A December to Remember

More Chistmas at the Orphanage
The kids got spoiled this holiday season with two huge Christmas celebrations. The first, described previously, was put on by a few Australian expats, and the second was put on by parents and teachers at the British International School (BIS). On the evening of Tuesday the 14th, teachers, parents, & a few of their kids came to Thien Phuoc to decorate, sing some carols, serve cake, and give gifts to the kids. Julia, a BIS parent who visits the orphanage every week, took pictures of every kid at Thien Phuoc and matched the pictures to their names. She then gave each Year 1 BIS student the name & picture of someone they would prepare a gift for. The kids were elated when they received festively wrapped boxes filled with sweets, toys, and an assortment of other small items. Furthermore, on their respective presents, there was a picture of them & a BIS student back-to-back within a popsicle stick star frame. It was fun to be at the orphanage in the evening, which I never am, and see the kids' faces light up with excitement for each element of the party.

Vietnam Hat Tournament
For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a "hat" tournament, the idea is that everyone who wants to play puts their names in a hat, and then teams are picked at random. However, it's a little different in practice. For the 7th Annual Vietnam Hat, online registration included a questionnaire to be filled out by each participant in which level of experience, speed, and whether or not one wanted to captain a team were requested. I didn't remember checking the box to offer to be a captain, but I ended up being assigned to lead the orange team. There were about 200 participants, up about 80 from the past few years, so there were 10 teams of just under 20 players.

I met up with some of my teammates from Angelina's Orphans, the team I played with at Manila Spirits based out of Cambodia, Friday evening for dinner followed by the registration party at "Le Pub." I took a taxi from District 1 back to my house, which took about 45 minutes, slept for a solid 4.5 hours, then got on the bus by 6am to head back downtown in order to catch the 7am shuttle bus to the fields. My team went 3-1 on Saturday, and I was thrilled to see how quickly our team developed a flow and cohesion in the course of one day. We had a couple speedy kids from Singapore, a super quick, elite mixed club handler from NYC who was traveling through SE Asia, and David Jensen, a tall, athletic living legend in Asian ultimate who dominates the air.

The theme for Saturday's party was "Beauty and the Beast," and after putting off my costume shopping all week, I was left looking pretty lame when I showed up costume-less. The guys out of Phnom Penh dressed in drag, although I'm not sure if they were exactly beauties. There were a few animal costumes as well, and at the end of the night, I finally found some tinsel that I had been searching all over for in order to make a lion mane. The highlights of the party were the fashion show and the eating contest in which the contestants had to eat three unusual- yet authentic- Vietnamese items: dog meat, durian (sau rieng), and a boiled duck egg in which the embryo is almost fully developed (hot vit lon). It was gross, but all three guys were at the fields in the morning, ready to play. I ended up staying in a hotel that night, so I was able to cut out those extra two hours of travel time.

After a first round bye and a Bella Donna warm-up routine, including dynamic stretching and the box drill, the orange team came out firing. Both our quarters and semis games were super intense, filled with sick plays and a high level of athleticism. We came out on top in both and then had a two hour bye to prepare for the finals against the brown team. They were led by a guy who plays for the top beach team in the Philippines and an awesome girl from Singapore. Both the guys and girls on my team had some amazing lay-out D's, ridiculous skies, and clutch end-zone catches. I believe the final score was 13-11, with the orange team emerging victorious. It was a dogfight until the end and was apparently at a higher level of intensity than any previous VN Hat finals. I had such a blast both playing with and getting to know the people on my team; winning the whole thing and receiving champion jerseys was the icing on the cake.

Southern Vietnam & Cambodia
I came home from the fields Sunday at about 8pm, did laundry, packed, and headed back to District 1 early Monday morning to meet Ellen and her brother, Mike, to depart for our holiday. We took all sorts of transportation the first couple days of our journey; first we took a coach bus from HCMC to My Tho, then took a wooden boat to Vinh Long, followed by a 15-passenger van to Chau Duc, a speed boat ride into Phnom Penh, Cambodia, another coach bus ride up to Siem Reap, and a few motorbike rides in-between.

When we arrived in My Tho, we didn't have a plan other than wanting to take a boat towards the Cambodian border. After leaving a travel company's desk in which the prices were a bit high, we encountered a woman on a motorbike with a foreign woman on the back. The Vietnamese woman asked us where we wanted to go, and it coincided with the other woman and her friend's interests. With a bit of negotiating we arranged for her and a couple other guys to take the five of us down the river in her boat. It was a long but relaxing ride, and for a while we hooked on to a bigger boat and just cruised down the river. For lunch, we stopped on an island in the Mekong region and made our own spring rolls with rice paper, noodles, fish, and some greens. It was awesome, and we ended up having it for dinner as well. The woman also arranged a home-stay for us to sleep at that night. It was basically a house with a bunch of beds, a couple bathrooms, and a big porch. It was cool to stay in a village and see how those people live.

In the morning, we took a similar boat to catch motorbike taxis (xe om) then a mini bus/van for the six hour drive to Chau Duc, where we explored for the day and spent the night. It was a cute little riverside town with Vietnamese character but way less hectic than HCMC. Ellen and Mike rented motorbikes to drive around the city, and I rode on the back of Ellen's. It was far more enjoyable driving on streets that aren't completely packed with motorbikes, and we had a great view of the sunset atop a hill. We hopped on a speed boat with about 20 other people Wednesday morning and reached the capital city of Cambodia about five hours later. There were a few similarities between Phnom Penh and HCMC, but PP has far fewer people and instead of taxis, they have tuk-tuks; essentially motorbike-drawn carriages. Furthermore, Cambodia is almost entirely Buddhist, so there are tons of pagodas and monks strolling the streets in their orange robes.

The first meal we had in Phnom Penh was falafel at a little restaurant run by a Jordanian guy. We went to the home of Craig, a guy who I played with in Manila and who played in the Vietnam Hat, his wife, and his adorable 3 and a half and 5-month-old boys for dinner. Maria and Wally, a couple based out of Beijing but originally from Russia and New Jersey respectively, who played at the tournament as well, joined us, too. We met up with the rest of the PP frisbee crew at a bar and enjoyed the live music and some Angkor Beer. Ellen, Mike, and I stayed at Greg, Karin, and their four-year-old Anna's that night, and Rachel and Stephen's the following night.

Thursday morning was pretty depressing; we visited the a killing field and torture prison used by the Khmer Rouge from 1975-1979. The killing field was eerie in that there are teeth, bones, and clothes that are still surfacing. They excavated hundreds of skeletons and identified ages and genders based on the skulls in which they organized in a big monument. It reminded me of the concentration camps and killing fields I saw in Poland, and the story isn't all that different. The Khmer Rouge wanted to be in control, so they killed doctors, teachers, and basically the entire educated class and their children so that their power couldn't be challenged. However, Vietnam intervened in 1979 and put an end to the killings. Tuol Sleng/S-21, high school-turned-torture-prison was further jarring. Although the Khmer Rouge weren't as meticulous as the Nazis with their records, the photographs, tools, and bed frames left are enough evidence to show the terror that was inflicted upon the prisoners. I won't go into the brutalities committed; it's enough to say that there was barbed wire covering the windows because trying to commit suicide by jumping out of the building was preferable to staying.

After an intense morning, we visited the stunning Royal Palace of the king of Cambodia in the afternoon. The king is more of a figurehead in the constitutional monarchy of the Kingdom of Cambodia, which the country is technically called. He doesn't have 13 wives, though, like the king of Swaziland. The intricate details of the buildings were incredible, and the setting sun shone beautifully on the gold covered roofs. We intended to go to the famous Silver Pagoda, but there was a miscommunication with the tuk-tuk driver and ended up going to a random pagoda instead. Nevertheless, it was pretty cool.

We departed for Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat and other ancient temples, after enjoying a wonderful breakfast at a bistro along the river Friday morning. Craig had given us a bunch of advice about when and where to go to certain temples for the most enjoyable experience. As suggested, we took a tuk-tuk (pun intended) to one of the temples only a half hour or so after we checked into the "No Problem Villa." We met up with Maria and Wally again, and the five of us hurriedly hiked up the hill and stairs of the temple before watching the sun set. The temple was packed with tourists, and there must have been millions of pictures taken in total. Although it was pretty, the sunrise we witnessed the following morning was unmatched in beauty because it came up behind the temple as opposed to just out in front of it.

If you ever go to Angkor Wat, wake up early to see the sunrise, and take the following advice from Craig. We did, and we had the best seats in the house.

"Get to the park at about 4:45am. It technically opens at 5am, but they'll probably let you in anyways, knowing you know how to see the sunrise in the best way there is. When you get through the outer walls of the temple and close to the reflection pond, a guy will offer you coffee or tea, and you take him up on that offer because when you do, he'll bring you chairs (in our case, it was just a tarp) to sit on along with your drinks. He will set you up on the edge of the pond where the temple reflects best in the pond. (As we sat here from about 5-6:30, other tourists poured in behind us, inching in every which way to find a good position to watch from.) After the sun rises, the guy will offer you breakfast, too, and you take him up on that offer as well. When you're enjoying your breakfast, all the other tourists will be walking through the temple. After you finish eating, many of those tourists will have left and the temple will be far less crowded for you to enjoy."

The detailed engravings on all the temples we explored was absolutely astonishing and we had a blast doing yoga poses as well as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider impressions for the camera. We saw a couple temples on Saturday and a few today, and although our afternoons in Siem Reap haven't been all that eventful, it's been worth it to get to the temples early and beat the other tourists. The Khmer (Cambodian) food incorporates a lot of curry and is super good. The people in Phnom Penh were extremely friendly, but the locals in Siem Reap are extremely pushy with their goods that they're trying to sell. Furthermore, they seem pretty bitter towards tourists in general. I suppose it's somewhat understandable; there are a bunch of mid-range and high-class hotels and restaurants where there used to be modest homes and unpaved roads up until about a decade ago. Mike did a little research on the Angelina Jolie movie that was filmed here in 2000 and said that they had to build all new roads and bridges just to get their equipment in. Only then did the rush of tourists start flooding the city. I really like the Cambodian culture, though, and it's been incredible walking through 1000-year old Buddhist and Hindu temples the past few days.

Tomorrow, I'll get on a bus at 5:30am to head to Pakse, Laos. I don't have a set plan, but there are a few places I'd like to see in Southern Laos before heading back to HCMC for New Year's. Mike and Ellen are heading to Thailand to meet up with other friends, so it'll be my first time traveling completely by myself. Not to worry, though, because Laos is supposedly one of the friendliest, safest, and laid back countries there is.

*I'm in the process of uploading more pictures onto facebook...

What I read this week:
-Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

-"What We're Not Looking After: Our Eyes"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/health/21brody.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=health

-"Teaching a Safer Way to Tackle"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/sports/football/26tackling.html?pagewanted=1&ref=sports