Cambodia

Cambodia:



We really enjoyed our time here, but it's difficult not to be reflective about this country whose history is both brilliant, but also very tragic. We have high hopes for its future, and wish luck on this recovering country's journey. In fact, we're already seeing real signs of vitality. But first, the ancient history...

The Khmer people created a very prosperous empire - one which saw the creation of some of the world's greatest temples. While London, England had a struggling population of less than 50,000, the ancient city of Angkor already over a million citizens - many of whom were commissioned to build temples - the grand daddy of which is Angkor Wat...



We both really liked the temple Ta Promh. It has intentionally been left in the condition in which it was discovered by a French archaeologist in the 1920's. It has a real Indiana Jones feel to it.



But my favorite of all the temples was the Bayon. There are many four sided pillars, each with an enigmatic face carved onto each side.



Elsewhere in Angkor temples can be seen succumbing to slow but constant decay.



A common theme in the temple architecture are the extremely steep stairs...



Imagine the priests, arms loaded with offerings, trying to walk these stairs. Not for the feint of heart. That white speck at the bottom is Amanda.

In the end it was the Mongol hordes who saw to it that the Khmer didn't prosper longer than they should. Following rulers came and went, but the next big change didn't come until quite recently - 1974 to be exact. That's when an obscure dissident named Pol Pot led the rebel fighters (known as the Khmer Rouge) to seize control of the country. Immediately Pol Pot and the K.R. wrote one of the cruelest chapters in human history. Fed up with greed, corruption, and French imperialism, Pol Pot sought to isolate Cambodia and force it into one giant agrarian collective. The slightest reason to suspect that someone couldn't become an obedient farmer was reason enough to kill them. If you were a business owner, you were killed. If you were educated, you were killed. In fact, wearing eye glasses was a sure sign of intelligence, and often people were rounded up and tortured for just that.

Of the many concentration camps, S21, was formerly a high school in Phnom Penh.



Upwards of two million citizens were brought to places like these and tortured (often to death), in efforts to extract confessions of their crimes against the state. At its height, as many as 200 people a day were brought to this particular facility.



The K.R. documented each person they "processed", and with grim results...



Following their interrogation and confession, victims were brought from to a killing field. We went to one just outside of Phnom Penh. It was here we saw a mountain of skulls from the victims. This particular killing field saw the murder of around 20,000 people - men, women, and children, most of whom were killed by beatings from a shovel, hammer, axe, or other farm tool.



Children were also killed to ensure they could not avenge their parents' murders.

As if that wasn't enough, Cambodia did not escape the larger conflict going on in the area as USA and Russia waged their proxy war in South East Asia. Once all was said and done, the country had millions of landmines planted in its fields. Adults know not to stray from well marked paths, but children are not able to do as they're told, and many have been killed or lost legs and arms while playing in fields. In fact, to this day there are still many unexploded landmines in Cambodia, and many of the beggars we see are amputees.

Here is a group of landmine victims who play traditional Khmer music to raise money (instead of begging).



Cambodia is also known for its many devout Buddhist monks. Here's a couple nice monks who I spoke with while visiting the Royal Palace.



It seems they're not the only ones enjoying Cambodia's new found peace. Apparently Tin Tin has been getting "fish massages" while touring here!



Remember that picture from Thailand of the "non-toxic vegetables"? Here's Cambodia's version: no rat, cat, dog, monkey, or worm in their food. Good to know.



But what you can get is a delicious coconut-fish soup with flowers. Mmmmm.



Here are a couple nice pics from Cambodia's countryside (cleared of landmines).





And tomorrow we're off to Laos.

out of Thailand and into Cambodia

We had just a couple more days in Bangkok after my previous Blog entry, and during one of those evenings we went to see the “ladymen”.

That's right – here's proof that the best looking women in Bangkok are actually men. I didn't exactly prove that is a man, but, well, I'll just take his word for it.

On our other free evening we went to the movies and saw Avatar in 3D Imax. Wow – was that ever cool!

Here's a random shot of something that I would NEVER see back home in Canada. If you click on the picture it should download a larger image. Can you read the word just below the driver's leg?

It says “POLICE”. So here's a policeman, giving a ride to some lady who is sitting improperly and not wearing a helmet. And the best part is the policeman is doing this while he's on-duty.

Here's an example of some of Thailand's lesser known delicacies.

That's right – those are piles of fried bugs. Hmmm – can't figure out why this hasn't become as popular around the world as other Thai food. I still haven't brought myself to try these yet. Click on this pic too to see them better. Mmmmm.

And then our time in Thailand was up. We bought a bus ticket to Cambodia and set off. We're wary of bus rides based on the three universal truths we learned in India:

1. your departure is always delayed

2. you never get quite what you paid for (nothing is as it seems)

3. the journey always takes longer than advertised.

I was hoping those universal truths would be left behind in India, but nope. We were picked up from our guest house half an hour late (universal truth #1), then collected some more passengers from other hotels and left the city. An hour later we picked up a Thai girl in some village. Another hour later we were driving through a big city. A really big city. That looked an awful lot like Bangkok. So I asked the driver if he really picked us all up at 07:00 (well, 07:30 really) only to bring us to some tiny village to pick up the lady and then have to back track all the way through Bangkok to actually begin our journey to Cambodia. And yup – that's exactly what he did. So he wasn't really half an hour late to depart Bangkok – we didn't actually really leave and head in the right direction until more than two hours later than advertized. Great – just what we wanted – an extra two hours in the car. Good thing we didn't have a flight to catch or anything.

But it gets better. Once we crossed into Cambodia the people in our van were split up based on what city they were going to. We were the only ones headed to Phnom Penh (capital of Cambodia), so the guy told us he'd get a cab for us and we'd drive the remaining 400 km by car. Great I thought – sounds like we're getting spoiled. But I should have remembered universal truth #2 – nothing is as it seems. As promised, we did get a taxi – just a regular 1980's American car, but we had to share it with four other passengers. It started off as just us two in the back and then the driver picked up another fare for the front seat. And then he stopped for two more. I told him “no way – those extra people aren't getting in the back seat with us”. Without batting an eye the two new passengers were put into the front seat. So it's driver and three passengers in the front and just us two in the back.

That's the driver second from the left. I felt pretty bad about us having so much room and them squishing up there (in addition to the obvious safety issue – in a car with no seat belts), and even though we paid the inflated “rich foreigner” price for our tickets and had a right to our seats, I told the driver to pull over so we could re-arrange, but he didn't bother. I guess driving like this is not uncommon in Cambodia. Indeed many cars we passed had four in the front (or more if moms carried babies with them).

A little later the tables were turned when our driver said this is as far as he goes and we had to switch to a different cab. It was all pre-arranged. Including the three passengers (and driver) already in that cab, so I couldn't exactly refuse. So now it was us four in the back and three in the front for the last few hours.

Hey – that's what you get when traveling budget style the third world. Don't like it? Then don't come. Oh - and just in case any of you reading this haven't seen this before - it's increasingly common in Asia for people to wear masks over their faces like the girl above. In major cities the air is so polluted that people cover their mouthes to try and filter out the smog. I don't think it actually works, but whatever.

Oh ya – we didn't get into Phnom Penh until several hours later than advertized (universal truth #3).

Once we finally did arrive into Phonm Penh we found a nice room in the center of the city and the next morning dropped our passports off at the Laos embassy to get entry visas. For the few days it will take to get our Laos visas we decided to head to Cambodia's beach village of Sihanoukville and spend Christmas there. So like eternal optimists, we boarded a bus and headed that way. It was a strange Christmas to be away from family, and surrounded by sand and heat. So hot. Where's the snow??? We spent three days there and then got onto another bus (yes, the same three universal truths) and went to Siem Reap, home to the famous temples of ancient Angkor. Stand by for pics in the next update.

in and around Bangkok, Thailand

On December 13 we bid farewell to the Indian subcontinent and delved right into the center of South East Asia – Bangkok. And what better way to travel than with your wife as baggage handler. But to be honest we are traveling light.

Honestly – that's all our bags for one year – for both of us. That's all we've taken.

Anyway, Bangkok is a lot of fun with tons of things to see and experiences to have, but it's business first, and pleasure second, and the first order of business was to turn in our passports to the Chinese embassy to get tourist visas and just three days later we had them back.

I was in Thailand in 2001 or so, and it really seems to be doing well as a nation. The country seems quite modern and affluent. Things are organized, the cities are clean, there is a modern look to everything – in general it seems quite successful. One of the many reasons I love Thailand is the abundance of massage shops. But this was a new one to me: a “fish massage”.

That's right – massage by fish. There's a shallow pool filled with these little guys (maybe three centimeters long) and they scrape at your dead skin with their sharp teeth, but they never bite. Here's what they looked like around one of my feet.

How did it feel, you might ask? Maybe this pic will explain it a little

Or maybe that doesn't quite describe it. How about this short video. And sorry – but the camera was held at an angle while recording, and I don't have the ability to rotate it, so you'll just have to tilt your head. Anyway...

Well, all that action tires a guy out. Time to go for some good old “non-toxic” food.

I'm glad they were explicit about this section of the menu. I'd hate to accidentally order from the other part of the menu.

As I said, Thailand has a lot to do and see, and Bangkok is no exception. One of the first things we did was to go visit the 40 meter long reclining Buddha at Wat Pho. It's so long that it's difficult to fit him into a single picture.

Consistent with the clean and crisp look of Bangkok are the wonderfully restored temples at Wat Pho, the golden Buddha, the grand palace, etc. Here's a few colorful shots showing the splendor to be found in Bangkok....

While our passports were being processed for obtaining our Vietnam visas we decided to spend a few days touring outside of Bangkok. Our first stop was at the floating markets in the village of Damnoen Saduak where buyers and sellers move about in long thin boats making deals for everything from wood carvings to hot meals.

We carried on to the famous bridge over the river Kwai. This is a bridge constructed by Allied POWs interned by their Japanese captors. The POWs were charged with the task of building this bridge as part of the “death railway” to support Japan's world war II expansion into the Asian mainland. The railway was needed as their main supply line.

Nearby was a representative from a zoo showing off a baby leopard. For a donation to their zoo, you could feed the little guy and get a pic. Unfortunately, these cat's won't be re-introduced into the wild because the poachers will just continue to kill them (which is why they are protected in zoos in the area in the first place).

Next on our little tour of the area was a visit to an old age home for elephants. We got up early for the daily elephant washing. It was actually a lot more playing than washing, and that was fine with us.

And then we went to the Erawan falls – a UNESCO heritage site consisting of seven levels of water falls. The water is clean and warm, and you are welcome to swim in it – which we did, and it was great. But nobody warned us that it's full of the exact same nibbling fish that we experienced at the “fish massage” in Bangkok.

Not too far away is the the famous Tiger Temple. It came to exist almost accidentally when a secluded monastery agreed to take in a couple tiger cubs that were orphaned when their mother was poached. That tragic story was repeated, and before too long the monastery had quite a few tigers of various ages. They have since multiplied, while even more are brought to them. They now have more than 50 tigers. Again, these tigers will likely not be re-introduced as they would almost certainly be killed by poachers. So they live a glamorous movie star life in their habitat in the monastery.

It turns out that the monastery gained quite a reputation as a wildlife sanctuary and is now home to horses, deer, cows, wild boar, peacocks, lions, bears, and more. The less fierce of these animals have no cage or pen, and roam freely. They just choose to stay because life is easy for them there.

While spending these days touring these interesting sites we stayed at a little “floating hotel”. Well, it's not exactly a hotel in the normal sense of the word, but it's still a lot nicer than many of the places we stayed at in India.

On the last day of our little excursion we did an elephant walk through the jungle. That was really fun.

We learned that elephants in captivity can live to over 100 years. The big elephant here weighs over 8,000 kg, and eats about 300 kg of food a day. Want to buy one? It's only about $30,000 USD. We decided not to.

Finally we stopped at the hellfire canyon. This was one part of the “death railway” - so named for the 100,000 + people who died in laying this 415 km stretch of difficult track. The hellfire canyon is actually a man made cutout from the rock and was made by world war II allied POWs and local civilian labor to aid in the Japanese military campaign.

And when I say man made – that means no machines were used to remove the rock. This was forced labor, with shifts going 24 hours a day, and anyone who worked at this camp only had about a 50% chance of surviving. Just look at the volume of stone in this one gorge alone that was removed. Apparantly the Japanese engineers estimated that it would take about five years to lay these 415 km of track. But with an almost inexhaustible supply of free labor, the task was accomplished in about 1.5 years only (and at the cost of over 100,000 lives).

Not wanting to end on a dour note, I'll just sign off by saying Amanda and I are happy and healthy and are enjoying our trip. We're being sure to not avoid the difficult sites (such as the death railway, or the upcoming killing fields of Cambodia) because it's important to us to acknowledge the darker side of our collective history, but we are also taking advantage of the peaceful and fun things the world has to offer. Here we are enjoying Bangkok on the famous Khao San road.

final India blog

After Goa we stopped at the ancient town of Hampi – home to a plethora of temples large and small. It was here we saw the villagers using these odd “circle boats” to navigate the gentle river waters.

We stopped in Bangalore for a day while making our way south, and that's where I got this pic of a couple typical city cows. No wonder people don't eat beef here!

The trains are often full at this time of year, leaving us to resort to bus travel. As is usually the case, bus journeys take about 50% more time than advertized. Here's one of the luxury coaches we took during an unscheduled “rest stop” that contributed to our six hour delay...

Eventually we made our way into the state of Kerala, famous for its backwaters. We rented a house boat (floating hotel is more like it) for an overnight trip.

It was a two bedroom boat with a pilot, steward, and cook. Ya - three staff members just for the two of us. And it was really nice: air con in the bedrooms, great food, big LCD TV to watch some movies, and generally very comfortable. With the engine set to the lowest speed we gently plied the small tributaries and watched the villages pass us by. This was definitely a high light of our world trip.

When we stopped for the night it was right beside a duck farm. I never even knew there was such a thing. Here's a morning picture of a farmer “herding” his ducks....

We continued our journey as far as the south tip of India – an area covered in tea plantations...

Our final destination in India was Kolkata (Calcutta), which is very far from the south, so we finally allowed ourselves a flight instead of a train or bus journey. Good thing, because even through the flight was about $120 each, it only took a few hours. The train would have been only about $25, but it would have taken three days! So we flew to Kolkata.

It turns out that Kolkata - home to Mother Teresa's many charitable works - was our favorite of India's large cities. Being more northern it was cooler, and quite pleasant – even at the peak of the day. Prices were reasonable, and there was lots to do – like shooting. We had a lot of fun target shooting at the balloons and coins. But as for safety? Just behind this board people were sitting on the grass enjoying picnics, etc. Maybe I missed one of the hanging coins, but thankfully I never missed the back board! Besides – it was just an air powered rifle – how bad could it have been?

Apparently Kolkata is one of the few cities that still has the original human-pulled rickshaws. Some cities are banning them because they move too slowly through traffic, but for many this is the only way to make a living. Check out this guy doing it without shoes even.

We went to an old British cemetery which used to be in the outskirts of Kolkata, but now it's right there on Park street. It was interesting to read how many head stones of those interred here bore reference to the East India Company. This one was particularly interesting. Click on the image to bring it up in a separate window and zoom in on the bottom half of the writing...

Wow – how perspectives and the interpretation of events has changed. Imagine being lauded because you “civilized a savage race”, and “reduced them to obedience”, because obviously your way of doing things is clearly superior.

On a lighter note it was recommended to us to visit the flower markets. Like so much of India, it was sensory overload – this time for the eyes. So many colors and sweet scents. I've never seen so many flowers.

Back in central Kolkata we visited the Writers Building - home to a failed assassination attempt of then governor lord Dalhousie. Three Indian men wanted to assassinate him, but instead killed a low level government worker instead by accident (oops). The public square outside used to be named for this governor and his surviving the attempt on his life, but in the post-colonial days this square was re-named to honor the three who tried to kill him! Again, the shifting perspectives of moral authority.

Pedestrians in Kolkata use sidewalks, but also walk on the roads. Similarly, shops and businesses are run from stores, but businesses also often set up on the side walks. Here's a typical street food vendor, and a “sidewalk grocery store”...

And so our time in India drew to a close. After six weeks it was time to leave the subcontinent behind and head into South East Asia. The Kolkata airport is just outside the city, near the town of Dum Dum. Too bad it was as we were leaving that I finally found a place where I might fit in!

Actually, Dum Dum has some degree of infamy – perhaps you might have heard the term “dum dum bullets”. Those are the hollow tipped bullets that cause much more damage when fired into soft tissue (such as a human body), and as such were internationally banned in the late 1800's. Those bullets were so named because they were first manufactured in an ordinance factory in Dum Dum.

And so this chapter of our world trip has come to a close. We have just now arrived in Bangkok, Thailand and we look forward to new adventures. Stay tuned....