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Published: March 3rd 2008
Sorry, this one got really long, but it has been absolutely amazing. As always, here is our favorite conversation from the road these past few weeks:
“You buy bracelet?”
“No thanks,” I replied.
“Okay.” The little girl replied, disappointedly. “Where you from?”
“United States.”
“Oh, America. Washington D.C. capitol. Population about three hundred million. President George Bush. Alaska biggest state. Rhode Island smallest state. Honolulu capitol of Hawaii.”
“What about Wisconsin?”
“Umm…” The girl gives me a blank look. I ask myself if anyone ever knows anything about Wisconsin. “Now you buy bracelet? I give you special price, fifteen for two dollars?”
“What do I do with fifteen bracelets?” I ask, thinking of the Wayne’s World scene discussing gun racks.
“You give them to your girlfriend.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.” As I chuckle. She obviously doesn’t know me.
“Then give them to your wife.”
“I certainly don’t have a wife.” I laughed aloud, and rather loudly. The little girl interrupted me rather quickly, as I had fallen directly into the trap she had laid for me.
“You know why you don’t have girlfriend?”
“No, why?”
“Cause you don’t buy them my bracelets! You buy my bracelets you have most beautiful
girlfriend. She soooo beautiful. I promise. You buy bracelets now?”
“You name the capitol of Wisconsin I’ll buy your bracelets.” Darren jumped in.
“Umm...”
I saw an opportunity. I leaned down and told one girl “Say Madison.”
“Madi! Madi! Madi!” She yelled. Five more started jumping in on the chant. Little girls incorrectly shouting the capitol of Wisconsin swarmed us. Darren started laughing and cursed me as they pulled on his shirt.
“That’s not right.”
“What’s the name again?” The girl asked me.
“Say Ma-di-son” I told her again.
“Madison! Madison! Now you have to buy my bracelets! You promised!” As she kept following us to our tuk-tuk. We had an entourage of girls shouting Madison holding out their bracelets. “Now you have to buy my bracelets. Capitol is Madison! Buy bracelets, you promised. Now you will have most beautiful girlfriend! I promise. Beautiful girls love you because my bracelets!”
Single men out there, the answer to your lonely nights lies in the parking lot across from Angkor Wat. Two dollars will get you any woman you want. Except Condi Rice, that is, as Darren is two dollars poorer but has high hopes (Darren’s edit: I figured I needed
a way to, uh, differentiate myself once I move to D.C.). Yeah, Condi, I don’t get it; I guess he listened to a little too much Morris Day and the Time growing up. I think my friends Ben Stein and Ben Lawless are the only ones that caught that obscure, politically incorrect (maybe offensive…), eighties, Minneapolis based B-level star, pop culture reference.
As for the temples of Angkor, yeah, we did see those, and they are amazing. For those who don’t know, and also didn’t follow my advice to Wikipedia or Google them, they were built during the Khmer Empire between 802 and 1300 A.D. They are mammoth and the only reason they aren’t as well known in the U.S. is because they are in Cambodia, which has been in civil unrest for so long and is so far removed from our culture. They cover an enormous amount of land and the most common way to see the sites is to rent a moto, tuk-tuk, or taxi for a day (or to get on a bus with fifty other tourists if you are from Japan, Korea or China). There are several buildings, temples, and monuments per site within the
30 km outer loop and many others a little further away. And these aren’t small structures by any means. The most famous temple, Angkor Wat, is 55 meters high and 800 meters (to help those unfamiliar with the length of a meter, that is a little over a yard) wide. One of sites, Angkor Thom, is over six miles long. After the fall of the empire several sites were lost to the jungle and only recently have they begun to pull away the jungle. Okay, still can’t picture it? Do I really have to go to pop culture? They filmed Tomb Raider here. People who don’t know that, think quintessential Indiana Jones jungle scene.
We spent four days exploring the area. The first day was spent at Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, two of the biggest temple complexes. The second day we went to five sites in that area including Ta Prohm, Preah Khan, Preah Neak Pean, and Tah Som. The third day we went farther a field to Banteay Srei, which was about a fifty-minute tuk-tuk ride (but still falls under the Angkor Wat pass). This site is considered by many (including Darren) to be the most beautiful
due to its intricate carvings and extensive details (Darren’s edit: Banteay Srei, like most of the temples and monasteries, has a big Hindu influence, which fits with my whole India thing). (My favorite was Ta Prohm.)
We decided we had had enough temples and ruins after three days and began our trek to the more remote northeast corner of Cambodia. The journey took us back to Phnom Penh where we stayed the night and prepared for the ten-hour bus ride. Or at least that is what we had signed up for. As we got halfway there, dust and smoke started coming up from the floor underneath the little Cambodian kid seated in the aisle (literally sitting in the aisle because the bus was past full) next to me. The locals started shouting to the conductor as the smoke filled the bus, so he walked back and opened the sun roof/emergency exit and the smoke exited. Problem solved; the smoke now flowed freely from beneath the kid out the roof. When we got to the next city we pulled over and the driver and conductor began to look into the engine. After a little hammering away on it, they pulled
Ban Lung
A bustling downtown that rivals my hometown of Neenah, WI.out something that looked important, and everyone was kind of puzzled. They jumped on a moto and disappeared for an hour or so and finally returned with a new part. Two and a half hours later we were back on the road; after fifteen hours we finally made it to Ban Lung.
Now Ban Lung is the “capital” of Ratankiri province, which is known for beautiful waterfalls, the Virichey National Park, and horrible, dusty red dirty, bumpy roads. Darren and I experienced all three to their fullest. I put “capital” in parentheses as it is an overgrown village. Nonetheless, it is an absolutely amazing place. The locals are incredibly friendly (the children, half naked, always shout “Helllllloooooo” as your ride by). Anyway, the first day we checked out a crater lake that was formed tens of thousands of years ago from a volcanic eruption. We met quite a few locals hanging out at the lake and I got into a cannonball contest with some of the kids jumping off the dock. One of the locals, Hob, offered to drive us around to the three major waterfalls the next day (for a small fee), so we took him up on
Yeak Laom Crater Lake
Local kids in a cannonball contest. the offer. He was from one of the three local minorities in the area so he had some really interesting insights as we drove through some of their villages. The waterfalls themselves were absolutely amazing, some of the best I have ever seen. I would try to describe them, but they were waterfalls, so any description would sound pretty idiotic.
The best part of Ratankiri is the locals we met. We were asked to eat/drink with a group of individuals on three different occasions while visiting the waterfalls. The people here are just astoundingly friendly and completely genuine. We get quite a few inquisitive looks because of being “pharang” or foreigners. Whenever you walk into a restaurant the hostess shouts to the back basically communicating that a few whities just came in so can the English-speaking waitress come out and help figure out what they want. Darren and I get a kick out that; it is pretty funny scene. The best is when the waitress and the tables around you get into a conversation you can’t understand, look in your direction, and then start laughing. We are a hit and are constantly asked to join people eating, drinking, dancing,
Me in Kinchaan Waterfall
At least I think it was Kinchaan... It may have been Ka Tieng. But would you know the difference? whatever. We also saw something that made both of us completely speechless and has to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. While waiting for our food at the local restaurant the night we went to the waterfalls there was a fairly large family across from us. A three year old little boy, with his back to us, got up in the middle of his meal, pulled a wad of tissue from the napkin holder, pulled down his pants, and started wiping his backside in the middle of the restaurant, right in our faces nonetheless. His family didn’t react, as if it was completely normal. Darren and I just looked at each other and cracked up. Really? REALLY? We both agreed it was the most ridiculous thing we had ever seen and that it had to be put into the blog. So there you go. Enjoy your next meal.
The following day we headed into Virichey National Park. It took us (us being our Cambodian guide, a Brit, a Dane, a Fin, Darren and myself) a day of travel from Ban Lung via moto (one of which of course broke down) and boat just to get to
the border of the park. Part way there I realized that it was the farthest I have ever been from anything resembling a city, in the Western sense of the word at least. We were intensely remote at this point. That night we stayed a Brau village, which is one of the local hill tribes in the area. It was absolutely incredible. Our white skin more than mystified the locals and the kids would stare and run away as soon as you walked towards them. I took some video footage of the kids singing a folk song from a distance and when I replayed it for them later they freaked. I ended up with a group of about 15 kids hanging on me watching the 30-second clip on the two-inch screen of my camera. They made me replay it at least twelve times. One of the kids, Lom, pulled me into his family’s house to drink rice wine with him and his parents; none of them spoke English and they knew only a few words of Khmer (the Cambodian language). I spent the next few hours drinking rice wine and playing a ridiculous game of charades trying to communicate. I
Brau Children
The mad one on the left was the chief's kid and he had a crush on one of the girls in the picture, hence the mad face. eventually ended up teaching them a bunch of English words and learning some Brau in the meantime. The game finally stopped after I tried to explain the constellation Orion to him (the stars are spectacular in rural Cambodia); it was just too difficult. And, in case it ever comes up for you, facial hair is phonetically pronounced “sukh moh” in Brau.
We woke up early the next day and began our jungle trek. We walked about eight hours that day and it was some of the most beautiful trekking I have ever done. Normally when you go hiking, the final destination is the highlight, but here it was just the path that was the most amazing. To make it better, most of the hike was along the Ho Chi Minh trail. You can still see the foxholes the Vietcong dug and there are caches of Chinese and American weapons (along with other “souvenirs” left over from the war) along the path. It was really interesting to think that Americans that walked the same path thirty years ago were wearing army fatigues and fighting “the man in the black pajamas” as Walter so eloquently put it in the Big Lebowski.
Lom and Me
The one on the left is Lom. They were avoiding snipers and placing land mines; now here we were, the same age as those here before us but visiting it as tourists, unable to step off the trail for fear of losing a leg from those very devices they were planting. We made sure not to walk off the designated path and made it safely to the river where we set up camp and spent the night in the jungle. For some reason, I had always had a romanticized view of what it would be like to camp overnight in the jungle. In the end, it was just camping in a forest; except louder (the frogs were insane!) and the animals you have to watch out for are smaller and poisonous (i.e. spiders and snakes), not large and flesh eating (i.e. bears).
We hiked out the next day and then traveled back to Ban Lung and everything we have on the trip is now completely caked in red dirt. We took it easy the next day, letting our blisters heal, relaxing at the crater lake, and just being lazy. The following day we headed to Kratie, which is where our bus broke down on the way
Jungle Spider
This was one of the creatures we saw. It was the size of my fist and the guide said it was poisonous. The Fin caught one of them crawling up his leg on the ride home... to Ban Lung. We missed the bus through a miscommunication with the driver and ended up in a shared taxi. There were five people in the Toyota Camary but the driver wasn’t leaving for some reason. We found out we still had two more people to pick up… Because Darren and I were foreigners though, and had to pay the foreigner price (as opposed to the local’s price), they didn’t want to put more than three in the backseat. So, instead, they put four people in the front two seats (i.e. there were two people sitting the in driver’s seat!).
Kratie itself is a pleasant riverside town where you can see the rare fresh water dolphins that live in the Mekong River. We are taking a day to go and check out these guys while also making sure that the journey is a little easier on our backsides. After Kratie we will be heading down to Phnom Penh for a night before we fly to Bangkok. The following day we will be heading up to Chang Mai in northern Thailand on an overnight train. We’ll have about eight days there before we hit up northern Laos. Out of all
D and Me
After the moto ride back from the jungle our faces were caked in the red dust that covers the roads in Ratanakiri. the countries in southeast Asia, Lao was the one I looked forward to the most, so it is extremely exciting. Darren and I both agree that northeast Cambodia was the best place we have been this far, so it has a lot to live up to!
Hope all is well with you and you’ll be hearing from us shortly! (I’ll try to keep the next one a bit shorter, I promise
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Jessica Bernard
non-member comment
Are you guys considering applying for the next season of the Amazing Race? Now that you've done your homework, I'd say you're ready to go. Loved the image of Ta Prohm. It looks like a phenomenal site and I hope to visit it some day. B.J. and I may be heading to Finland in early April, if you happen to be venturing to those parts, let us know. Love, Jess