Of course Jenny and Jenna were there to greet me with big smiles. Jenny, the younger sister, still had that wonderful smile on her face that lit up the world. And Jenna, more serious and stoic, was had grown a head taller and had turned into quite a strong soccer player. Sitha assured me that the girls had fit in and adjusted wonderfully in the year since they’d been placed in the orphanage and I last visited. They were catching up in school slowly but surely after never attending much before, and always were kind to the other children and extremely helpful. In the mornings, when it was a scramble to wake, feed, and ready 37 children for school, Sitha often didn’t have time to eat as well. But Jenna often came up to him with a plate of rice, reminding him to take care of himself and looking out for her new papa. Jenny and Jenna were still thrilled to see me and hugged me warmly but didn’t cling to my shirt, afraid and nervous to let go, like they did when we first brought them there. That was a great sign to see them so happy but also so strong, confident, and independent. 

But despite the odds that are stacked against CIO and the children, Sitha and Mama never give up and never exude anything but positivity. Of course they have 35 little reminders why it’s all worth it, from 3 to 19 years old, with them at all times. The afternoon was cooling so Sitha walked me around and gave me a tour of the compound, like I’d received the previous year. But there were definitely improvements; the school room looked great, the colorful library and study center, complete with a few donated computers, was new, and they even had a spirited Khmer (Cambodian) college student, an orphan herself, living with them and teaching the kids English every day as she continued her own studies. There was even a small 1980s television, but the always-thoughtful Sitha explained that the kids were only allowed one hour of television a week on Saturdays. The boys wanted to watch U.S. wrestling, of course, but the girls wanted cartoons, so cartoons it was.

Little girls helped Mama in the kitchen where she prepared about 100 meals a day outdoors on wood and charcoal fires, a task that got her up at 5:30am and off work well past dark.

The soccer field was in full operation, a new volleyball court marked off in the sand, and the separate building with bathrooms was high class for rural Cambodia. There was a whole room with bicycles so the middle and high schoolers could peddle to the school 10 kilometers away every day, as there was no bus. The elementary school kids had an easy 5-minute walk in their blue uniforms and white shirts. The school day was spilt into morning and afternoon sessions in Cambodia with children attending one or the other, so kids were spilling as Sitha and I talked. Each child as they came home walked up to us, bowed and put their hands to their foreheads as is the custom of respect, and said hello and reported they just returned from school in English. Respect, manners, and discipline are integral to the lessons Sitha teaches them, and English is also vital if they hope to get good jobs above manual labor, like working in a hotel or restaurant with tourists for $150 a month or so if they’re lucky. 

As Mama cooked and Sitha supervised the children coming home, I wandered over to the garden, a new addition in the year I’d been gone. As they were designing the flowerbeds, the children had a cool idea to build it in the shape of CIO – the orphanage’s initials. The water pump was also near the garden, an old-school red metal handle the children took turns working to get water to wash dishes, do laundry, and also bathe. I was saying hi to the kids there when I felt a biting pain in my foot. Then another one, and more on my other foot, ankles and legs. I looked down to see I was standing right in a nest of fire ants. Those little sons-of-ants (I gotta keep the language clean when writing a blog about kids!) hurt like wasp stings. I brushed and kicked and danced until they were off me, the children laughing with hilarity at my painful antics.

When dinner was ready, the children took out metal folding tables and plastic chairs and set them up on the concrete deck under the main pavilion. Some of them set the tables while others poured drinks into little plastic cups or took out metal cafeteria trays. Mama scooped the food onto each tray. There was white rice, green beans with chopped pork, and Lok Lak, a Khmer treat of beef in sauce, tomato and onion, and egg. I realized it was a feast to celebrate my visit; they couldn’t always eat that well, and many people here lack meat in their daily meals. 

Before we dug in, some children were assigned to wave the flies away from the tables. Unfortunately, the orphanage grounds sits near a chicken farm and a crocodile farm if I heard correctly, both attracting swarms of flies that migrate over to their dinner tables. The children sang an adorable song of gratitude and blessings before the meal, which I asked them to repeat so I could video it.

We ate among the sounds of children’s’ laughter, but at the adult table Sitha gave me a sketch on the history and culture of Cambodia. He explained that Siem Reap province, despite being the top tourist destination in the country, was the poorest province in Cambodia (which is saying a lot). In fact, the home to Angkor Watt – one of the wonders of the world and an UNESCO world heritage site – brought in a ton of revenue, but the regular people never saw a penny of it. All of the hotels, bars, and restaurants were owned by rich foreigners or a small number of elite Khmer families and the rights to profit from Angkor Watt had been sold to a Vietnamese tycoon in 2004, in one of the most glaring cases of political corruption for profit I can fathom.

I hugged him and mama, then shook their hands, and then hugged them again. There weren’t words to express enough gratitude for what they were doing for these children.

“You don’t say goodbye, only ‘see you later’” Sitha called out, reminding me of what I wrote about the orphanage in my blog a year earlier.

“Here you go Sitha, this will help,” I said, handing him a stack of crisp $100 bills, enough money to pay the upcoming 3-month lease that was hanging over them. I explained that I wasn’t the generous one; most of it came from donations from sweet, caring friends in the United States who had never even been to Cambodia or seen the kids.

As I left, the children lined up and waved, running behind the tuk tuk. I hoped to visit one more time before I left Cambodia, or maybe it would be another year before I got to see them all again, but I was heartened knowing they were all  safe and happy and in great hands. 

-Norm   :-)


P.S. Drop me an email if you'd like to help the children of C.I.O. 

I really loved Cambodia, its chill vibe, friendly people, and balance of some of the things you like in other parts of Asia, without too much of anything.  I spent months in Phnom Penh, the capital city, and immersed myself in the local culture.  To truly get a sense of local life, I moved out of my comfortable hotel and got an apartment in a typical neighborhood.  To get there, I had to follow a maze of winding alleys, through puddles and trash and claustrophobic corners and dark staircases.  My apartment was three stories up in an attic and insanely hot - and rat infested.  Still, I enjoyed making great friends with my neighbors - the girl shown here, an old man who's wife owned a sidewalk kiosk, and the folks at the martial arts studio across the street.  This photo typifies Cambodia for me: flawed, crumbling, treacherous at times, but its humanity always illuminated by a warm light.

This is one of my favorite photos from the whole year because of my affinity for the children and poor folks in Cambodia.  So many kids and even whole families live on the streets, begging and eating out of the trash.  These two little girls were walking barefoot on the hot, dangerous streets, trying to sell hand-woven bracelets to tourists.  They are so poor they never owned a mirror nor saw their own image often, so they were enamored with their likeness in this car mirror.  They made faces and danced and laughed. I snuck up on them and shot a few photos before they got too self conscious and laughed before skipping away.  

This is the best photo I took all year.  Ironically, I snapped it as an afterthought on one of my last days in Asia, in a small city a few hours north of Manila in the Philippines.  Everywhere in Asia the discrepancy between rich and poor is alarming, although not geographically segregated.  There is not better example than this photo, where this burnt-out and roofless building served as the shelter for a young mother and her two infant daughters.  Right beside them sat a 7-11 convenience story on one side and an affluent hotel on the other.  I was alarmed at the textures in this photo, their obvious tenderness despite the depth of their pain, maze of many doorways like Dante's 7 Gates to Hades.

Right after I took this, I saw the little girl hanging out in front of the 7-11 by herself, dirty and shoeless.  I bought her an ice cream and gave her a few dollars and she beamed up at me with her big smile.  There's also hope in this photo, like the open sky above them, the joy of their spirit that can not be burnt down. 

The island of Boracay in the Philippines is one of the coolest places I've ever been to on earth.  I actually visited way back in 1999 when it was just a small inhabitation of fisherman and ladyboys (and the kinky German tourists who chased them) among a mostly-untamed island.  14 years later, Boracay is far more developed, but somehow managed to keep its charm (though there are far less ladyboys and very few kinky Germans.)   It's packed with tourists, families on vacation, and beach lovers from all over the globe, but they've done a good job to manage that growth.  It's almost spotlessly clean, so safe you can walk anywhere at any time of night, and its natural beauty hasn't been diminished…despite having a Subway, McDonalds, and a Starbucks. 

Another photo from Boracay.  On the west side of the island runs White Sand beach, a 7 km strip of immaculate…well, white sand.  It ends into a rock outcropping, but that's where the adventure just begins.  Following a narrow stone trail through the cliffs (above) you end up at majestic Diniweed beach, shown here.  It's a private beach but anyone is welcome, with only a few beach bungalows, guest houses, and restaurants built into the hill.  It's so gorgeous that I would just stand there and take it all in when I visited.

In southeast Asia, water is life.  In every country (even landlocked Laos,) the majority of the population lives along the ocean, rivers, or lakes, where they've survived off of rice farming and fishing for many centuries.  Waterways are also the traditional method of transportation, sometimes house them on floating villages - and often were a means of escape for refugees during bloody conflicts like the Vietnam War and Cambodian genocide.  

Walking through a local market one night, I happened on a wedding celebration.  I managed to snap a quick photo of the newlyweds without disturbing them.  Weddings in Vietnam and other southeast asian cultures are a huge deal - sometimes a 3-day affair!  

This is along the river in Hoi An in north central Vietnam, a charming and colorful enclave of traditional culture - and tourist hotspot.  There were plenty of boats along the river, but this particular family opened their's up to visitors every evening and sold cold beer while the father played guitar and sang to his toddler daughter.  

Ko Pi Pi island in Thailand.  These islands and beach were made famous when they filmed, The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio years back.  It's stunningly beautiful, though infested with tourists.  I was sad to see trash floating around and the dipshit travelers treating it like their own party place, not giving the respect its beauty deserves.  

A giant golden statue of Buddha from a temple, or Wat, in Thailand.  There are only certain positions you'll ever find a likeness of Buddha, like sitting, standing, laying, or in the lotus pose.  

A photo from a botanical garden in Phuket, Thailand.  Phuket is the largest island in Thailand and some areas, like Patpong, look like crowded and touristy cities.  But there are still areas of the island that are serene and unspoiled by commercialization.  I spent the whole day wandering within this beautiful botanical garden, and saw only a few other people. 

Luang Prabang features parks and gardens along its river, sun-kissed and nearly deserted except for the occasional tourist or locals playing soccer or meditating.  

1.  Your jaw will hurt from laughing so much.

2.  As you travel, you’ll meet so many strange people who talk, dress, eat, play, and worship different than you’re used to.  Then again, they’ll think the same about you.   

3.  You’ll probably have to disconnect from technology - letting your calls go to voicemail, putting down your smart phone, and logging off social media.

4.  This will make it necessary to interact with actual real live human beings with alarming frequency.  These interactions won’t just be a quick “hello” in line at a store or a word in passing at the office; you’ll have to sit down next to complete strangers and carry a whole genuine conversation for hours.

5.  Everything is new, different, and uncomfortable when you travel.  A lot of what you see and experience might force you to recalibrate your whole belief system.

6.  You’ll have to face your fears at some point…like every single day.

7.  You’ll find out that life is bigger than your To Do list, and all the structure, planning, and control you’ve been embracing isn’t nearly as important as you thought.  

8.  You’ll have to think long and hard about what you want out of your short time on this planet.  Once you get back home, you might not want to settle for your same normal life and this could lead to all sorts of unsettling changes.

9.  You’ll have far less to complain about after traveling. In fact, most of your problems won’t seem like real problems any more.

10.  You’ll realize that most of the material shit you’ve accumulated isn’t needed at all, and in fact is holding you back.  

11.  There will be way too many new friends from all over the globe who want to keep in touch.  It takes a lot of time to maintain all those friendships.  They might even want to visit you, and invite you to visit their home countries! 

12.  You might fall in love or even meet your soul mate – and they may live on the other side of the world!  How inconvenient!  

13.  You won’t always feel safe.  It’s frightening to discover that safety is mostly a myth that we create in our own minds.  

14.  Traveling will teach you that time is both an undefeatable opponent and your biggest ally.

15. Your ego will be shattered when you realize you’re not special and in fact, you’re pretty damn insignificant.  Traveling will provide clarity that the only things that matter in life are how you treat people and if you leave the world better than you found it.  

- Norm   :-)

maybe we give him chance.  Now rainy season so tourist slow down, but Siem Reap ok now.  All Korean and Chinese tourist come here instead of Thailand because they fighting.”

I asked her how much an entry-level job at the bar might pay.

“$60 or so,” she said.  

“A week?”  That seemed like a pretty good wage for Cambodia.

“A month.”

Imagine working 12 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week for $60, or less than $2 a day?  Yet that’s what the vast majority of people in Cambodia earn every month – if they’re lucky.  That’s about the going rate, whether they are servers at restaurants, tuk tuk drivers, give massages, do construction or sew and work in a laundry.  The bartender told me that so many young people come to the city try and get these jobs.  They have no place to stay, no family or friends or even a dollar of savings to fall back on once they arrive, so they sleep 10 to a room in a shabby guesthouse, on the floor where they work, or even on the street on a hammock.  

They send as much money as they can manage back to their families in the province – the only system of social security for older people.  The financial pressure on these young people is enormous.  Sending $30 home can make the difference between their parents, grandparents, and whole extended families having enough to eat or receiving medical care or not.  Too often, they are forced into doing jobs their parents would be ashamed of, compelled to hide their vocation but still needing to send money back for them to survive.

They always start their tenure in the city and at a new job sending money back, but some are pulled into dark temptations – partying, buying nice clothes and phones, and always drinking.  Since any real money to be made is at a bar, club, or working to pacify the tourist’s desires, alcoholism is such an unquestioned fact of life that nearly everyone drinks all night, every night.  The depression of hopelessness is staved off by taking a shot and the energy of another night’s neon song.  The girls in bars, whether bartenders, hostesses, servers, or “bar girls,” make a significant portion of their income on tips or lady drinks.  If they can convince a foreigner to buy them a drink (at an inflated price,) they get paid handsomely, usually $1.50 or $2, or as much as they would otherwise earn all day.  

The girls mostly come to work as these bar girls, or that is where they always end up, where they can earn more and try to attract the favor of a foreigner for some nice meals, a vacation, a brand new phone.  Especially the phone - it seems like having a nice new Android or (gasp!) iPhone is a badge of wealth to these girls.  But it’s also a tool to allow them to attract and keep in touch with foreign boyfriends, even when they go back overseas.  Keeping that relationship alive can be lucrative – guys often send a hundred dollars a month or so back to their “girlfriends.”  Or, if things go really well, they may pay for them to take English classes or go to university.  If they’re really lucky, they’ll find the Holy Grail – a visa to another country.  The only detail is that they need to marry the guy, but that is a small inconvenience.  Sometimes, it takes a week for the marriage to manifest, sometimes, years.  It matters little if they know the guy well, are attracted to him, or even like him – the opportunity for economic security and the chance for a better future for them and their family is like a winning lottery ticket that just needs to be cashed on a daily basis. 

For many of them, the devil arrives in their lives and his name is Yaba.  That’s what they call the Southeast Asian version of methamphetamines, or ice - a terrible concoction of poisons that eats away at their brains when smoked – but let’s them float above their problems for a few precious hours.  Once they get hooked on Yaba there’s usually no going back, eventually becoming reckless with selling their bodies.  When that happens, all their money goes to their habit and less and less back to their families.  If they get pregnant they usually go back to the province to have the help of their mother until they deliver.  When they come back to the city to work, the baby usually stays with grandma.  

Even those working outside of the bar scene make a significant portion of their income on tips and kickbacks.  So if the tuk tuk driver suggests a hotel and delivers the tourist to the front door, they’re entitled to a tip from the hotel for bringing a booking.  Sometimes the drivers have a pretty good day, but too often they’re lucky to have one fare for a buck or two.  For that reason, they’ll assault your senses with offers to take you to every tourist attraction.  You usually have to say ‘No,” three or four times to every single street vendor or tuk tuk driver just to get them off your back.  It’s hard not to get annoyed at their aggressiveness but once you understand the economics of the their situation, you tend to soften your stance.  

And then, there are the hustlers; battalions of forgotten people working the streets, outside of any rules or structure of the tourism industry.  Adults – sometimes even their own parents - send children barefoot into the street to beg all day and all night, armed with sad eyes and wearing dirty rags, just enough English to tug on a sympathetic tourist’s heart strings.  Maybe they sell bracelets or knick-knacks, but they’re really just seeing how much they can squeeze out of each farang - foreigner.  

How can you blame them?  That watch you’re wearing costs more than they make in a year, what you spend on a Saturday night enough to feed their family for a month.  The only problem is that most of the money goes to the grown person around the corner who’s spending it on booze or cigarettes, and not much to the kids working in the razor sharp streets.  

Some bar girls – who are sick or too hooked on Yaba to work in bars – work as freelancers.  Of course there are pickpockets and those who set tourists up when their pants are down (literally) but the vast majority of all these people are good, honest, and hard working – even when faced with unfathomable poverty.  They set up a chair and give haircuts in the street, or drag along a cart of coconuts to sell, a machete and straws the tools of their trade.  Many just set up a blanket in the dirty street and sell icy fruit drinks, animal innards roasted over a coal fire, or dried fish.  It’s all they know, and without skills, education, or any resources, it takes all of their life’s energy just to live hand to mouth.  But they are honorable people - they’d split their last grain of rice with you if you were in need.       

“How long have you been working here?” I asked her as she took my plate away and put another ice cube in my beer.

“Three years now,” she said.  “Good job and nice owner that like me work.”

“And how much do you make per month?”

“$80,” she said.  And this was a decent Western bar in tourist areas that catered to foreigners and she spoke good English.  Imagine what the older lady in back made, homely and without strange words, so resigned to mopping up and cooking my meal?  

I wondered what would become of this kid who was applying for the job, even if he got it?  Faceless and with nothing to claim except a blank page, what was his fortune?  Or so many countless young, cheap laborers like him who came to the cities?  I guess we could just be thankful this new generation didn’t have to experience the horrors of war and genocide that their parents endured.  But as tourists keep pouring money into the country, I just wished that more of it actually landed with the real people living and dying in the streets, who really deserved it.  I guess I always hope that things get a little better.  

“Ketloy,” I said, asking for the bill in Khmer – the Cambodian language.  She smiled and brought me the bill.  I put down enough to cover the bill and a tip big enough for her to eat for a month and handed it back to her   She went to give me change, confused why I overpaid.

“Keep it,” I said.  “That’s a tip for you and spilt it with the lady over there with the mop.”  

“What?  Really?!  Oh thank you thank you!  Ohn Kuhn, bong!” she said to me, holding her hands to her forehead and bowing slightly to the sky, an offering to Buddha thanks for her good fortune. 

I smiled back – a real smile that I hope she remembered when times were bad.  I thanked her again and walked out onto the street.

“Tuk tuk?!  Tuk tuk!  Where you go?  Angkor Wat?” five taxi drivers barraged me at once.  I checked my watch – I had to head to go collect my bags at the hotel and get to the airport soon.

I guess that’s really what it comes down to – some of us are lucky enough to have places to go while the rest of us are always left hoping things get better, praying fortune arrives if they could just get through another day, around the corner or maybe in the kindness of a stranger.  Either way, none of it still makes any sense to me.  But that’s just how it is.  

-Norm    :-)

I recently met a new friend in Cambodia, a very kind and conscious American woman from Denver who is traveling in Southeast Asia.  She asked me a question so insightful I had to write a blog to answer it properly.  Here is her inquiry, paraphrased:

When I travel to poor countries I rarely take photos of people. I see so many art shows with photographs of the impoverished but it seems these people are no longer sentient beings - they become impersonalized backdrops at dinner parties, objectified as oppressed beings.  I struggle with this.  How do you feel when you photograph people who live in poverty?

Here is my answer:

First off, great observation!  I think about that all the time as I travel or live in Third World countries and photograph people, many of them living in desperate poverty.  I ask myself, “Am I just being a tourist in their suffering?  Am I one of those people taking photos who think, ‘Oh look at all the starving dirty people in hovels - these pictures of their suffering will look great on my Facebook!  My friends back home will think so highly of me.  I feel SO good about myself for taking an hour out of my day to go visit their slum/orphanage/village, and now that I’ve got the photos I can go back to my air conditioned luxury hotel.’"

My answer is always “Hell no!” but that’s the stark reality of too many tourists I see.  A while back I even read an article about a South African hotel that was replicating the impoverished shanty experience.  They weren’t bringing people into the shanty towns to let them experience a small part of the life of the poor, but were mocking it by building their own shanties complete with a few high-end amenities, right on the hotel grounds.  That’s just dead wrong.  But what about the casual traveler who can’t help pulling his camera that costs more than the local people in his finder make in two years? 

So much of photographing people as you travel comes down to your intentions, but you also have to communicate that intention, often within seconds and without words.  I travel into some of the most impoverished areas in the world and take photographs without conflict or any problems with the locals.  In fact, when I leave I’ve spread good will and hopefully helped them in some tangible way…AND still got authentic photos I’ll cherish.  How do I do that?

1. When possible, I ask people if I can shoot a photo of them.  Of course that loses spontaneity but if we've already made eye contact, said hello, or they see me, I'll smile and ask politely if I can take a photo, and then thank them profusely afterward.  It may not sound like much, but it shows respect when you ask permission.

2. Many times I compensate them - a dollar here or there for taking their photo and sticking my nose and camera into their business.  They’re always appreciative of that, no matter what the amount. 

3. I ask myself how I would feel if someone stuck a camera in my face at that given moment.  If I was eating dinner with my family or worshipping or in a compromising position then I might construe it as rude, but generally if someone is kind and interested in me as a human being, not just a an object for a photograph, then I’d be happy to have them document our connection. 

4. Sometimes I take photos with them, not just of them.  Once we’ve said hello, exchanged a smile or a laugh, and it feels appropriate, I’ll ask if I can take a photo with them, side by side as new friends.  I’ve always found people to be honored and excited to be seen as such. 

5. More than anything, I try to use the photo and my experience in their homeland to help them.  I do that by writing about their lives, telling their stories to the world.  Whether it's a blog, a fundraising campaign, or a whole book about their existence, that's my way of creating awareness for who they are and what help they may need on a bigger scale.

6. I educate myself about their country, the conditions of their lives, and the social ills affecting them, and then always make a donation before I leave.  Instead of giving money to beggars on the street (which is often counterproductive by encouraging more begging and exploitation of children) I make a donation directly to a credible charitable organization that’s serving them.   

7. Lastly, I smile and try to show love and respect to anyone I meet, regardless if I photograph them or not.  I think it's so important to do that - my way of showing that I acknowledge them as fellow human beings and equals.  Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve found that respect and friendship are commodities just as powerful as money.

***

-Norm   :-)

I received an email from a reader the other day with these questions:  

"What would be the best advice for young adults trying to travel or move out the country?  And which countries are best to move to?"

Super questions!  My best advice for young adults trying to move out of the country would be to travel while you’re young.  Do it now when you don’t mind long bus rides and bad beds and you don’t have a lot keeping you back in the states  (or your home country.)  Life has a way of anchoring you as you go on, and pretty soon you might have a good job, an apartment lease, car payments, a house, or a relationships or marriage that keeps you grounded.  So do it now!  

I would also suggest that you form a plan how you are going to fund the trip a good ways out – maybe 6 months? - and work your butt off until that date arrives.  You’ll have to sacrifice a lot; eating out, nights partying with friends, the newest clothes or concert tickets, but all of that money will be essential if you’re going to travel. In that time you have to prepare, read everything you can about your destination countries, learn about the cultures, watch documentaries, and read some travel articles and books that will give you a taste of real life on the road, too. 

Last thing: be careful.  The rest of the world is not a fantasy land and most people have problems that we can’t even imagine in the US.  So getting too drunk, walking around alone, messing with drugs, getting in with the wrong crowd, etc. could lead you into situations you can’t get out of.  Slow play the partying and keep your eyes open and you’ll be fine.  

The other question, "Where should you go?"

That all depends on what you’re looking for, but I’m going to take a wild guess and say you want someplace warm, with a beach, that’s not too expensive, where there are other backpackers?  That opens up one set of possibilities, but others want to volunteer, or to experience authentic culture more than partying and lying on the beach.  It also makes a huge difference if you’re just going backpacking around or trying to live there for a year and work.

When I chose a country to live in (not just vacation!) I have a rough guide of criteria, based on priorities.  Make your own list and then do some research what might be a good fit.    

Tier 1
• Cheap – lodging around $300-$500 a month, total budget around $1,500 a month.
• Nice beach – a beautiful white sand beach goes a long way in balancing out all other factors!
• Friendly people – Then again, I don’t care how beautiful a country is, if the people aren’t warm and friendly, I’ll keep it moving.  I’m not down with snobbery or arrogance.
• Safe politically – don’t be freaked out by one news story in a country (if we judged the US by that same standard we’d never want to visit!) but also don’t mess with places where a coup or political violence is occurring.  Same thing goes for countries with terrorism, religious radicals, or drug cartel problems.
• Good WIFI (no kidding – I write/work as I live abroad so I’m screwed without a serviceable internet connection)
• City, town, or village?  There are pros and cons to each as you balance amenities, convenience, laid back vibe, nature, etc.

Tier 2
• Healthy, cheap food – I want to say “Yummmmm,” for $3 a meal, not for $7 a meal and up.  
• Culture – things to do like visiting temples, ruins, archeological sites, natural wonders, etc.
• Night life – of course you want a little bit of fun, but are you looking for mellow beach bars or clubbing all night long?
• Safety walking the streets
• Ability to get work –teaching English, teaching yoga, or working at a hostel or bar are some of the best possibilities for local employment
• Some tourism, but not overrun – the problem you’ll encounter is that the places you want to go, everyone else in the world wants to go there, too.  The trick is to find a place that is ahead of the curve, not way behind it when it will be too crowded/too expensive/soulless.  
• Diversity of population – I like a place that has a healthy blend of backpackers, expatriates, vactioners, and plenty of locals who still live there – not just work there.  That’s harder to find than you’d think!


Tier 3
• Speak some English – you should attempt to learn the local lingo but it really helps when they speak a few words of English.
• Proximity – The southern tip of Patagonia in Argentina is amazing, but don’t think you’re just a hop, skip, and jump away from main cities.  It’s fun to be in a city/country where you can get around easily, hopping buses and even small flights around the country or region easily.  
• Good gym – since I’m living in these countries I want to go to the gym every day and especially love boxing or muay thai, etc., but maybe you just want to surf or do yoga, etc.
• Family friendly – I like locations that don’t just have a bunch of 20 year old kids but a cross section of real life, including families and people who are old (my age.)

Based on those criteria, some great spots I’d suggest:  Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Cuba (I’m dying to go there!), India, Sri Lanka, Israel, Jordan, Ghana, Senegal, Vietnam (good one,) Cambodia, Thailand (a little too touristy for my liking,) Laos, Mynmar, the Philippines, and Bali in Indonesia.  That’s a short list.  You can do the Caribbean and Europe when you’re older, plus they’re a little too expensive. 

I hope that helps, and happy travels!

-Norm  :-)

Luckily, I Googled “Floating villages, Cambodia” while I was waiting for him in the lobby because several notices came up warning tourists.  There are a few villages and two of them, Kompong Phluk and Chong Kneas, are the most popular with tour guides because they are closer to Siem Reap.  However, based on the reviews these authentic floating communities had become nothing more than well-organized shakedowns, with someone begging, selling, or demanding a donation every five minutes.  My driver was hesitant to take me all the way out to Kompong Khleang, the less popular village still almost untouched by tourism, because it was much further out on a bad road.  But he complied and we set out on impossibly bumpy dirt roads with soil so red it looked like crushed bricks.  

Kompong Khleang certainly did not disappoint.  The village, home to about 1,800 families or 6,000 total residents, is on Lake Tonlé Sap, Cambodia’s immense central lake that covers about 7,400 square miles when it floods (Lake Tahoe is only 191 square miles!)  The Lake receives the water from every river and tributary on the peninsula, from rivers way up north in China to the Mekong delta in Vietnam, making it a flood plain that swells enormously during the wet season.  The lake is Cambodia’s greatest natural resource, making it unique among other neighboring Southeast Asian countries and the largest fresh water body.  More than three million people live around the lake, 90% of them earning a living from fishing or agriculture, especially rice that grows hearty in the flood plains.

Nearly half the fish consumed in Cambodia come from this very lake, and it holds over 300 species of fish, as well as snakes, crocs, turtles, otters, and 100 species of birds like storks and pelicans.  But life for people in the countryside here is hard, a fight for survival among extremes.  They are so desperately poor it’s hard for me to comprehend through a western paradigm, and the majority of each and every day for them is just trying to secure food and shelter.  There are only two seasons in this part of the world (and near the equator) – the dry season, December through June, and the rainy season the rest of the time.  During the rainy season the water level could rise 20  to even 40 feet high, completely submerging villages.  

So the residents who live near the shores of the lake have to live there to make a living and eat, but also have to endure epic floods for months.  The solution is that they build floating villages to survive.  That could really mean two things – there are houses built on along the banks of the lake on giant stilts – sometimes 30 feet high – and residents get in by long ladders.  Other people live right on boats, or floating pontoon structures that look like extremely primitive houseboats.  So when the floodwaters rise, their houses rise right with it.  They have whole families living in one-room bamboo hovels on the water, and you’ll see cooking fires, general stores, schools, and even medical clinics floating along.  

There is actually a big class divide between the inhabitants who live in stilted houses, which are considered higher class (even though they are just simple one room bamboo huts, themselves) and the floating village people.  But when the lake rises every rainy season, the floating villagers move right along, while the water could come right up to the floorboards of the stilted houses,  or even partially submerge them.    

People hang their laundry out on their floating homes, burn cooking fires, jump in and bathe by the banks of the lake, send their kids to school on boats, visit their Pagodas, dry small sardine-like fish on huge racks, set up fish farms contained in water, haul in catches with huge nets, and harvest crustaceans they can eat and seashells by the bag they can haul to the next town and sell.  Even little kids row around long canoes or sometimes even sit in the water in 5-gallon buckets!  

The people were all amazed to see a tourist as I was enthralled by how they lived, but their big smiles and warm vibe never ceased to amaze me.  On the way out of town my driver stopped so I could take a picture of the rice fields and flood plains from a bridge, and I encountered a group of kids and a family who welcomed me.  I bought a bag of candy at the storefront next door and shared it with the kids, who all happily posed for a photo, waving and flashing the peace sign.

Norm   :-)

Costa Rica is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, with 60 million foreign visitors each year.  It's reputation as an eco paradise and beach lover's dream are well deserved, in the land with no army where the national saying is "pura vida," or pure life.  However, just like any place, there are challenging facets to life in Costa Rica, economic and cultural realities that are essential to navigate for anyone spending more than a week there.  

Since writing South of Normal, my nonfiction account of the wild, crazy, and immensely beautiful year I live in Tamarindo, Costa Rica, I get emails, Tweets, and Facebook messages from people all over the world.  The one thing in common is that they are thinking of moving down to Costa Rica, or at least going there for a nice sunny vacation, and would love some inside information.  So I've put together a compilation of the articles and blogs I've written about heading down to Costa Rica.  Most of these are from the Huffington Post Travel or my own blog, and in their entirety I think will really help folks in their transition to life in paradise.  Feel free to drop me a line if you have other questions or want to share your adventure! 

Email [email protected]   
Twitter @NormSchriever 

Thinking of Moving to Costa Rica? 5 Questions and Answers You NEED to Know!

10 Secrets to Booking Cheap Airfare to Costa Rica.

Your Life in a Backpack; What to Pack For 6 Months Traveling Abroad.

Crazy Facts About Costa Rica.

10 Things to Consider Before You Move to a Foreign Country.

10 Tips to Stay Safe While Traveling Abroad.

The Border You've Never Heard About.

Fun and Facts About Costa Rica.

It's a Small World. 

25 Ways You Know You're in an Awesome Third World Country, Once Again.

45 Jobs You Can do From The Beach.

Virtual Jobs You Can do From The Beach, Part 2.

Work From The Beach; an Interview With Elance.com CMO Rich Pearson.

Blue, Green, Breathe.  A bonus chapter from South of Normal.

TamaRumors.

I Was Born in The U.S., Yet I Did Nothing to Deserve That.

Finally, give a read to the Amazon.com best selling book, South of Normal, which has been called essential reading for any Costa Rican expat or vacationer!

I just landed in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam 48 hours ago, and the barrage to my senses is like a reunion with a beloved old friend; the chaotic blur of sights, the symphony of car horns, the masses of humanity.  But no matter whether I’ve been in Cairo Egypt, Tamarindo, Costa Rica, or Manila in the Philipines, there are some commonalities I’ve noticed in all developing countries (sorry, Third World sounded better in the title.)  For those of you who have traveled abroad – or grew up in another country – these might sound fondly familiar. 

1.      Most of the luggage on the airport conveyor belt is boxes duct taped together and addressed with a Sharpie.

2.     Everyone wears flip flops, even the construction workers, except the police, who wear proper shoes, though they’re the only ones not running around.  

3.      Women have burn scars on the back of their calves from hot motorbike exhaust pipes.

4.     You’re supposed to throw toilet paper in the waste basket, not flush it.

5.    There’s a showerhead right in the tiny bathroom and a drain on the floor, so you could sit on the toilet, brush your teeth in the sink, and take a shower all at the same time if you were so inclined.

6.     The top sports on TV are soccer, beach volleyball, cricket, badminton, and Formula One racing.

7.     The newscasters have English accents and only about 10% of the stories they report concern the United States.

8.     You see a family of 5 on the same moped, including infants and toddlers, and the father is the only one wearing a helmet.

9.     Every afternoon it rains harder than you’ve ever seen every for exactly 2 minutes.

10. Crossing the street is the most dangerous thing you’ll do all day.

11. Travelers are the only ones wearing sunglasses.

12. Poor people are skinny and rich people fat, the opposite of what how it is in the US.

13. Everywhere you look there are plastic lawn chairs.

14. People carry furniture, fishing pots, assorted construction materials, and three of their friends on their bicycles.

15. You have to count out 20,000 of the local currency just to buy a Coke.

16. Kids work in the streets all day and all night right next to their parents.  If they get tired, they curl up and sleep on cardboard boxes right on the sidewalk.

17. Every bar has a gay host with a comb-over, two hot chicks pulling in customers from the street, three salty dog expats drinking beer and sweating all day long, and a little fat kid wearing a skin-tight tank top and a gold chain who has attitude for days.

18. The same street worker will gladly sell you gum, cigarettes, a lighter, bracelets, sunglasses, marijuana, change money, or sign you up for a boat tour.

19. If little kids need to pee (chee chee), their mothers just drop their pants in the middle of the sidewalk and let them go. 

20. Girls hold hands when walking on the street with their girl friends or mom or dad.  When they’re older and they walk with their boyfriend, they always are on the inside, away from the street, so they won’t be mistaken for a prostitute.

21. You check your shoes and bed sheets for scorpions.

22. There is laundry hanging from every available horizontal surface.

23. An amazing meal costs you only $3 on the street.

24. You lose 10 lbs in the first two weeks when that street meal does amazing things to your stomach, confining you to the bathroom for 23 hours a day.  After that you can eat cheeseburgers and drink beer all day and still lose weight.

25. People pass the time smiling, laughing, and talking to each other.  They are happy, and though their lives are hard, they somehow manage to restore your faith in humanity.

Safe travels and be good to each other,

-Norm :-)