I am in KL right now, and this training trip is going really good.  It is 1000 times more relaxed and laid back then the first training trip.  We spent a few days in the jungle in Koh Sak National Park, then had a beach break in Krabi, ate Indian food in Penang, saw strawberry farm and tea plantations in the Cameron Highlands, and now it’s the modern city of KL.  (I’ve decided that I’m definetly a city person.  Today when I was taking the subway to the Petronas Twin Towers, I realized how much I love being in big cities with so much going on a tons of things to explore and see.)

Anyways, back to my title about the “shiny” American.  When we were eating dinner in the Cameron Highlands everyone was talking about how they can tell where a person is from just by looking at them.  (I can’t.  I’m horrible at guessing people’s nationalities.  I still confuse British accents for Aussie accents sometimes.)  So I asked them how they can tell a person is American.  The answer was, “Your all shiny.”  What?  Like sweaty or something, I asked.  Nope, shiny hair and shiny teeth, and just general shiny-ness was what makes American stand out (at least that’s what my British, Irish, and Aussie travelmates all said.) 

That night we had Steamboat for dinner.  It’s sort of like a Chinese fondue.  A big bowl of spicy soup broth is put on top of a burner, and then you add raw meat, veggies, tofu, and noodles to it and wait for them to cook.  It tasted pretty good, but the thought of all that raw meat being added at different times, and then you randomly pick up a piece and hope it’s cooked sort of grossed me out.  They gave us a ton of things to put in: chicken, beef, tofu, eggs, noodles, fish cakes, crab, fish, squid, prawns, muscles, and jellyfish.  I was quite happy just eating tofu, noodles, and veg, but Scott dared me (or basically forced me) to try a jellyfish.  So of course I did.  It didn’t really taste like much, but the texture was disgusting!  It was like chewing on a piece of rubber.  It didn’t break up at all, so I basically had to swallow it whole.  That was the first and the last time I’ll be eating jellyfish!

I finished my office training, and am now an official employee of Intrepid.  (Yeah!)  Training finished on Wednesday and I basically had free days until Sunday, which worked out perfectly because my friend Shannon happened to be in Bangkok on those days.  (Shannon was one of my best friends in Korea, so it was awesome to be able to hang out with her!)

We went to the Grand Palace. (It was my first time, even though I’ve probably spent about 1 month in BKK.  I’m always too lazy to go there.)  It was pretty, but super hot!  So we basically ran from shaded spot to shaded spot, taking so pictures in between.

I feel like I’ve been in Bangkok for about 6 months already, but it’s only been about 2 weeks total.  It’s already beginning to feel like home a bit.  When I was first here, last year, I really didn’t like BKK.  But it’s slowly growing on me, except Koh San Rd (the backbackers hang out place).  Everytime I go there I dislike Koh San more and more.  There are the weirdest people there.  You see people walking down the filthy road barefoot!  (Yuck!)  Yesterday I saw a girl walking down the busy street in her underwear.  (I think you forgot something, honey.)  It’s  the most interesting people watching you could ever experience. 

This evening, I’m taking an overnight train to Koh Sak National Park and will be spending 2 nights in the jungle, and then its 3 days on the beach in Krabi.  (Tough life, huh?!)  I’m doing my final training trip.  There are only 3 passengers, 3 trainee leaders, and 1 leader.  So it’s more leaders than pax.  That’ll be interesting!

This was a crazy/action packed week, so there are a lot of things to write about.  I took a really early morning flight from BKK to Penang, Malaysia.  (I had to get on a 4:00am shuttle out to the airport, so started the day at about 3:30am.)  My flight went smoothly.  I arrived at the Hong Ping Hotel, and met up with Rose, the tour leader I would be shadowing for the next week.  (She is a really nice girl from Austrailia. She had a lot of great advice about handling groups and how to keep them engaged and having fun through out the trip.)  We spent the afternoon talking and I went to a museum that I hadn’t had a chance to see when I was in Penang before.

I got to meet the group later that afternoon, as we were walking over to the mall to get massages.  (I had to start the new job off right, by having an amazing reflexology massage.  I will definetly be visiting them often!)  I was quite shocked by the group.  Normally Intrepid caters to younger travellers on a budget.  This group was all people in there 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s who were expecting a fancy trip, but at a rock bottom price.  (One man was constantly complaining, that the, ”People were uncivilazed!” Because they didn’t have napkins and he had to drink his beer from the bottle at a street stall.   You paid $1 for dinner, what do you expect.)  Anyways, some of them were a bit hard to please.  There was also a couple from England who were seeing impaired (so nearly blind.  She could see a bit of colors, and he could see a tiny bit).  So it was quite a challenging group!  There was one Dutch guy who was 25 years old, and had signed up for the trip through a student-youth company, so he was quite surprised when he arrived in Singapore.  It was a very excentric group, but it worked out pretty well.

Then the next day we left Malaysia and drove to Thailand.  (Yes, only about 22 hours in the country.)  We spent one night in NST (I’m not even going to try to spell it right now), and then went to Koh Samui for 3 nights.  Koh Samui was great!  It’s an island off the East coast of Thailand, and our hotel, Sandy Beach Resort was right on the beach so it was a great chill out time.  We spent most of the time swimming, going on an all day snorkeling/ boat trip, going to a Lady Boy show, and eating great Thai food.  (I also had to do a bit of work, and learn how to do accounts and stuff.  I can see that a laptop would be a great thing to have for this job.  I might need to think about getting one.)

Then it was a van, bus, ferry, bus, overnight train, and taxi.  Now I’m back in Bangkok and start my office training in 1 1/2 hours!  This is going to be a tiring, but amazing job!

Phonm Penh is a very interesting city.  It has a cool vibe about it with all of the old French-style buildings, nice cafes etc.  But you also come face to face with poverty every minute of every day.  When you are walking down the street or sitting in a sidewalk cafe, streetkids and beggers are constantly asking for a “yum yum” or a dollar.  Then there is the constant asking of “Tuk Tuk Lady?” “Madame, Moto?” by the men sitting on the side of the road trying to make a dollar by taking you around town on their scooters.  It can be very overwhelming and hard to deal with, but it’s all part of being in Cambodia.

This was my third time visiting Phonm Penh, so I’d already seen all of the sites (palace, museums, killing fields etc).  So this time around I visited a bunch of NGO’s that are trying to help out around the city.  My first stop was the blood bank.  They are really short on blood in Cambodia, and have tons of billboards begging people to donate, so I did.  (It was very sterile, so don’t worry.)  And it wasn’t as scary as I would have thought.  After donating, they gave me a Coke, a t-shirt, some vitamins, and a big bag of food (3 cup noodles, a bag of cookies, a can of condensed milk, and a lb of sugar).  I didn’t want need the food, so I was able to give that to people on the street.  It was a cool experience. 

The next day I found this great restraunt called “Friends” (located right next to the museum, if anyone every goes to Phonm Pehn).  They are helping street kids by giving them an education and a place to go.  Some of the older kids are being trained to work in a Western style restraunt, so that they will have some job skills.  There were 15 students being trained as waiters and about 20 students being trained as cooks, when I was there.  (It’s a small cafe, so the place was overflowing with smiling staff trying to help you all the time.)  The food was amazing and the presentation was gorgeous.  I went back a second time, because it was such a cool place.

I also visited an orphange that is run by a former monk.  After the whole Khmer Rogue thing, there were tons of orphanes, so he gathered them up and bought a small piece of land.  He is slowly building a place for them to live and a school.  It is the most bizarre looking building I’ve ever been in.  Every time he gets a few hundred dollars donated he buys some wood, and builds small little rooms.  It all looks like it’s about to collapse, but you can tell his heart is in the right place.  He just needs to plan things out a bit better.  The kids were very sweet too.  I brought them 50 kilos of rice (about 110 lbs of rice).  But that is only about 1 days worth of food, since there are more than 120 kids and all they seem to eat is rice.  It was heartbreaking, but an important thing to see.  (This is a picture of the girl’s dorm at the orphange.)

I spent the rest of my time hanging out with some people staying in my guesthouse, 2 girls from Austrailia and a guy from Isreal.  It’s so cool to be able to get to know people from all over the world!  I also bought a small MP3 player at the market, and the shop owner let me choose some songs from his collection to put on it.  (My Ipod broke the minute I got to Thailand, but hopefully my travellers insurance will cover it.)  The Cambodian man had a strange mix of dance/hip hop music and love songs, so now I have some pretty wierd songs on my MP3, but oh well it’s better than nothing. 

I’m back in Bangkok, and will be flying to Malaysia on the 4th of March to start my training for work.  I am really excited to start working!