Leaving Crooked Cambodia for Vietnam!

Anyway, as you may recall we went to the beach to wait until our Vietnam visa's were effective so we could enter the country... Well, Feb 25 rolls around and we're off and running to the boarder. We take a bus an hour south where we pick up a slow boat down the Mekong river. Nice! Then we jump off at Cambodia's boarder shacks and get our exit stamps without needing to pay a bribe so that was good. Then we jump back in the boat to head to Vietnam's entry stamp shacks. The nice young gents there summarily tell us to pound salt and kiss off! Apparently they didn't like the fact that Ewa's visa is in the old but still effective passport while her new passport is the "active" passport in the Polish Embassy's terms. We cannot get in but even getting back is a challenge. We race back on the back of two hired motorcycles to the Cambodian boarder so that we can have our exit stamps canceled and beg them to re-enter the country (again no bribe paid to the nice young gun toting boarder guy in his t-shirt i.e. not bothering to wear his uniform any more in the heat). From there we have to race by "speedboat" (picture a row boat with a small outboard engine) back to the place where we caught the slow boat so we can hopefully get a ride back on teh mini-bus to Phnom Pehn. This was hairy but one of the most fun adventures we've had yet. The fear of being stuck in the shanty town between the boarders overnight was enough to get the heart pounding a bit. A pic from our trip up the Mekong back to Phnom Pehn.

Next day we got everything squared away with the Vietnamese consulate ($10 bribe) and caught a bus to HCMC. All is well and we are currently sitting in a cafe in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam.

Cambodian Beach Party

Well, as we were getting ready to head to Vietnam Ewa asked a great question. "When do our visas become effective?" Good thing she asked as they became effective 2 days after we were going to try crossing the boarder. That means 2 more days to do something fun in this messed up country of Cambodia. Well, we couldn't handle any more tragedy so we ran for the beach! The beaches of Sihanoukville were great! It is a small sliver of beautiful white sand beach squeezed between beautifully clear and blue water and little beach shacks selling everything from pizza to fresh lobster and drinks like fresh pineapple juice to whatever booze filled creation you or they could think of. I know this is a tough life but someone has got to do it. We stayed in a small little place with a nice balcony overlooking the water. The water was literally 10 meters from our door. And we dinned at night on the beach with the water near our feet. There had been a power outage shortly before the sun set so everything was so incredibly peaceful that we almost stayed for a few extra days. When the power came back around 11 and the loud music kicked in we decided to head back to Phnom Penh and try our luck in Vietnam.

The tragedy that is Cambodia

If you read any of the history of what is now known as Cambodia you will read about the battles, great cities and the culture which ruled much of Southeast Asia at one point or another. If you read the history of the past 50 years it is much less about creation and much more about destruction. The conflicts that arose between successive governments devastated the country and all should share the blame - King Norodom Sihanouk, the government of Lon Nol, the Americans who supported him, the Khmer Rouge, the Vietnamese, and the current Government of Hun Sen and King Norodom Sihamoni. Not just for the loss of life caused by their conflicts but for the disrespect they showed their countrymen through their lack of leadership, freedoms for the people and economic development. I blame the post Vietnamese occupation "freely elected" governments most as any "democratic" government should have put in place and enforced basic freedoms and implemented the basic plans required to lift your country from the ashes of war. The country today is 20+ years behind its neighbors of Thailand or Vietnam in terms of visible development. The country is corrupt and the lack of structured development has led to a feeling of the Wild West. People are doing whatever they have to in order to feed themselves or their families. We have seen 9-year olds selling books at 10pm on weeknights and doubt that they go to school; been harassed by the incredibly pushy tuk-tuk drivers who would take your wallet if you let your guard down or worse, many of these same tuk-tuk drivers also offer to sell you drugs as you walk down the street at night. We have heard stories about people selling their children into prostitution, entire villages devoted to adult prostitution and we have seen a gun range less than a kilometer from the killing fields. I could not confirm it but the country appears to be lacking basic education for its children and based on what we learned when we donated blood in Siem Reap, the health care system is inadequate and corrupt with nurses and doctors requiring side payments prior to dealing with you. The country is 14 years past its free elections and still appears to lack any plan to bring its people any prosperity. The most widely known part of the tragedy is the reign of the Khmer Rouge (KR) which killed approximately 1/3 of the population (2+ mil of a total of 7 million). There are several sites in the country which have been developed help people understand what happened. Two of the most visited are the Choung Elk killing fields and Tuol Sleng the former Secret Prison S-21. The KR murdered people throughout the country and buried them in mass graves. Many of these have been found during subsequent construction of homes or buildings. The most visited is 14km outside of Phnom Penh and is called Choung Elk. Per KR records, approximately 16,000 people were murdered and buried at what had been a peaceful orchard. While visiting Choung Elk you walk past large holes in the ground which the very poorly maintained signs tell you are excavated mass graves, you look at a stupa (Buddhist temple) which houses the sculls of too many innocents. The skulls show the trauma of a blunt object or a bullet hole which likely killed that person. Near the excavated graves you see cloth coming through the ground and bone fragments mixed in the leaves. Ewa and I stopped for a moment at what we though was an unusual bone fragment only to realize it was a tooth.

Our general observation is that unlike the Holocaust sites in Poland which pay proper respect to the dead and the horrific fashion in which they were murdered, the Choung Elk killing fields left us with the feeling of a cold, obligatory explanation of facts rather than a heart felt explanation of a national tragedy. It seemed to us that the country has not reconciled with itself and the tragic nature in which countrymen murdered each other. The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, located in the former S-21 prison, was again more focused on a cold representation of the facts. It however had several art installations which softened the impact of the museum. One of which was done by one of only a handful of prisoners which survived. His paintings depicting scenes he either saw or heard about during his time in the prison. When I say it softened the impact, I mean it was a careful way to portray the tragedy without placing blame on anyone who may have been in the Khmer Rouge. (Sorry but pictures just can't do justice to some scenes. Tuol Sleng was a school prior to the Khmer Rouge.)

The final part of the tragedy is the fact that the Country does not seem to be able to reconcile with itself. That is, there is no apology on the part of the former members of the KR towards those which they nearly starved to death or the families of those they killed. The current government is run by Prime Minister Hun Sen who was the #2 man for most of the KR's rule, the foreign Minister during after the Vietnamese occupation and since the “free elections” he has led the democratic country like many murderous dictators. That is that his opponents backed off after being intimidated, beaten or killed shortly before Election Day. More recently the government enacts laws which allow outspoken opponents of the government to be indefinitely imprisoned.

Siem Reap

Memory that will last. As James describes in his blog entries - Cambodia is such a complex country. Poverty with incredible history and beauty. Siem Reap is where one goes to experience the Cambodian history and its beauty still present in the incredible ruins of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and others. It was really, really wonderful to walk through these magnificent structures. Sunrise, sunsets, hundreds of pictures - we spend 3 full days before we were close to "ruined out." Super strong sun, lots of walking, vendors everywhere, dust in the air and so much history - it is not so easy to be a competent tourist. (check out our anti-sun gear and transportation)

Here is some ruins but much more will be posted later on Snapfish.

Besides ruins another moving place we spent an afternoon at in Siem Reap was a Land Mine Museum. It is a make shift place where an ex-mine layer turned into mine excavator (see more at http://www.talesofasia.com/cambodia-akira.htm) shows the different kinds of mines used all across the country. His addopted children, all of which were either orphaned or injured by landmines explain how each of the mines works. It is so sad to hear their personal stories - it really touched me. I have never realized that there are still so many mines buried around the world. Worse yet- they are still being laid by some countries. Sadly the US is included.

We felt good about being travelers in Cambodia. We stayed at a hotel which was actually a school for underprivileged kids to learn the hotel industry, bought plenty of postcards from kids on the streets (sadly - many of them are the providers for their families), got massages from the local trained blind masseuses, went to children hospitals charity concert, where earlier we gave blood. The region is still fighting a hemorragic dengue fever outbreak and blood is needed. It was shocking to find the facts about the health state of Cambodia. Some 3/4 of the population have some signs of tuberculosis. HIV is on the rise. Malaria is easy to get. With immune systems already weak from hard work and malnutrition - those poor people have to fight their diseases with very little organized health care. Even the NGOs, placed there to help, often provide outdated medicine that in the past have shown to do more harm than good. It is all so sad. The children's hospital we visited is a huge success story as it provides free care for all children and exists solely on the support of donations from all around the world. If you would like to support a good charity I feel confident that this hospital support is a very worthy cause. Check out more at http://www.beatocello.com/. With only 5% of the money going to administrative expenses - 95% of your money goes straight to the Cambodian kids care and fairly paid local medical stuff.

On a lighter note - I learned that my B+ blood is very popular among Asians. If blood indicates anything of intelligence - I have a potential to be smart - the kids around here are just amazing.

Entering Crooked Cambodia

For those who can afford the cost of a plane ticket from Bangkok to Siem Reap, I HIGHLY recommend it. The boarder crossing at Poipet, Cambodia is the worst we've been to...and we've been rejected at a boarder, leaving us stranded 3 hours from the local city, so we know how much boarder crossings can suck. As we have traveled, we normally enter a place and find things we like and don't like. Poipet offered nothing that we liked. It is a dusty, trash ridden town with loads of glitzy Casinos which just don't fit in with the fact that nobody who lives in Poipet can afford to enter the casinos. Oh, and the 18 yearolds with large hand guns are more than happy to keep locals and dirty sweaty backpackers like me from entering. The travel experience goes like this. Catch the 6am Government bus from the Northern bus terminal in Bangkok to the boarder town. This is about 5 hours and you then need to catch a tuk-tuk from the bus station to the Thai side of the boarder. Unfortunately you know the the tuk-tuk drivers are going to gouge you on the price - always a good feeling. Oh and then he makes 2 stops at travel agents who will expedite our visa for us for twice the price of the visa. Too bad we agreed with him that we wanted to go straight to the boarder. After you clear Thai passport control (the only honest people we dealt with in this experience) you walk across the 300 meters of no man's land between the Thai boarder and Cambodian boarder. When you hit the Cambodian side you must purchase your visa. Your intrepid travelers were idiots and had not purchased this ahead of time. The lovely guards at the boarder tell you they only accept Thai Baht and that with their exchange rate we must pay 1000 Thai Baht each. This is about $28, even though all the signs say US$20, your receipt says US$20 and the forms you filled out say US$20. After some pleasant words exchanged and Ewa's threat to kill them they eventually they saw it our way and accepted our US$20. Then as we clear the Cambodian boarder and enter the town of Poipet you realize the full extent of the warm and pleasant greetings laying in front of you. There are two options of travel to Siem Reap, taxi or bus and they are 3 hours and 5 hours respectively. Knowing that the difference in time is due to the fact that the road is unpaved and the buses can't avoid the bomb crater sized potholes we try to negotiate a taxi ride. The only problem as you try to negotiate a taxi is that they are all controlled by the same family so they don't negotiate... at all. This may not strike those of you in the US as odd but EVERYTHING is negotiated here in SE Asia. Everything. Oh well, we pay the high rate of US$50 to take three people (we met another traveler) to take us there and things are all good. Ride is painfully bumpy, mildly interesting and relatively uneventful until we hit the town of Siem Reap where the taxi driver refuses to take us to the hotel where the other traveler has his reservation and insists on taking us to his bosses hotel. More uncalled for shadiness! So between buses that drop you off 7km from the boarder, tuk-tuk drivers who try to screw you, corrupt board guards, kids with guns, mob controlled taxi's and drivers who don't get basic instructions we were pretty fed up with the experience.

Floating Markets - what a concept

Even though the destination has become quite full of tourists - it still was interesting to see. About two hours outside of Bangkok by a local bus is a small town that for most part still operates like it used to for hundreds of years. Filled with little channels - most of the weekend commerce happens right outside of the houses lining the channels and right on the little boats. At this point a lot of goods are very tourist geared (crafts, hats, coconut decorations etc.) but we were still able to catch some of the authentic produce exchange in action. Of course we would not leave without sampling the local food, appropriately served from the boat, too.

Flowers and more in Chang Mai , Thailand

Yes, it is over a month after we left the town that I am writing this blog about but I still cannot get over the good times we had at this relaxing, ancient town in Northeast Thailand. We went to Chang Mai on my crazy desire to see an annual Flower festival which this year was held the first weekend of February. James is such a great husband - not only did he not complain when I asked to include this on our top priority itinerary but also as we had to change around days to make sure not to miss it. And we did not miss it! Gorgeous flower floats and most beautiful orchid contests were just outstanding. The colors, the designs, the creativity! Just beautiful. But Chang Mai had SO MUCH more to offer.

One of our especially my) favorites were cooking classes. We spent two full days learning how to cook Thai food from two different schools in town. It was awesome! the tastes, smells, explanations, recipes, even vegetable carving... If you are nice to us, we might even treat you to a meal when we get back :) Another awesome fact about Chang Mai is that the re are massage places almost everywhere and ... in most of them you do not have to worry about being offered a " happy ending". Both James and I loved our foot massage one day. another day I loved being contorted in all kinds of positions by a very strong Thai lady (Thai massage) while James right next to me had his very relaxing deep tissue massage (oil massage). We both enjoyed the muscle relaxation - even though they were quite different...Besides activities mentioned above we spent the rest of the 9 days in Chang Mai doing day trips in and around town to different wats , the queen's palace, the elephant camp, the strawberry festival preparation in a neighborhood town and the queen's garden. The last one was James' favorite.(not!)