Cambodia

Jan 12 - 22

A long drive in our two minivans. It is FLAT between Bangkok and Siem Riep, lots of rice paddies. Randa, our guide, gives a great overview of Cambodian history, ancient to modern. During the Pol Pot regime his father survived by pretending to be a farmer, though he didn't know how to grow rice. Our local guide for the next day, Mr. San, is a bit older.  He lost three brothers to Pol Pot. American aid after Pol Pot was driven out has pumped dollars into the economy and they are still readily accepted here. One dollar equals 4,000 Cambodian reals. We get foot massages at the night market, 30 minutes for $2. Gives you an idea of the standard of living.

With Randa, our Cambodian guide

Angkor Wat
Next morning we see sunrise over Angkor Wat. What a great way to start the day - lots of people are here, but they are quiet and respectful. As the sky lightens the birds are singing and the insects are calling.  The wat's spires are reflected in the moat. After Angkor Wat we move on to Angkor Thom and Ta Promb, where Lara  Croft, Tomb Raider was filmed. This is a huge temple complex and Angkor Wat is only a part of it.  The kings moved the populace back and forth between Hinduism and Buddhism, and the construction mirrors these changes. Reminds me of the palaces in Istanbul -  each sultan wanted to build bigger and better than his predecessor.  This was not built with slave labor; the workers earned merit in working for the Khmer god king.  Mr. San, our guide, teaches us the meaning of the various poses of the Buddha.

Mr. San, our guide at the temples

Bas relief at Angkor

At the last temple we see monkeys and domesticated elephants. I'd love to ride an elephant, but its complicated. Some of them are mistreated. Many were domesticated for the timber industry, which governments are curtailing. So moving the elephants into tourism gives the elephants a way to make their living. Unfortunately, the popularity of elephant riding also also encourages poachers to steal more babies from the forests. At the temple land mine amputees are playing music and accepting donations. Kids are selling trinkets. Our guide cautions that it's not a good idea to buy from the kids, as their parents take them out of school to do this. Education is free, but not mandatory. No books are provided and teachers are grossly underpaid.

 Sunrise at Angkor Wat

Elephants at Angkor Thom

Ta Promb, setting for Lara Croft, Tomb Raider

Bayan, temple at Angkor Thom

Lake Tonle Sap
Next day we take a noisy diesel boat trip to Tonle Sap, the largest fresh water lake in southeast Asia. We pass through a fishing village. We've seen stilt houses before, but these are are 18 feet up in the air. In the rainy season they need to be this high. This lake is a natural reservoir for the Mekong River. The Tonle Sap River, which feeds it, connects to the Mekong and reverses its flow twice a year, before and after the monsoons. Little boys in canoes are dancing Gangnam style for the tourists.

Fishing village, Lake Tonle Sap

After the boat ride we get massages in Siem Riep, very inexpensive. Doug gets a herbal rundown. I get a neck and shoulder massage, which starts at my ankles and goes to my scalp. Man, she is strong, she's using her elbows and it feels good. Then we stop at a pool hall. My skills have improved since San Francisco, which I attribute to Angor beer and the massage. The barman is not busy and seems interested, so we invite him to take my place. Cha Li is a ringer, he starts slow but takes Doug. He knows how to play the dents in the table  and says "Oh my god" after each good shot or bad shot. He looks about 18 and is wearing a wedding ring.

In both Thailand and Cambodia we've seen lots of spirit houses. These look like small pagodas, about 5 feet high. These are homes for the nats, the animist spirits. This ancient tradition says that every place has its own spirit. When people move onto the property they disturb the spirit. In order to keep the spirit from turning against them, the residents give it a nice spirit house to live in. This tradition is practised in parallel with Buddhism. The pool hall had a spirit house with blinking lights.

Spirit house in the pool hall

Cha Li & Doug at the pool hall

There are too many men on the streets missing arms and legs. They are victims of land mines, most were farmers who have lost their ability to support their families. Some are selling things and some are begging. Randa tells us they get some government aid, but only enough to cover their needs 5 to7 days a month. It's easy to help a little, a dollar goes a long way here.

On the Mekong
Next day our group takes the bus to Kampong Cham, by far the quietest place we've been. We get out first view of the Mekong - wide and muddy. The fishing boats look like they've been on the river for hundreds of years. Some of them probably have been. People continue to be friendly and courteous. At the bus stops I couldn't stand at the end of the line for the women's toilet, they always waved me to the front. I accepted because it may have been rude not to. Also because I didn't want to miss the bus.

We rent bikes and tool along on the banks of the Mekong. I don't understand property ownership here. These tiny old houses on stilts over the river and along the roadbank, do the occupants actually possess any land? Lots of people are selling fish from the river, no refrigeration, no ice. The later in the day, the more the fish curl.

Fishing on the Mekong

There is a handmade bamboo bridge to an island in the river. It's about 3/8 of a mile long and 15 feet wide, no guard rails.  It's rebuilt every year after the monsoon. We pay $1 each to bike across. It sounds like a broken bamboo wind chime. On the island we get a lot of Hellos and high fives from the kids. On the way to the island we saw the sun lowering itself into the Mekong. On the way back the full moon is rising over the Mekong as we watch monks in orange robes come across the bamboo bridge. I couldn't ask for more, except another Angor beer. We go to a local place for dinner. There's a little confusion over our order, but we pay $5 for two meals and two beers. This place would not pass a health inspection, but it seems popular.

Monks crossing the bamboo bridge

In the Bathroom in Phnom Penh
Next day we're off to our guest house in Phnom Penh, after a stop to eat fried tarantulas. Not bad, except for the greasy aftertaste. The guest house showers are like most we've seen on this trip, no shower stall, just a shower head and floor drain in the corner of the tiled bathroom. It works okay, but you have to remember to move the toilet paper before you shower, and to wipe off the toilet seat before you sit down. There's always a knee level sprayer hose - the bidet. I've seen some interesting signs in the bathrooms. "Please put something in the trash" means don't flush the toilet paper. Little graphic symbols indicate "Don't squat on the toilet seat" and "Don't wash your hair with the bidet hose".

Phnom Penh is much busier than my book indicated. Smaller than Bangkok, but the per capita traffic and exhaust fumes are comparable. We share  a tuk tuk with two others from our tour group and ride facing backward. It's amazing to watch the traffic flow and see the calm but determined faces of the hundreds of motorcycle riders. No, you can not possibly squeeze between that wall and that turning bus. Yes, there he goes, and apparently comes out the other side.

Family travel, Phnom Penh

Randa takes us to the market. Later, I ask him about the protocol for bargaining. I've heard that in some places you should start at about 60%. You won't insult the sellers, but you're starting low enough to not mind moving higher on your next offer. Randa laughs. He says there's no protocol in Cambodia, and he's never sure where to start. He says his mother's been buying vegetables in the market her whole life and she never knows what the price will be.

Killing Fields
In the morning we visit the killing fields and Tuol Sleng, the high school turned into a prison. Our local guide, Mr Ran, lost 5 of his 8 siblings during the Pol Pot regime. As a child he was assigned to scare birds from the fields, which allowed him to eat bugs to survive. An estimated  3 million died, almost as many from starvation as from killing. At the killing fields they played loud music so the neighbors couldn't hear the Khmer Rouge using clubs to save bullets. It ended with the Vietnamese invasion in1979. Today more than half of the Cambodian population is under the age of 20.

Mr. Ran introduces us to one of the 7 survivors of Tuol Sleng, and tells us about his willingness to forgive. This man would not harm his torturers because he knows their children need them. We see the barbed wire that prevented the prisoners from ending their torture by leaping to their deaths. The Khmer Rouge even killed their own cooks and cleaners in order to prevent them from talking. Doug and I are reminded of a documentary we saw. A former Khmer Rouge was interviewed. He said "This was not a democracy. I was given one job, killing. If I had refused, they would have killed me. Then who would have taken care of my family? They would have died."' It's complicated. There are haunting photos of the victims. Like the Nazis, the Khmer Rogue kept good records. There were hundreds of other prisons and killing fields in addition to this one.

Memorial at the killing fields

At the killing fields

At home in Cambodia
Next day our group buses to our homestay in a rural Cambodian village. We hike to the waterfall, watch the kids perform traditional Khmer dances, and eat at the "Woman Restaurant". Intrepid Tours comes here to support the local ecotourism effort. They promised a "basic" trip level and you can't get more basic than this. I start to worry when Randa says to remember our towels. OUR towels?

We are to divide our group of 16 between two homes to sleep, men in one dorm style room and women in another. The beds are thin (very thin) double mattresses packed tightly into the small room. They're on the floor, with a tiny  pillow and one blanket per person, and a mosquito net per bed. This is probably pretty nice by village standards. The bathroom is outside, down the stairs. It consists of a shed with a wet cement floor, one squat toilet that you flush with a dipper, and a big cement basin with a dipper to to wash with. I'd anticipated a dipper shower, but with this set up my 7 roomates can't get to the toilet if I shower, so I decide not to and instead try to figure out where to brush my teeth.

Oops, it turns out that no one has planned for the fact that we don't have an equal number of men and women. The last two women up the steps to the women's area don't have a mattresses to share. One offers to sleep with her boyfriend in the men's area, so I offer to also sleep there with Doug. Turns out to be a good decision, because by 3:00 am his body heat supplements the thin blanket. I'm glad I'm sleeping my clothes.  In addition to the chill, we have dogs yipping at each other under our floor, cows mooing, and roosters crowing. As we try to sleep one roomie says he's going to take a sleeping pill. Another replies "How many you got? Enough for the dogs?" With all this, the snoring doesn't even bother me. Doug can feel the uneven floor boards through the mattress.

Our Cambodian host family & some fellow travelers

Sihanoukville
Next day we swim in the South China Sea. We have a beautiful hotel on the beach for the next two nights. We deserve it. We take a boat ride to Koh Ta Kiev Island for snorkeling and then lunch and a beach walk. The island is almost deserted and the peace and quiet is delightful - we've been spending a lot of time in cities. We approach the end of our Cambodian visit with grilled squid orderves and a platter of seafood on the beach. And Angkor beer of course. I think I'll start a business importing paper napkins into Cambodia, these things are like toilet paper. Vendors on the beach are selling small fireworks and Chinese fire lanterns, which rise high into the air with lit candles inside. Our server tells us we may see political protests in Phnom Penh tomorrow. There is opposition to the low wages paid at Chinese owned garment factories. Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam are all nominal democracies, but each is dominated by one political party, so elections don't mean a lot. Cambodia has free speech, but we are told that sometimes those who criticize the government have mysterious accidents.

Cambodian People's Party ad, Premier Hun Sen in middle, in office 35 years

Back in Phnom Penh with Buddha
Next day no protests are obvious, so we visit the national museum. It was looted by the Khmer Rouge and the entire current collection had to be brought in from outlying provinces. Our guide helps me understand why I'm having trouble grasping all these complex carvings. Some are kings and some are Hindu gods. The gods can be shown in various forms with various numbers of arms. Some are both male and female. One king melded two god together to end a civil war. Buddhas are also shown in various forms, sometimes female. Buddha is not a god, there is no god or heaven in Buddhism. Just attaining your own Nirvana through decreasing your worldly desires. Siddhartha was the great teacher, but theoretically, anyone could become a buddha. We go for a little temporary nirvana at Seeing Hands Massage , where the blind are trained in massage. It seems weird to take off my bra in front of the young man, but he's not looking at me, or at anything else.

Cambodian pony cart

The weather in Cambodia this time of year year been great. Cool mornings and evenings. It's been a little gritty since it's the dry season, I can't keep my feet clean. But the best part of Cambodia has been the warm and welcoming people. Aw kohn, Cambodia. Thank you.