Cambodia

Tales from Cambodia follow below the map.
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	Portrait of King Sihanouk & wife near Royal Palace, Phnom Penh	Angkor Wat		Silk Crafts School, Siem Reap
	Killing Fields at Chong Ek outside Phnom Penh		View from central temple, Angkor Wat	No comment.

Michael at Phu Quoc

Phu Quoc

Hagar in fishing boat,
Phu Quoc

Hagar, gone native

Michael at less-touristed
beach

Pet monkey playng with
pet dog at Phu Quoc

Sipping coconuts
on Phu Quoc Island

VIETNAM TO CAMBODIA: Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 04:24:25

Paradise and beyond

Hello troops!

We last left you (and us) waiting for a minibus from Cantho to Rach Gia (pronounced raw-ya with a hint, just a hint of "ch" like in Bach and a hint, just a hint of "z" where the y is; the point is, we don't know how to pronounce it). We woke up and rented a motorbike, and sped away to the floating market, where we were followed by a gang of guys on motorbikes who wanted to show us the "perfect place” to park. They conveniently had a boat, and after some tough negotiations, we set off to the river.

It was exciting! All the boats advertised what they were selling by attaching a sample of it (watermelon, cucumber, etc.) to a long pole attached to the boat. Looking up, all we saw was a sea of floating vegetables and fruit. There are even soup ladies selling pho (noodle soup) from their little boats. People just attach their floating device to the soup vendor and slurp away.

We tried to ask our boat captain to stop for us, and through some sort of language-barrier-induced miscommunication we ended up docking and walking around the town for 20 minutes. We drove away to a second floating market, which was winding down, said, "That's nice," and drove back in search of a bakery we had seen the day before (which we found). Yum. Actually it wasn't that good. It had those strange Chinese-baked goods that have weird tasting imitation cream in the middle and just are not to our taste.

With our bellies not exactly full, we got on a bus bound for Rach Gia... in two hours. We waited around, chatting (without words) with the ticket/money guy. He tried to charge us for four tickets -- two for us and two for our bags. We refused, and demonstrated our stubbornness by putting our huge bags on our lap. He wasn't as determined as other officials we met, and agreed to open the luggage compartment below the bus for us. We won that one! Ha ha ha!

We passed more time by handing a photocopy of a US$100 bill to a little kid (it has Vietnamese on the back and is used for burning to honor one's ancestors). He looked it over and was clearly trying to figure out if we were crazy. The rest of the bus looked very interested until it was realized that most American money doesn't have Vietnamese on it. A paper airplane soon flew out the window. We set off on the bumpy road and arrived much later.

Needless to say, there was no ferry that day and we had to spend the night there. Our motorcycle drivers dropped us off at the wrong hotel (better commission?) and so we spent the night fighting the mosquitoes and fighting with the fan. But we caught the ferry the next morning, after Hagar caved in and convinced herself that we really needed two hammocks. Before any of you laugh at her soft spot, try resisting five desperate -- we mean desperate -- girls trying to sell you a hammock for fifty cents.

The ferry took six hours and three trips to the bathroom. One time, Hagar almost succeeded in closing the door, when a man forced his way in, grabbed Hagar and dragged her out. He jumped into the toilet before she could even realize what was happening. Later we saw him throwing up. So that's what happened...

We arrived at Phu Quoc, were yelled at by lots of motorcycle drivers, picked two, and off we went for the backpacker-etiquette-required tour of guesthouses that are all the same. We rejected all, and settled for a seven-dollar-a-night place right on the beach, coconut palms everywhere, creamy white sands, beautiful clear waters, nice cold shower, ooh yah. Truly paradise.

We stayed there for seven nights and accomplished the following:

1. Got severe cases of after-looking-like-a-lobster peeling.

2. Ate lots of fish.

3. Ate lots of coconuts.

4. Ate even more fish.

5. Tried all the restaurants on the beach (there were two).

6. Played pool with the local crowd of moto-drivers

7. Had a bonfire, grilled a fish and some potatoes and onions, and were joined by tourists from around the beach.

8. Drank rice wine, then narrowly avoided eating a duck fetus. We feigned vegetarianism.

9. Got tan after sunburns went away.

We also met someone, who after introducing himself always in the future, said,

"Hello Michael! My name Binh!"

We always responded, "Yes, hello Binh."

"My name Binh!"

"Hello, Binh."

"Michael and Binh are friends! Hello marry-Michael!"

"My name is Hagar."

"Yes, hello marry-Michael. My name Binh!"

He was very nice and took us to his home, but all our efforts to convince him that we remembered his name failed. Personal pronouns were also not in use. We figured out that the way he learned English is by memorizing full sentences so that he never used words selectively, just in these memorized forms. It took us a very long time to explain to him that you should say "Where do you want to go?" and not, "where do you want to go hotel."

We left Phu Quoc after one day too much on the beach. We returned by a crazy, crazy boat ride. It was basically a cardboard box with a motor. We got seasick and avoided joining the crowds of vomiting passengers by lying down and forcing ourselves to sleep. We got sunburned but it was worth it.

The best part was the toilet. There was none. So Hagar went in search of one, and some ladies took pity on her. They sent all the men from the back of the boat to the front, and then cleared a spot for her. She looked confused, so one comrade-in-arms proceeded to take off her pants, and squatting on the boat in order to demonstrate. When on a boat, do it on the boat. Ok then. Hagar peed behind a barrel, hoping that people were smart enough to walk about with shoes on.

We arrived somewhere, got some motorbikes to Chau Doc (100 km away), and off we went. For any economists in the group, we observed an interesting phenomenon. A price of 70,000 dong was agreed upon, but we kept changing drivers. Someone would pull up, negotiate with the current driver, and we'd pull over. The new guy paid the old guy some money and off we went. Hagar had two drivers (one got 20k, one got 50k) and Michael had three (20k, 20k, and 30k, respectively). To put things in perspective, the full ride was three hours, mostly over a terrible dusty road. And they had to drive back the same night. The total fare was less than five bucks.

From Chau Doc we bought a ticket to Phnom Penh, leaving the next morning at seven... or so we thought. Turns out we inadvertently got on a tour and found ourselves in the middle of a miserable group whose guide was going through a nobody-cares-about-me crisis. Weird. From the stories we heard from the group members, it seemed that it wasn't really his fault, although he really did seem a bit... unstable. The funniest part was that he kept saying, "I don't know what they told you in Saigon, but this is the tour! They'll say anything to get you to buy. They only want your money." He seemed to have forgotten that he, personally, had sold everybody their tickets.

After a tour through an "authentic" Cham village (with a map and pointer already set up for the guide), we finally caught a boat to Phnom Penh. The border crossing, incidentally, was also a three-star resort. We have never gotten such nice treatment before! We were all seated around a huge woven table, in really comfortable woven chairs, and leisurely filled out our papers. The Cambodian officials did not believe the people in our passport were us, and we had to try making several attempts at passport-photo-faces that resemble those of criminals. We convinced them and here we are!

The following anecdote should illustrate the difference between Cambodia and Vietnam:

We wanted to make a phone call to a moto-driver, and our guesthouse guy walked us out to the cell phone people on the street who let you call for 500 riels a minute. We used the phone for what seemed like a minute and handed the lady 500 riels. Turns out we talked for two minutes and the charge was 1000 riels. Instead of telling us this, our guesthouse guy looked uncomfortable, and then proceeded to take out his wallet to pay for us. Stupefied into shocked silence for what seemed like hours (about five seconds), we managed to convince him that we would pay and did not realize the cost was 1000. Unbelievable. Only days before in Vietnam, we were told, "Yes, the price on the menu says 20,000 but it has changed to 25,000. We're very sorry you did not know. Please pay now."

Related Cultural Update:

We read a book called "Understanding Vietnam" which is a very good book. It talked for quite some time about the issue of saving face and the difficulty of admitting errors and taking responsibility for them. It helped us understand the following scenario:

We went to the restaurant next to our hotel quite often, and had a going tab for our orders. Throughout the week we ordered 2 pineapple shakes and two pineapple pancakes. Each time we got bananas. We told the waiter/former English teacher that we wanted pineapple, and he just smiled and nodded and went away. We were a bit annoyed, but oh well. We were relaxed. At the end of the week we came to pay our tab, and several items on our bill were quoted at a higher price than what was on the menu. These are the explanations we received for the discrepancies:

1. He (the waiter) didn't tell me what size you wanted, so I charged you for the big size.

2. The price changed. The menu is wrong (see above).

3. The cook did not know what size to make, and didn't tell me what size she did make, so I charged you for the big size.

...and so on

The funny thing was, we always said, "Ok, that's fine, will you change it?" to which the boss repeated the explanations given above. We soon realized that these explanations were supposed to satisfy us. To avoid forcing someone to lose face, we were expected to say, "Oh, ok no problem. It's just a misunderstanding,” and then we were to pay for this miscommunication in which we were not involved. Lucky for us, the husband of the owner is a man from California and he was getting very frustrated with this practice (the restaurant has been losing business due to this annoying habit). He told his wife, "Don't argue with them, it's not their fault. Change the price and next time, talk to the waiter instead." She was unable to comprehend why she should change the bill when it wasn't her fault (or anyone's fault, for that matter, really), but gave in to her husband. While changing it, she insisted that she could not have known, and was not to blame.

We are having some element of culture shock again. We find that we must remind ourselves to always smile and never be aggressive. No one here is aggressive with us, and we are constantly surprised at how easy it is to bargain and ask for information. Today we saw the Royal Palace (very impressive), the National Museum (very impressive), and Wat Ounalom, named after... ready for this? ... the fact that an eyebrow hair (ounalom in Khmer) of the Buddha is stored in an enormous stupa behind the wat. When we heard that stupas hold "relics" of the Buddha, we never really expected to find eyebrow hairs.

Tomorrow it's on to grim and depressing sites. We go to the killing fields and S-21 Prison. Aye.

ANGKOR, CAMBODIA: Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 04:15:14

"Angkor's Away"

The reason the subject is in quotes is because we stole it from friends of ours from Canada. Hee hee hee.

We've been in Cambodia for only eight days, but we are already leaving tomorrow for Bangkok. Why, you ask? We're tired! Also the political situation is anything but stable. Commune chief elections are taking place next week, and we don't want to see it from up close. Fifteen people were already killed in pre-election violence as of last week. Everywhere we go, the main political parties hold rallies, and shout at people with loudspeakers. Much like in the states, nobody seems to pay much attention except the folks holding the loudspeakers. By the way, the presence of loudspeakers in Cambodia proves our initial suspicion that this method of communication is very popular in Asia.

But we digress.

We spent three days in Phnom Penh. What we have to say about it is this: It's a dusty city, with things to see but nothing that really wowed us. We had a nice time exploring temples and visiting the Royal Palace. We also had a less pleasant but no less interesting time at the killing fields of Choeng Ek and the genocide museum at the former torture-center Tuol Sleng. Combining the sites like that made for an intriguing contrast: Cambodia is undergoing a revival of sorts with new wats, new monks, and a few new roads (all built by Japan, incidentally). Even so, the country doesn't seem to have recovered from the recent violence. Former Khmer Rouge leaders who are known to have committed incredible atrocities still live in the public eye without censure. Some of Pol Pot's top men hold government positions. And people here are angry. Needless to say, we had some interesting conversations.

The Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng felt, for those who have been there, like some of the rural Holocaust sites of Poland. It is found amongst fields, trees and birds. The place doesn't really feel like a mass grave, but from up close we could see torn clothing, shoes and an occasional bone. The government built a memorial that houses many of the skulls found in 1980, after the fall of Pol Pot.

Wat Ounalom, home to the high patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism, holds a relic of the Lord Buddha. Sounds standard, so far. But this relic turns out to be an eyebrow hair of the Great One. One single eyebrow hair is encased in an enormous stupa, and revered by all in Cambodia. An Eyebrow. Crazy.

From Phnom Penh, we took an uneventful bus ride to Siem Reap. Uneventful, that is, until we looked in the mirror upon our arrival. Michael's beard (that's right, it's a full beard) was completely gray, as was his hair. Hagar was also difficult to make out through dust-covered glasses and a sudden golden tan on her face.

Our first day in Siem Reap, we spent exploring the city. There is not too much to explore, so we went on a motorcycle tour (we weren't driving this time -- you should see the roads here) around the suburbs. We visited a silk farm first. It was pretty incredible. It is a vocational school that trains local kids in silk production, processing and weaving. Each silk worm cocoon produces a thread four hundred meters long! We got to see a lot of mulberry trees, and many more silk worms. We even got to see moths mating. Later, we saw ducks mating as well. Love was in the air. For those who are curious, the moths attach their rear ends together and the males flap their wings. After a few days, the males die. As for the ducks, all we'll say is that there was lots of waggling. And laughing on our part.

We also visited some wats and saw a vocational school for making leather shadow puppets. They were nice. Nothing too eventful. Oh, but we did get invited to our tour guide's home after the silk farm. We had lots of fruits and some khmer food, and he cut us some coconuts from his tree. We were treated to a tour of his extended family's farm, which includes pigs, chickens, rice paddies, and frogs. The children collect the frogs, and they're stored in rice sacks which are kept wet. That may sound very reasonable now, but imagine our surprise at seeing about ten rice sacks hopping up and down on the floor while everyone around us acted like nothing exciting was happening.

On the next day, we began our three day tour of Ankgor. This whole area has been really incredible, and it really is a culmination of our travels in SE Asia, as we have seen the remains of almost all of the ancient capitals (two in Thailand, one in Laos, one in Vietnam, and now one in Cambodia). Angkor is by far the most extensive and most impressive. Angkor wat itself is a huge temple, with extremely detailed reliefs and carvings on every corner, every column and every wall. We took many pictures because it was so beautiful and unique, we wanted to capture it all. We won't bore you with history and all the names of the temples we visited (Banteay Srei, Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Bayon, Lolei, Prah Ko, Bakong, Preah Khan, Preah Neak Pean, Ta Prohm etc.)

Yesterday we woke up at an ungodly hour. By 5 am we were in our motor taxi and ready to go. We saw the sunrise from Bayon, which was a most eerie experience. We arrived in total darkness, and actually didn't know where we were going. We stumbled upon some rocks and sat on them, facing the structure. After there was a bit more light, we climbed some dark stairs. On the top we just saw some dark towers, and sat again facing east. Slowly out of the darkness, slightly smiling faces appeared on the towers. They weren't just any faces, either. They were huge, dark and ghostly. We sat in awe, and watched them become lighter and lighter. There are 54 towers, 200 faces, total in this particular temple.

It was quite a sight. We later walked around the temple, and looked at some bas-reliefs on the walls which depicted the most gruesome of civil wars and battles.

We watched sunset this evening at Angkor Wat, after having found a corner tower with no one around. Later, some monks appeared to watch the sunset from across the courtyard. It was very beautiful, and we enjoyed watching the stone towers turn from gray to gold to gray to darkness.

Tomorrow we head off early on a bus to Bangkok, and should be there in the evening. We are trying to get on a flight to New Zealand as soon as possible, but still, we cannot believe that our time in Asia is up. It's been good. From Bangkok, we'll send you all a mid-trip recap, where we explore such important issues as the concept of "barbecue" in the east, and the role of loudspeakers in the socio-cultural milieu of Asia. Um, yeah.

We hope you're all well, and have enjoyed the first half of our trip from computers everywhere. We always warn our parents that they might not hear from us, but for some reason there is always an internet connection in the most unlikely places. By the way, we even found them in towns where the electricity source is turned on from 6 pm – 9 pm. Very strange.

NORTHERN CAMBODIA, Date: 20 Jan 2002

[Letter sent from Thailand upon return from Northern Cambodia; received 11 Feb 2002]

Dear Mom and Dad:

I am writing this letter by candlelight in northern Cambodia…in an Internet café that has temporarily lost power! The bus ride from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap was very interesting, as I could pick out many things common to each of Cambodia’s neighbors.

The cattle here are the kind from India (floppy rabbit ears), just like Thailand and Laos, and the rice fields look like Vietnam in the wet areas and central Thailand in the dry. The people look similar to Thai and Lao, but many of the children look positively Indian!

I am now reading a history of Cambodia, and it seems that the country has been far from isolated – Hinduism from India, goods/trade from the Chams (southern Vietnam today), Thais, and Chinese. The Khmer language is very close to Thai/Lao in script and grammar, but many words come from Vietnam. The Hindu influence is also quite strong here, especially the cult of Shira (creator), as associated with fertility of the soil. Stylized phalluses called Lingas are everywhere in the National Museum (Shiva symbols, which supposedly grow up from the earth, fertilizing the soil), as are other Hindi deities of importance.

At Angkor Wat, the kings of the 9^th through 14^th centuries often combined Hindu images with Buddhist theology, for example, using the goddess of wisdom and god of compassion as images for the King’s own parents (he likens himself to the Lord Buddha, whose Enlightenment is born from a “marriage” of wisdom and compassion). As I’m sure you can see, ancient Khmer civilization was quite rich, in all senses.

On a much sadder note, the country still has not confronted its bloody history of the 1970s up until almost today. Many Khmer Rouge leaders are still involved in government, while the most notorious criminals (like Comrade Duch, Cambodia’s Eichmann) live openly without fear of prosecution. The Killing Fields of Chueng Ek near Phnom Penh held the mass graves of about 17,000 people. Nearly 9,000 corpses were exhumed and many of their skulls have been put on display. As I remarked to Hagar at the time, the killing fields were like Poland with palm trees – blue sky, green pastures, schoolchildren and farmers, with only a few signs and monuments that reveal the true nature of the place.

Leading up to elections in two weeks are issues born from the unsatisfactory (to Khmers) way in which the Khmer Rouge rule ended, the prominence of Vietnamese residents in business, and the lack of prosecution for war crimes. Add corruption, lack of infrastructure and high unemployment, and you can see why some are nervous about the ministerial elections next year.

A third observation of mine has been the incredible dedication of young Khmers to educate themselves. It seems like very other moto-taxi driver is saving money to study English, while supporting a mother-brother-daughter, etc. One we befriended wakes up at 3 a.m. to work on the fields and gets to his day job as a guesthouse at 8 or 9 a.m. He works there until evening, when he tries to meet tourists (enter us) to take them around for money. He holds a degree in accounting, speaks excellent English, and can’t find a job.

The Sept 11 attacks have slashed tourism here, and the effects aren’t good. One guy’s uncle has to sell the bus he’s been using to take tourists; others have lost their jobs as guides; guesthouses are cutting back on staff; prices drop on rooms, etc. Still, everyone works hard, and almost always with the aim of saving for school. English language books flood the shelves of every Cambodian bookstore, and private schools offering classes from English to network management to marketing are advertised on banners all over town.

I hope you enjoyed this letter. You once asked to know what struck me in each country. I’m disappointed that we won’t have enough time to see untouristed parts of the country, but visiting Angkor Wat alone should make our Cambodian experience plenty rich.

Love, Michael.