"Lady, You Want a Tuk-Tuk??"

You want a what?? Don't despair - a tuk-tuk is just a small motorized cart here in Asia. I had a difficult time coming up with a title for this one, so I just decided to name it after the phrase heard most often on the streets of Cambodia. I don't think the tuk-tuk drivers have yet figured out that I'll actually ask if I need a lift!

Before I launch into stories of Cambodia, first I wanted to share some photos of my time in Vang Vieng...

Tubing inside a cave outside of Vang Vieng - yes, I do have a battery pack in my lap (we all questioned the safety of this...)

One of the many bars lining the river during our day of tubing. Look closely for the girl in mid-swing from the rope!

I quite enjoyed my exploration day around Vientienne. Because it’s the capital city of Laos, it has the requisite clean-looking federal buildings and manicured lawns. After breakfast on the terrace at my cheap guesthouse, I bargained on a tuk-tuk to take me to Pha That Luang, an important national Laotian monument. In the center is a stupa, or a Buddhist tower, and two additional temples flank the stupa on both sides. I took a brief walk around and then headed out to haggle on a tuk-tuk out to the Buddha Park.

In the late 1950s, a local man commissioned the building of several Buddhist statues at a park about 25 km outside the city. The statues are supposed to reflect influences of both Buddhism and Hinduism, and from the pictures I had seen, it looked pretty interesting. I enjoyed the bumpy ride out to the Buddha Park, past the “Friendship Bridge” that links Thailand and Laos, and I quite enjoyed the park. The park itself wasn’t huge, but the statues inside were impressive and interesting. I was taking quite a few pictures as I walked around, and in the middle of framing one photo, I noticed something bright orange out of the corner of my eye – a monk. When I realized he was standing there looking at me expectantly, I paused – and he then had walked up to me and started chatting. Now, utmost respect must be given to monks, and there are warnings in temples and guide books about appropriate etiquette – not looking monks in the eye, not sitting next to them on transport, not pointing your feet at them – but interestingly, I’ve also read that monks are quite eager to practice English with the occasional tourist. Bang (as I think his name was spelled) was once such monk. Because he approached me for a conversation, I was more than happy to engage – and what a treat it was. I learned that he has been a novice monk for 10+ years, that he is studying English at university and is hoping to becoming an English teacher, and that the rumor about only eating one meal a day (as mentioned in my previous post) is incorrect. It also felt like I had my own personal tour guide around the park, because he actually understood what the statues meant and what they were depicting. I’m sure I wouldn’t have had the opportunity if I had been traveling with others to the park, so I’m thankful once again for the serendipity that comes with solitary travel.

My new monk friend Bang at the Buddha Park

After the Buddha Park, I headed back into town and stopped first at the Vientienne version of the Arch de Triumph, where I could climb up to the top for a semi-decent view. I then went to the local market and found a couple of small souvenir items for the whopping cost of $1.20. I spent the rest of the afternoon grabbing a late lunch in a much-needed air conditioned café, checking my email, and taking advantage of the cheap foot massage stalls. Right when I was finishing, my four friends from Vang Vieng sent me a text, and I met them for dinner after their day of adventure trekking in a local national park. We found a nice restaurant right on the Mekong to enjoy my final Laotian meal before I had to say goodbye.

Although I had really become quite enamored with Laos, I wasn’t overly upset about leaving for Cambodia on Friday, because Ben’s cousin Kelly and her husband Raul were flying in from Hong Kong to meet me for the weekend. Kelly and Raul have lived in HK for the past 3+ years, and Kelly has been such a big help to me in planning the Asia leg of my trip. I was thrilled that they decided to come for the weekend and was really looking forward to seeing Kelly again and meeting Raul. First, I had to brave another dodgy Lao Airlines flight, but I arrived at the Siam Reap airport around the same time as them on Friday morning. Kelly had made all of the arrangements for the weekend (so nice to have a break from logistics planning!), and the hotel transport picked us up and took us to the hotel she booked. The hotel was AMAZING. It was a little surprised that such a chic place was located in the heart of one of Cambodia’s largest towns. It truly felt like an oasis to me, most likely because my perspective on decent lodging has changed quite a bit. I’ve been staying at the local $10-$15/night special, which does include A/C (on my insistence), but does NOT include a lot of other creature comforts. My stay at Hotel de la Paix was definitely a step up.

We had a bit of time to relax at the hotel before the guide came to pick us up for the afternoon. That afternoon, we first drove down near the Tonle Sap lake to see the floating village, a transient gathering of floating houses that pop up on the lake at certain times of the year. Because so many people live on the floating village, there’s even a floating hospital, church, and school in the community, too. It was a great way to see how some of the locals live and remarkable how these families build their lives on a moving body of water.

Small boy who climbed aboard our boat in the middle of the floating village to sell some bananas

Two small boys floating along in small tubs - eating pineapple!

Floating village - look close for the two happy Cambodian children waving on the side

After that, we headed to one of the temples inside the Angkor Wat park. The temples of Angkor are the biggest tourist attraction in Cambodia, and it’s easy to see why. The most notable temple is Angkor Wat itself, which was constructed in the 12th century by the ruling king. Visiting the temples is probably one of the major reasons that tourists started returning to Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge rule (1975-1979) and after the subsequent tumultuous years of the 1980s. The looming towers of Angkor Wat have become a popular sign of the country, gracing the flag and even the beer labels (the national beer is called “Angkor”)!

Aside from Angkor Wat, there are also hundreds of other temples in the area that were built by various ruling kings of the ancient years. On Friday afternoon, we visited Ta Prohm, which is known for the remarkably large trees that seem to be swallowing portions of the temple. Its claim to fame is that it was one of the sites used in filming Laura Croft’s Tomb Raider, starring Angelina Jolie, a few years ago - haven’t seen the movie but now admit I’d like to. All of us were amazed by the ruins.

Kelly and Raul inside Ta Prohm

We enjoyed a great local Khmer meal on Friday night, thanks to the suggestion from Kelly’s Luxe guide, and turned in early. On Saturday morning, we woke up around 5:00 a.m. to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat. Although the sky was already turning light when we left the hotel, we had more than enough time to make it to Angkor and to watch the fiery orange ball rise over the five turrets of the temple. I can’t think of a better way to have my first glimpse of the world wonder.

Our guide then took us around the temple for the next couple of hours, explaining the architecture and the stories that were carved into the stone. It is truly an amazing sight, and I can’t even imagine how long and how many people it took to construct it.

Angkor Wat at sunrise

Afterwards, we went to visit Bayon, or the Temple of the Faces, as I like to call it. The temple has 52 towers, one for each of the Cambodian provinces at the time it was constructed around 1200 AD, and each tower has four faces carved into each side – to reflect happiness, pity, compassion, and “neutral,” as our guide explained it. I just loved the different expressions on the faces and the unique idea to construct such a structure. It was my favorite.

Bayon Temple - each of the towers had four faces carved into it

We took a break after our 4 hour early morning sightseeing tour for some filling breakfast and a dip in the pool, before heading out again mid-afternoon for a local craft market called Artisans d’Angkor. The area employs children from surrounding villages to teach them certain crafts and trades, and all money made on the sale of their items helps to fund the school. The shop certainly had the best selection of items I had seen thus far, but I did practice restraint and only spent $6 :)

The final temple was the oldest, I believe, and is called the Citadel of the Woman. We drove about an hour away from Siam Reap to see the pink temple constructed solely out of limestone. More than anything, I enjoyed the drive there and back and observing the local homes that lined the road. Many times you could catch a peek of a child bathing in the corner of a house or a family preparing for a meal, a perspective we may not have seen if we had stayed in town. That night, we had an outstanding dinner at the hotel, where the restaurant had large swinging tables that we could sit on to eat. A very unique idea and quite a bit of fun.

Dinner at Meric with Kelly and Raul

On Sunday morning, I was sad to say goodbye to Kelly and Raul. For the first time in awhile, I felt like I was really on a true, relaxing vacation – as I realized that, in an effort to make most of my travels, I’d been getting up early and packing the day full of sight-seeing. My stay with Kelly and Raul was the perfect mix of sight-seeing and relaxation, mixed with perfect travel companions. I loved the weekend with them.

I decided Sunday needed to be a bit of a rest day, so I took my time packing up, checking some emails, and then strolled around town before I had to move hotels. I also think that, between saying goodbye to my travelmates, not hearing from Ben for a couple of days, and having to check out of the oasis (my name for our hotel), I was hit with an overwhelming feeling of homesickness. Admittedly, I’ve of course been missing things about home and the US at points during my trip, but I hadn’t had any sense of the feeling quite that intense until yesterday. The loud group of French tourists and the stepped-down hotel room I moved to at a different location certainly didn’t help, but talking with Ben, emailing with my family, and watching a few episodes of The Office on my computer seemed to do the trick.

I left Siam Reap yesterday morning and took a bus about 6 hours here to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The bus ride was actually very nice – in an air conditioned coach, with a mix of tourists and locals, and I found my way to my guesthouse with no issues. The thing I really wanted to learn about during my time in Phnom Penh was the Khmer Rouge regime, which attempted to implement a communist government in Cambodia from 1975-1979. Basically, the leader Pol Pot (a name he assumed once taking power that stands for “Political Potential”) thought he could have the country start over from scratch to become a perfect communist, agrarian community. In an effort to implement this plan, he killed millions of people, most of whom were the educated populous. He forced almost everyone out of the cities into the country, where they were forced to work on farms for agrarian initiatives of the government. Within Phnom Penh, the regime converted one of the local schools into a prison, where innocent Cambodian citizens – and even some foreigners – were imprisoned until they were taken to a local killing field for execution. It was this prison, Tuol Sleng, that I visited yesterday. What a harrowing site. They have turned two of the school buildings into a museum, which includes graphic pictures of the conditions of the prison and quotations posted throughout with quotes from victim’s families and from members of the Khmer Rouge themselves. Most haunting were the hundreds of pictures of victims, as each person who entered the prison had to have their photo taken and their personal history logged on arrival. The worst picture was a young mother holding a baby. Young and old, female and male, innocent or not, thousands of people made their way through Tuol Sleng under the Khmer Rouge. Only seven are said to have survived.

Although Pol Pot died several years ago, supposedly due to natural causes, there are still several Khmer Rouge leaders awaiting trial. Apparently the UN and the Cambodian government can’t determine the proper method for trying such individuals, so it seems as if justice hasn’t been served. Under the Khmer Rouge regime, precious national treasures, such as the ones that adorned the inside of Angkor Wat, were stolen; land mines were placed around the country in an effort to “cleanse” the population, and a generation of older Cambodians appears missing from the sidewalks and streets. But the Cambodian people, or at least those that I have met, are resilient and friendly. They all remember those years and can’t forget the atrocities, but they continue to proceed with their lives in the pursuit of more opportunities – just as we all do. It should be noted that the years following 1979 weren’t peaceful, either - in fact, only since 1998 has the country been considered to be “in peace,” which is when many of the visitors and tourists began their travels here. I had little idea of this history before I arrived and am fortunate to have had the chance to visit the museum and learn about this era in SE Asia.

Last night, I enjoyed walking around the area I’m staying in, which is popular for its variety of restaurants and prime location on the river. I had dinner at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club, a club that was previously known as the stomping ground for foreign journalists looking for a respite from the frenetic pace of the Asian streets. Apparently, the club is now just a good tourist spot, but I loved sitting on the balcony, looking out onto the streets below and the Tonle Sap river at sunset. I would recommend a stop here to anyone.

This morning, I had arranged for my tuk-tuk driver from the bus station to take me out to one of the Killing Fields. We drove about 15 km outside of town to a deserted field. In 1980, a project was engaged to dig up some of the 100+ mass grave sites at the field, and a memorial now stands on the site to honor the victims of the Khmer Rouge regime. It should be noted that this is one of hundreds of killing fields in the country, many of which haven’t been uncovered yet. I am glad I went to see the fields and to have a better understanding of what happened only 33+ years ago, but it was a really difficult thing to visit. You’ll note that I have very few pictures of my trip to Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields, as it just didn’t feel appropriate to take them. I trust that any of you who visit Cambodia will also take the time to visit and to understand the atrocities yourselves.

Placard at the Killing Fields entitled "The Most Tragic." One of my only photos from my trip there.

After my visit to the Killing Fields, I took a quick trip around the National Museum and then ventured to a great Thai/Cambodian restaurant for lunch. I then went in search of a coffee shop I had read about, which turned out to be quite a distance away. My friendly, young moto driver and I took off in search of it, but after about an hour of driving around and getting lost, we learned it was closed. Although the driver agreed to know where he was going and was armed with a map, we turned around about six different times and ended up on side streets and dirt roads before finally stopping in front of the closed gate. Ordinarily, at home, I’d be frustrated that he would have agreed to take me without really knowing the way, and I would have been even more annoyed that the place was closed – but I’ve learned to relax a bit and accept some trips as adventures, even when they end up with unexpected results. I continued to smile and laugh the whole trip and haven’t been disappointed that I wound up at a different spot. The drive was a highlight of my stay in Phnom Penh.

The closed cafe shop and my determined moto driver

Tomorrow I leave early in the morning for a bus ride to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, which some of you may know of as Saigon. I’ll be there for only a couple of days before I head north to meet up with Kelly and Raul again – who’ve decided to come meet me again this weekend! I have heard so many outstanding things about Vietnam that I can’t wait to see them for myself. The Asia trip continues…

On a sidenote, I realized I haven’t given many “Becky Must-See Awards” recently. My third award (after Mauritius and Stellenbosch) goes to Sydney. I love Australia, but Sydney is the crown jewel – sparkling waters, natural harbor, and awesome people. It helps that I also have a few friends there too J It’s hands-down my favorite city in the world. Enough said.

My next award goes to New Zealand, for simply being the best country I’ve ever visited. I wish I could pin down one spot in New Zealand specifically, but it’s just too hard – I loved trekking on Franz Josef glacier, hiking in Mt. Aspiring National Park, kayaking in Milford Sound, skydiving in Queenstown, discovering hidden beaches on the Otago Peninsula, and grape-picking on Waiheke. Auckland has become a home-away-from-home, Wellington beckons for a second visit, and the Coromandel came through with some serious beach scenery. Just go for a visit – you won't regret it.

And my final award thus far goes to Luang Prabang, Laos, for being one of the most interesting places I’ve ever visited. No wonder it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site – cool culture, friendly people, stunning scenery, great restaurants, fun site-seeing, and respect for the monks as I’ve seen nowhere else. I have no doubt in my mind that I’ll be back, with Ben in tow the next time around.

Ok, I think I’m all caught up on awards, blogs, and pictures. Now if I can just dig myself out of my emails! Thanks to all of you for thinking of me and keeping up with my travels.