KATY'S ADDITIONS....

About the episode with the cop in Phnom Penh that Vlad mentioned in the last blog...

The cop's attention was a little distracted by a couple of other motorcycles he was trying to deal with simultaneously. This was his mistake. He thought we were going to wait there patiently for him to come and take our motorcycle away and pay him money. What a fool! Little did he know how little respect I have for authority, especially when the authority is stupid, corruptible, hypocritical and indulges in petty little games with tourists for amusement.
I tried to snatch the key once and failed. You would think he would have learned. But no, the stupid fat cop couldn't hold onto it. I snatched it again and told Vlad not to let it go this time. He dropped part of the keychain on the ground however, and the cop, thinking it was the key, triumphantly bent down and grabbed it. On realizing that it was not attached to a key, he looked for something else he could snatch, something that might prevent our driving away. He reached into the basket at the front of the scooter and with a self-satisfied "ha" swiftly removed the motorcycle chain, certain that this would stop us. Again a foolish move, because why would we be concerned about something so trivial when the bike is moving and we are driving away~



Sometimes I think that tourists feel like they need to see all of the "sights" when they visit a place. Here in Southeast Asia, the list of "sights" is often dominated by wats (temples) and palaces. In Bangkok we somehow missed going to all the places we "should" have gone to because we were organizing our onward travel and did a whole lot of shopping. Since then I have mentioned how we should see more of the "sights" and sometimes Vlad has relented.
But while wandering around the Grand Palace in Phnom Penh, we both realized how little interest we had in the place. Sure the roofs are golden and the buddhas are supposedly encrusted with real diamonds, but the fact remains that we don't know #$% about these artifacts. We don't know #$% about the architecture, or the King who built it and even if we read the signs which told us a silver filigree candlestick was a gift from so and so to his dear wife, I doubt we would care a lot. It's just not what we're interested in. It was actually quite a relief to have realized that. Cos I had been feeling sort of guilty, when walking through the museum earlier in the day, that my attention span was very short. It's not that I'm completely without interest, don't get me wrong, it's just that I'm not FASCINATED by 12th century Khmer sculpture. And not being Buddhist, visiting temples are merely exercises in appreciating architecture, which is sometimes extremely interesting, as at Angkor Wat. As Vlad has written, we both mustered up sufficient interest to visit almost every temple in the complex and after a day or so I began to see more details. This one is not carved, this one has elephants, that one worships Hindu gods, this one worships the king disguised at Avalokisteshvara... don't ask me who that is, I just memorized it.

What interests me? Textiles. I found the weaving fascinating, that each region has different patterns and uses different colours according to which plants can be found in their area. Maybe when I'm old I'll join one of those groups of Japanese women and travel all over visiting weaving villages.
And whenever I pass a silk shop I want to go in. I was so excited the other day when we visited that silk shop near the Russian Market in Phnom Penh. Vlad was getting so impatient because it seemed like I couldn't make up my mind. He didn't realize that I was overwhelmed by all the colours and just needed some time to take them all in and imagine what they could be used for. It made me think that I really need to take up sewing again when we get to Tashkent.
So will be go to the Grand Palace in Bangkok when we go back there... I don't know. We might, we might not. We know now though, that we won't really care too much if we don't.