I am in Cambodia Now

I am sitting downstairs at our guesthouse in Siem Riep, after a long
day of traveling from Koh Chang in Thailand. Siem Riep is the gateway
to Angkor Wat, which we'll visit tomorrow or the day after. Our first
few days in Thailand were fun -- seeing Haisun's old haunts in
Bangkok, then a day trip to Ayuthaya, and then a traveling and a day
in Koh Chang.
Ayuthaya was gorgeous. It's only an hour outside of Bangkok (so easy
day trip), and is a little island (surrounded by rivers) with several
sets of temple ruins on them. Haisun wasn't feeling well, and had
already visited the wats (temples), so she hung out in internet cafes
all afternoon while I rented a bicycle and toured the temple ruins. It
was great, and I felt way too confident navigating crazy Thai traffic
on two wheels. Highlights included riding the bicycle between
elephants and pickup trucks on the roads, eating roti sai mai (thin
crepe-like pancakes wrapped around sugar floss), and seeing Wat Phra
Sisanpet at sunset.
The day after Ayuthaya we took a ride down to Koh Chang, a sweet
little tropical island off the south coast of Thailand. Six hour bus
ride to Trat, taxi to the pier, ferry to the island, and songthaew
(literally "two benches", basically a pickup with a covered bed and
two benches) to the guesthouse. We arrived in the late afternoon, hit
the beach, and had an awesome time. I'm sure someone will quibble
about better islands and better beaches in Thailand, but I don't care.
It was a perfect little slice of paradise, despite the fact that it
poured our entire second day there.
Enough of rainy islands, it was time to set off for Cambodia. We got
up at 6:30am today, and got into Siem Reap around 7ish. Songthaew to
the pier, ferry to the mainland, taxi to the bus station. Bus to
Chanthaburi, 1 hour. Bus to Aranya Prathet, 4 hours. Border crossing,
a little hairy. We had to take a tuk tuk from the bus station in
Aranya to the border, and said tuk tuk decided to drop us off with
some friends who wanted to scam us. Long story short, we just insisted
on being taken to the border, and fortunately that worked. After
wandering around the border netherlands for a bit (not many signs in
English) we found our way into the "Visa on Arrival" office to get our
visas. After hearing that overcharging is rampant at the border,
especially among officials, I was relatively happy to only have paid
an extra 200 baht than I should have. Tourist visas are $20US, and
several border guards kindly offered to process them for only 1,000
Baht (about $28US). Much better than the scam place which was trying
to make us pay $30.
Cambodia is interesting so far, what little I've seen. Most of our
"bus" ride (really a shared van) from the border at Poipet to Siem
Reap went through lovely, flat green countryside at sunset, which was
gorgeous. And so far the Cambodians I've met, aside from corrupt
border guards, have been extremely friendly and helpful, almost
frighteningly so. There's a lot of foreigners in Siem Reap,
predictably, but it's a pretty little town, at least at night. And
you should see how people light up when you even just say "thank you"
in Khmer ("aw gohn") -- I thought Lonely Planet said the Thais make you
feel like rockstars....

Sitting in Bangkok

Hello from an internet cafe in Bangkok! I just landed late last night, so I haven't had much time to do stuff here. Haisun met me at the airport and we just hung out on Khao San Road (the touristy strip) and got some food and caught up a little. Today we got up, ate, went to her old apartment, ate some more, did some window shopping, ate... and now we're sipping tea and using the internet before we go eat dinner. You can see where this all is heading. Basically my plan is to eat enough so that buying a new wardrobe is actually necessary. This is important, because there are a ton of cute clothes in Bangkok that I can't really justify buying... Really, I don't want to carry a ton of stuff around for the rest of my trip, but we'll see how my resolve stands up at the markets tonight and in the future.

It's nice being in Bangkok, and of course nice that it's a familiar in facade and food. The few Thai phrases I learned when I was last here are slowly coming back to me, and although I can remember all the numbers from one to ten I can't remember them in the right order. Oops. Jet lag hasn't reared its ugly head yet, but... as I typed that, I yawned.

Haisun and I are going to sit down tonight and make up a travel plan, although we've already talked about it a bit. So far we're thinking a few days here in Thailand (maybe Ayutthaya and Koh Chang), over to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat and Phnom Penh, maybe down south to Sihanoukville for some diving, and then to Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Hoi An/Hue, Halong Bay, and ultimately Hanoi. Fun!

Travel, SCUBA, Disco

I'm taking off today for three weeks in Southeast Asia - Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, to be exact. I'll try to keep you updated here, or on my friend's blog. My cousin Kathy's  wedding was this weekend. It was a gorgeous ceremony at the beach in Malibu, and it was great to see a lot of the east coast family. I arranged whale watching tickets for the visiting fam for Friday and Saturday, which was a big hit and not to mention some of the best whale watching I've seen all summer. Pictures later, because they're on my laptop and that's already been packed away to home. (All I'm taking is my iPod, so please excuse the typos - especially now, I'm on the bus to the airport.)

A number of people have encouraged me, upon hearing of my trip, to read Eat, Pray, Love. Sorry, but I already brought Lester Bangs' Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung for travel reading. And while I'm sure I'll do enough eating, I'm going to do more adventurous things on this trip. Hopefully a little diving! And a lot of fun with my travel buddy, Haisun.

It's time for Adventure Julia!

SCUBA/Whale Watching Roundup

Just some pictures from class, taken by our instructor:


More updates in a bit!

Fish from the kelp forest

Here is what a giant sea bass looks like:

For scale, my hand is about the size of it's mouth, and it's body is bigger than my torso. The one we saw was probably a different species, but was just as huge. Ironically, the guy in our group who got closest to it didn't even see it. We were all kneeling on the bottom in a semi-circle around our instructor, and she directed one of the guys to move to a spot on the edge of the circle. He swam over there, and that's when we all turned to see the giant sea bass swimming by. Ridiculous.

There were lots of other fish, including Garibaldi, the California state fish, and plenty of invertebrates. I can't wait till next weekend when we get to explore more on our dives and spend less time working on skills. 

 The Garibaldi, Hypsypops rubicundus

 Juvenile Kelp Rockfish

 Señorita, top L, and with other fish, Oxyjulis californica

Sheephead, Semicossyphus pulcher

 Turbot, a flat fish

SCUBA Day 2

While I feel like I've been knocked down and smushed with a giant rolling pin and I'm so tired I'm about to fall out of my chair, today was awesome. Kelp forests are my new favorite thing and I wish I had paid more attention in ichthyology class. More later, but we saw a giant sea bass that was at least 5 feet long. Massive!

Beginning of the Weekend: Whales and SCUBA

I'm a little jealous I'm not out whale watching this weekend, since we seem to have hit the peak of the season and it's going to be fantastic. Yesterday I went out on both trips and we saw a ton of whales. Most days we see one whale, on lucky days we see two or three, maybe four. Yesterday we saw 11 on the first trip and 13 on the second. Or at least we thought we saw that many, it was hard to keep track. There were whales surfacing all around us, you could see blows in almost any direction you looked. Most were blue whales, but there were at least a few fin whales, and a blue-fin hybrid, which is very rare indeed. One of the fins engaged in some lunge feeding on the surface, and I got a great picture of it (to be uploaded later). It was a fantastic day for whale watching. And to top it off, the dolphins were gettin' it on in the harbor! Not a trip for the kids.

I'm not on the aquarium boats this weekend, though, because I'm doing a SCUBA certification class. We had our first classroom and pool session today and it's already incredible. I've had very vivid dreams where I can breathe underwater and this is exactly what it's like. Effortless breathing underwater. The swimming feels a little strange so far, though, just because I'm so used to being in a pool in a swimsuit, not a 7mm wetsuit and with 50lbs of gear strapped on my back. The skills aren't too hard, but there are a lot of things to remember. Our instructor is great -- she's nice, very clear, and teaches things well. There's only six of us in the class and everyone's been pretty chill so far.

Tomorrow we're going to Catalina to dive at some kelp forests, which I am really looking forward to. I'm going to Southeast Asia in a few weeks and I thought about getting certified while there, but I really wanted to see kelp forests and not waste time on my trip taking a class. Two birds, one stone. And now I'm thinking about far more seriously about taking time to go diving on my trip.

However, I need to leave at 5:30am tomorrow to be in San Pedro by 6:15am to get geared up and on the boat at 7am. Uuuuuugh.

Happy Shark Week!

A lesson for you:

Those are the essentials!

Whales and more whales

Today we saw a blue and two fin whales, yesterday we saw a blue, Friday we saw a blue, and the weekend before that I helped break our unlucky whale-less week. Captain Greg called me his lucky charm for helping them break the streak... little did he know I caused it a week earlier.

And... we've seen plenty of dolphins! Here are some pictures of dolphins I took today. I will put up more and more pictures as I bring them home from the aquarium. I have some awesome pictures of blue whale flukes from yesterday, and plenty of other cool ones.

Whee!

And here's a few stories:
There were a couple of boys asking me difficult questions on the cruise last weekend: "How do boats float if they're so heavy?" While, technically, I know the answer (displacement), it's something I've never fully understood myself. "How come sailboats don't tip over even though they lean over so far?" Ok, I know that one for sure, but come ON boys! This isn't a Physics Watching Tour! Ask me some questions about whales!

The woman who walked up to me at the beginning of one cruise and just said, "I don't like people." Then she walked away.

The whale watching expert who, after describing almost every whale watching tour she's been on in the last 30 years ("since 1978!"), decided to ask us typical tourist questions (with a sarcastic smile, so it's ok!): "How do you know it's a girl?" (In response to us pointing whales out by saying "There she blows!"), "How do you find the whales? Do you call them?", etc.

Here's a whale I never saw, but it's a great photo, courtesy of National Geographic:

A dwarf minke whale. (Full size here.)

My future?

The Graduate was right. Plastics are the future. In fact, they're the basis of the PhD program for which I am applying.