July 22, 2005

Hello All!

Cambodia proved to be both amazing, beautiful, and very nerve wracking all at the same time. When Janelle and I first arrived, we changed money at the airport bank and continued onto the hotel we would stay in for the next few nights. The following day we took a day trip out to of of the many floating villages around the biggest lake in Southeast Asia. We boarded a long tailed boat and embarked a journey I will never forget. Watching these people who live IN the narrow river on their floating bamboo houses with palm roofs was unlike anything I had ever seen before. They were all going about their daily life, cleaning, cooking, selling goods to each other by small boats, and fishing as if this was a normal thing. And for them, it was. I saw one family moving their house at one point and they had one big boat in front of it pulling it, and one boat behind it pushing it up the river. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could just tow our house down the street and move it to a bigger or better plot of land? There were children sitting on their porches all along the river. Some would wave frantically at us as we buzzed by, some would stare in question, just as I was doing to them. Later, after viewing this phenomenon, I learned that one million people (almost 10% of Cambodia's population) lives like this in different floating villages around this gigantic lake. My jaw dropped to the ground, I was simply astonished.

The following day, Janelle and I met up with my friend from Australia, Kamala. She was the one I had stayed with in Sydney when I first arrived until I got my feet on the ground. She had taken a few weeks off from the pitter patter of daily life in Oz and headed up to Cambodia to be with her father who was living there for the time being. Together the three of us spent a full day seeing the temples in the area. We started around 4:30am at good old Angkor Wat for sunrise and then continued onto several others. One of which had giant tree roots growing out of and into the walls of the temple. It was where Tomb Raiders was filmed, if any of you have ever seen that movie before. We ended up climbing a very steep hill followed by a deadly set of thin, steep steps for sunset. We went out to eat that night and we were all quiet and tired. I have never been so whopped! It was well worth a day of over 200 pictures.

The following morning Janelle and I got a tuk-tuk to the airport. On the way there, I had this strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. I hadn't seen my passport in three days. There was no reason to use it up until now, so why would I have seen it? I looked in my backpack where I usually keep it and it wasn't there. My heart started pounding a little bit, but not too much. I thought about the other place I used to keep it and thought it might be there. I figured I would dig to the bottom of my bag and check when we got to the airport, it had to be there. I looked at Janelle and said, "I don't know exactly where my passport is." She said to check through everything at the airport, she knew it would be there. We got to the airport, paid our driver and I began to TEAR my bags apart. It wasn't in the spot where I used to keep it either. In fact, it wasn't anywhere. I checked through everything a second time, even my dirty laundry bag, hey, it might have needed a cleaning. I couldn't find it. My passport was nowhere to be found.

Panic started to set in at an alarming rate, realizing that I needed it to fly that morning and, furthermore, our flight was taking off in an hour and fifteen minutes. I put my shaking hands on my face, on my head, and over my mouth repeating, "Oh my God, what am I supposed to do?" I was clearly up the creek without a paddle. I took a deep, shaky breath and tried to remain calm, thinking about what my options were. Crying immediately came to mind but I knew that wouldn't do any good in this situation. It's not like I was trying to get out of a speeding ticket here. All the while, Janelle is just standing there, completely silent. She knew if she said anything she would run the risk of being screamed at, cried at, or something along those lines.

I looked at the guard at the door in desperation and said, "Sir, I can't find my passport." He smiled at me as another guard walked over to me. I told him too. I told everyone. I could have screamed it out loud just to have someone help my poor soul! They called immigration and an official came out to the front where I was standing next to my torn apart bags. I told the official (that didn't speak English, everything had to be translated through one of the guards who barely spoke English himself) that I couldn't find my passport. I also told him that the last time I remembered using it was at the bank when we arrived at the same airport just days before to exchange money. I couldn't specifically remember the bank handing me my passport back but I was sure, because of my many RESPONSIBLE traveling experiences, that I would make sure to get something as precious as my passport back. The immigration official contacted someone, rambled on for a second or two and then sat down in the chair next to my bags not saying a word. What the heck was going on? We had about an hour at this point until our plane took off the beautiful island of Phuket and I was about to screw it all up.

I suddenly remembered that I had a copy of my passport, for some odd reason, in my backpack. I got it out with hope that it could help the situation. I showed it to the immigration official and he rattled off something to the guards. The guard smiled again and said, "He has your passport." What? I didn't understand? How could he have my passport?! Had I actually been stupid enough to leave it at the bank? I asked a million questions to everyone they just kept saying, "He has it."

Minutes later, someone came and delivered my precious navy blue, gold sealed passport into his hands. Turns out, I had left my passport at the bank when I was cashing money in when we first arrived three days earlier. They had turned it into immigration and notified the police just in case I went to them after realizing I lost it. I thought they would hand it right over and let us be on our way, but this was only the beginning of the disaster I had caused.

He told me to follow him over to immigration while they wrote up a note to their boss explaining what had happened and that I was there to pick it up and continue on my way. This process took about 35-40 minutes. By the end of the process, we had about fifteen minutes to check in and board the plane. I knew Janelle was outside with the bags, sweating, wondering if we were actually going to make it or not. All the while I am in the back in the immigration area with immigration officials flirting with me and asking me all sorts of irrelevant questions. They glared at me, with what they thought were suave stares, like I was a piece of meat and then would laugh and talked amongst themselves about me. It was both disgusting and terrifying. As the immigration official was showing me the note he had written to his boss and trying to translate it, in his terrible broken English, another offical was finger printing me and putting my prints on the note and asking me to sign it. What was going on? I wasn't a criminal? I was a stupid, stupid, STUPID, idiot that left my passport in the bank!

Eventually they handed it over but the official held onto the other side of it before letting it go. He proceeded to tell me that since he did this huge favor for me, I owed him $10, and the other guy $10, and the guy over there $10, another guy $10...the list went on. I looked at him with helpless eyes and said, with all honesty, that I had enough cash to pay for my departure tax and that was it. I didn't have a penny more and that was the truth. He gave in almost immediately, told me not to worry about it, and let go of my passport. I held it up to my heart as I ran back to where my bags were with Janelle and thought to myself, "I will never let you out of my sight again." The next thought that crossed my mind was, "You don't deserve to be traveling , Lauren. You are so so stupid and irresponsible."

Needless to say, even though my little escapade caused some trouble, we still made our flight. We were the last ones on. We were off to paradise. And paradise it was. We boarded our boat to the island of Koh Phi Phi (one of the islands that was badly hit and battered by the December 2004 tsunami). Although there was a lot of rubble behind the scenes, it was wonderful and truly was paradise. We spent most of our time, laying out on the beach soaking up the rays, swimming in the sea or our pool, eating, and getting cheap massages. It was a week of bliss and relaxation. At one point during our stay we took a tour of the island where they focused on the damage caused by the tsunami. The showed us heart wrenching videos, and took us to sights where there were living quarters that were still waiting to be cleaned up. Bed frames and mattresses we overturned and hanging out windows, stuffed animals were covered in sand, posters were half torn off walls and CD's glistened in the light let through from the windowless window frames. Beaches were still partly covered in rubbish and buildings that had partly collapsed were on the scene as well. It was very sobering.

The following day we got out there and volunteered with our gloves and sunscreen and grabbed empty cement bags so that we could collect tiles from buildings that were crushed. They were attempting to create a big mosaic with all of the tiles they received so it was our goal to find colorful ones. At some points Janelle and I would look at each other, hold one up and say, "Wow, look at this one!" It's blue!" It was hilarious. We would both laugh and agree that we felt like we were hunting for buried treasure. And, indeed we were. We would step over pile of rubbish and hunt for tiles. I saw some interesting things while out there searching for those tiles. It felt good to be able to get out there and help. Every little bit helps. It was amazing to see the amount of people putting their effort forth to help these poor people who lost everything in a matter of five minutes. Seeing both Thai and foreign people working together was really neat. There were foreigners who have been on Koh Phi Phi helping out for months. It's very satisfying to know that there are some really good hearted people out there.

Sadly, Janelle has returned back to the states and here I am in Bangkok, continuing on my journey around the globe. I take a big step tonight and head to the Middle East near the Persian Gulf. I will be staying in the United Arab Emirates for a few days before head onto Kenya and Tanzania. There I will meet my very good friend, Kerry, from college and together we will climb Kilimanjaro. It is about 19,000 feet high. It is the tallest mountain in Africa and the tallest free standing mountain (not within a mountain range) in the entire world. It has a tropical climate at the base of the mountain so it's going to be hot. At any point during the year, there could be a blizzard at the top. Pretty opposite extremes if you ask me. The hike is over 70 miles long and takes six days. You do the math. Because of the altitude, it is very unlikely that everyone that climbs Kilimanjaro will make it to the top. I believe the odds are one in six. Wish me luck.

Lauren P. Coker