here's just a random collection of stories that I for whatever reason forgot to mention or include in my previous postings (excluding stuff from Banjarmasin).
When I was in Angkor Wat, I met two ladies from Fayetteville, Arkansas who work for.......not U. Ark., not Pilgrim's Pride, but that other giant--Wal Mart. When they asked me what I did, and I told them that I would be going to law school in the fall, they said, yeah, you looked like a lawyer. I have no idea whatever that means, but its good to know that if I ever decide to go into acting, I could easily find a role.
Another angkor wat story--I met two mid-30s flight attendants (one still working, one retired) from MAS, Malaysian Airlines, a couple--the still working one is a male, the retired one is a female--who were incredibly nice, and we ended up running into each other at the same temples. Met them for a drink later, and they confirmed what I previously heard from several different sources regarding Malaysia. The wife now works as an english teacher--she is fluent--and the place she works for is now in association with the U.S. Embassy in an effort to promote learning english in Malaysia. The funny part of the story is that since Obama has been in power, the embassy told these english teachers that they need to teach these people about global warming and climate change. It would be one thing if the people that were being taught were fluent in english, but the vast majority don't even have basic competency. Meaning that before they learn the basic phrases that would help get them around (like where is the grocery store, etc.) they will learn about the polar ice caps melting.
Singapore may have a ban on pornography, but they evidently don't impose a firewall. At one of the computer terminals I was using in little india, the home page was a porn site, and a whole bunch of pop ups took over the screen. I quickly changed computers.
I remember reading an article several years ago about the coming growth in chinese tourism. Well, they were everywhere in cambodia, and easily outnumbered the japanese by 10:1. Just to be a pest, I asked one of the tour guides what tourists they hate the most, and they said the Chinese--an opinion shared by many people, including other travellers, mainly because they tend to be rather loud, rude, and sometimes disrespectful by western standards. As much as people make fun of the insensitive and rude western tourist, the chinese tend to be far worse.
The Japanese, on the other hand, are extremely nice. They might be easily charicatured for clustering in groups, wearing bucket hats, and having giant cameras around their neck, but they are nothing but polite and friendly, if a little reserved (in the interest of fairness, western backpacking tourists are easily charicatured as well--long hair, bushy beards, wearing beer tshirts from the country they are in, etc). I ran into a group of Japanese tourists in Beng Mealea, and it was definitely a bizarre moment on my end when after telling them that I was from the US, that they were from Hiroshima--I'm pretty sure my face turned as red as the rising sun on the japanese flag out of a sense of awkwardness on my part. There wasn't any on their end, though, and some even wanted their picture taken with me.
A sign that I drank too much one night? When I ask for a cigarette. I never ever smoke, but I was hanging out with the german nurse at my favorite bar, and kept buying the next round for each other--being the southern gentleman that my mother raised me to be, I would never let her pay for the last round. Well, you know you've managed an accomplishment when a german, female or male, proclaims that they are "pissed" as in drunk, before you admit to the same. Of course, she is trying to quit smoking, but tends to smoke when she drinks, so that's where the cigarettes came from. I had one--that's it--and one was enough to remind me why I never smoke to begin with.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Course correction, version umpteenth
I don't usually do this, but I will quote from a personal email sent to me by my mother, in reference to my last post:
Mom, you didn't screw up. If you are planning on throwing a surprise welcome back party for me on May 21, better call it off, because I won't be on the plane. Instead, I will be coming home June 8 at 6 a.m. (I was trying to avoid the notorious west coast-midwest redeye, haven taken it once before, but all the seats on the Hong Kong-California legs that would put me into Dallas in the evening were booked). I will be leaving Singapore at 1620 on the 7th, arrive in Hong Kong around 2000, and leave Hong Kong at 0030 on the 8th, arriving in San Francisco at 2200 on the 7th, leaving San Francisco at around 0100 on the 8th, arriving in DFW at 600 on the 8th (gotta love dateline hopping!). I was also able to secure the seats I wanted on the Cathay Pacific operated legs--a window from Singapore to Hong Kong, an aisle from Hong Kong to SFO (there's really no point in getting a window, since it will be dark the entire flight).
My next stop after the Cathay Pacific ticket office (located right next to Clifford Centre, btw)? The bank to make sure my atm card will work for the next two weeks.
Getting to Laos will be a little problematic and pricier than usual because of the mess in Bangkok. Seeing as how the last time there was a political protest in 2006, they managed to shut down the airport, if you can avoid flying through Bangkok, then by all means do it. Fortunately, I can by going through KL (sign you've been travelling for too long in SE Asia/become a backpacker a-hole? You always refer to Kuala Lumpur as KL).
My general plan will be to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Vientiane, the Laotian capital (Laos happens to be one of four countries that I have physically seen (not from an airplane window), but not actually visited--when I was in Thailand six years ago, we went to a town on the opposite side of the mekong from Laos--the other three? Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan).
After spending a day or so in Vientiane, I will head to the backpacking haven of Vang Vieng--known for its tubing and party scene. The stop, at minimum, is functional--Vang Vieng is on the road between Vientiane and Luang Prabang, and will break up one very long (10 hours) bus ride into two medium length rides. The 25 year old german nurse who I met on the boat ride from Battambang to Siem Reap was telling me about the place, and she said that even if you weren't into the party scene or tubing (she wasn't), its still worth the stop because it is incredibly beautiful. Vang Vieng also has another side to it that can be looked up, but one that I won't write on until after I've left Laos--let's just say that I intend on being extra extra careful there.
From Vang Vieng it will be onto Luang Prabang--the old Laotian capital, and a UNESCO world heritage site, where I will probably be spending the most amount of time in Laos.
After Luang Prabang, time permitting, I will go to Phonsavan to see the Plain of Jars--Phonsavan was also one of the major bombing targets during the U.S. Secret War in Laos (Air America and all that) and is notorious for the large amount of unexploded ordinance found near the town (the town is fully safe now, but I'm not going to go off the beaten path). From Phonsavan, it will be a flight back to Vientiane and either to Phuket in Thailand or Singapore, depending on how much time I have.
So, what did I do today other than arrange stuff? I went to fort soliso on sentosa island--the site of the last british holdout during the invasion by Japan. It happens to be located on Singapore's principle beach and pleasure resort island--it felt like going to disneyworld or six flags, to be quite honest, only it was extremely, extremely clean. If you are looking for a picturesque beach view, then don't go to Sentosa--you'll see some pretty blue water, and some surrounding islands, but you will mainly get a view of the giant container ships, oil tankers, and cargo ships moored nearby, as well as the various port facilities and an oil refinery or two--tropical idyll it is not.
I then wandered through Singapore's Chinatown, where stuff is actually cheap. I actually went there last night to eat (tip: if you need something cheap and good to eat in singapore, go to chinatown--i did little india--where I'm staying--the night before, and thought it was overrated--so did my stomach), and discovered a new poison of choice. Since getting into singapore, I haven't had a single beer because the stuff is so expensive--instead, last night I found another cold thirst quencher that is probably as close as mortal man will get to ambrosia: freshly squeezed sugar cane juice. It's delicious. I am far from an adventurous eater, but I can attest that the stuff is amazing. Yes, it is nearly neon green, but there's nothing artificial about it.
Another thing that is cheap in Singapore? electronics. Because my memory stick is now full, I wanted to see about getting another memory card for my camera. I got a 2 gig memory card for 18 singapore dollars--cheaper than my hostel bed.
As much as it is fun to make fun of Singapore for its emphasis on cleanliness--there are some hilarious signs that are posted to emphasize courtesy, like one where a man emerges from a smoking room all aghast, and a woman exclaims that it looks like he's just seen a ghost--his response? No, I just saw what was left in the toilet--there is apparently a seedier side, one that isn't really brought up. Prostitution is legal here, and the town does have its own redlight district.
So, chewing gum is banned (other than nicorette) but paying for sex isn't? Go figure.
Lost can wait. I'm willing to guarantee that they will have full copies of the final season on dvd here before the last episode is actually shown, so I will probably borrow (I would never pay for pirated dvds! Never! Well, never except for when I bought several when I was in Thailand, but thats small potatoes compared to some of my friends) someone's copy to see if I can watch the sixth to last episode.
"Your joking right, you'd rather come home and watch Lost
than stay and go somewhere where it might be a long time
before you get a chance to go again? I thought I raised you
better, boy did I screw up!!!!!"
Mom, you didn't screw up. If you are planning on throwing a surprise welcome back party for me on May 21, better call it off, because I won't be on the plane. Instead, I will be coming home June 8 at 6 a.m. (I was trying to avoid the notorious west coast-midwest redeye, haven taken it once before, but all the seats on the Hong Kong-California legs that would put me into Dallas in the evening were booked). I will be leaving Singapore at 1620 on the 7th, arrive in Hong Kong around 2000, and leave Hong Kong at 0030 on the 8th, arriving in San Francisco at 2200 on the 7th, leaving San Francisco at around 0100 on the 8th, arriving in DFW at 600 on the 8th (gotta love dateline hopping!). I was also able to secure the seats I wanted on the Cathay Pacific operated legs--a window from Singapore to Hong Kong, an aisle from Hong Kong to SFO (there's really no point in getting a window, since it will be dark the entire flight).
My next stop after the Cathay Pacific ticket office (located right next to Clifford Centre, btw)? The bank to make sure my atm card will work for the next two weeks.
Getting to Laos will be a little problematic and pricier than usual because of the mess in Bangkok. Seeing as how the last time there was a political protest in 2006, they managed to shut down the airport, if you can avoid flying through Bangkok, then by all means do it. Fortunately, I can by going through KL (sign you've been travelling for too long in SE Asia/become a backpacker a-hole? You always refer to Kuala Lumpur as KL).
My general plan will be to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Vientiane, the Laotian capital (Laos happens to be one of four countries that I have physically seen (not from an airplane window), but not actually visited--when I was in Thailand six years ago, we went to a town on the opposite side of the mekong from Laos--the other three? Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan).
After spending a day or so in Vientiane, I will head to the backpacking haven of Vang Vieng--known for its tubing and party scene. The stop, at minimum, is functional--Vang Vieng is on the road between Vientiane and Luang Prabang, and will break up one very long (10 hours) bus ride into two medium length rides. The 25 year old german nurse who I met on the boat ride from Battambang to Siem Reap was telling me about the place, and she said that even if you weren't into the party scene or tubing (she wasn't), its still worth the stop because it is incredibly beautiful. Vang Vieng also has another side to it that can be looked up, but one that I won't write on until after I've left Laos--let's just say that I intend on being extra extra careful there.
From Vang Vieng it will be onto Luang Prabang--the old Laotian capital, and a UNESCO world heritage site, where I will probably be spending the most amount of time in Laos.
After Luang Prabang, time permitting, I will go to Phonsavan to see the Plain of Jars--Phonsavan was also one of the major bombing targets during the U.S. Secret War in Laos (Air America and all that) and is notorious for the large amount of unexploded ordinance found near the town (the town is fully safe now, but I'm not going to go off the beaten path). From Phonsavan, it will be a flight back to Vientiane and either to Phuket in Thailand or Singapore, depending on how much time I have.
So, what did I do today other than arrange stuff? I went to fort soliso on sentosa island--the site of the last british holdout during the invasion by Japan. It happens to be located on Singapore's principle beach and pleasure resort island--it felt like going to disneyworld or six flags, to be quite honest, only it was extremely, extremely clean. If you are looking for a picturesque beach view, then don't go to Sentosa--you'll see some pretty blue water, and some surrounding islands, but you will mainly get a view of the giant container ships, oil tankers, and cargo ships moored nearby, as well as the various port facilities and an oil refinery or two--tropical idyll it is not.
I then wandered through Singapore's Chinatown, where stuff is actually cheap. I actually went there last night to eat (tip: if you need something cheap and good to eat in singapore, go to chinatown--i did little india--where I'm staying--the night before, and thought it was overrated--so did my stomach), and discovered a new poison of choice. Since getting into singapore, I haven't had a single beer because the stuff is so expensive--instead, last night I found another cold thirst quencher that is probably as close as mortal man will get to ambrosia: freshly squeezed sugar cane juice. It's delicious. I am far from an adventurous eater, but I can attest that the stuff is amazing. Yes, it is nearly neon green, but there's nothing artificial about it.
Another thing that is cheap in Singapore? electronics. Because my memory stick is now full, I wanted to see about getting another memory card for my camera. I got a 2 gig memory card for 18 singapore dollars--cheaper than my hostel bed.
As much as it is fun to make fun of Singapore for its emphasis on cleanliness--there are some hilarious signs that are posted to emphasize courtesy, like one where a man emerges from a smoking room all aghast, and a woman exclaims that it looks like he's just seen a ghost--his response? No, I just saw what was left in the toilet--there is apparently a seedier side, one that isn't really brought up. Prostitution is legal here, and the town does have its own redlight district.
So, chewing gum is banned (other than nicorette) but paying for sex isn't? Go figure.
Lost can wait. I'm willing to guarantee that they will have full copies of the final season on dvd here before the last episode is actually shown, so I will probably borrow (I would never pay for pirated dvds! Never! Well, never except for when I bought several when I was in Thailand, but thats small potatoes compared to some of my friends) someone's copy to see if I can watch the sixth to last episode.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Should I stay or should I go?
I've already received emails from Cathay Pacific telling me that I can now check in online for my flight back to the States if I want to. I'm holding off.
The problem--I'm about 95% sure that I don't want to go back to the States. I know where I want to go instead, and know what flight I want to take, and know roughly where I would go, and how long I would roughly take.
I considered going to one or two of the five countries in SE Asia that I had missed--Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Laos. Of the five, one clear choice emerged: Laos.
Everybody in Cambodia simply raved about Laos, and those that had been to multiple countries already routinely said it was their favorite place to visit. It is a slower pace of life, and people couldn't stop talking about how much they enjoyed it. Furthermore, because of its relative remoteness, going to Laos basically requires that you are in SE Asia beforehand (and even then, it is much easier going from Cambodia, Vietnam, or Thailand to Laos than it is from Singapore--visa issues mean that I can't go through Cambodia or Vietnam--requires one in advance--and the political situation in bangkok is front page news all over the world--last time they had a protest, they managed to shut down the international airport back in 2006. I'm not going to take my chances). Of course, as I sit here typing this, the travel channel is broadcasting a program on Laos.
Now, it would have made a heck of a lot more sense for me to go from Cambodia to Laos than from Cambodia to Singapore to Laos, but because of my U.S. ticket, I had to get to Singapore to see what my options were. This means that my only realistic option is going through Kuala Lumpur, where Air Asia flies to the Laotian capital of Vientiane on Saturday, Thursday, and Tuesday.
The problem?
Air Asia just launched a massive fare sale that includes free seats for travel booked by the end of may and commenced in 2011. Their website is overloaded. I cannot even see what the price for me to travel to Vientiane would be, let alone if there's any availability (fortunately, they have an office in Singapore that I will go to tmw.)
I'd also like to go to a beach in SE Asia before I leave, so I might also try to squeeze in a trip to Phuket (south of thailand, but far, far, away from Bangkok) as well.
I'm also slightly fatigued, and need maybe a one day break of sorts before heading onward.
If I do change my ticket, I will also be missing the series finale of Lost. I have watched the show since the very first episode debuted and I was a freshman in college. The show, though, has gone steadily downhill since the first season (with the exception of the season three finale) as the creators have increased the sci-fi emphasis and decreased the emphasis on the drama within the individual characters. I just want to see how it ends and don't want it to be spoiled.
They should have learned from the Battlestar Galactica remake--a show on Sci-Fi that was very highly regarded since it took modern and dramatic themes and put them in a unique setting, and didn't really rely on the sci-fi elements as necessities to the storyline.
Whatever. If I can miss Modano and Lehtinen's likely final home game (it was the same night as my flight out, and I felt physically sick to my stomach when I realized that I would be missing it. Yes, I have become so addicted/emotionally attached to the Stars that I now get physically sick), I can miss the finale of a tv show that I can easily catch up on online.
Will post updates later about what will happen.
The problem--I'm about 95% sure that I don't want to go back to the States. I know where I want to go instead, and know what flight I want to take, and know roughly where I would go, and how long I would roughly take.
I considered going to one or two of the five countries in SE Asia that I had missed--Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Laos. Of the five, one clear choice emerged: Laos.
Everybody in Cambodia simply raved about Laos, and those that had been to multiple countries already routinely said it was their favorite place to visit. It is a slower pace of life, and people couldn't stop talking about how much they enjoyed it. Furthermore, because of its relative remoteness, going to Laos basically requires that you are in SE Asia beforehand (and even then, it is much easier going from Cambodia, Vietnam, or Thailand to Laos than it is from Singapore--visa issues mean that I can't go through Cambodia or Vietnam--requires one in advance--and the political situation in bangkok is front page news all over the world--last time they had a protest, they managed to shut down the international airport back in 2006. I'm not going to take my chances). Of course, as I sit here typing this, the travel channel is broadcasting a program on Laos.
Now, it would have made a heck of a lot more sense for me to go from Cambodia to Laos than from Cambodia to Singapore to Laos, but because of my U.S. ticket, I had to get to Singapore to see what my options were. This means that my only realistic option is going through Kuala Lumpur, where Air Asia flies to the Laotian capital of Vientiane on Saturday, Thursday, and Tuesday.
The problem?
Air Asia just launched a massive fare sale that includes free seats for travel booked by the end of may and commenced in 2011. Their website is overloaded. I cannot even see what the price for me to travel to Vientiane would be, let alone if there's any availability (fortunately, they have an office in Singapore that I will go to tmw.)
I'd also like to go to a beach in SE Asia before I leave, so I might also try to squeeze in a trip to Phuket (south of thailand, but far, far, away from Bangkok) as well.
I'm also slightly fatigued, and need maybe a one day break of sorts before heading onward.
If I do change my ticket, I will also be missing the series finale of Lost. I have watched the show since the very first episode debuted and I was a freshman in college. The show, though, has gone steadily downhill since the first season (with the exception of the season three finale) as the creators have increased the sci-fi emphasis and decreased the emphasis on the drama within the individual characters. I just want to see how it ends and don't want it to be spoiled.
They should have learned from the Battlestar Galactica remake--a show on Sci-Fi that was very highly regarded since it took modern and dramatic themes and put them in a unique setting, and didn't really rely on the sci-fi elements as necessities to the storyline.
Whatever. If I can miss Modano and Lehtinen's likely final home game (it was the same night as my flight out, and I felt physically sick to my stomach when I realized that I would be missing it. Yes, I have become so addicted/emotionally attached to the Stars that I now get physically sick), I can miss the finale of a tv show that I can easily catch up on online.
Will post updates later about what will happen.
Cloudy day
Sun hasn't come out all day in Singapore--both literally and figuratively.
It turns out that I managed to lose an entire day of photos from my time in Angkor Wat. For whatever reason (I swear I saved them onto my memory stick), photos from the day in which I visited Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and Ta Prohm during the daytime are missing, and are not on either one of my memory cards. Photos I took both the day before and the day after are on there, just not those, which means I am missing some spectacular shots of Bayon, Baphuon, Angkor Wat, the Terrace of the Elephants, and the terrace of the leper king.
Oh, and I have officially run out of space on my current memory stick, which means I will have to buy a new one.
I'm in the midst of another marathon photo upload session, since I want to have everything backed up.
Hopefully, I'll be fully updated by tonight
Wish I could describe some really exciting things about Singapore, but while the colonial district and the civil district are fun places to walk around, my problem is that I'm a little burned out on the colonial stuff, and the sky was cloudy. The place just doesn't have the same level of sketchiness that can lend itself to funny stories (saying I decided to tempt fate and that of arrest by jaywalking just isn't all that laughable after i've been offered all sorts of illegal stuff in Cambodia).
If it wasn't for the humidity, you could easily forget you were in southeast asia. Minimal number of touts, everything's expensive, and drivers don't try to kill you.
It turns out that I managed to lose an entire day of photos from my time in Angkor Wat. For whatever reason (I swear I saved them onto my memory stick), photos from the day in which I visited Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and Ta Prohm during the daytime are missing, and are not on either one of my memory cards. Photos I took both the day before and the day after are on there, just not those, which means I am missing some spectacular shots of Bayon, Baphuon, Angkor Wat, the Terrace of the Elephants, and the terrace of the leper king.
Oh, and I have officially run out of space on my current memory stick, which means I will have to buy a new one.
I'm in the midst of another marathon photo upload session, since I want to have everything backed up.
Hopefully, I'll be fully updated by tonight
Wish I could describe some really exciting things about Singapore, but while the colonial district and the civil district are fun places to walk around, my problem is that I'm a little burned out on the colonial stuff, and the sky was cloudy. The place just doesn't have the same level of sketchiness that can lend itself to funny stories (saying I decided to tempt fate and that of arrest by jaywalking just isn't all that laughable after i've been offered all sorts of illegal stuff in Cambodia).
If it wasn't for the humidity, you could easily forget you were in southeast asia. Minimal number of touts, everything's expensive, and drivers don't try to kill you.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Singapore isn't just an airport?!?!?
For the first time in five visits to Singapore, and entering the country on three occasions, I finally actually stepped beyond the airport terminal boundaries and went into the city.
Singapore will be home for the next three nights. I am supposed to fly home on the 21st, but I am strongly considering otherwise--I talked to my airline today, and if I were to change dates, I'd only have to pay a flat change fee and no fare difference. Yes, the flat change fee is more than the cost of some of the airline tickets I've bought on this trip, but it is only about 10% of the cost of my transpacific ticket, so I'm thinking about squeezing in a couple more places that I might not get to see otherwise--and at the top of the list is Laos, which everyone who I met in Siem Reap was raving about. My limiting factor here is my supply of anti-malaria medication, which I have to take for a week when I get back in the states, which means the most I could extend my trip would be by 3.5 weeks (I physically counted the pills last night).
My main impression of singapore--after really having not done all that much--going to the airline ticket office, the airport, my hostel, and doing a marathon photo upload session on facebook to backup my backup system (i still haven't finished)--is holy sticker shock! I'm definitely not in Cambodia anymore--i'm paying more for a bed in a dorm room here than I did for an aircon room with a shower in a safe, non-sketchy, family run guesthouse in Siem Reap. Bar placards consider it a "deal" to get 5 beers for 35 singapore dollars (about 28 usd).
I really liked Siem Reap--it has a good nightlife scene, and easily my favorite bar of the trip. Shockingly, considering how much I've written about the topic, the bar isn't a brothel or a girly bar. In fact, I asked the bartender last night why there weren't any working girls there (they are in some other bars) and she said that they had banned them. Meaning that the only solicitation you will get at that place is from the bartender or waiter asking you if you want another drink.
Perfectly understandable considering that one of the bar's unofficial mottos is "this place isn't a traveler's information center, so shut up and drink." It was actually a lonely planet recommendation that proved to be dead on.
three random notes from my 3 hour flight from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh to Singapore (i didn't change planes, it was a triangle route).
The airports may be cambodian, but the airport prices are certainly western--think $2.50 for your standard bottle of water from a shop. Since you can't drink cambodian tap water, you are pretty much forced to pay it. Just outside, you'd pay 50 cents for that same bottle.
Cambodian airports don't trust each other. After having gone through the necessary security procedures in Siem Reap, all of us that were making the en route stop in Phnom Penh were forced to get off the plane and go through security yet again, even though Jetstar doesn't carry any purely domestic passengers. The comparison in the U.S. would be if you were on a Chicago-Dallas-Houston flight, and you were forced to go through security again at Dallas even though you did the same thing at Chicago.
I think a celebrity named "pitbull" was sitting behind me, but I honestly have no idea who the guy is. I've just seen his face plastered on all sorts of billboards, so the face looked familiar, and the flight attendants, after arriving in singapore, posed for a picture with him--he was also accompanied by four very big and large security personnel.
Singapore will be home for the next three nights. I am supposed to fly home on the 21st, but I am strongly considering otherwise--I talked to my airline today, and if I were to change dates, I'd only have to pay a flat change fee and no fare difference. Yes, the flat change fee is more than the cost of some of the airline tickets I've bought on this trip, but it is only about 10% of the cost of my transpacific ticket, so I'm thinking about squeezing in a couple more places that I might not get to see otherwise--and at the top of the list is Laos, which everyone who I met in Siem Reap was raving about. My limiting factor here is my supply of anti-malaria medication, which I have to take for a week when I get back in the states, which means the most I could extend my trip would be by 3.5 weeks (I physically counted the pills last night).
My main impression of singapore--after really having not done all that much--going to the airline ticket office, the airport, my hostel, and doing a marathon photo upload session on facebook to backup my backup system (i still haven't finished)--is holy sticker shock! I'm definitely not in Cambodia anymore--i'm paying more for a bed in a dorm room here than I did for an aircon room with a shower in a safe, non-sketchy, family run guesthouse in Siem Reap. Bar placards consider it a "deal" to get 5 beers for 35 singapore dollars (about 28 usd).
I really liked Siem Reap--it has a good nightlife scene, and easily my favorite bar of the trip. Shockingly, considering how much I've written about the topic, the bar isn't a brothel or a girly bar. In fact, I asked the bartender last night why there weren't any working girls there (they are in some other bars) and she said that they had banned them. Meaning that the only solicitation you will get at that place is from the bartender or waiter asking you if you want another drink.
Perfectly understandable considering that one of the bar's unofficial mottos is "this place isn't a traveler's information center, so shut up and drink." It was actually a lonely planet recommendation that proved to be dead on.
three random notes from my 3 hour flight from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh to Singapore (i didn't change planes, it was a triangle route).
The airports may be cambodian, but the airport prices are certainly western--think $2.50 for your standard bottle of water from a shop. Since you can't drink cambodian tap water, you are pretty much forced to pay it. Just outside, you'd pay 50 cents for that same bottle.
Cambodian airports don't trust each other. After having gone through the necessary security procedures in Siem Reap, all of us that were making the en route stop in Phnom Penh were forced to get off the plane and go through security yet again, even though Jetstar doesn't carry any purely domestic passengers. The comparison in the U.S. would be if you were on a Chicago-Dallas-Houston flight, and you were forced to go through security again at Dallas even though you did the same thing at Chicago.
I think a celebrity named "pitbull" was sitting behind me, but I honestly have no idea who the guy is. I've just seen his face plastered on all sorts of billboards, so the face looked familiar, and the flight attendants, after arriving in singapore, posed for a picture with him--he was also accompanied by four very big and large security personnel.
Monday, May 17, 2010
A Yehudiah in a Muslim School, part 1
This is my long awaited post on my visit to Banjarmasin--the title of the post is ripped off from a course that I shopped several times, but never actually took called "Jews in Muslim Lands." In Bahasa Indonesia, Yehudiah (sp?) means Jew or Jewish.
TV Journalists often talk about going inside a hidden world, or unprecedented access into an unknown society or culture. Most of those programs promoting the revelation of juicy details, however, are fluff--given the nature of the profession, journalists generally have to identify themselves or it is clear that they are journalists, which means that only people who want to talk to them will. This usually results in speaking with some reformed members of whatever society or world that have an axe to grind or a score to settle and speaking with the lawyers or the pr people from that group. You never actually really get to understand what the average person thinks or feels.
Well, I got my own version of insider access into a world rarely visited by most westerners or tourists. My friend taught for a year at a small, all-girls muslim school in a place about 20-30 minutes from the Banjarmasin airport, only accessible via dirt roads in a small suburban community--think a suburb/rural village blend, and you will kind of get the gist of where this place was located. When I asked her for some tips about travelling in Indonesia, I told her my plan, and she said that if I was interested in visiting her school and the all boys school a five minute motorbike away, she would set it up for me.
Because of my limited time, I had to make a decision--it was either going to be Bali or Banjarmasin. For most people, this would be a no-brainer--Bali, of course. I thought about it, and the more I did, the more I realized that by the time I was going to get there (week four), I was probably going to be a little worn out and in need of a break from the tourist track. Besides, at worst it would be an interesting and unique experience, and so I figured, why the hell not? I wrote my friend back and told her that I was indeed interested. Bali was out, going back to Borneo (banjarmasin is in Indonesian Borneo--Kalimantan) was in.
I was in a unique position when I visited--I was technically an outsider, but since I knew one of their coworkers and good friends, I was also an insider. I wasn't a part of their community, but I was trusted like I was a lifelong member. Certain people in that community opened up more to me than they did to their neighbors, a level of openness that I haven't even achieved with some of my close friends. Some told me secrets or asked me questions that they were too afraid to tell their neighbors or friends because of different social stigmas. It is out of respect for the privacy of these people that I am unable to reveal all that was said for fear that it might have a negative consequence for them.
When I arrived in Banjarmasin after my infamous flight from hell on Lionair, I really didn't have any idea of what to expect. My friend told me some things--ie, its a conservative community, bring lots of gifts, dos/don'ts--but not everything. I emailed my host (and airport pickup) my flight information, but I didn't know what the guy looked like, where I would be staying, what I would be doing etc. To let him know what he was looking for at the airport, I sent him a note saying that I was a yellow haired bule with a backpack and with skin reddened by the harsh Indonesian sun.
Still physically shaking from the flight, I picked up my bag and headed out to the arrivals area--after looking around aimlessly cluelessly for a minute, a skinny kid about my height and age, asks me if I was mr. charlie. The skinny kid was Mi'raj, one of my friend's friends--a 23 year old teacher at the school, where he graduated from--and he was going to be my host. Though he continually apologized for his "poor" english, the reality was that he could have gotten along just fine in the U.S. or any english speaking country. Its obvious that he wasn't a native speaker, and had some trouble with slang, but he was functionally fluent.
Sometimes you meet people and you just "click" for whatever reason--and you feel like you have known them for longer than you really have. This was the case with Mi'raj and I--we got our respective senses of humor, and didn't have any problems other than the occasional misunderstanding of slang that I used.
I hopped onto his motorbike, with my bag strapped to my back, and off we went into the Bornean night. I generally have a good sense of direction, but I honestly had no idea how the town was laid out, where everything was relative to each other, etc. We stop for dinner at a roadside shack, much to the relief of my shoulders, and soon we are off on the dirt roads to get to the school. After about 15-20 minutes or so of bouncing around on the motorbike, we finally arrive at the school--separating the two story standard issue student housing/some class rooms from the single story houses where the teachers live were a basketball courts, a fussball court, and a dirt courtyard. Raj shows me to my room, in his house, and I am shocked. I was expecting bare bones, but the place was nicer than some of the hostels and hotels I have stayed at--big bed, desk, chair, tv, and closet, and an ice cold air conditioner. Talk about a pleasant surprise.
His house consisted of two bedrooms--mine and his--a breakfast room, a sitting room, a kitchen, a toilet room, and a mandi room (basically, bucket shower), in a space probably just smaller than the den and the living room of my house.
All things considered, it was a pretty sweet setup.
Part 2 to come.
TV Journalists often talk about going inside a hidden world, or unprecedented access into an unknown society or culture. Most of those programs promoting the revelation of juicy details, however, are fluff--given the nature of the profession, journalists generally have to identify themselves or it is clear that they are journalists, which means that only people who want to talk to them will. This usually results in speaking with some reformed members of whatever society or world that have an axe to grind or a score to settle and speaking with the lawyers or the pr people from that group. You never actually really get to understand what the average person thinks or feels.
Well, I got my own version of insider access into a world rarely visited by most westerners or tourists. My friend taught for a year at a small, all-girls muslim school in a place about 20-30 minutes from the Banjarmasin airport, only accessible via dirt roads in a small suburban community--think a suburb/rural village blend, and you will kind of get the gist of where this place was located. When I asked her for some tips about travelling in Indonesia, I told her my plan, and she said that if I was interested in visiting her school and the all boys school a five minute motorbike away, she would set it up for me.
Because of my limited time, I had to make a decision--it was either going to be Bali or Banjarmasin. For most people, this would be a no-brainer--Bali, of course. I thought about it, and the more I did, the more I realized that by the time I was going to get there (week four), I was probably going to be a little worn out and in need of a break from the tourist track. Besides, at worst it would be an interesting and unique experience, and so I figured, why the hell not? I wrote my friend back and told her that I was indeed interested. Bali was out, going back to Borneo (banjarmasin is in Indonesian Borneo--Kalimantan) was in.
I was in a unique position when I visited--I was technically an outsider, but since I knew one of their coworkers and good friends, I was also an insider. I wasn't a part of their community, but I was trusted like I was a lifelong member. Certain people in that community opened up more to me than they did to their neighbors, a level of openness that I haven't even achieved with some of my close friends. Some told me secrets or asked me questions that they were too afraid to tell their neighbors or friends because of different social stigmas. It is out of respect for the privacy of these people that I am unable to reveal all that was said for fear that it might have a negative consequence for them.
When I arrived in Banjarmasin after my infamous flight from hell on Lionair, I really didn't have any idea of what to expect. My friend told me some things--ie, its a conservative community, bring lots of gifts, dos/don'ts--but not everything. I emailed my host (and airport pickup) my flight information, but I didn't know what the guy looked like, where I would be staying, what I would be doing etc. To let him know what he was looking for at the airport, I sent him a note saying that I was a yellow haired bule with a backpack and with skin reddened by the harsh Indonesian sun.
Still physically shaking from the flight, I picked up my bag and headed out to the arrivals area--after looking around aimlessly cluelessly for a minute, a skinny kid about my height and age, asks me if I was mr. charlie. The skinny kid was Mi'raj, one of my friend's friends--a 23 year old teacher at the school, where he graduated from--and he was going to be my host. Though he continually apologized for his "poor" english, the reality was that he could have gotten along just fine in the U.S. or any english speaking country. Its obvious that he wasn't a native speaker, and had some trouble with slang, but he was functionally fluent.
Sometimes you meet people and you just "click" for whatever reason--and you feel like you have known them for longer than you really have. This was the case with Mi'raj and I--we got our respective senses of humor, and didn't have any problems other than the occasional misunderstanding of slang that I used.
I hopped onto his motorbike, with my bag strapped to my back, and off we went into the Bornean night. I generally have a good sense of direction, but I honestly had no idea how the town was laid out, where everything was relative to each other, etc. We stop for dinner at a roadside shack, much to the relief of my shoulders, and soon we are off on the dirt roads to get to the school. After about 15-20 minutes or so of bouncing around on the motorbike, we finally arrive at the school--separating the two story standard issue student housing/some class rooms from the single story houses where the teachers live were a basketball courts, a fussball court, and a dirt courtyard. Raj shows me to my room, in his house, and I am shocked. I was expecting bare bones, but the place was nicer than some of the hostels and hotels I have stayed at--big bed, desk, chair, tv, and closet, and an ice cold air conditioner. Talk about a pleasant surprise.
His house consisted of two bedrooms--mine and his--a breakfast room, a sitting room, a kitchen, a toilet room, and a mandi room (basically, bucket shower), in a space probably just smaller than the den and the living room of my house.
All things considered, it was a pretty sweet setup.
Part 2 to come.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Battambang/Phnom Penh/Siem Reap
No witty titles this time around, unfortunately.
I'm back in Siem Reap after having done a circle around Cambodia--there are more flight options from Siem Reap than Phnom Penh, and its a better town to relax in for a day. Tmw, I will be flying Siem Reap-Phnom Penh-Singapore, but I don't connect in Phnom Penh. The airline I'm flying, Jetstar, flies a triangle route, routing the aircraft Singapore-Siem Reap-Phnom Penh-Singapore. I leave around 745 am local time, and arrive around 1205 local time--singapore is an hour later than cambodia.
Singapore will be my last stop, as on the 21st I fly Singapore-Hong Kong-Los Angeles-DFW.
I was going to go help out at an orphanage today, but since the place is 1.5 hours away, I sent off an email just to make sure it was okay to stop by two days ago, but unfortunately the email inbox was full. I also assumed that I would be able to make airline reservations yesterday, but for whatever reason, I was unable to (rant start: thank you, mastercard. I spend 20 minutes on the phone with one of your representatives in the Singapore airport trying to iron the situation out, the person telling me it is okay, that my credit card should work, but it still doesn't. It was working fine for the first month, but now you tell me that it didn't work because I was out of my area? How does that make sense? If that was the case, then why wasn't it flagged back in Malaysia when I started the trip? rant end), and had to do it this morning. By the time I was finished, it was too late to head out there--which is too bad.
In spite of Cambodia's myriad problems, it does have a ton of honest NGOs working here. If you ever want to take a volunteer-vacation, come to Cambodia, and contact these places directly--don't pay some middleman to set it up for you--lots of these legit places have websites and can be easily contacted.
Lonely Planet describes Battambang as a small, lazy riverside town with well preserved french architecture along the river. I describe it as one boring place with crumbling french buildings and the only nightlife to be found is one of the various girly bars. I tried going to the place that the book recommended--a bar seemingly popular with expats, but it was a sketchy looking shack, and so I had my driver take me back to the hotel, after declining several "massage" offers, as well as an offer to take me to a place frequented by former Khmer Rouge members. Drinking with dictators--I'll skip that.
In my brief time in Battambang, however, I did go out to some limestone hills for a nice panoramic sunset view, and saw bats emerge from their hiding place at dusk and take to the skies like a giant cloud of locusts. Thank god I had already made reservations for the boat to Siem Reap.
Sick of buses, I decided to take a boat ride, which, in the dry season, isn't probably the best idea--the water is very shallow, and the boat is forced to go slow--the trip took 8 hours start to finish in a small boat no bigger or wider than three suburbans lined up trunk to bumper. Yes, there was a bathroom on board, but you probably didn't want to use it. It was roofed, however, which meant that we weren't blasted by the sun.
It was actually quite fun--the 15 people were mostly tourists, and I spent most of the time talking to a fellow American (and a native Israeli 2001 JJ Pearce grad who now lives in Anchorage) and a german nurse. It was also pretty scenic--you got to see the various riverside communities and houses built on stilts, and fishermen at work. Granted, it did get a little tiresome after the first three hours when every little village starts to look the same, but you could still see some random sites of interest--like a riverside christian church, or a bamboo shack with a satellite tv dish on top of it. I also got to cross SE Asia's largest lake, the Tonle Sap, home to thousands of birds, and some of the world's largest freshwater fish, like the Mekong giant catfish and the Mekong giant stingray (look 'em up on wikipedia). The river into Siem Reap was extremely shallow in the narrow navigable parts--no more than knee or ankle deep in some parts, which made for an interesting final hour as you have to wait for some larger tourist boats to pass you in one direction--in some cases, boats heading opposite ways were no more than six inches apart.
Now, back to Phnom Penh.
I did the typical tourist route--I went to the royal palace--neat and fancy, but an interesting contrast to the khmers living just outside the palace gate in extreme poverty. I also got there on the king's birthday, which meant that the place was all lit up, and there were lots of concerts at night, and people celebrating.
I explored some of the wide, DC national mall style boulevards surrounding the palace and the river, where there were several memorials and monuments, as well as a giant casino (the only legal one in Cambodia) known as "nagaworld"--naga is a mythological creature from buddhism--think supersized, magical snake--and sculptures and depictions of them are all over the angkor temples. Phnom Penh is located where the tonle sap river and the Mekong intersect, so I was also to take lots of pictures of one of the world's most famous rivers. The place also has a nice riverside walk, lined with cafes, shops, and restaurants--a generally safe area for tourists, though I was continually offered marijuana, cocaine, and girls from the various tuk tuk drivers.
Stopped by the Foreign Correspondents Club of Cambodia for a mid afternoon snack--the place is pretty famous--its been on the Amazing race, and is considered a must go. I wasn't all that impressed--American style if not more expensive prices, and the place was also crawling with ants. As far as I am concerned, if you want to have a drink and watch the river, there are plenty of other better options in Phnom Penh to go--most only just steps away from the FCCC.
The National Museum is a nice, red building, but the building itself is more impressive than its collection--at least the museum is nice and tidy, and presents the collection well, unlike another famous museum with a red facade (Egyptian museum in Cairo) where you are literally tripping over artifacts, while also trying your best not to touch anything because the place seems to haven't employed a janitor since the Nasser era--king tut area is immaculate, though.
For whatever reason, walked up to Wat Phnom, the highest point in the city, which really did have the greatest views, but did tire me out in the heat--again, that's a place worth skipping if you don't have much time. Also went to the "lake" to watch the sunset--again, an overrated experience, since it isn't much of a lake, and the area around it is pretty dirty and grungy.
If you don't like history or learning about tragedy stop reading now, because aside from the sex trade, Cambodia has another darker side to it--the era of the Pol Pot led Khmer Rouge and the civil war that resulted in the deaths of millions of Cambodians--some of which were killed in the crossfire, some of which were murdered or exterminated (after first having been tortured) by the ruthless Khmer Rouge.
I was told by people who had been to Phnom Penh that the two places that you simply cannot miss are the killing fields and the Tuol Sleng Museum. Having been to both, I can now vouch for that, and entirely agree. If you have any ounce of compassion or sympathy in your body, you will be horrified by what took place and be in a state of shock.
The killing fields are located about 14 kms outside of Phnom Penh, past the airport, and located at a former orchard that is now being transformed into a suburb. Being sent there was a death sentence--there was no escape--and you were either promptly shot, or, to save bullets, bludgeoned to death by the butt of a rifle. The place is hauntingly pretty in the fading afternoon light, surrounded on two sides by ricefields--there is a white temple that serves as the ossuary that preserves the bones of some of those found there. As you wander around, you start to notice some various depressions in the ground that looked as if they were craters from shell explosions. They aren't. They were the mass grave sites were the victims were tossed after they were killed. They have also preserved a small bit of land where bone fragments are still present in the ground.
There was only one thing that detracted from my experience. As I wandered around on the trail next to the fence, several children appeared on the other side and started begging and pestering me. I had a can of pringles visible, and they wanted my "yum-yums." This continued for a good 15-20 minutes. I'm sorry, and I realize and am well aware that Cambodia is desperately poor, but this place is a sacred site--a place of mass murder (over 20,000 killed at this one place)--and deserves to be treated as such. That means visitors wishing to learn or pay their respects shouldn't have to be solicited by beggars. I know this is a selfish thing to say, and it wasn't wise for me to have the can of pringles visible, but if you would be offended by being pestered at a concentration camp or a gulag site while inside the property fence, then you would be offended by being asked for food at this site. Again, this is just my opinion--you can disagree with me if you want, calling me insensitive, selfish and a whole other list of descriptions, but it is what I thought at the time and still think.
Rode back to Phnom Penh in the fading afternoon light, and had some spectacular views of the setting sun in the ricefields and various stilted villages.
Next morning, I went to the tuol sleng museum (s21)--a former high school that was transformed by the Khmer Rouge into a prison and a torture chamber in the heart of Phnom Penh. After they passed through s21, prisoners were taken to the killing fields. Only seven people, out of the thousands that passed through, survived. It wasn't just males they were after--they killed anybody they suspected of being an enemy of the state, or not agreeing with the decrees of Pol Pot--whether you were a man, woman, or child. They even sometimes turned inward, killing their own who they thought were disloyal or traitors. The only people who were ever truly safe were the people at the very top I thought the place was more haunting than the killing fields because there was more information available, and rows upon rows of photographs that the khmer rouge took of their prisoners when they entered the place, some of these people no more than 2 years old.
They've preserved the old beds and instruments used to torture, and as a whole, they did a great job of presenting the site. Its hard to describe a place of so much notoriety as a highlight, but it really cannot be missed.
The torture isn't the only thing that will disgust you when you visit the site. Some of the information you learn will as well. I mentioned earlier that the U.N. should hire cambodian kids as translators--that's because they owe Cambodia, big time. The Khmer Rouge lost full control in 1979 (after ruling for four years) when a Vietnam backed group took back the country and forced the KR into fighting a guerilla war. The U.N. didn't see it that way, and fully earned their New York Post moniker of "the thugs club" by continuing to recognize the Khmer Rouge and having them occupy Cambodia's seat at the U.N. until 1991. Please remove the plastic bag from the seatback in front of you, and commence vomiting. Yes, Pol Pot was actually recognized as the rightful ruler of the country, even though he had just been responsible both directly and indirectly for the death of millions of his countrymen.
Unfortunately, the U.S. isn't exactly innocent either. Because of the nature of cold war geopolitics, where the enemy of my enemy was always my friend, even if that friend was a dictator, mass murderer, or both, the U.S. actually supported the Khmer Rouge for a short while since the bitter aftertaste of the Vietnam War still lingered.
The other interesting exhibit at the museum, other than that of the victims, is of the conflicted issues surrounding the conflict that are still present in Cambodia to this day. While those at the top were certainly guilty, there were lots of Khmer Rouge members who were forced to join the group at the barrel of a gun--meaning they and their families would have been killed if they didn't join and participate in some of the atrocities. Its a complicated moral and ethical issue, to say the least, something that the country is still trying to deal with.
Only now, 30 years after the reign of the Khmer Rouge, are those responsible for the group's various crimes against humanity actually being tried by courts and tribunals. Side note--at the royal palace, I actually met a pretty, newly minted law graduate from Australia who is actually working for the prosecution on one of these trials--she was at the palace because her parents were visiting her for the weekend.
Some, unfortunately, will never be formally tried or judged because they have already died. Pol Pot, the mastermind of the whole operation, died in 1998, never having been held accountable for the deaths of his countrymen.
I don't have a phd in comparative genocidal studies, nor in german or cambodian history, and only know what I've picked up from reading various books and informational displays, so I am in no position to make any sort of comparison between the Khmer Rouge and the Nazi Party or the Soviet Union under Stalin. I will leave that to those qualified to undertake such a task.
I have, however, visited the Buchenwald concentration camp, and so I am in a position to contrast what I felt and thought at Buchenwald versus Tuol Sleng/Killing Fields. Again, these were purely my emotions, nothing more, nothing else. The feeling at both sites were identical--and, if anything, I actually felt slightly worse leaving Tuol Sleng than Buchenwald. Yes, I'm proud to be Jewish, but I'm also proud to be an American. In World War II, Jews were being exterminated, but at least my country was one of the good guys. In Cambodia, the U.S. wasn't one of the good guys. Even if we didn't obviously support the Khmer Rouge, we certainly looked the other way and refused to denounce them. And that is why I felt slightly worse--because in this case, the U.S. wasn't the knight in shining armor, and so, as an American, I felt a tinge of guilt and shame for what my country did and didn't do.
I'm back in Siem Reap after having done a circle around Cambodia--there are more flight options from Siem Reap than Phnom Penh, and its a better town to relax in for a day. Tmw, I will be flying Siem Reap-Phnom Penh-Singapore, but I don't connect in Phnom Penh. The airline I'm flying, Jetstar, flies a triangle route, routing the aircraft Singapore-Siem Reap-Phnom Penh-Singapore. I leave around 745 am local time, and arrive around 1205 local time--singapore is an hour later than cambodia.
Singapore will be my last stop, as on the 21st I fly Singapore-Hong Kong-Los Angeles-DFW.
I was going to go help out at an orphanage today, but since the place is 1.5 hours away, I sent off an email just to make sure it was okay to stop by two days ago, but unfortunately the email inbox was full. I also assumed that I would be able to make airline reservations yesterday, but for whatever reason, I was unable to (rant start: thank you, mastercard. I spend 20 minutes on the phone with one of your representatives in the Singapore airport trying to iron the situation out, the person telling me it is okay, that my credit card should work, but it still doesn't. It was working fine for the first month, but now you tell me that it didn't work because I was out of my area? How does that make sense? If that was the case, then why wasn't it flagged back in Malaysia when I started the trip? rant end), and had to do it this morning. By the time I was finished, it was too late to head out there--which is too bad.
In spite of Cambodia's myriad problems, it does have a ton of honest NGOs working here. If you ever want to take a volunteer-vacation, come to Cambodia, and contact these places directly--don't pay some middleman to set it up for you--lots of these legit places have websites and can be easily contacted.
Lonely Planet describes Battambang as a small, lazy riverside town with well preserved french architecture along the river. I describe it as one boring place with crumbling french buildings and the only nightlife to be found is one of the various girly bars. I tried going to the place that the book recommended--a bar seemingly popular with expats, but it was a sketchy looking shack, and so I had my driver take me back to the hotel, after declining several "massage" offers, as well as an offer to take me to a place frequented by former Khmer Rouge members. Drinking with dictators--I'll skip that.
In my brief time in Battambang, however, I did go out to some limestone hills for a nice panoramic sunset view, and saw bats emerge from their hiding place at dusk and take to the skies like a giant cloud of locusts. Thank god I had already made reservations for the boat to Siem Reap.
Sick of buses, I decided to take a boat ride, which, in the dry season, isn't probably the best idea--the water is very shallow, and the boat is forced to go slow--the trip took 8 hours start to finish in a small boat no bigger or wider than three suburbans lined up trunk to bumper. Yes, there was a bathroom on board, but you probably didn't want to use it. It was roofed, however, which meant that we weren't blasted by the sun.
It was actually quite fun--the 15 people were mostly tourists, and I spent most of the time talking to a fellow American (and a native Israeli 2001 JJ Pearce grad who now lives in Anchorage) and a german nurse. It was also pretty scenic--you got to see the various riverside communities and houses built on stilts, and fishermen at work. Granted, it did get a little tiresome after the first three hours when every little village starts to look the same, but you could still see some random sites of interest--like a riverside christian church, or a bamboo shack with a satellite tv dish on top of it. I also got to cross SE Asia's largest lake, the Tonle Sap, home to thousands of birds, and some of the world's largest freshwater fish, like the Mekong giant catfish and the Mekong giant stingray (look 'em up on wikipedia). The river into Siem Reap was extremely shallow in the narrow navigable parts--no more than knee or ankle deep in some parts, which made for an interesting final hour as you have to wait for some larger tourist boats to pass you in one direction--in some cases, boats heading opposite ways were no more than six inches apart.
Now, back to Phnom Penh.
I did the typical tourist route--I went to the royal palace--neat and fancy, but an interesting contrast to the khmers living just outside the palace gate in extreme poverty. I also got there on the king's birthday, which meant that the place was all lit up, and there were lots of concerts at night, and people celebrating.
I explored some of the wide, DC national mall style boulevards surrounding the palace and the river, where there were several memorials and monuments, as well as a giant casino (the only legal one in Cambodia) known as "nagaworld"--naga is a mythological creature from buddhism--think supersized, magical snake--and sculptures and depictions of them are all over the angkor temples. Phnom Penh is located where the tonle sap river and the Mekong intersect, so I was also to take lots of pictures of one of the world's most famous rivers. The place also has a nice riverside walk, lined with cafes, shops, and restaurants--a generally safe area for tourists, though I was continually offered marijuana, cocaine, and girls from the various tuk tuk drivers.
Stopped by the Foreign Correspondents Club of Cambodia for a mid afternoon snack--the place is pretty famous--its been on the Amazing race, and is considered a must go. I wasn't all that impressed--American style if not more expensive prices, and the place was also crawling with ants. As far as I am concerned, if you want to have a drink and watch the river, there are plenty of other better options in Phnom Penh to go--most only just steps away from the FCCC.
The National Museum is a nice, red building, but the building itself is more impressive than its collection--at least the museum is nice and tidy, and presents the collection well, unlike another famous museum with a red facade (Egyptian museum in Cairo) where you are literally tripping over artifacts, while also trying your best not to touch anything because the place seems to haven't employed a janitor since the Nasser era--king tut area is immaculate, though.
For whatever reason, walked up to Wat Phnom, the highest point in the city, which really did have the greatest views, but did tire me out in the heat--again, that's a place worth skipping if you don't have much time. Also went to the "lake" to watch the sunset--again, an overrated experience, since it isn't much of a lake, and the area around it is pretty dirty and grungy.
If you don't like history or learning about tragedy stop reading now, because aside from the sex trade, Cambodia has another darker side to it--the era of the Pol Pot led Khmer Rouge and the civil war that resulted in the deaths of millions of Cambodians--some of which were killed in the crossfire, some of which were murdered or exterminated (after first having been tortured) by the ruthless Khmer Rouge.
I was told by people who had been to Phnom Penh that the two places that you simply cannot miss are the killing fields and the Tuol Sleng Museum. Having been to both, I can now vouch for that, and entirely agree. If you have any ounce of compassion or sympathy in your body, you will be horrified by what took place and be in a state of shock.
The killing fields are located about 14 kms outside of Phnom Penh, past the airport, and located at a former orchard that is now being transformed into a suburb. Being sent there was a death sentence--there was no escape--and you were either promptly shot, or, to save bullets, bludgeoned to death by the butt of a rifle. The place is hauntingly pretty in the fading afternoon light, surrounded on two sides by ricefields--there is a white temple that serves as the ossuary that preserves the bones of some of those found there. As you wander around, you start to notice some various depressions in the ground that looked as if they were craters from shell explosions. They aren't. They were the mass grave sites were the victims were tossed after they were killed. They have also preserved a small bit of land where bone fragments are still present in the ground.
There was only one thing that detracted from my experience. As I wandered around on the trail next to the fence, several children appeared on the other side and started begging and pestering me. I had a can of pringles visible, and they wanted my "yum-yums." This continued for a good 15-20 minutes. I'm sorry, and I realize and am well aware that Cambodia is desperately poor, but this place is a sacred site--a place of mass murder (over 20,000 killed at this one place)--and deserves to be treated as such. That means visitors wishing to learn or pay their respects shouldn't have to be solicited by beggars. I know this is a selfish thing to say, and it wasn't wise for me to have the can of pringles visible, but if you would be offended by being pestered at a concentration camp or a gulag site while inside the property fence, then you would be offended by being asked for food at this site. Again, this is just my opinion--you can disagree with me if you want, calling me insensitive, selfish and a whole other list of descriptions, but it is what I thought at the time and still think.
Rode back to Phnom Penh in the fading afternoon light, and had some spectacular views of the setting sun in the ricefields and various stilted villages.
Next morning, I went to the tuol sleng museum (s21)--a former high school that was transformed by the Khmer Rouge into a prison and a torture chamber in the heart of Phnom Penh. After they passed through s21, prisoners were taken to the killing fields. Only seven people, out of the thousands that passed through, survived. It wasn't just males they were after--they killed anybody they suspected of being an enemy of the state, or not agreeing with the decrees of Pol Pot--whether you were a man, woman, or child. They even sometimes turned inward, killing their own who they thought were disloyal or traitors. The only people who were ever truly safe were the people at the very top I thought the place was more haunting than the killing fields because there was more information available, and rows upon rows of photographs that the khmer rouge took of their prisoners when they entered the place, some of these people no more than 2 years old.
They've preserved the old beds and instruments used to torture, and as a whole, they did a great job of presenting the site. Its hard to describe a place of so much notoriety as a highlight, but it really cannot be missed.
The torture isn't the only thing that will disgust you when you visit the site. Some of the information you learn will as well. I mentioned earlier that the U.N. should hire cambodian kids as translators--that's because they owe Cambodia, big time. The Khmer Rouge lost full control in 1979 (after ruling for four years) when a Vietnam backed group took back the country and forced the KR into fighting a guerilla war. The U.N. didn't see it that way, and fully earned their New York Post moniker of "the thugs club" by continuing to recognize the Khmer Rouge and having them occupy Cambodia's seat at the U.N. until 1991. Please remove the plastic bag from the seatback in front of you, and commence vomiting. Yes, Pol Pot was actually recognized as the rightful ruler of the country, even though he had just been responsible both directly and indirectly for the death of millions of his countrymen.
Unfortunately, the U.S. isn't exactly innocent either. Because of the nature of cold war geopolitics, where the enemy of my enemy was always my friend, even if that friend was a dictator, mass murderer, or both, the U.S. actually supported the Khmer Rouge for a short while since the bitter aftertaste of the Vietnam War still lingered.
The other interesting exhibit at the museum, other than that of the victims, is of the conflicted issues surrounding the conflict that are still present in Cambodia to this day. While those at the top were certainly guilty, there were lots of Khmer Rouge members who were forced to join the group at the barrel of a gun--meaning they and their families would have been killed if they didn't join and participate in some of the atrocities. Its a complicated moral and ethical issue, to say the least, something that the country is still trying to deal with.
Only now, 30 years after the reign of the Khmer Rouge, are those responsible for the group's various crimes against humanity actually being tried by courts and tribunals. Side note--at the royal palace, I actually met a pretty, newly minted law graduate from Australia who is actually working for the prosecution on one of these trials--she was at the palace because her parents were visiting her for the weekend.
Some, unfortunately, will never be formally tried or judged because they have already died. Pol Pot, the mastermind of the whole operation, died in 1998, never having been held accountable for the deaths of his countrymen.
I don't have a phd in comparative genocidal studies, nor in german or cambodian history, and only know what I've picked up from reading various books and informational displays, so I am in no position to make any sort of comparison between the Khmer Rouge and the Nazi Party or the Soviet Union under Stalin. I will leave that to those qualified to undertake such a task.
I have, however, visited the Buchenwald concentration camp, and so I am in a position to contrast what I felt and thought at Buchenwald versus Tuol Sleng/Killing Fields. Again, these were purely my emotions, nothing more, nothing else. The feeling at both sites were identical--and, if anything, I actually felt slightly worse leaving Tuol Sleng than Buchenwald. Yes, I'm proud to be Jewish, but I'm also proud to be an American. In World War II, Jews were being exterminated, but at least my country was one of the good guys. In Cambodia, the U.S. wasn't one of the good guys. Even if we didn't obviously support the Khmer Rouge, we certainly looked the other way and refused to denounce them. And that is why I felt slightly worse--because in this case, the U.S. wasn't the knight in shining armor, and so, as an American, I felt a tinge of guilt and shame for what my country did and didn't do.
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