cambodia

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hey all...made it to cambodia safely and thought i would update on the last weeks...

leaving pai on curvey roads that lead to blind corners of adventure ahead.
familar land behind...exploration of new found territory in front.
reflection upon the last five weeks...
thanks, love, and gratitude for what i have experienced.
staying present, for the future moves too quickly.
wishing there was a way to stop time and not only be here now, but be here forever.

siem reap...
crossing borders...cultural boundaries transform into historical contexts.
as we move from our air conditioned luxury bus into a rickety, packed transport, paved roads transform into dirt, rocks, and boulders.
cambodia...a country so poor but so rich with emotion.
knowing the pain and struggle behind each smile puts forth a new perspective.
civil war so recent,
peace still foreign.
watching a country rebuild itself.
same roots, different structure.
with tourism as a recent phenomenon, western influence is slowly creeping in.
but nothing can replace, erase, or retrace history.
with antiviolence billboards scattered across city walls and organizations building from the ground up, they can only move forward from here...UNITY...

angkor wat...
waking up in the silent hours of the early morning before the city craze begins.
witnessing aestethic alterations in ponds full of angkor wat reflections upon myself.
sunrise splatter paint across the sky's canvas.
witnessing colors of the world in both the faces around me and the heaven above me.
enjoying the peace and quiet of dawn.
an ancient city with temples full of hand scultpted details covering wall to wall.
piles of stones from architecture that could not stand strong through the country's years of weakness.
decapitated heads on stone scultptures and missing buddhas...destruction from within the culture.
desperate souls who demolished ancient ruins just to have something to sell on the black market.
and amongst all the tourism and chaos, peace and tranquility still surrounds.
still waters shaded by trees with overgrown roots that intertwine with sanstone temples disrupted by nature.
angkor wat...a sacred place that has survived all the terror.

phenom penh...
exhausted from the exhausting.
emotionally disturbed by drastic measures of power.
innocent children born into suffering; working the streets prioritized over education.
hasseling everyone and anyone because they are told to do so.
environmental ignorance.
undescribable traffic that cant even compare to bangkok.
black clouds of exhaust leak between traffic lanes going every direction imaginable.
streets covered with trash that slowly makes its way to the lake.
polluting that which took so long to rebuild.
a clean slate that lies between dirty feet that walk upon wartorn grounds.
educating myself...american news and world history clases seem to make cambodia a forgotten and nonexistant culture.
landmine traumas injuring and killing thousands of innocent civilians.
children that once found foreign "toys" amongst the countryside that exploded into blindness and missing limbs.
where do they go from here?
disabilities turn into beggers with true desperation. a life to live without the ability to function productively.
moving forward...
slowing...
one foot at a time.
dismanteling hidden weapone that slowly mass destruct.
undoing the problem of the future but remembering what it has done to the past.

and then the choeung ek killing fields and tuoi sieng genocide museum...
as one may assume that they are fleeing the chaos of the city and visiting the naturally beautiful countryside, it is only to witness gravefilled ditches and memorials from the recent past. hundreds of thousands of innocent skulls stacked on top of one another to form a national monument. with a refreshing breeze blowing through the gardenia trees, it is difficult to imagine the torture that took place here only thirty years ago. but there is no need to imagine it...terrified, disgusing, and hopeless energy still flows through our perceiving selves. the museum...irony in the transition from once being a school, then a torturing prison, and now a tourist attraction. original artifacts lie around cold brick and barbed wire cells. steel shackles casually sit atop bedframes and brick floors that were once occupied by dead bodies. ghostly vibrations from one room to the next. feeling the reminants of pain and suffering. i continue to walk around, looking at all the pictures and biographies of all the innocent victims. some men, some women, some elders, and some infants...IT HURTS! my personal tears of observation fall and evaporate on the ground with all the tears of victims that once touched these same floors. people that are punished for their culture, BY their culture. i feel empty from emotional exhaustion but full of informative reality. i soak it all in, take a deep breath, and put forth my positive energy to those that have passed on, survived, and connected themselves to this genocide.

sorry if it was a bit heavy. please educate yourselves on cambodias history. civil war from 1975-1979 that almost demolished the entire country. khmer rouge communist tried to take over. erased religion, customs, and cultural traditions while killing so many people. i have learned so much and i want each one of you to do the same and spread that knowledge. we are the change we all want to see!

as for the travels, we are going to the coast of cambodia in a couple of days and then to thailands islands. time to chill and relax before we head to india at the end of march. miss and love each and every one of you!

here are some light loving words to leave you with that i saw today...
"humans are tuned for relationship. the eyes, the skin, the tongue, ears, and nostrils- are all gates where our body receives the nourishment of otherness. this landscape of shadowed voices, these feathered bodies and antlers and tumbling streams- these breathing shapes are our family, the beings with whom we are engaged, with whom we struggle and suffer and celebrate"

sorry it was so long. pictures are updated too. hope you enjoy!
blessings*

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