We've been back for a little over a week, and I have promised to recommit myself to the blog. Here are two images to get us started. The first one is one of the most beautiful trees I have seen on the mountain. Monsoon creates a diverse and beautiful palette of greens that range from almost grey to electric, vibrant, even shocking bright greens. They appear everywhere I look, but I tend to stop in my tracks when I look at the trees. Mosses and ferns, watered by the rain, fog and mist, seem to bloom wherever they are not disturbed. I find it impossible to capture the full scope of the textures and colors, but I will keep trying. You might notice the blue sky and fluffy white clouds in the background. This monsoon has been playing out differently than last year's, which was described to me as a "dry" monsoon. Every day we have experienced periods of intense sunlight, heavy downpours, and clouds rolling up and down the mountain. I got lucky when I walked to the top of the mountain with my good friend, Charlotte, yesterday. Our walk coincided with some of the nicer parts of the day. It started to rain very lightly as I approached home. From where I took the photo of the tree, I turned left and saw this. This kind of natural beauty feeds my soul, and makes my sore knees worth it.
It's been so long since I have talked to my Mom! I finally got her on the phone tonight, only to have our sometimes sketchy internet-based phones garble up the verbal messages. Our conversation was too short! Here are some of the things I wanted to tell you. I could talk about our winter break trip for ever and ever. There are so many funny stories to tell! I'll bore you with them this summer. We will be coming back and visiting, hopefully soon after our teaching obligations are wrapped up in the first week of June. I have to go to a conference like I did last year, and I'm not sure what week that will be. We will need to leave at the end of the first week of July to be back here by July 14 or 15. We are into the groove of the second (very, very short semester). We have 2 weeks after this one, followed by a weeklong Quarter Break. We aren't going anywhere for this break and are going to explore around here. The weather should be nice and we are surrounded by natural beauty. After that, it is only 3 weeks until AP exams, a few more weeks and then we are finished. What a whirlwind! The weather here is cold and we have a tiny wood stove to heat our little cozy house...or at least the living room. Our bedroom has reminded me of Grandma and Grandpa Edmondson's back bedroom, the one that was like a freezer, on a couple of nights. Thank goodness Tim insisted on bringing his very warm sleeping bags. I sleep under one of them at night and Cassidy has the other. Poor Tim! I guess he needs a third one now. There are signs of spring already, though. The tree-sized rhododendrons are blooming. Big, beautiful, splashy red flowers are showing up over the hillside. I had to take a drive this weekend to scout out a site for my Geography field trip coming up on Friday. We went out to a valley to the north to check out a river bed and the drive was beautiful! The cherry trees are blooming and there were some other trees that I didn't recognize that were sending out their spring blossoms. I can't wait to see the mountains in springtime! Here's a photo of the valley. It was a pretty grey day, with lots of showers on Sunday, so I will hopefully have sharper photos from our field trip on Friday. The fields right there on the banks of the river are for rice. I'll post some of the wheat and mustard fields that appear on the terraces on the mountains later. They stand out on the brown and dark green of the mountains as if they have been painted and they are stunning. I couldn't take my eyes off them as the driver wound around the roads. You can see that the riverbed is mostly exposed now, but during monsoon season, this river, the Aglar, fills the bed. I will have to make it a point to come see it during that time. The Aglar meets up with an even bigger river, the Yamuna, as it winds through the mountains. I was actually in this same valley last semester for Activity week, in one of the mountainside villages.
We have finished our first week back in classes and are enjoying the weekend. Having a summer length break in the middle of the year is a bit disconcerting and it felt strange to experience the exhaustion that, up to this point, I had only experience in August at the beginning of a new school year. I found myself wondering why, at the end of each day, I was so tired. Then I would remember that it was essentially the first week of school. Our school calendar is a weird one and we are now basically 2/3 of the way through the school year because the first semester is much longer than the second one. I have 6 weeks to teach the rest of the content for both my courses, then we have our week-long quarter break. When we return from that, we have 3 weeks to review before the external exams begin. Whew! Into the whirlwind, I suppose.
We had pretty great weather throughout the week until Friday. When we woke up, we could sense that it was darker than normal and we heard rain and wind. It was the kind of cold that gets into your bones and refuses to cede to any warmth. At tea, around 10:00 AM, however, it got strange. The already grey skies darkened until they resembled a night sky. It was eerie. The folks who are either from this area or have lived here a long time all remarked that they would not be surprised if it snowed that night or the next day. While it didn't snow, later that night it rained and hailed and thunder rolled through the hills for what seemed like an hour without stopping. We are still hoping to see at least some snow before the end of winter, but it has been mild and mostly sunny. It's hard to complain about that. I am already excited about visiting home this summer. We are waiting on a few dates for seminars before we can really start planning. I'll be teaching AP European History next year and need to get to a Summer Institute and Tim currently is waiting to hear about several other opportunities. Cassidy will be returning to Camp Susquehannock, but will be able to visit friends and family in Texas before she goes. If any of you lovely folks want to go on a road trip to help me deliver her, let me know. It's a long, but really nice drive. I'm going to work on some blog posts with photos of our trip. I'm hoping to blog at least once a week, even if it's boring old posts about the weather and school. I can't wait to get home and see everybody! If you've had a facebook, google, or regular old telephone chat with me since we moved, chances are I have referenced the monkey menace. Specifically the rhesus macaques who live here on the mountain, steal food, scavenge in trash and what remains after tea break, and strike terror into a good 25% of the student body here. Last year, when the school asked the graduating students what they would miss most about Woodstock, one of them replied, "Being able to use, 'I ran into a monkey,' as an excuse for being late." Amanda Day's love for these creatures notwithstanding, let me say now that I hae a visceral dislike for these monkeys. This morning, Tim put out our trash and within the hour, they had opened it up and slung it around our front landing area, making a huge mess of all the vegetable scraps I had got to great lengths to keep separately for the good of our oranic garden. I had to go out ahd watch Tim's back while he cleaned up the mess. Although these monkey are typically not afraid of women at all, they know that when a human of either gender bends over to pick up a rock, they need to skidaddle. So I picked up a few rocks and hurled them in the general direction of the monkeys who had gathered on the roof to watch Tim clean up after them. I chose the words "in the general direction" carefully, because one of the rocks bounced off the house and hit Tim in the leg. (Sorry about that, honey!) After this, returned to the kitchen to have tea and breakfast, eventually waking Cassidy up so we could take a family trip into the bazaar. At one point, I look over from the table to see this in the window. Go ahead and blow the photo up. It's a mother and she was soon joined by a baby. Notice the bars on the windows? All windows here have bars. Feel like guessing why? Yeah. It's the blasted monkeys. These macaques are bold, I tell you! In fact, they caused quite a conundrum for Delhi during President Obama's visit. We read that the Delhi officials were trying to keep the monkeys and the cows away from an area where Mr. Obama would be going. Since he was touring the city, this was real challenge because both the cows and monkeys are plentiful and, well, everywhere. Because the monkeys are a representation closely tied to Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, it is not considered good or wise to hurt the monkeys. They roam pretty freely wherever they please. Until recently, it was fairly common to have another kind of monkey, the relatively laid-back and much less aggressive langurs, to scare off the rhesus. A new law was enacted that made keeping the langurs captive illegal, so the rhesus macaques are freer than ever. Just in case you are arriving at the end of this post feeling like I am mean and heartless and cruel, let me show you how quickly these monkeys get scary. While I was taking these photos, the monkey decided she didn't like the looks of Cassidy. How do I know? Take a look. See that face? I know, I know. The little one is cute! But I tell you now, I don't trust any of them. This, my friends, is one of the reasons we all got vaccinated for rabies when we got here. Some of the monkey grow giant fangs that are so scary, I can't even handle it. Thank goodness the security staff here have slingshots and use them effectively. Usually, the mere presence of one of the guards is enough to prompt the monkeys to leave any given area. Soon after this shot, both of these monkey, and another adolescent who turned up in the midst of the action, hopped off the window ledged and were up and over the fence in a flash. I know, however, that they will be back. Probably the next time we leave the trash out.
Tonight we listened to Caat Stevens, Jim Croce, Neil Diamond, Gordon Lightfoot, a few Kenny Rogers songs, then Linda Rondstat. I love her voice and this is one of my favorite videos of her singing from The MIdnight Special. Youngsters, look it up!! We have been back at Woodstock for a couple of days now, after cutting short our time in Delhi. We were tired of living out of suitcases and, let's face it, Delhi isn't the most beautiful city in India. It was also shockingly hard to find wi-fi! We had become very spoiled by the wide availability of wi-fi in both Cambodia and Thailand! We also were ready to get started working for our new semester. Plus, Tim had to get busy cataloging the volumes of photos he took on the trip and writing his reviews on tripadvisor.
One additional complication to our time in Delhi was the presence of President Obama. We felt fortunate that our flight arrived very early in the morning, so most of the streets were still open, but the security presence was astounding! We went past the hotel where he and his entourage were staying and there were police and army stationed every 20 yards along the road and almost as frequently in the wooded area just off the road. I lived in DC a long time and I never once saw anything like it. Later that day, we couldn't even get a taxi to go anywhere because the streets had been closed while Obama's retinue took in some sights. We took the train from Delhi to Dehradoon, which takes about 6 hours. The trains, while a bit shabby, are timely, reliable and fairly comfortable as long as you are in first, second, or third class. We were in a third class car with seats similar to airline seats, but with much more room. We got bottles of water, tea and breakfast, all included in our (very low) ticket price. It was not a particularly foggy day, so there weren't any delays and we arrived only about an hour late. We had arranged for one of the taxi drivers we use frequently to pick us up, so we after finding him outside the train station, we packed up the car and headed out. Since we had emptied our pantry and refrigerator and there was zero chance of any of us cooking dinner when we got home, we made a stop at one of our favorite restaurants in Dehradoon, Black Pepper. Just before we left, we discovered their Afghani Chicken, so we ordered some "for take away", then went to a grocery store nearby to get some essentials, ate a quick meal at McDonalds (don't judge us, it is literally underneath Black Pepper and we were in a hurry). Then we got back in the taxi and headed up the mountain. It was cold and dreary, but we were finally back at what Cassidy and I have dubbed our "iHome", the "i" is for India, get it? Anyway, we were all happy to be able to put our backpacks down and empty them. Of course, that meant giant stacks of laundry to do, but its was okay. The dryer helped heat up the kitchen and we weren't planning to go anywhere for a few days anyway. Yesterday was our last long travel day of the trip. After a hasty breakfast, our minivan picked us up and dropped us where we would pick up the big bus. It was nice that they didn't cram 14 people into the minivan this time! After loading our backpacks on the big bus, we chose to sit on the back row, an error in judgement I will not repeat. It's far better to have only 1 person sitting next to you rather than 2, even if you love those people very much. Especially if they, or you, have broad shoulders.
After 3 hours or so, we got to the Cambodian-Thai border. I had steeled myself with the memory of our earlier border crossing. It was very hot and swampy with the faint smell of raw sewage in the air. Lines were long and directions from one immigration stop to another were non-existent. On the other side of the border, some ambiguities about where to meet the drivers, how long we would need to wait and an even longer minibus ride awaited. While we had learned to just have a little faith and hope for the best on these trips, there is always a fear in the back of my mind that speaks of missing the driver, getting lost, standing forever in what is supposed to be a line, but really is a mass of sweating humans from around the world. I was carrying a backpack and my daypack, the notorious "double turtle" adopted by almost all backpackers. This makes the heat and humidity almost unbearable, especially when your are herded together to to stand in "line" while no movement occurs. Most folks around us kept themselves together, though it is awfully easy to become untethered as you struggle to avoid being bumped by either side of the double turtles that surround you. Eventually, the line began to move and we reached the area where lines do actually form, leading to the window where you present your departure card and passport, get your fingrprints taken again, and are free to leave Cambodia. Then we walked through the strange territory that lies between the countries as far as I could tell. There are liquor stores and casinos. Big trucks loaded with various commodities waited for their permission to enter on the road. People are everywhere and, with no directions as to where to go next, this time we at least knew where we had been a few weeks ago. We found the Thai immigration lines across the street and got in line. The Thai side was much more orderly (and air conditioned!). The line snaked around the large room and we waited for at least an hour. I tried not to track the time, but to look at the people in line around me and imagine their stories and travels. After this, we were surprised to see a Customs booth with requisite x-ray machines to scan our bags. We had not seen this on the way over. We put our bags on it and went right through. I wasn't even sure the machine worked and it all seemed perfunctory, except that a man had been stopped and the customs officers were pulling out cartons and cartons of cigarettes out of his bags. There was a brown dog sleeping at the feet of two Thai women customs officers on the women's side. If it was supposed to be a drug dog, it must have graduated at the botttom of its class. In the end, after discussing it for a while, we decided that cigarettes must have been the real target here. We walked along the road until we found the agent from the bus company who recognized us by the white stickers we had gotten on the big bus on the Cambodian side. We waited there for 20 minutes on the side of the road before being loaded onto a truck, which took us a few kilometers to a roadside restaurant. We immediately recognized this place because we had spent an hour or so there on our way across the border the first time. The bus companies here must either be owned by the same people who own the places where they stop or just have a kickback arrangement because you clearly just have to do your time there before they let you move on to the next leg of your trip. We actually heard the guy coordinating the minivans at the restaurant tell two other passengers, "You can't go on this bus! You just got here!" Just before we got directed to get our our minibus, we saw the driver that had brought us to the border from Bangkok. I may have written about him before. I harbored homicidal thoughts toward this man. His maniacal laugh as he careened through the dirt roads drove me to the edge of sanity. Of course, this was after a night bus and being stuck in a small space for 4 more hours on that minibus. Anyway, we prayed we would not be on his bus! Fortunately for us, we got another driver who was very serious about getting back to Bangkok. He drove fast and stopped only once. None of the nonsense we had on the way to Cambodia of stopping at everly 7-11. He wasn't even on his phone much! It still took us almost 12 hours to get to our hotel and we were exhausted when we got there. We still managed to walk around a bit and go to an excellent bar called Ahere to the Blues. We had a few drinks and enjoyed the really excellent live blues performers that were playing until Cassidy was so tired and lifeless that we took pity on her and walked her back to the hotel. Tim and I took in a block of Kao San Road, which was pure madness. Today is our last day in Thailand and we are now lodged into our very nice room . The plan for the next few hours is to enjoy the pool, re-pack all our stuff and hopefully get to bed early. Our flight to Delhi leaves at 7:00 AM!!! I really, really hope that President Obama's flight out and ours do not cross and that security is not insane at the airport. We were pretty excited to take the speed boat up the Mekong and through Tonle Sap Lake from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap yesterday. We have had enough busses and mini-busses and had read that this boat trip would offer us the opportunity to go through some traditional fishing villages and see people fishing in the traditional way, and we wanted to see another part of the countryside. We got up very early by our vacation standards and got to be boat at little before 7:00. As has been typical of our travelling in Cambodia, we were unsure until the last minute that we were in the right place at the right time. Once again, though, everything went off without a hitch as soon we were walking down the ramp to the boat. The seats weren't uncomfortable, but I did was not excited about being stuck in a metal tube for hourse on end. Still, the top of the boat didn't look like a comfortable option either. In the end, I spent some time outside taking photos that I will have to post later since I took them on the waterproof camera. It was a nice trip and I am glad that we did it, especially since I can now tell a very special story...
..about how we got stuck on a sandbar in a Vietnam era speedboat on the Mekong River!!! We were a bit more than halfway through the trip and were headed into the last part of the river before getting into the Lake Tonle Sap. When we first ran aground, the 3 people who worked on the boat got out the long bamboo poles and tried to push us off. A few of the male passengers got into the act when the crew members stripped down to their skivvies and jumped into the water, which was only about waist deep on them, as they tried to push the boat off the sandbar as the passengers pushed on the poles. After some pretty serious straining, we saw the captain make a call on his cell phone, which we took as kind of a bad sign. Several local fisherman came over to watch the antics. After about a half hour or so, another speed boat came down the river headed in in the opposite direction. They maneuvered their way toward us, positioned the boat and the crew tossed over a heavy rope. With the rope attached, the other boat fired up its engine and attempted to pull us off the sandbar. It was an impressive attempt, but the rope just wasn't strong enough and snapped. We thought the other boat was just going to go on its way. By this time, I think every passenger onboard both boats was standing on the narrow ledge around the boat or on top, many taking photos and videos. On the second attempt, the other boat managed to pull us off the sandbar and we were free. All our fellow passengers cheered and waved to our rescuers and we headed on to our destinations. The rest of the trip was dull by comparison, the lake is so large that we could see only water and occasional other boats. The dullness ended when we reached the shore, however. It took us a while to "dock" because there was no pier, we literally just pulled up to the shore. It took a while for the captain to get the boat positioned and as he worked, at least a dozen tuk-tuk drivers scrambled down the hill of sand in hopes of getting customers to hire them for the 10 km trip into Siem Reap. It was hilarious to watch, and I was surprised when the drivers actually boarded the boat and came inside as we were gathering our things and trying to get off the boat. It was a chaotic scene, with passengers unsure about whether to deboard or get their luggage, which had been stowed on the top of the boat for the trip. Adding to the chaos, several children came begging as we stepped from the boat onto land. They were some of the most aggressive kids I've encountered here and they were after anything at all. They took water, food, empty cartons of food and even tried to get into one gentleman's bag to see what he had. It was a bit overwhelming to stand in the full strength of the hot afternoon sun with all of this going on around me. We leave Phnom Penh tomorrow morning and, once again, we are wishing we had "just a few more days". Most people only come here to experience S21 and The Killing Fields, and that is definitely why we included the city in our travel itenerary. Many folks we have met along the way also told us that we didn't need to stay here for 4 days for various reasons. We had become concerned that we alotted too many days here and that we might not enjoy our stay. We consoled ourselved with the fact that we had booked a pretty luxe hotel and could hole up here, get in the pool, watch American television and catch up on some blogging.
The city has actually drawn us in. It is not polished or sophisticated. It is gritty and dirty (though not by India standards). It is also changing rapidly, with consruction all around the beautiful colonial buildings. It feels alive to me and I can easily imagine it looking completely different in 10 years. I hope I get the opportunity to come back. We got to visit both S21 and The Killing Fields and I will definitely be writing more about those two incredibly emotional sites. We also walked around the city both on and off the tourist beaten path. Tomorrow we are travelling from Phnom Penh back to Siem Reap on a speed boat that will take us up the Mekong River. It is supposed to be a really interesting trip. It takes longer than the bus, but it will give us the chance to see some traditional fishing villages and see the fishermen fishing on the river. Once again, I am just really grateful to have had all these opportunities and experiences with Tim and Cassidy. They are curious, energetic and observant travelling companions and it has been a real blast for me to laugh, wonder and even cry with them as we got to explore, learn and discover on this trip. |
AuthorTrish grew up in Texas, but has never owned a pair of cowboy boots. She enjoys a wide variety food, hobbies, locations and people. She also silently judges your grammar. Archives
October 2015
Categories |
Trish's Vision
We are back for the second year here in our cloud-covered home. Monsoon is over and there is a chill in the air. Soon it will be time to light a fire and have hot beverages. Then, Winter Break!
Feel free to leave a comment! It makes us all so happy when we know you are reading it!