Katrina K. Photography

I had a really good blog all set to go about our 3 days in Kolkata. But that will have to wait until later, as the hard drive on my NEW Toshiba laptop has decided to call it quits. That darn thing is only 7 months old!! A similar problem happened to my Sony and I blamed Sony for the problem. Maybe it's time to start blaming the hard drive manufacturer. Add to that the fact that I can't seem to shake this ridiculous cold, and that now Tadashi is beginning to come down with a cold as well; you can imagine that we're not in the best of spirits right now. But we've been catching up on our HBO and Star Movies.

The first time we came to Luang Prabang, in 2005, we met a very nice young man named Sinchan, who worked at our guest house. We would often help him with his English and he would ask very tough questions. He often wanted to know the difference between two words whose definitions were very similar. The one I recall most was when he asked the difference between melt and rot . Tadashi and I had to think for a few minutes before coming up with an easy explanation (ice melts and wood rots).

Our only purpose for visiting Vietnam this year was to see our friend My (pronounced Me). We met My on our first visit to Hoi An in 2004. How we met her is actually quite an interesting story. We were originally trying to leave Hoi An the morning we met her, but that bus was full and we had to take the afternoon one. That morning, I was sleeping in and Tadashi went for one last morning walk along the river. He was taking pictures on a bridge when My approached him, said hello and started up a conversation. It turned out she was going to try to sell him a boat ride, but was clever enough not to be obvious about it (usually people just ask, “You ride on my boat?”).

I promised this in July 2008, and I apologize for the delay. Once you read it, I think you’ll understand why it took me 6 months to write; it’s disheartening and depressing. Cambodia is a country where corruption is so ingrained that it is essentially part of the culture. One would not be surprised to find that many politicians are corrupt, but it is shocking to find that some monks and teachers are as well. Even the people that run orphanages and schools for poor children take a cut of the donations. In Cambodia, the notion of a “not-for-profit” is all but unheard of.