3 weeks til moving, 6 weeks til fighting.

6 weeks out from Iowa and I've hit a bit of a stressed-out, tired, sore, hungry stretch.  I'm finding myself a bit short of temper (the upstairs neighbour's dog isn't helping matters - I can't wait to get out of this shithole) and feeling a bit panicked.  Work, train, work, train, work, train, repeat.  And whoever said that exercise equates with better sleep is full of shit!  It's not true. 

There comes a point where training, whether it's running, cycling, doing pads, sparring or hitting the bag, becomes a chore, something that you've committed to and a job to be done, not necessarily for "fun" any longer.  Yes, most of the time it IS fun!  It's why anyone competes at an amateur level to begin with - fun!  Certainly not the money or the prestige.  But training for a fight requires a lot of time and effort and a great deal of time management to fit the rest of life into the slots in between training.  Like a real job, the job that pays for the training!  Although I very much love having a goal - I'm a very goal-oriented person who likes life to be scheduled...  except when I'm in SE Asia... - I also become very single-minded, slightly obsessed, and have a problem focusing on something other than the goal.  I feel like that right now.  My schedule feels a bit all over the place.  Focus at work is difficult.  And I don't even have mindless, routine work that I can do right now - I'm trying to write a very long, very complicated and complex manuscript which requires creativity, intelligence and a great deal of focus.  Let's just say that this isn't working out well right now!  I can look at this two ways - put the manuscript down until July 1st and work on my programs and workshops for Students on Ice, or push through the ADHD moments and use this as practice in concentrating.  Either way, shit has to get done!

Fighting at 40

It's been 6 years since (2008) I have stepped into the ring for a fight, not counting friendly sparring at the gym.  As the months are rushing by, especially the last few weeks as a crunched camp for a possible fight on April 12th, I'm learning that 6 years makes a huge difference in the way I approach training.  6 years ago, I didn't hesitate to step into the ring - I wasn't scared, I was excited, injuries didn't seem to be part of my world.  But I had only been training for just over a year before my first fight in Montreal, and I took that fight on 2 weeks notice.  No problem!  The following summer, my first time at the TBA-SA Iowa tournament, I was still quite inexperienced - not even 2 years of training.  I was in my early 30's, but that didn't phase me at all.  I admit, I had control issues - I had no idea of my own strength at that point in time (and still struggle with this), my temper was no way under the control it is today, and I was more likely to bull forward in the ring than stop and think.  Training to fight was still an emotional and mental challenge - the fear of failure, of letting people who have supported you down, the weight loss that requires a lot of sacrifice and often sends you into a meltdowns that are due to a lack of carbs.  That part of the game never goes away.  But it seems to play a bigger role.

Fast forward 6 years and I'm finding that the approach to a fight is very different.  I've been training for 8 years.  I'm more experienced and have trained at many different gyms in Thailand.  I *think* I'm more patient (although the verdict on that is still out on that one!).  I know that my temper is much more controlled and I don't have the anger issues that I used to have.  I'm certainly more mature.  I have more in my arsenal to pull from when in the middle of a battle.  But experience is apparently a double-edged sword.  For one, it means that I think more than I used to.  Most of the time, thinking isn't a bad thing.  But when it takes precedent over acting on instinct and muscle memory, it is a problem.  I'm more likely to stop while training and think about the next move, rather than simply reacting.  This has been the hardest hurdle for me to get over in the last few months.

The reality is that I'm almost 40 as well.  Muay Thai is a young person's sport - I'll most likely be stepping into the ring with someone half my age.  It's not a huge issue, but it is something I think of.  I cannot be as fast as I was 6 years ago.  But I can be smarter, use my experience, and this is what I am hoping to rely on.  

There is also the perceived idea that there is more at stake - not doing my best, failing, losing, looking like an idiot, having a crappy day training, not hitting a weight goal each week - these things all play heavily on my mind.  I am more conscious of the fact that I am investing a lot of time in this, sometimes with other parts of my life taking a bit of a hit, and my Ajarn is investing a lot of time in this, the close friends/training partners who are expending energy training with me are investing a lot of time in this.  I do not like the idea that I may let him or myself down.  As I say, perceived, in my own little pea-brain, because I know that as long as I do my best, no one is going to be disappointed in me.  If I don't give my 100% and slack off, then I deserve to be talked to and told to step it up.  Part of the reality is that I am training with people I am much closer to, personally, than I was 6 years ago, people whose opinion of me I value more than any other.  Closer relationships means a greater fear of letting someone down, even in training.  Having a crappy couple of days at work gets reflected in my training - I'm not as focused, lacking vital energy, and reach the point of frustration faster than normal.  I'm getting better at leaving work at work and focus only on training at the gym, but I'm not perfect.  The inability to grasp a concept immediately, to be told again and again to do something but still fail to do so is gut-wrenching at times. Having a bad day in the ring, training or fighting, is such an emotionally-draining experience.  The key is to NOT have a bad day, but hey, shit happens.
 
So I think this is the big difference.  It means more now.  I think the emotional involvement is deeper.  I'm not afraid of fighting.  I'm not afraid of being punched in the face.  I am afraid of having someone say "what the fuck are you doing?  you're 40 years old!  you're not up to this any more!".  Part of me expects to hear "You're not going to be ready.  You're not good enough.".  That's the snark speaking and I push it to the back of my mind.  I will be ready, I am strong, I need to be smarter in the ring than maybe I currently am, but I have the best support and coaching I could ever ask for and I take strength in the fact that if someone is willing to invest their time in me, they probably aren't crazy in doing so and believe I can do it.  So I should too.

I find making the switch from professional scientist to fighter (can I really even say that?  I feel like a fraud saying that) a bit strange some days.  If I think about it, that is.  Some days I do, some days I don't - it depends on what has gone on at work, how professionally successful I am feeling, how confident I am in my own skin as a mineralogist.  The days that I feel successful, confident, and that I have contributed to my chosen research area are the ones where I tend to be a bit shocked, maybe disbelieving, at the two extremes in my day-to-day life but feel confident about my training, drawing strength in the fact that I am more multi-faceted and balanced than most academics.  The days where I feel like a fraud in my professional career are likely the days I will feel like a fraud in the ring, trying to pass myself off as a fighter.  Moving from work, where thinking is my job, to training, where thinking gets me into trouble, is also an interesting challenge.  I think my co-workers are a mixture of curious and disturbed by my "hobby". 

Back to reality

I find it amazing how quickly one falls back into routine after being away.  One day, I'm sitting on a beach in +35 deg C weather, attempting to relax, with no more worries than what to have for supper that evening - squid, fish or praws - and the next thing you know, I'm sitting in my office at work, staring at the chaos on my desk of draft manuscripts, journal articles, random bits of paper with scribbled bits of data that I will never, ever begin to understand what they were supposed to mean, coffee cups that were not empty when I left and therefore are harboring their own colony of new lifeforms, and wondering how it can be so cold inside a building.  From +35 deg C one day to -25 deg C the next.  It's a bit of a shock to the system, but it does amaze me at how quickly the transition happens.  Aside from jet lag, a large pile of laundry, the beginnings of the post-trip sinus infection and a very nice tan, there is no transition - it's as if February ceased to exist, a dream, and I'm picking up where I left off on January 21st.  I'm not sure this is a good thing. 

Being back at work, I find I'm not overly eager to delve back into the social side of things - coffee breaks or lunch in the cafeteria.  I'm not certain I am as of yet ready to be asked the question "how was the trip?" and be probed for information.  I suspect part of this is my chosen new method of dealing with my work versus personal world - the less information shared, the better.  The gossip mill here is rampant; a number of times in the last year I've had information said in confidence to someone come back to me via another source.  My attempt at positive thinking also requires protecting myself from such garbage.

Strength

Not many posts since I have arrived on Koh Yao Noi, but that is mainly because I have been attempting to have a vacation and relax.  Not working so far, simply because I am expecting too much of myself.  I have come to a Muay Thai camp with the plan of training and then doing island-type things during the rest of the day.  That said, coming to any new camp is always a steep learning curve - not a bad thing because it means learning new techniques that will better me as a teacher and fighter.  I've had both good and bad experiences across Thailand at various camps.  So far, this hasn't been one of the good experiences, and this is weighing heavily on me.  Every camp is different, has their own style, techniques, ways of doing things.  Here, the routine is a warm-up, shadow boxing, and then about an hour of sparring followed by clinch, and then only 2 rounds of pads.  By the time I get to the pad rounds, I am exhausted - the heat in the afternoon here, with the sun shining directly into the gym, zaps energy like you wouldn't believe.  Even with 2 weeks in Cambodia, I find myself crashing in the heat and am thus pretty useless during pad rounds, and am not enjoying sparring every single day for that amount of time.  I'm not enjoying myself.  I try the "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" motto, but this fails in light of "this is just not any fun" reality.  Now I know that a few weeks in this, and I'd be fine, but right now, I'm exhausted 3/4 of the way through a session.  Even running is brutal.

The problem is that crashing and being exhausted, coupled with being yelled at continually for not doing techniques the way the head trainer wants, makes me feel weak, physically and mentally.  I don't like quitting, giving up, but feel that if I am not toughing it out every day, I'm doing exactly that - wimping out, that I'm not as strong, mentally, as I would like to think I am.  Maybe that's a good self-realization to have - own up to it.  Or maybe it's the snark part of the brain having its way.  It's hard to tell when you feel you are letting yourself down and should be taking up basket weaving or something less mentally and physically demanding.

Relaxing - more difficult than it seems

After 2 weeks of constant running around and activity, I am finding it very difficult to actually stop and relax for holidays.  I know I need the break, but when I do take the time to essentially do nothing but read and chill out, I feel horribly guilty!  I'm on a small island east of Phuket - Koh Yao Noi.  It's a tiny island that is 95% Muslim fishermen and their families.  There is nothing exciting here at all - no big resorts, no loud bars, do downtown strip with shops and restaurants and throngs of tourists.  The beaches are pristine and virtually devoid of tourists of any sort - no beach umbrellas, no hawkers walking up and down the beaches trying to sell you everything from food to random trinkets.  It's paradise lost - what other islands in and around Phuket were once like 10-15 years ago.  It's the perfect island getaway!  Except I'm having a very difficult time giving in to island life and simply stopping and relaxing.  So far, my day goes like this:  get up, go for a 5-8 km run, shower, breakfast, wander around the island on my motorcycle, sunbathe and read, have lunch, relax/watch movies, and then train at 5pm til 7pm, supper and then bed.  YThe food here is incredible, lots of very fresh seafood, so finding an excellent meal is never an issue!  Yesterday, I came into my room after lunch and started to watch a movie and promptly fell asleep at 1:30pm until almost 5pm.  I suspect that the last few weeks have caught up with me, but I woke up feeling very guilty for sleeping during the day!  And that I had slept through the start of training.  I know that I shouldn't feel this way, but it's hard to free yourself of the idea that you should be doing something productive all the time. 

Gem wanderings - Day 2 - Bokeo Clas and Phum Throm

I really want to apologize to anyone who has to do laundry at hotels in rural Cambodia - I have inflicted terrible pain upon them in the last few days!!  Between the build and now traipsing around in lateritic soils all day, I come back to my room filthy.  At least in Tbeang Meanchey it was normal dirt-coloured dirt.  Here in Ban Lung, it's lateritic soils derived from basaltic rocks, and it is very, very, very orange-red.  It stains everything - your hands, your feet, your clothes, your shoes, backpack, you name it.  Everything turns a lovely orangey-red colour.  I gave in laundry this morning prior to leaving for the field and warned them "very, very dirty!  might have to wash twice!" after which I was told the washing is done by hand.  Oh my.  I suspect I should be leaving a very large tip before leaving...

Today our foursome split up - the mineralogists off to hunt for zircons, and the non-mineralogists off to ride elephants and see the waterfalls.  I've been to the waterfalls here and I can attest that they are beautiful.  Glenn, Andy and I did that trip on motorcycles a few years back and came back more filthy than I have ever been in my life.  

Dermot and I headed out to see both Phum Throm and Bokeo Clas today, about 30 minutes to the east of town.  We soon discovered that where there were dozens of miners 2 years ago, there was now only large piles of dirt, vacant holes, and brand new rubber trees planted in between.  It was quite a shock, as when we visited Phum Throm 2 years ago, it was a thriving community of miners, all of whom sold their stones to Mr. Pross at the end of the day, the gem dealer who owned the land.  However, we were told before that mining is very dependant on rubber prices - if rubber is fetching a good price, farmers will rip everything up and plant rubber trees.  And thus kick out all of the miners.  The rubber industry is HUGE in this part of Cambodia, and it results in massive deforestation of old growth hardwood forests.  All along the highway near Ban Lung, huge tracts of land have been cleared and burned and then planted with rubber trees.  It's horrific to look at and the number of rubber plantations that have sprung up all over the countryside in the last two years is almost nauseating when you contemplate how much hardwood and native species had to be removed to plant these trees.  The problem with rubber is that the trees only start producing after 3 years, and then are tapped out, literally, by the time they are 20 years old.  On the border with Vietnam, the problem is even worse - Vietnamese companies are crossing the border, logging all the hardwood, and hauling it back to Vietnam.  Why?  Because the Cambodian government is corrupt and can only see the money that is currently right there in front of them.  There is no thought to long-term environmental impact or natural resource sustainability in this country.  It's difficult to watch in a country which could be rich on their natural resources, including various metal deposits.  

Okay, enough with the political/environmental diatribe...  back to minerals!!

Dermot and I at Bokeo Clas

Abandoned mine at the old Phum Throm site

Old Phum Throm site, now a rubber plantation

We wandered around the old Phum Throm site for a while, being careful not to fall into the 20 foot deep holes that were everywhere, but soon realized that there were no miners.  We drove back to the main road and about 2 km further east to Bokeo Clas to ask the miners there where the Phum Throm miners had moved to.  Mining is too lucrative here - they would not simply abandon the zircon deposits entirely.  Sure enough, we discovered that they had moved to the other side of the highway, directly across from the old site.  Happy with this information, we decided to stop in Bokeo Clas and check out what the miners here had for sale.  No sooner than sitting down at a bench, we were surrounded by a hoard of villagers, miners and family and friends of miners alike.  The tourists have arrived!  The tourists have arrived!!  And of course every single person came carrying a small grubby bag or plastic vial containing zircons of all sizes and quality.  

If you have never experienced this type of mineralogical-circus, it's a bit overwhelming.  People put a handful of rough stones in front of you and wait for their turn to name their ridiculous opening price.  And prices this year were insanely higher than in past years - what I paid $2 for 2 years ago was now being asked for, at the start, at $25 or $30 for anywhere from 2 to 10 zircons.  But negotiating is part of the game of course.  If you don't come back with a counter-offer, they are offended.  So even if you do not wish the buy the stones, or think the price is ludicrous, you name a price.  And if you give in to a high price at the start, with the first or second seller, you are totally screwed in that village for the rest of the day - you are not getting fair prices from anyone!  Everyone else will want the same rate that the silly foreigner just paid to their buddy!!  For the most part, 75% of the asking price was about what I was aiming for. 

Dermot checking zircons being sold by villagers/miners, Bokeo Clas

Votha adding his opinion on the price of some zircons, Bokeo Clas

Here's the problem.  At every guesthouse in town (not that there are many of them!), they have a tourist "map" (and I use that term loosely because they are hand-drawn and certainly not to scale, and if you try and navigate with one, well, you should probably bring a GPS with you).  On this map you'll find a little "X" that says "Gem Mines".  Mr. and Mrs. Random Non-Mineralogist/Gemmologist Tourist come into town and are looking for what to do - elephant trekking, jungle trekking, go see the waterfalls, and oh look honey!  we can go see the gem mines!!  This is where the inflation is happening.  Naive, uneducated tourists, and I say this in the nicest way possible and don't mean it to be demeaning, come into these gem mining camps, brought along by guides from town, and they proceed to buy rough zircons, and then later some heat-treated, cut ones.  But they really don't know what they are buying, other than a souvenir from Ban Lung.  And the villagers aren't stupid - they can see a naive tourist coming a mile away and up go the prices.  

Why is this a problem for people who know what they are buying?  Because the villagers begin to expect to be paid what the tourist just paid.  What I know is worth only $1 or $2 because it useless to a gem dealer due to flaws (fractured, included, bad colour, etc) and cannot be heat-treated and cut, Mr. and Mrs. Tourist only know that it is a gem stone and will pay $25 for it, thinking they got a deal.  So up go the prices.  What the villagers do know is that we know what we're doing - carrying around a hand lens and an intense flashlight is a big red indicator flag.  But they still try and get the tourist price.  Which means that there is a lot more bartering required to bring them back down to earth!  And I have to tell you, it's exhausting when you have half the village standing in a circle around you trying to sell you their samples.  If you buy from only one person, they will all be mad.  So you do have to share the wealth around.  This was Dermot's first experience with the local zircon mafia, but he did fine, picking up a few lots for $5 each, bartering down from the ridiculous $30 some of them wanted.  I managed to get a large, 2 x 2 inch crystal for about $5 and another small lot for the same.  All in all not bad.  We talked to one of the miners at Bokeo Clas, who let me haul up a bucket of mine material from his hole (hard work!) that he found only 2 zircons in 30 5 gallon buckets of laterite.  It gives you a bit of perspective on how hard this work is.  But I'm still not paying $30 for a handful of non-gem-quality zircon!!

Hauling dirt at Bokeo Clas

Miner at Bokeo Clas

After lunch, we headed off to the new Phum Throm site, which turned out to be in the middle of an active rubber plantation.  Once we got there, we were quickly told, quite proudly, by one of the miners that he had foreigners down his hole.  What the hell?  We thought maybe he meant that in the past, he has let foreigners down the mine.  Nope.  We went over, and sure enough, we could see 3 headlamps at the bottom of the 36 foot deep hole.  I called down to them and it was a young girl and her boyfriend.  This is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever seen.  The holes at this location are about 2.5 feet wide and 36 feet (12 m) deep.  They balloon out slightly at the bottom, just wide enough for the miner to scoop out a few buckets of the laterite, but there is NOT room for 3 people down there!!  Also, to add to the "fun", the water table at this locality, unlike the others, is high and the bottom of the mines are wet and very mucky - wet laterite is clay.  So here are these two stupid farang, down this hole where usually only one small Khmer person fits.  I called down and asked them "do you realize how many miners get killed doing this each year?  you should probably come out of there right now".  I must admit, I would like to go down, just to see, and we joked about it the last time we were here, but I would never do it - it's way too dangerous.  These two South Africans finally emerged from the hole - the guy, a hell of a lot bigger than any Khmer miner, was a recent geology graduate.  Well, that explains the slight stupidity and eagerness!!  Votha found their motorcycle guide and gave him a blast of shit.  The guide was clueless really - some random guy from the city trying to make some money driving tourists around so he can't really be faulted. 

Miners at new Phum Throm

Mounds of laterite at new Phum Throm

Miners at new Phum Throm

Abandoned mine at new Phum Throm

 After leaving Phum Throm, we headed back into Ban Lung to check out a few gem dealers.  I want to buy some cut stones for our collection, and Votha knew the best places to go.  The first place we went to had a great selection of stones - zircons from Ratanakiri, topaz from Takeo, and amethyst from just west of Ban Lung.  We checked out her prices, and then decided to go visit our good friend the heat-treater, Mr. Kruy. His prices were more than double what the first shop had quoted!  Crazy.  And then we asked about some rough material, and there again, his prices were outrageous.  I needed some rough from BeiSrok, one of the regions which isn't in operation any longer, and he took out premium gemmy material and quoted me $3000 USD per kilogram!!  I tried to explain to him I just wanted 5 or 6 crystals, preferably euhedral ones, for reserach purposes.  He finally came out with a bag of poor quality rough, but when we asked for a small bag's worth, he robbed us for $10 for the bag.  Ridiculous.  But I need that material for some other analyses as I seem to have lost the one and only sample I had from the previous trip.  This dude is making money, I can tell you that!  All in the name of science.  :)

From house building to gem hunting - multiple personalities!

This morning it was up, once again, bright and early in order to part ways with Pon and Thora while we headed into the further wilds of northern Cambodia.  We said our goodbyes to Pon, thanked her for all her help and hope to see her on next year's build or at least back at the Tabitha office in Phnom Penh.  Then we packed up our new van with all our stinky build clothes, left over baguettes and water, and all our other crap, and headed northwest towards Chomng Ksant, and then onwards to the village of Tram Poung, roughly 80 km from Tbeang Meanchey.  We were blessed with a good road all the way, with minor slowdowns for cow crossings, and one very abrupt swerve to avoid a dog.  As much as I don't want to hit a dog, I would rather us not make that sort of violent swerve again on these roads!!

Tram Poung is a widening in the road with a couple of store fronts, a gas station, and an inordinate number of gem dealers for the size of the place!  The mines here are only operational during the wet season when there is enough water to spray the soils and laterites with large hoses to dislodge the alluvial zircon and some sapphire.  Looking at the geological map, there is no evidence of basalt within this area, so the zircon must be coming from basalts either to the north in Thailand, or from the basalts south of Tbeang Meanchey.  The rocks around Tram Poung are all Jurassic and Triassic sediments, definitely not an original source of the zircons.

Tram Poung town, 80 km northwest of Tbeang Meanchey

Dermot and I looking at cut natural zircons from Mr. Poung

As is done in Cambodia, and I suspect anywhere else in the world where you sit down with gem or mineral dealers in remote areas, coffee and tea are provided and the selection and bargaining process begins.  Votha took us to see 2 gem dealers and cutters - two brothers who own store fronts a couple of doors down from one another - Mr. Leko and Mr. Poung.  Both men had glass display cases showcasing cut stones from around Cambodia and abroad, as well as a selection of random rough material - tektites, quartz from Takeo, amethyst from near Ban Lung, agates from the river beds, etc.  Sometimes these random piles at the bottoms of display cases are the most interesting to us.  For the regular gem buyer, they want what is on the top shelf, all the pretty cut material, but the rough is often the more unusual and scientifically-interesting.  And also a hell of a lot cheaper!

Once coffee and tea were distributed, we were brought a large selection of cut and rough zircon.  The rough is very obviously water-worn and has traveled following its emplacement along with the basalts from which they were later weathered.  They are quite smooth, anhedral with very rare rounded bipyramidal terminations.  However the colour is fantastic - dark red-orange to a lighter brown-orange and pretty much inclusion-free.  Expensive rough for research but great if you wanted it for cutting and facetting.  However, it's always difficult to get across the point that we don't want the material to cut into gems, that it's going to be sliced and crushed and analysed all in the name of esoteric science!  I need to learn how to say "give me your garbage material" in Khmer.  

Raw, cut natural (red-brown) and heat-treated rough (whiteish-blue) zircons from Tram Poung

Cut natural-colour zircons from Tram Poung

Votha and I checking out cut natural zircons in Tram Poung

Dermot and I both selected cut stones from both brothers - a couple of larger stones each for our respective collections and then smaller ones for ourselves.  Prices ranged from $1.5 to $7 a carat, depending on the size of the stone.  I bought a selection of 1 and 2 carat stones for myself and others at home, and the ones for the mineral collection are 10 carats.  But at those prices, you can't go wrong.  The stones are mined, cut and polished right there in Tram Poung by the dealers from which we bought them.  Mr. Leko and his partner, Mr. Dee, process 30 stones a day.  That's a lot of gems per year!  Many of them get sent for sale at the gem market in Chanthaburi, Thailand, where I am very sure the prices are at least 10 times as high as we paid.  

After negotiating for cut, natural zircons, Mr. Poung took one of the stones and brought it over to a gas burner to show us the colour change.  In only 2 minutes, the stone, which was originally dark brown-red, was turned colourless.  Fast!!  This is in an oxidizing environment however, but Votha says that in a reducing environment as they do in Ban Lung, they only change to a very, very pale blue colour, not dark enough to be worth treating for the general market.  As far as I'm concerned, the natural colour is more beautful.  

We also went through an elaborate bartering process for a bag of rough zircon.  By this time, we had an audience, and more miners had shown up to offer up their findings - some large rough zircon about 2.5 inches in length and quite gemmy, a bag with 3 lbs of rough material, and one miner with some rough, quite ugly yellow-green sapphire.  Dermot and I split 400 grams of rough zircon for research, and then I bought 2 small lots of rough sapphire for research as well. It will be interesting to compare these with the ones that we found in BoLoei in Ratanakiri.  As with Ratanakiri, there is no market for sapphire in Preah Vihear province - the material is too infrequent and the colours are not conducive to cut stones.  Some of the material might make nice cabochons, but not facetted stones.  

Before having some lunch/breakfast, we stopped at Mr. Leko's store front to take some pictures of the cutting and facetting - all done outside, by hand - and for Dermot to purchase some tektites and for me to grab a ridiculously-priced facetted smokey quartz from the Takeo granitic pegmatite, just south of Phnom Penh.  A whole $5 for a stone about 25 carats.  :) 

Mr. Dee faceting Tram Proung zircons

Mr. Dee faceting Tram Proung zircons

Mr. Leko doing doing the first cut on a zircon on a dope stick

Mr. Dee doing the first cut on a zircon on a dope stick

At that point in time, after a quick bite to eat consisting of the leftover baguettes from the build and leftover random fixings (the pate went the way of the dodo - I opened both jars and both had white fuzzy stuff on the tops - damn!) we jumped back in the van for the long drive to Ban Lung, back the 80 to near Tbeang Meanchey and we are now on a mostly okay road headed directly west to Stung Treng.  This was a difficult part of the trip to predict - everyone I talked to about this road gave me a different answer when I asked what its condition was - paved?  not paved?  pot-holed?  tarred?  Well, for anyone who ever needs or wants to know, the road between Tbeang Meanchey and Stung Treng is dirt but fairly smooth for the first 15 or 20 km, and then is roughly paved for another 50 km.  We are currently about 2/3 of the way along the road and have yet to hit any major roadwork or barriers.  More updates as the drive unfolds before us.

continued, 3:15pm

Arriving at the Mekhong River crossing after a dusty, long drive was pretty exciting.  The Mekhong at Stung Treng is quite wide - a lazy, grey vastness stretcihng north to Laos and west aross to Stung Treng.  There is no bridge - crossing the river requires a 1/2 hour ferry ride.  As a ferry was just departing as we reached the landing, we had to put the van into the queue and wait for the next one.  It gave us a chance to walk around the market area, and watch one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time - the perfect candidate for a Darwin Award.  A brick truck had tried to drive down the (muddy) bank of the river, presumably to off-load bricks into a boat or get onto a barge.  Well, a large lorry + muddy river bank = disaster.  It had slipped into the river where it got stuck!  There were very embarrassed Khmers standing around and directly other people who were removing the bricks from the truck and loading them elsewhere.  It was too funny and they were not exactly happy with us taking photos!  But how can you not?

Brick truck stuck in the mud and water on the Mekhong River - LOL!!!

Cow watching the stuck, sunk brick truck in the Mekhong - it had the same thought we did - WTF?

Brick truck stuck in the Mekhong being unloaded, photo from the ferry

Susan (waving) on the ferry crossing the Mekhong River

The ferry ride across the Mekhong took 30 minutes, so Rory and I got out of the van and climbed to the captain's deck with Votha to have a bit of a "Titanic" moment!  Complete with Angkor beers of course.  It was a relief to get a bit of a breeze at the top of the ferry as it is quite hot and sticky here at the present.  We talked with Votha about the cost of vehicles in Camboda.  Specifically the plethora of large Lexus SUVs that you see around towns.  In Canada, such a thing is way out of most people's budgets.  As it is here too, for the most part since the disparity in economic levels here is absurd, but I was shocked at the price differnece - here, a Lexus SUV costs $12,000 USD.  A Toyota Highlander about $15,000.  What?!  How is it that the price in Canada can be so far off?  Import taxes?  

On the ferry crossing the Mekhong River to Stung Treng

Off the ferry and back on the (paved) road, high ho, high ho, it's off to Ban Lung we go.  

Continued:  7pm  - safe and sound at the TreeTop EcoLodge in Ban Lung!!

TreeTop EcoLodge, Ban Lung - you can find me in bungalow #16!