Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Cambodia Bound

     My friend F. and I have been tossing around the idea of a journey into Asia for several weeks now, considering Bali, Thailand, Vietnam, but settled on Cambodia recently and today we bought our tickets! We leave in early October for 2 weeks, heading from Alice to Darwin, change over in Bali, overnight in Kuala Lumpur, and then into Siem Reap. We'll then make our way towards Phnom Penh and just about anywhere inbetween. I've never been to Asia at all, so I'm rather excited about the trip. There are so many beautiful temples in Cambodia, the most notable being Angkor Wat. We'll also take a tour of the killing fields, which will be a sobering moment for sure. Sometimes we need these kind of reminders of how fragile life is and how easily society can break down. It will be worthwhile.
     So now that I'm going backpacking again, I have to get my backpacks in order. Having lost my good backpack in the fire last year, I have a simple one that I bought at Value Village for $7. It has no patches on it. but I'm going to remedy that tonight. I will also bring my smaller UW backpack that has several patches on it already and more to go on. That should give me more than enough room to pack what I need and have room to bring souvenirs back. 
     We'll be stopping overnight at Kuala Lumpur so the two things on our list to manage in one day are to check out the Petronas Twin Towers that are an architectural wonder, and to check out the Batu caves, including the 272 steps to get up into the caves...asthma puffers will be in full supply for the trek. We'll manage it just fine though, as my daughter and I also climbed the Eiffel Tower's over 300 steps to each level and we did both. My daughter also climbed up Temple IV at Tikal which was just over 200 stairs in 40C heat. I stayed on the ground for that one and took her photo...
     On another note, I have FINALLY sorted out my television. I had bought an LG 32" flat screen television last fall when I set myself up in an apartment in Victoria, and found out I could easily adapt it for power in Australia so had it shipped here, however what has escaped me is how to get the signal converted adequately from NTSC to PAL. Australia has PAL signal which is very different from NTSC and without some form of conversion, you cannot view the image. I bought a cheapo converter on eBay, hoping that would do the trick. But no. So then I bought another one that wasn't so cheap at a local electronic store. Nope. In the meantime, I had an old tube tv that is a huge beast and hooked my Austar satellite dish up to that. The picture was clear but chopped off as Austar sends out a widescreen image, and that got rather frustrating. Add to that kitten damage when a wild Dundee was tearing around the apartment and got after some of the cords on the back that were dangling on that tv and broke their pins off in the television. I repaired it a few times but eventually it just broke. I then bought an S-video cord which did solve that problem, but I was still left with an inadequate image and I really just wanted to use my flat screen and get rid of the beast. I had been able to play anything on my computer on my flat screen but that was a bit of a hassle to hook up and disconnect all the time, and I really just wanted to watch everything on one screen. And tonight I finally figured it out. I tried this converter last night but was too confused with the cords late at night after too many beers with the girls in the courtyard, so tried it again today after work. I gave up once and packed it all in a bag to return to the store, but then something dawned on me to try and lo and behold, it worked...yahfrigginhoo. So I am ditching the television with a friend who is moving into her own place soon and has nothing of her own up here, having moved out of government accommodation. I appreciated the tv for the past couple of months here, but am so very glad to move it on. 
     Having said that, I think it is a fine and dandy time to retire on the sofa in front of my LG flatscreen...come on Dundee, time to relax.

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