Running in Kampot

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NOTE: This blog is dedicated to the people of Boston who have suffered terribly by the bombings at the Boston Marathon. In the running community we have an expression – “we are all Kenyans”. This is to support those great Kenyan runners who must persevere through very difficult conditions to become the best in the world. Today it can be said that “we are all Bostonians”.

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Hello Runners – welcome to running in Kampot. As can be seen in our first blog post, we have the beautiful Elephant Mountains outside of our back door, where the Bokor National Park is located. Check out these sites to see some of the amazing beauty (http://phnombokor.com/ and http://www.bokor-mountain-cambodia.com/). I have seen many of these sites including a time that three other adventurers and I rode bikes up the mountain to almost the top peak (38 miles total, 3400 ft ascent). According to my Cyclemeter iphone app, we hit speeds nearly 50 mph going downhill which is a bit hard to believe. But this blog is about running…

Bokor Mountain provides a great running destination from the SKMH. It is a little more than 2 kilometers to the base and the road up the mountain may be in the best condition of any in Southern Cambodia. My standard run is about 8 km (~5 mi) which includes about a 1.5 km run uphill before I turn around to run down the mountain. I sometimes pair this run with one to the Gulf of Thailand up a dirt road which is also about 2 km from the hospital. The biggest problem with that path is the many dog “packs” barking and following me from the houses close to the road (there is no animal control in Cambodia). I carry a bamboo pole to keep any too aggressive dogs at bay, but I don’t want to deal with a dog bite and possible rabies shots. So far so good…

So here is the entrance to the hospital looking back at it from the main road outside:

Check out this beautiful sunrise looking east from a small jetty going out into the gulf. There are small fishing boats in the distance and the mountains furthest away are probably near or in Vietnam.

Here is a view back to Bokor and the hospital. Notice the very red dirt, the soil here reminds me of Georgia back in the US.

Here are the best looking shins in Cambodia! This is me on the jetty with my bamboo pole. I practice some martial arts arnis and staff moves when I run. It also strikes fear in the hearts of the pooches.

Here is the entrance to Bokor National Park. The blue sign in the distance is the checkpoint for cars and the elaborate gate to the left is just below.

The Khmere writing on the gate simply tells you that this is the entrance to a clothing factory (or so I'm told). There is a large factory on that property and the owner has erected many elaborate structures in the style of very formal Khmere architecture.

The statue below is the Hindu god Vishnu that you see exiting the park just behind the welcome sign. He is (according to ReligionFacts) "All-Pervading," is the protector of the world and the restorer of moral order (dharma). He is peaceful, merciful, and compassionate. To Vaisnavites, Vishnu is the Supreme Lord. He has been modified to carry construction tools instead of the regular conch, discus, club, and lotus. Cambodia is about 90% Buddhist so you may wonder why Vishnu is here. My best understanding is that Buddha (the sage) is the 9th avatar of Vishnu, so there is a strong relationship between the two religions. Cambodia has historically been strongly influenced by India at least since about the 7th century. The major temples like Angkor Wat are actually Hindu temples.

You can also see a small shrine for burning incense at his feet.

Here is one of the km markers that I use to judge distance. This is near the gate pictured above and marks the first kilometer heading into Bokor. We call these the "tombstone markers".

Here, just behind the fence gate is one of the little dogs that liked to come out and bark at me. However, I haven't had a problem with any of them on the Bokor part of the run for some time. I think that I now smell more like a Khmere (food maybe?) which might seem normal to the dogs. Its either that or they fear my bamboo staff of destruction!!!

Near my normal turnaround point on the mountain is this sign. It means "Do Not Litter" :^)

Check this view about 2 km up the mountain. This is looking southwest towards Thailand.

Here is a shot a little further up the mountain when I did a late afternoon run. Here I'm looking northwest as the sun sets over one of the peaks in the park. The sunsets here are just incredible with more colors than I have ever seen anywhere else.

That is it for now. To all my running friends: keep up the joy of running and remember to check your shoes for scorpions before you go out... Peace.

We Are Back!

Hello Friends!

We had to suddenly return to the US after getting word of the unexpected death of Tod's mom on March 7. Our focus was on this difficult tragedy so we did not update the blog. We have settled back into our life in Kampot and now feel its time to resume our posts. We have recently spent time in Preah Sihanouk "Ream" National Park which will provide some beautiful pictures. We also will be posting the second part of our trip to Seam Reap. Right now is also the tail end of the Khmer New Year (Soo-a s'day ch'num t'may!)

The hospital also opened for inpatient and emergency services for 24h/7 operations. It has been a challenge in some ways, but the hospital is saving lives in even more ways, especially those of the children that come in.

And to our family and friends that helped us through the difficult loss of Tod's mom - thank you and God bless you for being there.

Turning the page...

Siem Reap - Day One (Cont)

The Floating Village of Chong Khneas

Day one stop number two was the floating village. It is a village that lives in the middle of a lake on house boats. To get to it, you have to take about a thirty minute boat ride to get to the middle of the lake. But it was definately a site to see.


We went to Siem Reap with two other people from the Phnom Penh church, Gerlinda Lucas and Will Goodwin. The guy in the very back was our tuk-tuk driver extraordinaire Phirun.

The village is made up of a couple hundred house boats. They also have a couple of restaurants, stores, gas station, basketball court, a clinic and a school. There are several hundred people that live in the floating village.

 

We ate at one of the restaurants that also had a crocodile farm, fish farm and some kids with snakes.

 

The guy on the right looks very hungry!!

 

This was the BIG DADDY of the gators!

 

Tod let them put one of the snakes around his neck, but Michelle wasn't going near them.

Look at that smile.

That's the sign of insanity...someone puts a snake on you and you smile.

 

That evening, we went to a photo gallery exhibit that several Ex-Pats were holding of life around Cambodia. It was very impactful to see some of the the horrendous mistreatments that the Cambodian people are suffering. Many are taken out of their homes, put in trucks and dumped into a field and told to live their because the property their home was on is needed to build somthing commercial.

Here we are with one of the Photo Journalist, David Belluz who was displaying his work.

 

To finish our night, we went downtown Siem Reap for dinner and watched a live band.

 

The best part was they had generators so had electricity and internet so everyone was able to update their facebook pages and check their e-mail. How did we survive without technology???



Siem Reap - Day One

The Silk Farm Tour

We spent three days in Siem Reap this past weekend. We saw a lot during that time, met some wonderful people, made some new friends and had an overall great time. The unfortunate thing for the town was a truck hit several electric poles on Thursday pulling down 20 poles total, so the town was out of power for over 5 days. This meant only people who had generators had any power or electricity. Thankfully our guesthouse, the Traveler's Inn (www.siemreaptravelersinn.com) had a generator so we had running water and ceiling fans to sleep at night. The hosts are members of the Siem Reap church and we felt very welcome there. So on to our sightseeing. We are going to break these into a couple of blogs so we can show more pictures.

Our first day, we went to a Silk Farm. It was amazing. The silk farm is located about 20 minutes from down town Siem Reap. It was put into a rural area so they could have plenty of space for the mulberry trees that the worms eat from. It also created over 1000 jobs for those people living on the outskirts of Siem Reap. The free tour they have is very informative and fascinating.

 

When we got there, they walked us through the entire process of how they cultivate the worms and gather the silk thread from their cocoons.

These are moths that have mated (some were still in the process) and are now laying eggs.

 

 

 

 

They have them on papers so that they can see the eggs as they hatch. 

 





 

Here is a picture of some of the worms right before they start their cocoon process. When they turn yellow that means they are ready to cocoon.

 

And then they cocoon.

 

They then spin the silk separating the raw and fine silks. The raw silk comes from the outer layers of the cocoon while the finer silk comes from the inner layers. They gather it by putting the cocoons into water and pulling the silk that way.

 

They then dye the silks using various natural elements (leaves, bark, berries, etc) to make the dyes. That is why unless you get the silk from the same batch you won't be able to match the color because it is not an exact science.

 They then spin the silks onto spools and use the silks to hand weave fabrics out of them.

 

Then they use the fabrics to create beautiful clothing. Like these traditional wedding clothes. The entire process was fascinating and we enjoyed it very much.

 

 

 

An Office of Our Own

Because we don't spend enough "quality" time here (with no TV or transportation to get away from each other) we now are sharing an office. We do have a nice view and windows that open to bring in the cool breeze. It also has air conditioning so that when it starts to get really hot in a few months we can stay cool!! YEAH for air conditioning in the heat. The best part is we get to be able to see each other at any time by just looking up from our computers. This 24/7 togetherness is great (at least for now - LOL.) Good thing we like each other.

So now, for those of you who don't think we are working, here is our office to show even if we aren't working (Michelle is always reading FB) we can at least look like we are.

 

Oh and we have our own bathroom!!!

First Sunday Service in Kampot

Feb 20 - We had a great weekend (last weekend). About a dozen members of the Phnom Penh Church of Christ came down to hold the first service here in Kampot. We spent Saturday afternoon going around downtown Kampot inviting people to come to our service on Sunday. We were also honored to host a potluck dinner at our house on Saturday night with everyone. It was very exciting and felt so right to be hosting a party again like we often did back in NJ before the fire. The Cambodians brought Khmer food and we Ex-Pats made our various Western dishes. We also bought fresh homemade lemon meringue and banana cream pies from the Pie and Ice Cream Palace in Kampot which were AWESOME (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kampot-Pie-Ice-Cream-Palace/163818297074172). There was plenty of food to go around and everyone had their fill.

 

 

 

 

Sunday morning we had church at the Borey Bokor Hotel conference room. We wound up having 11 visitors from the hospital and in town. Sovann Seng from the Phnom Penh preached a great message. We are still trying to get use to hearing the message in Khmer and being translated to English. I love the way they sing the songs - they sing verses in Khmer and then in English.  All in all it was a very good turn out and several people asked to study the bible after service. This was all very encouraging for the people from Phnom Penh and they have promised to start coming down once a month to have service here in Kampot. Keep praying for the church to build and Christianity to be spread throughout Cambodia.

A Valentines Day bouquet for Michelle, freshly picked:

Valentines Day generates a lot of enthusiasm in Cambodia. Here is a short story on it in the Cambodia Herald: http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=MTJmYTRjMTlhMDh. Notice the the flowers were now up to $1.50 US!

Tod took Michelle out to Mea Culpa, probably the best pizza in all of SE Asia (http://www.meaculpakampot.com/)! Yum!