A passing glimpse of Cambodia..

Talk about covering some ground since my last post! I write to you today (Monday AM) from Khao San Road in Bangkok. Ironically enough, I sit in disbelief as I type on the very same computer where I made my first post from Asia exactly two months ago today. Apparently they say time flies when you're having fun? Unfortunately, I'm learning the hard way, it does.

I wrote last from the Vietnamese side of the Vietnam/Cambodia border. Knowing I had to be all the way in Bangkok on 9/29 to meet big sis, I had a lot of work to do if I wanted to see the things I needed to see in Cambodia. Thus, I've been busy....

On Wednesday, via a slow-moving collection of wood planks (a.k.a. a real shitpot of a boat), I cruised several hours along the mighty Mekong in order to enter Cambodia. Far from any urban area, the good local folks of the country clearly come alive. Despite heavy flooding that inundates the bases of their homes and poverty that has set in, the Vietnamese and Cambodians (young and old) along the river didn't hesitate for a moment to give a friendly wave. It was clear to me that travelers truly need to get outside of the big cities in this part of the world to truly appreciate the goodness of the people--it's also easy to see how those same cities, amid agressive taxi drivers and pushy street vendors, can leave visitors with a false image of the entire population. At the end of the day, the people are great and live simple, no-frill lives...its up to the individual to take some initiative and get out to the country to realize this.

After arriving Wed night in Phnom Penh, the city's capital of 8 million (the country itself only has 14 million), a jam-packed Thursday was one of the more sobering days of the trip. Much like a visit to a Nazi concentration camp, a visit to the killing fields of Choeung Ek was a must-see sight but one that definitely leaves you with an empty feeling inside. After the mass killings that took place here, strangely just 30 years ago, it's hard to believe a country has the resilence to bounce back from such a crime. It certainly wasn't a cheery day, but a visit to the killing fields, as well as the school-turned-torture center where prisoners were held, was certainly an eduational one.

A brief stay in the capital, and we were off to Siem Reap, home to the largest religious center and World Heritage Site, Angkor Wat. For the sake of time considerations, I won't elaborate, so if you want to do some research on the place, use our friend Google. What I will say is this: WOW! This place is massive, and the place is massively old. Standing in the grounds of what was, at one point, the center of the universe some 800-900 years ago, certainly made for an incredible day. Seeing the main temple at sunrise is a tourist must-do, so we fought the crowds and were witness to an incredible sight come sun-up.

After an exhausting day/day and a half of "templing", it was off to another border crossing yesterday in effort to reach the home point of Bangkok. Unfortunately I didn't have the time to veer too far off the beaten path of Cambodia and dabble in the country and witness the "real people". However, from what I've seen, just like the other poor nation to its north (Laos), Cambodia offers up the same genuine, friendly people. It's strange...often those people with the least have the most to offer. I learned it in Laos, and I imagine it's more or less the same case in Cambodia...

From rags to riches, I now travel from a place like Cambodia to the beaches of Thailand. I meet up with sister Carleen around 4pm today at the Bangkok International Airport, and together we will fly south to Krabi and spend some quality time together....and after the 4th of October, once she heads back to the western world, I'll spend my remaining 2 1/2 weeks on the beach in hopes of bringing back a tan to Iowa in late October.

Take care, everyone!

1. Homes along the Mekong
2. Cambodians bathing in the river
3. School-turned-torture building in late 1970s (Phnom Penh, Cambodia)
4-5. Monument at Killing Fields remembering those killed (Phnom Penh, Cambodia)
6. Bus ride from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, "Spider Girl" as she called herself. Yes it's real. And yes, they were selling fried spider. And yes, I tried a leg. Why not?
7. Bus ride (continued)... I always wondered why locals insisted on wearing these things, even inside a bus. After 6 hours of sitting by a hacking/vomiting family on the bus (yes, really), it came to me.
8-10. Sunrise at Angkor Wat (Siem Reap, Cambodia)
11. Tourists capturing the sunrise
12. Cambodia cronies, walking around Angkor Wat
13-17. A day at Angkor Wat
18. Sunset at Angkor Wat
19. A young boy climbing out of the river, around Angkor Wat
20. "Amok", a traditional Khmer dish in Cambodia

New country, new haircut!

Well, the heading says it best. Tomorrow, I'm heading into Cambodia early in the morning. And, being its been over a month since my "new look", I thought I needed a fresh shave to rid myself of the "shaggy" look I was developing.... It's been hot the last few days, and that was motivation enough to get shaved one more time before this trip winds down. Maybe I should be thinking ahead of the weather that I'll be returning home to instead???

Recapping the past few days.....

Sunday was my last day in Saigon. Since I had done the basic touristy activities, I didn't really feel like I had a true grip on the city and its people. Being a city of 8 million that was made up of over 4 million motorbikes....what better way to be a local than to take part in the traffic chaos? I'll say this: the only thing scarier than crossing through the traffic was DRIVING in it. I wandered off on my two-wheeler in hopes of getting a glimpse of some of the real people that made the city what it is today.

After about 45 mins of cruising in one direction, without the aid of a map, I crossed the Saigon river and stopped for some shots on the riverside. I noticed some kids playing on the sidewalk, so I grabbed a soft drink from a street vendor and had a seat to watch. It became apparent I was far outside the "backpacker area" of the city because the kids all ran over and greeted with a friendly hello. They knew little more English than the greeting, but we managed to spend an hour playing around, taking pictures, and interacting. The mother, communicating with her hands (knowing no English), apparently was even trying to line me up with her daughter. Yeah, imagine how she tried to communicate that to me with her hands....talk about an interesting conversation! The kids were great, but eventually I had to head back toward my hotel for fear of what may happen to my sense of direction once darkness set in....

Tonight (Tuesday), I just arrived in the Vietnam/Cambodia border town of Chau Doc, Vietnam. This completed the two-day tour of the Mekong Delta area that comprised yesterday and today. I never imagined the Delta area to be as massive as it was.... The network of canals and river channels that made up the region offered a spitting image of Venice, only this place would make Venice look like a tiny speck on the map.

The images of this area seen during wartime, however, are far different than what is seen today. It's certainly becoming a very commercial and bustling region--large billboards along portions of the river, new and colorful multi-story hotels within the island cities, and many new bridges mid-construction that will tie together lands otherwise separated by the waters.

Over the course of the tour, we visited a cocunut and coconut candy farm, a riverside shop where rice noodles are made, a floating market where locals exchange produce and other goods, and I even managed to get my hands on a snake (see image below). The highlight was definitely the overnight homestay, however, where 8 of us opted to pay a bit extra to have the chance to eat a Vietnamese dinner with a local family and stay in the riverside bungalows they built for such company. It was nearly a 45-minute boat trip from the hotel where the other tour-goers stayed, so we certainly had the chance to slow down and get away from the newer, more commerical parts of the region. Being just a few feet off one of the Mekong inlets, the sounds of geccos, mosquitos, and other Mekong creatures were quite soothing to fall asleep to....and the local people we had the opportunity to interact with at the market at 6:00am this morning certainly provided a more local feel for the area.

I'll leave you with a few photos: the kids of Saigon, and the images of the Mekong. Enjoy, this is my last post from Vietnam...to Cambodia!

Cole Train

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#1-4......Faces of Saigon
#5..........Little old man on the Mekong who was making bamboo baskets
#6..........Woman rowing her way to the morning markets on the Mekong
#7..........A shot of our bungalow balconies looking over the canal
#8..........Sunset from our ferry on the Mekong
#9..........Cooking up some spring rolls at our homestay
#10..........Sunrise the next morning from the bungalow
#11.........Drinking fresh coconut water on the tour
#12.........The process of making rice noodles
#13.........One of my many little gecco friends
#14.........Me and my python

Chaotic Ho Chi Minh City!

Just a quick note here as we'll let the photos do most the talking, everyone...

Motorbikes, motorbikes, motorbikes. Commercial transport....minivan substitutes....they're used for everything. I sat on a street corner yesterday afternoon for an hour and simply entertained myself with the colorful display of uses that people find for their 2-wheeled companions. The first 5 photos below should some things up! Traffic has no order, and crossing the streets means putting your life at risk with each step. It kind of reminds me of crossing Main Street in Britt...taking that treacherous stroll from the Coop Gas Station to Farmers Trust Bank. Or something like that.....

Also yesterday, I paid a visit to the War Remnants Museum. It was a very colorful display (I only took photos of the not-so-colorful items on display) of the war: photos of Vietnamese effected by the agent orange and dioxide, images of destroyed soldier bodies, remains of weapons torn to shreds by bomb attacks, etc. It was not the most uplifting place to visit, but nonetheless, it was a historical exhibit worth seeing, despite it being a very one-sided view of the war from the Vietnamese angle.

Today, I took a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels outside the city. Unbelievable stuff here! To see how the Vietnamese soldiers battled during the war, navigating their way through this underground network and hiding in tiny, tiny sniper holes, it's no wonder they had a clear competitive advantage. The pictures, again, should explain things in themselves. The underground tunnel we crawled through was 120 meters long. Talk about a case of claustrophobia?! The nervousness wore off halfway through...however, without the help of a headlamp (which I conveniently left at my hotel, thinking the things would be lit for tourists), it made it impossible to complete the journey all the way through. The tunnels have small juts and jags to foil any Americans who tried to navigate through...and I wasn't about to be a victim, pulling out at the 60-meter exit. I'm pretty sure this type of tourist attraction would attract plenty of law suits in the US, but what an interesting trip it was....

Interesting was how the introductory video we watched portrayed the war, again with a very sharp Vietnamese angle on things. The narrator used such phrases as "The Americans flew in like a band of devils...", "...they ruthlessly dropped bombs on innocent children and pregnant women", and the like. Let's just say I made sure not to pull out my stars and stripes anytime during the tour!

But finally, the real treat of the day, getting to fire an AK-47 at the shooting range. I'm attempting to upload the video that I had shot during the process--however it seems the video is a bit too large to get on this site. Let me just say, I cannot imagine what fighting in a war must have been like with dozens and dozens of these things going off around you. Even with the ear protection, the sound of this thing resonated through my ear drums. Oh, and they have a little bit of kick as well. I'm sure I'll see the bruise on my shoulder develop in the next few days.

And that's that...days one and two in the Vietnamese capital. I'll spend a few more days in the country, followed by a quick jaunt through Cambodia before meeting up with big sis in the Thai islands around 9/30/08.

Enjoy the images....

#1-5: Motorbike extravaganza!

#6: US Tank on display at the War Remnants Museum

#7: Foreign propanganda on display at the museum

#8: I didn't dare force my shoulders into the sniper hole for fear I'd never get out...

#9: AK-47 bullets, ready for launch

#10: Crawling through the tunnels. Don't let the flash photography fool you, it was dark....

Crusing down the coast....

Where has the time gone?? Little more than two weeks into Vietnam, I have already made my way down to Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City). After spending some relaxing time on the beach in Nha Trang on Tues/Wed/Thurs, I headed south to Saigon last evening (Thurs) on a sleeper bus, arriving here about 8am....

Nha Trang was a very developed coastal city, made up of 300,000+ people. The city beach was a great place to wind down after a few draining days at the tailor shops. I managed to squeeze in a day boat trip on Wednesday that visits four of the islands that are scattered throughout the bordering waters of Nha Trang Bay. For the first time ever, I did some snorkeling and got to see some great coral. Unfortunately, Nha Trang had seen a lot of rain recently, so the sealife wasn't quite as populous as it would have been otherwise. Other than a few fish, the only sealife I had interaction with were dozens of tiny, golfball-sized jellyfish. I'd say I was stung 8 or 10 times, but fortunately they were just little fellas and didn't leave any noticeable damage on my body. Seeing the coral below was well worth the sacrifice, however.

I'm beginning to wonder what life will be like when I return to the US. I'm so used to being mobbed on the streets by sunglass vendors, watch vendors, food vendors, artwork vendors, and taxi/motorbike drivers that walking the city streets of Des Moines will feel like I'm sneaking through the quiet sanctuary of a public library. The color of my skin screams tourist, I guess. However, with all of the sun I've been catching, maybe it won't spell tourist for long. I'm beginning to blend in!

I had one minor casualty yesterday (Thurs). Sometime and somewhere midday I managed to lose/misplace two of my camera memory cards. Luckily, for the most part, I had backed up the photos on CDs/DVDs....however, I'm sure there were a few pictures that will go missing. Not the best feeling in the world, but it could've been worse!

I nearly escaped a more major problem last evening on the bus ride. Our night bus for Saigon left around 7pm and made several toilet stops along the route. I woke up around midnight to the bus stopping at one such stop. Seeing others outside, I figured I may as well use the facilities while they were available. After the short walk to the toilets, I was just getting into things (sorry for the details) when I heard the bus engine sound begin to slowly fade as it started to pull away. I cut things off mid-stride (again, sorry, details) and dashed for the bus as if my life depended on it. In a way, it kind of did. Either my contacts were extremely dry from sleeping or I was just running extremely fast....because just prior to making it to the bus, my left lens flew out from my eye. No worries as I have more in my bag, but the fact that the bus nearly left with out me was enough to create one of those panic moments. My bags, phone, money, everything was on that bus. Eventually, I saw its brake lights and approached the halting vehicle. I didn't know whether to slap the driver or kiss him. In either case, I made the bus and continued on to Saigon. Just like a good Disney film, my trip had a happy ending.

So here I am in Saigon.... I will be here for a couple days then head onto the Mekong Delta for a visit as well. Many things to cram into a short stay, so I best be off. Enjoy the photos, and we'll talk soon.

1) Caving in the Marble Mountains, Danang (9/10)
2) A pagoda on the Marble Mountains, Danang (9/10)
3) Surfing on China Beach in Danang (9/11)
4) Halted traffic in Hoi An due to street dancers and drummers (9/12)
5) Kids posed as dancing dragons in Hoi An (9/13)
6) Masked dancer in Hoi An (9/13)
7) Hoi An by day (9/14)
8-9) Hoi An by night (beaches 5 or 6km from the city) (9/14)
10) Our crazy island tour guide in Nha Trang (9/17)
11) Snorkeling in Nha Trang Bay (9/17)
12) The luck of the Irish: two Irish friends from my Halong Bay tour that I bumped into in Nha Trang
13) Lazy taxi driver. They deserve a rest after all the haggling they do!
14) Proper English??
15) No water to flush? No problem, throw a giant ice cube in the john!