SCUBA

Nah Trang is an odd city in the middle of Vietnam. I’d found my way there to do a SCUBA certification course, something I was pretty excited about. I’d dived only once before, in the Virgin Islands on vacation with my family. For the life of me, I can't remember how much I actually learned about SCUBA in the Virgin Islands. I member our instructor telling us about "blood, bones, and air" but he kept it super general. And I don't remember much about entering and exiting the water. When I think back to those two dives my family did, I remember floating among the beautiful and fascinating coral and the strange sound of breathing in and out of the regulator. 

In Nah Trang, I learned a bit more than that. And actually made it through the course. This writer is now a certified beginner diver, certified to dive up to 18 meters. 

I've learned a lot about the more technical things. How to set up the BCD and regulator, about how to know how deep you can go for how long, how long to wait for the next dive. Now I know what to do if I run out of air, and my buddy can't be reached. I've learned about temperature changes in water, and different health risks related to diving (did you know that there is something called nitrogen narcosis that hits you when you get to a depth of 30 meters. You start to act all irrational and silly. Basically, you're high--which freaks some people out, but others love it). During the first dive, floating around in the ocean at 8 meters deep, I understood why people do this for a living. It's so beautiful down there. And it's so peaceful. All you need to do is simply float along and keep breathing and everything will be alright. 

In Nah Trang, the water is so very blue. It's bright like a crystal and unbelievably clear, Putting my head in the water, I can see the coral very easily. It's not too deep where I'd been diving. The first few moments of descent were still a little scary for me. It was so tempting to hold my breath as I began to go down and water crept up to my ears and eyes and over my head. But with the regulator in my mouth, all I had to do is breathe and relax. Being in the water is really cool, even though I'm not very adept at directing myself and controlling my movements yet.

Sound travels fast in the water, so everything sounds strange.

But I love how it sounds. First, there is the ever-present sound of my regulator, the sound of my breath wheezing in and bubbling out. Then there is the crackling. The water is a live with cracks and pops, perhaps the feeding and breathing of marine life all around me. And last is the far off sound of waver, the great deep movement of water, crashing and tumbling way above.

Among Hmong Mountains

Fog rolled into the valley the way a horse gallops. It blew in thick and billowy and sudden, enveloping the world before my eyes. I hadn't had much of a view before, but now my world narrowed into a white mist tunnel. There was the narrow track I was following, a low stone wall to one side, and the vague impression of the packs on the backs of my friends strung out in front of me.

Marveling for perhaps the hundredth time at the beauty of the landscape before me, I kept walking. It was day two of a five day four night trek my friends and I were doing in Sapa, a small town far north in Vietnam. It didn't take long for the mountains to steal my breath. Riding in a van along a bumpy and windy country road from the Lao Cai train station to Sapa a few nights ago, I'd stared out the window, enchanted by the steep green mountainsides and the great terraced rice fields molded into the slopes.

But right then, I couldn't see any of that. It was just me, my pack, the rocky mud track, and the fog.

I'd set off that morning from the small house of our trekking guide, host, and how near friend Mai. Upon arriving in Sapa, we'd met up with Mai and her mom, finalizing our plans for a 5 day trek. The next day, we'd shouldered our newly lightened packs, having left most of our things behind and taken only what we'd need for the next days, we set off. That morning we walked up, up into the mountain tops, up into the clouds.

For travelers in Vietnam, Sapa is a popular place for treks. It's beautiful, but its also where you go to learn about the ethnic minorities in Vietnam. The country has over 50 ethnic minorities scattered throughout the provinces. In Sapa, seven or eight of these peoples can be found in the surrounding villages. It is these people who sell handicrafts in Sapa and who lead treks.

Mai is a Hmong woman. She is thirty years old. She has four kids. She leads treks, makes and sells hand woven and embroidered belts, pouches, and bags in Sapa, farms rice and corn, and loves her children dearly.

If you saw her in Sapa, you probably wouldn't be able to pick her out. The town is filled with young women from the Hmong tribe and other tribes trying to make a living. Most days she wears a traditional Hmong jacked, pants, and leg wrappings, often with a t-shirt underneath. Her fingers are decorated with gold and silver rings her husband makes. He also makes bracelets, beautiful earring, and the silver clips Mai uses to wrap her hair simply around her head.

During that first day, we we trekked up and up and then down on steep rocky tracks and slighter wider dirt roads, Mai was no the only Hmong woman walking with us. There were actually half a dozen Hmong women who joined our group, walking up the steep road with us towards home. We spent the afternoon together, talking, laughing, asking questions. Two of these women carried babies on their backs and we learned about childcare among the Hmong. Two little girls led the way, confidently stepping along the mountain roads. Us westerners bought various things from our new friends before parting ways. (That was most of the reason, I'm sure, why they followed us for so long, but besides some beautifully embroidered things, we left those women after a great afternoon of conversation, laughter, and cultural exchange).

I met many women throughout the trek eager to sell something to us, but they were always just as eager to laugh with us, and point around the mountain valleys, telling us something of their home. One woman, Zoa, with a voice like a songbird, spent an afternoon walking with me, pointing out parts of the valley. Her english was limited, but the words she did know sprang from her mouth like birdsong, twittering and fluttering through the air. She pointed out water buffalo and the mountain path and different villages. It was a good way to spend an afternoon of walking, talking with a new friend.

Up in the Hmong mountains, clouds roll in easily. But every now and then the sky clears up, the fog rolls out. And a beautiful world is revealed.

In the mornings, I sipped coffee while admiring the mountain view. Often, the clouds were lifted in the mornings, letting sunlight stream in, filled the world with color. Every morning, I was reminded how beautiful this place was. The green, soft mountains. The geometry of the rice fields. The distant water falls that whispered or roared. The near laughter of village children.

The mountains were so filled with life, with good, strong, green growing things, and healthy people.

In the evenings, it got dark quickly. And thunder and lighting danced in the skies. It rained every night, filling the dark world with dampness. And I fell asleep to the percussion the rain played against the tin roofs. Rain reminded me of how wild this place still was, how fragile these lives are.

Walking on the second day of the trek, I was surrounded by the fog. Emptying the bowl of coffee I had sipped from that morning, I'd lifted my pack, ready to begin a long day. We were headed to another village, but on the way we would stop and visit one of Mai's family members.

Her grandmother.

It was nearly noon. We'd been walking for a few hours, and the fog had only just started to thin. Mai brought us to her grandmother's house. She left us waiting outside while she stepped in to ask if we could visit. A few minutes later we were all seated inside the dark and smokey house.

There was a cook fire blazing inside, over it were set several pots, and beside the fire sat Mai's grandmother.

She's a tiny woman, like all Hmong. Thin. Wrinkled. But only slightly worn from time. In fact, she looked very, very healthy considering her age.

Mai's grandmother is 120 years old.

I had found myself sitting in the little mountain house of a 120 year old woman.

An hour passed inside that house. We talked while Mai translated, asking questions of the grandmother's life, her family, how things have changed over time. The grandmother picked up her great tobacco pipe and drew in a deep breath. She stood up, setting some food to the side of a bench, moving as if she was years younger. Her hands, gnarled from year of hard work, flexed and gripped easily. She smiled. She blinked her big eyes, looking around at us strange creatures around her fire, there to learn something.

How her world has changed in the last century. The loss she has seen. The violence, the death. All lived through. How the lifestyle of those around her has changed, and not changed, and continued on as it always had. How long the years must feel, stretching out forever behind her. How brief it must feel. For surely only yesterday she was Mai's age, carrying her babies on her back and meeting her husband for the first time. Surely only yesterday she ran through the rice fields the way children do, lightly and unafraid of breaking the tender corn stalks. Her certain hands could work, could cook, could create, familiar with the movements needed to do any work. And her voice. Soft, quiet. Thoughtful. It rumbled up from deep inside, hinting at the young girl, the young woman that once spoke with those same lips, who still live somewhere inside the wise woman I now sat before.

But we could not stay forever. There was a long way yet before we'd reach our beds. And so after many thank yous, we left. Donning our packs, we set off again into the blue mountains, taking with us a piece of the legend we had become a part of.

The River

Green.

Green in the water.

Green on the stones.

Green of the trees.

The color of the moment is green.

Under a grey sky, pregnant with rain, the green stands out.

It mixes in with the yellow clay, churning up in bright whirls. It glides in the water, swirling in great streaks. It plops and glops along with each step. It is fed by the river.

I'd been told that rivers are the greatest of artists. Here, it is evident. In the middle of Cambodia, framed by distant hills and stormy skies, the river paints.

Today, yesterday, and five days from now, the color of choice is green. Perhaps the river chooses blue or white or even reds and fright colors of flowers in other times of the year, under different skies. But today, the green of life and death stands out.

The river has been busy

Around it, the Earth sits parched, cracked and dusty red.

But the river looks after its land. It floods and sings and rises again, sweeping fingers of good thirst quenching water over the rocks and soil, letting little fingers of green things frow up in the cracks and dips, all shapes and sizes stark against the yellow earth.

It's a small river, delicate, and as great an artistic force it wields, the river is at risk. Here and there it is stopped up, mud piles up too high, cemented by green glops that have grown up from too much food in the water. Bright squares and scraps of plastic printed on distant machines cover other greens They drape a corner into the water. Some ha e been carried here by the river. Some will be plucked up by a tendril of water to be carried even further.

The water itself is murky. It's filled with the drift of the of the many miles the river has already run. The green takes advantage of the nutrients the water carries. It grows and smells. The water swirls with green tendrils and beaded strings. And in the right light, there are patches laying over the water, some scum that is distinctly not the river.

And yet, it moves on.

Children and grandparents from a nearby village come to bathe and swim. Buckets are brought down in the morning for the day's water. Roosters cluck their way over the rocks.

The children still laugh.

The ferryman still ferries.

The river still paints.

Blue Birthday Cake

Written 4/17/2013

Ocean salt stuck to my skin. Each step I took tore the hole in the crotch of my poor quality pants a little larger. The green strapped flip flops on my feet struck the ground. I hurried along. My strides ate up city block after city block. Since my hands were full, I used my shoulder to wipe sweat out of my eyes.

How much longer until the turn? I wondered. I wasn't bothered by the heat or the long walk. But I looked down at the parcel in my arms. Maybe it didn't appreciate the heat so much.

I was holding a cake. It was carefully packaged up in a box, but it was a cake all the same. A birthday cake--which made it all the more precious.

Yesterday, when I'd bought it, it was beautiful. A round vanilla cake with vanilla icing. But no ordinary icing. It was decorated with beautiful white and blue flowers that were huge. Four of the flowers stood tall, taking up at least half the top of the cake.

It had been in the fridge for the last 24 hours. I doubted that 15 minutes of the outside temperature would do much damaged...but still.

I walked on.

I passed bright western cafes, serving up expensive food. I passed a street stand selling sandwiches and another selling fruit. I passed clothing stores and hostels and pho shops. Here and there were tourists. Vietnamese were scatted about. Both groups of people appeared to feel incongruously at home in their surroundings. The city had never quite chosen an identity. Not quite French or American or Russian, but not quite Vietnamese, it straddles too many worlds. And there I was, in the middle of it, dressed in my now customary uniform of lightweight clothes, holding carefully a birthday cake as I walked from one pat of Nah Trang to another.

Something about this scene struck me as incredible. There I was. In Vietnam. Walking in a new city on my own. Delivering a birthday cake to a wonderful friend I'd only met weeks before.

Despite having spent the last seven months living in any country but the USA, I was still struck occasionally by the miraculous fact that I had repeatedly found myself in the most fabulous of locations, and in the oddest of situations. There I was, walking through Nah Trang with a birthday cake.

Of all places, of all moments I'd dreamed up, this has not been on of them. Even so.

My flip flops struck the broken sidewalk as I stepped down the city's blocks, beautiful blue cake in hand.

Angkor Wat: A Picture Diary

First Sight

From the Outside

Sunset in a broken temple

One of four central towers

A smiling face of Bankor

Building towers, close up

Building towers, in context

Can you imagine when these floors weren't so worn?

Filled to doors to nowhere

Ta Prohm: Hungry roots and falling bricks

Gaurdian on the river

Kampot: Bungaloes, The Cham People, and Inspirational Students

It had already been a long day. Tearful goodbyes and NHCC were followed by a long van ride. I’d been in the back, crammed tightly in with bags, my neighbor J, didn’t have enough room for her legs, so we were sharing leg space. I’ve never been one to dislike road trips, but this one tried my patience. I didn’t really know what awaited us where we were going, and leaving NHCC had been one of the harder goodbyes of the trip so far.

An hour or two into the drive, T, the group’s resident DJ, thought it might be a good idea to listen to The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, seeing as we were soon to enter Vietnam. Listening to O’Brien’s poetic descriptions while staring out the window and what little of Cambodia I could see from the road, the reality of my geographic location suddenly hit me.

Throughout my life the word Vietnam had always been present, whispered here and there, dripping from people’s tongues with a certain weight. The word itself never referred to a modern day country, but of a different sort of place, on of bitterness and disillusion, one of loss and death and endless meaningless, one of protests, of upheaval. And then at some point, I learned that the whispered “Vietnam” referred to a war that was never a war, and I learned more about the confusing, murky thing that is the Vietnam War.

Sitting there in that van, it suddenly occurred to me, like it had before in these suddenly clear moments, that I was in Cambodia. That I was on the other side of the world from where I’d always been, that around me was a land that had seen a different history, fostered a different culture, listened to different languages.

And I was in the part of the world that was the other half of the Vietnam war story.

So, I was in the van, thinking very hard about where I was, when I arrived in Kampot.

I loved it immediately. Compared to every other city I’d been in, this place was empty. There were hardly any cars on the street, no one asked insistently if I wanted a tuk tuk, and I could smell the ocean. We were close to the sea. The Kampot river flowed through the down and a couple of kilometers later dumbed into the gulf of Thailand. The air was different here, brighter, brisker, the sort of air that makes you feel cleaner.

Little did I know what would be in store for me there.

One boat ride down the gorgeous Kampot River later, we arrived at our accommodation for our time in Kampot. We’d be spending two days or so hanging out with an American expat A, who runs a stand up paddle board rental and tour service from her house. She’d arranged accommodation near to where she lives, as it’s pretty far out from the actual town of Kampot.

We’d be staying in a place called Eden. Recently opened up, this place is the closest thing to heaven on earth I’ve ever found. Several beautiful bungalows hovering over the river on stilts make up the guesthouse. It runs on solar power. The river laughs all the time. The staff make the best coffee I’ve ever tasted.

At Eden, I whiled away my time reading and writing, swimming across the river, watching boats pass by. At night I’d lay in a hammock under the stars, listening to haunting music playing through a set of speakers, or two a guitar.

One afternoon, I was sitting on a bungalow porch, feet dangling over the river, when suddenly a blast of Cambodian hip hop interrupted the quiet and a huge splash erupted from the river off to my left.  A second later a head popped up above the water. The man swam to the side of his bright blue fishing boat and pulled himself back up onto the deck. He was joined by two friends and they were talking and laughing loudly, jumping into the water.

One noticed me, waved and shouted hi. I waved back.

They had just woken up, I guessed. The fishing boats were clearly theirs, so I knew that in just a matter of hours they’d set off as the sun began to set. In this area, the river was completely fished out, so fishermen had moved to the sea. Around 4 o’clock every afternoon, all the boats motored downriver and met up in a great fleet, before setting off into the open water of the ocean to fish all night and return as the sun rose.

The other fascinating thing about Eden, was that it was built in a village of Cham people. An ethnic minority found throughout Southeast Asia. The Champ people are Muslim, setting them apart from the traditionally Buddhist society around them. It was fascinating to walk through their village. It looked like any other place in Cambodia, the only difference were the beautifully decorated headscarves worn by most of the women.

As I walked through the village, I was greeted from all sides. Children ran out of houses to wave, men and women called hellos to us from their shops. It was an extremely welcoming village. And their warmth made me fall in love a little bit with the area.

Beautiful bungaloes and kind neighbors aside, the most amazing part of Kampot was the group of young Cambodians I met through the connections A, the American expat, had built up during her years in Cambodia. While I met a handful of talented university students, three of them stood out. One, a few years out of university, was one of the heads of a school fifteen minutes out of Kampot. A Belgian woman who had noticed the need for a good, free school in that particular area, as the children and their families were too poor to afford to send them to school, had founded it. This young man was in charge when the Belgian was away, and he worked wonderfully with the students, really inspiring them to learn. He’d also been involved extensively in NGO’s researching the Khmer Rouge.

Another university graduate had received several scholarships to university. As a little girl she’d started a library in her own home, and although she was too poor to pay for school, her teacher recognized her passion and potential and taught her anyway. In university, she’d even been given the chance to study in the Czech Republic, an opportunity she took. Most Cambodian students who’d received that scholarship in the past never returned to Cambodia, going somewhere else where they’d get higher paying jobs. She did return, knowing that if all the young people left Cambodia, “Cambodia would stay Cambodia, and never get better.”

She and her brothers had since started a biking tour of Phnom Penh, focusing on a genuine cultural experience. She’s also just finished writing a book for a series by a Chinese publisher, about her story. 

Lastly, was this brilliant young woman’s brother. He was younger, our age, just started in university. He’s a brilliant people person. As we hung out, he was the life of the party, starting games, causing mischief, making people feel at ease. He was our guide as we paddled along the river, taking us through mangrove tunnels and past a hidden pagoda. Just as intelligent as his sister, he, too, works for a brighter future for Cambodia.

A few days later, I left Kampot with a heavy heart, wishing I could have spent more time with these intelligent and inspiring people. But knowing that their still in Cambodia, working with children and adults, inspiring them to clean up their country, is heartening. Things are slowly moving forward in that haunted country.

Dancing in Cambodia, Knowing Everyting's Gonna Be Okay

“Excuse me,” said a young man, approaching me to the left, “would you like to dance?”

He bowed slightly while asking the questions, hands up in prayer position, a typically Cambodian gesture.

While normally I’d be pretty thrilled if a guy asked me to dance, especially in such a formal and adorable way, I hesitated at this offer. This was Cambodia. Ancient, traditional Cambodia. Here, opposite genders didn’t mix. Here, public displays of affection were taboo.

How did young people here go about dancing with each other?

Moreover, how did people even dance here anyway?

I looked at the young, dark skinned man. I considered my options for a heartbeat. “Yes, definitely. BUT, you’ll have to teach me Cambodian dance.”

So he did. The rest of my friends joined in, and so did the other young Cambodians of Egbok. Step by step my dance partner showed me an easy Cambodian dance. A strange sort of swaying move, circling around a table. It was hard, the movement of the hands are just as important of the feet, and everything is pretty stylized. They way you hold your fingers, the pointing of toes, the rotation of the wrists.

I’m pretty sure Cambodians are born knowing how to flex their hands impossible and move them flawlessly between different gestures. Us westerners on the other hand, have a bit more difficulty. But it was a fun night, dancing clumsily along to the ruckus of Cambodian hip hop. 

Eventually, the my friends and I decided to show off a little American dancing. A few moments later, “Footloose” started playing on someone’s Ipod and we all broke out into the dance we’d all learned at the start of the trip before teaching it to our friends at Egbok. To their credit, they picked it up way faster than most of us.

Our dance party lasted a while, but we eventually had to say our goodbyes. And so, we ended the night, saying our goodbyes and thank yous.

During the walk back to the hostel, no one in our group could shut up.

“That was amazing!”

“I’m going to miss them so much. We have got to send other groups there next time.”

“Let’s stay in Siem Reap!”

That night had been an experiment. We had been in contact with this organization Egbok for a little while, and had managed to arrange one evening to go and visit.

As you can guess, it went wonderfully.

The ten of us set out one hot afternoon in Siem Reap to find the Egbok house. An address and poor quality map in hand, it’s a miracle we made it. But only twenty minutes later, we walked up the drive to a stately looking home (this was Cambodia after all, and anything with nice clean walls, a paved drive, and a pretty gate is nice). We were sweaty and dusty from the walk, but were welcomed in anyway.

Egbok, a name I’ve thrown around a few times already, stands for “Everything’s Gonna Be OK.” It’s a nonprofit started by a graduate of the Cornell Hospitality School that trains poor young men and women in Cambodia in hospitality, so that they can enter the booming hospitality business. These young people join a wonderful community when they join Egbok. They live as a family, get English and technology lessons, learn anything and everything they could possibly need to know when working in a hotel or restaurant, and they get plenty of practice with their new skills. But most importantly, Egbok changes their lives, and puts control back into their hands.

I had a lovely time at Egbok, learning and laughing with the Cambodians who were my age. This was the first time any of the service opportunities on this trip involved working with people my age, and it was a wonderful change of pace. How else could we have ended up throwing and impromptu dance party?

Besides dancing, we all cooked a Cambodian meal together, cutting up veggies to put into spring rolls, slicing bananas for dessert, stirring fish soup. When it came time to roll the spring rolls, the Egbok students laughed a lot—at us Americans who clearly do not understand how to roll spring rolls. But it was all in good fun, and eventually the food was ready. We sat down to eat.

Dinner was defined by laughter and good conversation. A number of the people working or volunteering at Egbok have very interesting stories, so we spent the evening learning about their experiences. Following dinner and a delicious banana and milk dessert, the ten of us Carpe people were all given kramas, the traditional Cambodian scarf, a symbol of their culture.

And then, then, someone announced that the Egbok students would teach us Cambodian dance. And so the party continued, into the starlit night.