A lost nights sleep and a fast train

The flight from Phnom Penh to Shanghai was at the inhospitable time of 11.45pm and our plane was delayed another hour and a half. We waited in the terminal, eye lids propped open with toothpicks and caffiene, trying to recall how we had so nochalantly taken midnight flights in and out of Samoa a few years ago. The darkness unhelpfully closed in as the duty free shops switched off their lights, slowly pulled their roller doors down and the queue at the gate grew hopefully longer. Eventually the flight was called and people shuffled towards their polyester clad seats, pulled their blue polarfleece blankets towards their chins and determinedly squeezed their eyes shut. We managed to stay that way, dozing fitfully through the 4 hour flight despite food being served shortly after take off.

Shanghai airport is a massive, shiny hangerlike building with all the mod cons including Singapore clean toilets, fast moving customs queues and uneventful speedy baggage collection. The delay meant we were able to ride the maglev, short for magnetic levitation, which has since January 2004 provided a fast way of getting from the airport to Shanghai's Longyang metro station Pudong . A very fast way. The maglev, with a top speed of 431km an hour makes the 30km trip in about 8 minutes.


For reasons I haven't been able to uncover the train's speed varies depending on time of day and at about 6-30am, one of its first runs, it maxed out at only 301km hour but on our way back 6 days later (at 4-30) we hit 431. We transfered from the maglev's spacious comfort to the Shanghai metro line 2 at rush hour and standing room only. By 8am we were spread out over a comfy chair each in a 15th floor 2 bedroom apartment at New Harbour Serviced Apartments five minutes walk from People's Square downtown Shanghai, ready for a couple of hours catch up kip before exploring our new city.

Driven out by hunger and still a little foggy we made our way back towards the huge park that is People Square and a Starbucks we had spotted earlier. Fortified by coffee and scone we headed back across the road and into the park.

Peoples Square is as it name suggests is a large public square in the Huangpu district of Shanghai, the same area as the infamous pedestrian street, Nanjing Road-'Bag, watch, DVD?' Before communism, and the subsequent outlawing of horse racing and associated gambling, part of the park was The Shanghai Racecourse. The park now includes some pretty architecturally distinct buildings; The Shanghai Grand Theatre, The Urban Planning Exhibition Hall and The Shanghai Museum, where we thought we'd head to next.

The museum, which used to be housed in an office building somewhere nearby, is designed in the shape of a 'ding', a bronze carved bowl which sits on four stout legs used in times gone by for cooking. More specifically the 'Da Ke Ding' which you can see inside. It has a solid square base and round open top which symbolises the Chinese, 'round sky, square earth'. The museum is currently free after a recent Chinese government edict to make some of Shanghai's museums and galleries more accessible to it's people. Eleven galleries and three exhibition halls over three (or four I can't remember now) floors hold ancient bronze works, cjade, eramics, beautiful historic examples of calligraphy, fabulous ancient sculpture and a whole gallery full of seals. We wandered through the galleries until our previous nights lack of sleep began to steer us back to the apartment.

(I have loads of picture I have spent the last week or so trying to upload with very sporadic success. Hopefully I can figure out whats going on and add some more at a later date)

A wee break

A last minute decision saw us grappling for our passports at the end of last week. Downloading visa forms and diligently filling them in before our driver dropped them off at the Chinese Embassy, where he was given more forms, which we hurriedly completed and tried to drop off at the prescribed time.

Of course it was shut.

Open again at 8?

J went back at 8 the next morning (I had a meeting at the school) where there was a futile wait under the already hot Cambodian sun for some kind of action. He abandoned ship an hour later dripping under his long sleeved business shirt and suit pants. We still don't know when the office finally did open but Chunthy our driver eventually managed to hand in our documents in exchange for a receipt which said we would have visas on tuesday....thats today.

Sure enough Chunthy went back down to the Embassy after dropping me at the gym and was handed them on the spot.

So on thursday at midnight we get on a plane and end up here...

...somewhere we can fly direct from Phnom Penh...somewhere north about 3 and a half hours from Phnom Penh...have you guessed yet?

Shanghai, the largest city in China, famous for 'The Bund' a mile long wide footpath lined with fabulous old buildings along the bend (English for 'bund') in the Huangpu River- which is currently a huge construction site till 2010- and its ever changing modern skyline. I'm looking forward to being able to walk without breaking into an instant sweat, parks with big trees, Starbucks (even though where chains go I prefer Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf), Ikea, museums and art galleries and a week without housework. Cameras are charged, jeans are packed- well nearly I'm not really that organised- and school is almost out. See you on the other side...

The impermanence of sand

I saw this on the BBC the other day and just about cried....actually I lie ...I did cry. What she does is beautiful and haunting.

Kseniya Simonova was the 2009 winner of Ukraine's got Talent. The 24 year old only began making these sand drawings on the beach a year ago and now uses much less sand, a portable lightbox and a soundtrack to help her tell her story. The stories she tells are of love and war, timeless and relevant the world over, set in the Ukraine during 'The Great patriotic War' (World War II. )In the Ukraine it was a conflict that killed between 8 and 11 Ukrainians, nearly 1 in 4, almost 20% of all the casualties suffered during the war. A truely devastating statistic in a country that was already reeling from Stalin's manufactured famines.

Once Kseniya's story is told it is swept away, merely sand again, back into a box, leaving behind emotion and memories.

Fun Rally 2009

For weeks I had been part of the organising committee for the third annual ISPP Fun Rally Phnom Penh writing clues, finding prizes, coercing sponsors, creating posters and fliers, getting T shirts and hats printed, distributing said posters and fliers, selling tickets and managing the caterer.

On a sunday a couple of weekends ago four of us piled into a tuktuk for a four hour dry run of the Adult Route that took us in a meandering 20km loop from the Elementary school gate around the answers to 79 clues and tasks and back again hungry, hot, with spent brains and tummys sore from laughing. The route was slimmed down by five clues or aproximately one hour and the final copies printed.

There were two routes. One for adults- the clues more cryptic and the route longer- and one for children. Teams could be a mixture of both adults and kids but had to chose one of the routes, without seeing the clues and tasks, before they left. Clue booklets were a mixture of straight decipher and answer questions and those that invloved a task. The first clue of the Adult Route, for example, took contestants to the school athletic field where they had to run and then brave a ten gallon drum of goo to retrieve a teeny tiny crystal 'diamond'. The kids had much nicer tasks- decorating and eating cookies, fishing from a swimming pool and making sure their parents/guardians completed a set of push ups. Both teams delivered bags of goodies to orphanages on their routes and books to Open Book and ended back where they started...hopefully!



The day before we dressed the elementary school in Rally posters and red balloons, packed bags for the charity task with rice, donated stationary items and toys, and the book bags for 'Open Book', positioned the registration tables under sponsors umbrellas and we were ready.



Sunday dawned cloudy and with a hint of impending rain- perfect!

J and I manned the table for late registrations and sold tickets right up until the last teams were leaving. Teams, in either tuktuks or cars, were ceremoniously flagged off and times recorded in case of a point tie (which actually did happen for both first and second place in the Adult Route).



Two and a half hours later the first teams, doing the Childrens Route, began to dribble in. Followed closely by the eventual winners of the Adult Route. We spent the next couple of hours frantically marking route answers while the contestants were treated to a barbeque lunch and entertained by some clowns from Sovanna Phum and an energetic MC with a hand full of spot prizes.



The eventual winners received a grab bag full of vouchers from various very generous businesses around town and little handmade christmas decorations from Mekong Quilts and Ida Ira and other prizes were given out for 'best dressed' and the 'slowest'.

We arrived back home hot and tired after a glass or two of champagne and a job well done brimming with ideas for next years Rally.

The butterfly

While my sister and her family were here we took a customary trip down the river. Called a sunset cruise it is usually a two hour jaunt down the Tonle Sap round the huge sand dredger and then up the Mekong for a short way zig zagging across the two rivers as we go. The boat we took this time, The Butterfly, was a smaller boat than I had been on before, only one level but with the welcome addition of a lounging bed at one end.


We started our trip at about 4-30 just as the light was beginning to soften.


The shore on the other side of the Tonle Sap was littered with people playing da cau a kicking game with a shuttle cock instead of a hacky sack, badminton, washing clothes for tomorrow, cooking dinner, swimming...


...and just socialising in colourful groups. As the light dimmed fishermen began returning home on their picturesque vessels.

We saw a boat and it's friendly crew go past packed to the roof with massive stalks of green bananas.

The Royal Palace looks like a fantastical castle from the river.


The sand dredger looks as out of place as it is!


We motored and drifted for a very enjoyable couple of hours eating stuffed paninis and double decker sandwiches and drinking wine and beer Lao ending up back where we started ready for a cooling sorbet from Frescos before bed.

Eating spiders

We had dinner at Romdeng the other night. Famous for the eight legged addition to it's menu the eatery is a teaching restaurant, like Jamie Olivers 'Fifteen'. It is a part of the non profit, non government, non denominational organisation Mith Samlanh (meaning 'Friends' in Khmer). It helps provide about 2000 kids an education and vocational training in trades such as hairdressing, mechanics, electronics, welding, the design and creation of products for the Friends shop and training in all aspects of the restaurant trade. The training workshops are designed as income generating businesses. Have a wee look at their website and some of the funky products they make.

The students of the restaurant begin their training, back at 'Friends', in the schools canteen learning basic cooking and serving skills. Then they move on to Romdeng and finally to 'Friends Restaurant' on street 13 not far from the museum.



Romdeng, a lovely airy villa on street 174, has a menu of about 40 odd traditional cambodian dishes.

With kids and a fish eating vegetarian (me) at the table we ordered a variety of dishes to share including the spider starter and prahok, a fermented fish paste that is Cambodia's version of stinky ripe gorgonzola or Samoa's fermented breadfuit. I had tried to order prahok before but we were eating with our driver that night and he was adamant I would not like it. I should have known better. Most Cambodian food I have tasted is rather bland in flavour and I am definately a stinky cheese person. I crave strong flavours. The prahok came in 3 slightly different variations none of which I found particularly pungent but it was still tasty enough to order again. The spiders, too, were edible, rather like eating skinny fries with no expected squelch, pop and goo as I bit into the body.


Eating fried tarantulas as a snack in Cambodia is said to have begun during the reign of the Khmer Rouge during the 70's when a lack of usual food drove people to try alternatives such as field rats, crickets and spiders. The tarantulas, 'a-ping' in Khmer, that are eaten, come from Skuon in Kampong Cham province and are devenomed and fried to a blackened crisp.



For Cambodians these spiders are not just eaten for their taste but also for their reputed medicinal qualities. They are said to cure a cough, back ache, lung problems and have a positive affect on male sexuality.

Up the stairs inside the two storey villa is an exhibition, 'Lizards, Barks & Fragrances', of Cambodian spices, small animals and their presumed remedies, which runs until Dec. 10th.

Lizard on a stick anyone?

Bats are said to help with respiritory ailments too. Tumeric has anti inflamatory qualities as does its ginger like cousin, galangal, which is also taken for nausea, flatulence, dyspepsia, rheumatism, catarrh and enteritis. It also possesses tonic, aphrodisiac and antibacterial qualities. The knobbly skinned Kaffir lime is traditionally used medicinally to clear the head and cleanse the skin. Its scent is believed to lift spirits as well as relax and its juice is highly astringent.

We slowly made our way through the table load of dishes we had ordered including a Muslim Beef curry, Taro and Pork spring rolls, Three colour Pomelo salad with shrimp, Green Mango and Banana flower salad with dried shrimp...yum!

There were also desserts but we have always been so full from main courses that I'm afraid we have yet to savour a Romdeng dessert. Some of the appetising seductions offered are, crispy rice flake dumplings stuffed with banana and palm sugar syrup, red sticky rice porrige with coconut and longans, red bean and banana ice cream, homemade coconut sorbet as well as ever changing weekly specials.

Oudong for the beginning of Bonn Kathen

We had taken mum and dad to Oudong, the old capital and the centre of Buddhism in Cambodia, when they came in February so it was only fair my sister and her family did the 500 step trek to the temple at the top as well. We left fairly early in a, usually futile, bid to beat the heat. The kids were kept entertained counting tuktuks and increasing numbers of people on a single motorbike.
'You nephew?' said Chunthy, our driver, later that week, 'he talk SO much!'

On pulling into the Cambodia Vipassana Dhura Buddhist Meditation Center at the base of the hill it became obvious we had stumbled on a special day. There were people everywhere. Instead of the relative silence of the last visit the air was filled with the amplified sound of dueling dhamma lessons, the smell of burning incense and lotus buds. The grounds were filled with women dressed in 'wat clothes', white lacy long sleeved tops and straight long silk skirts in different variations of sundays colour-plum or the standard default- black.


We walked around the huge ceremonial pool, marvelled at the gold lady and her reptilian steed and the strange arrangement of characters under the tree with the silver leaves.


We strolled past the open hall, full of shaved headed nuns all in white and mostly women worshippers, that was leaking the rhythmic chanting. We slipped past the many food vendors who held out bamboo tubes of sticky rice and colourful woven trinkets. We walked towards the stilted house, the kodi, that holds Sam Bunthoern, the mummified monk, and we grew silent. We happened to reach the room at the top of the stairs, where Bunthoerns body lies in a glass case, during a lull and it was empty apart from a couple of orange robed monks who smilingly eyed my sisters young children as curiously as they returned their gaze.
'His eyes are open'

'He's a bit wrinkly'

'Is he real?'

It's not often you get to see a 'real live' mummy.


Back out on the balcony we noticed the doors of the massive building opposite, that were firmly shut on our previous visit, were open so it was back down the stairs of Bunthoern's shrine and up the wider stone stairs of the much more imposing temple building. With shoes off we stepped over the threshold and onto a cool clean tile floor. The inside of the huge hall was quite simply breath taking.


All the walls and the ceiling were intricately painted with scenes of Buddhas life, laid out in squares like a spiritual comic strip, except for the end wall which held a larger than life bodhi tree, the backdrop for a ginormous green jade (?) buddha.


More nuns were sitting to one side of the Buddha. One stood up and walked slowly over to where we were at the edge of the kneeling mat.


She indicated that for a small donation she would bless us and we obliged, after all how often does one get the chance to be blessed at the feet of one of the biggest seated Buddhas I have ever seen, by a tiny bald headed nun in the ancient capital of Cambodia.

We sat for a while, on our knees, afterwards and drank in the increasingly busy scene before us wondering what they were 'celebrating'.

Back outside we asked our driver.

'The last day of the rainy season.' He offered.

A bit early we thought but the season this year, as with much of the Asian world, HAS been a bit extreme. Maybe a bit of wishful thinking WAS in order.

Before climbing the 500 steps to the view we investigated a new reclining Buddha around the back of the Temple Hall.


He serenely lay, with head on hands, facing the direction of the Jade Buddha oblivious to the inspection of tiny hands.

We decided to take the back route up (the path we had been unable to find the first time) Phnom Oudong past some ancient stupas that allegedly contain the ashes and spirits of former Kings. This time the steps were less steep and the assent easier, broken by some stupa exploration.


When we finally reached the top it was crowded with local Khmer but we managed to squeeze into a spot to marvel at the view which was a lot more water logged than the last time we saw it.


We took the kids underneath to the room with the hundred buddhas before descending the much steeper and more crowded steps at the front of the temple to the sounds Cambodian hiphop, from a portable boom box, into the carpark where Chunthy was waiting.



It wasn't until we got back to Phnom Penh that I was worked out it was the first day of Bonn Kathen (Kathin), which begins 15 days exactly after the final day of P'chum Ben, that we had witnessed. Bonn Kathen is a 29 day period at the end of vassa, the month of confinement of the monks (which includes P'chum Ben). During Bonn Kathen, which means 'offering saffron robes', monks exchange their old robes for new ones donated by members of neighbouring wats. It has the affect of not only earning merit for both parties in the exchange but also for strengthening and nurturing ties within the wider community. The donations can include not only new robes but also money to help in the maintenance of the wat, the grounds and the school. Apparently the merit points gained during this transaction are quite specific.

For the Bhikkhus, a fully ordained male monk, the merits include:
anamantacaro - the Bhikkhu can go anywhere without telling the other Bhikkhus asamadanacaro- the Bhikkhu can go anywhere without taking Tricivara (his robes) with him kanabhojanam- the Bhikkhu who serve the foods can call the name of those foods (in other words he can ask for what he wants to eat)
yavadatthacivaram - the Bhikkhu can keep or use the civara without vikabba and adhitdhana (determination and resolution ie being mindful about it)
yo catatthacivarubbado so ne sam bhavissati - the civaras (robes) happened in that avasa (monk house) will be for those bhikkhus (in other words they dont have to share their new robes with the other monks.

The donor too gets spiritual credit:
susanthanara - to have complete organs (I think that means in the next life!)
surubata - to be good looking or handsome
suvannata- to have good colour (not sure whether this is to do with health or with having the much sort after pale skin tone)
adhibaccambarivaro - to have many servants
and susurata- to have a sweet sound
And in addition the person who makes the 'right clothing' will 'avoid to be born' in the four least desirable places in the next life; the place of ghosts, of evils, hell and the place of wild animals (I think that means as a wild animal)

Plus the organizers of the ceremony are destined to be born into rich families.