Thailand 2009

Thailand 2009 is undercontruction, stay tuned.

Kampot

The Lonely Planet guidebooks says: " Kampot has emerged as one of the most popular provinces in Cambodia, thanks to an alluring combination of abandoned colonial towns, abundant natural attractions and easy access around the region.

We found Kampot to be a very cool crumbling Colonial town, but easy access, that is up for debate. Our journey from Siem Reap consisted of a five hour bus ride from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh on a pretty nice tourist bus where we were given a snack box and a bottle of water. Another five hours on a not so nice bus from Phnom Penh to Sihananoukville and a final two hour taxi ride to Kampot. Despite a little sweat spent on the journey, we found Kampot to be a town that exuded both old South East Asia and modern old South East Asia where ancient bicycles park next to brand new Mercedes.

Our reason for being in Kampot was my desire to see as many Great Hill Stations of Asia as possible and the Bakor Hill Station is accessed from Kampot. See Bakor Hill Station section.

Kampots is Cambodia's main producer of Durian. However as I look through my phots I note that I did not manage to photograph any Durian on this trip. Kampot is also know for producer very high quality black pepper and this is probably one of the crops that the French colonists introduced to the region. The French still prize Kampot grown pepper.

In addition to introducing Kampot pepper to the French market, the French brought some very nice architecture to Cambodia.

The communist did not share the French Colonist values when it comes to architecture, but this is a great photo for showing what a stereotypical South East Asia street looks like.

I can never seem to take enough photos of the South East Asian answer to the 7-11

Captain and Buddy

Apparently the trick to Siamese Fighting Fish hunting is to

remove all the plants from the tank first.

Phnom Penh

This is a photo of a city sunset and I love this photo. It was taken from the window of our hotel room in Phnom Penh and I find the beauty of the sunset over a city as beautiful as any other sunset.

This is a photo of our hotel room in Phnom Penh. This was not the best hotel I have ever stayed in, nor was it by traditional standards the nicest hotel room I have ever had, however by all other measures, it was the most beautiful room I have ever stayed in.

Captain's Yoga Class

We decided that Captain was not earning his keep around here, between cat food, toys and vet bills he was just beginning to be a burden. We contemplated selling him for medical science, but they said we could not keep pelt. The way we saw it, why sell that cat if we can't make a hat out of his coat. Also, selling him was a one time profit, whereas if we put him to work we would have a steady income stream.

So we opened Captain's Yoga Studio. This is an on-line program and because we don't know how to use Pay Pal yet, we need to rely on the honor system, so each time you complete all the poses in one of his classes, please mail me $20.00, cash please.

Twisted Feline Pose

Our first pose is called the Twisted Feline and is very good for stretching and opening up the upper back. It also flexes the spine and releases toxins.

Hip Flexor Rotation Pose

In this pose Captain demonstrates the Hip Flexor Rotation pose which relaxes the hip area. In addition to releasing toxins and relaxing the lower back, this pose stretches the muscles and tendons necessary for running. This pose if particularly beneficial for the quick sprints necessary when one is hunting birds, rodents and water foul. Notice that Captain uses a deep slow breathing technique to get the most out of this pose.

Belly Stretch Pose

In his ongoing mission to create poses that will help you in your every day life and to remove the esoteric poses, such as downward dog, from his program, Captain created this pose to help you stretch your stomach capacity. When hunting large water foul it is a shame to let food go to waste because of insufficient stomach capacity, this pose stretches the limits of your stomach capacity and allows you to consume more of your favorite foods be it duck, rat or chocolate cake.

Shoulder Extension

This pose opens up the rib cage and rotator cuffs. An expanded rib cage allows for deeper lung capacity and greater vocalization, this is particularly useful when you want to come in and the door people are asleep.

Corpse Pose

This pose is often used in human yoga as the final pose to help them relax. In our class this pose teaches students the art of feigning relaxation in order to draw prey closer, thus conserving valuable hunting energy.

If you have enjoyed this class, please forward $20.00, cash only please, to my peoples.

Cook Islands 2001

The island of Aitutaki is surrounded by a distant coral reef which creates an amazingly large sheltered lagoon. We wanted to do a boat ride/snorkel trip in the lagoon, but did not much want to go on a ‘cattle barge’ style snorkel trip. What we really wanted was to rent our own boat, but we were more than happy to settle on a boat with a driver. We asked around on the island and the answer was that we had to go talk with Mr. Bishop. We located Mr. Bishop’s house and he agreed that the next day we would be picked up at our hotel and would have a full day with a boat and driver in the lagoon.

Bright and early the next day a very congenial Cook Islander picked us up at our hotel. We assumed that he would be our guide for the day because he explained that he was going to go fishing, but since we were doing a lagoon tour, he picked us up instead. He drove us to the end of the road and dropped us off at a pier, where another Cook Islander took custody of us. He explained that he had to drive us to Mr. Bishop’s house so we could pay for the tour. On the way to Mr. Bishop’s house he explained that he was going to go fishing, except that he had to pick us up so he did not go fishing. After we had settled up with Mr. Bishop we were driven to another beach were a boat and boat driver were waiting. Our good natured boat driver, Manu, explained that he had planned on going fishing that day, but cancelled because our of lagoon tour.

As for the tour, the water was crystal clear and warm, the coral and sea life was fabulous and a good time was had by all.

The guide book describes a Cook Island event known as Island Nights. Coming from Hawaii I read: “Tourist Luau.” On our first night in Aitutaki we decided to check out the Island Nights event at the big resort at the end of the island. I was kind of dubious, but there really was not much else to do at night.

The food was great, the drinks were great and the Polynesian dancing was great. Besides the good food and great dancing, one of the other differences between a Hawaii tourist luau and the Cook Islands Island Nights was that the dancers did not pick one sunburned tourists from the audience to give the crash course in the sorta Tahitian hip wiggle, but went through the audience and got everyone to dance.

The next night as dinner time was rolling around we decided to go to the Island Nights in our neighborhood. We were staying on the main drag (a narrow two lane partially paved coral road), in an older family run hotel, rather than the end of the island with the fancy resorts. The first thing we noticed when we wandered into the modest restaurant of the night’s festivities was that our waitress from the big resort the night before was the bartender on this night. Soon Cook Islanders started coming into the restaurant carrying bowls and platters of food. Turns out the smaller restaurants did not have the capacity to cook all the food for an Island Nights and thus they had the neighbors help cook. We also came to understand as we stayed on Aitutaki, no two restaurants held an Island Nights on the same night. This was undoubtedly because there were not enough tourists or wait help on the island for more than one Island Nights at a time.

When arriving on an island, it is rarely what one had imagined based upon the guide book or preconceived notions. Some are more urban, others more rustic and some just more hilly. I had planned that we would rent bicycles to circumnavigate the little island of Aitutaki. After we walked to the bicycle rental shop, we decided to rent a motor scooter instead.

After a few minutes on our motor scooter we noticed something a little odd. Every single adult outside was either mowing a lawn, messing with a lawn mower of moving a lawn mower. By moving I mean by hand, by cart, by car or by truck. It was almost like some strange sort of cargo cult involving lawn mowers. We soon learned that every three months the Cook Islands Department of Public Health did a thorough inspection and anyone with an un-kept yard was fined. In pure Cook Island style, lawn mowers were being barrowed, loaned and operated and the entire island was perfumed with fresh cut grass.

Our hotel room on Aitutaki came equipped with an orange cat. Because he seemed to come with the room, we fed him while we were there. We were impressed that the room came with this amenity as lodging on the Island was inexpensive, in fact we spent more to board our cat at home than we spent for our hotel on Aitutaki.

Angkor Wat

This is under construction and will be fine-tuned later

Fish

Captain Tiger Spots

In December 2005 Larry and I lost all of our good senses and went to Maui to purchase a Bengal kitten. I have always believed that cats and kittens were something that you either acquired in parking lots or sometimes while intoxicated at the party of a person who had a litter of kittens to find homes for. Prior to the week before our acquisition of this kitten we has never heard of Bengals and made this decision based upon a few random web searches.

Captain was on exceedingly cute kitten

Bengals were created by breeding Asia Leopard Cats with a mix of domestic cats. The Asian Leopard Cat is a small forest cat found in the jungles throughout South East and East Asia. I think the wild cat gene is probably what gives Captain his sharp skills for finding food.

Captain maintains the high level of awareness which must have protected his ancestors from the certain death of being eaten my elephants.

Often it was the cute factor alone that prevented Captain from being put in a box and sent back to Maui.

Captain's suspicion that Love Birds are both nutricious and delicious lead to our decision to give Millet to a neighbor