Blog Post #10: Introducing Cambodia

It is December 29^th, 2010 and as some of you know, my adventures in Europe ended October 30, 2010 and my new unprecedented excursion began in Cambodia (an impoverished country in Southeast Asia). 

The last city I blogged about in Europe was Prague, Czech Republic.  I have found myself strapped on time as of late so what I will do is simply post links to my photo albums from the next cities I visited after Prague.  I provide comments to most of the pictures so essentially it works out to be similar to my blog posts--just not as in depth obviously (simply click on the city to see the public Facebook albums of each destination): Berlin, Germany; Munich, Germany (there are actually 4 albums of Munich); Salzburg, Austria; Venice, Italy; Florence, Italy; San Gimignano, Siena-Tuscany, Italy

 

Cambodia is a country where over 30% of the population lives on $1.25/day—or less.  The country experienced mass genocide during the late 70’s and the effects of this inhumane act are still evident today (as I will explain in another post).  I stayed in Cambodia from October 30, 2010 till December 15, 2010, not leaving the country during that time.   I lived in Phnom Penh and volunteered with an organization known as Banteay Srei.  This is a NGO (non-government organization) that specializes in human rights, community development and community empowerment.  I didn’t keep up with my blog during my stay in Cambodia due to being bombarded by enough activities and events to keep me busy most of the day.  I did however keep notes about what I considered to be important, interesting, intriguing, inspiring and sad; these notes will ultimately help me articulate the experience I received and hopefully give you an idea as to how other cultures live in a world so different from our own. I mentioned that I left Cambodia December 15, 2010 and headed to Malaysia for 5 days before departing to Ushuaia, Argentina—my home now until April 1, 2011.  Before getting into this though, I will explain through a series of posts what can only be described as a life changing experience. 

Blog Post #9: Prague, Czech Republic

“Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” – Paul Theroux

Well, I haven't done an actual blog post in awhile due to being extremely busy and overwhelmed by my stint in Southeast Asia.  I arrived here October 30,2010 and right now as I write this Prague post it is December 12, 2010.  As you can see, I am quite behind on blogging about my travels.  I have found it extremely difficult to find time to sit down and submit a post due to being busy working, traveling for work (volunteering in Cambodia right now), engaging in activities in Cambodia and just enjoying my time here.  I was in Prague October 6th, 2010 so I am almost 2months behind.  To catch up, what I plan to do is merely summarize the main points of each location I visited in Europe from October 6th, 2010 up until October 30th,2010.  At which point, I will blog in detail about my time spent in Cambodia;  this is warranted because my experience here has been unprecedented and totally unique due to the fact that I have been working in Cambodia for the last 6 weeks.  This experience has given me insight and revelation that I never would have gained by merely passing through numerous places as fast as I could--just to say I had been there.  But like I said, more on this later.

I have uploaded my Prague pictures to Facebook and I have provided a link to the album below with a short description of each picture.  The albums are public so you should have no problem viewing them.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=572252&id=516655073

I can describe my time in Prague as the following: energetic, laid back, great people, clean, historic, diverse and down right awesome.  I stayed at a hostel called "Mosaic House" and it was the most luxurious hostel I had stayed in up until that point in my trip. Interesting enough, it only cost 10euros--woo woo. 

I was still with Brady at this point and this would be his last stop before he headed back to Saskatoon--wow time flies.  We elected to do a city tour and a castle tour--both on the same day.  Along with these tours, we visited a few museums and ended up partying a lot--we were in Prague after all (lol).  The city is full of history in the sense that it was one of the focal points for the beginning of World War II and it is a country that has constantly battled with it's own identity. Along with this, there is a lot of Jewish history here and the city displays the struggle that the people have continuously faced throughout their lives.

At the top of the picture you can see a graveyard.  This is the Jewish graveyard and was the only place within the city limits where they were allowed to bury their people.  So, they had to bury generations upon generations on top of one another because they had no other options.  This was way before World War II and just symbolizes the struggles that the Jewish people have faced throughout their life time.

We ended up going to a football (soccer) game that featured Scotland vrs. Czech Republic.  We actually bought scalper tickets because we missed buying them legitimately by literally 2 minutes--it was extremely frustrating seeing as that both of us wanted to go really bad.  We overpaid for the tickets but neither of us cared because the game was worth it.  The ambiance in a soccer stadium is absolutely electrifying.  The screaming fans, the missed goals, the echo, the passion and the non-alcoholic beer.  Yes, thats right, the beer was non-alcoholic. We stood there sipping on our beer and we both said to one another "this beer tastes oddly peculiar".  Then we overheard someone say it was non-alcoholic--hmmmm.  I wonder how many people actually know this.  We started asking around and apparently it was not common knowledge.  Once we informed people of this new acquired fact, the look of people's faces filled with dismay followed by a dubious smile--they didn't believe us. Our claim was quickly verified after we directed them to the concession stand for a second opinion (lol). As we walked around waiting for the game to start we noticed that word of this quickly spread and we saw half full beers all over the place abandoned by the ones who were originally seeking a drunken state.  The funny thing is that half the people in attendance were of Scottish origin and the Czechs hadn't posted any signs in English that the beer was non-alcoholic;  only in Czech did this claim appear so blatantly over the concession stand.  But of course, from a business perspective, they were doing the right thing ;) .

Scotland ended up losing 4-2.  I was quickly developing a liking for football and in the future would find myself seeking out games to watch on TV (in Southeast Asia).

We ended our Prague stint by Brady going out and me crashing in bed--my body was becoming worn down.  I woke up to Brady packing up his stuff at 5am as he had an early flight. We said our farewells and  Brady headed to the airport and me back to sleep. The next day I would be taking the train to Berlin and would soon be overwhelmed with the impression left behind by World War II.