Cambodia Condensed

Alright so I got a little behind on the blogging simply because internet is hard to come by here. Our three days in Siem Reap were pretty entertaining to say the least. We flew from the Bangkok International Airport to the Cambodian airport in Siem Reap. We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel and on the way our driver offered to be our driver for the whole time we were in Siem Reap. Since the price was really reasonable and the guy was really sweet, we agreed knowing that we would be able to see much more.
I think that our drive into the city of Siem Reap was when the culture shock really started to set in. The streets of the city were mostly dirt roads with the occasional paved ones. The stores and market stalls along side the road were very dilapidated and the people that were working in them would occasionally stare at us as we drove by. Even the scooters that people were riding were really dusty and dirty and pretty run down, the amazing thing was that they managed to cram as many as 4 people onto one scooter. We saw whole families riding a motor bike with babies and children, none of whom were wearing helmets. Similar to Thailand, the lines on the roads are simply taken as suggestions on which side of the road to drive on. It was pretty intimidating to even ride in a car on these roads, I can't imagine what a motor bike would be like.
The poverty and lack of sanitation was visible right from the get-go. My mom and I didn't do much research on what Cambodia would be like when we got there, we were just advised by one of my cousins to go there. Since we didn't know much,the shock of being thrown into a city that housed 5 star hotels and extremely impoverished people all in the same area was pretty intense.
Right off the bat our friendly driver whose name was Ｂoonray, took us to the first few stops in the Angkor Complex. This complex had so many temples that we had to visit them over a fast-paced 3 days. The first one that we went to was in the middle of a dense forest that was overly infested with Cicadas. Cicadas (as we learned from our trusty driver) are the Cambodian version of crickets. We never really did see any but we could hear them loud and clear. The noise that resonated from the forest was like a high pitch screeching, very different than the crickets in the US. When we stepped onto our first ancient temple ruins, we were shocked by the amount of destruction. Tourists are allowed and encouraged to walk all over the ruins and go exploring. We learned that the government doesn't really care about the condition of the ruins, they simply are interested in making a profit off of the visitors (40 dollars per person for 3 days), the sad thing is that the Cambodian don't ever see this money. When we looked around at the few villagers that were allowed to stay living on the temple complex, it was very clear that they are barely surviving. The temples also are home to many bats who leave a lovely essence of guano. As you could imagine, the mixed smell of the humid forest air, guano, and incense burning at random areas around the inside of the temples, was oh-so enchanting. My mom and I laughed because it felt like we were in an Indiana Jones movie! The feeling that we got at many of the temple around the complex was pretty mysterious, there was a lot of blood shed that happened in and around the temples. One of the reoccuring things we saw was buddha statues with their heads cut off. When a military ruler, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge (the communist party that attempted to take over Cambodia) came into this area, they killed countless numbers of people and demolished many of the temples and any symbols of Buddha. It was pretty horrific to see decapitated statues.
One of the hardest parts of going around to all these temples is that the villagers that live in the complex (and even outside in the city) have resorted to begging tourists to buy all sorts of merchandise that is obviously mass produced. The children and young teenagers would swarm the car when ever we got out and beg us to buy tour books, bracelets, scarves, handbags, and even food, for dollar bills. It was so sad to see the children living like that, I mean they were obviously starving because we could see their ribcages protruding near the bottom of their necks. Even the locals that would pose as tour guides for any cash. One time a random local man started talking to us in a temple and telling us the history. At the end of his tour he held his hand open and when we gave him a couple dollars he kept asking for more and more. We finally had to just walk away once we realized that he was simply conning us. This sort of thing was the norm in Cambodia as we would find out throughout our 3 days.

The food in Siem Reap was pretty underwhelming. We had difficulties finding clean and sanitary places to eat, the only place that we found was safe to eat was the restaurant at the top of our hotel and a European pastry shop. Even though were were there for New Years Eve, we decided not to go out to their main Pub Street because we felt too vulnerable. The next day we found out that there was a huge fire in a night club in Bangkok that was caused by sparklers that people were holding inside the club. 61 people died and countless were burned and injured out of the 1000 that were inside. My mom and I were pretty shaken up about that since we had just left Bangkok a couple days prior.

It's hard to describe my emotions and opinions of Cambodia. The people are so trapped in their own country by poverty and their government that it's almost like walking around on the inside of zoo cages. Most of the people that worked in hotels and restaurants were unbelievably hospitable and friendly, but the fact remained that the majority of the population is devastatingly poor and obviously miserable. It was really difficult for me emotionally because I have never been exposed to living conditions like I saw in Siem Reap. The country needs help, but it is clear that any money given to the government will not be properly used. Our side trip to Cambodia turned out to be one of the most impactful events of my life, it really made me thankful for all the luxuries I have and the freedom I was born with.

A Taste of Thailand (cont.)

My second day in Bangkok proved to be just as exciting as the first. We headed towards the Grand Palace that was supposed to just be a 20 minute walk straight down the street from our hotel (thanks to the direction of a kind local). Well, as expected we got a bit lost since we couldn't read any of the street signs and because it definitely wasn't a straight shot. So my mom and I sat down at some monument with a strange looking statue of a Thai Government official. With our good luck, another (seemingly helpful) man came up to us and informed us that it was a Buddhist holiday of some sort, so all the temples in the neighboring area of the Grand Palace were free today! He drew all over our map and showed us all the temples that we could see. He also said that the Tuk Tuks were less than a dollar to take you around to all of them for this day only because they were receiving government coupons for gas. Since the palace didn't open for another 3 hours at 1:00 pm, we decided to go on this adventure. And what an adventure it was...
First of all I will let everyone know that a Tuk Tuk is basically an open air cart that seats 4 people comfortably (sometimes we have seen up to 10 crunched inside) and is pulled by a man on a scooter. Quite sketchy, but definitely an experience worth having. So, this TukTuk took us around to these temples, that were really underwhelming and by the 3rd one, our seemingly friendly and nice driver told us he needed us to go into a factory that made custom clothing. He said we needed to stay in for 15 minutes in order for him to get the gas coupon. My mom and I hesitatingly obliged, but then when we came out empty handed, he said we didn't stay long enough for him to get the coupon. He tried to get us to go to another one and this is when we started to understand the scam. My mom and I were so disappointed that we had been so stupid to think that they wouldn't be conning us, even after all the warnings in tour books. We basically had to force him to take us to our actual destination, the Grand Palace.

Once we arrived there we decided to go to the Temple that was next door to the Grand Palace called Wat Pho. This is where the immense, gold reclining Buddha was. It had to be larger than a semi truck. Simply breathtaking. The room that it was in smelled like the musky incense that was burning all around it and the walls were painted murals about the life of Buddha. The other parts of the temple were very neat as well, there were pointy towers made of painted pieces of yellow, blue, red, and orange china. The sides of the buildings also had mosaics of brightly colored mirrors and even more golden Buddhas. One of the highlights of this temple was a tree that was believed to have been grown from a portion of the original Bhodi Tree under which Buddha attained enlightenment. The tree was very large and old and locals had tied strips of sheer colored fabric to the branches and adorned it with incense and statues. The whole temple was quite spiritual.

We walked out side of the temple to hopefully find lunch and stumbled into a dried fish market. The smells were completely overwhelming. There were so many different sorts of fish, squid, sting ray, and a whole bunch that I couldn't even begin to guess. It was pretty sickening to see the lack of sanitation and scum build up. There were trash piles next to the dried goods... Yummy! So of course, my mom and walked right outside to what turned out to be the loading dock for the market and found a place to eat. This area was filled with a handful of vendors, one of which was selling just Pad Thai. I could eat Pad Thai here for every meal of the day =). This particular booth was run by and old woman who just had a cart full of separated ingredients like raw seafood or chicken, a bunch of dried herbs, chilis, and fish, along with fresh veggies and noodles. She threw all of this together on a portable wok that was on top of a gas burner (high tech for Thailand). Again, I will stress that there was very questionable sanitation, the dishes were washed on the street with buckets of recycled water and maybe some soap. The eggs were sitting in the sun and the meat was unrefrigerated. My mom and I had to basically convince ourselves that the ingredients were so fresh that refrigeration wasn't needed (?). Anyways, it turned out to be the most tasty Pad Thai ever! I was truly in heaven. What really made it though was our discovery of coconut juice (not milk).The would Crack open the top of this basketball sized coconut and stick a straw in it, the meat of the coconut was as soft as jello and the juice was deliciously crisp and full to the brim! It was a perfect meal in every way.

After lunch and finishing up a bit of the temple that we had left to see, we made our way over to the palace, realized that it would take way too much time for just the 3 hours it was open for, and decided to do it on our last day at the end of our trip. We walked home through neighborhoods that were mostly shops that sold wood carved goods, mechanic shops, hair salons (barely), and random places that we didn't really know what they sold. The whole experience was enriching, for lack of a better word. The people were very poor, which seems to be the norm in Bangkok. They are living in filth, they are lucky if they have electricity and running water and many are barefoot. Its hard to see people living like that and it truly makes me feel lucky for everything I have. I could never been prepared for the misery and poverty that I am being exposed to.

A Taste of Thailand

Well, I guess I will start off this page with my first impressions of Bangkok. I don't think my mom and I were prepared for such an intense level of culture shock. We planned our vacation around the Study Abroad that my school offered. It turned out to be way cheaper to just do it on our own. Our first two days of the trip were spent in Bangkok. Right off the bat, we were slightly conned by a taxi driver from the airport, he didn't give us the correct change because we didn't know how much coins were worth. Trust me when I say that this was the beginning of our growth as hardened travelers, it was one of may times that a driver tried to rip us off.

Even thogugh we arrived at 1:00 am Bangkok time, the weather was dully warm and sticky.As we entered the city via our hot pink taxi, we were suprised to see that the streets were bustling with action. The food carts that we have been seeing all over Thailand have no refrigeration (just the occasional blocks of ice) and no electricity. They make all sorts of food on these carts, Fried fish balls that are cooked over a charcol fire, grilled bananas, grilled meats and fish (most of which are unidentifiable to the foriegn tourist, and much more. They also offer drinks in a bag, now this is something that I desperately wanted to try but the ice is pretty risky to consume if you don't have a built up immune system like the locals. These drinks in a bag come in all sorts of variety, Chrysanthimum tea, Tamirind tea, some sort of green vegitable juice, and of course Thai Iced Tea.

Later on in the morning after we had taken a cat nap at our hotel, we walked the streets in search of a pharmacy because we didn't bring much in the way of bathroom supplies. My mom and I only brought one backpack each, small enough to carry anywhere comfortably and to use as our only carry on. We do laundry every night because we only have about 2 or 3 sets of clothes for our 3 week trip. As we were dodging hot carts of food and being completely bombarded by the locals trying to sell factory produced clothing, we were laughing at the sheer crazyness. The street booths (just metal frames that they hang merchandise on) next to the river are set up long before dawn for shopping. We had to be the only white/ non-local people on the whole strech of street.

Since it was Sunday we gradually made our way to a portion of town that housed the Chatuchak Market, 35 acres of market stalls all of which where crunched together. They sold all sorts of things, beautifuly rich colored cloth and clothing, cheap Thai souveniers, jewlery, little figurines of buddhas (some of which involved penises? weird and amusing to my mom and I ... they said that it represented fertility). The other main streets of the Market offered fresh produce which consisted mostly of fruits and vegitables of intensly bright colors that would never be found in America, little carts that served full meals to the individuals that wanted to sit on plastic furniture and wobbly tables. We of course found the one with the most locals and had quite a time ordering food. The Australian girls next to us who were thai had to order for us because they kept bringing us the wrong food. One of the things we discovered was that the best food is usually found in these carts. I had a wonderful shrip Pad Thai and my mom had Fish ball soup. The flavors were exotic and it was even better because the dishes only cost about 2 dollars each.

After having a complete sensory overload at the market we tried to ride the train back to our hotel to rest a bit. Luckily (or unluckily depending on your perspective) a young Thai man started chatting with us about what we planned to do the rest of the day. We told him our feet were killing us so we were trying to get back to our hotel, Cirus (the helpful Thai man) told us to just keep going and not go to our hotel, but rather go see a traditional Thai Puppet show. He said that on our way there we must also get a Thai Foot massage. We didn't really have a choice because he told us he would ride the train there with us. When we finally got there, we walked by a Foot massage place that had about 15 women outside trying to get us to come in, we asked them for directions and a tall woman stepped foward and directed us there. The more I looked at here though, the more I realized that she was really a he. She/him was beautiful, perfectly applied eyeliner and loosly curled hair, she was simply a vison of beauty. My mom and I giggling as we walked to get our tickets, decided that my mom would get "shim" as her foot masseuese.

When we went back to the Foot massage place, the women all laughed at my mom for requesting Shim as a masseuese. The massage was unbearably tickling for me but the way they did it was very neat. They used a black stick to do accupressure on points of our feet and they also would basically do handstands on our thighs to loosen our hip joints. To our horror afterwards (thanks to my keen observations) none of the towels used during the massage were cleaned and rotated after they were used and the people didnt' wash their hands between cilents. Hmmm. This all registered when we arrived in Cambodia 2 days later with feet that smelled absolutely foul and had a dull itch. Again, we had a few learning experiences, this was one of them.

The puppet show was wonderful, the instruments that were used were eerie and inchanting. The puppets themselves were about half the size of a person and had to be opperated by three people. All of it was quite good, but after having been up since 5 am, it took every ounce of strenght to stay awake.