Tuk Tuk & Away!

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Saturday 1-8
Today is a day of travel. We got up early to see a floating village, where they have a catfish farm in the middle of the river. We then stopped at a riverside village of Indonesian settlers, where we saw one of the few Muslim temples in Vietnam. The women of the village made beautiful textiles; we got to watch one of them weaving a sari. And Raelene finally found banh ba – a delicious bread within a bread treat she’s been looking for days!

We then headed up the Mekong River for 3 hours to our border crossing with Cambodia. After a lot of waiting around and several stamp pads later, our passports were good to go and we hopped a bus for another 3 hours into Phnom Penh. This had to be the worst bus ride yet – we could barely fit all of the people and luggage inside and I was sitting with my knees nearly to my chest the whole time. Ugh, I was SO ready to get off that bus. [Nick Note: The road was just dirt at the border crossing and I was afraid it would be so the whole way but after a little bit we connected with the main road and the road was very good the whole way even though the bus had no shocks left.] Fortunately, the ride did lend itself to some entertainment. We had to cross a small bridge that was very sandy due to the nearby beach, so we all had to get out and cross the bridge on foot so that the bus could safely make it over the bridge and not get stuck in the sand. None of this was made apparent to us at the time, as once we crossed over from Vietnam, our guides stayed behind and we were left “alone” with our Cambodian driver who spoke no English. Through hand gestures and some head shaking, we eventually all got off the bus and he had to honk his horn at us to tell us to get out of the way of the bus while moving across the bridge. At which time, his car horn got stuck and we were quite the roadside attraction. He had to jump out of the bus and then pull on a string he had obviously set up so he could stop the horn to stop, we and some villagers included broke out into loud applause.

We arrived in Phnom Penh and immediately headed into an internet café for a couple hours. You would think we had been without food and water for the last 5 days instead of just being offline. We all surged onto Facebook and email like it was a frickin’ oasis! Sad but true. We then headed to an American-style bar for some much needed non-noodle food, where Nick was able to get a decent burrito and Rae and I dug into some giant burgers and fries. The free wifi and classic rock background music made it a pretty joyful evening.

Sunday 1-9
Tuk tuk and away! We hired a tuk tuk to take us around the sites, which was actually a pretty fun ride. There’s way more dust here than there was in Saigon a lot less traffic in general and the scooter to car ratio has more cars (though there are still more scooters than cars and there are no taxi cabs just tuk tuks). So the scooters drive way faster and the roads seem a bit more treacherous for a big slow tuk tuk like us. The crazy thing too is that so many more women ride the scooters side saddle here, and they don’t even hold on to anything! I have no idea how they can even stay on the damn thing at those speeds; thighs of steel I suppose!

We headed out of Phnom Penh to see the Killing Fields. This area was once a Chinese cemetery but was used as an extermination camp by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970’s during their “cleansing” of Cambodia. Thousands of people were brought here to die. The Khmer Rouge apparently was as meticulous as the Nazis in keeping records of their tortures, so the museum on sight had photographs of the victims both before and after these horrific events. We walked around what used to be over 80 mass graves; in many places teeth and scraps of clothing were still littered on the ground from partial excavations. It was quite a sobering place and so crazy to think that a nation of people could do this to each other. It was said that the Khmer Rouge hacked and bludgeoned people to death in order to save bullets, which were much too expensive. They even rounded up the wives, children and family members of their victims and murdered them as well to prevent anyone from taking revenge on them. Another part of world history that, at least for me, never got taught in school. [Nick Note: There were many killing areas around the country just like there are many concentration camps. This one is the most famous because it is near Phnom Penh and thus is now also a national memorial which includes a huge stupa which holds about 9000 skulls and had glass walls so you can see all the bones. There is also a tree which was used to bash the heads of small children on instead of using a machete to kill them. I don’t know why the Khmer Rouge decided this was the best way to execute babies, in a macabre way a machete blow seems more humane.]

In an effort to come out from under the dark cloud of sadness left behind by a trip to the Killing Fields, we then headed to the Russian Market in Phnom Penh. It was a very fun, lively place with tons of rip off designer goods, food stalls, and souvenir shops. I actually broke down and bought my first souvenirs of the trip. Now I just have to find a way not to carry them around for the next 5 months (thanks Jane & Rae! ;o) Nick noted that there seem to be a lot more handicrafts and artisanal goods here than there were at the markets in Vietnam. We saw some beautiful textiles and decorations, many of which are made by humanitarian organizations trying to help the hungry, homeless, infirm, etc. in Cambodia. It looks like there’s a lot of “shopping for a good cause” organizations here.

So we headed to one for lunch! A restaurant owned by an organization called Friends that helps street kids go to school and find a vocation. The restaurant itself was a teaching restaurant, where the kids learn to cook, serve and run a business. And they’re doing a good job of it! We ate tapas that were absolutely delicious! It was probably the most expensive meal we’ve had so far in South East Asia (expensive being a relative term at $3-4 a plate), but it was so worth it! The food was great, the money went to a good cause and I fell into a pleasant food coma by the middle of the day.

Sadly the afternoon found us without a tuk tuk, as our tour provider, unbeknownst to us, switched us to a larger van tour :o( We were pretty bummed to lose our fun on wheels and learned that next time it might be better not to go thru the Sinh Tourist agency (note to anyone coming to Cambodia). But the sightseeing continued and we got to visit the Royal Palace. After the 1979 revolution and downfall of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia’s royal family was put back in charge. The Royal Palace is where the king and queen currently live, so most of the place was off limits, but we did get to see the thrown room and the Silver Pagoda. I don’t think I have ever seen so many buddhas in one place before. Sadly, we didn’t have a tour guide to explain anything to us, so much of the meaning and symbolism was lost on us, but it was beautiful! The spires and decorations of the outside of the buildings are stunning. I can only imagine what Angkor Wat will be like!

To round out our day of wandering, we headed to the National Museum to see ancient Buddhist and Hindu sculptures (I had no idea Cambodia started out as a Hindu culture) and to the Phnom Wat pagoda, which was surrounded by macaque monkeys (a new monkey for me!). [Nick Note: This pagoda is one a little hill where the city was founded, the city’s name, Phnom Pehn, literally means Penh’s mountain.] The pagoda was pretty, with elaborate frescos painted on the walls (none of which we could make sense of), but the elephant rides for sale to tourists outside was pretty sad. This ancient female looked so slow and arthritic trying to bend down and stand back up to pick people up that it was painful to watch. She had rubber sandals made for her cracked feet and you could tell she was having trouble even putting weight on them. She was even being used as a billboard, having a bear advertisement blanketed over her head and back. Ugh, it was hard to see and you just wanted to shake those damn tourists and make them understand what a cruel industry they’re supporting! The poor thing.

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Comments

[danisom]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW. Crunchy. Ugh. Erg. Ech?