Siem Reap, Angkor Wat, Phnom Penh, and Sihanookville

So before I write about my week, I want to write about this exact moment. I'm currently sitting in a small bar on a secluded beach in Southwest Cambodia watching an amazing sunset with a margarita.

Okay now to my week as a whole. Tom and I started our time in Cambodia up in Siem Reap following the interesting adventure we had crossing the border the day before. Our first full day in Siem Reap we didn't really do too much as we were quite exhausted from the trip so we slept until around noon, had a lazy day and went down to the old market. At the old market we had a really good filling lunch for about a dollar fifty, which is quite amazing for how good it was. That night we went to  another good place to eat and I had Khmer Curry for the first time, which is absolutely amazing. The food here is wonderful, there isn't a lot of the sugars and fatty acids that are present in a lot of American/Western foods and every dish is filled with cooked vegetables and a lot of the time cooked pineapple with is extremely yummy. Later that night we went to this nice restaurant and had a drink upstairs. The cool thing about Siem Reap is Cambodia was previously a French colony so a lot of the buildings have colonial French architecture, meaning the upstairs are full of balconies that over look the city. This was the most expensive place we could find to eat in Siem Reap and the average meal was still only around 6-10 dollars.

The next day we went to the Angkor complex and let me tell you, coming from someone who has seen a lot of the ancient Greek and Roman ruins neither of those societies left me nearly as in awe as Angkor did and I absolutely love both the Roman and Greek ruins. The Angkor complex is just something else, this was a city that had a million people at a time when London had a measly 50 thousand, it was the cultural center of SE Asia. Now it is ruins that are still in really good condition hidden in the Cambodian Jungles. It was honestly one of the most awe inspiring days I have had in my life. On top of that we rented a Tuk Tuk driver for the day to show us around the ruins for 12 dollars, so 6 dollars each, and he showed us a lot of secret spots that we would have never thought to look at on our own. For example, outside of Angkor Thom, one of the buildings in the Angkor complex, is a massive wall that surrounds Angkor Thom and minor complexes on all four sides. Up on the walls are carvings of a Khmer god, and you can walk down the walls, which we would have never known if not for our tuk tuk driver. We saw four of the major buildings, Angkor Wat which was amazing, Angor Thom, Ta Prohm which is where Tomb Raider was filmed with the trees growing on top of the walls which was my favorite and we even saw giant centipedes in some of the dark areas, and another building that the name of never stuck with me. Beyond that we saw a bunch of the minor complexes, and were heavily rained on a few times. I remembered telling Tom at one point how crazy it was that at this point we were in the jungles of Cambodia at ancient ruins while being rained on. The thing I had mixed feelings on but to be honest I thought was really cool was the fact you could go anywhere you wanted in the complexes including down dark hallways that I'm sure were full of giant centipedes, spiders, rats, and who knows what else. Walking down them made me feel like Indiana Jones, not knowing what would fall or jump down in front of me. The only reason I had mixed feelings about being allowed to go anywhere we wanted was the degradation this causes to the ruins, as the more people that are randomly walking around the more wear and tear there is on the different complexes. In all reality though it made it that much  more exciting as I remember in Rome and Athens it was very strictly enforced as to where you could go in the complexes. Here we walked up steps that were literally almost horizontal. I imagine that as Cambodia opens more to the West, which has only really begun happening in the last 10 or 15 years, you'll see more enforcement as to where you can go in the ruins, and while this is understandable and good for the survival of the ruins, it does take an element out of the adventurer spirit of walking down dark passageways overgrown with plants and wild life. We already began to see this as a rare few outlier areas were off limits or you would have to walk around them, although this didn't seem to be strictly enforced. I can't say how amazing Angkor was though with just a mix of all the things mentioned above, being lost in the jungle, being allowed to roam freely, the greatness of this now lost society it was in short spectacular.

The next day we took it easy as we knew we would be busing down to the capital in a day or two. We bought some Thai pants at the market that day, ate and went down to pub street, which is where you'll find most of the Westerners in the city, as the draft beer there is 50-75 cents for a mug, not a bad deal at all. Our last day in Siem Reap we had a fish foot massage, which is where you stick your feet in a fish tank and they nibble at your feet for 25 minutes cleaning them. At first it tickled and we could barely keep our feet in the water, but after a while it began to feel extremely good. That night we went to a newly opened Cambodian night club which was predominately filled with locals, Tom and I guessing the locals who were a bit better off. It was an interesting experience and later that night, and the next day, Tom was laughing because while we were at the club different Cambodian women were braiding my hair. He was laughing because he never imagined he would be in a club in Cambodia seeing his friends hair being braided by local Cambodians. The other interesting thing I learned that night was why while in Siem Reap people would refer to me as lady, as I was completely perplexed by it. The reason why being, unlike in Thailand where many men have long hair, in Cambodia if a male has long hair he is a ladyboy. So that was pretty funny once I found that out and cleared up my wondering as to why I was being referred to as lady.

The next day we hopped on our 6 hour bus ride from Siem Reap to the capital. The bus ride was really bumpy and a little uncomfortable, but a great experience as we drove through the rice paddies, river plain areas, and the more rural parts of Cambodia. We also saw the most amazing sunset I had ever seen up until that point, while we were on the small dirt road that was as wide as the bus itself, with the Mekong River on one side and either a marsh or an offshoot of the Mekong on the other side, we saw the sun set over the Western mountains and the river, it was absolutely spectacular.

We were only in Phnom Penh for two days, one of which was a depressing day as it was the day we went to S21 and the killing fields. S21 was the prison where the Khmer Rouge questioned prisoners and the killing fields were where they put the people to death. It is very simaliar to the Nazi concentration camps. During this time period of Khmer Rouge rule, which lasted I believe about 3.5 years. The Khmer Rouge wanted to turn their society into a Marxist egalatarian society, where the peasants ruled the country. They forced everyone out of the cities to work in the rice paddies and farms, and if you were deemed an intellectual you were put to death. You could be deemed an intellectual simply by wearing glasses or speaking more than one language. In total it is estimated the Khmer Rouge killed a little under 2 million of their own people during this time period. The killings fields were very humbling and beyond sorrowful. During the rainy season clothes and bones are still washed out from the mass graves and on one tree you can still see blood stains as this is where they smashed young children's heads in. Pol Pot, who was the leader of the Khmer Rouge, reasoned that he must kill the children of those he killed in order to prevent future retaliation against him. He explained it was like killing the root in order to guarantee the death of the plant. At the prison there was still blood stained on the floor of the cells nearly thirty years after. It was a depressing day but also a very important day that I'm glad I was able to partake in. I was and am slightly displeased in myself that I studied politics, and in turn studied history as I am fascinated by it, yet there is so much of the Khmer Rouge time period that I didn't and to a little lesser of an extent still don't know about, while I feel I know quite a bit about the Nazi holocaust. To be completely honest I feel this is because the Nazi's happened in the West, while the Khmer Rouge happened in Southeast Asia, so unfortunately it is not as well known or as spoken about in the states, even though per size of population it was the deadliest regime in the 20th century, including Nazi Germany. Fortunately this is the beauty of traveling, being opened up to wonderful people,cultures, and civilizations but also being able to see the dark hours of foreign socities that have just as much of an influence on the culture of the society as more positive aspects. Hopefully by seeing and understanding these things we can educate ourselves and help prevent them from ever happening again in foreign lands or at home.

Beyond that the rest of my time in Phnom Penh was pretty uneventful. I met a few English guys who played American football at their University and said it was one of the fastest growing sports in England which I found interesting. Beyond that one day while Tom and I was eating lunch there was lightning that struck about a block away and was quite loud, which made me jump. We also met up with Toms friend Sophie who has been travelling for about 5 months now and her, Tom, a girl named Sarah, and myself all headed down to Sihanookville.

Once we arrived in Sihanookville we asked a tuk tuk driver to take us to our hostel which was outside of the main touristy area and on a beach about 6 km or roughly 4 miles down the road. What we didn't know was 3 km or a little less than 2 miles of this was on dirt back roads. We took a tuk tuk on these deserted dirt backroads full of potholes for two miles while it was getting dark, and it looked like we were heading to the wilderness. Once we arrived though it was absolutely amazing as it is a one dirt street town on Otes beach. It has maybe ten bar/bungalows on the beach side of the street and a few hostel/guest houses on the other side. The place we are staying at is absolutely amazing as it's a little bungalow, that I haven't taken any photos of yet but I will before I leave, and it costs FIVE DOLLARS a night, five dollars for beautiful beaches with islands you can see in the distance, it is absolutely amazing. A few nights ago I had a bonfire with a 6 or  so English people and a few local Cambodians. That is the great thing about this beach, there are so few people that everyone talks and everyone recognizes each other. There are no hotels only small little bungalows and hostels. Side note all the power just went out in the city and you can see lightning in the horizon off the coast and is absolutely beautiful. Yeah so this beach has been amazing I've spent a lot of time with Tom, Sophie, Sarah, Joe and Hannah who are two other people we met on this trip, and Tee and his friend who are Cambodian. It has been great and knock on wood I haven't got sick once yet. I was attacked quite a bit on my feet one night in Siem Reap by mosquitoes and I had a really itchy case of sand mites up my leg from when we had the bonfire, those little guys gave me the worst itch I've ever had. Tomorrow we will all be kayaking out to the islands and in a few days Tom and I will be headed to Vietnam. I'm going to upload some photos of the week but I'll upload a few pictures of the bungalows we are staying at tomorrow.

 

Outside of our hostel in Siem Reap

Angkor Wat

Angkor Thom

Minor building in Angkor complex

Ta Prohm 

Bus ride to Phnom Penh

Killing fields in Phnom Penh

Busy street in Phnom Penh

S21 Phnom Penh 

Otes Beach, Cambodia

Photos of Bangkok

I took a picture of this because of how often this occurs. At stoplights all of the motorcycles go to the front of the  line and wait for the light to change. You'll at times see around 40 motorcycles all waiting to go.

This is the train to the Cambodian border.

This is the Temple of Wat Po.

Also the Temple of Wat Po

Children who were on a field trip to Wat Po

Head of the reclining buddha, Wat Po

The massive reclining buddha, Wat Po

A market outside of the Grand Palace.

Grand Palace

Sky Bar, where they filmed a scene from the Hangover II

Outside the Sky Bar.

At the train station in Bangkok getting ready to head to Cambodia.

On the train to Cambodia.

On the train to Cambodia.

Bangkok -> Cambodia

Disclaimer: This blog is written over a few days so multiple days are referred to Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.

I officially arrived in Bangkok a few nights ago and it has been quite the experience. During the day when I first arrived I hung out with my friend Nats who I know from Berkeley, she took me around to a few of the malls, which were really nice and a lot fancier than a lot of the malls you would see in the West. That night I hung out with a few of my hostel roommates who were from England, their names being Steve and Emily. We ended up deciding to go to a bar called the sky bar, which is a nice but very expensive bar. The three of us, plus a girl from Holland whose name I can't remember, and Christian from Toronto all shared a taxis to get there. What is funny is the taxis driver drove us around for 45 minutes trying to take us to other bars, while the one we wanted to go to was only a 5 minute taxi ride away. It was a funny trip as half the people in the Taxi kept telling the taxi driver he wasn't going the right way, but he would continually say No No it's fine!

The next day I walked to the current palace of the King of Thailand and then after went to the Queens Park to read for a while. I met up with Nats again, and she took me to this mall that sales all different types of knock offs for next to nothing. If you wanted you could buy photo shop and microsoft office for ten dollars! After this we went with her sister and cousin to get hotpot, which is a dish where they serve you a boiling soup and you cook your own vegetables, meat, and fish inside of it. Later I headed back to the Hostel and met one of my new dorm mates Tom, who took the place of Christian who had flown out to Australia that morning. After talking to Tom for a while Tom, Emily, another Tom, Christian, a bunch of Germans, and myself all went out to Khao San Road to have a few beers, and see what the street was all about. It was crazy I think I was offered to go to a ping pong show about 5 or 6 times. I won't mention what a Thai Ping Pong show is on here, but you can look it up if you don't already know what it is. Warning it may be graphic!

The next day Tom my roommate, a girl we met from Oregon whose name is beyond me now, and myself all went to the more touristy part of Bangkok. We took a river taxi to get there which was quite a bit of fun. Once there we saw the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho, which is absolutely amazing in its size and there is no way for me to describe its beauty and massive presence, even in the pictures I took. After this we headed to the Grand Palace, on our way there we were told is was closed,from a guy who looked like an official telling us the Kings brother had just died, and instead tried to get us to go to a bunch of different "touristy" places on a tuk tuk. Everyone always talks about the scam artist in Thailand and to watch out for them, but it is surprising how good they really are. We didn't end up taking one of the scam tuk tuk rides, but we did believe him enough to put off going to the Grand Palace for a while. When we decided not to take the tuk tuk he tried to get pushy and tell us we should take it so we told him no and just walked away. After this Tom lost a bet to the girl from Oregon so we got to pick one thing that he had to eat. We went to a local market and found fermented hard boiled eggs that had a small chicken fetus in them and decided that is what he should eat. It was quite funny watching him eat it as he gagged and could hardly swallow the egg. I will admit that the smell was very off putting. After this we decided to go back to the Grand Palace and about two or three different people tried to scam us and tell us it was closed for some reason, so we should go to some other place where they wanted us to go on their tuk tuk. At this point it was pretty obvious so we decided to not listen and continue on to the Grand Palace. Once there the Palace was of course open and it was true that it was all a scam to get us to go somewhere else. We joked around saying that from now on we are only going to believe people in touristy areas if they are soldiers and have their rifles. Once we were inside Tom had to change into some borrowed pants as shorts are not allowed in the Grand Palace. It was amazing though, when they call it the Grand Palace they really mean it as it was absolutely breathtaking. After that we were kind of tired of being hassled by scam artists and we were pretty drained from the heat so we decided to head back to the hostel. That night we went to a nice restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms, which is a restaurant that gives you condoms instead of a mint after your dinner. All the flowers and lamp coverings in the restaurant are made out of condoms. The reason the owner made this restaurant is because unfortunately STD's have been rising significantly in Southeast Asia, and the owner wanted to help bring awareness to the problem and try and make safe sex education fun at the same time. The food was absolutely amazing and it was an extremely nice looking restaurant. One might think that the condoms would make it look cheesy, but they really helped add to the restaurant.

The next day Tom my roommate left for Southern Thailand, and Emily, the other Tom, Nate a law student from Kentucky, Anissa, and myself all went to the weekend outdoor market in Bangkok. It is the largest outdoor market in the world and has over 10,000 stalls, it is massively huge and you can find extremely good deals. Tom, Nate, and I separated from the girls for a while and we all got lost while looking for somewhere to sit down. What is funny about it is we looked for 45 minutes without realizing that we all thought we were looking for something different. Tom thought we were looking to find the place where we ate, Nate thought we were looking for a shop we had seen earlier, and I thought we were looking for a place to have a coke. It took us 45 minutes to realize this even though we were all giving each other counterproductive advice, it was pretty funny. After we went out to the sky bar that evening in downtown Bangkok, this is where they filmed one of the scenes for Hangover II. It was an absolutely gorgeous view as you could see all of downtown Bangkok in the horizon. It was pretty expensive with the drinks costing 470 Thai Baht which is around 15 dollars a piece, but it was an amazing experience and I'm glad we went.
On Sunday we took it easy, went out to dinner and after came back to play some card games. Since most of us were leaving early Monday morning, "4:30" AM, we all decided to go to bed early, but since it was our last night together that didn't happen and of course we all only got half an hour of sleep.
Today the 8th Tom and I went down to the train station to catch a train to the Cambodian border. The train seats were pretty uncomfortable and it was a pretty long ride at 5.5 hours, but the view was stunning. We passed rice patties and dense shrub areas on our way to the border. Tom got a good laugh when I had just woken up from my nap, because I was eating a bag of chips and I had just noticed that a dead dragonfly was laying on my wrist, which I will unfortunately admit startled me. It caused me to throw my bag of chips accidentally onto a Cambodian man sitting next to me. I apologized, but he didn't seem too upset about it as he also found it slightly funny. Once we got to the border our day turned into quite the adventure, first instead of taking us to the border our Tuk Tuk driver took us to a "Cambodian Consulate" that was a block away from the actual border and dropped us off telling us this is where we needed to buy our 40 dollar visas, when in reality at the border, which is a block away, they only cost 20 dollars. So we told the men there we refused to buy our visas from them and would walk the rest of the way to the border. Immigration was more or less uneventful besides an official who required me to pay an extra 100 baht "3ish dollars" for my visa or he wouldn't approve it, which I begrudgingly did. Once we got out of immigration there was the usual rush of cab and bus drivers trying to get you to use their vehicles. We had heard that if you left the immigration point and walked down the main street you could find taxis for cheaper then the ones right outside the post. I had also heard that although this is true the taxis drivers in front of the immigration exit will follow you and will hassle non-commissioned drivers if they try to pick you up and this what happened to us. As we were walking down the street a cab driver kept following us for half an hour or so telling us he would offer us the best price, but we told him no we would find our own way. Despite this he continued to follow us until another taxis pulled over to pick us up, since this driver wasn't commissioned, the driver who had been following us told him he would tell the police and have him arrested. So our driver told us to hurry and get in so we could go, and just to mention all taxis in Cambodia are unmarked so it's difficult to distinguish them. Once we were driving we found out our driver was going a different direction so he called his brother to have him drive us to Siem Reap. He had him meet us on a backstreet in a town that neither of us had heard of. This started to make Tom and I uneasy, but what happened next really unnerved us. Once the new driver was driving us he pulled over to the side of the road where him and his friend got out of the car and told us to wait one minute, while at the same time a whole bunch of Cambodian men were surrounding the car and rubbing the trunk of the car, which is where our bags were. After this they all walked maybe two car lengths down the road and at this point I told Tom I wasn't going to stay in the car. So I got out and asked them what was going on and this wasn't part of the plan. After which Tom got out of the car and demanded them to open the trunk to give us our bags, which they did. At this point a lady pulled up on a motorcycle and got into the front passenger seat at which point the driver said lets go. At this point we made him tell us there wouldn't be anymore stops, as we didn't have much of a choice as we were in the middle of who knows where and didn't have any other means of transportation. At this point in the car Tom and I were on nerves the rest of the ride and a monsoon storm came in so we could no longer see the road. The trip lasted like this for another hour or so and then we finally arrived in Siem Reap and he dropped us off. Despite all of this we still got a 3 hour taxi ride for 30 US dollars, not bad. Later we decided to go out and get some food. While we were eating we were finally relaxing for the first time the whole day. At that point we started to hear explosions down the street. In turns out a building that stored propane about a block and a half away caught on fire and all of the propane began exploding. Since Siem Reap doesn't have their own fire department people began throwing water bottles at the fire in order to put it out and then became makeshift firefighters by going into the building and climbing up ladders to help stop the fire. While this was happening a semi-toxic cloud began forming over the fire and the police forced everyone to leave, at the same point a fire department from another city finally arrived around 45 minutes late. It was a very crazy day, but the kind of day that distinguishes a backpacking trip and once are in the past are the kind of stories that make for a good telling. Cambodia is a beautiful country as it is lush and green absolutely every where. Tomorrow we are heading to Angkor Wat, and I will also post some pictures of Bangkok and Thailand tomorrow once I have uploaded them to my computer. I didn't get a whole lot of photos of our adventure through Cambodia sadly, as at the time I was worried that bringing out a nice camera might not make the situation any better. Well that is it for now! I'll check in later and sorry it has been so long since the last update. Oh and also the currency situation is an interesting mix in Cambodia, they use dollars and Cambodian Rial interchangeably. For example if you have dinner that costs 2.50 and you pay with 5 dollars, they will give you back 2 US dollars and a 2000 Rial bill as this is equal to 50 cents, very interesting!

Sorry

Sorry I haven't posted yet this week, but I had food poisoning from some food I had from a street vendor! That took me out for a good couple of days. I think the blog will slow down for the next two weeks with maybe only one post in that time, but it'll pick back up once I take off to Thailand on August 2nd. One funny thing that happened this week was a few friends I have met here now officially refer to me as a blonde bedouin. Bedouins are the people in the region who live in tents out in the desert, and tend to be nomadic moving periodically from place to place. They call me a bedouin because of my long hair, as many bedouin males also have long hair. Beyond that I have been hanging out at the souq a lot planning my trip through Southeast Asia. Next week I might upload a map to show you all my planned route through the region. That's all for no,.

Bye all!

One month in

So I've been out of the US for a little over a month now, and I got to say I'm still having quite a good time. Earlier in the week I went swimming out in a little bay by the skyline of Doha. This was a really cool little beach because it is the only one still open to the general public and is almost completely hidden, being a piece of land that can't be more than 30 feet long. All of the rest of the beach front in Doha is either on property used by the royal family, embassies or are private beaches on hotel property.

Later in the week a good friend of mine named Mohsin invited me out boating with him and some of his friends. The owner of the boat is Muhammad who is around my age whose father owns around 30% of Harrods, which is a luxury department store like Nordstroms in England, at least to the best of my understanding. To the left of this shows the ramp we used to get into the ocean. It was an extremely narrow ramp with huge rocks to the left, which would have caused a lot of damage if they even slightly touched the boat. The boat yard hires foreign workers to help guide the boat down the ramp, which helps insure boats do not hit the rocky side.

After we got into the water we left the harbor and headed towards this area that boats, jet skis, and waver runners all congregate. In order to get there we had to drive through little inlets and bays like the one pictured to the left. Once we got there it was a large party on the water.

These different groups all congregate on the narrow strip of water, which you can see in the pictures listed under random photos. The boats drive up and down this narrow strip of water in order to make large wakes for the jet skis and wave runners to get maximum lift off of. It is an amazing experience and some of the jet skiers got massive air on some of the wakes caused by the boats. While the boats are driving up and down the strip of water they are all blasting arabic music, and having a good time on the boat.

What else is interesting is over on the side, on the land, runs a long walk way where people congregate and watch the jet skiers jump off of the wakes. There are a lot of young women in their traditional garments who are on the side laughing, taking pictures, and watching the young men as they play on the water. Everyone was having an amazing time, I even saw people throwing candy off of the boats to young kids who were on shore watching. No one was stressed, and everyone was living in the moment.

I'm also surprised that by how many boats and jet skiers there are in the water no one ever runs into each other. We hung out there for a good few hours making wakes before we headed off out into the ocean.

Once we got out into the ocean we were going pretty quick. I don't know exactly how fast but it was fast enough to guarantee that my cheeks were somewhat dragging behind my face in the wind.

Once out in the ocean we came up to a group of small islands, where there were a lot of old fashioned local boats. These boats are a lot like an American house boat, and are used for dinner parties. As we we were out there we were zooming by them along with the jet skiers. As we zoomed by the boats they would wave at us and we would wave back. After a while we pulled up with a lot of other speed boats along this small island, and everyone got out and started swimming. It was another large event, but this time it was out on a random island in the middle of the sea while swimming. We stayed there for a while, and then as it got dark we pulled the boat up closer to the small island. Once we got to the small island Mohsin along with the other guys got out of the boat cleaned their hands and feet in the ocean, and then began one of their prayers. It was really interesting because one moment we were out in the ocean swimming, the next moment they were praying. It is something they take very seriously, and it was quite amazing to see. After they finished we had a small bonfire before heading back to the harbor.
Once we got back Mohsin and I went to dinner at a local restaurant, which had exquisitely good food. It was also cool because it was a local place, I was the only westerner in the restaurant. At dinner Mohsin and I covered a lot of different subjects, both funny and serious. After dinner I went home, but only for a few hours as later that night (morning at this point) I went down to the Corniche to watch the sunrise, unfortunately the humidity was quite high so I didn't get any good photos. That is pretty much all I have to update at this point.

Also I'd like to wish my mom and Paul a safe flight back to the US as they leave tomorrow, and thanks for all of your help getting me ready for Thailand!

                                              

                                                            Random Photos

The city is floating in the sky

Qatari Currency-Riyal

Pigeons!

Crazy

So it has been a little bit longer than a week, but I have been preparing for my new job! I will be taking a teaching course in September in Phuket, Thailand followed by being placed in a public school somewhere in Thailand after the completion of the course. I will most likely be working with Elementary aged children which should be pretty cool! Because of that this week has been a lot of preparation towards getting ready to go. Filling out visa applications, ordering transcripts and letters of good standing, and other such things. There was one slight problem, which was I had to receive a background check from my local police department in order to work with children in Thailand and in order to receive a background check from your local police department you have to show up in person, which is kind of difficult when you're on the other side of the planet!! This meant that I might have had to fly back to San Francisco for a week in order to obtain my background check before flying back to either Doha or straight from San Francisco to Bangkok. Lets just say that would have been a lot of flying and jet lag! Luckily it didn't have to come to that because the Santa Clara Police Department told me if I faxed in the right documentation they would send the clearence certificate to a family member. This means it will save a costly and time consuming plane ride back to North America, and instead I'll be able to get to know Qatar a little better before heading to SE Asia on August 2nd to do a little backpacking before heading off to start my job.

Despite all the preparations to go to Thailand this week I have still had a few interesting experiences. Early in the week I went down to an old souq that specializes in selling fruits and vegetables. It was a lot like a farmers market, but with a Mddle East flavor.  Beyond that I went to the Northeast tip of Qatar, which is the closest part of the peninsula to Iran. It is quite an interesting part of the country, and all the pictures below are from that region. It is different then the hubbub of the metropolitan area of Doha.  It is empty desert expanse that is beautiful in its own right. The road to the left shows how empty it was. What was amazing that out in the middle of no where was this huge sporting complex that looked like a red fort. It was massively large yet there didn't really seem to be an adequately large population around it to use it.

My favorite part though was this umbrella. We went out to the one of the beaches, which had nothing around and definitely no people yet there was this wooden umbrella grounded in the sand, which made a nice escape from the 110 degree weather, notably since there was no other shrubbery around meaning not a lot of shade. The other really cool thing about the area was the sand right around the water, because it wasn't sand at all instead it was all little tiny shells! The whole beach was full of the shells it looked like something you would buy out of a bag. Beyond all of that I have been going on a lot of late night walks around the city, the latest being around two. It is 

 interesting because with how hot it is during the day everyone comes out at night, meaning at two in the morning you can still see quite a few people out and about. I hope to walk to the Corniche one of these nights, which is a beautiful waterfront part of Doha and watch the sunrise since it is facing east and the sun rises around 5 in the morning. If I get down there to watch it I will make sure to take some pictures. That's all I have to write about now, I'll update the blog again in about a week or so. Until then As-Salamu Alaykum.

Random Photos