Travels

Bamboo bridges and river rafts

21 May 2010 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

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.

late night soup messenger clak-clak-claking down the street

15 March 2010 by Nathalie Abejero 3 Comments

So Keith and I were the other night having a few drinks at Rising Sun by the river when the Soup Messenger came by. Here’s what it sounded like:
[audio:https://www.abejero.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Sound-clip-clak-clak1.mp3|titles=Sound clip clak clak|righticon=0x0000ff]

It’s a relic of the olden days, when food carts roamed the city streets and a little boy was sent ahead to let people know the food is coming. The kid taps a stick against a piece of bamboo, the sound of which the dead of night really carries– especially back when houses were mostly wooden. (The concrete shophouses along the river also bounce a healthy bit of noise). The sequence and rhythm of the clak-clak-clak is code for what kind of food they sold – bohboh (rice soup), nom ban chok (white noodle soup), etc. If you want some, the kid will run back to the cart and bring a bowl of soup to you. The cart pusher will wait until you finish eating (cuz s/he wants his bowl and chopsticks back), and the boy will go on ahead looking for more customers.

When we heard the familiar clak-clak-claks, Keith chased the kid down for a photo (we’ve been trying to catch a picture of him for months!). But it just doesn’t really do it justice. So when the kid came back around to go into the opposite direction I chased after him for a sound clip. It was dark and hardly a soul was out on the streets, so he was probably thinking how loony foreigners are.

offerings to the small lost souls..

10 March 2010 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

This post is about Merenang Kang Veal, the memorials and offerings to those who’ve passed into the next life while still very young (from the aborted to the stillborn to those who died at a very young age). The relationship with nature and all living things whether still on earth or physically gone is still very tangible and real in Asia and the Khmer’s Buddhist tradition. These shrines and offerings are an effort by those still alive to pay respects and appease the wandering and lost spirits. Notice the toys and miniature clothes, food and water given as offerings. We’re doing some research into these to find out more about them. Stay tuned!

sunset scenes on the Mekong

7 January 2010 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

Time for some pics around town.. who knows how long I’ve got in this beautiful country ;-)

sunset national museum sm — sun setting behind the national museum

CHOW sundowner sm — the view South down the Mekong, from Chow on the riverside (Sisowath Quay)

missing Christmas in New York

24 December 2009 by Nathalie Abejero 1 Comment

Holidays in the tropics just isn’t the same as Christmas in New York. This year my annual leave happened to fall short of letting us stay in the city for Christmas, but at least I got to catch most of the holiday frenzy. It’s the time of year to enjoy the tourist areas of Rockefeller and Fifth Avenue, normally avoided like the plague the rest of the year. I especially love the creative window displays where department stores try to outdo each other– including their own past displays– every year. Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth never disappoints, and it’s a dense visual feast this year. Merry Christmas everyone!

New Orleans Saints at the Superdome

20 December 2009 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

It’ll be almost five years that I’ve been working in Phnom Penh. Like other nomads there is no “home” for me. I miss the familiar comforts of family and friends and a community built around a settled life. I miss the food, the law and order, and the extensive range of entertainment and options. But while memories of my time in New Orleans is not as extensive as those of my husband’s who grew up on its outskirts, of all places I’ve lived it is this much maligned, recently battered and often misunderstood city that inspired most my imagination. Here in this city was one of the more waking periods of my life – my greatest risks and biggest mistakes, and some very big decisions. Photos by Keith Kelly.

This year on our visit back we were treated to a surprise by some very good friends – tickets to a Saints game at the Superdome, where they beat their biggest rival the Atlanta Falcons. It’s a side of the city I never partook in, not normally being a sports fan, but it’s a subculture as part of the essence of New Orleans as jazz itself.

Here is an excerpt from an excellent piece on the Saints and the Soul of America’s City, by Wright Thompson. It’s a long piece worth reading, for anyone who has ever lived and loved this amazing city.

Where do you even begin? Maybe you describe the couture shops that have replaced the latest fashions on the storefront mannequins with Saints T-shirts? Maybe you tell how vampire novelist and native New Orleanian Anne Rice, never much of a football fan and now living on the West Coast, recently ordered a Drew Brees jersey with “Anne” on the back. Maybe you use numbers: 84 percent of the televisions in town were tuned to the recent Monday night game against the Patriots. Maybe you use bizarre trends, such as an NOPD cop telling me the 911 calls almost stop when the Saints play and there’s been only one murder during a game this year…
All of them — Besh, LeBlanc, Brees, Payton, Bush — they are all part of this first generation of post-Katrina successful New Orleanians. They are building a city from scratch, and people see them every day, working, adopting charities, enjoying life, sitting at the next table or listening to the same band. Katrina almost destroyed the city but, if you look closely, you’ll find that it did something else: It strengthened it, made the people who loved it love it even more. Everyone left the city, so no one is here because of inertia. They chose to come back…
.. the drive out of New Orleans, through a city still battered, past the exits for the Vieux Carre and Uptown, past the Huey Long, which runs narrow and high out to the leaning oyster and chicken shack. ..It is decayed on the outside, but inside there is life. Here is a citizenry that believes in the power of the underdog. New Orleanians fell first and see something the rest of America is blind to right now: a way back into the light.