Alice's ClassTrip to the Vege Fish Farm, Thai Restaurant

December 10, 2010

Alice's blog:

When I got off the bus, I was really scared because geese were protecting their goslings. They chased us until a nice kind woman chased them away with her broom. Then we went up to all the good fruits vegetables and fish they had. We saw the farm where they grew good for the Thai restaurant. They grew red chili, carrots, kang kong (like spinach), peanuts, and long beans. And, even if they didn't grow rice, they had wonderful fried rice at their restaurant. They put eggs in the rice. They looked bad but tasted good.

At the fish farm, I saw kids going out on a short dock with a man catching fish in a net. He was putting them in a big bucket. When we looked inside, we couldn't see well because the fish splattered water in our faces. When I got off the dock, everyone was going back out to the buses. We were about to get on the bus when a teacher said, "Turn around! Class photo!" After she took the picture, they fed us fruit on long sticks, including papaya, but I didn't take the papaya.

On the bus ride home, I sat alone. But, on the way there I sat with Jamie. I learned a new hand motion from Ms. Thompson. It was "Say a sailor went to sea, sea, sea, to see what he could see see see, but all that he could see see see was the bottom of the deep blue sea sea sea!"

Colleen addendum:

Whenever I join Alice for class trips, I'm a celebrity to Alice. She usually clings to me. When in line for the bus trip to the Fish Farm, a boy named Jamie in her class eagerly said, "Alice, can I sit with you?" I patronizingly smiled, thinking, "Oh, you're in for your first of many rejections by girls, young man," then heard Alice say to me, "Mommy, you need to sit by yourself, I'm sitting with Jamie." See first photo above. Bewildered, I sat in front of them thinking, "I guess my work is done. Jamie, I wish you and Alice a long, healthy, happy life together." They sat together playing a series of intense, giddy games with each other. I felt like I chaperoned her first date at age 6.

Griffin's Race

December 10, 2010

Griffin ran an 800 meter race at his school. If you click on the previous sentence, you can see it on you tube! Or click the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkqCT3Bpw28

Griffin's post:

We had a track and field day at School. We were allowed to do 4 activities, 2 jump and throw activities and two run activities. I did shot put and long jump. Then I did 100 and 800 meter races. In the 800 meter, I paced myself and finished second. In the end of the video, you might have thought I finished 3rd but I actually finished second.

Camobodia Half Marathon

December 5, 2010

I made it across the finish line, and I was able to keep up with my running partner! Well, barely, and she'd never admit it but I suspect she took more breaks to accomodate my knee.

But, let me start at the beginning. My running group's picture is the first one above. Let me first explain that I've never been a running group kind of runner. I don't even join a friend to run back in Brooklyn. Running has always been a way to clear my head from the socially overstimulating, at times, world of NYC. Me and my dog, that's how I've always run.

However, in Kuala Lumpur, I would never have been able to train for a half marathon without my running group. They not only showed me safe places to run longer distances, but they also made me truly train for the first time. They taught me how to do tempo training (slow then really fast running, then slower) and hills. They slowly built up my distance running. And, by the end of training only 6 of us remained to train long distance, out of an original 20 or so. They gave me the resources, physical (remember, they got me two of our babysitters!) and mental, to adjust to my life abroad. The first picture above is of me with Alida, a New Orleanian who got my Abraham's sitter, my running gu, and my Angkor Wat tour guide and my tuk tuk driver.

The organizers of my running group are two women who are stay-at-home moms who could be CEO's back in the US. And, they are leaders, unpaid, in two organizations here, and they run them very well. One of them Kari (rest of photos above), has become my running partner in the running group, and while none of the other runners like to chat during long distance runs, we are very chatty runners, in fact, we need it to make it through to the end.

So, when I hurt my IT band on my knee and had to slow down the last few group runs, I was sad that I not only couldn't improve my time that I'd trained hard to do, but I also was sad that I'd have to run without Kari chatting all the 13.1 miles of the half marathon.

Before I describe the race, I need to mention that this half marathon was to raise money for prosthetic limbs for victims of landmines here in Cambodia. The picture above of the racers on sit-down bikes is of landmine victims who did the half marathon via bike. Sure puts my aches in perspective.

Our running group huddled before the race and Kari and I started the race together. I ended up running the entire race with her. She decided to stop often, to take pictures of the Angkor Wat temples and the huge number of adorable Cambodian village children lining the race course with their hands out to high five us. I could stretch my IT band easily during those breaks. Such stretching and slow running worked for the first 6 miles, with pain only coming by the 4th mile.

By the 6th mile, my knee was in pain and I was nearly limping again. I'd forgotten the ibuprophen I'd diligently packed for the race, and I asked some of the running group if they had any ibuprophen. Then an angel seemed to appear out of nowhere in the form of an old man from Canada running the race as a marathon. He said he'd had someone during the Boston marathon give him some desperately needed ibuprophen for his injury, so he brought some extra, just in case someone needed it at this race. He saved me.

I ended up running the last 4 kilometers at a sprint, right next to Kari to the finish. We were exhilirated. I ran my slowest time of the few half marathons I've run, but it didn't matter. I ran it like a real runner, knowing I sprinted with wings from my running community.

Angkor Wat Temple: Day 2

December 4, 2010

On our second day, we arrived at the Angkor Wat temple at 5:20am, before sunrise. My guide and I entered from the rear, walking through sparse jungle with a flashlight. It felt like we were a swat team, doing a rear attack on Angkor Wat. We snuck up the rear stairs and he showed me the famous Angkor Wat bas relief (see above) by flashlight in near-complete darkness. The bas relief depicts the 12 century Cambodian view of Heaven as being filled with near-naked celestial dancers. Hell, on the other hand, was filled with liars having a nail hammered into them, for every lie. And, it included women who did abortions, with a knife put into her stomach as punishment. Then, there was the thorny tree the adulters had to climb, over and over again.

We watched the sun rise, and I took a picture of Angkor Wat with its reflection over the moat. My guide then explained to me how Angkor Wat was designed as the earth, in miniature. The oceans were the moat, the continents were at the base of Mount Meru (some call it "The Olympus of the Hindus") which is said to hold Heaven filled with Hindu gods. There are three levels to the mountain, all of which I climbed. And, as any good Hindu world would have, there was a caste system to who gets to go higher and higher up. The plebians stay at the bottom. The ministers and nobles are at the second level. And, the king and high Hindu priest were the only ones who could go to the top level, the top of Mount Meru, at least until tourist like me line up promptly at 8am to race up to the top of the shrine.

And, it's worth being the first up (I was!). I can see why the king (who saw himself as a heavenly God) and the high priest kept it to themselves. The view was incredible and they were surrounded by ritual baths, they used the sacred water to bathe the Hindu god statues, and they were surrounded by hundreds of statues of topless celestial dancers (note that the statues' breasts were particularly shiny from the regular manhandling they get from tourists). Often, the king disappeared up to the top of Mount Meru, in the shrine, for weeks on end. No one knew what he did up there. They just waited patiently at the second level for him to descend. Me, I was ushered by a guard to descend so more tourists waiting below could ascend.

The "Churning of the Sea of Milk" bas relief was near the end of my Angkor Wat visit, and it's in the pictures above as the demons on one side and the good spirits on the other side, looking as if they are doing tug of war against each other. But, they are actually working as a team to churn the sea of milk. If they churned the sea of milk to a frothy curdle, then they all could be immortal. The hindu god, Vishnu, helped them by reincarnating as a turtle who acted as a base for the churning, and Shiva floated above, adding magical strength to the churners.

As I left the Angkor Wat temple, I walked down the long bridge over the moat and stood next to the snake statues who were said to take Angkor Wat inhabitants on a rainbow bridge connecting earth to the heavens. I felt transported too.

Spirituality in Cambodia: Angkor Wat Temples - Day 1

December 3, 2010

There's a reason why Angkor Wat was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1992. It's outrageously beautiful, serene, and reeks of spirituality. You may practice voodoo, but you'll still be moved by the Hindu and Buddhist shrines here. And, the word's out because most everyone of all stripes of religions come visit and after Tomb Raider was shot here, even more tourists come.

They started building these temples back in AD 1002 and had active cities filled with huge and numerous temples. Almost a million people were said to live in one city, at a time when London only had 50,000 people. Each king from AD 1000 on created more and more Buddhist or Hindua temples, or temples dedicated to a mix of Hindu and Buddhism. Over time, Hindu religion has been synthesized with Buddhism here in Cambodia. Cambodians may say most of them are Buddhist, but they've actually borrowed a lot from Hindus too. One king couldn't handle combining shrines and statues from both religions, so he just chopped off the over 200 Buddhist heads that created beautiful ornamentation around one shrine. Or, he'd add a beard and change the meditation position of the Buddha to make him look more Hindu (see decapitated statue and bearded Buddha converted to Hinduism above). But, there are still a lot of Buddhas remaining. Almost 215 in one temple you can see above, with 4 Buddha faces on the head that tops each of over 50 towers at one temple.

My Buddhist practice is expanding while living here in Asia. And, I found walking around Angkor Wat temples like meditative prayer, slowing down every moment to where I feel incredibly present and alive. A guide named Bond, who's a Cambodian who's incredibly well-read in Hindu and Buddhist mythology, took me to the most hidden temples, where you have to hike through jungles. He also took me to the most overcrowded temples at the least crowded times of day.

Meditative peace is the only way I can describe the feeling of going to the first temple, Ta Nei, hidden deep in the jungle (see first pictures above). And, NO ONE was there. It's hard to imagine that at Angkor Wat. It's like being able to see the Statue of Liberty on a day when no one shows up. You feel like the statue is yours. And, that temple was mine, for the moment. My temple was broken down and rubble-filled but it had all these huge blocks for me to climb over before I could get into the narrow corridors, former libraries, statues, and shrines from the 2nd century. All the buildings were covered by celestial dancers named Apsara who would bring heaven to earth, especially when they acted as concubines to the King.

Ta Keo shrine took me up a huge number of temple steps to an outrageous view. Then, Ta Prom temple (known as the Tomb Raider temple to most tourists here since the film was shot in it) is covered in huge trees named Spung with roots draped over the side of the temple (see pics above of me next to roots).

The great city of Angkor Thom was the largest city in the world by the end of the 12th century, with almost a million people. It is surrounded by a wall that has a victory and a death entrance. The Khmer army of the time would return from battle either via the victory or death entrances, depending on the outcome of their battles. And, 3 headed elephants (see 3 trunks holding up the archway of the wall entrance above) were at each entrance, said to hold up heaven above the city, keeping God close by.

Angkor Thom was the largest city in the world, until the Thai army raided it in the 12th century. The army couldn't break into the walled city, given its moat and huge walls, but it waited patiently beside the city for one and a half years until they starved the citydwellers into submission. The Thai army then took most of the millions of pearls, diamonds, and gold that adorned the sparkling interior tower that lit up with bejeweled light once a day when the sun would hit the top of the tower just right, leading to a transcendent, sparkling Buddha at the tower base. Nine centuries later, my guide is still bitter towards the Thai, as a result of that and a laundry list of other even more recent Thai invasions.

But, before the Thai took over for a short time, Angkor Thom was a thriving city filled with the 217 Buddha faces I described above, and still, today it has practicing Buddhist monks who keep Buddhist shrines alive there. I was ambivalent about meditating at the Angkor Thom Buddhist shrine. But, I forced myself to do it, despite the watchful eyes of those who collected the money from me for the incense. It was probably the most spiritual place I've ever meditated but it was also the shortest and most uncomfortable prayer for me, with all the locals and the monks watching, with some locals tittering and staring.

At the end of that first day, my guide gave me a gin and tonic to watch the sun set by the side of the Angkor Wat moat that we planned to cross the next day to see the temple of all temples - the official Angkor Wat temple.