Cambodia, India, Nepal, and India Again

Get ready for a long one folks...we've been to 3 countries since I last wrote, but I promise I tried to keep it as interesting and concise as possible! There are no pictures this time as they take FOREVER to load, but I promise at the end of all of this, I will make one entire entry pictures for you. Anyway, read on.

Cambodia:
A country where unbelievable tragedy has occured in the far too recent past. Upon arrival in Phnom Penh, Ryder and I had felt completely overwhelmed by the end of our Vietnam trip and it took us 24 hours to re-orient to our new surroundings. In the capital city, we started to understand and explore the reality of the Khmer Rouge and how Pol Pot's regime taints the history of this incredibly poor country. We started with a visit to the Killing Fields, where prisoners of the Khmer Rouge (primarily the educated and/or the wealthy members of society) were taken, murdered and buried en masse. Tens of thousands of people were killed here and, shockingly, it was all done in secret. They played music over loud speakers as they committed the murders to cover the screams of the victims and kept fertilizers on site in order to cover up the smell of the decaying bodies. It's strange, as you walk around the sunken graves where bones and remains of clothing still lie, to hear the peals of laughter coming from the children on the school playground right next to the Killing Fields, to know that is was less than 30 years ago that these very same children would have been murdered for their academic pursuits. After walking through the graves and standing humbled before the monument where 8,000 skulls from the graves were placed for all to see in a tower of plexiglass, Ryder and I went back into town to see the S-21 Museum, a high school that was turned into the primary prison of the regime. Here, there are still blood stains on the walls and tools of torture in the rooms. Gruesome photos of the last prisoners who were murdered in haste moments before the fall of the regimeare found on the walls. There are four buildings of classrooms converted prison and all held the people that the regime felt threatened the vision of the "new Cambodia", a self-sustaining, agrarian society. On one building, barbed wire had been put up the entire front side, not to keep prisoners from escaping, but rather to keep them from jumping off the higher floors in attempt to committ suicide. The list goes on and on. There was not limit to what Pol Pot and his officers would do to create their new utopia, all the while, those who survived were spending long days working rice fields from which they weren't allowed to eat the yield. Our understanding of what happened in the late 70's and early 80's in Cambodia grew in Phnom Penh, but our understanding of what that meant for modern society grew as we traveled on. Our next stop was Siem Reap, the starting ground for exploring the Temples of Ankor. These enormous temples are scattered throughout the countryside and area testament to greater times in Cambodian history. We cycled our first two days, going to temples in a 15 km radius of Siem Reap and on the third day we took a tuk tuk to some of those a bit further away. The architecture is awe-inspiring and really only pictures can demonstrate their grandeur. Our first insight into how the history of the Khmer Rouge affects modern society came from an encounter with a high school group on a two day field trip to Ankor. They eagerly asked for a group picture with Ryder and I and the teacher explained to us that they come every year to show the students "that we are also capable of this. We Cambodians can do great things if we want". This comment highlighted the sense of complacency that seems to have taken over amongst Cambodians, a certain sense of "what's the point anyway?". After a few days in Siem Reap, we headed to Battambang, a quiet, less frequented city toward the Thai border. Here we observed daily Cambodian life outside of the tourist bubble. People were just doing their best to make a living with a great deal of it revolving around the markets. You can feel that people there just want to survive. During our stay, we met a great couple who are free lance journalists. Karen had written a book on post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia as well as many articles on different aspects of modern Cambodian society. Jerry is a photographer and equally familiar with modern Cambodian issues. THey were working together on a piece about the fishing industry on the Tonle Sap (an enormous lake nearby) and it's affects on society. Anyway, it was fascinating to sit with them every night at dinner, as became the custom, and discuss the realities of Cambodian life. Bottom line: corrupt government, semi-hopeless citizens. When I brought up the issue of the homeless kids we saw huffing glue incessently in the streets, they explained that they are children without families who get together in gangs starting around the age of 4 or 5. They get hooked on glue just as young and basically huff their way into teenagehood when they eventually have no faculties left. Nobody wants to take care of them. I pointed out that I hadn't seen any in Siem Reap and they explained that the government pays people to round them all up there, load them into trucks, drive them to the middle of nowhere and dump them there. That way, they don't taint the image of the lively tourist town Siem Reap should be. Eventually, the kids find their way back to the city to try and find food, and they just get rounded up again. Sadly, Cambodia's not actively seeking to get to the root of these problems. In our own attempt to do a little good, we bought fruit and crackers from the market and went to the local hospital to visit AIDS patients and offer them food. We actually ended up going to all the wards and offering to all the sick. It was touching and haunting to look in the eyes of the dying. All in all, our time in Cambodia gave us a lot to think about. From Battambang, we crossed over the Thai border, jumped a bus to Bangkok where we spent one night before flying back to India. It was just enough time to grab a pad thai and remember that we are excited to be moving to Chiang Mai in August.

India:
Back in the Motherland, Ryder and I headed up to Dharamsala, the main Tibetan enclave and the home of the Dalai Lama. We spent 5 days attending Dharma teachings, eating momos and thulkpa (traditional Tibetan noodle soup), meeting up with Ryder's friends from the past, and enjoying the mountain scenery. Dharamsala is a completely different India; much more mellow and calm, cooler as it is in the foothills of the Himalaya, and dominated by Buddhism. It was a restful few days a good way to wind down from our adventures in Southeast Asia. I particularly enjoyed having chai every night with the old monk from whom we rented a very basic room up on the hillside. Everyday we'd come home to him in his three-walled hut kitchen dug into the side of the hill with the chai boiling over the open fire. We'd sit and have our broken chats about how our day passed and his life as a solitary monk. After our last day, during which we were fortunate enought to see the Dalai Lama (he was leaving the main part of his monastery after a meeting with other spiritual leaders...I swear he looked me right in the eye!), we headed back to Delhi to meet up with our friends Katie and Mark, who braved the long flight for a month of travel.

Nepal:
Not wanting to spend too much time in Delhi, the four of us agreed to leave the very night we met up to continue on to Kathmandu. There we would spend a few days in the city before going to Kopan Monastery for a 10 course and retreat. The trip was long and arduous, starting with an overnight train, followed by all day on different buses, and ending with an overnight bus. The latter was the most interesting as our already cramped and crowded bus had about 30 live goats loaded onto the roof, with another 6 loaded in the bagage hold. It was one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen! Once in Kathmandu, we explored the city with Boudhanath (the Tibetan settlement) as our home base. At the center is an enormous stupa where hundreds of people go on a daily basis to do circumambulation and say prayers. It is quite impressive. All of Kathmandu was in fact impressive with its medieval architecture and it's fascinating mix of Hinduism and Buddhism. I think all four of us felt enchanted by the city.

Back to India:
From Nepal, we took a ride back to India, heading for Darjeeling. There were riots and protests in the Eastern states of Nepal, so our original (and most direct route) to Darjeeling was not an option. We headed directly south toward the Indian border instead, where we were slowed by national Indian elections. They almost didn't let us cross the border, but after a few hours of stewing over how ridiculous that was, Ryder worked his magic and they let us through. From there it took us 24 + hours of train rides to get to Darjeeling, but we finally made it and it was well worth the journey. It is a beautiful part of India with mountains and tea plantations as far as the eye can see. Passing the fields of women with their umbrellas protecting them from the sun and baskets on their backs slowly filling up with picked tea leaves was a postcard moment. From Darjeeling, we decided to do a short trek up onto a pass where we would get views of Everest up to Kachanjunga. It was a gorgeous 2 1/2 days (Katie and Mark actually stayed on the trail longer which meant we had to say our goodbyes in the mountains...) that we spent among the pines, rhododendrens (which were in bloom!), and mountain streams. It really didn't feel like India at all...no trash and no people. It was a bit surreal! We started our first afternoon with a 6 km walk to our first guesthouse, nestled by a mountain river amongst the trees. The next day we ascended almost 5,000 feet up to the pass where we had a slumber party in the loft room of the guesthouse there to celebrate our last night of travel all together. We huddled around porridge and hot lemon tea to stay warm and laughed the night away in our delirium from the day's hike. The next morning we woke at 5 am to see the sunrise over Everest, and though we got a beautiful sunrise, Everest and the rest of the peaks were in the clouds save one glance we got of Kachanjunga (the third highest peak in the Himalaya). After more porridge for breakfast, we said our goodbyes and Ryder and I headed back down to Darjeeling for one night of rest before heading to Bhutan, where I write to you from now. Bhutan deserves many words, so I will share them another time. For now I will say that this is the most naturally pristine and friendly country I have ever been to. It is green, mountainous, and steeped in Buddhist culture. I can't wait to see more and share it all with you, but for now I ought to let you all get back to your lives. Until next time....

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