Small World

Jennifer and I stopped off in Phnom Penh for a night before heading to Vietnam. We wanted to do some shopping and I had a birthday gift to mail. As we ran between errands, Jennifer was telling me a story. When she suddenly stopped in mid-sentence, I looked up to see our German friend, Daniela, walking towards us.

Daniela had left the group in Laos and headed for Vietnam. We knew she was eventually coming to Cambodia, but we did not expect her so soon or to run into her on the street. We stopped to have a drink and made plans for dinner.

This is why locals think we all know each other -- because we do! That is one of the fun parts about backpacking in Asia -- you run into friends along the way. Most of the travelers here are in the region for an extended trip and criss-cross through the same places, so you are bound to see familiar faces.
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Bokor Face

I had really wanted to visit Bokor Hill Station and in fact had skipped a side-trip to a floating village in order to keep the hill station on the itinerary. The draw is the remnants of a French colonial town from the early 20th century that was abandonned in 1945. The ruins are still perched on the hill and you are free to wander around in these old, atmospheric buildings. There is an attempt underway to redevelop this area and I wanted to see it while it is still filled with the old ruins, instead of modern shops and coffee houses.

We discovered that it was pretty much impossible to get a tour from our beach town of Sihanoukville with so few tourists around, so we headed for Kampot, which is a sleepy town with little more than tours to the hill station. Unfortunately, the rain continued and we were informed that a tour was impossible because the solitary road up the hill was impassable. (The road had previously been closed due to the redevelopment efforts, but my understanding was that the tour operators had found a way around that.)

I have to admit to being a little broken hearted. I had really hoped to see this before it became a construction site, or worse yet, absorbed into the modern world.

After dinner, back at the guesthouse, Jennifer and I reflected on the fruitlessness of our last three days. We had driven 6+ hours in an old bus to arrive at a beachtown in the pouring rain. We did not get any sun or go swimming in the ocean. Our only real beach time was at night during an absolute downpour. The wall of our guesthouse leaked from the rain. The storms kept us awake at night and also drove some insects (including a large flying one) into our room. The guesthouse had a nice menu, but awful mojitos. We searched the entire town for a second-run movie theater that ended up being right up the street from our guesthouse and wasn't showing the movie we were told would be playing. We also could not find the movie on DVD. (We found THE DVD shop in town, which only had German language discs. Go figure!) We entered practically every clothing store in town, but yielded only one tee shirt between the two of us. We had to travel to Kampot, which is barely on the map, to find our tour. It took us four tries to find a reasonably clean guesthouse. The entire block which contained the town's two internet cafes lost power as soon as Jennifer walked in. Most of the restaurants in town were closed at dinner time, including the one we set out to find. We ate Lok Lak (stir fried beef with pepper sauce) which was so chewy that it was like gnawing on silly putty. Because of it, we ended up using toothpicks for 20 minutes and went to bed with sore gums. We had to wander through unlit back streets to find our way back to our guesthouse; since we had forgotten our flashlights, we had to use the light from our cell phones. And our tour, which was the entire reason for the diversion to the south coast, was cancelled.

Of course, we laughed to the point of tears the entire time we jointly recounted this series of misfortunes. Jennifer put it best when she summarized our adventure as "useless, but fun!"

A Bad Day at the Beach

What is it that they say about a bad day at the beach? (Better than a good day anywhere else.)

Well, let's just say that they weren't with us for this bad day.

Yesterday afternoon, just after we arrived, the heavens opened up in a steady stream of rain that lasted through the afternoon and early evening. As night fell, Jennifer and I had played all the card games we knew and just couldn't take sitting still any longer. So, we ventured out onto the beach in the rain, just as a torrential downpour began. Talk about timing!

Within seconds, we were soaked, so turning back quickly became pointless. As we attempted to negotiate the dark beach through the sheets of rain, we found ourselves crossing newly-formed creeks running down the sand to the ocean. We also found ourselves the subject of curiosity for the few people that could actually see us walking and laughing hysterically through the pouring rain.

We found our way back to the street, where taxi drivers seemed unable to comprehend that we wanted to continue walking in this horrible weather. Soon, we were forced to hop about the streets, trying to avoid the huge puddles that had formed and searching for the "driest" path in nature's makeshift maze.

Eventually, the rain let up and we began wringing out our clothes, whilst still wearing them. When we returned to the guesthouse, we found that one of our walls was soaked with rainwater from a leak.

The next day was cloudy with showers on and off. Sadly, our visions of lying on the sand on a warm sunny day were not realized. If fact, the picture below is one of the few that I was able to take between storms.

Of course, Jennifer and I laughed through the whole experience. I guess a bad day at the beach IS really better than a good day anywhere else.

To top it off, while in a shop, we were spied by Keiran, who was with us for the Queen's Day celebration, so we made plans for dinner. It sure is a small world when you are backpacking.

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So Long, Farewell...

In the morning, our little party disbanded, as Marije and Humphrey headed to Thailand, and Jennifer joined me in a jaunt to the coast, and an anticipated venture to Bokor Hill Station.


It's always sad to say goodbye. :(

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Big Red Bicycle

On our last night here in Phnom Penh, our friend Humphrey talked a cyclo driver into letting him pedal the cyclo (and driver) around a city square. The negotiation, or rather the task of communicating this desire to a confused Khmer-speaking driver, was difficult and involved intercession by a third party. But it was worth the effort, as everyone had a good time including our newly-skilled Humphrey, his friends watching through smiling eyes and camera lenses, local onlookers cheering on the unexpected fun of this role-reversal, and even the cyclo-driver himself, who has clearly never been presented a proposition to ride in his own vehicle, but seemed to welcome the break. (If your monitor is large enough, you can see the huge smile on the face of the driver-turned-passenger.) Good, clean, classic fun!

OK, it's actually a big blue bicycle, but the color isn't important and the title will make a few people familiar with the North Jersey music scene smile.

Last, But Not Least

Our last day in Phnom Penh started out with an early morning trip to the royal palace. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to tour the private gardens and we weren't invited in for tea. But we were approached by a small group of Vietnamese people (who can be seen in front of the Throne Hall in the picture below) to have their photo taken with us. This was the second time in two days that this has happened. Either we are really pretty or really ugly! Actually, they were fascinated with our skin, stroking our arms and even trying to smell them, so we think it has to do with how white we all are. (Asia sells a LOT of whitening cream.)

While most of the palace has a decidedly Asian feel, (doesn't it remind you of the palace in Bangkok?), the building in the next picture seems a little out of place. That's because it's French. It was donated by Napolean the Third. (Jennifer, that's THird.)

The main attraction at the palace is the Silver Pagoda, whose floor is tiled with 5000 silver tiles (about one square foot in size), which each weigh one kilogram. The pagoda is now filled with silver and gold treasures, but the most famous item is (yet another) Emerald Buddha. But, frankly, this one looks like it is made of glass instead of some precious material.

You aren't allowed to take pictures inside the pagoda, so instead, I give you these pictures of things in the surrounding courtyard.

The inside of the courtyard walls are covered in paintings...

... there is a little mound with a tiny wat and some Buddha statues...

... and there are these cool garuda statues holding up the roofs of some of the buildings.

After this, we had breakfast at a place whose walls were covered in British music, TV, and movie stills and posters. Then we began a day of errands, caring for all of the things that needed to be done before we left. My most important errand was a birthday gift for my nephew, Fritz. I found a really cool, traditional, snakeskin covered drum for him. I hope he likes it.

We chose the right day for errands, since it was raining most of the afternoon. It actually made the tuk-tuk ride more fun because the driver unfurled the plastic raincovers that hung from the roof to cover the sides of the cart. So, it was like being in our own little, private, covered carriage. (That's Jennifer, wearing a traditional Cambodian krama, and Marije in the picture.)

Since it was our last night, we had a nice Khmer dinner and then walked the few blocks back to the palace to see the lights.

While everyone else packed, traded pictures, and listened to music, Marije made a new journal for me. I couldn't find one with unlined pages, so she bought plain paper and a folio and sewed and glued them together to make a really awesome journal. Isn't she so sweet?
Thanks, Marije!!! You're the best!

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Weight Lifting

Today was another heavy day, but one that was important. We visited the local sites associated with the genocide carried out by the Khmer Rouge and, while it was difficult to see these things, I think it is important to understand what took place.

In April of 1975, the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh and shortly thereafter declared Cambodia to be Democratic Kampuchea, under the leadership of Pol Pot. Their communist ideal was to achieve a "Year Zero" for Cambodia, eliminating all that existed before it. All of the previous culture would be replaced by a self-sufficient, agrarian society, with no social classes, books, money, personal possessions, etc. The plan to achieve this involved a rice quota of double or triple that of the current output. They saw the rural farmers as the good people who would be the future of their country, while the people in the cities were engaging in business enterprises for their "personal gain", rather than working in the fields for the "common good". Their solution was to evacuate Phnom Penh (and other cities) by warning people of an expected attacked by American bombers, which was a lie.

Once in the countryside, the people were forced to live under communist rule. They were forbidden to do anything without permission and permission was rarely granted. Forbidden activities included traveling, engaging in religious worship, playing games, taking breaks from work, dating, reading and writing, wearing anything other than black pajama-style pants and shirts, arguing, complaining... the list goes on. They were denied adequate medical care, since the Khmer Rouge did not believe in Western medicine and were denied any education other than that supplied by the Khmer Rouge for their purposes.

Our first stop for the day was the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which was originally a high school (Tuol Svay Prey), until 1975, when the Khmer Rouge took it over and turned it into the S-21 prison. As many as 100 people per day were brought here. Between 1975 and 1979, an estimated 17,000 people were housed and tortured in this prison. Nearly all of them were eventually killed. When the Vietnamese army freed Phnom Penh in 1979, they found only 7 prisoners alive and the bodies of more prisoners that had been killed as the army approached.


The prisoners were at first people who were seen as opposition to the Khmer Rouge, particularly those associated with the previous government, people with foreign connections, intellectuals, the educated, or even those that appeared to be educated or intellectual (those wearing glasses, those that understood English or French, etc.). Eventually, many of the prisoners were members of the party who were accused of betrayal, often brought here with their entire family, including children.

Some of the classrooms were turned into individual cells to house those that had committed the highest crimes. These cells were barely large enough to lay down in.

Other prisoners were shackled by their feet to iron bars in large, open rooms, such that they slept in rows with their feet together. They were not allowed to talk with one another and even had to ask permission before being allowed to shift their sleeping position.

The facades of these buildings were covered with electrified barbed wire to prevent escape or suicide through the open-air hallways.

The Khmer Rouge photographed all of the prisoners and often photographed the torture that they endured. While all of the rooms in the museum were left as they had been when the Khmer Rouge fled, many now have cases full of pictures of nameless victims, young and old, as well as pictures of the results of some of the beatings.

Some of the smaller rooms, which were used as torture chambers, were empty except for a bed used for the torture, which ranged from beatings to electrocution to suffocation. This was done to elicit confessions, some of which included outrageous lies told to stop the torture. The confessions were often lengthy, as each included the prisoner's description of their life history, their criminal or treasonous acts in chronological order, including conversations with other "traitors", and a list of friends, family, and acquaintances that were also "traitors".

After a break for lunch, and to gather ourselves, we went out to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. This was a pretty little longan orchard that became the horrific place where the prisoners from S-21 were slaughtered and buried in mass graves. Many of these people were bludgeoned to death so as not to "waste" bullets.

The picture below is of a memorial that houses the remains of 8985 people found at this site.

This small orchard is littered with 129 shallow, mass graves, of which 43 have been left untouched. Some single burial sites contained the remains of as many as 600 people. From this distance, it perhaps looks unremarkable, but all of the little hills and dips in the ground are graves or graves that have been unearthed. And everywhere you walk, there are pieces of cloth and bone and teeth littering the ground.
After the first full year of farming, the rice output was less than the Khmer Rouge had planned. Rather than feeding the workers and selling less than the budgeted amount of rice to other countries, the Khmer Rouge sold the full amount of rice they had planned to sell, in order to make money for the country and to create an image of success for their model to the outside world. But this meant letting the people starve. Then, they executed those that had produced below target, accusing them of sabotage; many of these were former city dwellers that were growing rice for the first time. The Khmer Rouge felt that they did not need these people, but they grossly underestimated the labor force necessary to meet their quotas.

In 1979, the Vietnamese army recaptured Phnom Penh and, by 1980, drove the Khmer Rouge into Western Cambodia, where they continued to fight for more than a decade. In 1991, the Khmer Rouge formed an agreement with the government installed by the Vietnamese, but by 1992, rejected it and resumed attacks once again. In 1996 there was a large scale defection from the party. Pol Pot was not captured until 1997 and even then, only by competing party members. He died in 1998 and the final members of the Khmer Rouge surrendered in 1999.

Under the Khmer Rouge, hundreds of thousands of people were executed and it is estimated that about 1.5 to 2 million of the 7 million person population of Cambodia died in total due to the Khmer Rouge, including those that died from starvation and disease. Democratic Kampuchea (i.e. the Khmer Rouge) held a seat in the UN until 1993.

Ride of Their Lives

Today was spent visiting all of the requisite sites in the center of Phnom Penh. We saw Wat Phnom which is the site where Phnom Penh was supposedly founded and spent some time at a few of the markets. But the real fun came in watching everyday life, as is often the case in traveling.


Here are some of our photos of the circus act that is Phnom Penh's rush hour. Send in the clowns!

You can never pack too much stuff on a motorbike...


Is there a luggage limit on a cyclo ride?
The most eye-opening was probably the number of people (without helmets or a good grip to hold on to) that can fit on a single moto. It is Phnom Penh's answer to the clown car. This counts as four (note the small baby.)
You just have to hold onto the little ones...
... although some are harder to hold on to than others. Somebody sign that kids up for the tight-rope act! (Notice how Mom is gently holding his shirt.)

I've seen the sad clown at the circus, but never the bored one.

These next three shots were taken by Humphrey, who has a knack for photographing traffic. Kudos!

Now, this is a man with his hands full...
Evel Knievel in training?
And the ultimate: five people on one moto.
We couldn't get enough of this fun.

Crimes Against Beer

We arrived from Siem Reap in the late afternoon, found a guesthouse with a room that could accommodate all four of us, and went looking for dinner.

What we found was a Vietnamese place that served warm beer (apparently no refrigeration for beverages), but tried to compensate by putting ice in our mugs. Then, since we had ice, they decided we needed straws. So, with limited options, we drank our Cambodian beer with ice and straws. I'm pretty sure that somewhere there is a law against such heresy.

We also struggled to determine if this ice was made from tap water or filtered water. We tried asking, but the language barrier was too great. Then we tried charades, but apparently there are no international symbols for "bottled water" and "tap water", as I thought there were. Eventually, I got up and just walked into their kitchen and started pointing at the tap. At this point, they managed to find an English-speaking employee that assured us that the ice was made from filtered water.

That interaction may have made them think we were nuts, but perhaps we redeemed ourselves when we drew a small crowd as we played Vietnamese Poker. Or perhaps it was just amusing for them to watch inexperienced tourists playing one of their very own games.

Music Soothes the Savage Beast (We Hope)

It was our last night in Siem Reap, so naturally, we had to hit the town. Jennifer spotted a place with live music. It turned that the restaurant had a great cover band and cool floor seating on multiple levels. (Note the lack of railings.) Turns out they also have alligators underneath the bottom set of platforms. (Don't trip!)


Here's the gang: Marije, me, Humphrey, and Jennifer.

Good times!

Oops, I Broke the Window Again, Mom

This post is for my brother Bill, who, if I remember correctly, put a baseball through the kitchen window on five separate occasions when we were kids, once breaking multiple panes of glass. Seems Bill was the kind of right-handed batter that hadn't yet figured out he should have been batting lefty. On the positive side, Bill is now a home-improvement expert.

Bill, have you been in Cambodia lately?

Women and Children

Jennifer and Humphrey stayed in town while Marije and I took the long ride to Banteay Srei, which means Citadel of Women. There is much speculation over the origins of this name, but the prominent theory is that it was called that in modern times because of the delicacy of the temple, which it was believed only a woman could have created.


While the structure is very similar to its other Angkor-era brethren...


... you can see that the scale is much smaller.

Much of the fascination with this temple (as well as the claims of its delicacy) comes from the intricate carvings that swathe every inch of this complex.
The detail of the carvings, as well as the level of difficulty (note the three dimensional figures and the fact that the rock is carved out from behind them to make them leap off the rock face) have led people to say that only the small, dexterous hands of a woman could have crafted such intricacies. (Hence the modern name of the temple.)
Is that another gratuitous doorway shot? Yes, I'm afraid it is.

OK, back to the amazing details of these carvings on this beautiful red sandstone. Well worth the 50 minute drive. Then Marije and I shifted gears for a little while, because we were near a well-respected land mine museum and wanted to pay a visit. The museum was set up by Aki Ra, a thirty-something man who spent his youth in various armies, first being raised by the Khmer Rouge, who killed his parents, then joining the Vietnamese Army and later, the Cambodian Army.

Aki Ra spent much of this time, nearly two decades, laying countless land mines and devising booby traps, so he is very well versed on how to detect and disable mines and other UXO (Unexploded Ordinance). He has been clearing mines on his own, using just a stick and a knife, since 1994, and it's believed that he has cleared more than 50,000 mines. But it is estimated that as many as 5 million mines still remain in the fields of Cambodia.

He is committed to clearing land mines to make his country safer and to undo the harmful actions of his childhood under the Pol Pot regime. He has also set up facilities to house and educate about twenty children who were either land mine victims or who come from dangerous or disadvantaged living situations.

In addition to writings and photos depicting the history of the Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodia's liberation, current land mine policies worldwide, the impacts of landmines on the lives of civilians, and the techniques required to disarm the mines, the museum is also filled with hundreds of defused mines. The majority of these mines are Chinese or Russian; (the ones pictured below are Russian.) After all of the media attention regarding landmines and Cambodia, I was surprised to learn that only about 1% of the mines in Cambodia were US made. (The US contributes every year to the UN for landmine clearance, but maintains a policy that includes the need for landmines along the Korean DMZ as a measure to protect the South Koreans and American soldiers deployed to the area.)

I thought that this was an interesting historical picture. It is a soldier defending the Bayon (the temple with all of the faces carved in it) from a potential Khmer Rouge attack.

After seeing so many pictures of children missing body parts, the weight of reflecting on the situation had driven us to a somber silence. Marije and I agreed that we needed to see another site before heading home or we would be miserable all night.

Our driver took us to an unmarked temple, which we believe is either Bantaey Samre or Bantaey Kdie. Whatever the name, it was an interesting site. It would probably have had water filling the inner structure, rising up to just below the walkway. This walkway encircled the inner sanctuary, creating a cloistered feeling. Marije, observantly noted that this was likely a monastery.

Angkor, Encore

On day three, we awoke early to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. No one will ever accuse me of being a morning person, but some things are worth getting up early for. And this is one of them.

Below is a shot of the long causeway that leads from the outer wall to the central complex. The sun hasn't joined us yet, but it is definitely on its way.

"Hey, haven't we seen this photo before? That's cheating!" Actually, it is taken from the same place as that other photo, but you'll notice now that it has a slight pinkish hue. I couldn't help it; it makes such a nice silhouette. You would be sick if you saw just how many pictures I took of this. Just be glad I haven't posted them all!

Finally, the sun has arrived. Can we go back to sleep now? I guess not.
Here is the crew (Marije, Jennifer, me, and Humphrey) in front of Angkor Wat, again with no people in sight. I didn't mind visiting Angkor Wat again, because there is so much to take in all at once that you pick up on more of the details a second time around. Details like all of the intricate carvings...
... and the bas-reliefs carved into the walls.
We even made it out to the back of the complex to see the natural causeway across the moat and the structures at the back of the temple.
After spending about three or four hours inside the complex, which must have baffled our driver, (hey, the sun rises at its own pace), we walked out to the open area between the outer wall and inner complex and once again, there were almost no people. We really lucked out.

We then followed the same route I had taken on day 1, heading to the ancient city of Angkor Thom. While the others explored the ruins of the Bayon, playing around with photographing the faces as I had previously done, I searched for more bas-reliefs. The details of the carvings are wonderful, the scene below depicting activities of daily life.
The site's literature claims that this depicts drunken Chinese men dancing on a boat. I am not sure how they know that they are Chinese or that they are drunk, but they are definitely dancing on a boat.
I did not climb Phimeanakas a second time, but I did take the time to study the front of the building.
Another face, on our way to a very cool place that I had not yet visited.

The next stop was Ta Prohm, which was founded as a Buddhist monastery and university. But what this complex is really known for is the way in which nature has usurped this area for its own. (This temple was also used in the movie Tomb Raider.)

Trees have just grown on top of buildings, seeming to shun the need for soil and ground water. The trees grow tall and fast towards the sky, while their roots stretch for the earth.
This massive silk cotton tree has just taken up residence, perched on the wall and winding it's roots along the corners of the walls, as though it had been trained to do so. (Look how small Jennifer is next to these roots.)
This is actually the back side of the same tree. You can see where it's roots have reached the ground, but at the cost of the building on which it stands. It's as though the roots are actually consuming the structure like some alien mouth swallowing the world, one building at a time. (For a little Where's Waldo fun, can you spot Marije, whose clothes have blended in with the tree?)

I think this is a strangler fig, but whatever it is, it provides great atmosphere.

And this silk cotton wood is probably the most famous site at this complex.

I just love how these buildings can support these massive trees and how these massive trees can survive atop piles of stone. It is the weirdest and most destructive symbiosis I have ever seen.

And here is a closer look at the tree from the picture above. I love this shot of our little gang in one of the coolest places we visited.

Afterwards, we headed for Phnom Bakheng, which is a temple built on a mountain overlooking Angkor Wat. We came for the sunset views, which unfortunately don't occur over Angkor Wat from this angle, but it was still nice to get an aerial view of the temple.

Sadly, the sun was setting behind a rainstorm, but it made for a neat effect anyway.