London Pride

After Russell picked me up from the airport, we drove through the quiet pre-dawn roads of London to their beautiful flat in the neighborhood called 'Barnes' which is just outside of central London and has a gorgeous and serene view of the Thames.

I arrived in time to have breakfast with the kids as they were getting ready for school and then Kim, the kids, and I went on a neighborhood walk to orient me a bit, find the bus stop as well as the local shops.  I had been wearing my mid-warmth jacket and sneakers and quickly found out that this was not nearly warm enough for London especially since my blood had been dramatically thinned by southeast Asia.  I made it back to the flat alone for some down time and spent quite a lot of it warming back up.  I had only been out for maybe 20 minutes and I felt like I would never be warm again!

I headed into downtown and met Russell for a pint at the 'Lamb and Flag' before heading to the Royal Opera House to see Sarah perform in Onegin.  I was so jetlagged by then, as well as being generally tired from the events of the previous two days, but was so excited to finally be there that I was glad to stand behind the orchestra stalls to watch the performance.  I have seen 'Onegin' performed a couple of times by the Royal Ballet of Canada and it's true that Rex Harrington does it well.  But Sarah's performance was so deep, and smart, and gorgeous, and I knew that I was seeing something special.  The way her character changed and grew through the story was unlike anything I had ever seen before and I loved it.  The dramatic pas-de-deux right before the first intermission was so fast, so committed, so passionate...and the finale was so complex that it gave me goosebumps.  After the performance I used my new Vietnamese crowd navigating skills to make my way to a meetup point where Sarah's husband Patrick took me and her friend Ellie backstage.  I got to see the stagehands tearing down the set to prepare for the British Art and Film Awards and then got to see Sarah and her father John (whom I haven't seen in 13 years).  I got some great photos, chatted briefly with her and her dad, and then let her get back to her changeroom to begin the process of taking off her makeup and get ready for the next day which I'm sure begins with a four-hour class.  Sarah has sacrificed everything to be the best.  I will not have a chance to catch up with her (and I did not expect to).  I wonder if people know, when they are watching the dancers take the formal curtain calls, how much these people give up.

The next day Kim, Russell, the kids and I walked around the neighborhood of Barnes a bit and climbed the bell tower of a church that was built by Henry VIII.  The volunteer led us all carefully up the narrow spiral staircase to the top and then showed us how the 8 great bells are rung.  After that we walked to the pond and fed the ducks.  This neighborhood is full of young families and seems to be a good place to grow up.

On Monday I headed into downtown and made my way to the British Tate Museum.  A lot of the exhibitions were under renovation but I was still glad to be out of the cold and walking through galleries of paintings and bronzes.  I took the ferry to the Tate Modern and discovered that this is where all the action is.  The museum was packed with tourists and school groups (even after 4pm!).  I joined a free tour of the galleries on the 4th floor and enjoyed looking at pieces that are meant to make you aware of their materials and composition.  Massive steel beams balanced just so or a huge tree carved away to reveal what seems to be a young tree inside.  I wandered around looking for the Rodin 'The Kiss' that I know is supposed to be there (one of a handfull in the world) and eventually had to ask where it was only to find out it was off display.  Boo.

I then walked across the Millenium pedestrian bridge, took a look at the ever-impressive St. Paul's, walked to Blackfriars underground station, and made my way back home.

Yesterday morning I went to Cameron's school and watched one of those little assemblies that kids put on for parents.  Watching six-year olds tell the story of the Chinese New Year and seven-year olds act out the lives of Empire penguins was a good chance to snap some photos for my hosts but also gave me a little bit of insight into what it must have been like for my parents to watch seventeen years worth of band recitals. 

After this, I met Sue (from the first G Adventues tour) who came in on the bus from Norfolk and we walked around Westminister, took a bus to Oxford Circus, and then went shopping along Oxford street.  I wish the weather could have been just a little bit warmer so it would have been pleasant to sit outside in Trafalgar Square or St. James Park.  Hopefully the next time I am here I will be able to do that.  Good British beers and ciders were drunk, and it was so nice to catch up with a friend.

Tonight I will see Sarah perform Thais after having one more London Pride at the pub.  This will bring me to the end. 

Thank you for reading.

Leslie

Koh Chang: Ferries, Motorbikes, and Automobiles

The morning of my trip to Koh Chang, I was delayed a bit at my hotel and then could not find a taxi who would bring me to the bus terminal for a reasonable amount of money so I ended up taking transit.  As a result, I missed the first bus and had to wait around for an hour.  This foreshadowed many of the other problems I could, and did, run into travelling to, around, and from the island of Koh Chang.

It took the large bus almost six hours to drive to the ferry terminal where we were rushed onto an overcrowded bus...only to be driven a mere fifty feet to the actual pier and then walked onto the ferry.  I had been sitting next to a young woman travelling from Finland and together we sat on the floor of the ferry because it was so crowded there were no seats left. 

After about 45 minutes we arrived on Koh Chang and were greeted by many of those shared taxis who tried valiantly to cram everyone on with the luggage strapped to the roof.  As it was, a woman had to hang on to the back of the vehicle as we sped up, down, and around very high hills on the way to the beaches. 

When I got dropped off at 'White Sand' beach, I approached one of the local travel agencies with a couple of the other travelllers and they were told that their guesthouse was 100m away but mine was 1km!  Actually it was more like 1.5km and yes, I hiked the whole thing while carrying an extra 20 kilos.  When I arrived at the hotel, they told me that for the first night I would be at the sister hotel across the road and would then move for the second night.  The sister hotel bungalow was so new that it still had paint buckets outside of the balcony, and when I asked where the blankets were, I was told that I was supposed to use the oversized towels that were folded on the bed. 

After a much-desired shower, I made my way back down the hill into town and looked for a restaurant that was recommended in my guide book.  When that didn't work I just picked one at random (which actually was also recommended) and sat at a table right on the sand next to the waves.  I couldn't see them because it was dark but I knew the sea was there.  Anyway, I was approached by a woman who asked if I was travelling alone and when I said I was, she said so was she so I invited her to join me for dinner.  My original plan for Koh Chang was to go and be alone for a couple of days, not really talk to anybody or be beholden to anyone else's schedule.  But the reality is that it is much nicer to sit at a romantic table on the beach with company; Even if that company is a perfect stranger.  Caroline was staying in the area for three weeks so she had quite a bit more flexibility than I did.

After dinner, I walked back along the main road ended up paying way too much money for a pedicure.  But whatever.  When I walked out I felt ready for the beach. 

I was woken up at 6am the next morning by the unbelievable loud howling of all of the wild dogs that live near the resort.  When I got out of bed to investigate, I saw a couple of them right outside my window on my little porch.  After a while I gave up and moved my stuff across the road to the main hotel and then went for breakfast.  Breakfast was a decent buffet spread but the real story is the view.  We were perched at the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean with lush trees all around.  That atmosphere is worth the price of admission.

I walked back into town and met Caroline, and together we took a taxi to the Khlong Pluu water fall in the national park.   This is one of those places that is free for local Thais but costs foreigners 200 Bhat which is about 7 dollars! 

The 500m walk to the falls was through beautiful jungle and even though I'm sure the falls themselves are more impressive in rainy season, they were still pretty with a clean, deep pool at the bottom that was perfect for swimming.  That was the first time I had been in water my entire trip! 

There were even a couple of local life guards of sorts who watched and made sure that nobody was in any kind of danger. 

After freshening up back at the hotel I met Caroline again and we both had a Thai massage on the beach. 

While I was lying on my stomach I was watching little ants climb through the sand and I could hear the ocean just a few meters away.  Very civilized...and I can't think of anything comparable back at home.  We had another lovely romantic dinner on the beach and that was the end of my only full day on Koh Chang.

Let me describe it a bit.  I am not sure what I was expecting but I think that the beaches and lakes of Canada have spoiled me forever.  I chose Koh Chang because it is supposed to be less developed than the other destinations like Pattaya or Phuket.  But I have come to the conclusion that 'less developed' simply means that the hotels are not as big and there are not quite as many tourists.  Because as it is, the entire beachfront is covered with guesthouses and restaurants.  The main road is full of shops for beachware and other touristy things. 

Since there is no real public transit other than shared taxis, many tourist rent motobikes so there were tons of Europeans driving around on these things.  And finally, there were some nice bars, but there were also so many places with Thai women in short skirts and high heels looking bored and waiting to reel in some travelling men.  There were many families and couples on the beaches, but the only Thai people there were either working, or were the wives of white men.  In the end, despite enjoying the natural beauty, and the gorgeous water, it just wasn't my kind of place.   At least, not in my current stage of life.

My room for the second night was wonderful and faced the ocean and it is a shame that I did not have it the entire time. 

I woke up the second morning, checked out after breakfast, and walked to town for a final swim in the ocean.  The ocean was beautiful and relaxing and I had no idea what kind of nightmare experience I was about to have for the next 36 hours.

I had asked my hotel's concierge how to get to the Bangkok airport from where we were and he told me that I could leave in the afternoon, take the ferry back to the mainland, and then catch a minibus (which he said left hourly) back to Bangkok and from there I knew I could get the airport easily using transit.  Well, the porter drove my luggage and me on his motorbike to the town and then we could not find a taxi willing to take me to the pier.  It took half an hour to find someone willing to do so and when I got to the pier, I had just missed the ferry and had to wait 50 minutes for the next one.  This was annoying but not a huge problem because I had given myself four extra hours to get to the airport.  There were no tourists on the ferry and an Englishman who was working on Koh Chang told me that the other pier was more suitable for what I was trying to do but I could probably take a taxi to the other pier on the mainland to catch a minubus.  Once we arrived back on the mainland, there was a taxi waiting there and the driver told me that there were no more buses going to Bangkok from the pier and that the last one was at 2pm.  I tried to ask him about the other pier but he said there were none there too.  The English guy was going into the nearby town of Trat and the driver told me I could catch a minubus from there.  I wasn't thrilled with the idea but I agreed because I still felt I had enough time.  Once we got to the Trat minibus station, the woman there told me that the next bus was not for another hour and a half.  This would put me into Bangkok at 10:30 and I knew I would not have enough time to get the airport.  The taxi driver offered to arrange a private taxi for me and in the end I accepted the even though it was expensive (but not as expensive as missing my flight I though and it was a four-hour drive after all).  Anyway, he said we would leave immediately but we did not end up leaving for another hour and a half because he was having difficulty finding a driver willing to take the job.  Once he found a driver, we then had to wait around for the driver's wife to arrive and come with us (either to keep him awake or for decency's sake - who knows).  The entire time I was waiting they kept telling me "5 minutes" or "20 minutes" or whatever and I really had no control over the situation whatsoever. 

Trat is not a pretty town. 

And I was stuck there with a bunch of strangers waiting to get chauffered like a princess back to Bangkok.  I was stressed and nervous and hoping that I would not end up as a statistic.  But like so many things in SE Asia, things are never as they seem.  So if I was seeing a run-down and sketchy corner, they saw their everyday workplace.  I learned another lesson in perspective.

We finally got underway at 6:30 in the evening and since the trip was supposed to take 4 hours (according to the driver) and that would get me to the airport with enough time to check in.  Well, after about half an hour we pulled over because the engine was overheating (and I thought...really?...REALLY?).  We were able to drive but at a slower speed to a service station where they changed the oil and then things seemed to be alright again.  I was beginning to relax and chat a bit with the woman driver who spoke some English.  It was only when we were at our second stop getting a snack from the 7-Eleven, when I asked how much longer we had to go.  When she told me "3 hours" I thought maybe I had asked the question wrong...but no.  The cold realization that I was very likely going to miss my flight, or at best that it would be very close, began to hit me.  The trip that everyone said should take  4 hours was going to take 5.  I tried very hard to explain that you have to be at the airport very early for an international flight but these were simple and good people and had zero concept of what I was trying to get across.  I think they did try to drive faster though.  We arrived at the airport comples around 11pm or just after (flight at 00:30) but then the driver missed the turn to the passenger terminal area, pulled over on the other side of a parking lot, and hopped out to ask for directions.  He came back to tell me that I had to walk across the parking lot to get to the terminal because the minibus could not drive through.  Any attempt I made to explain that we had to drive back around to the turn we missed was not at all understood.  And I knew at that point that this was the final nail in the coffin and these precious minutes would mean that the gate would close before I got there.  And that is exactly what happened.  I ran across the parking lot, into the terminal, up three levels, and found the check-in desk...all with 20 kilos on my back.  And was told that the check-in desk had closed 20 minutes earlier and that there was nothing I could do.  I ended up staying at a cheap hotel near the airport and I stayed up until 2am trying to get through to Quantas so I could get on the next flight out.  In the end I bought a new ticket with British Airways because it was less expensive than the Quantas ticket (even with the credit for what I already paid).

If you count up all of the time I lost (30 minutes taxi, 50 minutes ferry, 40 minutes drive to Trat, 1.5 hours waiting to leave Trat, and a 5 hour trip instead of 4), you can see that I had factored in more than 4 hours of extra time to get to the airport in case I ran into problems.  I am a seasoned international traveller and never have things gone so incredibly wrong.  I blame myself a little for not getting a second opinion on the travel options back to Bangkok but really, the concierge at the hotel told me that when he goes to Bangkok, he does exactly what he advised me to do, and helping me is supposed to be his job.  I'm not sure that I could have done anything differently. 

Anyway, I found myself with an extra day in Bangkok so after leaving my luggage at the airport, I went to Siam Centre and walked around a variety of air-conditionned shopping malls.  I enjoyed a performance for the Chinese New Year, and thought about watching a movie. 

For dinner I had some wicked-awesome street food (something I will really miss) of freshly-fried chicken, fried noodles, and some fresh fruit of a variety that I have never seen in Canada.  I then headed to the airport and checked in so early that I even had a choice of window or aisle (aisle of course for this long a flight).  I wandered around and bought some stuff in duty-free, and that was it. 

You know, life is funny sometimes.  As I was sitting in my seat and watching the other passengers walking down the aisles, I recognized the Spanish guys who were with my mother and me on the Halong Bay boat trip.  They were leaving Asia and on their way to Barcelona via London.  In fact, they were sitting right next to me so I had somebody to talk to and share a few stories.  That was a pleasant surprise.

Russell met me at the airport and we arrived at their house in London just after 6am.  I have now been in London for 36 hours and all of this seems very distant.  It must be the weather.

As always, thanks for reading.

Leslie

Back to Bangkok

The day we crossed the border back into Thailand, we left our hotel at around 8am.  In retrospect, we probably should have left at 5am because the wait time at the border is...outrageous.  We drove through the countryside out of Siem Riep until we reached the border crossing.  At that time, Kevin told us to go directly to the line up and get our paperwork done in order to exit Cambodia and enter the no-man's-land in between the Thai and Cambodian borders.  This border town is, as one of the other travellers put it, the Wild West.  There were carts full of goods (all legit I'm sure) being pulled by men and women dressed in rags and flip-flops crossing from one side to the other.  There were cars and motorbikes going everywhere, and the whole place had a certain air about it...hard to describe...but it seriously stank of rotting garbage because no one was responsible for cleaning up.

After getting our stamps to get out of Cambodia, we then had to walk across a bridge to the Thai border.  One we got there, there were hundreds of others waiting and we learned that our wait time was four hours or so to cross the border.  I won't go into details, but I will say that we managed to get across in a mere hour and a half.   We then got into two separate minibuses and were driven the rest of the distance to Bangkok.

For our last dinner we were back at Khao San Road amid the noise, backpackers, street bars, and street salespeople.  Good stories were swapped, and good words spoken, and then it was the end..  After dinner some people opted to go out for a bit of a night on the town and we began with a beer while sitting on plastic chairs on the street out in front of a laundry service shop.  After this we made a move to a bar where there was a good guitarist playing some good classic stuff like Oasis, Nirvana, Cyndi Lauper, and other things from the 90s which of course suited me just fine.  My night ended in a really cheesy and kind of weird underground night club with red lighting and a nearly empty dance floor.  I stayed there for about 20 minutes before bidding farewell to the others and returning to the hotel via tuk-tuk

The next day, some of us from the group who were still in town decided to head back into town to see Wat Pho (2nd time for me), the Royal Palace, and Wat Arun.  The reclining Buddha with the beautiful feet inlaid with mother-of-pearl is still a beauty even after all of the other beautiful things I have seen.  The Royal Palace is very impressive with beautiful hand-painted columns, walls, and very high ceilings. 

Wat Arun proved to be the steepest and scariest thing I have climbed this whole trip.  The steps become so narrow that you have to turn your feet sideways in order to go up or down and I learned that this is so you are forced to concentrate on what you are doing (ascending to heaven, or descending back down to Earth) so you take the experience more seriously.  Wat Arun has little bells everywhere that chime when the wind blows past them and it made the entire place tinkle magically.

To return back to the hotel, we shared a taxi with a negotiated price and had to spend quite a bit of time convincing the driver that we did not need a private tour to a snake show, or a ladyboy show, or the floating markets etc...And we were a captive audience because there was so much traffic it took us forty minutes to get back to the hotel.  That night, the guys went to see a Muay Thai match and Alison and I went to the giant and fascinating MBK shopping mall where I bought another pair of shoes...quality footwear...you understand.  We left each other that evening with a plan to meet up the next day and head to the SkyBar.  I went back to that mall the next day on my own and had my hair done.  It seems that everyone's hair got so dry in Cambodia and when the nice man asked me if I wanted a protein treatment, I said YES and I think I will have another one once I'm back home. 
Well, I never did manage to meet up with those guys.  I went on a day tour to the old Thai capital of Ayutthaya and saw some more interesting ruins that had been built in the style of Angkor period but were nowhere near as spectacular.  One of the highlights is a Buddha head that has tree roots growing all around it.

  The tour also took us to another temple with a very large sitting Buddha and I think that I am now officially all Templed out as they say.  The tour returned us to Bangkok along the river on a cruise boat with a nice buffet spread for lunch and I had some nice conversations with the other single travellers (assigned seating) and then returned to the hotel.  I was supposed to meet the Spanish guys for 5pm but they were a little late arriving and then too sick (food poisoning) to go out.  I left a message at the hotel for Russell and Alison but it wasn't meant to be because, in a final attempt, I went alone to the Skybar and had a look around.  Even though they weren't there I'm really glad that I got to see it.  What a lovely view of the city at night, with a live jazz band backlit with soft white lighting, and a fantastic bar and restaurant. 

I only stayed five minutes but it was long enough to get the  idea.  I returned to Khao San road and after a bit of searching, I found our tour leader Kevin in the same restaurant we were in a couple of days earlier, out for dinner with another tour leader and his group on their last day.  Since Kevin is so familiar with the nightlife of Bangkok, he was happy to go out with them to show them around, and I was happy for the company.

On my third free day in Bangkok I went to the Siam Square area in downtown and walked around for a little while among the boutiques and market stalls before heading back to the hotel for some down time.  I have learned that for a lot of these areas, the streetscape doesn't really come alive until the evening when the food vendors come out, and the streets become chocked with local Thais out hunting for interesting cheap fashions and cheap tasty street food.  I hung around Siam Square only long enough to buy a hair elastic and get a feel for the place. 

For my last day in Bangkok, I took the sky train out up to the northmost end of the line and walked through the weekend market.  I had thought that maybe I would be sick of markets and it's true that I wasn't tempted by the scores and scores of tourist-oriented trinkets, I was tempted by the art, the jewelery, and the shoes, and I was really impressed by the giant food area. 

Having finally recovered my appetite, I tried to compensate for days of missed treats with mango and coconut sticky rice, deep friend chicken in a spicy papaya salad, and some kind of mysterious sweet bread.  You can buy everything from birds and puppies, to knives and spoons, to fake flowers at this market and it was very easy to spend a few hours just wandering around.

That evening I meet up with Pooky and Sue for dinner since they had just finished their trip and it was nice to catch up with them and share stories.  We had dinner at a hotel on the water with a beautiful view and after dinner a few of us followed Pooky to a blues bar where she used to work as a bartender before becoming a guide. 

It was a different scene and full of expats from all over the world, and it was nice of Pooky to share a little bit of her life with us.

I know I have not gone into as much detail for these lazy days in Bangkok like I have for the others, but truthfully these days had a lot to do with relaxation and creature comforts and less to do with rushing all over to see everything there is to see.

Angkor Smile

How do I begin to describe the two days that we spent looking at the temples of Angkor Wat based in Siem Riep?  For so many people they are the primary reason for coming to Cambodia and it shows.  Our first morning, we met at 5am in order to drive to Angkor Wat, and walk in in the dark, so that we could watch the sun rise.  As we walked over the moat, I could tell that there were other people there, many other people...and in fact, once the sun was up, we all realized that we were there with 4000 others.  And as the day progressed, even more people began to arrive.

Our guide Mr. Ra led us through the temples over this two-day period and it was so stunning, with one magnificent photo opportunity after another.  The sheer magnitude size, and the complexity and overall vision of the carving, gives this place its well-deserved place as one of the wonders of the world.  Angkor Wat itself is only one Temple in the complex, and after walking through its corridors and looking at the bas-reliefs, we then ate a packed breakfast (the inescapable white bread, tiny banana, and boiled egg), and continued on to Angkor Thom which is the walled, main city of the classical Angkor period.  Inside the city walls are many temples including the graceful and haunting Bayon.  Each tower had four giant serene faces looking down on you from all sides and each face is made of many huge stones.  Everywhere I looked there was something beautiful to photograph and honestly, a photo can't capture the scope of the thing.

After the Bayon we visited a couple more locations in Angkor Thom and at the top of every set of stairs was always a group of industrious Cambodian youth trying to sell us guide books.  They have a rudimentary grasp of so many languages and I heard them trying to sell guide books in Chinese, Korean, French, and others.  It's actually quite impressive although after a while we got tired of being asked where we came from because it was the beginning of a fast and slippery slope into a sales pitch.  "Canada: Populations 36 million.  They speak English and French.  In Quebec they speak French.  Guide Book?"

Other temples we visited in Angkor Thom was Preah Khan with carved Ansara dancers throughout, and a Hall of Dancers that is still used today for visiting dignitaries.  I gave up on following our local guide at this point and simply followed Kevin and listened to him describe the things around us.  His experience as a local guide made this a really great idea.  I also took the opportunity to ask him other questions about Cambodia like how the great traditions were maintained and revivied after the Khmer Rouge.   

We also visited the spectacular Ta Prohm which is being overtaken by trees with massive roots that grow all over the stone walls.  It is also known as the 'Tomb Raider' Temple because Angelina Jolie once swung and leapt about those ruins.  There is even a 'Tomb Raider' cocktail at the Falang-friendly Red Piano restaurant. 

I think that I forgot to describe the classical Cambodian dance that we saw in Phnom Penh.  There were probably a couple of thousands of people there eating the rather dubious but elaborate buffet dinner (those Chinese and Koreans really eat!).  But once the performance began, I gave up on eating any more and walked right up to the front to see the dancing close up.  Some of the dancing was folk-ish telling classical tales of farming or fishing, or of courtship between men and women.  And a few of them showcased the exquisite 'Ansara' or heavenly nymph.  The dress was complex and beautiful and the dance itself was slow and deliberate and hugely controlled.  They do this amazing thing with their hands where they bend back the fingers somehow and tuck their thumbs in front of their palms.  I am not doing a very good job of describing it but it took my breath away.  I learned that our tour leader Kevin has a brother who did this style of dancing until one day he was spotted by an American who sponsored him to go to the US and train as a ballet dancer.  There is even a documentary about him called 'Dancing Across Borders' and once I'm back home I will look it up.  What a strange world we live in.

The afternoon of our second day in Siem Riep, we had some free time and so a small group of us hired our own private tuk-tuk and drove out to the stunning Banteay Srey temple.  It took us about forty minutes to drive there and we passed through some very poor villages along the way.  Mark, Russell, Alison, and I all agreed that the area we were driving through was more like what we expected Cambodia to look like.  But once we arrived at the temple, we were greeted with the familiar large tour buses and a very orderly and sanitary (relatively!) entrance area.  I'm sure that those Korean and Japanese tourists did not have the same experience that we did getting there, and did not feel the Cambodian countryside in our skin and hair.  I like our way better.  Banteay Srey is knows as the "women's temple" because the carving made into the red stones is so tiny and delicate that they think that only women's hands could have done it.  It is hugely different from the massive and spellbinding faces of the Bayon or the reclining Buddha carved into the entire back of the Baphuon Temple.  While we were walking through it our driver hung up a hammock in the back of his tuk-tuk and had a nap in the shade surrounded by other tuk-tuks. 

On the drive home we stopped at the grassroots Landmine Museum which just feels like an outpost with some basic information about the man who has taken the name Aki Ra and has single-handedly dismantled 50 000 landmines.  There are three landmines for every person in Cambodia and he himself laid thousands of them when he was a child soldier with the Khmer Rouge.  There is a sign at the front explaining his story and he says that he does not want to do any more interviews so if people want to know more then can read about him.  There is an orphange at the museum with art and photography as well as many old landmines on display.  It was very sobering and sad, and felt very raw and real.  Even today kids are still killed by landmines because they try to diffuse them in order to get at the metal inside to sell for scrap.

Also along the ride home was a village with over a dozen villagers stirring large vats of sugar cane juice to obtain the palm sugar which they then press into little disks to sell to tourists.

That evening we went for dinner at the Khmer Kitchen on Bar Street.  After dinner I met up by pure chance with Mark, Herlan, and Xavier in the market, and we walked to the Temple Bar where Kevin was playing pool with some very drunk and boisterous expats.  The bar itself felt like Hull in the 90s (it was so loud we couldn't even think) and so we went on to another bar with a live band for another drink. 

That single day was full of all of the range of emotions and feelings that I have associated with Cambodia.  Soaring and mindblowing classical architecture, empoverished gentle people making the most of their lot in life, heart-wrenching human stories, good food and beer, peculiar night life, and people always trying to sell me something.

Thank you for reading.  I hope that the next post will be able to describe my days in Bangkok and my trip to the beach.

Love Leslie

Khmer

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e arrived in Phnom Penh, we got a tour of the city by cyclo. A cyclo in Cambodia is different from the rickshaws or the tuk-tuks we have seen so far. The driver is seated high above the ground and behind the passenger. There is only a single gear and in order to stop or slow down, he has to reach behind him to pull up a handle that controls the breaks. The drivers are usually extremely poor men from the countryside and are usually too poor to have a place to sleep and are often abused and robbed. The agency that G-Adventes uses provides them with a place to sleep and bath, and they wear green T-shirts that make them very conspicuous (especially when they are travelling in groups of 16!) and large groups of Korean tourists were snapping our photos. My single-toothed driver only spoke the word ‘Okay!” and he pointed out various landmarks along the way.

King Sihanouk of Cambodia has just passed away a month ago and the city of Phnom Penh has been preparing for his cremation and funeral ever since. A huge structure is being built simply to provide a special place for his cremation. King Sihanouk came to power as a young man just as the French were losing control over Cambodia. He then was king during a brief golden age before the communist and capitalist powers began dragging the entire world into their fight for control. The history is so convoluted and complicated that I am sure that I won’t be able to tell it properly. But basically Sihanouk was ousted by a coup d’etat and during his exile, he made a pact with the newly formed Khmer Rouge to return to power. He never had that power however since the Khmer Rouge seized Phnom Penh in 1975 and began a violent social restructuring more dramatic than anything I have ever heard of. All of the people living in cities were cleared out in only three days and had to leave all of their belongings behind because the labourer was king under the new rule. The cities were empty during the Khmer Rouge time and when the people returned three years later, all of their possessions had been looted by the Vietnamese when they liberated Phnom Penh.

The next morning we were met by our local guide in the lobby of our hotel and we drove to the S.21 Museum.  S.21 represents Security 21 and it was one of hundreds of schools or pre-existing public building that were converted to detention and torture centres for the unfortunate Cambodians who came up on the radar of the Khmer Rouge regime.  S.21 used to be a high school but it's windowns were boarded up and covered in bars, its balconies were covered with barbed wires to prevent suicide attempts, and holes were smashed in the walls between classrooms to allow easy access from one jail block to the next.   Of all the thousands of people who were imprisonned in S.21, no one ever escaped, and only 7 survived.  Two of them wrote books and sign them for tourists.  I bought both of them.

The social restructuring of Cambodia was so sudden, and so violent, that it blows my mind.  The doctrine of extreme Maoism they followed forced the people out of all of the cities, like all of the people, like in all of the cities, and into rural communities.  There are maps on the walls showing the forced movement of people.  There were no people left in Phnom Penh left to see or hear what was happening in the school.  The Khmer Rouge was so anti-intellectual that even wearing glasses came to mean that you read too much and were therefore educated and therefore a revolutionary.  People who spoke other languages were assumed to be spies.  They separated husbands and wives to prevent unpermitted pregnancy and also forced couples of different classes to marry.  In just over three years they managed to kill half of the country's population.  The farms went fallow because none of the city people knew how to farm and so, along with a drought and famine, did tremendous damage.

Like the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge kept meticulous records of their dramatic attempt at restructing the social fabric of the country and there were rooms full of photographs of men, women, and children who were detained there.  I'm not even sure if how deeply I should go into the telling of the story because it was, and sadly continues to be, so sad.  I saw classrooms where there was a bed made all from steel, with no pallet, with dark stains on the tiles under the bed where the blood of the prisoner drained after having his throat cut during torture.

After S.21 we drove to the Killing Fields’ where there are thousands of people buried in mass graves as part of the final solution of the Khmer Rouge regime as it became imminent that they would lose to the Vietnamese.   They detained the intellectuals and other threatening people in the torture stations trying to force them to confess to spying for either the CIA or the KGB.  Once they were weakened, they were sent to the killing fields where they were easy to club to death with bamboo sticks.  Eyewitnesses who returned to the village near the Killing Fields said they noticed bits of cloths or brains or blood against trees, and that is how the killing fields were discovered and soon excavated.  With each rainy season, more bones become uncovered and even along the pathways intended for people to walk, you can see teeth and bones.

After lunch Patricia and wandered around the small Royal Museum and I got to get very close to the Khmer sculptures and gaze deeply at the faces and the ‘Anchor Smile’.  Apparently you can recognize the period of the sculptures by the serene face and smile that changed subtly over time.  That change of focus for me has very much encapsulated the spirit of Cambodia itself (they call Phnom Penh Heaven and Hell) 

 For dinner we went to the ‘Friends’ restaurant which has an excellent reputation for training young people in English and in the service industry. Our order was taken by two waiters (one teacher and one student) and the teacher translated and oversaw everything the trainee did.   The place also has a store next door where they sell goods made from recycled materials so I picked up a travel wallet and passport holder.  They also advertise the childsafe program which exists in SE Asia because exploitation of children is still a serious problem.

The next day was spent almost entirely on the bus driving from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep.  Even though the distance is only a couple of hundred of kilometers, the going is slow because of the quality of the roads.  On that long bus ride, our tour leader Kevin took the opportunity to tells us more information about the Khmer Rouge period and fill in some gaps left by our local guide.  It has been tremendously helpful to have a Cambodian be with us for this section of the tour.  Kevin is so open and frank, and he is willing to answer any question you ask him. 

That evening we went for dinner, and then drinks in the shockingly bright and raucous ‘Pub Street’ area.  I call it that because that name is written in neon lights suspended over the street in many places.  The same lights also tell you when you are in the ‘Night Market’ area.  I’ve never seen anything quite like it.  I ended the strange day with a $2 foot massage.  The two Spanish guys who were on the tour together decided to try the 'Fish Massage' where you sit around a tank, put your feet in the water, and let the little fish come along and eat your skin.  They giggled and shrieked like school girls and apparently the bigger fish can really bite.  Every time someone offers me a fish massage, I admit that I laugh in their faces and politely decline.

 

Thanks for reading.  Sorry if this post doesn't flow so well.  I wrote it two separate parts.

 Also, I tried to use html to upload photos and can't say I did the best job so...enjoy the creavity.  You can click on the failed photos to see them.

Leslie