reggie watts

Some of the dopest R&B I’ve heard in a minute.

phsar thom thmei

This is a shot of the exterior of the Central Market in Phnom Penh, also known as Phsar Thom Thmei. The art deco style architecture of the building really stands out among the somewhat colonial/hodgepodge styles of the unkempt buildings surrounding it.

As I mentioned in another post, you can get pretty much anything you want in this place, from the ubiquitous krama scarves to Cugci shoes and other designer label clothing. (Just don’t expect it to last you very long.)

The whole area surrounding the market is dedicated to retail. There’s entire blocks dealing electronics, house wares, shoes, etc, and Phsar Thom Thmei is the epicenter of it.

Once you’re done sweating it out at the market and its environs, you can head to Surya Mall, from where I shot this, and take refuge in the cool air conditioned building.

andrew solomon: the refugees

If there’s ever an upside to being sick it’s that I have tons of time to catch up on many of the podcasts I’ve missed. The Moth being one of these.

Last August The Moth featured a rebroadcast of a talk by Andrew Solomon, who related his experience in Cambodia while he was conducting a study on depression. Solomon does an amazing job capturing the intensity of walking through S-21 and the Killing Fields and learning about the atrocities that took place there. He also shines light on the fact that many of those currently living in Cambodia lived through that terror just over 30 years ago.

His monologue gives better context than most pictures I’ve seen (without visiting the sites themselves). Even if you’re not even vaguely aware of the genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge, this is definitely worth a listen. Despite it’s grim subject matter, it has a very positive and uplifting conclusion.

(If you’re not familiar with The Moth, the gist of it, as they say in every intro, is that it “features true stories told live without notes.”)

Andrew Solomon: The Refugees by The Moth on Mixcloud

digitaloverground

digitaloverground.tumblr.com

 

After a whole lot of procrastination but mainly what I like to call taking a year off from everything, I’ve decided to revive the photo blog I set up on tumblr a couple of years back after my trip to Perú.

I managed to find a fairly minimalistic template that would display a large enough version of the photos I posted to fill up the screen of my 13″ Macbook. My goal is to post about a picture a day and nothing more. A photo, a title, if it has one, and a few tags. I’ll save this space for more detailed accounts. This won’t make my Flickr account obsolete but it will function like the ultimate repository of my photo catalog.

So please, do me a favor and check out my tumblr photo blog. Thx.

http://digitaloverground.tumblr.com

central market, phnom penh

I still have no idea how to correctly pronounce the name ‘Phnom Penh.’ I ignore the initial ‘P’ and say it “nom pen.” I’m sure I must have caught this pronunciation early on so it stuck (just like the French pronunciation for Laos where you drop the ‘s’ -Lao), but I’ve also heard many people say it “Puh-nom Pen.” Although that doesn’t roll off the tongue as well and feels a little awkward. Then again it’s a Khmer word, so what do I know.

This is the interior of the Central Market in said city. I took this shot back in October 2009. The second time I dropped by the capital of Cambodia, around mid January 2010, the inside of the market was closed for renovations. Despite this, it was as busy as ever.

Just a dollar’s worth of mototaxi fare from either riverside or the Russian Market, it’s always a good place to find any sort of knock off you might be searching for. Or just about anything, really.

me dicen el desaparecido

I’m the guy that never came back. I’ve heard that story a few times now and I still find it surreal to hear people tell it. I’m the guy that went halfway around the world to drive a tuk-tuk across India into Nepal and somehow, found himself trekking through Southeast Asia. Then just decided to stay.

One year ago, travel weary after 5 months of avoiding police shake-downs in India (not to mention oncoming traffic), wandering around the jungles of Southeast Asia (concrete or otherwise), from overnight bus to overstuffed cabs, traveling under leaky air conditioning vents or in the midst of ritual mass vomiting, from having my tuk-tuk hijacked to heading into a typhoon rather than away from it, all while lugging about a ginormous backpack, I decided to take a break from the madness and set up shop in the City of Krung Thep. Bangkok.

One year later, I finally know how to get around the city and where to get the best Pad See Ewe in town. The best Thai iced-tea. I have favorite Indian restaurant and a favorite live music joint. I’m still perplexed about some of the cultural differences I encounter and I’m still trying to figure out what the deal is with all the different colored cabs. And every now and then, I’ll tug along my XTi and keep beating the crap out of it.

bkk nye blues

Last year I got really lucky. I met some cool people along my way and we decided to rendezvous on an island off the coast of Thailand for NYE. Even luckier still, I met more cool folks on my way there and we had great times.

Having been off roaming mode for almost a year, most of the people I’ve befriended since actually live in Bangkok, so I thought it would be a good idea to hang out with them and see what the City of Angels had to offer.

This time around there were no bonfires or fire dancers, no international djs with laser shows, no Sangsom buckets or skinny dipping, just a straight up bad ass blues band jamming their way into 2011 at one of my favorite spots in town, and I loved every minute of it.

Good times.

hotness

hot-n-fun

I was getting my Miami/Art Basel fix this evening when I caught this interview with N.E.R.D posted over at Rick’s. I couldn’t help but wonder how many people actually knew that Rainbow City was created by Miami artists, Friends with You, or that they were responsible for the artwork on N.E.R.D’s Hot-N-Fun video, down to the paint job on the Royce.