At 5:30 my driver picked me up and took me to the national park. I bought a 1 day pass and had my pic taken. They gave me a pass with my photo on it I handed to staff at most temples.
Angkor Wat at sunrise. Pretty cool, but instead of sitting with the unwashed masses waiting to get a perfect picture if the sun coming up over the temple, I went around the backside and took pics of the walls getting hit by the first rays of sun. It was a full half hour before the sun was visible on the other side. I snapped on my iPod and had The Doors cracking away as I explored the ancient halls.
For the next 8 hours I climbed stone stairs that were almost vertical, snapped pictures of statues, carvings, releifs, pillars and stone. I mingled amongst crowds from around the world.
Women and children lie in wait as you approach each structure. Desperately they try to hawk their shirts, table runners, scarves, books and cold drinks.
They'll offer one thing, and switch to another. They will then just repeat the price over and over. You'll often be swarmed by three or four at a time. saying no means nothing. You just get the price again. They will walk with you the entire stretch between the parking lot and the entrance of whatever temple you're ar. Prices get cheaper as you get farther into the park I found out. I got a couple of t shirts and a book about the temples.
I visited about 9 temples built by kings, devoted to religious sects moslrlltly forgotten. The sheer feats of engineering to construct these offerings of stone in a time before cranes, winches or the block and tackle is impressive. The level of detail and complexity in the reliefs is inspiring. Tales of wars and triumphs, visions of dancers, elephants, horses and demons, and giant serene faces gazing endlessly at the four corners beyond the horizon adorn almost every free space.
The temples are amazing but after 8 and a half hours in the blazing sun I was done. Back to the guest house for a nap.
Showing posts with label cambodia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cambodia. Show all posts
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
I'm on a Bus watching Cambodian movies
I'm on a bus to Phnom Penh. They've got some Cambodian flick porting where the star is some kid about 10 in a kanga hat wearing little John Lennon styled glasses. He apparently has the super power of never shutting the fuck up in a high pitched staccato voice and not being smacked upside the head. Cinema in SE Asia is incredibly campy. He's made friends with a young monk/ninja girl who breakdances. Where the hell are my headphones at?
On the last bus they showed The Green Hornet. I'm not even sure that's hit theatres yet. It must have, but still... DVD quality, perfect sound, not some cheap "sitting in the back of the theater with a handy cam" job. I didn't watch it, but now I see that I should take advantage of such opportunities.
On the last bus they showed The Green Hornet. I'm not even sure that's hit theatres yet. It must have, but still... DVD quality, perfect sound, not some cheap "sitting in the back of the theater with a handy cam" job. I didn't watch it, but now I see that I should take advantage of such opportunities.
Chance encounter at Bayon
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| Thanks for taking this pic Helen! |
Later that day I got an email from him asking if I'd like to meet for a drink. They met me at the Temple Club and we had beer and chatted for a few hours. It was great catching up. Really nice guy and he's been around the world dozens of times and has great insight into traveling. He's put me in touch with another co worker who is living in Bangkok, so I'll try to hook up with him after my flight this afternoon.
This morning in Phnom Penh, a town 300 kms away, I drove by them in a Tuk Tuk on the way to the airport as I was leaving lunch. We all just waved and laughed.
In Cambodia
In Cambodia, a pitcher of beer is $2 if you know where to go
In Cambodia, 11$ will get you a sufficient room... It's dingy but clean, free wifi, and a bottle of water.
In Cambodia they have a dish called Amok that is an amazing curry with a lemony undertone
In Cambodia, just because you think you're going to fart doesn't meant that's what's about to happen (maybe that's where the term running amok came from, think about it)
In Cambodia they have cops just for dealing with pan handlers
In Cambodia toilet paper is pink and they give you a roll when you check in
In Cambodia, cars, scooters and Tuk Tuks drive so close together that they sometimes touch
In Cambodia the local beer is Angkor and it's very good
In Cambodia they sometimes serve beer with ice
In Cambodia you can hire a guy to drive you around for 5 hours for 20 bucks
In Cambodia they use American money
In Cambodia the panhandlers are trying to sell me weed
In Cambodia the Tuk Tuks are fancy wagons like carriages pulled by 100cc scooters
In Cambodia along the river in Phnom Penh Angkor Beer is 1.50$ for a pint
In Cambodia people come up to you during dinner and try to sell you bootlegged DVDs and books
In Cambodia they don't have the book I'm looking for
In Cambodia the threat of malaria is real and you have to put on alot of bug spray
In Thailand applying bugspray while visiting a butterfly farm is considered offensive
In Cambodia if you need electricity, you climb a pole and get it
In Cambodia it's almost bedtime because like is visiting a museum that illustrates the atrocities of civil war at 8 am
In Canada Luke rarely gets up before 9
Cambodia- Phnom Penh, The Killing Fields
Cambodia is gorgeous. The scenery is amazing, the people friendly and quick to laugh. Along the hwy from Phnom Penh I saw straw huts on stilts, and huge grey cattle wandered in front if the bus. An American ex pat from Vietnam told me that last year on this route they hit one.
At 8 this morning I went to the killing fields, or at least the memorial at Choeung Ek 15 km south of Phnom Penh. They show a short clip then there is a photo museum. The players are illustrated, photos of victims, the process of execution and examples of the tools they used are presented in glass cases.
Outside you can see the actual indentations in the land where the mass graves are. Over 8500 bodies. There is a tree cheerfully named "the killing tree" where guards held children by their ankles and swung them against the tree, dashing their heads and killing them. Many of the captors were barely in their teens themselves. A glass case holds the clothing from many of the unearthed victims. Another encases the bones, mostly arm and leg bones, of many victims. Most shocking of all is commemorative stupa at the center of the compound filled with thousands of skulls of the victims at Choeung Ek. The whole thing is shocking.
My next stop was s.21, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a security building ordered by Pol Pot. It was a school converted to a detention center in Aug 1975. It is by all accounts a veritable house of horrors. The Khmer rouge regime was build on a fallacy it could never realize. They meant to create a completely independent and self sufficient state. The destroyed the National bank, and took apart the freemarket system. The idea was to create an agriculturally based society. People were forced into slave labour in the fields. They captured intellectuals, pop stars, monks, politicians, random citizens, and their own party members with reckless abandon. They detained, tortured and killed roughly 20000 who were at some point detained here over it's 4 year existence.
The conditions were incredibly in humane, cells scarcely 3 feet wide by 6 long held up to 2 prisoners. They were given ammunition cases for their waste and subsisted on a rice soup that was mostly water.
They were tortured until they gave up the names of friends and family for any number of imagined crimes. The people named were in turn rounded up and tortured as the morbid cycle continued. After a 2-6 month stay they were told they were to be taken to better housing, blindfolded and loaded on trucks. At the killing fields loudspeakers blared to cover the sound as one by one they were unloaded, and beaten with a metal pipe at the edge of a mass open grave. Then their throats were slit, or heads removed. Once dead they were cast into the pit and the next victim was brought forth.
It's hard to fathom the atrocities committed at the two sites, and hundreds of others around Cambodia. The lady who we'd hired as a guide had personally lost many family members. It was heartbreaking listening to her tell her story so plainly, as if talking about something so removed as Ancient Egypt or the dark ages. I'm glad that I had come to visit this place, but I don't I'll ever be back.
Images of Choeung Ek
At 8 this morning I went to the killing fields, or at least the memorial at Choeung Ek 15 km south of Phnom Penh. They show a short clip then there is a photo museum. The players are illustrated, photos of victims, the process of execution and examples of the tools they used are presented in glass cases.Outside you can see the actual indentations in the land where the mass graves are. Over 8500 bodies. There is a tree cheerfully named "the killing tree" where guards held children by their ankles and swung them against the tree, dashing their heads and killing them. Many of the captors were barely in their teens themselves. A glass case holds the clothing from many of the unearthed victims. Another encases the bones, mostly arm and leg bones, of many victims. Most shocking of all is commemorative stupa at the center of the compound filled with thousands of skulls of the victims at Choeung Ek. The whole thing is shocking.
My next stop was s.21, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a security building ordered by Pol Pot. It was a school converted to a detention center in Aug 1975. It is by all accounts a veritable house of horrors. The Khmer rouge regime was build on a fallacy it could never realize. They meant to create a completely independent and self sufficient state. The destroyed the National bank, and took apart the freemarket system. The idea was to create an agriculturally based society. People were forced into slave labour in the fields. They captured intellectuals, pop stars, monks, politicians, random citizens, and their own party members with reckless abandon. They detained, tortured and killed roughly 20000 who were at some point detained here over it's 4 year existence.
The conditions were incredibly in humane, cells scarcely 3 feet wide by 6 long held up to 2 prisoners. They were given ammunition cases for their waste and subsisted on a rice soup that was mostly water.
They were tortured until they gave up the names of friends and family for any number of imagined crimes. The people named were in turn rounded up and tortured as the morbid cycle continued. After a 2-6 month stay they were told they were to be taken to better housing, blindfolded and loaded on trucks. At the killing fields loudspeakers blared to cover the sound as one by one they were unloaded, and beaten with a metal pipe at the edge of a mass open grave. Then their throats were slit, or heads removed. Once dead they were cast into the pit and the next victim was brought forth.
It's hard to fathom the atrocities committed at the two sites, and hundreds of others around Cambodia. The lady who we'd hired as a guide had personally lost many family members. It was heartbreaking listening to her tell her story so plainly, as if talking about something so removed as Ancient Egypt or the dark ages. I'm glad that I had come to visit this place, but I don't I'll ever be back.
Images of Choeung Ek
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| Choeung Ek Genocide Center |
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| Paintings buy a survivor of S.21 Trucks leaving S.21 for the killing fields |
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| Prisoners beaten with a club, then their throats cut |
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| Thrown into a mass grave |
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| Actual skulls showing the damage inflicted by different instruments. Mostly farming implements. |
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| A thatched roof covers a mass grave of roughly 455 victims |
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| Its barely 12 feet by 20 |
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| Barbed wire on the walls surrounding the complex serve as a pointed reminder of the conditions of the DK regime |
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| The sign here says "Please don't walk on the mass grave" It struck me funny. |
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| The Killing Tree |
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| The center of the complex is this 'supa' that commemorates the victims. Offerings of flowers and inscense placed at the foot of the steps |
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| From the steps looking in |
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| Inside are shelves behind glass where perhaps thousands of skulls of victims sit, staring endlessly |
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| About 4 stories of shelves filled with skulls extend up the monument |
S.21 Images
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| After capture victims were photographed, forced to give a biography then shackled. |
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| Of the 4 buildings, building C has been left how it was found. The balconies were covered in barbed wire to prevent suicides |
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| Victims were shackled together onto pieces of iron rebar Many died and were left to rot for days amongst the living |
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| On the upper floors of the school, tiny cells were built. They are roughly 3x6 and housed 2 people. The ammo box on the floor was for waste. |
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| Prisoners were chained to the floor of their cells. |
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Cambodia
Made a snap decision 2 days ago to hit Cambodia. Met a cool Aussie lady on the plane to Chiang Mai who talked me into it, waffled till the other night coz Chiang Mai was so cool. Took the sleeper train to bangkok last night, 13 hour jaunt but met a couple cool girls from wisconsin and we chatted for 4 or 5 hours. Killed time in bangkok by booking my train fr bkk to Surat Thanie for the 5th, booked my rooms for Phnom Penh and Siem Reap for the next 3 nights , then my hotel from the 5th to 7th in krabi. From there 3 days in kho lanta then 1 night in Phuket, flight to Sydney. Time flies...
Looking forward to the killing fields tomorrow in Phnom Penh; then Angkor Wat the day after...
Looking forward to the killing fields tomorrow in Phnom Penh; then Angkor Wat the day after...
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