friends. There was a Santa Claus and he was dirty dancing with a Japanese tourist. Maybe it was the traditional Khmer herbs but, damn that was fun!

After a while I was convinced that I need a hamburger. Yesterday it seamed like a really funny idea (many things did) to eat a hamburger on Christmas eve. Well, after that and a few beers I was ready for bed. I think this was around ten o'clock or something. I think the party went on for several hours.

Season greetings.

This is me dressed as a Khmer. I'm celebrating the holidays a.k.a taking a foot massage in one of my favorite capitals, Phnom Penh. In a couple of days I'm heading to Laos.

Take care!

These things happen

Eventually Karma did permit to arrive to Battanbang. It is a very idyllic town by the river. However, my main reason coming here was the boat ride from Siem Reap. It is supposed to be great and I guess it was. I have no clue. I just tried to sleep. I was cold, tired and had a food poisoning. Nice.

And got the T-shirt

Hanne and Stine and the actual Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat was surprisingly extreme sight seeing. In the picture Stine, who is 21 today!

The enigmatic Bayon-faces, as Lonely Planet would say...

The original Tomb Raider temple! Jungle versus stone and all that shit.

Well, it was cool, all of it. But I don't think I will be seeing any more temples before Myanmar, or something. Tomorrow Battambang, if karma is on my side.

Joku sentaan toimii taallakin

So the link for my, well, if not favorite band, at least the dearest one, works now. Wheel down with the mouse and check it out.

See me laughing?

Funny anecdote about Cambodia: http://www.viceland.com/int/v13n10/htdocs/cambodia.php?country=se

I'm in Siam Reap now, with my two Danish friends. Tomorrow we're gonna do Angokor wat, like our American friends would say.

Peace, homies.

Ps. What the hell is with me and linking? It fucks the whole blog up. Sorry about that.

English as a second language and a few words on Cambodia

Some of you might have noticed that I started to write in English. In a way it's a shame and perhaps a lost for my Finnish audiences since I'm far better expressing myself in Finnish. And for you native speakers my language might come across as a bit dull. But it's such a great for the people I have met on the trip to follow my adventures (well...) that I decided to give it a go.

On this trip I have received tons of compliments for my English, made a lot of weird mistakes and formed a few very meaningful relationships in English. One odd thing is that I haven't noticed it developing that much. I haven't learned that many new words or anything. I still have my bad days when my sentences are two-word long ones.

And I still have an American accent, though I never even been to the States and I think I will continue saying pants, not trousers for the rest of my life. I will never get the spelling right either, but neither do the native speakers!

I also have come to fully appreciate subtitles since they are the sole reason why my English is close to fluent. I have met a lot of, for example Germans, whose English has been worse than my German!

Where ever you travel in Asia, you see adds looking for English teachers. In China, native speaking is required and the teachers are usually paid something. Here just good English would be enough but you probably work in different conditions than in China. Any ways, everywhere people are eager to learn English since they are very eager to get jobs in some other field than in farming. At first that sounds a bit rough but on the other hand, I have nothing against the idea that as many people as possible are able to communicate with one language. I don't see being bilingual as a thread to cultures.

When talking about this subject some wise-asses have brought up the fact that there are more mandarin Chinese speakers in the world that there are English speakers. True. But if you count the people who have English as a second language... And one thing you can not ignore is that the world already has a huge English teaching system, it's called the American entertainment industry. The down side of course is that too much of it is shit, brain washing people to admire American way of living and adapt the twisted morality behind it all...

Well, anyways. Enough of that. I'm here in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia (I came here via Kep, a small coastal town). So it must the time to say the words every traveler coming here says. I can't believe that people who are so poor and have suffered so much, can seem so happy!

A few days ago I went to Suol Sleng museum. It's former high school which the Khmer Rouge turned to a prison. Now it's full of mugshot pictures of the people held there. Most of them got brutally murdered after torture. Everybody has some one in their family, who got killed during Pol Pot regime. And they have 20 psychiatrist in the whole country. I hope religion or some thing like that is helping the people cope with that.

Cambodians take great pride in their history and culture. After all, they build Angkor Wat! And it's the biggest thing around. They remind me of Mongolians, to who Chinngis Khaan is still everything. If a country is poor and has a suffered a lot, I guess it's a good thing they have something like that, even in the distant past.

All in all, this is a nice place. The food is good - I think better than Thai, weather is hot and views beautiful. If I could delete the moto drivers, the land mines and the possibility of buying an AK-47 for couple of bucks, I could see myself living here!

Extra day in Kampot

So. Today I decided to spend a day more here in Kampot. Small town near to coast of Cambodia. There is nothing to do here but the place has some nice restaurants and for some reason, the fastest Internet in South-east Asia. It's also very beautiful.

Yesterday I went to Bokor hill station. It's a ghost town in the jungle. There is a huge hotel-casino, build in the forties, but nobody has used in it's original purpose in a quite a while. And the Khmer Rouge used to through people off a cliff there so it's supposed to be haunted. Well, don't know about that, I just ate best curry in my life there.

The trip was good but because of it every muscle in my body is aching. The drive there was about two hours trough the jungle, on a pick up, on the bumpiest road I've ever been on, in my life. So basically you had to cling on for your life. And of course, the driver was completely crazy.

Lately I've been thinking about traveling a lot. At some point I have to figure out how I get home. And when. I have to consider the fact that at some point I will get tired of :

• caring everything I own in a 55 l. backpack


• answering the questions where you from, what is your name, are you traveling alone etc. a couple of times a day.


• constantly thinking what people want from me (money, sex or both)


• hearing the phrase (insert a country) is so much better than (insert a country), people are friendlier etc. from my fellow travelers. The truth is, people are friendly everywhere here. Sadly, because of huge cultural differences and their often poor English good conversations with them are rare. Or maybe it's because I'm a stupid Westerner and not trying hard enough. I don't really care.


• missing my friends


• missing Europe

My plans keep changing every day. I have no idea where I'm gonna be for Christmas, new years or my birthday. I decided not to give as shit. Maybe on Christmas eve I'll be on a bus where nobody knows or cares that it's Christmas or go to bed early and try not to think about it. Francisco promised to call me. One thing I hope though, is that I will be some where I can listen to Pilsators Christmas album on-line!

Today's change of plans was that I'm not gonna meet my friend Lilli in Thailand. She's going to Koh Chang, where I've already been. But on the other hand, it made my plans in other ways easier. I also got a email from my danish friends, that I'll meet them in Phnom Phen. That's the way it goes, I guess.

Ja kaikki rakkaani Helsingissa ja maailmalla. Pitakaamme kaikki tahoillamme hiljainen hetki Maatushkan muistoksi. Kylla siina olin kuitenkin hieno baari. Lue uutinen myos uutinen: http://www.hs.fi/kaupunki/artikkeli/Tulipalo+vaurioitti+baaria+Fleminginkadulla/1135223559169

Timing is everything

Just when I thought everything is going perfectly. For once, the guest house the taxi droppes me off to is nice and cheap amd I all ready have few contacts in the place I arrived to, I get email from my danish friend that she just got to Sihanoukville. Can you belive that?

Anyway, it's still good. Wondering why I'm writing my blog so much? Well, it's just too damn hot to do anything else!

Today

...I just spend my day on the beach -again. I belong to the half of the world that wants to get browner. It is so odd. Every girl who wants to give me a manicure, massage or shave my legs with a string is telling me "oh, your so beautiful, so white". I'm looking at their skin with envy. Nobody is happy.

The one practical thing I had to do was to go to the ATM down town. Unfortunately you need to deal with the moto drivers for that and the prices are like in Helsinki's public transportation.

I met a really nice lady from Australia yesterday. Unfortunately, it turned out she is a midwife and had worked for the Red Cross and everything. So I'm confused again. The one thing I was fairly sure of was that I won't go back to midwife school. Now I don't know. Maybe I should just be a good traveler and when I go home, focus all my energy and time on my next trip. South-America, baby!

For my Finnish audience

Hyvaa itsenaisyyspaivaa kaikille!

Story time

Just because Internet is cheap here I'm gonna tell you all a story the Finnish bartender, Billy, told me yesterday here in my guesthouse in Sihanouk ville. If you consider being very PC important, please don't read.

So, the story takes place in Pori - small Finnish town I guess in the begin of the 90's.

Billy is a bit drunk (ihan vittu tuhannen kannissa), coming home from a bar. He decides to take taxi from the market square. He tells the driver that he doesn't have any money now but asks him politely to drive to an ATM first. The driver's like "Get the fuck out of my car, you poor ass mother fucker". So Billy gets out and walks a kilometer or so to the nearest ATM takes out couple of hundred marks. That was more than enough for the cab ride.

Then he walks back to the square and there are a few cabs waiting for customers. The one he tried to get into was the third in line. He goes to the cab first in line and tells the driver "I don't have any money, but I give great blow jobs and you can even fuck me if you want." The drivers tells him to get fuck out of there. He goes to the second one and says the same thing. The driver tells him to fuck off.

So he goes to the third cab in line, the one he tried to get in to before. He just shows him the money and tells the address. The cab driver starts driving.

The same guy is organizing a chicken shit bingo here tonight. Everybody is welcome.

Dead Kennedys

So, after bunch of uninteresting events I found myself in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. This is a place where the bartender speaks fluent Finnish. And most of the clientele as well. For my defence, I have to say I really wasn't looking for that. But it was cool. Met nice people and found a English-Finnish bar called Bar-Baari. Sounds horrible for all you hard core travelers out there, I know. But it's always nice to use the most beautiful language around.

Today I went to check out how the khemers really live. That means taking the bamboo train. Which is a motor bike powered resina. (I hope that is English word as well...) Basically just couple of boards on really old tracks. Like a roller coaster without the ups and downs. That was something! On the way back I was in a car with 14 other people. Safety really isn't a the biggest issue here....

Well, I always start writing when I'm hungry. Gotta run for Tanja's sausage soup. Still staying away from happy meals, I hope.

Every sky is blue, but not for me and you

...come home soon (where ever that may be)