Cambodia - Intro to Phnom Penh

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First of all, I hate to sadden your day, but there will be no pics additional pics from Singapore and no new ones from Malaysia probably until I get back to the States. My laptop died and all my pics were in iPhoto so I can't access them right now. I tried downloading from my webshots page but that didn't work. I do have pics from Cambodia still on my camera so if I can get a card reader from the lady at the itnernet cafe, I'll put some of those. Sorry - I know travelblogs are kinda boring w/o pics.

Second, I am trying to get my blog current, so I am gnna jump ahead to Cambodia and leave out a separate entry on my weekend in Tioman for now. Suffice to say it was great. 4 hr bus ride to Mersing, a port city in SE Malaysia, from where I caught a 2 hr speed ferry to Tioman. Travelled with three ladies from my hostel and the boat driver let us sit outside in the front of the boat. Nice ride out...spent the night in a beach chalet set in the rocks overlooking the sea. It was nice but really rustic. Snorkelled the next day and saw some beautiful fish and coral...bought a couple of sarongs...headed back home. Listening to Mos Def in my headphones while on a bouncing speed boat in the South China Sea heading back to the mainland with the sun setting in the background was pretty awesome. It was a nice weekend and the first time since Tokyo that I had really ventured off alone.

FAST FORWARD - it's been a week in Cambodia and I fly out to Bangkok tomorrow morning for 9 days till my flight home (if I don't cave in and change my flight yet AGAIN cause I am too ready to kiss California soil).

I travelled with Matt (Santa Clara law student) and Ari, from Singapore to Cambodia. We flew JetStar, a cool budget airline, a quick 2 hours north and landed in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, Thursday night. Marie (from our section) is interning here as well as Rocky (a part-timer from another section) and Robin (from U-Pittsburgh). Marie and Rocky met us at the airport and loaded all our stuff into her cousin's SUV where we headed to her family's house. Phnom Penh (PP) is more than a little scary for a first-timer. First, aside from the part of Lara Croft filmed in Cambodia, most people know of Cambodia becasue of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge

So there's that knowledge of Cambodia's not so far-off past and then present-day PP itself which is as one of my prof's put it is ä "frontier town." And as much as I talked about Singapore - it's still at least a safe easy introduction to SE Asia. K.L. goes a little deeper. PP is the full plunge. Cars, SUV's, bicycles, motos (small motorcycles - nothing generally larger than a 250), and tuk tuks all competing for street space. People out everywhere (including children and babies), poverty and high rises. People sleeping on the street and 5 story houses. Street vendors and nice restaurants. All crammed in one pretty small city.

So Rocky and Marie are chatting away in the car, Marie in Khmer to her cousin driving, then to us about all things Cambodian. I was a lil tired and fascinated with what I was seeing so I had tuned out a little until she said "don't worry - we have guards at my house." umm....ok? Then Rocky was talking about Dengue (Malaria is the illness you get from night time skeeters, "break-bone" dengue is from daytime skeeters) and suddenly all I was thinking was "I'm going to die here." (not the last time I had this thought). So 15 minutes later, we are in town, and go to a restaurant called "Friends" - serving a good selection of food. I don't remember what I ate but I can tell you about the "Cockroach and the Gecko."

There's a couple of geckos on the wall in the restaurant which is cool. But then comes the evil cockroach. It was huge and it was flying. I was in full panic mode cause I DON'T DO COCKROACHES. (yes, I know, there is a recurring theme with me and bugs). Robin, who met us there, informs me that geckos eat cockroaches which I am all to glad to hear, except the cockroach keeps moving away from the geckos. Finally it happens...the cockroack lands on the wall and the geckos move in...the lil baby one hurries past the cockroach who doesn't move. I think mr. cockroach was watching the baby gecko cause from behind comes the bigger gecko...and then he grabs it. I think I started cheering (as other people in the restaurant look up to see what the commotion is about). Somehow the cockroach gets away, and falls down the wall a little. A waiter jumps up and grabs it - and the drama was over.

Next we headed to "Heart of Darkness" the infamous expat bar/club. I had a lot of fun...the DJ alternated hip hop w/ techno (not in a cool house way - the european version) which actually was able to please everyone there. but the hookers...no not them - they do what they do - the nasty old men. My god. I have pictures. One lil cute cambodian girl was dancing with this ugly white-haired old man all night. At one pint he was just laying his head on her stomach. *sigh* you had to see it. Added plus was that I saw quite a few Black people...talked to one who was also interning here...nice to see my people abroad.

So we stay a while and finally leave for Marie's house which is huge and really lovely. She is staying on the 3rd floor and there is room for all of us. Cool, I felt safe now so it was pretty easy to settle in an fall asleep.

Next day Marie went off to work, leaving Matt, Ari, and myself to navigate PP alone - albeit with instructins and a gameplan for the day. We hopped a tuk tuk (moto towing a carriage thingy holding about 4 people) to Boddhi Tree, a nice lil hotel/restaurant serving a pretty good Western breakfast. I had some french toast and eggs and...*drum roll* freshly pressed carrot/ginger/apple juice. yum. Across the street we visited the 'Genocide Museum' which is housed in an old high school that the Khmer Roughe turned into a prison where thousands were tortured and executed. It's kinda creepy - but really well presented to tell the story of the people who lived and died there, as well as stories of how people came to be a part of the Khmer Rouge. I guess we spent a little over an hour here before heading off to the Killing Fields. I know - sounds like fun, right? Well, it's not supposed t be fun, but you can't really come here and understand Cambodia's present day political and economic situation w/o grasping 1975 - 1979 when about 1.5 Cambodians were killed:

"the Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included isolating the country from foreign influence, closing schools, hospitals and factories, abolishing banking, finance and currency, outlawing all religions, confiscating all private property and relocating people from urban areas to collective farms where forced labor was widespread. The purpose of this policy was to turn Cambodians into "Old People" through agricultural labor. These actions resulted in massive deaths through executions, work exhaustion, illness, and starvation." from Wikipedia

Solemness of that part of the day aside, the ride to and back from the Killing Fields on the back of the motos was nice. Getting out of the city center was scary as seeing the chaos of the streets is way differet in a 4runner than on a moto. So picture an intersection...traffic lights and all...traffic coming from 4 ways...nobody stops...everyone just slows down (maybe) and avoids hitting/getting hit. Chaos. But it works. Once outside the city, you see more of the shacks, vendors, rural life, and dirt/dust. The cows near PP look like they are on crack. All of them.

Anyhow, now the story gets good...

We go the Royal Palace/Silver Pagoda, which is where the king/person in charge reside I believe. The architecture was really nice white and gold blgds and the grounds really clean - but honestly, I was jsut snappin pics and debaitng w/ Matt over how a poor country can justify this lavishness. So we had tickets and went into a different part f the grounds where we had to produce them again... I took my wallet out to get the ticket and never put it back up. I set it down a few minutes later t snap a pic...and walked away. Didn't realize it until about 20 minutes later as we were leaving when I panicked, raced back, and of course, it was gone. Passport, Driver's license, about $160, Visas (to get in/out the country), Debit card linked to my bank account.

Marie had a contact at the embassy, so she called and I talked to somebody's secretary who said she would have a consulate meet me there in a few minutes. Went in and w/in 30 minutes had instructions for getting a new passport. Cool - but I'm still pretty upset since my passport has all my travel stamps from Europe '04 and this trip. Plus I have rent and other bills coming through my account at home and am gonna have a rack of charges to sort through and hopefully get refunded if someone uses my card. On top of all this - I am really inconveniencing everyone else cause we are supposed to be going to Siem Reap w/ a group of 8 for the weekend.

I did what I could...My credit union was closed and I wasn't sure if the automated system cancelled my card or not, I couldn't get a hold of my mom...so I left her in hindsight a pretty scary message "Yeah, I'm in Cambodia - just lost my money and my passport. Please cancel my card for me and I'll call you when I can."

We had an interesting ride on a country road for 4 hrs to Siem Reap. Our driver stopped just outside of SR to drop off some "üniforms" freaking us all out when we were all of a sudden surrounded at night by guys on motos and him hopping out to open the trunk. Our most educated guess: drug run. Whatever...Marie and I stayed in the car while Matt and Ari got out together to make sure all our stuff stayed in the trunk. Didn't take long...one of the moto guys inspected something using the car headlights, found it acceptable - and bounced. Most of the drive was cool - until the rains started, which made it a lil scary since street lights are few and far between. There is an interesting "highway"system where during the day people honk to let others (busses, cars, motos, cows, trailers, monks, children) know they are there or are passing and then at night it switches to a headlight flashing system serving the same purpose. It's kind of an art what they do.

Siem Reap is a cute lil French colonial town (really, so is PP w/o the cuteness). Rocky had chosen a $4/night hostel to stay in and I wasn't really happy - but I was too worn out from the whole day to do anything, so I roomed w/ Marie, Deeted (posion on the skin...yay!) myself and put on full clothes, then fell asleep.
It was ok though, cause we woke up at 4 something in the morning to get out to Angkor Wat (the main temple) to see the sunrise.

The next 3 days in SR was great and just what I needed (yes, we upgraded). SR and the Angkor complex deserves its own entry so I'll do that later. Right now I have to go bargain for a backpack for Marie (who btw, is hella cool). She gave me $20 and a job to do - so I'm off to do it befoe she gets off work! Later.

P.S. I don't edit these entries before posting. I just want to get the stuff up for now - I'll check for grammar and spelling and sense-making as I get time.



"A passport, as I'm sure you know, is a document that one shows to government officials whenever one reaches a border between countries, so the officials can learn who you are, where you were born, and how you look when photographed unflatteringly." ~Lemony Snicket

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Comments

[shannon]

Holy crap on the wallet loss! That sucks! I hope you get everything resolved without too much trauma. I knew Marie was interested in working with Cambodian issues, but I didn't know that she would be out there this summer. Did she do it through another school's program? p.s. you are *so* much braver than me. :D

[FireSnake]

SCU has a SE Asia option where you can do just one week in Singapore getting an overview of the region, then do a 6/7 week internship in Cambodia, Vietnam, or Thailand. Marie along w/ two others are going Cambodia. Oh and trust me, there have been times when I was like "what the hell am I doing here?"