World met Olya

It seems that I pretty much abandoned my blog. I quickly realized that writing is just not my thing, but photography is. That said, to celebrate the 1-year mark of my trip, I thought I'd summarize all the randomness that happened to me in a top-50 list. Writing a list of sentence fragments where each item has nothing to do with the preceding one was far more enjoyable than writing sentences that have to relate. And since my choice of religion is Hedonism, here it is, in no particular order.

· Learned to scuba dive

· Ate a raw sea urchin

· Lost my hotel room key and unlocked the door using a straw and a hairclip

· Rode on a motorcycle loaded with luggage

· Learned to cook Thai and Laos food

· Couchsurfed

· Got my phone stolen by a monkey

· Dropped a phone in the waterfall and saved it

· Hired a motorbike to chase a bus that I had missed

· Rode an elephant

· Drank home made rice wine (30% alcohol)

· Saw how tea and coffee grow

· Dove and snorkled with sharks

· Saw Russians in every single country

· Saw the milky way over the ocean

· Got a job for three days photographing at a bar

· Saw hundreds of monks collecting food at sunrise

· Paid a guy to carry my backpack

· Hiked/Climbed the highest peak in se Asia

· Skied in the Alps

· Went to the full moon party

· Found Russian food in Cambodia and Vietnam

· Ran through the jungle at night

· Swam to an island

· Hiked to a lady's home through the jungle for 15km to have dinner with her family

· Went to a hospital in Thailand

· Got bitten by various fish

· Went to the Chinese border with the sole purpose of giving it the finger after being denied a visa

· Visited minority tribes in several countries

· Saw fresh water dolphins

· Crawled around in caves trying to photograph bats

· Was a nanny to a 2.5 year old for a week and a half

· Saw snakes, rats and monkeys on a menu

· Saw dog meat at a market

· Went to the water puppet theater

· Spent the night at a train station in northern France

· Saw bears in Laos

· Kayaked exploring islands and caves in Halong Bay

· Was on a bus that stopped because a man with a dead squirrel was running behind it while the passengers were hanging out of it with hands full of money, bargaining who gets the dead squirrel.

· Gave out pens to tribal kids

· Was invited by a tribe teacher to his home for a few beers where I hung out for a couple hours, having many wonderful conversations while neither of us spoke each others’ language

· Stood on the corner of a street for a few hours with the sole purpose of photographing people on motorbikes

· Spent 4 hours each night for several nights trying to photograph lightning

· Filled up a motorcycle from a hand pump and Coca-Cola bottles

· Walked on sand dunes

· Allowed a large gecko to live in my room because he ate the mosquitos

· Ate pig intestines and they were tasty

· Drove on the left side of the road

· Rockclimbed

· Was attacked by a snake and avoided the bite.

A trek to Mao's home

More pictures here: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/sapa-ii/

Mao was one of the girls we met on our first trek. She proposed to take us on another Trek to her village, so we took her up on the offer. This time, the "we" was Koen, Dieter and me (they're in the group picture of the previous post.) We told her that we wanted a 4 hour trek, so I assumed we're going to do 2 there and 2 hours back. I brought half a liter of water with hopes of buying water as needed on the way, just as I did on the previous trek. All assumptions turned out to be completely wrong. The trek was quite mild at first, just a simple walk through town. Unexpectedly, we turned off into an alley between a couple buildings and began climbing up a steep hill. I was out of water in about 15 minutes and inquired where the next village will be. Mao looked at me with confusion and said that we're going to her village and that it's not very far. She said it was just another kilometer up the steep section, so once again, I presumed her village must be near by since we were closing in on the 2 hour mark. We reached the top of the hill and I asked how much farther till we can get water. She replied smiing "Oh, not far, just 8 more kilometers." My jaw dropped. There was no way I could do another 8km with no water. We started figuring out how we can find water. Koen suggested trying the stream that looked clean, but I reminded him of all the wild animals that might be doing their business up stream which quickly discouraged the idea. We stumbled upon a house where we asked for some boiled water. We filled out our plastic bottles with boiling water and dropped them in a river to cool off. The water didn't taste too good, but it kept us hydrated.

After 2.5 hours, we reached Mao's village. She led us through the yard full of ducks, chickens, dogs, and hogs, past the indigo barrels and a weaving machine, into a concrete structure.

The interior was very dark with illumination coming off the two free hanging lightbulbs and the TV. A couple kids were standing in front of the TV in a zombie-like state watching the gruesome instructional show on killing chickens. I had to look away. Mao lead me to the kitchen to point out our lunch being cooked. Seeing the kitchen, I knew that my stomach won't be the same after that.

Once the water boiled, a chicken was placed in there. It was then cut up on what looked like it my have been a cutting board on the ground and then served to us. The chicken was very bland, exactly what was expected from boiled chicken. Rice was served in small bowls and chicken was to be placed on top. The only spice available was the extra spicy chili sauce which I ended up using with hopes of killing off all the bacteria. During lunch, each member of the family approached us with a shot glass demanding that we have a shot of 30% rice wine with them. The problem was, the family was big, so we were pretty drunk by the end of lunch.

Here's the big, drunk, happy family.



The clothing that everyone is wearing is hand made by the women of the family. They make linen thread out of the plant, then weave the fabric on a machine that resembles 500 year old technology. The fabric is then dyed with indigo. Garments are sewn on antique sewing machines and are hand decorated with cross stitch and embroidery.

Sapa Trek

I've decided to try to do something different with my blog. I'll skip forward and write about my most current adventures and then backtrack to catch up. So I introduce: Sapa,Vietnam

More pictures can be found here: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/sapa-i/

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At Hanoi, all hotels seemed to sell train tickets at a fixed price of $27 for a soft sleeper to Lao Cai, but we managed to purchase what we thought were the same tickets for half the price at the train station. The "we" was me and Josh whom I met a few days earlier at Hoi An. The train ride wasn't very pleasant. The entire night I was worried that I'd fall off the upper bed due to abrupt stops. It was also very shaky and, at some point, my bag fell out of the shelf onto me. Finally, at sunrise, we arrived at Lao Cai. From there we took a 1 hour mini bus to Sapa. I found it quite shady that the much needed air conditioning was turned off as soon as we began moving, when we had no opportunity to switch over to another company's mini bus.

An hour later, we arrived in the small town of Sapa. Everything there reminded me of Cusco, Peru for some reason. All the happy memories of travels with Dima, Dean and Jenny made me like the place immediately. Josh and I reserved a room at the Cat Cat Hotel. Apparently, a few hotels had the same name and the first one we walked into wasn't so nice, but then Josh found the right one. We got a room on the 9th floor with a fantastic view of the mountain. The stepped rice paddy terraces coming into view as the dense morning fog began to dissipate and the golden light of the sun illuminated the mountains made for a truly breathtaking view. Mistakenly, I thought I'd get the picture later in my trip, unfortunately, it was not to be... I woke up several times with the hope of capturing that same brilliant sunlight but it was never to make a second appearance :(

Once settled in, we discussed the tours over a breakfast of eggs and chocolate crepes. Since Josh only had 2 days in Sapa, he didn't want to take a chance and pass on the great weather for trekking. Despite being completely exhausted from the cold, uncomfortable train ride, we decided to go on the 15km trek through 4 villages - organized by the hotel.

We left hotel with a group of about 10 people. The Muong girls followed us, dressed in their traditional linen indigo colored clothes, wearing large baskets on their backs like backpacks. They seemed to have a system going. There were roughly the same number of them as there were of us. Moments after stepping out of the hotel, they all paired themselves up with the tourists. After a short introduction, the girls cycled through the typical questions: where are you from, how old are you, how many siblings do you have, how many kids do you have.

They were all very sweet and sincere. My girl offered to carry my bag, would hold the umbrella over my head trying to protect me from the sun, would give me a hand during the steep parts of the hike and would wait for me when I fell behind taking yet another picture. In the picture above the lady has some grass-looking stuff wrapped around her. She explained to me that she was making linen thread to be used later for weaving fabric. Her finger tips were purple from dying the clothes with indigo. I never knew that this is how linen looks before its fibers are made into thread.

Of course, I knew that she wasn't doing it for nothing. There of course was a catch. When we reached the first village, after a fairly easy hike down hill thus far, the girls following us asked that we buy stuff from them. They were selling bags decorated with cross stitching, bracelets, rings, and earrings. What they asked of the tourists at that point was that, if they were to buy something, they would buy from them rather than the girls at the village. At the last village, at the 12km mark of the hike, a lunch of veggies, bread and cheese, and fruit was served. After that, the sales pitch intensity increased. The girls were very demanding, guilt tripping all of us into buying stuff. They would whine "I know you long time, I follow you long way, why you not buy?" I ended up buying some earrings for a few bucks.

The last 3km of the hike was where I felt the real trek began. There were several steep inclines that we climbed presenting spectacular views all around of seemingly endless rice paddies with scattered houses.



During the hike, the girls disappeared for a moment. They reappeared from the bushes shortly after with marijuana plants. I inquired what it's for and the girl responded "We make clothes out of it, you guys smoke it." It is, however, illegal in Vietnam just as it is in most of the Asian countries except for Cambodia where the police just look the other way.

We encountered many children along the hike, all unsupervised. There was a girl taking care of her buffalo, a girl caring for younger siblings, boys riding buffalos, and others just playing around.



In the end, it was a fantastic hike and deffinitely a highlight of Vietnam. I had a fantastic time with a fantastic group.

Tourists from left: me, Josh, Jenny, Koen, Dieter, and Kevin. (Some of the picture above are from Koen's camera. Thanks Koen!!!)

Travel info:

Cat Cat View Hotel $20-$30. Great views. Breakfast can be included. Can arrange tours and treks
Address: 046 Cat Cat Road, Sa Pa
Phone: 84-30-387-1946
Email: catcatht@hn.vnn.vn

Train tickets on a soft sleeper train SP7 purchased from a hotel in Hanoi are generally $30 and are VIP. A cheaper soft sleeper exists that can be purchased directly from the Hanoi train station for 330,000 vnd. The difference is the bedding, head room and storage space as well as a water bottle and tea in the VIP vs the cheaper soft sleeper. Book both your ticket there and the return one in advance as they tend to sell out fast. Often tour agencies will buy out all the tickets from the train station forcing people to have to go through them. The train itself can sometimes be cold, so bring pants and a long sleeve shirt in case it gets uncomfortable. I always travel with a sleeping bag sheet which works great on the train.

A minibus from Lao Cai to Sa Pa will cost 35,000 vnd

One of the less expensive places to eat in Sapa is the LIttle Sapa Cafe at 18-38 Cau May St.

Ask for a city map from the hotel.

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh photo album: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/phnom-penh/

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We arrived to Phnom Penh by bus with no hotel reserved. It seemed like a good idea to just walk around and find something, but after 10 minutes of walking around in blistering heat, navigating strange streets and looking at slummy hotels, we decided that maybe it's best to just pick something out of the guide book. After a quick call to the Sunday Guest House, a tuk tuk picked us up. (This was one of those times that I was very glad I bought a sim card).

The main currency used in Cambodia is American dollars. The ATMs dispense only dollars. However, they don't have American coins out here, and this is where Cambodian Riel come into play. It's 4000 Riel to a dollar. If wouldn't be so bad if it was only Riel, but when you get change as a combination of 2 currencies, suddenly it becomes evident who paid attention in math class and who didn't. This also makes it easy for people to give wrong change and they usually try. I, of course, would stand with the money in my hand, taking as much time as needed to do the calculation and demand more money after.

The Sunday Guesthouse provided us with a room containing 3 beds. There was air conditioning, wifi and even hand soap in the bathroom. Yes, hand soap is an impressive freebie in Asia. When washing hands before a meal at restaurant kitchens, I very rarely would find soap there. The only annoying thing about the room was that there were tiny little ants all over the place making it impossible to store any sort of food. The hotel had a cheap restaurant in the lobby that served the typical stir fried noodles and fried rice for lunch and dinner and excellent omelets with mushrooms and onions for breakfast for less than $2. The cool thing about the hotel was that they had a large TV in the lobby that played "The Killing Fields" movie every evening at 7pm. This was where our education started on the horrors imposed on the Cambodian people in the recent past.

During our first breakfast, a monk appeared in front of the hotel entrance. He stood motionless and quiet for a good 5 minutes. Then a lady came out of the hotel and placed some money in his bag. He sang a prayer as she bowed for a couple minutes and left. 5 minutes hadn't passed when another monk appeared on the door step. The process of donation and prayer repeated. This went on all morning long. When I asked the lady how much money she gives out on a daily basis, she responded with "Oh, don't ask."

We spent one day sight seeing around the city. It was incredibly hot, 43C in shade during the day and 39C at night. We insisted on walking around the city visiting the palace and the city temple.



At the bottom of Phnom Wat (Temple on the hill) was a park with lots of trees. This was pretty much the only place in Phnom Penh where we found anything green. The trees were inhabited by a bunch of monkeys. I had a blast photographing the little monsters going about their daily tasks.

Mom, this one seems to have our ears. Is it a relative of ours? ;)

Of course, all these places had very annoying signs outside.

I feel incredibly ignorant for not being aware of the genocide that had happened in Cambodia during my lifetime. I don't recall any of this being taught in history classes. In order to truly understand Cambodia, the Tuol Sleng Museum and the killing fields, I needed to understand what had happened and why.

Here's what I learned:

In March 1969, United States launched "Operation Menu", an illegal and secret bombing campaign on eastern Cambodia. The purpose was to prevent north Vietnamese offensives. However, the mission failed. Shortly after, Lon Nol, the Army Chief of staff overthrew Sihanouk, the prince of Cambodia, while he was away on a trip to China.

Meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge, which consisted of Cambodians educated in France who joined the communist party there, was beginning to expand. Sihanouk joined with Khmer Rouge in hopes of being restored as the prince. The beloved prince sent out a radio message to his people, telling them to join the Khmer Rouge forces and rebel against Lon Nol. People followed and joined, but no one knew what this meant. In April 1975, Lon Nol's republic collapsed and Cambodia fell to Khmer Rouge.

At the time, city dwellers were the rich and exploited the poor peasants of the countryside. The Khmer Rouge wanted to get rid of corruption making everyone equal, like the other communist nations did. They attempted a social-engineering project where they would remove all of the rich and educated citizens and anyone suspected of involvement in the free-market activities while creating a self-sufficient society. The suspected capitalists were professionals, everyone who had an education, city dwellers, people with connections to the government, doctors, lawyers, teachers and those who wore glasses. (space)Khmer Rouge believed that parents were tainted by capitalism and would separate children from their parents and brainwash the children to socialist beliefs. Later, these children often as young as 8 would work as prison guards and torturers.

The entire population of Phnom Penh was told of a coming US bomb attack on the city and was moved to the country side to work on the rice fields. The suspected capitalists were weeded out and placed in prisons where they would be accused for various treasonous activities, often being labeled as KGB, CIA or Vietnamese spies. People of all ages, men, women and children were tortured until they confessed and were then killed.

I visited Tuol Sleng in Phnom Penh, a grade school converted into a prison and interrogation center, also named S-21. The prison was run by Comrade Duch (pronounced as Doik). He was single handedly responsible for the deaths of at least 17,000 people. I'll spare you the details of the photographs posted in the museum as well as all the torture devices displayed. Words can't describe what I felt when viewing picture after picture of the portraits shot when the prisoners were checked in. The eternity of the images presented a false hope that these people might still be alive, however we know that only 7 people made it out alive.

The Vietnamese invasion in 1979 marks the beginning of the decline of the Khmer Rouge reign. By this time, nearly 1/3 of the Cambodian population had been killed. Throughout the next decade, people began to return to Cambodia from all around, including the refugee camps in Thailand. Gina, when you told me you were born in Thailand, I assumed your parents immigrated there, I had no idea you spent the first 2 years of your life in a refugee camp escaping the Khmer Rouge.

The people who returned to Cambodia were both the oppressed and the Khmer Rouge. They now live side by side. It was odd riding on a bus and seeing elderly people, wondering if perhaps the old man sitting next to me might be one of the prison guards or a torturer. No one really knows who was who.

Other than the Toul Sleng prison, tourists are encouraged to visit the killing fields, the mass graves from the Genocide. We chose not to visit the fields because it seems very immoral that the Japanese came and purchased the land, now making profit off the deaths of thousands, putting their graveyards on display.

Angkor Management

Angkor served as the center of the Khmer Empire between the 9th and the 13th century. The word "Angkor" means "city". The Angkorian period started when Jayavarman II, a Khmer Hindo monarch, declared himself as the "god king" and lasted until Ankgor was sacked in 1431AD causing the population to move into the Phnom Penh area.

There are over 1000 temples in the Angkor region ranging in scale from fields of rocks to Angkor Wat, the temple Jayavarman built for himself in the 12th century as his state temple and capital city. Angkor Wat is the best preserved temple in the complex and is the only one that remains as a functioning religious center, first to the Hindu and second to the Buddhist religions. This temple has become a symbol of cambodia and is pictured on the country's flag.

 

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As suggested by our hotel, we arranged for a tuk tuk the night before and left around 8am for Angkor Wat. The guy drove us around the complex, patiently waiting outside for us at each stop.

The ticket booth was surprisingly high tech. They took our $20 and, in exchange, gave us a ticket with the worst possible mug shot on it. Mom and Dad, that's one of the papers that you got in mail, take a look again, I'm sure you skipped it not knowing what it was.

Someone in town recommended that we get a guide. We asked the police officers in front of Angkor Wat where we can find one. A short phone call from the law enforcement and we had a guide. As promised, he did speak English. However, we couldn't understand 90% of what he said. But hey, the 10% was very interesting!

Being a functioning temple, there were many monks and nuns visiting.

It took me a long time to find out who these old women with shaved heads were. After several attempts of googling it, I finally found out that the "Women are not ordained, but older women, especially widows, can become nuns. They live in wat and play an important role in the everyday life of the temple. Nuns shave their heads and eyebrows and generally follow the same precepts as monks. They may prepare the altars and do some of the housekeeping chores". However, I don't believe that anyone actually lives at Angkor Wat.

Through the main gates and down a long path, we approached the probably most photographed spot in Cambodia.

The green construction objects that made it quite annoying to photograph the temple are part of the German restoration project. Gosha, I thought you'd enjoy learning that.

We must have spent 3 hours wandering around Angkor Wat, following the long, seemingly endless hallways on multiple levels decorated with reliefs depicting the ancient Khmer history.

One of the reliefs was particularly humorous in my opinion. I inquired with the guide as to why the warriors wore such large shirts but didn't seem to have enough fabric for the pants, but his response was just a shy giggle.

From Ankgor Wat, we moved on to the Ta Prohm temple, also known as the Tomb Raider temple. I was told that the story behind the tree roots taking over the ruins is that during the Thai occupation, no one took care of the temple which was pooped on by numerous birds who had eaten the tree seeds.

I ended up coming back for more photo opportunities the following day, arriving at 4:30am, just in time for the sunrise and taking my time exploring the Tomb Raider temple completely alone. What a fantastic moment it must have been, being the first person to walk into this magical place after the hundreds of years of abandonment.

When I was all photoed out, shooting for 5 hours, my tuk tuk driver suggested I go see one more temple. Our original agreement was that he takes me to the temples at 4am and back to the hotel around 11. He insisted on me seeing one more and I didn't think much of it. I was tired and my brain was starting to boil from the heat, so I agreed. We were driving for quite a long time, I fell asleep and managed to have 3 dreams. When we finally arrived, I realized it was the temple that's super far from the rest, the same temple that we told him previously we didn't want to go to because it would be too expensive. Crap! Annoyed, I hopped out, gathered the little energy I had left from my breakfast that consisted of a toast with jam and a small banana 6 hours prior, and snapped a few shots.

When we got back to the hotel, the shady, sneaky tuk tuk driver demanded I pay him $30 instead of the original $5. I'm sure I don't even need to write what happened, since most of you know me well enough to guess. To make the long story short, I told him that because he tricked me, I'm not going to pay him what he asked. I said I'll give him an extra $5, making it a total of $10 because he intentionally tried to rip me off. Had he been honest, I would have paid him more. He insisted on arguing, at which point I told him that the longer her argues with me, the less money he'll get, removing a dollar from the pile of money every few minutes. He finally stopped arguing with me and took the money.

More pictures can be found here: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/angkor-wat/

Travel Info:

We stayed at the Golden Mango Inn (http://www.goldenmangoinn.com/)run by two incredibly hospitable brothers, Phin Ly Ngeth and Sokvann. Our room with 3 beds, aircon, wifi, and free breakfast was $15 total.

I highly recommend starting at Angkor Wat at 4:30am (bring a flashlight), watching the sunrise over the pond and continuing through the temples until 11am. That's when it gets super hot, so go back to the hotel, rest, shower, and return around 3am to see some more ruins and the sunset. You should be able to negotiate with a tuk tuk driver to take you around for the entire day, including the returns to the hotel for about $5/person.

There is a lot of good shopping in Siem Reap. I found things to be cheaper there rather than in Phnom Penh. Don't forget to bargain though. The initial price is usually more than double the real price.

Facebook Access in Vietnam

I know it's my travel blog, but I'd like to post a solution to a problem that many people will face when traveling in countries that block access to specific sites. Vietnam, as well as a few other countries block access to social networking sites such as facebook. I found a way to make it work on my laptop with OSX.

1. Download firefox if you don't have it already
2. Download Tor Vidalia (it will hide your IP): http://www.torproject.org/easy-download.html.en
3. Install the TorButton by double clicking the "Install TorButton for Firefox" shortcut in the downloaded Tor package or install it from Firefox extensions.
4. Run Vidalia and when its icon in the the doc turns green, click the Tor button in your firefox so that it says "Tor enabled" in a green font.
5. Then enjoy your facebook! :)

Tor also has free installers for windows and linux machines. For public computer use, tor has a pre-configured self-contained browser that can be installed onto a usb drive. All downloads can be found here:  http://www.torproject.org/easy-download.html.en

 

Siam Reap, in the land of pajamas

The city of Siam Reap is a group of villages clustered around approximately 1000 temples of Angkor. The name Siam Reap means the defeat of the Siamese aka the Thai referring to the century old bloodbath.

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The Siam Reap airport was pretty much what I expected. The small hut-like building on the side of the airstrip managed to efficiently get everyone through passport control and my e-visa, printed out of my gmail, was legit. At the entrance, there was a mob of people standing around with signs and it took me a while to find the guy with my name. He lead me through a parking lot carrying my big bag to his tuk tuk, which is like a modern "carriage" towed by a motorbike.

 



I arrived at the "Golden Mango" guest house and was greeted by Julie and Jill who were screaming my name off the balcony "O-lee-a, O-lee-a". In comparison to all the hotels thus far, this was a mansion! The room was large, with 3 beds, clean towels, nice bathroom with shower accessories and air conditioning. All for $15.

I'd like to introduce Julie and Jill, the two Canadian girls that I traveled through Cambodia with. Here's Jill in a restaurant, in deep thought.

Here, Julie and I are enjoying our first Cambodian meal. I had rice with stir fried veggies and pork.

Of course the main attraction of Siam Reap is the Angkor temples, but we found a few things to do aside from that.

I finally got to try out the fish spa where fish remove any dead skin you have. I'm ticklish, so I lasted about 3 minutes in there. There was another lady who decided to try it out with me and after some chatting inbetween the giggles, it turned out that she's from Burbank. Small world.

We also went to get a massage after a long hot day of temple wandering. 1 hour massage cost $4. There was a peculiar sign though (Thanks guys, good to know).

The first night in Siam Reap, we had dinner at Karo restaurant which was recommended to us by a local. We were told that all tuk tuk drivers will know where it is. We grabbed a tuk tuk and asked him if he knew where Karo was and he said yes. He drove down the street and pulled over to ask someone. Cambodians have an annoying habit of agreeing with everything even if they don't know the answer to a question. No one seemed to actually know where the restaurant was. Eventually, we found it and the food was very yummy. Flipping through the long menu, I ran across a couple interesting pages. First of all, they pointed out what they do not serve and they also seemed to have invented a new drink called a "Block Russian."

 

 

On another night, we decided to try the "happy" pizza that I recalled hearing about from my cousin Anya years back. When the hotel owner inquired as to what our dinner plans were and we told him the happy pizza, he loudly exclaimed "oh, you want marijuana." At that point, we realized it's not a secret thing and whispering about it was unnecessary. We ordered a happy pizza which came sprinkled with some grassy bits that tasted very much as they should. However, I wasn't any happier than I would have been had I eaten Papa John's back home.

And last, but not least, I'd like to explain the title of this entry. One of the first things that I noticed on my way from the airport to the hotel is that pretty much all of the women were wearing pajamas. I figured, well, it's morning time so maybe they haven't changed yet. As the day progressed, pajamas remained. People were wearing pajamas all day long, at work, on motorbikes, laying around in hammocks, etc. I've come to a conclusion that it must be a fashion trend similar to the track suit trend (which still exists in glendale...heehee)

More photos can be found here: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/siem-reap/