All of the children and staff came to the airport to say goodbye to S. and I. The Phnon Phen International Airport is so different from the rest of the country: large and air-conditioned, hygienic and polished. The hospitality, despite the clinical atmosphere, is top-notch. I haven’t used toilet paper in about a month and all I can say is that it feels luxurious. Though it is easier to get used to a cold blast of water to the anus than I expected.

The goodbye wasn’t tearful for most. I had a sad evening two days ago when I realized that I had to say goodbye to everyone. I want to see them again, but I don’t know when. Maybe later this year I’ll make a trek back and actually try teaching a little more. Maybe I can raise some money and bring it back to cover some of the place’s expenses. It will be weird not being around children again. I realized at the orphanage that most of my adult life had been child-free. And I like being around children. They are so much more honest, innocent and receptive and joyful than many adults (myself included). With them I can be even more of a kid again, and they give me joy. So more than anything, this is one way my future has been influenced. The childlessness of my daily routine will be more noticeable. Having a child of my own isn’t the solution, at least now, but there are opportunities to be around kids more when I go home. It is scary to think about what will happen to all of those children in the future. Will they survive and thrive? Cambodia is hard enough even when you aren’t an orphan. But I think there situation is pretty hopeful. As long as the orphanage can stay afloat and the plans for the farm are followed through, they won’t be lacking in options for what they can do in the future. But they are all starting the race from a lot farther back.

S. and I are staying in Bangkok for less than 24 hours before heading up to Chiang Mai. Our ride from the airport into downtown took more than an hour and was in some fierce and often motionless traffic. Rain started to fall so we couldn’t get out and walk, even though once we got close to the guesthouse it would have been faster than driving. A scooter was trying to weave between traffic and he hit his brakes too fast and slid into the side of the taxi I was sitting on. There was a nice, hearty thud and he went on his way. The street the guesthouse was on ended up being one way the wrong way, so S. and I decided to get out and walk in the rain. But the driver didn? have change, so S. had to run into a store and get change while I waited. S. is traveling with what is literally a body-bag size black duffle. And since the ground was sludgy and crowded, the lugging of the bag required two hands. I was sweating a lot when we got to the guesthouse at the end of the street. The Bed and Breakfast Guesthouse would more aptly be called The Abandoned Insane Asylum Guesthouse as it deserted, with echoing narrow halls, skin-sickening fluorescent light and hospital green room doors. But the rooms are clean and air conditioned and quiet. And the toilet and shower are blue. Blue is a trustworthy color.

The guesthouse is on a narrow side street to the most vertical and gridlocked series of roads, tracks, pedestrian bridges and cluster of shopping centers I’ve ever seen. It is near the heart of an area of Bangkok called Siam Square. S. went to find a bookstore we had gone to last time in the city, since Chiang Mai doesn’t sell many new books. I went wandering around in the rain, checked my email, walked amongst the crowds some more, sat down at a covered outdoor food stall and got some noodle soup with chicken and a coffee for a buck, didn’t talk to the tall guy at the same table, went and bought some water and cookies, came back to room to cool off and dry my feet (and eat cookies).

Both S. and I have feet issues. Not only does a month of barefoot soccer games destroy your feet, but I have gotten a mad case of fungus pealing the skin of under a couple of my toes on both feet. I have been applying cream nightly. S. has two festering wounds on the tops of his toes that don’t want to heal. Combine that with the bacterial skin infection on my thumb, and what I think may be the start of conjunctivitis in my left eye, and you’ve got quite a fun situation. But at least I’m tan.

So far I have read Girl With The Curious Hair, The Cider House Rules, The Mezzanine, A Radical Approach to Child Rearing, various science books for children, Microsoft Access Bible, C Programming Beginner’s Guide, A horrible James Patterson book called First to Die (I read it in two days because it was so unbelievably bad AND set in San Francisco.), and I have started The Dubliners.

I also made this trip more expensive for myself, photo-wise, as when I plugged my battery charger into the wall, I forgot that it isn’t made for 220 volts. Spark, bam! The adapter blows and scares me half to death and leaves me with 6 now-useless rechargeable AA batteries. Oh well, at least me computer isn’t fried yet.

Some photos:
This kid is precious…my precious.
I think this is a cool family photo.

Here is the beginning of S. and I and the kid’s kick-butt brick castle. I didn’t take a photo of the finished complex.

Here I am with part of my informal soccer team.

More from Thailand soon.

Iced milk coffee in a sack for 12 cents rocks.

S. had a conversation with his students about kissing (but not them). Apparently, Cambodians don’t kiss each other on the mouth. This is a traditional behavior that seems rather mysterious. Since you use the mouth to kiss, why wouldn’t you kiss a mouth. My cultural bias talking here. But his line of questioning went nowhere except for the common reponse that “it’s just the way it’s always been.” But one girl asked rather fearfully, “what if it smells?” Is bad oral care the cause of the Cambodian kissing tradition. I have smelled some rank breath over here and doubt even if I was used to it would I want to be kissed by a mouth that smelled like the overflow spillway at egg and sewage factory. This is a working theory.

S. and I and the children built some awesome structures out of bricks the other day. To the children, it looked like Angkor Wat so we called it Angkor Wat. But to me, it was the Coolest Castle in the World! I forgot how fun building with blocks is. And these are some nice blocks. The traditional Cambodian brick is unlike the traditional American brick. It is made with a clay that almost looks and feels like terracotta. It looks like it is made by fusing together four long extrusions and squaring the sides, then sliced in smaller blocks before drying. There are cap bricks that are half-size solid pieces of fired clay. They feel a lot more fragile, but they also weigh a lot less. They make a nice clinking sound.

After what I thought were coincidences, I finally determined that when I plug my laptop in to charge, the whole place loses power. I learned this when I cut the dance class short last night and plunged everyone into darkness. Shhhhhh, this is between you and I.

One day before heading back to Thailand, and three days before livin’ it up all in Chiang Mai.

Peace out.

Today, I woke up at 6:30 and played soccer at 7. No breakfast.

S. and I left early and headed into the city to develop photos of the kids for the kids. The photo lab was staffed with a variety of characters, including a very friendly lady that spoke a little English. They let me use the toilet, but I didn’t know exactly where to pee. Choices were on the floor of the shower stall or into a waist-high basin that looked more like a narrow bathtub than toilet. I chose to pee on the floor (and my shoe) and wash the yellow water away with less yellow water from the shower hose. While we waited for the photos to print, S. and I walked to the Phnom Wat. It’s a neat little wat in the middle of a large traffic circle, and the grounds are tranquil and dense with shade trees. There are also monkeys wandering all over the place eating and mating and sleeping in trees and looking like little people. One ran frantically across the road and climbed a light pole to get up onto someone’s balcony. There was an elephant too for some reason. It was like a zoo without cages. S. and I left there and had an early lunch at 8:30.

Once we picked up the photos, S. and I went our separate ways. The other had a headache and I wanted to find some pants in the Central Market. I only brought three pairs of pants, and the dirt and physical activity of the place is wearing them out faster than I anticipated. Plus, my non dressy jeans are looking a little crusty.

The Central Market is a huge building surrounded by a traffic circle. It looks like a post-apocalyptic train station from the future. Instead of it’s initial purpose, it has been filled from wall to wall with merchandise and people. And the clutter and bustle has spilled out into exterior booths shielded from the rain by all cover of tarps and fabric and cords. The passageways between booths is labyrinthine and claustrophobic. But it is roughly organized by what arm of the building or what corner of the street it’s in. Walls and walls of people selling clothing in one area, a meat market in another, house wares, fabric, electronics, and food in other areas, all converging on the jewelry and watches that are sold from high counters in the cavernous center of the building. I bought a pair of dress pants on the cheap and went to another area of the market to get them hemmed. I changed into a sarong in front of many female seamstresses and sat while my pants were put under the needle. It was lunch time, and everyone was sitting in there area eating all sorts of bizarre foods. I want to go back before I leave and try some of the food.

On the way out, there were some persistent beggars and an endless set of solicitations to get a ride. And I was wearing a nice thick dark shirt and sweating and wanting to take a nap right there in the middle of it all. I have gotten used to so much noise at all times that it can actually be relaxing now, or at least not as noticeable.

I came home and played more soccer and basketball and ping pong and a ping pong derivative and rollerbladed and sat on the ground and had kids tickle me. Not a bad day. Except that I just rubbed chili oil in my eye and it burns. But I deserved it because I’m a selfish and worthless little bastard.

S. and I bought a huge tub of fortified dried milk to “supplement” (harhar) the vitamins we bought earlier. The milk powder is called Dumex, and it has a very white little boy with his arms wide open as if when you lug the big can you are actually hugging him. And while this package is strange, it is not nearly as weird as our Soviet-era box of Lerry’s Corn Flakes. The box has a photo of a weird smiling man that seems to be pushing through his wife to escape with an equally weird looking child into the corn fields behind them. And there is this lamely photoshopped image of the cereal with fake milk and an out of focus spoon in the foreground. Finish with a big splatter of milk in the sky. Maybe I should be a cereal box designer in Russia. The flakes taste fine, but there are a few black specks in them. Rat poop, no doubt.

Dumex and Child Abduction Cereal: part of this complete breakfast.

Some more photos:

S. in front of Wat Phnom. That is a working clock in the background.

Some of the monkies at Wat Phnom.

Exterior of Central Market.

View of the interior dome.

One of the cluttered walkways.

View of the meat counters.

Detail of a meat counter. I wanted to take details shots in the produce area and near the seafood as there were some amazing colors and moments, but I would have felt like a complete dork.

This girl reminds me of Andre 3000 from Outkast.

Me wearing my Pandemonium shirt sitting with J. and concealed by M.

More later.