Tag: history
Oriental, North Carolina…I have time, I can travel
May 24, 2017
Although we are home from our winter in Thailand, I am still retired. Being open and available to opportunities that present themselves is key to a successful retirement.
Jeanne
I met Jeanne in Thailand when she moved into our building for a month. I admired her nerve and her interest in the world. She had already been travelling alone for 2 months throughout SE Asia, as a single at times, as part of a booked group at other times. Being 67 did not deter her from walking 5 or 6 km every day or tasting all the street food.
She was quick to join into a group of regulars who had happy hour every afternoon in our yard. She talked to everyone and listened for the best places to tour, to eat and shop for fresh fruit. Her energy was infectious. I got to know her when her phone was so full of pictures that the red bar couldn’t be ignored for another day. I helped her download them to her computer and set up a Google Photo album. Her blog site needed a little help too.
Oriental, North Carolina
Before she left for Malaysia, her last stop before returning home to North Carolina, she told me about her “girl’s retreat”. Every year she has access to a large guesthouse in her hometown of Oriental. She invites people that she connected with in her travels abroad and her life at home, women that made a positive impression on her. When I received my email invitation in March, I was ecstatic!
I decided that I had time and AirMiles so booked a flight from Calgary, through Toronto to Raleigh, North Carolina. A rental car and 3 hours got me to Oriental on Sunday evening, May 7.
Stallings House
The Stallings House, where we stayed, was built in 1890 and sits on a large lot facing the 3 mile wide Neuce River. It has 5 bedrooms on 2 levels and an open third level with several beds. A sitting room, large dining room, kitchen and several bathrooms fill the rest of the house. There are 2 wrap-around verandas overlooking the river. This old home is often rented for weddings or large family gatherings. Jeanne did quite a lot of work on the house and bartered the use of this great accommodation for a week every year.
The Retreat May 8-11
There were 16 people stayed in the house. I was from the farthest away. There were 2 women from New York State that Jeanne had met in Viet Nam this winter. There were 4 women from western NC who had travelled with her to China in 1982. Another woman from Atlanta met her in Australia on another trip. Jeanne’s cousin and a friend arrived from northern NC and another woman arrived from Florida. There were more but too many stories to keep straight.
There were about 25-30 local women who came and went through the week.
Things to Do
We spent the week doing a variety of activities that were mainly planned by the people who attended.
- The town mayor/bank manager, Sally, used to visit the house as a girl and shared her stories with us from a book she is writing about her life in Oriental.
Sally’s stories
- Flora, a 70 year old who won the over 60 North Carolina beauty contest demonstrated her incredible skills as a belly dancer
- pedicures, facials and massages were also done on the lawn by the river
- boat trips along the rivers and creeks in the area provided beautiful views and more history on the area and its connection to fishing and sailing
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- Stallings House
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- Neuse River
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- Whittaker Creek
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- Oriental Harbour
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- Miss Faye, who is a 94 years old, teaches several exercise classes a week. She spoke on why the same streets have different names in Oriental. She allowed us to visit her yard where she feeds about 40 turtles dog food every night in a creek behind her house. They come when she calls. She is also a Senior Olympian and Humanacare Game Changer. Check out the link about her and her daughter.
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- History of Oriental
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- “Here, turtle, turtle”
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- Pat brought driftwood, paint and wine to spend the afternoon deciding what we saw in our wood and bring it to life with colour. Most women got right after it with excitement, even before they had their wine. It surprised me the number who were very uncomfortable with this creative activity. Their elementary art teachers must not have been very supportive. Now that I’m in my 50’s I don’t really care anymore what others think of my creative projects.
Drift and Wine
What should this be?
Finished creations - Cheryl took a small group of us who live outside the state on a boat trip to Cape Lookout. We travelled through the inland waterway, past Shakleford Banks to the lighthouse at Cape Lookout. There were wild horses, dolphins and an enormous sea turtle along the way. Many fishermen were fishing in small boats and there were several shrimp boats with the large booms holding the nets out to the side. We were gone all day.
Things to Eat
- Finola and her husband, originally from Ireland served us high tea on proper china with cucumber sandwiches and scones with cream and jam.
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- Miss Lilly, who was on a cooking show, “Chef and the Farmer” spent the day with us teaching us how to make proper biscuits. She used lard, buttermilk and self-rising flour. The lard and buttermilk went into a well inside the flour and was squished together until it was “silky”. Then it was swirled in the bowl until it incorporated enough flour to make a ball. The biscuits were squeezed off the ball, flattened in the hand and the edges rolled under. The baking sheet was filled and then baked. I’ve never seen any technique like that before. The results were delicious, especially with some local honey brought by a woman in the group.
Miss Lilly and Stephanie
Ready to bake
Miss Lilly and Annie- We visited Georgie’s crab shedding operation. When crabs get too big for their shells, they molt their shell and purge all their digestive tract and lungs. Within 2 hours they start to grow new shells and organs. If they are taken out of the water and put into the fridge, they can’t grow a new shell. The upper skin is removed with scissors and you are left with a crab that is only meat. Georgie came to the house one evening and dredged the crabs in flour seasoned with salt and pepper and deep fried them. Eating outside on the lawn by the river at long tables made the food taste great. The crabs, though, would be delicious no matter where you ate them.
- Carol made chef salad for everyone’s lunch one day. This is Laura eating the salad. Carol is enjoying the pedicure.
Food of North Carolina
Other things I ate for the first time
- pimento cheese dip and sandwiches. Everyone in North Carolina seemed to have their own special recipe, but the general ingredients are grated cheddar/monterey jack cheese, pimento, mayonnaise/Miracle Whip and maybe a little grated onion.
- Grits mixed with chopped ham and bacon, butter and eggs then baked as muffins. It also reappeared another morning baked in a casserole dish. Laura arranged for Kentucky bacon and sausage to be sent to the house for this event.
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- Bacon’s on
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- Everyone helped
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- Grits muffins
- low country boil. After the Girl’s Retreat, Jeanne invited some old high school classmates from the class of ’67 for a “Big Chill” weekend. Pat cooked up a boil for me before I left at the end of the week. It consisted of new potatoes, corn on the cob chunks, kielbasa and beautiful shrimp caught the day before. They are all boiled together with Old Bay Seasoning. The food is drained then dumped onto a table covered with newspaper and you just pick out a little of each, and a little more, and a little more… There were several cocktail sauces made with differing amounts of hotness available and lots of paper towels. What a feast!
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- Boiled and strained
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- Just dump and eat
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- Not new but a catfish sandwich for lunch the first day. Crispy fish topped with coleslaw and served between 2 slices of white bread.
- North Carolina IPA and wheat beer
- And I caught a fish…
Pin fish used for bait.
Lots of relaxing and story sharing
I had the best time with new people in a new place and I can’t wait to get back to this part of the world again.
Full moon over the river
Siem Reap Area Temples known as Angkor Wat
March 11, 2017
Angkor Wat
The Siem Reap Area Temples are generally all referred to as Angkor Wat and encompass 400 sq km. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the actual Angkor Wat temple is the largest religious monument in the world! To help put some of this into perspective, many of these structures were built before or at the same time as the massive cathedrals of Europe, by a people living with limited tools in the jungle. According to some web sources, they completed the construction in only 35 years.
We spent 4 days in this area. I’ll begin with some background and history. The next post will continue with descriptions of the other places we visited besides Angkor Wat temple itself.
Getting to Siem Reap
We took a bus from Phnom Pehn to Siem Reap which takes about 5 1/2 hours on pretty good highways. They picked us up at our hotel and drove us to the Giant Ibis bus terminal. We transferred to a big charter kind of bus and had a chance to see the countryside of Cambodia. There was no toilet on board, but we stopped for a break after about an hour and stopped for lunch in about 2 hours more. They even switched drivers halfway through. This trip cost us $15 each.
Hotel Choice
We stayed in the city of Siem Reap at the Golden Mango Inn. It was a great place for us for a few reasons. It was a away from the high energy part of town, it had its own restaurant and the pool was shaded and cool in the afternoon after a morning of touring.
We arrived to register and were led to the couch seating and given cold lemonade and towels to refresh ourselves after our journey. They helped us plan an itinerary for the 4 days that we were there. Breakfast was included and the day that we went to see sunrise at Angkor Wat, we were given a breakfast to “take away.” We upgraded to the deluxe room by the pool and paid $217 for 4 nights. Their customer service was outstanding.
This price included pick up at the bus and delivery to the airport when we left. Our tuk-tuk driver at the bus became our driver for the whole week. Chatting with him at the bus station gave us a chance to check out his English, which was great. You can find him on Facebook. The set fee for the driver was $15-$20/day, depending on the distance. The hotel booked him for us for 3 days, and we arranged to have him take us to the Angkor National Museum on the 4th day ourselves.
Travel Tips
- Hire a guide unless you are an expert on Buddhist and Hindu legends and symbolism. They know the stories, the history and where it’s best to take pictures. There are few signs showing the names of the temples, there are no descriptions on site, and no wifi to look things up yourself. We had the guide all to ourselves for $45/day. The hotel booked the guide for us for the first day. We booked her again for the fourth day of our visit.
- Hire a tuk-tuk driver. They will drop you off at one gate and pick you up on the other side. Ours also drove us on a loop of temples without our guide, then accompanied us on the boat trip to Tonle Sap.
- Get some local advice for planning. It’s hard to remember all the names and to know the distances between them. Our hotel was excellent at providing that information. There are many travel offices in town to help as well. There is lots of information on line, but it was difficult to make our own itinerary, just because there so much.
- Wear a big hat. There is not much shade in the temples
- Take lots of water-see above
- These sites are large and there is lots of walking.
- Wear sturdy shoes. The temples are not very accessible. There is lots of climbing over high sills between rooms and large steps to get up to the other levels. There are no railings or warnings about low doorways.
- Take a camera, or your phone at least.
- Stay at a hotel with a shady outdoor space.
- If you can’t walk it, check out Google street view–Angkor Wat
Background Information
There is a great museum in Siem Reap called the Angkor National Museum. It has many artifacts, historical context and a room with 1000 Buddhas. Their audio tour is very informative. We spent 2 hours there, but I could have spent longer. We visited there on day 3 after a day with a guide and a day with just our driver. Some other travellers recommended going there first, but this timing worked for us.
History
Great Kings who ruled in the area from about 950 to 1180 AD are responsible for these monuments. Kings were not always crowned because of their birth, but often because of victory in battle. The temples and City of Thom were built for the gods, to commemorate battles, and honor family members. The interesting thing is that some of the Kings were Hindu and some of them were Buddhist, although both religions originated in India. The gods they worshiped were different. The Buddhist Kings left the Hindu statues but the Hindu kings removed the Buddhas from the temples. Some of the carvings showing Buddha sitting in lotus position were re-carved by adding a beard and moving the knees up to a new, higher level. Others were removed altogether leaving an empty Buddha silhouette.
Angkor Wat Temple
Angkor Wat temple represents the gods in the center, the walls are the mountains and the moat is the oceans. The outer walls of the temple complex are huge and completely covered with carvings that represent Hindu legends and great battles. It is hard to imagine a society so advanced that they can employ and feed so many workmen to not only build these monuments, but cover them with beautiful art and stories.
The temples were built with a kind of brick called laterite. It looks volcanic but when the clay is dried in the sun, small holes form but the blocks are strong. They were faced with sandstone that had to be moved 30 km to the area. Some of it was covered with a kind of stucco and even painted.
What’s next?
I will include the names of each temple with the pictures. There is lots of information on line if you want to know more about these temples and the history. I found the Travelfish site the most useful for me.
After visiting all the amazing structures, the idea that stayed with me was that these were powerful leaders who built cities and temples as well as conquered large areas of southeast Asia. Cambodia is very proud of this history.
Some pictures can be found within this post. I will also add them and others to the travel page found at the top of my webpage. If you are reading this blog by email, click the link to the site, found at the bottom of the email.
Have a look at some of the comments shared by other readers. Thanks for the interesting conversations.