It´s a different landscape this time round

My mum asked me yesterday, ¨are you enjoying your trip?¨ I certainly have a purpose for being here, but it certainly isn´t to enjoy. Having been to Cambodia in a previous life as a tour leader, I have seen the main tourist sites many times. I´ve enjoyed myself – hanging out in the hammocks at my favourite sunset bar, helping the locals plant rice, celebrating birthdays, house warmings and weddings, eating too much (do I count tarantulas and crickets as enjoyable), drawing with the children, laughing.  But this time I am seeing a side of Cambodia that as a tourist, you never have the opportunity to experience. Why would you seek out the slums, brothels, walk the streets at night and visit communes exuding levels of extreme poverty from every square inch.

The landscape on this trip is not so much the palaces, the temples, the wats or the countryside. Instead, it is an emotional landscape that has taken me on my own journey of reflection, appreciation, sadness, pride and joy. I have come to appreciate how, no matter how bad things can get in one´s life, that as human beings, we are strong. We can survive. And there will be opportunities presented to us that we can grab with both hands and create change in our lives.

Don’t do this at home #3

Don’t try too many local foods in a short amount of time. On my northern Lao menu:

• Fermented sparrow
• Grilled pig’s ear
• Barbecued water rat
• Grilled bat
• Steamed wasp pupa

Thank goodness for the French. Back in Vientiane – coffee and croissant for breakfast!

Awaken the senses

In six hours, I’ll be putting on my eye patch labelled – do not disturb at 1.30am for dinner – it’s sleep time, not free food time.

As I contemplate going back to a place I love, or perhaps a place I’m purely drawn to for personal reasons (pic from where my Dad was during the war and we visited on last year’s visit… we will remember them), I’m feeling a little excited. But it’s a different excitement from what I normally feel when I head back ‘home’.

One Heart Sisters

As I walked home yesterday in flood waters (you’ll be happy to know the sun is out today and the typhoon heading south) I reflected on the remarkable day I was soon to complete.

Dedication

Travelling alone provides one with plenty of opportunity to reflect on those people who have touched our life. In the past three days I have traversed the Cambodian countryside on buses, motodups, tuk tuks and taxis for a total of 19 hours. This morning, everyone else seems to be nursing their Saturday hangover, so I sit alone enjoying my fruit salad and rice muesli. No one to chat to, but plenty of time for reflection. This journey is a little different from those before – I have a purpose for being here. And although I sit here by myself, I have not come alone, but am sharing this journey with two people who mean so very much to me.

Before the tourists come

Ok – let´s put this country into perspective. Bangladesh is 57 times smaller than Australia. And yet, it has seven times the population. That´s right – I have bumped into a few people while wandering the streets of the world´s second dirtiest city. The pollution would be fit for chewing if you were really hungry, apart from the fact it contains extreme amounts of fatal air pollutants, including lead.

Flying Nun

Helmets are now compulsory in Vietnam, so I had a little protection when I headed into the district of Thu Duc – about a 45 minute one way trip from the centre of town. As if the helmet wasn´t enough, I was in the safe hands of Sr Marie Thao, Executive Director of the Friends for Street Children Association. So with a sister and a helmet, I was assured of some protection, divine or not, from the chaos of Ho Chi Minh´s traffic.

Now I wasn´t exactly on God´s mission, but I was on a mission of my own to see first hand the work being done by FFSC to improve the living conditions of children at risk. With a city growing so rapidly, there was bound to be cracks, and FFSC is assisting by catching those who fall through.

City highs and lows

Like a mother watching her child grow up, I´ve observed this city mature over the past 13 years, to the point it is ready to leave home. However, I think it still may want someone to do its dirty laundry: just not quite ready to leap out of its safety net into the world alone.

Ho Chi Minh no longer reflects the romantic Vietnamese imagery of bicycles, ao dais, and old women with betel stained teeth sitting on every corner. It´s been cleaned up, modernised, buildings have got taller, skirts have got shorter and the rickshaws have gone.

If you brave the hidden alleyways, you can still find the Ho Chi Minh of old. An old woman hunched over a steaming pot of pho, three small children playing marbles, rubbish collectors, fruit stands, clothing strung between white washed walls, a lone birdcage with a copycat minor whistling away: meander and you will certainly find pockets of yesteryear.

Some things never change. I still have the ice in my warm beer. My squatting thighs are back on track. I still have to throw the toilet paper in the rubbish bin. My ears are assured of the dulcet tones of Celine Dion as I wander down Bui Vien. I can hear the bells of the masseuses as they cycle their way through the streets. I can still hop on the portable scales and register ´overweight´ at 56kg. And best of all, I can still have a beer and a 45 minute massage and walk out with change from $3.

I am in awe of the speed of economic development in this city, appreciative of what has stayed and thankful I had the opportunity to watch it grow up into a vibrant, energetic and flourishing metropolis.

Le Tan´s Dream

In a spring morning, a living being was born as many other creatures. It´s my birthday on March 10, 1999 at Hung Vuong Hospital in District 5, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

I don´t know whether my birth made the family happy or worried about my future life, happy or unhappy?

I heard that it was only my mother with me when she gave birth to me. My dad just dropped by sometimes to greet and to give my mum some money.

Time has slowly gone by. What has to come will come. When I was 14, she left me for her roomate without returning. I grew up with love and good care of father Minh and mother Phung. Luckily, I was able to be on school grade 2 even though the family had difficult circumstances. Then I became a foster child when I was in grade 2.

I try to study hard and well in order to make my parents and foster parents happy. If I have a wish, I would wish my parents good health, happiness. For myself, if I will be a successful person, I will help poor children and take good care of my parents.

I hope that everyone has own parents, friends, relatives, and is able to play and to study.

Simple wishes. Simple dreams.

When I wish upon a star, my dreams come true.

Mega attitude

How many people take their dreams and use them to help others realise theirs?