Nathalie Abejero

These posts are a collection of dissociated ramblings on politics, work in foreign aid, life as an expat and incidental travels. A writing theme may one day be a good idea, but for now it’s a personal website to make updates available to friends and family  more in “About”

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So these are the things I spend time on these days. Interesting animation of how the little tykie comes out. I find it interesting that the best options around here (Thailand) for a “natural” birth are so medically-oriented. Facilities have around a 70% caesarian rate. And I thought things were bad in the US!

Here are scenes from a recent trip to visit a colleague in Kampong Cham, Cambodia. For more photos see Keith Kelly’s flickr.

For some reason, the cloud formations around here are really cool, especially during the rainy season. They get big and puffy like the clouds you liked to think were bunnies or pandas or other cuddly creatures in the sky when you were a kid – cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds is what I think we used to call it in 2nd grade. It makes for dramatic sunsets. Except the rainy season has refused to come to SE Asia so far this year, and any gorgeous sunset is completely lost on our poor melting gray cells.

Looking for a great meal? This coconut oil fried fish from the Two Dragons Restaurant near the town center is THE BEST DISH EVER!! I tell you I think there’s crack in this dish, it’s SOOO GOOD and that is all the descriptive narrative I can sputter about this.

And you’ve already seen how people travel around here. I don’t like to sit in the middle or the back of the bus cuz I get motion sickness, but sitting in the front and watching these trucks piled high with people swerving in and out of the traffic makes me nervous. Yeyy for iPods. It’s also a good thing that all manner of pirated angry music is available in Cambodia. It’s a good soundtrack for riding the Cambodian highways, to shove aside all empathy for these poor riders in favor of aggressive mental video gaming and point systems.

More photos on Keith Kelly’s flickr.

Would you believe this bamboo bridge in Kampong Cham has to be reconstructed from scratch at the end of each rainy season? The land shifts with the Mekong River flows, and the bamboo washes away with its floods. The folks living on the island get separated from the mainland and use boats for transport. More photos on Keith Kelly’s flickr.

And THIS is how they’d transport SUVs and other similarly heavy equipment across the river, by tying two boats together and nailing a wooden plank on top. I used to cringe every time I traveled this way across raging rivers over a kilometer wide, but now I know these things are indestructible. You just gotta believe.