transport update

M and i caught a 5 hour bus from Siem Riep to Phnom Penh today and my key learning was that there is one crucial exception to the "biggest vehicle on the road wins" rule - livestock trumps a bus.  our bus, which would not deviate or slow for any lesser vehicle, repeatedly applied the emergency brakes while cattle wandered across the highway.  Also, we saw the aftermath of our first serious traffic accident.  An ugly scene. 

The bus, although hot and uncomfortable, was good in many ways.  The passenger mix was about 2/3 local, 1/3 tourist and it gave us a good chance to observe and interact with locals in a way that did not involve requests for payment.  A good change and sharing fruit with the people sitting around us was nice.

heart-stopping moments

I am not in a position to speak authoritatively on the subject, but for what it's worth, Lonely Planet consider Cambodia to have the worst road system in Asia and one of the worst in the world.  I have never seen driving like this - in Siem Reap I have seen only 1 intersection with any signalling.  Generally there are no signs and traffic proceeds in all 4 directions all the time.  The general rule is that everyone drives slowly or at mid-speed and maintains their line and they all just sort of avoid eachother.  The overriding rule, however, is that the biggest vehicle on the road outranks all comers.  Pedestrians, bicycles, motorbikes and tuk-tuks all scatter for a car - which will proceed happily down the centre of the road without deviating no matter what else is on the road.
Another point of interest is that although traffic (officially at least) proceeds on the right hand side of the road, most cars (75%+ by my reckoning) are right hand drive.....

Angkor - Cambodia 2006

M and I are well into our Cambodian adventure - today we went to Preah Kanh (my favourite temple so far) and another one the name of which escapes me. I'll keep this entry about events up to COB yesterday and will fill in the gap shortly.

Yesterday we visited the Angkor temples - starting with Angkor Wat then Bayon, Baphuon and Ta Prohm, with lunch at Chez Sophia (in the Angkor carpark) inbetween. Angkor Wat lives up to its billing; it is a truly amazing and awe-inspiring experience. I was very proud of myself for clambering up a set of thousand-year-old, steep, crumbling, narrow steps to the top level of the Wat - and even more proud of myself for making it back down (although admittedly on the way back down I had a rail to cling onto). The amazingly-detailed reliefs carved into the walls were very beautiful (although the battle scenes dragged on a little) and overall my time there were a few of the more interesting hours in my life to date.

Then to Bayon - approaching it, it looks almost like it has been reduced to rubble; then when you arrive it is in fact very much more. More than a hundred faces of the buddha carved of stone, so that everywhere in the temple felt like you were being watched by the buddha [apparently carved in the likeness of the King who built the temple]. Lots of little corridors, steep stairs and towers. A huge, intricate - and decrepit - temple, and quite an experience.

Although AW and Bayon were very busy, the sites were big enough that private moments could be found - at times, no-one was within sight and huge expanses of temple and surrounds felt totally private - allowing the illusion that we were alone amonst the beauty, history and heat.

Lunch at Chez Sophia [thanks Jack for the recommendation] in the AW carpark was excellent. Run by an eccentric Frenchman and his Cambodian wife, we ate high-quality and well-priced French / Khmer food and gained some respite from the constant harassment.

Within the temples you are mostly 'safe', but the rest of the time in Cambodia we are pretty much constantly harassed by people wanting to sell something (usually a postcard or a ride in a tuk-tuk] or begging. The people selling stuff is basically everyone, but the beggars are primarily small children, pregnant women holding babies or people missing limbs [presumably as a result of land mines]. These people are clearly needy, but nevertheless it is not a lot of fun being harassed every 30 seconds or so walking down the street.

We visited the temples in a tuk-tuk with Wisar, a friendly young driver [he drove us again today as well]. M somehow offended him by offerng him a bottle of water, but otherwise all was good. Except for the time his attention wandered and he almost drove off the road into a ditch. It made me a little nervous when he put his helmet on (we had no helmets, were not buckled in and the motorbike was connected to the carriage by an unbolted padlock).

We're staying at the Golden Banana, a guesthouse 'over the bridge' - just out of the main part of town. Having a little distance is proving a good thing. The place is pretty cute and the staff ok (although we seem to have conversations that don't go anywhere and where i'm not sure exactly what just happened). They certainly all speak way more English (and are far commercially savvier) than the people we dealt with in Laos last year. The experience is only marred by the construyction work going on long hours just outside our door. Watching the workman working bare-foot on the roof in heavy rain is a cross between entertaining and terrifying. Also, our bungalow is brand new and in fact not totally finished. But nevertheless it's pretty good - a good colour scheme, comfortable bed and bathroom downstairs, then up some VERY (bizarrely) steep (and uneven) stairs is a sitting room and balcony. Great tiled floors in contrasting colours and lots of personality.

Last night M was heat-stroked after a long day at the temples, so we crashed early and read. Very peaceful listening to the rain that comes in at night and just hanging out. The previous day we had some great food and drinks at the Foreign Correspondents Club - happy hour there was very happy and is highly recommended.

Our night in Singapore was fun - stayed at Hotel 1929 - a cool little boutique hotel in Chinatown. Our room was ultra-tiny but fine for a one-night stay. We arrived in Singapore about 830pm (after travelling approx 12 hours) and left on a 6am flight to Siem REap, so just enough time to go for a wander around Chinatown, find a street of food stalls, eat some pretty good food and wander back to sleep for 4-5 hours. We both slept really badly, then up at 345 for our flight. The flight to Siem Reap was uneventful, except for some great scenery as we approached the town and the most enthusiastic safety intructions I've ever seen - we were almost hoping for the plane to put a problem so that we could put our new training to good use.

So this is the extended version ... I will try and keep it shorter from here on in. Finally a little rave about Preah Kanh - it is straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark, is huge and very symmetric and totally awe-inspiring. Standing under the 900 year old arches while wondering how they are still standing and at the ingenuity of the contruction and detail of the design - and trying to picture the lives of teh people who lived there - is pretty good. A vast temple complex, partly lost to jungle and with massive trees growing out of / inside walls and rooms, many chambers and passages and monuments and just totally amazing.

Brick

Saw Brick last night with Lucas - it's a new (to Australia) film that's attracted a lot of hype. I liked it more than Lucas did - and Nora Zehetner and Meagan Good were pretty hot...

Some very amateurish aspects to it - and some horrible acting by some of the minor cast members - but great production design, a quirky attitude and good performances by the leads - including Lukas Haas as a creepy-living-with-his-parents drug kingpin.

Far from a perfect film, but worth seeing - and I am looking forward to the (first-time) director's next film - presumably made with more resources.

HOLIDAY

2 more sleeps then off to Cambodia, Malaysia and the Northern Territory.  Looking forward to a great holiday - hopefully a mix of sightseeing old temples at Angkor Wat, relaxing at Malaysian beaches and touring Kakadu - with brief stays in Singapore, KL and Darwin thrown in.

nook

Have played some more with the new Feedcorp project and congrats are due to BB and the team for delivering a site with a great design and interface and a genuine local community feel.  Still reluctant to say too much, except that even as an alpha-stage project it has already delivered real value to me as a user - I have a hot tip to follow up on where to find a good coffee in South Yarra.

new Feedcorp site

Have been alpha-testing the new Feedcorp site (a partnership with a major media organisation) - at this stage I won't mention its name. In fact I won't mention anything specific about it except to say that it's cool, it's user-friendly (apart from a few unsurprising alpha-stage bugs) and it marks the debut of the Feedcorp structured blogging platform. Congrats guys.

A genuine achievement and one that is gonna get a lot of attention in the weeks / months to come.

It's happening again

and one more from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_peaks

I'm proud to say I own both The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes and The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer.

Also, very excited about the new David Lynch film - Inland Empire - though I've no idea about a release date.

just checking in

I have a horrible head-cold - it feels like my head is just about to explode - and would LOVE to be in bed right now, but I'm very busy with work so am attempting to power through it. Off to Cambodia, Malaysia and the Northern Territory on holiday on Saturday week - very excited about it.

For anyone with time on their hands, a couple of noteworthy Wikipedia pages:
Park Chan Wook
Mandy Smith
David Foster Wallace

My final MIFF instalment for 2006

After missing a few films on Thursday night due to a work trip to Sydney, I finished up MIFF 2006 with Tzameti, The Descent, Em 4 Jay, Frank Gehry and Rats and Cats... I only saw around 20 films this year - the fewest I've seen at a Melbourne Film Fest for many years ... a very disappointing effort by me.

Tzameti - I think this was the only French film I saw at MIFF this year. Although missing many French film cliches - for example, the beautiful teenager madly attracted to the ugly bald guy - it managed to uphold the fine French tradition of lifeless films that feel like they've already been made before (and better) many times over. A very uninteresting young man stumbles into an underground gambling / russian roulette ring. The plot ensues. Given that he is the main character, clearly he does not die in any of the 5 'spins' of russian roulette throughout the course of the film, although he does sweat a lot.

The Descent - hands down THE scariest film I've ever seen. An English/American horror film where a group of women go caving in an uncharted cave and (very) bad things happen. The film traumatised me and left me with chest pains - I was terrified even before the mysterious creatures turn up about half-way through the film. It very effectively evokes claustrophobia and a sensation of being trapped with no way out. My only real criticism was that it was a genuinely scary film and its frequent resort to cheap shocks (eg. people/things popping up out of nowhere accompanied by jarring music) was unecessary in building the suspense.

Em 4 Jay - A new Aussie film set in my 'hood - St Kilda. The assorted high-jinks and low-life of a junkie couple. I actually liked it, but the people I went with didn't. I thought the dialogue ran true, and it kept me entertained. The weak link was the plot, which was sortof stupid. The leads were sitting next to us during the screening - it is a funny meta-film-watching-experience to watch a person watching themself shoot-up and writhe around the floor on screen.

Sketches of Frank Gehry - great visuals, but overall not a great documentary. The commentary and overall tone was sycophantic, with the screentime given to half-explained criticisms of Gehry feeling like a way to justify the remaining screentime being devoted to unadulterated praise. I really enjoyed watching his buildings in different lights etc, but a disappointing piece of filmmaking by Sydney Pollack.

Rats and Cats - an ok new Australian film which, in effect re-imagines Russell Crowe as an ex-star who just hangs out in a country town and does basically nothing. I wouldn't have thought the film had huge commercial prospects - it just of doesn't go anywhere - but it's ok and sort of fun at times. It just feels really undeveloped - like it was filmed before the filmmaker worked out where it was actually going to go as a story.

The Host

I know the Melbourne International Film Festival isn't over yet for 2006, but I'm calling it: my favourite film of MIFF06 is The Host (Gwoemul). A Korean horror/comedy featuring a truly disgusting mutant monster which crawls out of a river and terrorises a town (and one foolhardy and stupid family in particular). It is scary, funny, satirises authority, gives insights into the Korean viewpoint on the USA and into the authoritarian tendancies of the Korean government and more importantly is scary and funny.

Unlike many monster films, this one is not scared of actually showing the creature - it is full-frontal on screen for a surprisingly large chunk of the screentime and looks pretty damn good (except for one scene right at the end). The male lead, Kang-ho Song, is very funny - and I have a particular soft spot for him because he was in the first Korean film I ever saw - No. 3 (back in 1997) and was also in Park Chan-Wook's JSA

An awesome film by Joon-ho Bong. Go see it!

MIFF 2006 continued

My attendances are well down on my usual level - put it down to the demands of work + moving house in the middle of last week... Anyway here is my next batch of one-para reviews of films I've seen at MIFF:

Cocaine Cowboys - a fascinating subject, a few very personable and interesting interviewees - but it fell a bit flat. A documentary about the rise of the cocaine trade in Miami (and the resultant changes to the city), presumably it was hard to get many of the protaganists to talk on-camera - either for reasons of death or reluctance. Overall about 7 / 10. Not a fantastic example of filmmaking, but watchable.

Sympathy For Lady Vengeance - awesome. the third film in Park Chan-Wook's revenge trilogy. I'd already seen this on DVD a few months ago, but totally worth it on the big screen. Park Chan-Wook rules and this film is a good example of why. I don't like it as much as I do Oldboy, but that is no criticism.

Last Train to Freo - Jeremy Sims' feature-film directing debut. I would very much have liked to like this, but it just wasn't very good. The acting was excellent, but every other aspect of the fim was lacking. It failed to be suspenseful, the plot twist was more stupid than surprising and the dialogue was overtly theatrical [the film is based on a play and it shows]. Also, the whole Tarantinoesque thing where criminals and drug addicts have a fantastic vocabulary and a diverse array of interests is pretty tired.

Mutual Appreciation - hands-down the worst film of the festival. A pile of shit. Unwatchable and could not possibly resonate with any but the worst of the delusional inner-city self-obsessed wankers. I survived about 15 mins and even that was tough going.

Three Times - features possibly the most beautiful woman in the world - Qi Shu - and some awesome cinematography, but is nevertheless boring. A love story in three parts - 2 characters played by the same two actors meet in three different eras. The first part was pretty good (but slow) but the second part was very slow.

Linda Linda Linda - a very eccentric, cute Japanese film about an all-girl band at a high school who recruit a new lead singer (a Korean exchange student) and need to get ready for an upcoming gig. Not a lot happens, and it is sort of boring for about 10-15 minutes near the start but it really comes together in the end. The song 'Linda Linda Linda' is almost supernaturally catchy.