Bangkok

Wat Pho

Anthony, Shirley (we met up with her in BKK), Nicole, Me, Jon. I traveled with them in Cambodia and for the weekend in Bangkok... but then they left me and went back to Singapore :(

The Reclining Buddha- its quite huge

Bangkok from the Pinklao Bridge or something

Sunset from Thammasat Uni.

I was here a week but didn't see too much. I did see Wat Pho (and the famous reclining Buddha), the infamous Khao San Road. I also got to go to Newsong Bangkok! The food in Thailand is quite good as well. One of the cool things I did in Bangkok was go on a fieldtrip with my friend's Thai Rural Development class. We went to a temple where they help AIDS patients. It was a very interesting experience. Corps were displayed (including ones of those of children who had died from AIDS). We saw the patients as well, it was quite sad, like they were an exhibit. We also got a special thai-dance performance from some more AIDS patients (a few were transvestites). We also got to go to a near-by city and play around in some ruins. I'll have to ask him for some pictures.

Angkor Wat, and other Angkors...

The boy in the Tub

This is the boy in the tub. There were actually more than one. They row up to your boat and yell "one dolla one dolla". They want a dollar if you take a picture with them. The children are experts at selling things through winning sympathy. Its really sad that its the way they are able to eat, and that they are more capable of gaining that income then their own parents. . . I also paid a little girl with a pet snake to take a picture with me.

Pictures from Cambodia

Kids Playing in the Water

Floating City of Chong Kneas

Me, Jon, Nicole, Our Boat Driver

Mostly Cambodia

I’m so sorry that I haven’t written in a really long time. I know I used to be a lot better at keeping everyone updated. Here is my sad attempt at redemption. So, the last time I wrote, it was February, and it is officially April now. Where does time go? Anyways, last month (March), was full of traveling (Cambodia, Thailand and Burma), and then catching up with school. I’m afraid way too much has happened to record it all, so I will probably just put some pictures up on the blog (www.kianalea.blogspot.com) and give some short descriptions… and give you a little bit right now.

The end of February – beginning of March was the National University of Singapore’s spring break. Three friends from my program and I left the safety of our quiet campus a little before midnight, headed to the airport, and camped out until 6am, when our plane boarded for Siem Reap, Cambodia. (I got to dance around in an abandoned hallway and watch planes take off…) After a quick 1.5 hour flight, we landed in Cambodia. (Siem Reap is the city right outside of Angkor Wat, if you don’t know what that is, please wikipedia it). After a quick nap, we headed over to the floating city of Chong Kneas. Basically, transported around in a wooden-motor boat, we advanced down a filthy river lined with less-than tree house quality shacks (often times one roomed wooden rooms hovering over the side of the river, with definite holes in the floor, and children running up and down precariously nailed ladders). The actual Chong Kneas city is a Vietnamese-immigrant river community. It was a very tourist-friendly introduction to poverty. If you look on the blog, I’ll show a picture of the boy that floats around in a tub. I’m pretty sure he’s a local celebrity.
The next two days were dedicated to our exploration of Angkor Wat. I had dreamed of seeing Angkor Wat since I was little, so it was amazing just to be able to realize that dream. I’m pretty sure my stomach was fluttering at 4 that morning, the hour we woke up for the sunrise at Angkor Wat. The tuk-tuk ride to Angkor Wat served as a crescendo for the rest of the day. After seeing this giant mass of temple appear out of the darkness, we headed back to our tuk-tuk. We were all ready for breakfast, so our way cool tuk-tuk driver drove us to a local-tourist-trap restaurant and we treated him to fried-rice and pancakes. We visited the rest of the temples on the large circuit. The day after, finishing the area with the small circuit (definitely more worth it in my opinion). Temples on the small circuit are less preserved. Ancient walls are in the process of being conquered by majestic yet reprobate trees, and we were free to climb around the ruins (Yay for playing Indiana Jones for the day!). The typical tourist also much less visits the small-circuit. My favorite Angkor was Ta Phrom. This is also the site Tomb Raider one was filmed. In the movie, Angelina Jolie walks mystically around the grounds; butterflies and the sound of cicadas surround her. I was very surprised to find the exact same peaceful and mystic atmosphere that I thought Hollywood had created. We watched the sunset at the highest point/ temple in Angkor.
The next day we woke up bright and early (or rather I enthusiastically woke up three very-tired and grumbly fellow travelers), and piled into a Camry headed for the Thai border. That was the scariest car ride of my life. The Thai border is about 3 hours away from Siem Reap. I would say only 10% of the road is paved. There were parts in which scraggly cows were crossing the road, and maybe some parts where our car’s poor tires left the ground. After finally arriving in Poipet, the Thai-Cambodia border town, also described as the armpit of Cambodia by Lonely Planet, we got onto another tuk-tuk and boarded a nice-clean Thai government bus for Bangkok.
Ok as you can see, this email is already way too long, and I’m only through one of the countries (and in far less detail as I would like). Maybe the Thailand and Burma sections will be on my blog eventually. Everyone wants to hear how Burma was, so I’ll try to write about that soon. (Burma was AWESOME and the trip of a lifetime). If not, I dearly miss In-and-Out, Ihop, and Mexican food. I come back May 26th. Catch up with me then! Um, I love and miss you all. I’ll try to keep working on the blog and upload pictures as often as I can. Unfortunately I’m still dealing with work-intensive Chinese and complicated economics classes in the heavily math-oriented Asian university. Let me know if you have anything you want me to pray about, or any souvenirs you really want. Zaijin!

Chinese New Year Pictures

Nine SGD Carls Jr. Meal. Outrageous. And it was too big, I only ate like half. Our Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner. Only American fast food places were open.

Singapore Update 2

The huts we stayed in. Less than 8 dollars a night!
The whole trip cost around 50 USD :)

Coconut tree in Bintan, Indonesia

Hello everyone,

Sorry I’m getting worse and worse about sending out these email updates. I’ve been in Singapore for a little over a month now, and I definitely do not regret coming here in the least. Singapore is a wonderful city/country and is a terrific place to live. Life here is nicer than Santiago, probably because there is a fresh sea breeze constantly coming into my window, pollution is much more minimal, all of my food cravings (other than Cali-Mexican and Inn-and-out) are easily satisfied, and I really respect and am fascinated by the economic and government system in this tiny country. Singapore is an excellent place to live, however I regret not being able to volunteer in some type of development program that betters society or something. Singapore is just too developed, I think nicer than So-Cal even. The 4 storey-mall 5 minutes away from here has a lake on top of the roof. Singapore may be small, but they do it big.

Lately I’ve just been getting into the groove with my university, National University of Singapore. Here I am taking 4 courses: Public Finance, Money and Banking, Chinese 1 and International Economics. Exciting right? (Not.) Courses are very intense, and I think I might be slightly behind with the material, but I will snap into it sooner or later. I also have surprisingly acquired my surplus of energy back (I kind of lost it in Santiago). It might be the lack of Santiago smog, or the fact that I’m eating better, and exercising more regularly. As a result, my friend Christine and I have been trying out lots of different activities to use up all the energy. Lately we’ve been lap swimming, but a couple of weeks ago, I did two day-long camps. I am now rock-climbing certified and can use the on campus rock gym whenever. I also took archery, which was really boring. Oh and I’m taking cardio kick boxing once a week. It’s fun, but difficult especially because we have class in this non-air conditioned room and lots of Singaporeans don’t like to wear deodorant. I’m getting kind of bored with just lap swimming and kickboxing, so we might take windsurfing one of these weekends if we feel like shelling out the money.

I went to Bintan, Indonesia last weekend. It was a very chill weekend. We just took a 1.5 hour ferry to Bintan Island (not really that close to the larger Indonesian Islands), and stayed in these nifty little bungalows on the beach. (There are some pictures on the blog www.kianalea.blogspot.com) A lot of the island seemed like it would be straight out of Survivor. The beach had no waves, and we kind of had to walk a bit to find the nice water, but it was calming and so needed. My friend Sonya and I were the only ones that really dared to swim (she is from SD too, so maybe that’s why), so we hung out in the water until we were all pruney. There were little hermit crabs all over the beach. If you sit in the water, they bite your butt. There were fisherman in their traditional little boats spear fishing and net-fishing. Life there was just really laid back. I had a good time. Everyone else was complaining about the bug bites, but thanks to my mommy and my Auntie Jo’s advice about taking vitamin B complex and odorless garlic pills, I escaped a lot of unnecessary discomfort. Food was cheap, and beer was cheap (which was good for my friends who don’t like paying the 6 SGD dollars a can back in Singapore. It didn’t really matter to me.) I’m kind of mad the Indonesian visa took up a whole page in my passport. I am definitely running out of pages.

This weekend was Chinese New Year. Apparently Singapore is supposed to be the top-third destination to celebrate Chinese New Year in the world. We haven’t had school since Wednesday (Chinese New Years Eve), and pretty much everything is closed so people can spend time with their families. (We ate Carl’s Jr. for our new years reunion dinner, only the American places were open). A bunch of us went to Chinatown for the New Years Countdown. We got there at eight, and it was already really crowded. The show was really boring. Chinese people are not the liveliest crowd either. But it was very packed. A nice breeze kept us breathing normally. We were very disappointed by all the cheesy acts until all the sudden at Midnight, the world felt like it was ending. It was the craziest fireworks show I have ever witnessed in my life. The immutable sound of popping fire went on for at least 5 minutes. Not only fireworks, but giant balls of gasoline exploded in the air. Confetti was everywhere. It was awesome. Ok that’s all I have for now. Sorry these are always so long. I’m going hiking tomorrow in the only place to go hiking in Singapore, and I’m going to Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Bangkok, Thailand in two weeks. Miss you all! Let me know if you have some prayer requests.