After crossing the Thai/Cambodia border at Poipet we hired a taxi to take us to Siem Reap. There we checked into the New Millenium Guest House and spent the next few days visiting the Angkor ruins including Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Bayon, the list goes on and on and on. Seriously, the ruins are extremely extensive and while we only spent three days exploring them it would have been easy to make it a week. They were beautiful and so interesting because each ruin had uniqueness to it. One very sad thing though is that the Cambodian government sold the rights to an out-of-country company who charges way too much for entrance, compared to the local economy. For example, an entree at one of Siem Reap’s more decent restaurants runs around $3 USD while a day-pass to the Angkor ruins costs $20 USD. Kind of frustrating to see all those profits leave Cambodia isn’t it? In any case, we really enjoyed the ruins and also Siem Reap the city. It is quaint and smacks of French colonial influence, at least in my opinion, and very able to accommodate tourists. When I learned it was Cambodia’s third largest city I was shocked because it is by no means large.

After we finished in Siem Reap we caught a bus to Phnom Penh where we met up with Samnang Thouen, the director of Our Friends Orphanage & Schools where we were going to volunteer. Samnang met us right at the bus station and took us two hours south of Phnom Penh to the orphanage, located in a rural village deep in the rice fields of Takeo Province.

I could literally go on for hours describing what happened for the next few days as Emily and I taught English and talked with Samnang and met with families there and all of it. It was truly life-changing. The need is so great and all the funds that the world is sending to Cambodia seem to be bottle-necking in Phnom Penh to pay for fancy offices and SUVs because what Emily and I saw was extreme poverty and serious need. For example, we met a family who had nine people living in two small rooms and made money by weaving baskets. Four baskets fetched $1 USD and took 1-2 weeks to make. The man of the house had one real leg and one prosthetic and rode his bicycle more than 20km per day just to get drinking water for the family.

Samnang found out that Emily and I new how to design brochures and so he had us make him one for Our Friends. You can read it below. If you would like the pdf file to print them out to distribute them please let me know because the orphanage has serious need and no long-term funding. Last year Samnang sold his car because he ran out of money and food. Seriously people, the need is huge and all of us have something or some amount we can part with.

FRONT/BACK/MIDDLE

CENTER

We also took a lot of video footage with our camcorder and hope to make a short video for Samnang as well.

Samnang is a super inspiring guy. He is my age, 27, and after growing up in one of these poor, rural villages put himself through university in Phnom Penh by learning English well enough to earn money tutoring. Then he turned his back on career opportunities to return to Takeo Province’s rural villages to start after-school English classes for poor children. The orphanage came about when grandparents who couldn’t support their grandchildren (the parent’s had run-off to find work and never returned) came to him crying and begging for him to take care of their children. Like I said, it was life-changing. I feel like Samnang should be nominated for the CNN Hero award or something you know.

He was so kind to Emily and I. Before helping us catch our flight in Phnom Penh he even showed us around the city a little bit.

Cambodia was a great trip. We are in regular contact with Samnang now and wish we could do more to support his work. We were able to give him a little bit of money that we had saved and hope to make more donations in the future. We also are excited to introduce Our Friends to others and return to assist further. We encourage everyone to give whatever they can and go and volunteer for him. He is a great host and completely dedicated to his work.

Like I said I could go on for hours.

So much has happened since my last post. My problem has been that since so much was happening I kept on meaning to post but then I would be overwhelmed by how much there was to talk about so I would put it off only to be faced with a bigger problem as there was even more to talk about. I’m finally biting the bullet but alas I have compromised with myself and it will be an abbreviated bullet.

So after my birthday Emily and I left for vacation. We are trying to save money for a trip home in March for a wedding so this year’s vacation was not a jaunt off to some other east-Asian country (like the Philippines in 2008 and Korea in 2009) but instead a trip around our own Formosa (one of Taiwan’s many names.) After thinking about what we could do we decided upon a moped trip around Taiwan. Setting out with with one other friend Rachel, on her own moped, Emily and I piled our big backpack, our tent, and ourselves onto our moped and fled Taipei. We traveled down the west-side of Taiwan’s mountainous center stopping only one night to stay with friends near Nantou before completing the journey down to our friend’s house in DongGang, a coastal town south of Kaohsiung (Taiwan’s second-biggest city).

Rachel and Michael on a rare picture break…we drove 8 or 9 hours a day!

We stayed and hung out with Laura, our DongGang friend, for about a week and camped for a few days on Xiao Liu Chu, a small, coral island not far from DongGang. It was warm and sunny. We camped out on the beach and read and we even went snorkeling in the surf. It was fantastic and a great departure from the much colder north.

Campfires on Xiao Liu Qiu (小琉球)

The black beach in Dong Gang (東港). We’re not sure if the sand is black because of pollution or because of…nature.

Emily celebrated her birthday while we were in DongGang. I took her to Kaohsiung for the day and we hiked and road bikes and had fun together exploring the city. She’s a quarter-century old if you can believe it.

What we discovered during our hike on Kaohsiung’s  (高雄) Monkey Mountain – an ancient tree with pterodactyl-esque nests tangled in the top. Jurassic Park, anyone?

Megan, my sister, joined up with us the day before we left DongGang. Now there were four of us on two mopeds for the trip back to Taipei and oh man were we funny looking all packed on to our tiny, little 125cc scooters.

We took off north and hopped on Hwy 20, Taiwan’s southern cross-island road. There was a ton of road damage from mud-slides and it was very precarious in spots…it’s a very good thing that no mothers were on the trip is probably where I should leave the description. We came across many construction crews repairing damage and were even held up by one that hadn’t completed a little dirt trail to connect each side of the road from where a bridge had collapsed. Emily’s pictures will be invaluable for you all to see and get a better idea of what I’m talking about!

Three generations guard the family food stand near Mei Nong township (美濃)

There’s an awesome story behind this picture. We came upon a part in the road that was absolutely impassable, until this dude talked to the man in the backhoe and sped up the operation a little…they worked out a sort of ramp and helped push our scooters up! He came up with this pose himself, by the way.

We made it through eventually though and camped at LiSong, a natural hot-springs that LonelyPlanet says is Taiwan’s most beautiful hot-spring. It was very beautiful but oh man was it a hike to get down to it at the base of a ravine. I’ll leave that story for Emily to share.

After a few days there we took off up the east coast of Taiwan. The mountains and the east coast of Taiwan are so beautiful; so untamed compared to what we were driving past going south on the west-side.

After a night at Hualien‘s Formosa Backpackers Hostel (recommendable) we headed into Taroko Gorge for a few days of camping and hiking. Another great story and another one I’ll leave for Emily.

Hiking up to Lian Hua Pond (蓮花池)

Aboriginal hospitality (ie liqueur, songs, and a raging fire)

After leaving Taroko we continued to head west and north through Taiwan’s mountains. It was slow going and very foggy in places. We stayed one night at a place called Wuling Farms and while it was a nice place we arrived too late in the day to truly enjoy it. Plus, we were pretty far north at this point and as we were camping we were less enthused about being outside and “doing stuff” due to the drop in temperature.

Snow! Snow! Snow!

Wuling Farms (武陵農場)

Our last day driving from Wuling Farms to Taipei was the most grueling. It was cold, rainy, and foggy and we were way up in the mountains in the middle of these clouds that were causing the rain and the fog…and we were riding on mopeds…brr.

We finally made it back to our house last Friday evening. Since then we’ve been hanging, reading, and enjoying each other’s company. Megan had to leave to head back to her home on Kinmen today. Monday Emily and I start school.

Vacation is over.

Before reading on, press the play button of this video and listen to it as you read. It will be a scrumptrulescent experience, I promise.

Last week I finished my last final, turned in my last term paper and started winter break! Last Thursday Emily and I hosted a “No More School” party here at our house with truly fantastic people joining us in our celebration. This week I’ve lazed about, began using Pimsleur in my quest to become a real speaker of 普通話 (Mandarin), hiked with Emily in the hills just south of 台北市 (Taipei City), spent an evening at the club with foreign exchange classmates for one last whoopla before they bid Taiwan adieu, and said goodbye forever to being a twenty-five year old. What a wonderful world we have been given.

After checking my grades and speaking with classmates it seems that there is consensus in my class that many of our professors felt that they were too kind to us during the midterms and have tried to make up for it in grading our final exams. It seems like all of us have 5-10 points less on our finals than were on our midterms….maybe the administration gave one of their crack-down decrees or something. Maybe we all just slacked off. Whatev’, we should all become Montessori advocates anyways.

Our party was great. A ton of people had told Emily and I that they would be coming but as it turned out there were not too many but plenty enough to have fun! I estimate thirty to forty but Emily insists there were at least fifty people. We had an awesome mix of my classmates, Emily’s classmates, and friends of friends creating an atmosphere of diversity, conversation, beer-pong, Soul Caliber II (Playstation for the rest of you), and Texas Hold’em. Phil, one of our roommates headed up the beer-pong effort and it was a true hit. While the fact that the Asians did not know the game wasn’t surprising, I was flabbergasted in learning that the Europeans hadn’t played. Just think, because of our party beer-pong will be spreading the world over. Can a man leave a better legacy is the question that now haunts my moments of cogitation. Last year we had our party at the end of Spring semester in June and it was way too hot. Now, having done both I can say with authority that having the party at the end of Fall semester is a much better way to go.

The lazing about has been great for me but a little nerve-racking for Emily. I think that might be a reflection of our upbringing. What do you think?

Pimsleur’s Mandarin learning curriculum has been recommended to me a few times now. It was apparently developed by Dr. Pimsleur to simulate the way a baby learns language. So far I’ve really enjoyed it and I’m hopeful that I will soon be speaking pǔ tōng huà like a zhōng guó rén. Right now, though, I need to remain hopeful and consistently exercise my nǎo. Diligence is my Achilles’ heel but this time…this time will be different.

The lazing about came to a head this past Wednesday with Emily suggesting we go hiking. We chose a trail out of our Taipei Day Trips book that started just south of Xindian and went up over a mountain (or big hill if you prefer) and ended down the other side in Muzha. On the way up we stopped in to see a little temple cut into the side of the mountain behind a waterfall. It was pretty rad. If I were going to be a monk that place would be a contender. Upon reaching the top of the hill Emily and I came upon a few criss-crosses in the paths that we weren’t too sure about and ended up a little off-track. No matter though as we decided we had had enough hiking for the day. Finding ourselves in the Tea House area of the mountains surrounding Muzha we popped into one, bought some tea, enjoyed the view, talked, and sipped to our hearts content. I should teach you all how to properly drink tea; it is quite a procedure. Once we’d had our fill we hopped on the bus for the winding ride back down into the city.

Emily and I joined some of my classmates, who were only here for this past semester as exchange students, at 9 percent, a club that is luckily within walking distance from our house. Emily and I had never been there before and the evening was a nice bit of Long Island ice-teas, dancing, and saying goodbye to Julia and Fendi who are leaving to head back to Germany.

As I write this I am celebrating my first day as a twenty-six year old. I knew it was coming up but since break began I’ve completely lost track of dates. Consequently I didn’t realize until yesterday that my birthday was looming so near. I’m not even thirty and I’ve already become that guy who forgets about his own birthday. This very moment Emily is preparing a wonderful birthday dinner for me so I had better go.