Little Miss Lisa

Soundtrack: Girl, Put Your Record On by Corinne Bailey Rae
Okay I feel like a bit of a creep posting all these pictures (don't let the hand holding confuse you about our friendship) and an ode to one of my top people, but I've got to somehow document just how great it was having Miss Lisa as a my travel companion for the last 10 weeks. It all started ditching Peter's Nonprofit Management class for big cookies at Legend's Grille (mmm cookies sound good). The crazy idea of meeting up in Asia turned into a two and a half month party where we documented only a fraction of what we learned, who we met and all the adventures in between. I didn't know her all that well before our trip- our cookies and a handful of Skyped planning conversations while she was living in Taiwan. We had a few mutual friends so I knew she couldn't be too crazy. Turns out she is crazy; but the good kind. The kind that you want next to you on a bus and the beach as well as in meeting with NGO officials and touring sites. As you can see from the pictures, we hit 4 countries in about as many outfits and had a blast. We laughed (hysterically sometimes), we cried (just once... damn you Carrie Underwood for bringing out my inner female). Through hospital runs and toxic hostels, til real life (read: full-time job and actual responsibilities) do us part. I'm going through withdrawals... Miss you Lisa!


Airport-Burma-Thailand-Laos-Cambodia-Good bye!

My Dearest Sister Ang

Dear Sister Ang,
I guess I can call you Nary now. It's an adorable name. Maybe I'll name one of my kids Nary. You are happy and faithful and everything that I would want a daughter to be. The time we were companions was one of my favorites of my entire mission. If there were ever a time in my mission where 'Onward, ever onward' (from the missionary anthem, Called to Serve) was a constant refrain it was with you. We worked hard together and saw some pretty amazing miracles. You impacted my missionary work a lot. My life really. It stuck.



Thank you for driving out to meet us at Angkor Wat. I know it was So out of the way. 7 hours is long and far no matter what you say. I'm amazed and happy that after 3 years I squealed like a 13-year-old girl when I saw you and that we could talk for hours about our current (love) lives. True friendship is like that. I trust your opinion and I know you love me.

I can't believe that less than a day after your long drive we decided that Siem Reap has little besides the ruins and Phnom Phen would be a much better place to pass the time.

I had a BLAST driving the Daewoo through Angkor Wat. Sorry for taking a few wrong turns in town, but I guess it all turned out for the best. A back entrance to the park is probably a secret they don't want to get out. I hope your brother enjoyed his first taste of the ruins, even just the quick trip we made around. Did I tell you he kind of reminds me of the R&B singer Usher? He's a cute kid.




The drive to Phnom Phen was long and hot (that might explain my near run-in with the herd of passing cows. Oops!) but the scenery was stellar. Cambodia really has a special something about it, different than Burma, Laos and even Thailand. I'm not sure what it is. The food might actually be better than Thai (don't tell!). Cambodians have seen so many hard things and have somehow figured out how to deal with it and move on. Sugar Cane juice might have something to do with it and I might just be addicted now. The Spanish EFY music also helped in passing time in the car. Where did you get that CD anyway? His Hands is much better in Spanish than English!




The easy highlight of my trip to Cambodia, and pretty high up on the list of best moments in SE Asia as a whole is meeting your mom. She hugged me like I was her long lost daughter (She also cried when we left. I love her!). Mama Ang can't be more than 4'10" and she's got vim and vigor rivaling those squealy girls we were when we saw each other. She's just that kind of Cambodian magic that I saw driving through the countryside. After working out in the fields during the Pol Pot regime, almost being slated for "re-education" (aka execution) and being saved by a miracle, she ditched her number and my guess by her laugh lines, has been smiling ever since. You smile like her.


Thank you for taking us to the Genocide Museum. My goodness, what a mess. No wonder my mom's first reaction to hearing about Cambodia was that it's a 'scary place.' It was! I can't believe you were born in a refugee camp on the border. It's a world away from Overlake Hospital, that's for sure. I'm glad my mom got to see a peek of how Cambodia has grown up through that trial and is a much warmer place now. I hope things keep getting cleaner and more honest. I wish I knew that they would. I'm thinking of working for Transparency International next year. I've seen how important it is to have governments 100% on board with the development of their nations. NGOs can only go so far on their own. I'd love to see how an NGO all about government transparency gets things done.

I hope you know that you have a family that most of the world would be jealous of. All active and sealed in the temple, you obviously have your priorities straight. I'm sure your neighbors understand more than anyone how special you guys are. I hope they enjoyed our nightly songs and dance parties. I'm sure the party was not particular to our visit, though I'm sure they're not used to hearing your sisters order us to sing and dance to Miley Cyrus! 'If I Were a Boy' was stuck in my head for days - we heard the half Cambodian version [soundtrack alert] another 4 times at least on the way back to Thailand!

Thanks for sharing your bed with us. I'm sure the 3 of us was a squish but I guess you're used to sharing your room with the 6 scooters, 3 bikes and family computer. Love the pink princess mosquito net and scripture quotes on the walls and quite honestly, I wish I could move in. I wouldn't mind sharing the one bathroom with 9 others. This house is Exactly what I want mine to be like some day. This is what they mean when they say the home is a sacred place just like a temple is. The love of God is stronger here than anywhere. With families like yours building the foundation, it's no wonder the church is growing so fast in Cambodia! If only Thailand could keep pace.

I hope I will see you again soon and I swear that some day I WILL make good on my promise to come stay with you and your family again. I love you! Talk to you soon.

love, Kami

Angkor Wat: The Sequel

Soundtrack: Human Nature by Michael Jackson (we watched This Is It on the train ride over and this song NEVER LEFT.)

I went to AW with my parents just after my mission. I don't remember much about it actually (that post-mission blur really was a...blur).

Angkor Wat is enormous. A stunning emblem of an ancient civilization. It's often considered to be added to one of those Wonders of the World lists. It has given Cambodia something grand to be proud of. A hefty million or more tourists agree and come in droves every year to see this semi-untouched relic of a civilization way ahead of its time (allegedly destroyed by over-expansion and exploitation of resources.)

Droves that came on my day

It also was a symbol of the Pol Pot regime- he was obsessed with working backwards towards some agrarian collective ideal that Khmer in the time of Angkor's prime had perfected. That's why the Khmer Rouge killed (like mass genocide killed) all the intellectuals and forced everyone remaining to work out in the fields (malnourished and abused no less).

Today, Angkor Wat is a brighter symbol. Tourists (more Chinese than I've ever seen, in an oddly consistent uniform of a light, long-sleeved button-up shirt and umbrella or silly wicker hats/visors) employ a frenzy of sales and support jobs. Adorably sneaky (and fabulous...or dirty..) children sell postcards and magnets. Siem Reap (the city closest to AW) is an island of commerce in a comparatively slow countryside.
So we did Angkor Wat. Bigger, longer, hotter. We made our way with a timid Welshman who we coaxed out of his shell with a lot of Michael Jackson songs and jumping pictures.

I became strangely obsessed with stomping my dirty feet all over piles of rubble
This looks like a Mark Knudson job of keeping the ruins together. Sure, wood pillars will keep the 500 pound slabs of granite from falling! The clean-up crew also seems to be cleaning like I do when my mom comes to town (out of sight, out of mind)





Jumping pictures quickly get out of control (mostly faces). No one else seems to get how AWESOME it is that I POINT MY TOES without even thinking about it (see zoomed, beautiful leg, right). Ali, my drunken gymnastics coach from high school would be SO PROUD!



Little Otik flashback. This tree is TAKING OVER
How adorable am I, really?

Laos Pt. 3: Mxang Ngoi

Soundtrack (the song you're supposed to listen when reading my posts) : Mayberry by Rascall Flatts

All I wanted was a hammock. Check! Every morning we would wake up to the COLD and almost comfortably smash into our bungalow hammock. To this view over the river of the fog lifting on the mountain.
A day trip to an even more remote village reminded me that language=bonus in actually getting to interact with Laotians. My Lao is coming along! This time we met a group of naughty women my age or younger with dirty but polite children being the cutest things on the planet.
We asked to go fishing. Can't, sorry, the scuba mask we use to see our nets underwater are all out being used on the river. Shucks. I missed out on a dunk and grab brand of fishing I had never even thought of til I saw these underwear boys getting business done.

No fishing, but hey, want to come pick vegetable with us? Sure? Oh and by veggies we mean herbs. And by herbs we mean tufts of weed looking plants hidden in dried up rice paddy fields almost indiscernible to the untrained eye.

Laos Pt. 2: Luang Prabang

Soundtrack: Israeli's singing Karaoke (surprisingly difficult to find on YouTube) One attempt Another but you'll have to use your imagination - Think Oops I Did It Again with a Hebrew accent and you'll be pretty close.

I just realized that my last few posts have been complaint heavy. Lest you think Lao was any level of disappointment, I must report that I loved it... Just so you know...

Luang Prabang was crowned a World Heritage Site in 1995. The Whole City. If that's not a sign it's a town worth visiting, I don't know what is. Luang Prabang (took me about 25 times to say it right) has Buddhist temples coming out its ears, two picturesque (if not filthy) rivers joining currents, nearby waterfalls and trekking, a night market with hundreds of stalls and more...

Oooh.... aaahhh

This shirtless hunk would NOT get out of his pose so that

we could pose!

We biked around this town too. Rocked to pieces in fact. It's wonderful to be active again (read: I sit. A lot. And walking slowly doesn't count as exercise). Highlight: turbo ride to the bus station with a quick stop on a bridge for sunset. Then a mad dash to the one hill in town -Mandalay stairs flashback. Sweaty and panting by the top but loving it. There was a decent view and a photoshoot by some Chinese stranger who accosted me as his silouette model.

Very uncomfortable. But aren't I a babe?

On the bus up from Vientienne, we met these adorable Israeli boys who filled the role of little brother throughout the rest of our time in Lao. Lots of teasing, laughing and singing ensued.

Our Israeli's being adorable, eating baguettes at the market

From LP (sounds cooler, right? Easier at least) we headed up north to the mountains- a town called Muang Ngoi (harder for some people to say, easier for me). We decided to change our plans from going to the Plain of Jars to this electricity-free town in about 5 minutes (hence the mad dash to the bus station).

Out of time. More later!

Laos Pt. 1

Soundtrack: Banana Pancakes by Jack Johnson.

Not the banana pancakes you're thinking of from Saturday morning breakfast. I'm talking about a roti; A cross between a tortilla and a pita, fried in a frightening load of butter and oil, topped with anything from hairy pork to chocolate to, you guessed it: banana.
I don't actually like this Jack Johnson song much but its name matches the phase of traveling Lisa and I have entered: the SE Asian Backpacker scene. Rotis pop up all over the region as a safe to eat (germ-wise, not calorite-wise) street food. The banana pancake trail marks all of the must-see spots in the region by those intent to live it up. Up to now, we have pretty successfully stayed out of the drunken hippie wearing traditional clothing and Chacos world.
No longer.

We took the overnight train up through the Isan and crossed the border into Laos. We met a New Yorker with a money exchange problem, which I was able to help him with (me and my hard core thai skills at least). Problem solved, we got to talking- he came with a New Yorker girl burnt out on the city and an Australian history teacher. Before we knew it 2 became 5 because 7 became 10 became 12 or more. Border transport turned into drinks turned into to dinner turned into a night at the bar (where we opted to come home and read scriptures before bed instead) turned into a city wide bike ride wtih the half left over the next day.

Yes that is a Hello Kitty bike

Facebooks and emails were exchanged. BFFs for life, guaranteed. This is a normal day in the life of a backpacker, I'm sure, but it's a brand new world for Lisa and I. Very different, but very fun.

This bicycle breakdown brought 4 Lao helpers and no actual success

The bike ride around the city gave a little personality to an otherwise somewhat lifeless city. Vientienne is a small country capital with few sites outside a handful of charming french-colonial pockets. It is a communist country with long ties to Russia and the architecture shouts it even through the odd smattering of French cafes and sweet shops.

Sweet old car by a traditional stupa and the US embassy

We had lunch with a sweet expat family and dinner with the senior couples (Love them!) grilling them about life in Lao and not too sadly moved on to Luang Prabang (after raiding the seniors' bookshelf of course. I love bookshelves!)