Cambodia 2011
Diane L. Smith
5 Dec: Joam Reap Sooa: We are now in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Lots of beautiful buildings from palaces to temples to apartments to homes. We started our day with a visit to the Ntional Museum and the Royal Palace. Very beautiful. We didn't get to visit the throne building because they were preparing for a visit tomorrow by the Viet Nam ambassador. A lot of people spend a lot of time grooming the gardens.
After the palace, we made an impromptu stop at a wedding and, for a while, participated in part of the ritual. We were invited to join them for lunch, but our schedule didn't permit. A really enjoyable time. We were complete strangers and foreigners; yet, we were warmly welcomed and treated like family. Amazing.
Now, the grim part: Our next stop was at one of the "Killing fields" It's one of over 125 throughout the country. At this one place the Khmer Rouge (KR) killed over 8000 people. There were thousands of skulls, bones, etc that had been found on the property and placed on trays in the memorial building. We walked around seeing large holes where corpses were found. There were 450 in one and 100 children in another. One grave contained 160 headless bodies. As we walked, the guide pointed out pieces of jaw bones and skull fragments sticking out of the ground that the floods had washed up. All told over 2,000,000 men, women and children were killed by the KR, about 1/3 of the population at the time. They tried to eliminate teachers, scientists, political leaders, doctors and anyone else that they perceived as a potential threat to them. When they were finally driven from power by the troops from Viet Nam, there were only five doctors left in the country.
We continued on to a high school that the KR turned into a prison (they didn't see any need for schools). There were photos of the guards, most of them still in their teens, and pictures, before and after, of the prisoners. They were tortured, starved, beaten almost to death. The leaders of this genocide are awaiting trial for their crimes. The Vietnamese came in and helped defeat the KR, but then they wouldn't leave. It took another 10 years to get the Vietnamese out and they still have a major influence on the politics of Cambodia.
We did finish the day on a positive note with museum tour, a lovely sunset river cruise, then to dinner. I had a mango pineapple daiquiri and banana-flower salad with pork. We did share several dishes around the table so I got to taste several choices. Our trip back to the hotel was via the local version of a motorcycle taxi.
6 Dec: A full day of bus travel, with "learning and discovery" stops along the way, arriving in Siem Reap to check into the hotel and head for dinner. Along the way we saw many examples of local transportation.
8 Dec: Siem Reap is a beautiful city with very old roots. We have spent most of the last two days visiting ancient temples built in the 10th though 12th centuries. Angkor Wat is the best known, but there are many others just as impressive. Angkor means city, Wat is temple, so Angkor Wat literally means city temple.
Angkor Thom is a city rather than a temple. Estimates place its peak population at over 1,000,000, making it one of the biggest cities in the world at that time. No info on what caused it to be abandoned. We visited several ruins within Angkor Thom, each with its own style. The artistry and skill in construction is amazing for so long ago. One is entwined with huge tree roots woven through and around it. Looks like something out of a movie.
We also visited a floating village of around 1,000 people. The homes float on bamboo platforms. Only the temple is on dry land. When floods come, they tow the houses closer to the shore, when the floods recede they tow them back out. They even have a nice school for the children, pretty white buildings with blue trim, all floating,
On the way to this village we passed by a local "convenience store/gas station" [yes, that's gasoline in the bottles] and sampled some of the local transportation.
We had a nice home-hosted lunch in a local village with a young 18-year-old girl and her aunt as hosts. Very nice. The home was very simple, but clean. OAT provided the chairs and table. Most of the "locals" just sit on mats on the floor. I have no idea how the girl spelled her name, but she is finishing high school and wants to go to university, but there is no money to pay. She is the youngest of seven children. The little money in the family was spent on the oldest boy and girl who now work and send money back to the family, but there is nothing extra. To get a scholarship a family must be "well connected" and hers isn't.
Tonight we drove down a wide local rode filled on both sides with small stands offering all kinds of cooked food including whole cows roasted on a spit. It's one big "tailgate" party and a regular part of the social life. People buy the food, throw a blanket on the grass and eat, or they rent one of the small coverings if rain is an issue. There are carnival rides, dancing, food and just lots of socializing. The road is so crowded it's difficult to get through. We had our farewell dinner at a more typical restaurant. 9 Dec:The trip is pretty well over now. We had a brief meeting with our guide and headed for the airport to fly to Bangkok. We stay there overnight and fly out the next day for various stateside destinations. JT and I head ultimately to Chicago, stopping at Hong Kong, and LA enroute. Not the easiest way to get there, but that is what OAT scheduled..10 Dec:Twenty-seven hours after we got out of bed in Bangkok we walked in the door of our daughter's house north of Chicago. Didn't sleep much at all on the various planes. We ate a bit of food, cleaned up a bit, and crashed. I slept 14 hours, getting up after 2:00 the next afternoon. We still aren't sleeping on Central time. Thinking back over the trip, we are amazed at the amount of wonderful places and people we enjoyed on the trip. The people on our tour group were great; we liked every one of them and hope to see them again sometime. Our guides were excellent. I especially enjoyed the drum dance our Thai guide performed for us when we had dinner at her home. So much talent. The main lesson I took away from the trip is that our news media don't give a full picture of what is going on in the rest of the world. We know more about what is happening with Lindsey Lohan than we do about what is happening in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world. Sad.