Phnom Penh, Cambodia Different Perspectives Newsletter August 17, 2008

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Dear Patrons,

Welcome to our news letter. The Staff at Different Perspectives try to bring a clearer picture of current events effecting China and Asia. Although we believe the international media driven primarily by the western world's interests, is bringing the public events as they happen, we at Different Perspectives are independent and non biased without an agenda for prestige or monetary profit. We simply feel the western world may be somewhat isolated from news that is local to our office here in Beijing, China.

We hope you enjoy the news from a different perspective. Please contact us with your questions or comments. We look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you
Different Perspectives Staff
Edward



Sunday August 17, 2008
Yang Chou Thmey Guest House
Phnom Penh, Cambodia



I spent most of the morning reading my Lonely Planet to see about options for when I arrived in Vietnam in a few days. Having coffee with the locals as usual,
I noticed the men planning and placing their bets for the day. They seemed to spend a majority of the morning doing this and then riding off somewhere to watch
the races. I'm not sure if it's horse racing but I think it is. Somewhere in my roaming around I seem to recall seeing signage that resembled horse track racing.

I didn't see any horse tracks in Cambodia, so I think they were "offshore", maybe in Hong Kong. In any case it was another laid back as it could be morning
with the locals. Most of the men dressed fairly well in linen pants with short sleeve silk shirts untucked at the waist. I'm guessing that the gambling payed off.
The woman wore jeans.Some men worn traditional Khmer shirt and pant suits of the same color, with waist pockets in the shirts.

I spent another 2-3 hours at the Internet Cafe in the Fagelli Guest House. From there I went down the street to Monoving Boulevard and 252 street for a salad and bread at the Pizza Man, then over to the Capital Bus Station to check on bus tickets to Ho Chi Minh City. A very busy intersection the coffee shop connected to the bus station had many tourists coming and going. A major bus station for transit between Cambodia and Vietnam.

I met a German Architect who had been working in Phnom Penh for a couple of years. A single man, experiencing Cambodia while working. He had a bit to say about the lack of progression and creativity in Cambodian Architecture. But said he enjoyed doing business in Cambodia, that his Cambodian colleagues were a pleasure to do business with. Sitting drinking coffee together we were both contemplating our future as an afternoon downpour washed through the streets of the busy Phnom Penh intersection in front of us.

I finished the afternoon and evening with a cruise through various neighborhoods in the city, stopped for some street eats then headed back to my GS. to catch the woman's basketball
Olympics competition on television. I felt good about the information I had acquired through various conversations throughout the day about Vietnam and by reading my guide book.
I'm ready to go on 9 am Wednesday morning.



Monday August 18, 2008
Yang Chou Thmey Guest House
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

After coffee and 1 hour on the Internet I made it to a friends villa about 3 km away for lunch. It was good to be there. It was suggested that I visit this person, to indirectly keep in touch with my friends back in Beijing. It's always feels a little bit better to have contacts where I travel to.

On my motor bike ride to lunch I stopped for a cold drink at a sidewalk cafe. There were about 20 men sitting watching an American science fiction movie on a television
mounted to the wall of the cafe. At 11:30 in the morning on a Monday morning! I found it strange to say the least but no more odd than they thought of me sitting down with them.
I got some perplexed looks. But felt safe as they welcomed me to pull up a stool.

After a cold drink I rode around the corner to my friends Villa. Entering through a gate I walked my motor bike down a narrow alleyway that was lined with flowers and plants.
Parking my bike I entered the patio of a 3 story high french type villa with large columns supporting porches at each floors level. French windows adorned the rooms on each side
of me.

My friend was an immigration lawyer from the states who had studied in Asia and settled down with his Cambodian wife and daughter. We had interesting conversation about Asian law
and how it would effect Expats such as myself who might want to bring an Asian woman as a wife back to the states. At the time it was a subject that was one my plate to investigate.

After lunch I decided to hang out at the Capital Bus Terminal coffee shop to do some more reading about Vietnam. I met a nice Polish woman arriving from Vietnam. More conversations
about Vietnam in preparation. Works good.

After nice conversation I decided to explore where the "Olympic Stadium" was. I knew by my map that it was in this part of the city and that it at one time bore historical significance.
So I hopped of my motor bike and tooled around popping in and out of alley's and asking questions until I found exactly where it was.

Rolling up the parking ramp I entered a stadium similar in style and scale as the Rose Bowl in Pasadena California. The architectural era seemed similar. I parked on the upper level
so was able to look down onto the field and survey the entire stadium.

Above the edges of the upper seats there was a concrete walkway where I could walk all the away around the stadium looking with a birds eye view. The stadium quite active with visitors. It seemed like there was a holiday celebration going on. But I don't think so. I think it was just the nature of the Cambodian people to hang out and socialize as if it were just another day.

Before long I was seeing in more detail what was about to happen. I had noticed that young men were setting up PA systems along the walkway facing the stadium field, and music
sporadically playing. Along the edges of the walkway 100's woman, men and people of all ages starting doing aerobics to the music. Before long nearly the entire outside edge of the
walkway surrounding the stadium was lined with people energetically doing aerobics in unison. I couldn't believe my eyes another amazing event unfolding right in front me.

I watched this display of the Cambodian community in awe for about an hour. As the sun was setting throughout I walked around snapping pictures and interacting with a culture so
passive and seemingly innocent. This I said was so typical of the amazing experiences that I had in S.E Asia. I was grateful once again. This time on the outskirts of Phnom Penh in a world as foreign as I had ever been to.

After the sun went down I went back to my GH to get ready to meet a friend from the Flagella GH for Dinner. I rode my motor bike not more than 1 km to the National Monument to meet her. She brought her girlfriend with her and we all followed each other on our motor bikes to the Mekong River Boulevard. A popular tourist area. My Guest House was about 4 km south where there were no tourists. We had dinner in a moderately priced western restaurant over looking the Mekong River. Pretty touristy stuff.

After dinner we went our separate ways as I headed back to the Yang Chou Thmey Guest House to finish another day in one of my favorite cities Phnom Penh,Cambodia.



Tuesday August 19, 2008
Yang Chou Thmey Guest House
Phnom Penh, Cambodia


Started the day off as usual with coffee across the street. The skies looked like rain but it held off until evening. The proprietor at the Flagella Guest House had offered me his copy
of Lonely Planet Vietnam, so I stopped by there to pick it up. This was great luck, since I couldn't find an English Guide Book anywhere in Phnom Penh for Vietnam. And I really wanted one since I was planning on staying in Vietnam for 2 weeks.

Yes things were working out fine just as they had since I left Beijing 7 weeks earlier. I was amazed how my plans almost always, save for a little bit of work on my part seemingly fell into place effortlessly.

Around noon I decided to visit my Immigration Lawyer friend who lived in the Villa across town. Walking into the French Type patio I was taken back to see a quite famous American actor visiting also. He looked exactly like he does in the movies. I recognized him immediately.

After having lunch I motor biked north of the city about 50 km to Udong and a group of Temples and Stu pas at the summit of a mountain. It was a hot, hot ride into the Cambodian county side. Beautiful scenery, mostly rice fields and some fishing from the back waters of the Mekong River. I stopped for some food and water and to get some shade. It was really hot!

I had a map with me so I had an idea of where to go. And off in the distance maybe 8 km stood the mountain, among square km's of rice and vegetable farming. So I could see the temples I just had to navigate my way toward it in the distance.

I turned off the main road and onto a dusty farming road. I stopped along the way to say hello to local farmers and snap pictures. It seemed so often I was more foreign to the locals
than they were to me. Always generous seldom did they object to my picture taking. Another few km and I was finally at entrance to this Buddhist hilltop shine that looked like it didn't
get much attention from it's followers.

Nearly the only one there I parked my bike under a tree and started the moderate climb up steep pitched stairs carved into the mountainside to the Temple Summit. Along the way monkeys startled me in the hot and quiet Cambodian afternoon. The same primate type that I had seen at Mount Po pa in Myanmar.

At the top of the mountain maybe 600 meter elevation stood a fairly new temple the size of a small building. 3 stories high built into the pitch of the mountains peak. A modern structure it was made with light colored concrete and large floor to ceiling windows. Each area of the temple separated spatially by steep pitched roofs, twisting the rays of the late afternoon sun. In the east the flat plains of rice fields stretched over the horizon toward Phnom Penh.

Back down to the bottom of the mountain I got on my motorbike. It was very hot. Hotter than Bag an Myanmar. I rested for a few moments. Slowly navigating my way down the steep exit road I was somewhat delirious from the heat and was getting nervous that I would get caught in the afternoon showers as the rain clouds were forming and moving into the area rather quickly. Once off the mountain I headed toward a complex within view of a huge new Buddhist Spiritual retreat. I walked around and talked with local Cambodian Buddhist men that were attending a retreat.

They were all men, but it was pointed out to me upon my inquire that the woman's retreat was the building over there. This complex had at least a dozen buildings of at least 20 acres. A huge entrance area and many Buddha statues, fountains and deity statues, as well as at least one other huge temple. This whole complex was virtually brand new. And could easily
support a residency of 500 people. I was mystified again at how the Buddhist Temples and complexes have such large financial support in contrast to the economic well being of the average Cambodian.

Leaving the Buddhist complex I rode in the direction of the route back to Phnom Penh. Passing a small village of maybe 2 families The woman and children looking like they were bathing or just cooling off in a type of double outhouse/bathhouse. As they came to the edge of the rode curiously to see who was coming by, I stopped to say hello. Their village of 2 or 3 small shelters were the only settlement in the area. There was another small settlement further back down the road, but otherwise it barren dry Cambodian wilderness.

I spoke briefly with the villagers and took some picture of course. Sitting on a table under a tree was a man with no legs. With a Cambodian smile he welcomed me to approached him. I asked him how he lost his legs and he said from a "bomb bomb". He had stepped on a mine just outside his backyard. Many parts of Cambodia are littered with hidden unexploded mines left over from the wars that ravished Cambodia for decades.(see my publication on Vientiane, Laos Different Perspectives Newsletter August 7, 2008 on travelblog.org to read more about UXO, (unexploded ordinances)).

I was moved by the seeming acceptance in the eyes of this young man, and how he freely and calmly described to me in broken english how he stepped on the mine in his back yard. Afterwards he introduced me to his family. Continuing again on my motorbike toward the route back to Phnom Penh I reflected back in awe what I had seen this afternoon.


The ride back to Phnom Penh was unusual as one could imagine in the back country of SE Asia. One event I remember seeing 100's of workers (all woman) being transported in the back of open air panel trucks from the Garment Factories outside of Phnom Penh back to their villages. Another opportunity for me to learn a little bit more about Cambodia. Whence on the tourist route I would have never seen all I saw today.

The 1 1/2 hour ride back to Phnom Penh was safe. I got the motor bike back to the shop in time and avoided the rain. The motor bike rental shop had my Vietnam visa ready me.
I went around the corner to purchase a 10 dollar US bus ticket to Ho Chi Minh City, took a 1$ motorbike taxi back to the Yang Chou Thmey to pack a little. Then went for salad, spaghetti and garlic bread at the corner western pizza house. Stopped at the local 24 hour convenience store to pick up an ice cream and say goodbye to my Cambodian clerk girlfriend.

I had a good day. Udong was definitely worth the trip. I loved it. Tomorrow to Vietnam. Thank you Cambodia. I love you.


Next time on Different Perspectives join me as I travel into the mysterious country Vietnam to its second biggest city Ho Chi Minh City. Don't miss my story as it all starts with a delay at the border while the guards closely examine and eventually reluctantly accept my American passport.


Please join me, until then…….


“Those who accept that we all die someday settle their quarrels.” From The Book Dhammapada. A gift given to me in Mandalay, Myanmar by my friend Hnin Hnin yu

*Please forgive me as this publication has limited photographs, since I had trouble with my camera.

peace always

Edward
Different Perspectives

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