humans are funny

Author: laurenne

  • temples & cheese

    The temples of Angkor, ancient home of the Khmer empire, the world’s 6th wonder, and a spiritual stop on my list. I figured it might be a good spot to renew my meditative vows that had been waning since my stop at the silent forest monastery in Australia. Luckily, I met a Dutch guy in Vietnam who was also into meditation (like, really into it…. talks about light bodies and chakras and stuff.), so we made plans to meet in the lotus position in front of Angkor Wat.
    It was a date I really anticipated since I figured the peacefulness of the expansive temples would seep into my bones and ingrain into me the act of calm meditation.

    And when I got there, I knew it would happen. The place was shocking. Really. Evidence of a truly spiritual group of people. I guess it was more than a group. In fact, the Khmer empire used to span the whole of Southeast Asia from the 9th to the 13th centuries. There were over a million inhabitants at a time when London housed only 50,000. It was a big deal, and I don’t remember ever learning about the Khmers from the Illinois school system. In fact, I don’t remember learning about anything but pilgrims and Abe Lincoln in my ‘history’ classes growing up. Either I was too busy writing notes to Chris Apostolopoulos or public schools in the states have forgotten about the world. Or maybe my memory disappeared during college. Whatever the reason, I was shocked to learn that such a beautiful culture existed for so many people and is still very much alive today in Cambodia.

    The city of Angkor was the political, religious, and social center of the Khmer empire, and each monument in it houses more symbolism than Citizen Kane. Not a sliver of temple is left without a carved deity or message, mostly about worshipping Hindu gods. But also about Khmer history. King Jayavarman VII, a king born from the Gods, made it his mission to have the history of Khmer/Cham battles carved into the most important of temples. He wanted to preserve history in a most beautiful way. The current and last God King, His Majesty Sihanouk, funded the Khmer Rouge and asked that he be able to rule away from the throne so he could focus on his movie career. I think the genes of the Gods really start dwindling after being passed on so many times.

    To walk through the hallways of Ankgor Wat is a playground for the imagination. Though the peaks have crumbled and there are weeds creeping through many of the cracks, the grandeur of the place is undeniable, and I found so much pleasure in simply sitting on a windowsill and imagining the worshipers who used to wander through the same halls thousands of years ago. It made me really appreciate period pieces. I finally understand why people like to recreate a different era for the cinema. I still won’t ever see Marie Antoinette because frankly I can’t stand to look at Kirsten Dunst’s teeth, but I now understand the magic in the recreation.

    To meditate at Angkor Wat is another story. Not only are there ants the size of mice lurking under every Banyan tree, there are even bigger tourists lurking in front of every bas-relief. It is the most unspiritual spiritual place I’ve seen.

    So, after seeing the temples every morning, the Dutch guy and I would ride bicycles to Siem Reap, the area of town built specifically for those same tourists. And we would eat. A lot. For most Khmers, the key to economic freedom lies in the hospitality industry. They’ve created an entire Disneyland-like town devoted to gourmet restaurants.

    In order to support the Khmers in their mission to capitalize in the culinary, we ate. My mouth made acquaintance with warm goat cheese salads, crispy vegetable samosas, tofu stuffed with raisins and cashews, red curries, creamy pumpkin soups, and even plates of French cheeses. Everything made my esophagus sing. I couldn’t get enough. After each meal, I felt pangs of sadness because it meant I would not be able to eat for a few hours. Sometimes I did anyway. I ate several croissants on the hour.

    We figured it was the best way to see the temples, an hour or so in the morning (after a large mango pancake and pineapple shake, of course) and then to the food! When we took a day off from the temples, we spent our time in the kitchen learning how to make local Khmer dishes! Amok is the most popular, a curried mix of lemongrass and galanga and keffir lime leaves. Mine came out on the bland side, but it looked nice served in a folded banana leaf.

    When it was all over, we had stayed in that fake town for 9 days. 9 DAYS OF EATING. My stomach is surely a deflated balloon.

    When meditation involves cheese, I will definitely make it a priority.

    The exterior of Bayon, my favorite temple. If you look close, you will see thousands of elaborate faces carved into the stone.


    These are the aspara dancers, a very important part of Khmer culture. The God kings used to have thousands of dancers perform for them at once inside the temples.

    This relief depicts a battle between the Khmers and the Chams.



    Mmmm… my finished amok.

    Best tourists ever.

  • Clue Poo

    I’m sorry I left up an entry about my vagina for so long. It was foul and rude and unacceptable. And I shudder to think of anyone who might have checked up on me only to be hit in the face with my vagina time after time. To you, I deeply apologize. But I have an excuse. A good one. You see, I meant to catch up all weekend but was faced with the option to tour a national park in one of Thailand’s only remaining untouched jungles. Sooo.. I went with that idea.

    With a new French friend, I boarded a train to Pak Chong, a very unpopular town a few hours outside of Bangkok. We arrived at 3am and took a shabby room right by the train station. It had a gristly blanket and squat toilet and cost $5. Sold. For 4 hours. At 7:30, the tour guide picked us up, gave us each a pair of protective leech socks, and we were on our way to nature.

    Our guide, Jay, spoke a beautiful broken English, exaggerating his yesses and nos and lisping a bit like most Thais do. It was fun to listen to and kept me awake since he talked quite a lot. About everything. He knew more about the park than I know about my mother. Did you know that those old Banyan trees that look all wise and profound and sort of resemble a messy head of dreadlocks are actually parasitic? They start growing on the top of a tree downward. Eventually, after hundreds of years, they kill the original tree and look themselves like a beautiful tree worth climbing. What a sham! I will no longer look deeply at those trees for answers again.

    A group of 6 of us followed Jay for a 3-hr trek, repeating his jungle tidbits to ourselves so we wouldn’t forget. At times, Jay would hold up his hand and motion for us to look into a tree. The first guys we spotted were long-tailed squirrels chasing each other from branch to branch. We then came to a clearing and stood in silence. A woodpecker screamed “Good Morning!” from the top of a tree just next to us. We heard more squirrels as well, who make a sort of clicking sound unlike anything I’ve heard from nature. Then we heard the hornbills. They are big-beaked black birds whose bodies are heavy and whose wings span about one-and-a-half meters. It sounded like a million eagles were landing in the clearing. But it was just one swooping hornbill. I named him Henry, which completely insulted him. “I already have a name, thanks.” he said, pissed. Whoops.

    A giant black squirrel.

    As we walked on, we passed holes dug by wild pigs and brightly-hued wild ginger (an elephant’s favorite, Jay said). We saw skinny snakes and centipedes and roly-polies that curled up into the most iridescent of marbles. We walked through several salt licks peppered with butterflies. Who knew butterflies liked salt? The licks were the main reason the wild elephants stayed in the park. But, Jay told us in a defeated tone, we probably wouldn’t see any this season. They’d be on the other side of the park. Same went for wild tigers. They were quite elusive and only his cousin had been fortunate enough to set eyes on one. Jay had seen black bears though. He made sure to tell us to make lots of noise if we saw one. Fear invites them to eat you.

    At lunch, a deer pulled up close to our table. She was so large, I thought someone was moving an oversized lawn ornament. We couldn’t believe how close she came.

    “She’s delusional,” said a French man with a thick accent. “I am afraid… she is dying.”

    He pointed to the deer’s neck, home to a large round bloody wound. It looked pretty grody, and a sadness brewed over our table. Of course, I thought it my duty to do something. “Jay,” I pleaded. “Can we please save her!? Is there a vet nearby?”

    Calmly, Jay told me that this particular deer was looking for a date. Each year around this time, she seeps out a strong puss from an oozing neck wound to get potential mates to ask her out. I am scared to look online, but my hunch says I can find some Texans who reenact this each year.

    After lunch, we jumped in the truck, heading toward a look-out point. But as we rounded a corner, a similar pick-up driven by an excited Thai stopped us. Some exchange was had between drivers and our pick-up raced to pull-over a few meters ahead. Jay jumped in the back with us, eyes bulged to the max. “Shhhh….”

    We stared at the green in front of us for a minute. Two minutes. Three. Then we heard it. A rustling. A loud rustling. Then a pause. And some rude chewing. It could only mean wild elephants! Another truck stealthily pulled up beside us in neutral. We waited, whispering excitedly and listening to the chewing. Jay got out to peek through the bushes but warned us that these elephants, if angry, can do serious damage. He stayed close. We listened until the noises trailed off, down into a ravine. The search was on.

    Like Don Johnson, we sped through the forest on a hasty elephant chase. And just like the clever cops in Miami Vice, we pulled into a spot on the side of the road, waiting for the perps to cross us and validate our prediction. They didn’t come. So we made a new prediction and raced there. We found tracks. And poo. And followed scents. We waited out of sight. We chewed gum loudly and scratched our groins. They still didn’t show, even after we put on Ray-Bans. We made a last prediction and raced there, now in the darkness, to a spot not far from the original. And there it was… more rustling and chewing. They were enjoying some delicious red ginger just a foot away. This time we could see the branches moving. If they just walked into the street, our 3-hour search would not be for naught. But when the amount of mosquitoes matched the amount of fireflies, we left. Defeated. We felt more like Erik Estrada during his infomercial days than in his hotshot cop days.

    Then, as we exited the park, Jay got a call. Our truck screeched back to the grassland in mere seconds. There, a pick-up was waiting with a bright light. The excited driver gave us a nod that said, ‘Are you ready for this shit?’ We were ready.

    I screeched with glee as his powerful wattage revealed 2 huge beasts in the middle of the field. They were round with smooth gray skin, and had I not known we were on the search for the elephants, I would have mistaken them for boulders. To me they looked naked, and I felt like a peeping Tom flashing a light on them in their own environment. The first one (who I did not give a name for fear of attack) grumbled something and made his way closer, into the middle of the street right in front of us. Woohooo! The other stayed behind in the grass probably due to fear of anal probing, thinking our bright lights were shining from a spaceship.

    The first elephant was just a few meters away from me. I fought hard the urge to run up and hug him. I really did. I saw his tusks. I wanted to tell him how lucky he was to be an elephant in an untouched park with lots of good food and still have his tusks. But, as quickly as we had come, we sped away.

    Jay said we were lucky to have seen them. I thought we were lucky before the sighting, just to spend the morning in leech socks with hornbills and the evening barefoot and chasing elephants.

    Stuff like this. This is why I haven’t been writing.

    A clue!

    A stakeout!

    They are around here somewhere.


    Another officer on the case.

    The perp.

  • It’s not a tunnel.

    It is cockroach’s job to taunt me. Like Navy Seals, they find me in the night. But like a trained sniper, I find them first. My keen eyes search them out before they attack me and slip into my vagina, my biggest fear.

    I hate them, those shiny little fuckers. They can outrun me, they can slip through any teeny crack, and they can live through a nuclear blast. I fear them more than anything.

    Yet I just spent a week in the jungle of Laos surrounded by ruthless roaches, mosquitoes drunk on malaria, and squirmy leeches. I made it out with a roach-free vagina. I think. Stories to come…

  • MISS ILLAYNIUS


    + Sometimes Asia stinks. They have a poor sewage system that slithers into your nostrils and stops you in your tracks. And then there are the markets full of fish. It’s always hunky dorey around the sandals and the t-shirts, but it is inevitable that you’ll pass the perishing perishables. One stench that also hides within the market is the durian. It’s a horrifyingly ugly fruit the size of a volleyball with green spikes that emit a most foul odor. And it seems to take turns with the sewage to creep up behind you and surprise without notice. I’ve heard in Thailand there are signs at hotel entrances with pictures of durian adorned with the red circle and line. Stinky.
    Of course, I had to try it. I ordered it in ice cream form, as I found its pimply skin too offensive to peel myself. The first thought when I put it in my mouth was…. sugar-coated rotting flesh. But that dissolved into diaper. And then sock. And then it just grew on me. And I finished the bowl. So now I am not so offended by it. But I try to walk the other way when its stench taps my shoulder in the markets.

    + I awoke the other morning to the sound of someone’s dinner being thrust from his guts into the toilet. He was clearly suffering, plops of goo entering the toilet amidst groans and weak cries. It was 7am. He finished. Then at 7:30 the remnants of his dinner decided to join their friends. I had a feeling this place wasn’t that classy. The Youth Inn, it was called. Duh. But it was a mere nine bucks and I was trying to be thrifty. The room’s stained walls were made from corrugated cardboard, there was a pair of dirty wet underwear in the garbage, and I could stick my hand through a hole in the bathroom wall and actually pet the puker. It was then that I realized I can no longer “rough it” when it comes to hotel rooms. I just can’t. I am not a 20-year old recent college grad accustomed to dorm living. I had a fireplace, dammit! I was big time. I think sometimes my apartment might have even wafted a slight scent of mahogany. I have decided to step it up, and now my room has a shower curtain! It might mean ending my trip early, but I am worth a hand soap.

    + My first night in Laos was spent in a brothel. Whoops. It looked like a regular bar from the outside, but when I walked in with my two new Kiwi friends, several pairs of overly made-up eyes turned our way immediately. Hmm… it didn’t look right, but my new friends ordered a large beer each and sat down in the sticky red booth. After watching how the game worked, Daniel approached a girl and was quickly reprimanded by her “handler.” It cost $4 to talk to her for the hour. And much more, of course, for more. They didn’t want to pay 4 bucks. And they didn’t want to leave their beers, so we sat and stared at all the men paying for women to talk to them. There were quite a few, both locals and Westerners. Some guys even had 2 or 3 girlies. I thought about working there. I could be the exotic Westerner! I would charge double and be able to extend my trip. I’m still thinking about it, but I’m leaning towards not doing it.

    + Do flight attendants really need to remind us of the mechanics of a seatbelt every time we fly?

    + I hear the economy is bad or something? That sucks. Hey! I know a brothel that’s hiring.

    + Traveling alone means eating alone, and inevitably it means eavesdropping. It’s so bad, but I involuntarily end up listening to many conversations. And I have come to this conclusion: people are boring.

    + I am one of the few who get my jokes. People from several countries have told me I’m strange. I think they mean funny though.

    + I realized that the ‘having no sorta plan’ routine was starting to wear on me. It’s exhausting to get to a town, find a place, meet new friends, find the good place for dinner, meet the locals, and figure out the bus schedule. So, I have decided to make some definite plans. I’m considering reserving a room at a resort in Thailand that offers a 7-day detox cleansing program. The only thing stopping me are the daily self-induced enemas. If I choose to do it, I will make sure to be really descriptive when writing about that experience.

  • Cambodia: a country of idiots.

    I never assumed they were stupid. And it’s not even a stereotype. It’s actually a fact that the Khmer Rouge spent the later part of the seventies throwing all Cambodians into camps and brutally killing off anyone with a seed of intelligence. Led by Pol Pot, meaning ‘Brother Number One,’ their goal was to make ‘1984’ a reality. This required murdering anyone smart enough to revolt or think for himself. And they succeeded in doing so for four years!

    In April, 1975, The Khmer Rouge started by tearing everyone from their homes in cities and thrusting them into rural villages. They cut everyone’s hair into the same style and forced the entire country into the same outfit. The educated people from cities were presumed second class citizens and given much less food and harder work than the villagers who were thought to be pure. If anyone was suspected of having a grain of independent thought, they were led into the forest and bludgeoned to death. Bullets were expensive and rarely wasted. You could also forget about living if you wore glasses, had previously been a teacher or part of the government, or had eyes that even remotely resembled those of the Chinese or Vietnamese. At first, Pol Pot was in favor of the Vietnamese, both governments working towards Communism. But then one day he changed his mind and decided to kill anyone who might even have a great great granny from Saigon.

    It is estimated that way over 2 million people died between 1975-1979, if not by murder by starvation. Food rations were scarce and the entire country was starving. But if you asked for another cup of rice because your son was on the brink of death, you were considered anti-communist for requesting more for yourself than anyone else was getting. Immediate death or torture. Lots of torture.

    In Phnom Penh, I nearly vomited at the images of all the horrific crimes of humanity. It took me a while to get to S-21, the actual prison where the Khmer Rouge tortured and killed over 17,000 people. I procrastinated all morning, having breakfast and then having brunch. But I made myself go, figuring that, as an American who barely learned world history in high school, it’s my duty to learn as much as I can now.

    I walked through the eerie halls of the building that was a high school before it turned into a gruesome place (although some might argue it was a gruesome place as a high school). Building ‘A’ is room after room of lone iron beds, rusty with shackles replacing mattresses. On the wall is a tattered poster showing the death found in the room when the prison was freed. Most posters elicited gasps, all demonstrating the streams of blood that once stained the floor where I was now standing. One man’s lower torso had been twisted so that his butt resided in front. He was naked and barely more than a skeleton.

    Sometimes humans aren’t funny at all. I cannot understand how we can murder animals, let alone other humans. But they did it, killing 4-10 people a night in that prison.

    Unfortunately, an air of melancholy still bobs above the country. Every single citizen over 35 fought through those horrifying years. They each lost at least a parent, siblings, or children, often in front of their own eyes. All of them. One man, Pin Yathay, lost 17 members of his family including his 3 sons, both parents, and his wife. Awesome.

    It is not the most uplifting country to be in. Especially with the countless disfigured beggars who lost arms, legs, and eyes to the many landmines left by the Khmer Rouge in an attempt to punish those who chose food and life over big brother. (I think the US is also partly responsible for some of the mines, but let‘s talk about that later.)

    Thankfully, many of the smart people had enough brains to escape to Thailand, lie about their previous professions, or spend the years pretending to see without glasses (I cannot believe people with glasses were thought to be smart. I thought people with glasses had a curve in their eyeball. It seems like Pol Pot himself was pretty stupid.) I thought the country was rebuilding itself well. The Khmers have definitely grasped the idea of tourism and are fully comfortable with sucking the tourists dry.

    After some weeks in Cambodia, I had given all my savings to amputees, and I’d only seen two signs of stupidity:

    1. One waiter needed a calculator to add my bill of $2.75 and $1.

    2. The two big competing beers are Angkor and Anchor. It seems if you were to come out with a new brand to really give the monopoly a run for its money, you might want to make the name sound a little different. Or perhaps making the competition sound exactly the same is brilliant. I don’t know.

    This is the “bed.”

    This is the torture that took place in the “bed.”
    I walked past wall after wall of victim photos. So many were children.
    This is a skull of someone bludgeoned to death.
    This is the culprit.
    This guy smiled before dying. Why not?

    For a great read that you can finish in a few days, try ‘First They Killed my Father’ by Loung Ung. SPOILER ALERT: It’s depressing.

    The good news is that one of the main dudes in charge of the Khmer Rouge, Duch, is set to head to trial within the next 2 years. Pol Pot died without punishment in ’98.

    More good news: My blue period is over. My mom won’t let me write anything else that is anti-Communist (and thus depressing) for fear of my capture. This is the last one.