Nick’s Asian Adventure
 
 
Part 2 - Cambodia 4-April-07 (continued) After some exploring, R&R, and waiting Koen and Matt pulled up in front of the guesthouse where I was waiting for them. We had a few drinks (Matt and I played high-low with the bar tender and ended up getting our drinks free of charge!) and were soon joined by an English gal named Vanessa who was traveling by herself while in the purgatory of employment. Within five minutes of meeting we established that she would get up at 0400 and accompany up to Cambodia! She ended up being the perfect compliment to our group and we missed her when we eventually parted ways (it’s true!). So although we had four travelers, we were still short one, and there was no sign of Can anywhere... so we hit the sack at about midnight half expecting to leave without him. 5-April-07 0330... a drunken mess of a Turk stumbles into the room with loud greetings and various ranting that was lost among polite requests for him to shut up and come back in half an hour. We grudgingly rolled out of bed and grabbed a taxi (which Can bargained for) to the train station to catch the 0600 to Aranyaprathet. The train ride was fairly spectacular (but not to Can as he was sleeping) considering the wooden seats and that the tracks were visible through some parts of the floor. We had about six hours of train-based sight-seeing that, for the most part, was easy to stay awake for. When we arrived we proceeded to bargain for two tuk tuks to the Cambodia border (~5km) for about half an hour, not getting very far. In the interim Vanessa suggested that we try eating some crickets that were on display by a local vendor... crickets don’t really taste like much of anything (something like Tarantula, which came later), but the legs sort of poke the gums. After hours of waiting for people to get done messing around with various things we finally crossed the Thai border. When we got to the Cambodia visa office the attendant asked for $30 (US Dollars are the currency of choice in Cambodia)... this is another SCAM that I read about while planning this trip... a Cambodia visa costs $20, no more, no less...it pays to do your homework kids! However, I found myself in awe that anyone ever fell for this SCAM as there is a large sign directly above the window where paperwork and payment are submitted stating “CAMBODIA TOURIST VISA - $20”. I laughed at the attendant and pointed at the sign after which he noticeably avoided eye contact. He then proceeded to tell me that a visa could also be purchased for 1000 Baht. This made me laugh a bit more since 1000 Baht is ~$34. He conceded this to me and attempted to justify it by telling me that the ‘tip’ would make the paperwork go faster. I didn’t fall for his trickery. Another hour later we had packed into taxi’s and were headed down the ‘highway’ to Siem Reap (see video: CambodianHighway). Between the border to Siem Reap (and half way to Battambang) they are in the process of putting in a real road... it is hard to imagine what it was before because right now it is all roughly plowed gravel and about 3.5 cars wide... which means that three cars and a motorbike or two can pass each other in opposing directions at high speeds with centimeters to spare. Apparently this is normal since non of the drivers bat an eye, us tourists on the other hand are taking half-breaths and trying not to piss ourselves. I would equate this with something like bajaing a Toyota Camry in traffic. About three and a half hours later we pulled into Siem Reap and breathed a little deeper as the road became paved, and the lines were observed enough so that we could let the blood flow back to our knuckles... Can slept through it all... he is a professional sleeper you see. We directed the driver to a guesthouse that had been recommended to someone in our group and ended up taking a few rooms at the Garden Village Guesthouse. As we checked in we saw John (another HKUST student) who was traveling with his sister and a few friends. One of which had been airlifted to Bangkok after sustaining a broken leg when hit by a motorbike crossing into pub street (needless to say we were extra careful of traffic, and everything else, from then on... there are no real hospitals yet in Cambodia... another feature adding to the adventure of this trip). We also had the fortune of meeting a tuk tuk driver named Chan (pronounced much the same a Can, which is pronounced something like ‘John’). He offered to be our guide/driver for our excursion to Angkor the following day. Can bargained with him and eventually agreed to meet him the next morning. After getting showered and settled we proceeded to ‘pub street’ which ended up being the best night-life in Cambodia, and also the most touristy. We hit up a british-style pub fittingly named “Angkor Wat?” and were surprised to find Marton, Patrick, and Cleo (three more fellow HKUST students) inside! We spent the evening meeting various people and having a jolly time until the wee hours of the morning. 6-April-07 No one was very quick about getting up, so we got to the Angkor temples around 1200 and began our tour of the ‘small circuit’ which consisted of Bayon, Ta Keo, Ta Prohm, and sunset at Cambodia’s famous and revered Angkor Wat (which is symbolized on their national flag. See pictures: ThailandCambodia(2)). We met a free-spirited German guy named ‘Bogart’ who we planned to meet at pub street that evening. As one might imagine; walking through these massive, intricate, ancient monuments brings a feeling of awe, especially with regard to the amount of dedication and sheer manpower needed to complete such an enormous feat (without modern equipment of course)! As I was forewarned, Angkor is a major tourist attraction. Tourists bring money, Cambodia is a developing country whose people lack money, hence they use just about every tactic conceivable to help tourists part with it. I have heard about people becoming frustrated with beggars and people trying to sell them things. I have little sympathy for such people as they have no sympathy themselves. It is not true that you must give to or buy from every beggar or ‘little merchant’ that you see, in fact this will just attract more attention. I found that it is entirely possible, albeit with some patience, to convey a kind understanding such that being harassed is not much of a problem. They are completely harmless and are absolutely delighted if you do choose to buy something from them. After a good day of temples we decided that a local Khmer restaurant, absent of tourists, was in order. Koen and Matt weren’t too hot on the idea, so Chan took Can, Vanessa, and I to an everyday local single-dish restaurant. The meal consisted of some kind of oil/soup on a propane burner into which we threw all sorts of ingredients from vegetables like ‘morning glory’ to cow brains... yes, cow brains. see pictures. So while these ingredients stewed we took raw meat with our chopsticks and cooked it fondue-style. It was delicious! A debate ensued over whether a certain ingredient was a testicle. It turns out that the ingredient in question was not. However, Chan took this opportunity to order us one cow testicle (or two, can’t be sure as it/they was/were chopped)... these are a delicacy here! As with most weird foods, it was nothing like expected and was actually quite good (cricket...check, brain...check, testicle...check. Thats a lot of firsts in two days!). The conversation rolled on from this to that as we explored each others cultures and backgrounds, and I began to see the pricelessness of such experiences. It was interesting, and I was glad, that Chan did not shy from the subject of the Khmer Rouge. Even though the violence in Cambodia subsided over a decade ago, the effects of several decades of war and atrocity are still very apparent. He told us of the family that he lost and showed us the scar across his arm where a bullet had grazed him among other things, and just as easily as it came up, the conversation moved on. (I really respect this attitude since silence around such subjects will continue to breed fear until the next generation which, if no one talks about it, will have no idea of their history which increases the chance that it could repeat itself, and leaves the victims long forgotten. Because the Khmer (or at least Chan) speak openly about the Khmer Rouge, violence, and war they show their strength to overcome, ensure that future generations will know the truth of their history, and remember the victims whose lives were claimed... and I will restrict my rant to that). I think that Chan enjoyed our company just as much as we enjoyed his, which was verified when he asked if we would like to come to his home for dinner the following evening... we graciously accepted of course! After Chan took us back to the guesthouse to clean up and have a drink at the rooftop bar (socialized with some more backpackers) headed back to pub street (naturally). We met up with Patrick, Marton, Cleo, and eventually Bogart and a party ensued. 7-April-07 (my birthday) I am not sure who set it up, it was either Koen, Matt, Can, or all three, but at EXACTLY the stroke of midnight I was hoisted up onto some shoulders and bombarded with a hearty chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ with three BUCKETS of something strong (rum and coke?) to wash it down.... I am pretty sure that everyone had a pretty awesome night. The original plan was to stay up all night and meet Chan at 5am to watch the sunrise over Angkor... I didn’t make it that long and didn’t wake up despite numerous valiant attempts. So again, I got a tuk tuk drive (Mr. Sok Ny) and finally made it to Angkor around noon and proceeded to do the ‘Grand Circuit’ which included Preah Khan, Neak Pean, Ta Som, East Mebon, and Pre Rup. I deviated from the plannd route and skipped Banteay Srei due to time constraints. However, I replaced it with a museum highly recommended to me that is run by an extraordinary man named ‘Aki Ra’ (www.cambodialandminemuseum.org). Aki Ra has quite a life story and currently spends his days voluntarily removing land mines and other unexploded ordinance from the countryside. He runs his museum/land mine victim refugee/de-mining operations on donations for the sole purpose of making Cambodia safe again. Another amazing Cambodian...talk about a hero! After wishing I had more time to stay at the museum (which is rare... museums and I don’t usually get along) Mr. Sok Ny rushed me back to the guesthouse where I cleaned up and was whisked away (not surprisingly via tuk tuk) by Chan to his home about 15 km East of Siem Reap. I may never be able to convey in writing or speech what this experience was like, so please let it suffice, for now, to say that it was __________________________________________________. Everything seems different now. Chan has a wife and, I believe, five wonderful kids (there were so many neighbor kids running around that it was tough to tell). On their property they have a well, a large garden, and a house on stilts that is maybe 300-400 square feet. Underneath is a cooking area and a generator, from what I could see. Upstairs is one room where there is a master bed, the kids beds, and a light & color TV that run on a car battery...they were hooking up to power the week after we left. After touring Chan’s property and spending some time playing with the small horde of neighborhood kids (or were they playing with us?), we went upstairs where Chan invited us to sit on the dining mat on the floor. After talking a while over some beers his wife brought up the first course of fish, rice, and soup. At some point she brought up some chicken too, but we were too busy gorging ourselves to notice. We did, however, ask Chan how to say “This food is excellent” in Khmer as his wife does not understand english(‘Chi nah haap nin’)... I think she understood that we meant it. It was fabulous. I had no idea what to expect, but if I had, it would have surpassed all expectations! After we were good and plump the kids were allowed in and the TV came on... post dinner relaxation time... sort of like opening up the belt a notch. We hung around for a while and practiced some nonverbal communication with the kids who were more entertained by us than the TV most of the time. They loved our digital cameras, one of Chan’s daughter’s did everything she could to jump into every picture (she is the one at the top of this page...that is my favorite picture of the entire trip), and we showed them each picture after we took it which they throughly enjoyed. I eventually attempted to show one of the kids how to use my camera and noted that it was passed to the eldest son, and proceeded down the line of seniority until the very curious daughter had her way with it. Chan also mentioned that he is planning on starting an english school on the lower level of his house for the neighborhood kids and maybe more, using a government subsidy... I nominate Chan for Sainthood! Eventually the time came for us to leave, so we slowly said our goodbyes, took some farewell pictures and were on our way strangely affected. The tuk tuk ride back was somewhat surreal with only smiles offered all around...until we had a blowout. The added weight of dinner is my suspect. This offered yet another chance to see the real Cambodia. We separated the motorbike and cart and a young boy that was getting a ride into town from Chan (one of his sons?) took the bike to a repair shop for a replacement. We spent the next 30-45 minutes standing on the side of the road on the outskirts of Siem Reap talking and watching the effects of the night on the town... which were few. People carried on almost as if darkness had never fallen... kids were playing in the streets, cars and motorbikes zipped by, cows wandered and were led to wherever it is that they go, and this is life. When we got it all back together and made it back to town, Matt hustled off to a date he had set up and Can and I went out for a few drinks. We ended up in the company of two lovely swedish girls with whom we joked, drank, and danced the night away with style. Having an unbeatable birthday is much more sweet than bitter. 8-April-07 With little rest we paid a whopping $6 for a three hour bus and parted with the charming city of Siem Reap to Cambodia’s capital city; Phnom Penh. During one of the few pits stops that were made I attempted to get a little sleep, but eventually decided to get off the bus and stretch my legs only to find Matt holding a fried tarantula and timidly nibbling at one of the legs mumbling something about poison. After watching him pussyfoot around for about a minute (albeit after one of the locals with limited english answered ‘yes’ to the question, “Is it poisonous?”) I said, “Give me that damn thing!”, grabbed the silver dollar sized spider and chomped off half of it (not sure which half, but I am still alive. Why would they sell a poisonous snack? To kill off the tourists and backpackers? Tarantula...check). Tasted like chicken... just less-dense, more crispy, and a bit spidery. We got back on the bus and to Phnom Penh. When we got to Phnom Penh we headed to the lake, where we had heard there was a nice breeze that kept things cool. Matt and I took the cheapest room possible (at the #10 guesthouse, which we will never do again) and got a few beers while Can and Koen went to check out several other places. We eventually resolved to try to find some nightlife, of which we found very little. So we had a drink and headed back to the hostel for some much needed sleep, which was not as easy as it should have been... I blame the cheap room. 9-April-07 Running on two near-sleepless nights now. Can slept professionally late and delayed our tour slightly. We started the day off with a BANG capable of getting Can out of bed and ready in a hurry, and continued on to a chearless place; the Choeung Ek Killing Fields. This is where the Khmer Rougy/Pol Pot’s took people to be burried/killed after ‘interrogation’ (torture). The most striking thing is the monument which is several meters high, and filled with the skulls of a fraction of the victims of the Killing Fields. In some places there are still bones visible in the ground. After this we went on to an even more gruesome place; S21. S21 is where the victims of the Khmer Rouge were detained, ‘evidence’ against them was piled up, and ruthlessly ‘interrogated’. It is appalling what people are capable of doing to each other (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge). There isn’t much more to say about this other than that today was very sober and I appreciate democracy a lot more now. While there were four of us in the back seat of the taxi Koen, sitting alone in the front seat, thought it would be nice to have the driver take us on a driving city of the tour, which was nice with the exception of sharp elbows and ass-bones. Back to the #10 guesthouse to check out, and move next door to the Grandview guesthouse (a whopping $0.50 more and much nicer). Sat on the dock at the lake for a few beers and dinner which is where we re-discovered Bogart (the German guy we met during the sunset at Angkor Wat). I practiced my German over a few beers and headed to bed for some much needed sleep. 10-April-07 Up at the crack of dawn to hop another bus (5-6 hours) to Battambang. Fairly uneventful bus ride this time... weird. When we finally got there and finished trying to bargain for guesthouses we snagged lunch at another VERY local place where we got a bowl of rice and... whatever it was in some big pots on the side of the street. It was....okay. We rented some motorbikes and within five minutes Matt have succeeded in crashing one of them. In light of this, some of us hired guides/drivers to drive about, but Can and I took our own bikes. About an hour after Matt’s incident we began our tour of the countryside villages. All told we were on the bikes for about three hours with one hour spend on the “bamboo train” (see pictures), that is nothing but a platform on rails which was used at one time to transport goods between villages. Nowadays there is a motor attached via v-belt to one of the axles. To my surprise, the motor is not mounted to anything, but sits in a notch that allows the operator to slowly tilt the motor backwards or forwards to adjust the belt tension, serving as a sort of clutch. Once she is up to speed, the operator sits on the motor to keep the belt tight and enjoys the ride... until another ‘train’ comes in the opposite direction. Someone has to stop and take their ‘train’ off the track in order for either to pass (see pictures). After a day of riding and exploring we had dinner at the ‘White Rose’ and went back to the Royal Guesthouse for some more sleep and another early rise to get to the border in time to catch the train back to Bangkok. I was keen on staying another day in Battambang to explore, maybe take a Khmer cooking class, and because I didn’t really like our hit-and-run travel method. 11-April-07 I ended up not feeling like staying another day the next morning and taxied it along the same crazy gravel road to Poipet (Cambodian side of the Thailand/Cambodia border) with the rest of the gang (Vanessa was still with us!). I am not sure about anyone else, but I didn’t really want to leave Cambodia. It wasn’t really an overwhelming feeling, but I was so impressed with the country, the people, the food, the diversity, atmosphere, etc. etc. that I wanted to see more and be impressed by that too... Cambodia exceeded all of my expectations, the good and the bad were amplified more that I thought possible. The atypical dichotomy of their recent past and their current jovial laid-back lifestyle is an object of my admiration to be certain. The fact that this attitude is carried by people young, old, poor, limb-less, is a wonder in itself. These people have paid the price of knowing pain and suffering to have what they do today... not that it was ever their choice, but what a tradeoff... really makes a guy humble thinking about all the things he has taken for granted that these folks may never experience (30 minute oven pizza, movies on demand, they do have mobile phones, however). At the same time I envy their relatively stress-free lives in contrast with the ‘1st world’ rat race... now that I think about it, I don’t think I saw a single waiting line in Cambodia... except for some fair-skinner sightseers. Anyways..... six hours back to Bangkok: Part 3 Pictures: ThailandCambodia(2) ThailandCambodia(2.5) ThailandCambodia(3) ThailandCambodia(4) ../CambodianHighway.html../ThailandCambodia%282%29.htmlhttp://www.cambodialandminemuseum.orghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_RougeEE903F3C-9FAE-4776-8695-85C5B704AE22.html../ThailandCambodia%282%29.html../ThailandCambodia%282.5%29.html../ThailandCambodia%283%29.html../ThailandCambodia%284%29.htmlshapeimage_2_link_0shapeimage_2_link_1shapeimage_2_link_2shapeimage_2_link_3shapeimage_2_link_4shapeimage_2_link_5shapeimage_2_link_6shapeimage_2_link_7shapeimage_2_link_8
 
The Thailand/Cambodia Adventure - Part 2
Wednesday, April 18, 2007