Recent Kaleidoscopes

Sparks from the temple burn at burning man

Tree on Mekong River in Luang Prabang, Laos

Khmer path stonework at Wat Phou near Champasak, Laos

Ta Prohm at Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Radhe Baba's Mother's Hands and Rose Petals, Uttar Pradesh, India

And some not so recent images...but never posted online - from the 2010 Penta show at Vessel Gallery in Oakland....

Birds & God at Waddell Beach, California

Altitude Sickness, near Wheeler Peak, New Mexico

Around Phnom Penh

Fruit vendor at market with rambutan, dragon fruit, citrus, apples, bananas and more. I can't remember; what are the small brown ones in the front called? (Mangosteen and life-changing durian not pictured here.)

Scooter traffic in front of the Old Market (Phsar Chas)

Central Market, not far from a mall and movie theater where I watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 for about three dollars.


Daily aerobics on the river esplanade


I rented a bike from my guest house. Cruising around the city was a great way to get around and explore.




Democracy Monument


Outside Wat Ounalom Monastery




On a bus outside Phnom Penh


Sooooo....this is the after effects from getting cupped. If you don't know what cupping is, you can read about it here on Wikipedia or Acupuncture Today. Around Southeast Asia, when I was in a city and not in the countryside working on farms or teaching English I often opted for a daily massage as they were usually about $3-$5 for an excellent traditional therapeutic treatment. Sometimes these massages came with complimentary aromatic steam baths, which were also awesome and really just a great deal. In Phnom Penh, I saw a sign near my guest house, offering up cupping sessions for just $2. I had tried cupping once during an acupuncture treatment, and thought I would give it a shot. I'm open to trying natural therapeutic treatments - especially for $2. (The lady quickly informed me in broken English that it would be $3 instead of $2.) Well, the "treatment" was not what I expected. For one, it was pretty painful. When I asked the therapist how long the glass cups would stay sucking onto my back skin, she replied, "Yes yes ok!" There was a big box of cups, but I never would have imagined that she was going to use all of them plus more...I counted more than 60 cups popping off of my back afterward. And then she did a second round as I winced and tried to take it like a man. Cupping supposedly helps cleanse your body of toxins. And, in case you aren't sure, the purple spots are yes, bruises. Nearly three months later (I'm very late in updating this blog) I still have some faint circles on my back! The photo above was taken by the therapist immediately after the session. The two below were taken later that evening in my Phnom Penh guesthouse.

Photo of my back covered in purple circles in the reception area of guest house before my final overnight bus ride in Asia from Cambodia back to Bangkok.

Tragic Legacy of the Khmer Rough in Phnom Penh

In Phnom Penh, the most famous tourist attractions all relate to horrific tragedy - killing fields, prison camps, rampant torture and violence, piles of human skulls and a painting of a baby getting its skull smashed against a tree. In the 1970's the "simple" and "farmer" Communists known as the Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodians), took over the country and killed roughly two million people, nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population. Above is a room (former elementary school classroom) that housed prisoners who were shackled to the bed with the steel device on top of the bed. The box is an ammunition case used by the prisoners as toilets. New York Times just posted an article on the current UN trials against some former Khmer Rouge leaders.


In Phnom Penh, there are tuk tuk drivers waiting to drive foreign visitors to the sites of the city just like in other Southeast Asian locales, but the tourist sites are quite grim and different for tourists coming from Angkor Wat or sandy beaches. Beggars with missing limbs outside the Genocide Museum do nothing to dispel the forlorn and tragic energy surrounding the school turned prison camp turned museum, also known as S-21, the school's original name.


These classrooms were divided up into many tiny cells made of wood and doorways were made through the walls to create a line of cells. Visitors can still see blood stains on the tile floors.


Of the thousands of Cambodians who were checked into this school turned prison camp in Phnom Penh, only 12 survived. After extensive torture, starving, suffering and interrogations, they were summarily executed - usually taken to outside of the city to "killing fields" where the bodies could more easily be buried.


Blocks away from the school, the modern city pushes up high rise condos and office buildings.


Skulls line the shelves at S-21.


A few kilometers outside the city, many of the prisoners were brought to an area known as Choeung Ek or the Killing Fields. 17,000 humans were murdered here between 1975 and 1979. Some of the many mass graves were excavated and later on a stupa was built to house these remains.


Looking into the Buddhist stupa on site that contains 5,000 human skulls.

Rady's Cambodia English School of Higher Education

Pedro leads an activity in one of three classrooms at Rady's free English school outside Siem Reap, Cambodia. I came here to volunteer as an English teacher. I found the organization through the website Help Exchange. Rady receives foreign volunteers who stay at his home and teach at his school throughout the year. Since the nearby Angkor Wat complex receives millions of foreign visitors a year, local Cambodians who learn to speak English confidently will have job opportunities in the huge tourism industry as they grow up.






Children gather around Pedro's laptop to view a fun English music video from the internet. The students' ages in the classroom ranged from 2 years old to 28. Most were probably in the 5-13 age range. During the class, chickens wandered through the open doors of the bamboo and thatch classrooms and pecked at the dirt floor.






The school is free for everyone and classes in the mornings and evenings were divided by age and skill level. The orphans that Rady takes care of all attend the school every day and were some of the best students in class as they have constant contact with foreigners sharing their home.




Practicing the alphabet...




Here's Rady, director of the school, feeding the fish in his pond, which he is farming.


A future student of the school...


A view of the simple but effective classrooms with dry erase boards...




Wood arrives for the new library in a trailer pulled by a motor scooter. Rady and some others built the library in something like five days. They will have a collection of books in English for the village's children and maybe even some computers in the future.


Inside the new library...


With a gift of a few hundred dollars, Pedro financed the new library and a local official even came to inaugurate the building and give a certificate of appreciation to Pedro for his generosity.


Two of my students


Another one of my students who lived just a short walk down this road






This was the path to the school, where there was always standing water. The school was surrounded by wet rice paddies and several homes.


Pedro walking in the water


Singing songs


Younger siblings looking on...




Rady had a couple rickshaws that attach to the back of scooters. He and his driver would take us to town and sometimes to school.


After a couple more volunteers showed up from Germany, I started teaching a more advanced evening English class to some novice monks at the Educational Center for Human Potential Development in a monastery in Siem Reap.