Monday, November 22, 2010

Siem Reap, Angkor Wat - Wow.

I(Devon) had heard a lot about Angkor Wat (translation - Temple City) and studied the bas reliefs in an art history class in college, but for some reason I always figured it was an overrated bunch of decaying stone...I was wrong.  It was a highlight of our trip and an absolutely incredible place, I understand why it is one of modern wonders of the world.




Our first experience in Siem Reap, the city near the temples, was being accosted by tuk tuk and taxi drivers, who we now see as something more akin to confidence men, who were waiting like hungry vultures for us when we stepped off the bus, some even had our names written down because we had mistakenly given our names to the bus company.  The drivers buy names of passengers so that you think they are the people from your hotel there to pick you up.  It was nuts, luckily we saw one jolly, smiling gent near the bus station exit holding a very legitimate looking sign with my name and the name of the hotel we had booked called Two Dragons.  We immediately loved our little family run hotel.  The owner Gordon is from Santa Barbara and runs it with his beautiful, sweet, Thai wife, Ning, but really their little, boisterous, hilarious, five-year-old, Matthew, runs the place.  He took a liking to me (Devon) and was our entertainment on a few occasions as we enjoyed the delicious food they served at the little restaurant at the hotel.



Gordon was sweet and helpful as was our wonderful tuk tuk driver who drove is around the three times we went to the temples.  His name was Bunny (pronounced Boo-nee) and he was training to be a temple guide so we basically got a tour guide for the price of  tuk tuk driver.  We feel very lucky that we found him as he was very genuinely sweet and always intelligent about where to meet back up so we could find him easily when we stumbled, tired and dazed, out of touring around the temple grounds.



The first night we didn't know we needed cash to get our three day pass, but Bunny was a known figure around the entire complex and spoke with a guard  who let us in and told us how to avoid the other guards who would fine us $100 for entering without a ticket.  Just entering the complex is an experience.  We drove around the 200meter wide moat that the surround the main Angkor Wat (which is actually just one temple in the complex) as the light was fading to dusk.  The natural beauty of the forests there are amazing and lush.  We climbed a hill right after the guards got off duty to a beautiful ruin with an amazing view of the sunset over the grounds.  That is all we did the day we got into town.



The next day we hired Bunny for the entire day (for $15) and he took us to about 10 temples including Angkor Wat.  We got up at 4:20am to get to the sunrise and watched the sky turn to day over the beautiful outline of the main Angkor temple from behind one of the two big ponds so we could see the reflection as well.  It was stunning and felt spiritual, even with loud, rude tourists increasingly congregating behind us.






Just entering the main temple complex is an experience as you cross over the large moat that was intended to represent all the oceans of the world.  The bas relief carvings gallery was incredible, we couldn't believe how well preserved it was after about 900 years of weathering!  Our favorite was the Churning of the Sea of Milk- the daemons and devas (gods) made a pact to work together to churn the Sea of Milk into an everlasting life potion.  It depicts The gods on one side of a mountain and the daemons on the other, with Vishnu at the center over seeing the operation. Both sides are shown pulling a huge naga (sea dragon) wrapped around a large mountain to twist the mountain back and forth to churn the sea. My (Breen) favorite piece of the story is the humanity of both sides: the gods never intended on sharing the potion with the daemons, and of course the daemons had plans to stab the gods in the back the second the job was completed. The wars that followed, and other holy battles, were depicted on the outer bas reliefs all around the main temple.





We won't give a blow by blow of all the amazingness because there is just too much! The Bayon, the overgrown "Tomb Raider" temple (particularly stunning), and the much more well preserved, auburn colored Bantay Srei were all highlights on there own.  All we can say is, GO!






We were also surprised by how much we liked the town of Siem Reap.  We had both imagined it to be a very podunk town with bitter locals serving the masses of balongs (in Cambodia this means foreigner).  However, due to all the tourism, the government provides the town with money to have beautifully renovated French architecture and many gardens and clean streets and everyone was very friendly to us.  The Cambodian people are a warm, resilient people.  Following the terrible Khmer Rouge they have seemingly bounced back quickly and forgivingly, without seemingly harboring much resentment of the past.

We went to a free concert at one of the completely free childrens' hospitals at the recommendation of Bunny.  A Swiss doctor who founded and runs the multi-hospital organization, and who performs under the alias Beaticello played his cello and explained the history behind the hospitals in between beautiful solo performances of Bach and personal Cambodian-inspired compositions.  He also made a plea for donations of both money and blood to keep the hospital running.  We were enthralled as we learned about sickness and the government's lack of funding and what an amazing organization it was, run by a wonderful man.  However, when we got back to our hotel, Gordon proceeded to de-mystify him and the organization, saying he does not have his facts straight and that he makes up statistics, is a spotlight whore, and won't let people into the hospital because some of what he says are blatant lies to raise money.  What he does is commendable, and his goals are something we believe in and even Gordon thinks his heart is in the right place; this is just another question of whether the ends justify the means.  It was an interesting and confusing evening to say the least and we are still on the fence.

Overall, if we had had more time we would have stayed longer.  Like many of the places we have been, we fell in love with Siem Reap and Angkor Wat, but our trip was rapidly coming to and end and we had to move on to see the second largest city in Cambodia, Battambang...



Love,
Breen and Devon

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Phnom Phen - the New York of Cambodia

The energy of the Phnom Phen, the capitol of Cambodia, was completely overwhelming after spending weeks in Laos and especially sleepy, tiny Don Det in 4000 Islands.  The cacophony of rushing motorbikes and cars was a bit like an elaborate symphony considering there are very few street signs and the ebb and flow works quite organically.  We spent time in the Russian Market, a sprawling mess of tightly packed booths of clothing, seamstresses, sculptures and the like surrounding a very fishy smelling central food market.
They like their fish here in Cambodia, we saw stall after stall of stinky fish and raw meat just left out in the open, flies a-buzzing.  Haven't seen the fried tarantulas yet, though it is supposedly a delicacy here ("crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside"said the guidebook). We have seen many people selling all kinds of bugs, snakes whole, fried small birds and other supposedly delicious things we won't try. It was fun to bargain on some beautiful gifts n things, that had "fallen off the backs of trucks" such as Ray Bans and CDs, and we ended up usually paying about half of the first asking price.




Though we decided our sensitive hearts couldn't handle the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, we did visit S-21, a children's school that was transformed into a prison for interrogation by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime.  It was intense.  The empty cells still had the bed frames, mats, and such that the prisoners occupied. In many of the rooms there were black and white pictures of the bodies after they had been tortured and killed.  There were exhibitions displaying the tools of torture and head shots of all the known prisoners who died there.  Generally, the Khmer Rouge gathered all the intellectuals, artists, musicians, doctors, etc. and set to imprisoning them and interrogating and torturing them for 2-3 months before brutally killing them.  There was a photo gallery also providing stories from some of the survivors about how their families had disappeared or died and what kind of people they were.  It was heavy to say the least.  It is just insane to think that the Khmer Rouge could do this to their own, innocent countrymen, the fear must have been beyond anything I can actually imagine.  We found ourselves considering the role of our own country in sparking the Khmer Rouge movement and contemplating the complexity of the situation.  It made for a very depressing day.  But we are both glad we went.  It was astounding to think that this all happened so recently-it started around 1975 when Pol Pot had Phnom Phen evacuated and everyone fled out to the countryside and attempted to become subsistence farmers.  Even people who joined his movement were often tortured and killed.  It was gruesome and disturbing, but it is the reality of what happened here and it is amazing to see the bright smiles on so many faces in this country as they still piece their country back together.  What a strong resilient people the Cambodians are!





One night we were eating at Happy Herb Pizza on the riverside and we were approached by many different types of beggars including a child that seemed to yell swears at us after said no.  At one point after we had eaten and I had some significant leftovers, a young boy of about 10 came up to the table and simply pointed at my steamed rice.  I let him have the rice and my fish, we pulled out the chair for him and watched him wolf it down.  The average income in Cambodia is just 50 cents a day and the poverty is astounding.  It got our minds racing about how systemic thinking tools could help their situation, and made us feel very grateful for the abundance we have in our lives.  The child left the head and brought it to a whole group of children down the street that had been begging too.  I wanted to get more food and feed them all, but that is not how to solve the complex, vast, systemic, economic problems.

We were both relieved to leave the hustle and bustle for Siem Reap and spend days wandering the ruins of Angkor Wat...

Love,
Devon and Breen

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Don Det, one of the 4000 Islands (Si Phan Don) - Big fun on a small island

The trip down to the Southern most tip of Laos was not well organized, to say the least.  We took an overnight bus to Pakse, where we were lucky enough to be put in the back where there was half the room as in the front (although away from the bathrooms which actually was a plus). We arrived in Pakse in the early morning, having barely slept in our child sized bed we were sharing (should have bought the bottle of Johnny when we had the chance!) We then switched to a van, which drove us most of the rest of the way, to the "pier", a currently forming pile of rubble and dirt that should be a pier in a few months. The tour people attempted to up sell everyone, and would have succeeded had it not been for our stubborn asses-everyone else took the bait. We opted to keep going to Don Det, and not pay more to go to another, further island, which we later found out was more expensive and not as much fun (suckers!). But we payed for that decision later. The boat ride was amazing. A small boat carted us across the Mekong, which in this area is very wide and dotted with tons of small islands which at this point in the year can be small enough to house just a single tree if not fully submerged.



The boat took us to the wrong side of the island (which we believe they did because we didn't get up sold). We found out later that there is a normal beach where the tourists get dropped off, near all of the guesthouses and hotels, but we were not so lucky. We were surrounded by locals, none of whom spoke English, and were barely lucky enough to find one who understood the word "bungalow", and pointed us in a direction along the riverfront. We chose to believe, because we had no other option, and walked in the direction she pointed. We balanced our packs through rice paddies and locals houses.  About ten minutes later we saw the first decent bungalows (the ones we had actually found online), and were disappointed to find out they were full. We then found decent accommodations down the street overlooking rice fields and a lotus plantation.  Still, we came back to book the nice place (hot showers) for the remainder of our stay. The owner was a wonderful, cooky Brit named Peter who was obsessed with classic rock and lived most of his life in India.  He was a kind, fascinating, old chap.




The main "street" was really just a five foot wide dirt road shared with many dirty dogs, chickens, mangy cats, water buffalo, a few motorbikes and many tourists on bikes. Oh and there was a pet monkey on a string that I let crawl onto my hands and it bit me (Devon)!  She thougth my bracelet was fruit and was pulling at so I tried to put her back on the fence and that's when the trouble started.  She has had all her shots, but Breen keeps telling me I have incurable monkey pox.  It was worth it to feel her little human-like hands and feet on me.
 


Don Det was a strange place, but had a certain charm to it, though the locals seemed lazy and quite disinterested in serving any white people ( it often felt like an "f-u," though we understand as they have been quickly inundated with many tourists recently).  We spent a lot of our time at the restaurant by the tiny beach/pier in hammocks and met a wonderful group of people our first night and formed a crew that was much fun.  We shared some whisky and Beer Lao and drunkenly decided we should all go kayaking together the next day.  Which is just what we did.  There was a trio from South Africa (Andre and Nikki -who also recently got engaged, and entertaining, talented, aloof Brizi), a wonderful, jolly gent from Wales named Garreth, and a funny, musical, fellow Californian from LA (Brady).  We all got along swimmingly and had an amazing day on the Mekong with our humerus French guide Jean.  We kayaked through sunken forests, saw two of the largest waterfalls in SE Asia, swam at a beautiful beach, got stuck on a sunken tree in the rapids (thanks Brizi), and illegally crossed the border into Cambodia where we ate lunch and watched the very rare and endangered Irrawaddy river dolphins breach. On the way back from Cambodia we had to cross the Mekong at it's widest and discovered that there are jumping water spiders that enjoy hopping on kayaks (that's right, fricking JUMPING WATER SPIDERS... tons of them).  As you may have guessed, Breen and I did not enjoy this very much and freaked out a bit, whacking our paddles against our boats and screaming like little girls, becoming the butt of some well-deserved jokes.  But we survived (and didn't even capsize!) and have conquered some of our arachnophobia! It was one of the best days of our entire trip. Though it ended on a bit of a sour note when we saw a bad accident on the road, dead bodies and all.  These roads and the way people drive here scare me.







The next two evenings we spent with our wonderful new friends and another gent we met at a bar, a doctor from Switzerland named Flo.  We played music (Brady had a guitar) a few different nights.  One night, Brady and I entertained the local crowds into the wee hours of the morning (even after all the bars shut down at 11pm).  We laughed a lot, played pool, and drank buckets of Lao Loa whisky together.  It was quite fun.




We also ran into this wonderful Austrian couple whom we had met back in Chiang Mai.  We ended up going out to Indian food our last night and sharing many bellies full of laughs.  We also had a lively discussion about renewable energy solutions!




Though the water was a muddy brown and the locals didn't like to return smiles much, it was a beautiful place and an amazing part of our trip.  We are so glad we met the fellow travellers that we did, as they were the ones who made it special.

Then it was off to Cambodia...


Love,
Devon and Breen

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Vientiane - Bumming around and trekking

What can we say about Vientiane?  There were wonderful restaurants from around the world, good book stores and cafes, nice guest houses and nice people, but there really wasn't much to do.  Despite that, the people and energy was great (especially compared to the caustic Vang Vieng) and it was actually nice to spend our days just walking around.  As I (Devon) was getting over a sinus infection and it was "that time of the month" our motto for the time we spent there was "Eat, drink, and be merry!"  And that is just what we did.








Once Devon was feeling a bit better we decided to do a village trek with Green Discovery Tours.  We decided on "The Challenge," which included hours of mountain biking and hiking each day and an overnight at a traditional village. We stowed our big packs and just took the necessities, leaving at 8am with our guides, Dom and Somxay (pronounced Som Sai).  Dom was our driver and personal chef while Somxay spoke English, took us mountain biking, and was our main guide.  We started the trip with a stop at a local markets to pick up a wide array of vegetables and meat for our meals and started on our way.  

We drove about 2 and 1/2 hours into the adjacent National Forest to what we later found out was the village at which we would be spending the night.  From there we hopped on rusty, old mountain bikes and headed in the direction of a waterfall.  The biking lasted about 3 hours, with ~10 inclines that literally took our breath away and reminded us that we have not been exercising enough. Only our guide could climb the hills while on his bike, although Breen did climb one or two all the way. Devon for sure would have, but the rusty gears on her over sized bike slowed her just enough to make it impossible. We ended up at an AMAZING waterfall, which emptied into a large pool that we were able to dive into and swim in while our guides prepared our lunch of BBQ and fried rice. It was a highlight for sure.




After that we trekked through some rain forest with two local forest guides added on to our crew.  One led the way and the other tailed us for safety and to help the local economy (the trip was expensive).  Luckily we avoided snake attacks, spider bites, and leeches sucking our blood.  It was a beautiful trek lasting a few hours, ending at a Mekong River tributary where a longboat driver was waiting to take us back to the village.  The very old, almost submerged long-boat didn't enable us to move much, but was a fun and beautiful ride.




Our host family was lovely, the father with is weathered, smiling face was welcoming as were his sweet daughters and his little granddaughter was quite beautiful. We stayed in their raised, thatched hut, talking for hours with Somxay about his life, dreams, women, and growing up in a poor northern village in Laos, a country which is rapidly changing.  Dom cooked the market food with our help over an open flame.  We made traditional larp (a favorite of ours), which is a minced meat dish with many fresh herbs. We had a feast with the family including a veggie stir fry and the larp and (of course) sticky rice for all.  We also were able to try the fresh tree leaves they use in place of sticky rice and utensils.  It tasted like ginger to us and Somxay said it is of the same family.





After dinner Breen and Somxay walked to purchase Beer Lao to share with the father and the group, and we continued our conversation about life with Somxay for a few hours more. It was fascinating to him and both of us. Somxay loved our insight, advice and knowledge, and we were sympathetic to the issues an intuitive dreamer would have in a country so far behind yet moving so fast towards western ideals. It felt like a discussion with a genius child, as he was so energetic (only 23) and full of life, and seemingly so far ahead of everyone else we had met in terms of his life aspirations and goals for his current and future family. He wishes to study psychology in America or Australia and we plan to help him find a grant or scholarship if we can.  He was a very smart, driven, kind, funny young man and we felt lucky to have him as our guide and get to know him a bit.

The next day was more of the same, except that the first hour of biking was along an industrial dirt road and we probably ate about a pound of dirt. Overall the day was easier and more low key. The bike ride was to a park service area with another, less exciting but beautiful, waterfall where we walked around and swam again.



We watched Somxay climb a tree, prepared to jump into the river (which he never did because it was much too shallow -as we had told him), and find the reddish gingery leaves we had eaten the night before. Dom and Somxay, being opportunistic, grabbed handfuls for our lunch and for their dinner later that night. We trekked again for an hour or so over makeshift bridges and stagnant ponds and streams.




Dom and Somxay had known of Devon's singing ability from the night before, asked her for a song, and she obliged with her original song "So Real" (a Capella of course, which triggered about the billionth time she wished she owned a travel guitar).  Then Dom prepared a lovely lunch of stir fried veggies (with Devon's help) and we had it with the ginger leaves and sticky rice.  A tiny black kitten took a liking to Breen and was following him around.  After that (sadly) our amazing trip was over and our two wonderful guides drove us back to Vientiane.



Somxay didn't want the fun to end and invited us to come out to dinner with him and his girlfriend that night at the night market on the river. We ate fresh grilled river fish and more larp with more sticky rice (at this point our new favorite food), sharing laughs, a few glasses of Johnny Walker whisky and more Beer Lao. It was an incredible few days that neither of us will ever forget. Thank you Dom and Somxay!!!




We had one more day in Vientiane and we went via bumpy, dusty tuk tuk ride to Buddha Park, a park full of all kinds of concrete Buddha sculptures.  It was beautiful with interactive sculptures, may favorite was a daemon mouth that you climb through and enter hell, you can climb up the 7 layers of hell and out the top of the domed structure with a perfect view of the park and the big sky.  We ate a yummy lunch of fried rice, morning glory, fried eggs and sticky rice down by the lovely river by the park.




Later that day we decided to try the Indian joint on the river front where we ran into our friend Paul from the Slow Boat and shared a night of boisterous conversation (and more Johnny Walker and Beer Lao) at the Beer Garden near our guesthouse.  Paul is a golfer and we enlightened him about Disk Golf, which BLEW HIS MIND. He is convinced he will become a billionaire by introducing the sport to England as "Frolfe."  As recent MBA graduated we made sure we would get a cut (;

We then headed down to the Southern most tip of Laos to 4000 Islands "Si Phan Don" for some water side relaxation, kayacking and hopefully some views of the very rare and endangered Irrawaddy river dolphin...

Love,
Devon and Breen