cong a.k.a jordana site of me and updates (will change soon)

Events photography is something I am always not very keen to work on. Strangely, in my life, things I did not wish to have any acquaintance with always found me. But I cannot complain and I should not.

Hougang was the meeting point for the 1st day of the charity event I am tasked to document the labouring of the volunteers from a world renowned bank. Lasting for a total of 3 days, I feel lucky to have the 1st day at such a near place near my home. It allows me an easier accustomisation to the nature of the work.

It was good that I was not at all stressed from the task we were supposed to do. Maybe I am beginning to get on my grip to how event photography should work since this was not my first. Thanks to Sam for this job recommendation as well!

So it was the usual getting shots of group pictures and important personnel at work. Getting to know the group we were assigned to was not that difficult as I thought it would, since we were pre-allocated to groups with a leader and coordinator in-charged. How important was the coordinator! They really made my job so much easier than some events which I had no one to liaise with and I am alone pulling the strings and choreographed the scene without anyone knowing the expectation of my job.

Anyway, this blog was nothing about my experience with events photography. Basically I was so overwhelmed by the 3 days of reflections from what I had been through that this job surely pays me more than what monetary could provide.

Cleaning a house within a day is no easy job. Cleaning a house you only gotta see it on the day you are cleaning makes it harder. Add in scrubbing, moving, dismantling, washing, sweeping, mopping and worst of all, painting, the experience might not be ideal. And wait. The rationale behind why these residential homes need such help should give you an idea how ‘big’ a space the houses possessed. So unless anyone of the volunteers could hover in mid-air, every step taken while moving around without much balancing skill needed is a luxury.

But the 3 days of team efforts from the groups I witnessed were nothing short of excellence. They did everything with good coordination. Well instructed, they took every orders given and performed to expectations. Never mind the rankings of each individual in their respective offices. Once they donned in their event T-shirts, they were all equal for that day. No prima donnas, no divas, professionalism won their respects from me.

I felt extra and useless for I could not do anything to help them much with their work as I need to document their efforts. The feeling was not good. I had to assure myself of the need for me to do my job well though, which was to document them in the best I could. Everyone had a job to do. Some were cleaning the walls, while others could be masking areas of walls not to be painted. Mine was to capture the moments. That was my job. To be affected by thoughts of others, which might not be true is always a hazard in things we do. Thankfully the volunteers know why I am there for and I could feel appreciated.

It is always good to take away our experiences in life, no matter how good or bad the outcome is. I am so grateful to the life I am leading now, after looking with my own eyes how many under-priviledged families there are actually in Singapore. Think about it, given the tiny space some of them have to endure day in day out within their houses, sometimes a decent viewing distance from the TV could already be considered a luxury, much less a comfortable space for the kids to even study or have a computer placed there. And that is also one of the main reason the charity event is for: to provide a decent study desk for the kids to study proper. I could not agree more with what the CEO of the bank mentioning that these kids’ educations are the only way to break away from the tormenting cycle of their current income-improvished plights.

I really enjoyed very much from the 3 days. Other than tolling for 3 consecutive days, I probably should not at all be complaining much given the labouring I had as compared to the volunteers was insignificant (although the last day my contribution was no less as I was attached to a group of all-ladies team -_-). Still, the self-reflection I had was one thing, the interactions I had with the volunteers was another. Never would I thought I can meet some of the better people I could have imagined. Communications with them only makes me more confident than ever, the confidence I am still slowly grappling back since my ORD, can you believe it? But hey! The real me in speaking is coming back! My communication modules had always been scored with flying colours and as much as I always remind myself to eat the humble pies, those could not be possible without reasons right?!

But to see the genuinety of people of course takes more than one session. Saying “for the benefit of doubt” is kinda insulting to their characters, for they are definitely not someone totally turned to the other side of evil when back in office. What I feel is such initial meeting with nice people leaves oneself with hope and positivity. As much as the Chinese saying goes 萍水相逢，meaning barely well acquainted but just met a time or twice, sometimes it just takes such occurances to get you back to seeing the light of humanity. So what I might not see them again? Does it matter?

Lastly, being a photographer there and not really helping out much for the sake of the kids deprived me from truely expressing my encouragement to them. Although a few of them we actually played together, my indirect invovlement still did not allow me to give them a pat on the back. The feeling was kinda bad, for I felt in what capacity do I have to inspire them if I did nothing much in the make over. I could not have possibly done any better I guessed, except for maybe feeling hopeful for them in their future endeavours. Maybe I still need to improve on this mindset. But anyway, kids study hard!

I have not really achieved anything significant so far. But that is not to say I do not have anything significant I am blessed to hold on to.

The decision to actually apply for INSTEP, or foreign exchange to another overseas university, was rather a surprise, even to myself. The cost covering the whole duration is a bomb. And this is just one of the numerous factors deciding my, or rather most people’s, option in applying.

My essay to the registration basically listed them all out. They are just things I am, and am willing, to give up for the 5 months stint in another country. All that for just a precious ticket to an institution in a foreign land.

It is strange how eager I am to give up everything for I am checking my mailbox so often for the results since 8th February.

The above was written soon after I got my INSTEP acceptance, which was around mid February. And this post stopped there.

Now is 4th June. Let me continue…

My eagerness brought me a strange sense of disbelief for the first time in my entire life. It was true. I never had that feeling ever before. I wanted to punch my fist in the air but I could not because I was insider the train when I checked my inbox. A few seconds later my eyes welled up with tears.

The promise I seemed to make to myself looks like gotta be realised. Well, I am ready for it, am I not?

Too bad my heart gave in for the period starting end of january. Alot needs to be done, or rather undone I am afraid comes summer/fall. Still, I cannot wait to tell you this fantastic news as you are one I want to share my joy with.

Back to now. Yes I am still correct. But is a sad truth thoughh. Undone. The awesome months before are terrible now. Give up is not the word I wanna used now. Did I ever thought of using give up back then at February? I am no longer eager to find out. Rather I will put it this way, leaving here for exchange will literally mean “leave” everything here.

Joker me, as if I am leaving for 5 years. Yes, the time is not long. But being helpless for nothing could be done anymore, even 5 days is not ideal. What’s meant to be will be. Everybody says that. Sometimes I do not like that.

But I am not disregarding it totally, because there is really nothing I can do about you anymore..

Chronic pain is nothing new to me. The on and off pain from my lower back slip disc has already been one unfortunate area in my life I have come into acceptance.

Sending out one-way resumes is nothing new to me. The occasional chances of bring interviewed only to be told that they will consider and call me again is one unfortunate reality I have to deal with currently.

Holidays are so feared by me. I do not need the long breaks. I am a workaholic. I need the satisfaction from working my socks off in order for me to really enjoy my days. No one can overestimate me if they think I do not know how to enjoy life. But I just need the hard work for me to really make my enjoyment a deserved one. Chronic enjoyment. So pathetic.

These few days of neck sprain really kinda brought me bed-ridden. I realised I have not been really enjoying my vacation since my Australia Perth trip almost a year back. I questioned myself why do I have to sustained myself to a load and pressure of as if the whole family needs my bread-winning.

Health is really just the wealth people needs, or at least I need. I can forget about working, or enjoying anything if my neck and back are so screwed. Vacations now give me so much of lessons to be learnt. CSS language was my prize last semester of vacation. This period of vacations gotta be more prized and valued.

Seemed like self-consolation eh? Being happy is so not easy. But I still think that is basis of life. Will anyone share this sentiment as me?

Never mind if you do not. I once promised you that I will take care of myself so I can take care of, not just you anymore unfortunately, but others.

The chronic pain extends more than my neck and back, surely.

I am still championing this word. A stressful word. I have so many things to accept myself. Thinking I had overcome alot of imperfections, I am just only conquering the mole hill. Being someone of such perfectionist, I am appalled with my conditions of accepting. But no regrets.

I am not loosening up by the way, never at all in any way all along. Uncompromising compromises were surreal.

By the way,

not accepting ≠ reject
not good ≠ bad
withhold ≠ distrust

Could these be accepted? I can accept the nonacceptance. But sadly it works only one way in that case.

Wow, how long since I last blogged?!

But I just recently read 2 very important posts to another person who meant so much to me…

I know I am getting somewhere, not is still in the middle of nowhere.. No one will know what I am saying other than the one whom I read to… You won’t believe what I have been doing these few days of no-contact. I am stunned myself..

A blog post published 4 days later… Insignificant after just 4 days… End this post… A new post shall begin…

Why is it so hard to quit? I thought I am almost succeeding. I am so proud of myself. Yet the occurances, the apperances, the chances all came back again. I pulled myself out of the sludge since new year day. I cannot make the mistake again. It was not an easy decision altogether. Someone does not know them all. Nevermind. The one I could not lie is myself.

Honesty does not elude me when I was making the effort. Time begins to dilute the heavy memories then. I am succeeding. For the efforts in making myself feels better, for once in my life I think I should NOT become a better man.

Honesty escapes me now. I buried myself in heaps of lights blinding me from you. Other than the night sky, how I hate a room creeping of darkness. But thank goodness it was throughout the entire duration that night when darkness was very much needed. Any more moment of you as clear as my resolution I would be sinking even deeper. Still, I escaped the room, for a moment, as I escaped my determination, for I know I cannot determine the truth to myself as I once was firm of.

It still is till now. Crap.

How useless of me to crumple after just a month.

Beginning of February to look forward to… Learning to hate takes a whole new lesson.. So is answering to myself truely..

The frightening day we had the day before brought some chilly story to tell from my mum. She told us someone was knocking on the hotel room door in the middle of night for a period of time. And she kept seeing the photographs at S21 in her mind. Well, again, like we always do, we have to brush all that aside with excuses of fatigue and imaginations.

Final day of the tour. We were suppose to have free time for the whole day till we report to the airport. However, what was supposed to have 2 shopping trips in local markets the day before was being postponed to this final day as the guide told us visiting them in the morning is more bearable when comes to the rising temperatures.

No transport for us except to the airport, so we crammed inside the Toot toot and went to Russian Market. Russian Market is like our old style wet market, but more cramped and sells more varieties of souvenirs and apparels. The purse I was looking for as souvenir for someone since Siem Reap was no longer in sight. I should have bought it in Siem reap. But I bought 2 t-shirts for my buddies as well as 1 for myself.

Next we depart for Central Market, newly renovated. It is spacious and roughly sells the same things. The crowds were considerably lesser though. It was more of a sight seeing trip for me while my sisters and mother did the majority of the shopping. No surprise!

I was quite looking forward to the lunch as it was not planned for us. With the tour guide recommending the local favourites, he brought us to a small eatery and tried our taste buds with wild boar meat (still rather familiar as we used to eating in relatives’ house in Malaysia) and rabbit meat cooked in green spicy and sour soup (or green tom yam). I have had rabbit meat before in my visit to Beijing ages back and to Vietnam 3 years back. I thought they were delicious and taste like chicken. But that huge pot of soup were only half a rabbit worth of meat inside, we were told.

Not long, we were due for the airport check in. Some last few glances of the surroundings before the facades of airport appear before me. The feelings sucks. I had that in Perth, I had it again in Phnom Penh. And to think I have to used what I once told someone to look forward to the next holiday in dismissing such shitty feelings to myself. Boo.

More of the photos can be viewed at my facebook album.

Slept at 12+ past midnight (local time), woke up at 5+am. The day began very early, as we need to catch a coach taking us across the country to Phnom Penh. With everything readied and packed the night before, checking out the hotel was a breeze.

The 6 hours of coach ride was unfelt. Majority of the duration I had my earphones plugged in. Neither the sceneries of crops and agriculture outside the window nor the hilarious DVD the coach was showing interest me. My neck was stiffed, my mind was clear. Semi-conscious state again, yet I can see you so clearly in my mind.

Having just a stopover between a 6-hour ride was an ordeal especially when my bladder was filling up. Sharing a coffee with my dad midway at the break did more harm than keeping me awake. I rather snoozed deeply.

Phnom Penh is a crowded city. Traffic is packed and the air was more polluted than Siem Reap’s. Paces of life are a tad more upbeat than Siem Reap’s counterparts as well. Of course, what is indifferent was the delicacies Phnom Penh too could offer. Despite the lunch being one of the most unmemorable, it was still good nonetheless. So it was new City, new environment, and not to forget, new mini van and driver, as well as new tour guide for the rest of the days!

First stop of visit at Phnom Penh was the National Museum. All the triads and sculptures and statues I so used to seeing in my Asian Art Textbook just came alive in front of me. Although they were not exactly (still Buddhas though) what I was studying for the past semester, they are still similar in their appearances and functions which was not hard for me to draw references. I was also able to make comparisons. No longer am I restricted to small black and white photographs of the monuments with italic captions. What was described as 3m tall, you just gotta see it for yourself!

The next stop was the trip further down the district to the Royal Palace. Palaces, libraries (huge), offices (huge), temples (huge) etc, all are for the current aristocracy family. Gloriously built, the compound no doubt is gigantic, thus the reason and capability catering for tourism. Not much to describe my visit there as it concerns the royalty. The locals, the tour guide included, are at more suitable position to really give an insight details. *~gasps~* *~gasps~* Reactions of amazement were some of my reactions. Anyway, the King was there at that period while we were there, as the flag raised gave the signal. We just did not manage to catch sight of him. I cannot imagine if everyday throngs of strangers from everywhere the world would walk around my block. How great it is to be a King?

Final destination of the day was to the Casino! Naga Casino is an entertainment centre in the city district of Phnom Penh. Own time own target, we were “slotted” 1.5 hours there by our tour guide. After my first visit to Genting Casinos, I kinda feel it is a must to play a simple game of jackpots whenever there is a chance to enter a casino. Until Singapore Integrated Resorts are completed, which I do not think I might step in, the feelings of having some possibilities of cash returns in a holiday trip just tickles the euphoric senses, yeah?

I selected a machine based on my satisfactory level on the graphics. A visual person, yeah I know. Then my sister and I were procrastinating over the need to covert 5 USD1 to 1 USD5! Goodness. When I was back from asking the staff on our query, my dad and mum, who were wandering around as a pair reappeared. Conveniently, my dad sat on the machine I chosen. After our queries were solved as I explained to them what I was told, my dad began the game. If he was only going to get 3 tries, he still won it. USD150 windfall poured on him on the 3rd spin of the jackpot machine! A capital of USD5 won him USD150! And the conclusion? IT COULD HAVE BE ME! But, well, that is gamble. 50-50. Win-lose. Yes-no. Simple.

My small bet of USD5 won me nothing, despite tries on 2 different machines. But it was still fun at the casino, except the crowd was not as spectacular as Genting. So a high-tea at the cafeteria outside the casino was on the treat by my dad. Nice cake, nice mousse, and an awesome Singapore Sling for me!

The high tea did not allow much space for our dinner. However delicious the dishes were, we tried our best. Guilt again.

The night was an early retirement to the bed, but another late eventual sleep. I was missing someone then.

2nd day in Phnom Penh brought us to another highlight of the trip. A tragic event of recent Cambodian History, we would be visiting sites related to the Khmer Rouge era.

For those who knew the history behind this (what I would say is a forgotten history, similar to Korea war), Khmer Rouge was the period of 3 years regime during the last 3 years of the 1970s which brought terrible terrible terrible terrible and endless terrible sufferings to the locals as well as a portion of Vietnamese. A socialist state government headed by the notorious Pol Pot, this heinous devil in a human skin ruler practically masterminded the massacre of roughly 3 millions plus people, all within that period of 3 years. To cut long story short, without him, 3 millions plus innocents lives would not be lost. Why he did that? Probably Hitler who were similarly psychotic could answer that.

So tourism spots related to Khmer Rogue were no doubt about deaths, unfortunately. The first stop for us was the Killing Fields. An approximately 30 minutes drive away from our hotel brought us to this cold (not that the blazing sun was not hot), barren parchy land enclosed with fences and walls. Inside the compound we saw a few more excursions buses. A short walk up from the main entrance stood a notice, first of the handful around, telling us what could have happened 30 years back when the innocents were truck-loaded there. But the tower ahead of us caught most people eyes as the central column could be viewed from the outside with the glass windows. Inside the columns were all bones and skulls and remains of the dead and tortured. We bought a flower and some incense, a mandatory rite in my own opinion but not compulsory, and pay our respect to the deceased. It was just so silent.

Walking around the tower we could have a closer look at the remains. Visible fractures, holes, missing fragments could be seen on skulls. A cabinet of the clothes they once used to wear was kept inside as well. More information notices were placed around the tower for the visitors. If the piling skulls and bones were overwhelming, wait till we walked around the complex with our guide.

He brought us around certain paths and areas where more signboards were erected. Those were the prominent spots where the executors carried out their torturings. NC16 content follows. Basic tools like mallets, spades, hammers etc were the executing tools. They scraped, knocked, stabbed and whatever hideous methods they could think of to the prisoners. No guns and bullets. Genders and age groups were separated. Babies were grabbed by their feet and smashed the whole body against the hard tree trunk. There is a type of tree growing in large numbers in Cambodia that has razor sharp and saw-like leaves. Such strong and hard leaves were used to saw the throat of the prisoners as well to drip the blood dry.

Pit holes are commonly seen in the Killing Fields. They were dug for the remains we saw inside the tower. I suspect everywhere we were stepping on there were human remains a few feet below. The guide told us the government has already stopped digging. 3 millions plus of lives. And this is just one of the Killing Fields.

Our faces were all stone-etched from the visit. Basically it was just unimaginable such inhumane acts could be committed. Guess what, the age of those executors then were only 13-15 years old! Oh my god!!

Anyway,  a visit to a temple and lunch was sandwiched in between this trip and another Khmer Rouge site. It was not too far away from our hotel either (jeeze). We were brought to the S21, a secondary school-turned torturing site for the young bastards before they finished them at various Killing Fields.

The place was cold, again, if you get what I mean. Eerie, terribly eerie. This would really be a true gut-test for people comes at night, not that it is opened at night.

A block of the school had individual classrooms locked for single prisoner. Inside each and every room was a bed frame without mattress, a crowbar and a shackle. Plus, on the wall was a framed photograph of what we might expect to see for a tortured inmate. A brief idea on what was done to them, NC16 content follows. Prisoners were first beaten, battered and chained-locked to the bed with chains on their wrists. Shackles were locked to their feet. Terrible thing was, the shackles were one size fits all. So if the ankle was too small to fit, they would be whacked by bars until they were swollen and too big to slide out. If they were too huge to fit through, they would be sliced by knives till the size fits in. Torturing continues with whatever tools the executors were happy with. Scalding, whipping, tearing, I could not bear to think of more action words to describe. One photograph on the wall, take a deep breath,  showed a man helplessly strapped with the skin of his face totally torn off, revealing the skull-like features, with him still alive. Oh my oh my. Sigh.

Blood stains were everywhere within the building. The ceilings stains were especially obvious. Stairways up to the higher storeys showed the path of blood once dripped. The whole place still reeks of pungent blood smells if you are sensitive enough to pick up, especially on such hot and humid day we visited, no joke.

Other blocks have barb wire erected on the front of the whole building, so as to prevent prisoners from committing suicide and ending a fast death. Other rooms were partitioned with bricks to create toilet cubicles-like spaces, only wide enough to stand 3 adults I reckon, for holding prisoners. Photographs of the victims, before and after (considerably lesser) were shown on big panels. Even the young executors brained washed to carrying out these crimes were shown. Totally appalled.

Illustrations were put up too to give visitors a better idea on what nasty things were done. Fingers (not nails) were snipped off, nipples of women were snipped off, centipedes were sent to crawl on these open wounds etc.

Such visual attacks of these gruesome acts were guilty enough, and more so with me describing. The actual performances by the adolescents seemingly in all too common fashion without any sense of human compassion is just sheer bewildering.

The last activity of the day was spent on a boat cruising down Tonle Sap River (different from Tonle Sap Lake in Siem Reap), and entering Mekong River. We were told the different colour of the respective rivers would not mixed upon meeting. I did not notice. I did not even know when we had reached Mekong or Tonle Sap. Overall, not much of a difference to the experience we had in Siem Reap, but it was an additional activity not inside the original itinerary. Probably that was needed to draft us away from the solemn day we had from the Khmer Rogue sites we had visited.

More of the photos can be viewed at my facebook album.

Cambodia is 1 hour behind us. But my watch was not synchronised throughout the trip. The feeling of clawing back an additional hour for a holiday trip just seemed so worthwhile, if only the plane did not stop by Danang, Vietnam! So I actually travelled to 2 countries to be exact!

Siem Reap Airport was rather barren. Other than the confusing queues to immigration and transit, the procedures through the customs were swift. We met our tour guide after a short walk out. For the ease of my parents, we had requested for a Mandarin-speaking guide, whom, in the end, spoke majority in Cantonese!

To our delight, we were the only people for that group. So it turned out to be a private tour for the rest of the trip! No waiting for others, no sharing of food with others. From transportation to food to explanations, we would be the only personnels catered! Glee!

A lunch buffet greeted us immediately after departure from airport. I should not have taken that much from the SilkAir meal if I had known! My worse regret was not having the ice-cream, nowhere available in the subsequent buffets we gonna have. Yes, there were more buffets in the coming days! We were brought back to our hotel by the mini van after our lunch for some rest before embarking on our first stop, a boat ride through Tonle Sap Lake.

A rough ride to Tonle Sap Lake exposed us to both the rich and the poor. Huge mansions could stand tall on one side of the road, while rough compromises they called "roof" with poor sanitations could exist by the shore of canals and streams on the other side. Harsh reality it might seem. But it is no wonder there is always a tinge of envy, no matter how minute, for city dwellers like us, on the carefree life they lead.

Prior to boarding the boat, and as we would soon find out in subsequent arrival or departure of certain tourism spots, hordes of dishevelled locals, nevermind the age, would cluster around us for donations. Part of the reason my Dad was so eager to change his USD into the local currency was to give out donations he sees prompt along the way. The problem, we knew long ago, was that such actions only invited more begging.

The boat ride was rather monotonous. What were interesting are the settlements peppered around the lake. They are literally living on a river without much proper sanitations and accomodational structures. The kids could not care less. Naked and bare-footed, they roll, they swim, they chase within the mud and in the water. Could one’s wealth buy that? They are not worse than any of us in fact, for they are kicking and alive, YET happy. Who is the winner?

Skiing along the lake brought us to a "kelong-stop", which frankly speaking I am totally clueless about the existence of that stop and the reason for it. Alligators (or crocodiles, I could not tell the difference) are bred there, maybe as a source of food. But what I know was that the snack we had during the stop over was rather unforgettable! Steamed (presumbly) mini-prawns, or shrimps! Simply delicious! Fresh and sweet. The aromatic juice of the invertebrates sucked together with the special dressing of sort seemingly unique to Cambodia made our day. The dressing’s sharp zing of saltiness and soury bit was sealing perfectly with the seafood flavour of the shrimps.

Nothing special on the way back to boarding of our mini van, except the local kids brought to us shocks of our day. Every individual one of us had our face captured, in the most candid manner, and imprinted onto ceramic saucer plates, with decorative motifs around the photo. Served as a momento, it cost USD3 each. Only my Dad bought his. Brilliance of candids, they are definitely masters in their own rights. I am kinda shell-shocked.

Dinner was too early for the day, so we were brought to a local night market for some light shopping. Understandably, there is always a reason why it was called "night market". People normally would not schedule a night market shopping on a time they already deemed is too early for dinner. Instead of experiencing the bustle of such markets, we had a rather quiet moment to our own. So unique.

Dinner was great. All meals were fantastic throughout the trip. My family thought they were quite oily. I am fine with it. Gigantic servings, we could not finish, we were guilty.

First day was so relax and free. I could not help but compare it to the hectic schedule I had to follow on my Western Australia trip. However, this pace should be suiting my parents quite well. And so the tour guide suggested to us to have some massaging to while away the early night, as well as to prepare our body for the next day taxing timetables of visit to the Ang Kor Wat. I am more tense to hear his suggestion. My slip-disc had given me some of the worse experience and pain I could hardly forget up till my current living meter. The thought of such untimely relapse due to possible "unprofessional" (assumptions) pressings and knucklings on my back was just so unimaginable. Suddenly, family pressure, instead of peer pressure, was something I felt for the first time. As I did not wish to strip away the enjoyment for my family, I agreed to it, ONLY to have it done to my feet.

The parlour (I hope that’s the correct/healthy word) is one of the biggest and "cleanest" in Siem Reap, at least that was what the tour guide told us. They greeted us like VVIPs upon entering and led us to a dim, but huge room, with each individual sections divided with curtains. Males and females are separated only by the curtains. It was a requirement to change into a bathing suit of sort which I did not follow for my feet were the only massagable areas.

In summary, the feeling was good, albeit some postures and massaging techniques were interesting appalling.

Breakfast for 2nd day was simple but good. We had a well-rested night throughout, probably due to the massage, as we start the day fresh visiting a wonder of the world. One of the highlights of the trip, Ang Kor Wat was much eagerly anticipated by all of us.

Ang Kor Wat is astonishingly considered more of an archaelogical site than monument, as we were told, because up till now this wonderful ancient kingdom of temples and cities are still deep in the forest or someway in the ground to be discovered. With that in mind, imagine the extensiveness of the full complete structure if the current, surfaced relics are considered humongous, understandably with visiting pass of up to a week (or a month) for sale.

Sculptures, carvings, statues. All made of stones. Extreme engineering, exemplarary feat, extraordinary architecture… Although I did not bring my photographic sense of sight to this trip (just wanna enjoy holidays with family), the pictures, however mediocre some may be, should still be enough to illustrate the grandeur than sometimes meaningless adjectives.

The whole of 2nd day was nothing but Ang Kor Wat. Maybe to my 2 sisters it might have a little extra. They bought a hat each, to their delight, at one stop-over break at some local roadside stalls. The itinerary ended with a view of the sunset in Siem Reap. What was initially thought to be an excuisite orange yolk setting behind the backdrop of the the famous Ang Kor "skyline" was nothing more than a normal sunset over a generic bird’s eye view of Siem Reap plains. But to count our blessings, the weather had been fantastic for the whole day. Still, the hardwork of trekking up the hill and climbing some steep elevated stone steps to catch something Changi Beach could offer was not comforting, especially for my parents.

Dinner was another buffet! Delicious. Period. The bitter part before the meal was when I realised the ISO setting I was shooting for my Fuji Velvia 100 slides was 1600! Terribly sunken. I specially bought Velvia to test out the rich colour saturation, especially so applicable on days like that when the sky was deep hue of blue with awesome landscapes. And I made this schoolboy (not that I am not a schoolboy) noobish mistake. I was switching between Fuji Neopan 1600 B&W and Velvia 100 as and when the situations called. The ISO setting was totally overlooked because of this! 4 stops of difference! All shots taken at Ang Kor Wat with Velvia were underexposed by 4 crazy stops!! And it was not as if I could always spend the time to reshoot again as and when I could. ARGH!!

There were performances of traditional Cambodian dances during dinner. Graceful.

To cap the night off, Spurs lost 1-0 to Wolves. Unbelievable. I did not have a good night sleep. Too much things on my mind. The need to wake up so early the next day for the trip down to Phnom Penh did not help.

More of the photos can be viewed at my facebook album.

… I have not even posted any entry on my Cambodia trip. Damn it. This has to stop. I realise I spent alot of my non-schooling days learning about myself. It is kind of good as these lessons, life-long lessons, are nowhere to be learnt. So many things I always experienced in my non-schooling days got me thinking so hard into my life. And the “fees” I paid for these lessons are not cheap. Priceless to be exact.

But they are worth it! Still a long way in my life but I glad these start sooner than later, for there are so many things I should have done better. Time to look forward though. At least have to try.

K, Cambodia Day 1 and 2 to be posted real soon. Logging into windows to sort the pictures in….. Windows 7 logo is beautiful……..