Thursday, May 13, 2004
Country Road, Take Me Home
Actually, it's a roughly 30 hour ordeal of a taxi, a train, four flights, and an hour car ride that will take me home, but who's counting?
I haven't been able to sleep the last few nights. Weather, the moon, or anxiety!? This seven month stretch is the longest I've been away from home. I think I could survive being away for longer, but since I know I get to go home, I'm anxious and happy to be going. I'm dumping a full suitcase full of clothes I never wear and books I've read. Must travel lighter from now on!
36 hours driving Iowa-Connecticut-Iowa for my sister's graduation and main reason for my return. She really has bad timing: my brother had to return from Pakistan for her high school graduation! I hope the car-time will enable me to fully catchup on blogs I've been meaning to write: beggars, Laos and Thailand2, a conversation about religion with a friend's mom from back in November (o-yo!), and a piece about wearing the headscarf (most likely for a June 1st launch of a new online magazine, details to follow!). Or maybe I'll just watch pirated DVDs on my laptop, if I get them past customs!
I'm submitting a request to extend my stay in Malaysia (insha'allah) by two months. That'd put me here till the end of October and round me out to a full year (minus travels). Africa is still an alternative. I hope to gain clarity while stateside.
Today
I was told today by my academic advisor at the Islamic University that I'm a perfect example of a good Muslim (even though I'm not Muslim, which she knows!). I didn't ask what exactly she meant, but think she was referring to the way that I treat people and how I behave. Actually, I think that might be one of the best compliments to receive.
I feel like I should comment on the Iraq prison abuse and the recent beheading, but find it difficult to find the words. Mostly I feel disgust, despair, shame, fear of what is to come (both worst revelations as well as probable retaliation). And mostly, I just don't understand how those soldiers could do what they did. Do they have no sense of right from wrong, no conscience? I read an article discussing Washington's depiction of them as a 'few bad apples,' but I think it goes deeper than that.
How is the cycle of violence and hatred ever going to end? With the recent events, my resolve to go into human rights and international law is ever stronger.
I'm so excited!
First: I get to see Kristi at LAX during my layover. And she's bringing me Mexican! The closest I've come is Chili's fajita salad, which doesn't count.
June promises some more fun: a Malay wedding, a trip to the beach, going to Toast Master's (with Chinese Businessman Friend, who loves being referred to that way, so I'll do it every chance I get), and the best------Speed Dating! A evening where you spend 10 minutes with about 10 different guys, almost like an audition. At the end of the night, if you both mark your forms that you are interested in each other, contact information is exchanged. I checked out the website and the events are segregated by race: Chinese, Malay, or Indian? How to pick?! I think I'll have to go to all three, so as not to discriminate (and I'm marking it up as sociological and psychological research, so why not!?). And then there's the temptation to go and be a total crackpot weirdo just to see what happens.
Which reminds me, I've gotten a lot of messages on Friendster from random Malaysian guys. Most I deemed unworthy of response (mostly because I judged a lack of adequate English), but two or three were exceptions. I met one, a DJ, for dinner the other night. Nice enough guy, but all he could talk about were: sound systems, his car (which was referred to as both his 'baby' and his 'wife,' he washes it daily, even when returning from DJing at 4 am before having to go to his day job at 9 am!), and...his mother. Ai-yo!
My return in June also comes with a resolution to work at least 2 hours a day, five days a week, on my research (that's down from three hours, which is what I decided this morning. Better to exceed my minimum that set my goals too high to meet, no?). Or blogging counts as work, too.
Blogwatch (ala Andi, once again!) TV Smith's Dua Sen. I've just started to poke around it and like what I see. Plus, I discovered that people (e.g. this guy) I don't even know actually look at my blog (though how much, I do not know). That both surprises and pleases me! Check out his photos and commentaries for a Malaysian POV.
Actually, it's a roughly 30 hour ordeal of a taxi, a train, four flights, and an hour car ride that will take me home, but who's counting?
I haven't been able to sleep the last few nights. Weather, the moon, or anxiety!? This seven month stretch is the longest I've been away from home. I think I could survive being away for longer, but since I know I get to go home, I'm anxious and happy to be going. I'm dumping a full suitcase full of clothes I never wear and books I've read. Must travel lighter from now on!
36 hours driving Iowa-Connecticut-Iowa for my sister's graduation and main reason for my return. She really has bad timing: my brother had to return from Pakistan for her high school graduation! I hope the car-time will enable me to fully catchup on blogs I've been meaning to write: beggars, Laos and Thailand2, a conversation about religion with a friend's mom from back in November (o-yo!), and a piece about wearing the headscarf (most likely for a June 1st launch of a new online magazine, details to follow!). Or maybe I'll just watch pirated DVDs on my laptop, if I get them past customs!
I'm submitting a request to extend my stay in Malaysia (insha'allah) by two months. That'd put me here till the end of October and round me out to a full year (minus travels). Africa is still an alternative. I hope to gain clarity while stateside.
Today
I was told today by my academic advisor at the Islamic University that I'm a perfect example of a good Muslim (even though I'm not Muslim, which she knows!). I didn't ask what exactly she meant, but think she was referring to the way that I treat people and how I behave. Actually, I think that might be one of the best compliments to receive.
I feel like I should comment on the Iraq prison abuse and the recent beheading, but find it difficult to find the words. Mostly I feel disgust, despair, shame, fear of what is to come (both worst revelations as well as probable retaliation). And mostly, I just don't understand how those soldiers could do what they did. Do they have no sense of right from wrong, no conscience? I read an article discussing Washington's depiction of them as a 'few bad apples,' but I think it goes deeper than that.
How is the cycle of violence and hatred ever going to end? With the recent events, my resolve to go into human rights and international law is ever stronger.
I'm so excited!
First: I get to see Kristi at LAX during my layover. And she's bringing me Mexican! The closest I've come is Chili's fajita salad, which doesn't count.
June promises some more fun: a Malay wedding, a trip to the beach, going to Toast Master's (with Chinese Businessman Friend, who loves being referred to that way, so I'll do it every chance I get), and the best------Speed Dating! A evening where you spend 10 minutes with about 10 different guys, almost like an audition. At the end of the night, if you both mark your forms that you are interested in each other, contact information is exchanged. I checked out the website and the events are segregated by race: Chinese, Malay, or Indian? How to pick?! I think I'll have to go to all three, so as not to discriminate (and I'm marking it up as sociological and psychological research, so why not!?). And then there's the temptation to go and be a total crackpot weirdo just to see what happens.
Which reminds me, I've gotten a lot of messages on Friendster from random Malaysian guys. Most I deemed unworthy of response (mostly because I judged a lack of adequate English), but two or three were exceptions. I met one, a DJ, for dinner the other night. Nice enough guy, but all he could talk about were: sound systems, his car (which was referred to as both his 'baby' and his 'wife,' he washes it daily, even when returning from DJing at 4 am before having to go to his day job at 9 am!), and...his mother. Ai-yo!
My return in June also comes with a resolution to work at least 2 hours a day, five days a week, on my research (that's down from three hours, which is what I decided this morning. Better to exceed my minimum that set my goals too high to meet, no?). Or blogging counts as work, too.
Blogwatch (ala Andi, once again!) TV Smith's Dua Sen. I've just started to poke around it and like what I see. Plus, I discovered that people (e.g. this guy) I don't even know actually look at my blog (though how much, I do not know). That both surprises and pleases me! Check out his photos and commentaries for a Malaysian POV.
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Look what I can do!
Only, I haven't figured out how to put my own pictures here, so for the time being, I've stolen this photo. (Mine are still accessible at the sidebar!)
This is a picture of Perhentian Island...Friday night I was tempted by an invite to go the following night, but I realized (again) that I'm just not very spontaneous! I have a lot to get done before I leave Friday (balik kampong--the Malay way to say, back to the hometown) and was planning to go when I could mingle it with a research trip to a nearby place in June. So, the white sand beaches and blue, blue water will have to wait. Who wants to join me!?!?
Only, I haven't figured out how to put my own pictures here, so for the time being, I've stolen this photo. (Mine are still accessible at the sidebar!)
This is a picture of Perhentian Island...Friday night I was tempted by an invite to go the following night, but I realized (again) that I'm just not very spontaneous! I have a lot to get done before I leave Friday (balik kampong--the Malay way to say, back to the hometown) and was planning to go when I could mingle it with a research trip to a nearby place in June. So, the white sand beaches and blue, blue water will have to wait. Who wants to join me!?!?
FYI, I updated my blogger template and only realized after it was too late that all previously posted comments were erased! Argh!
I’ve been incommunicado lately, too busy living life to write about it! My apologies!
I’m back from Laos and Thailand 2. Pictures are posted here.
After posting about my lost bag, I got back to my hostel to find out that my bag had caught up with me! Of course, this was after buying necessary toiletries and a bright green tank top with a map of SE Asia--Laos in bold--with the words “I love Laos” in Lao at top and “I love you” in English at bottom. Actually, I really like it and am glad I had an excuse to buy it. It seems that the bag had been taken by mistake and then returned at the Bangkok baggage claim. Nothing was missing, but then again, nothing worth stealing.
Before I go on about the rest of that trip (in a few days!), I’d like to finish up about Cambodia first. I know, I know, this all must be very confusing!
CAMBODIA CONTINUED
“When the frog is in the well, he can only see a small circle of sky, but when he comes out of the well he says: ‘Oh my God, how big is the world!’” –Khmer proverb
Of all the countries I visited, I spend the longest in Cambodia (9 days). You already got my first impressions (loved it). That feeling carried through my trip there for the most part, but I’m not planning to look for a job there for the fall as I’d mentioned---it’s against my no-backtracking policy.
Guilty
There were two Israelis on our bus from HCMC to Phnom Penh and I realized I was thinking about them like I don’t want people to think about Americans. Namely, I was making them guilty by association/nationality for the crimes of their country just as Americans may sometimes be blamed for America’s actions. I tried to rationalize it away to myself, thinking that perhaps somehow I could get away with making the claim that Israeli citizenship is a much more political thing…I think that is true if a person is not born in Israel, but then naturalizes (i.e. they chose it and therefore endorse it). But I’m pretty sure these two guys were born there. They were about my age: have they done their military service? I thought. And, bitterly, how nice they get to bum around the world, joking, when the Palestinians have no such option, no such luxury. Of course, I didn’t say these things. Wouldn’t dream of it. But, I thought them. And the very fact of their nationality made me not really want to talk to them, made me not really like them. If I (as an American who didn’t even consider the Palestinian side of the issue till I was 20) can feel this way now, what hope is there for the Palestinians (who have to face the harsh realities of the Israeli occupation) not to hate?
History
Cindy, a Fulbrighter in Cambodia, lent us her driver for a day. Paul is an university student about our age, studying tourism. He’s got a car, which is a surprise, but it seems that maybe Cindy paid for it? She met him on a trip several years ago and seems to have adopted him, helping him out with tuition, etc. He was raised by family and has no idea what happened to his parents—if his family knows, they haven’t told him yet.
We went to the killing fields, where bodies were buried in mass graves during the Pol Pot era. You could see bones through the dirt on the paths where were walked. At the S21 Prison Museum, there were row after row of photographs of the people held there. Men, women, children, old people. The Pol Pot regime kept some of the best documentation, which should make it relatively easy to prosecute war criminals, though this is a step that has not been taken and seems unlikely to. The pictures showed eyes wide with fear. In others, the chins were thrust up, in defiance. A few smiled; why…how? I wanted to look at each photo, to acknowledge each one, but there were just too many.
And now, hodgepodge
From Vietnam to Cambodia, the target of car honks went from motorbikes and bicycles to buffalo that would wander into the road.
Cambodian fashion includes wearing pajama sets as everyday clothing. You know the kind: matching tops and bottoms, with ducks or sheep or fluffy clouds. In cotton or silk. Pretty good for hot weather.
Food was also great here. One local yummy dish: salor korko sap (veggie soup: eggplant, bitter melon, pumpkin, jackfruit, papaya, green banana, snake beans and other greens). I’ve discovered pumpkin soup, when made properly, is wonderful! Green mango salad with shrimp. Pomelo (like a grapefruit kind of)-mint-lime juice. Ice cream served in a bun, not a cone, by a guy pushing a cart around on a bicycle. Street vendor fare: banana with coconut and rice, grilled in a banana leaf. People go to these wooden restaurants on stilts with hammocks to eat corn and hang out (corn not as good as in Iowa, of course!).
Walking down the street, there were lots of cyclo drivers sleeping in their cyclos and cots appeared from out of nowhere at nighttime for otherwise homeless people. Sometimes they even rig up a mosquito netting for their bed on the sidewalk. There were two guys sleeping in our hotel foyer on cots, but that might have been security.
You can use dollars easily, as if it were almost their real currency, the riel. A British guy sitting nearby at a restaurant shared his clever t-shirt idea: Don’t talk $, just get riel.
“Happy pizzas” are available in PP and I heard from an Australian guy that weed was really cheap in Siem Reap, too. I immediately didn’t like the Australian (met him at Kampong Thom, see below) because he seemed like the lame stoner type of traveler who just partied and passed by in a haze, wasting his days away. Not cool.
Trying to locate terrorists’ bank accounts, the CIA was looking for personal bank accounts more than $10 million; 8 Cambodians had accounts in Singapore over that amount. We’re not talking terrorism, but corruption though. One transaction to one of the accounts was $20 million---the account belongs to the police chief, who is still in power. Government officials are big players in drug smuggling.
Second night in PP, more games! Ring around the rosy meets duck duck goose, but with couples chasing couples. Another: a pack of girls across from a pack of boys, they throw a scarf back and forth. Depending on whether the scarf hits someone, one group steps forward or back, a scene from West Side Story, with the give and take of the Sharks and Jets dance. Another: a girl runs up to Keith and bows, then runs back to her friend. We watch and see they are playing rock, paper, scissors, with a hint of truth or dare added in. One kid has a VCD player or laptop and I’m thinking these must be the rich kids.
A white, boxy car (like our old Colt) pulls up, with blue lights, loud music, and a guy hanging out the window in the back seat, holding his hands up. The crowd cheers. These kids seem to be kings, or at least think they are. A dance party starts around 11 or 12, after the games have wound down and most of the kids have gone home. The dancers, 15 guys (including the ringleader from the night before) and 1 girl. It’s late, but that doesn’t stop them from blaring their music.
Cindy’s friend came to visit from the US and we had dinner with them. Her friend’s baggage was lost (foreshadowing?!). She is an artist and told us that she must have been the first person to commemorate the anniversary of Kurt Kobain’s death by listening to a Nirvana song on repeat (because of the time zone shifts). It also seems they were quite the hippies, referencing a story with, “before I started shaving my legs.’
Women
Beer garden, Khmer style. A dozen girls are on stage, passing the mike so each could sing. Meanwhile, they all played backup dancer, though looked like they were not enjoying themselves. Maybe it’s considered sexy to look bored out of your mind in this culture? They’d twirl their hand,s left step rock back, right step rock back. Their clothes range from a black see-thru shirt with a short, pleated skirt to eveningwear or even a tank top and jeans. The colors were bright: orange, green, pink.
There were ‘beer girls,’ each one in a different tight outfit, advertising their beer brand. Paul, who accompanied us, said that the singers and beer girls would all be taken home for a price, maybe $30. Now, in a country where the average monthly salary for professors, police, etc. is only $20, that seems like a lot. Paul thinks that most of the people frequenting there for such purposes would be Cambodians from abroad who have come back. He said that some of the girls have boyfriends, but they don’t care because they are making good money.
Nina was a 21 year old Cambodian girl who worked at an internet café/travel agency that Keith and I went to while in PP. She and her brother took us to catch our bus out of town and I had a very interesting conversation with Nina on the way. She said that there was an American woman who came to Cambodia several times, working for the Red Cross. Nina said the girl ‘loved her very much,’ and I thought she meant in a friend way. But she meant in a romance way and said that the Red Cross woman wanted to ‘make sex’ with her, but that she was scared. Nina said that two women in Cambodia can marry. Sometimes there is a ceremony, where one will pretend to be the man. Other times it’s just unofficial. She said a lot of women didn’t want to marry men because they would drink and beat the wife, but that women didn’t do that. I asked her if she preferred men or women and she said it was even, a tie.
She also said that her cousin, who owned the internet café and is in his mid-20s, keeps a girlfriend locked in a room upstairs. He pays her family money, so they don’t mind. But supposedly it’s love, especially on the girl’s part. He keeps her up there out of jealousy and possession it seemed. She’s had two abortions already and Nina thought she might be pregnant again.
I’m sorry I didn’t start having these conversations with her sooner so I could have learned more; it’s extremely interesting (and in the second case, messed up) insight into gender/sexual relations there.
KAMPONG THOM
We stopped in a little podunk, one-horse kinda town after Phnom Penh so that I could take part in a two day field visit with a German NGO team that will be starting similar programs in another area of Cambodia. We met with a local village group that meets to address problems and then bring them to the attention of the village leader and commune council members, a group of people who work at the pagoda (another word for a Buddhist temple, also called a wat) on socio-economic projects, and commune council members. It was interesting to see how development projects are carried out through the traditional structure of the pagoda and how the pagoda has had its own forms of aid/welfare since before the West started projects (rice and buffalo banks, for example). Considering this whole trip was funded by Fulbright, this was the ‘research’ aspect!
Not many tourists stop in this town, which is halfway between PP and Siem Reap. The hotel we stayed at wins the “worst hotel” award from both of my trips, maybe of my lifetime. There were lots and lots of bugs. Kinds I’ve never seen before, including one that looked like it was inside some sort of clear casing. Ew, ew, ew. I was paranoid about bed bugs, since there were so many OTHER bugs, so we slept with the lights on. The neighbor played loud, local music till midnight and it started up again at 3 am. I woke up hourly and killed a few bugs. There was the smell of pot in the air and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some ‘one-hour’ trade going on. At to think that the Lonely Planet recommended this place! Granted, it was probably one of two or three places…
We sat at an outside café and ordered mango juice…only after a few sips, I realized it was not mango, but durian. Durian is a famous fruit, notorious for its horrible smell. So horrible, in fact, that Fear Factor contestants had to eat it once as a challenge (usually pig brains or live worms are normal fare). Malaysians love it though. However, signs posted in public transportation prevent it from being brought aboard in KL and Singapore! I tried it before and could handle it, but wouldn’t choose to eat it.
Some adorable but dirty kids lurked nearby, asking us “what is your name?” After we responded and asked them back, they would repeat, “what is your name?” It was all they knew. When people at another table got up to leave, the kids rushed the table, eating the leftovers. Then I felt guilty because I didn’t want to drink my gross juice but didn’t want it to go to waste. So I let one of them have it later, when there were only one or two about.
I took Keith’s picture and that made the kids want me to take their picture. It’s great fun having a digital camera because then they can see the picture right away. At one point, the kids were carting bags of trash to a truck, presumably their job or helping out their family.
Two boys came to talk to us, though the older one was the spokesperson since he knew some English. He was 21 years old and had two more years of high school left. The other claimed to be 18 but couldn’t have been over 15. The first became Christian, saying his friend introduced him to the church and that he had been lonely but now Jesus is his friend and salvation. He asked if we were Japanese!?! I think it must be that most foreigners who come to this town are Japanese because a Japanese UNV worker was killed during the elections in 1993 and his father who is a government minister is now developing the area.
After finding out that there are poor people in the US, he asked, “America is rich. Why do you have poor kids? Why doesn’t the president help?” Refer to above: curtailing corruption in Cambodia could definitely help its own people…
We decided to get a service taxi out of town (instead of loading up in the back of a pickup truck with about 20 other people and all their belongings!). We were the first two, so we had to wait around till the rest of the car got filled up ($5 each, at least for Keith and I…). They usually cram 6 people besides the driver in, but the girl in the front seat paid for two spots so she had it to herself. That means Keith and I got cozy with two strangers in the backseat. The road was bumpy, more dirt or gravel than pavement. We ended up getting a flat tire, but fortunately it was all fixed and we were back on the road before it started to rain 10 minutes later. It took us about 3.5 hours to reach Siem Reap.
Images: Naked boys everywhere, maybe 2-4 years old. Men wearing only towels on the street (storefronts are often housefronts and I guess it’s not that different than a sarong). A woman bathing by an outdoor well in her sarong. A guy eating roasted cockroaches as we wait for our service taxi to fill up. Women doing construction work (no choice, it pays). Two sightings of women in bras near their wooden, stilted houses; no biggie. 3 men on one motorbike, the last one holding a live duck by its feet.
ANGKOR WAT
Siem Reap is the access point for Angkor Wat, temples built between the 9th and 13th centuries, “intended to glorify both the kings and their ancestors” (Lonely Planet). I’ve never been one much for old stuff, at least not too much of it. Yeah, sure, the Pyramids are cool, but certainly not the only reason to visit Egypt. Petra (in Jordan, part to Indiana Jones Temple of Doom was filmed there) and old Roman ruins (in Italy or even Lebanon) are fine in limited quantities. Same goes for castles in England and good ole Angkor Wat (part of Tomb Raider was shot here).
We bought a three day pass for $40 US and got a moto driver named Sovanne (Show-va-knee) for $5/day for the both of us, me sandwiched in between the two of them. I got sick on the first night and was out of commission for the second day. I’d say it was food poisoning, but Keith and I shared the exact same things for dinner and ate at the same place for lunch. I suspect that the chopsticks we used at lunch weren’t very clean though…(have I mentioned how throughout SE Asia, dishes are washed without cold water!? The kitchen faucet in my apartment doesn’t even have hot water!) Anyway, it turns out that I couldn’t have handled three full days of temple wanderings. As it was, on the second day exploring (which was our third day of the pass), I’d often let Keith go ahead and just read at the entrance (Middlesex is a good book, fyi).
Chris, the other Fulbright student in Malaysia, had warned me about all the beggars, particularly children. But really most of the children were selling stuff, not begging. Postcards, wooden flutes, tshirts, etc. And boy were they pushy!
My favorite lines: “If you don’t buy, then you’re not handsome!” A not-so favorite: “If you don’t buy, I’ll kill myself.” The constant “hey mister” in the high-pitched tone got to be a bit annoying. But I was relieved to not see too many beggars. There was one child, sitting without many clothes on, with a bloated stomach and visible ribs: an image from one of those religious charities’ TV commercials.
Don’t get me wrong—the temples were cool. It was just that they started to all look the same after awhile. We caught a sunset up on the top of one, with about a million other people, so it wasn’t exactly peaceful. We got up bright and early and saw the sunrise, too. My favorite places were where the trees and vegetation was taking over and growing out of cracks in the foundations and walls of the temples. There were occasionally nuns and monks near some Buddhist statues, who would bless you (if you paid a small fee). Keith insists that I got sick because he did it, but I didn’t.
The town of Siem Reap is basically one of those not-so-pleasant towns that survive almost entirely on tourism. Didn’t seem to have too much of a soul of its own.
A day or two after getting our clothes laundered (so cheap and they come back ironed! As if Mom were around!), I found something…gross…on a shirt or two. I’m almost sure it was lizard crap. The clothes had been lying on a plastic bag on the ground and there were other…presents…about the room. Ewww!
Cambodia is the first country where I didn’t hear any Western music! Maybe it was that it was right before the New Year, so they were playing traditional music. Or maybe I was just in the wrong (or perhaps I should say right) places, because a couple I mentioned it to later said they had heard some.
I noticed some men with few red circular marks on their backs in Vietnam and then again in Cambodia. One of the men at the Commune Council meeting even had a red circular mark on his forehead. Get this: it’s from putting a flame inside a glass/jar and then suctioning it to the body. It’s supposed to relieve headaches and hangovers! I suspect that it just causes pain to distract you from your original ailment!
Still to come: Beggars.
I’ve been incommunicado lately, too busy living life to write about it! My apologies!
I’m back from Laos and Thailand 2. Pictures are posted here.
After posting about my lost bag, I got back to my hostel to find out that my bag had caught up with me! Of course, this was after buying necessary toiletries and a bright green tank top with a map of SE Asia--Laos in bold--with the words “I love Laos” in Lao at top and “I love you” in English at bottom. Actually, I really like it and am glad I had an excuse to buy it. It seems that the bag had been taken by mistake and then returned at the Bangkok baggage claim. Nothing was missing, but then again, nothing worth stealing.
Before I go on about the rest of that trip (in a few days!), I’d like to finish up about Cambodia first. I know, I know, this all must be very confusing!
CAMBODIA CONTINUED
“When the frog is in the well, he can only see a small circle of sky, but when he comes out of the well he says: ‘Oh my God, how big is the world!’” –Khmer proverb
Of all the countries I visited, I spend the longest in Cambodia (9 days). You already got my first impressions (loved it). That feeling carried through my trip there for the most part, but I’m not planning to look for a job there for the fall as I’d mentioned---it’s against my no-backtracking policy.
Guilty
There were two Israelis on our bus from HCMC to Phnom Penh and I realized I was thinking about them like I don’t want people to think about Americans. Namely, I was making them guilty by association/nationality for the crimes of their country just as Americans may sometimes be blamed for America’s actions. I tried to rationalize it away to myself, thinking that perhaps somehow I could get away with making the claim that Israeli citizenship is a much more political thing…I think that is true if a person is not born in Israel, but then naturalizes (i.e. they chose it and therefore endorse it). But I’m pretty sure these two guys were born there. They were about my age: have they done their military service? I thought. And, bitterly, how nice they get to bum around the world, joking, when the Palestinians have no such option, no such luxury. Of course, I didn’t say these things. Wouldn’t dream of it. But, I thought them. And the very fact of their nationality made me not really want to talk to them, made me not really like them. If I (as an American who didn’t even consider the Palestinian side of the issue till I was 20) can feel this way now, what hope is there for the Palestinians (who have to face the harsh realities of the Israeli occupation) not to hate?
History
Cindy, a Fulbrighter in Cambodia, lent us her driver for a day. Paul is an university student about our age, studying tourism. He’s got a car, which is a surprise, but it seems that maybe Cindy paid for it? She met him on a trip several years ago and seems to have adopted him, helping him out with tuition, etc. He was raised by family and has no idea what happened to his parents—if his family knows, they haven’t told him yet.
We went to the killing fields, where bodies were buried in mass graves during the Pol Pot era. You could see bones through the dirt on the paths where were walked. At the S21 Prison Museum, there were row after row of photographs of the people held there. Men, women, children, old people. The Pol Pot regime kept some of the best documentation, which should make it relatively easy to prosecute war criminals, though this is a step that has not been taken and seems unlikely to. The pictures showed eyes wide with fear. In others, the chins were thrust up, in defiance. A few smiled; why…how? I wanted to look at each photo, to acknowledge each one, but there were just too many.
And now, hodgepodge
From Vietnam to Cambodia, the target of car honks went from motorbikes and bicycles to buffalo that would wander into the road.
Cambodian fashion includes wearing pajama sets as everyday clothing. You know the kind: matching tops and bottoms, with ducks or sheep or fluffy clouds. In cotton or silk. Pretty good for hot weather.
Food was also great here. One local yummy dish: salor korko sap (veggie soup: eggplant, bitter melon, pumpkin, jackfruit, papaya, green banana, snake beans and other greens). I’ve discovered pumpkin soup, when made properly, is wonderful! Green mango salad with shrimp. Pomelo (like a grapefruit kind of)-mint-lime juice. Ice cream served in a bun, not a cone, by a guy pushing a cart around on a bicycle. Street vendor fare: banana with coconut and rice, grilled in a banana leaf. People go to these wooden restaurants on stilts with hammocks to eat corn and hang out (corn not as good as in Iowa, of course!).
Walking down the street, there were lots of cyclo drivers sleeping in their cyclos and cots appeared from out of nowhere at nighttime for otherwise homeless people. Sometimes they even rig up a mosquito netting for their bed on the sidewalk. There were two guys sleeping in our hotel foyer on cots, but that might have been security.
You can use dollars easily, as if it were almost their real currency, the riel. A British guy sitting nearby at a restaurant shared his clever t-shirt idea: Don’t talk $, just get riel.
“Happy pizzas” are available in PP and I heard from an Australian guy that weed was really cheap in Siem Reap, too. I immediately didn’t like the Australian (met him at Kampong Thom, see below) because he seemed like the lame stoner type of traveler who just partied and passed by in a haze, wasting his days away. Not cool.
Trying to locate terrorists’ bank accounts, the CIA was looking for personal bank accounts more than $10 million; 8 Cambodians had accounts in Singapore over that amount. We’re not talking terrorism, but corruption though. One transaction to one of the accounts was $20 million---the account belongs to the police chief, who is still in power. Government officials are big players in drug smuggling.
Second night in PP, more games! Ring around the rosy meets duck duck goose, but with couples chasing couples. Another: a pack of girls across from a pack of boys, they throw a scarf back and forth. Depending on whether the scarf hits someone, one group steps forward or back, a scene from West Side Story, with the give and take of the Sharks and Jets dance. Another: a girl runs up to Keith and bows, then runs back to her friend. We watch and see they are playing rock, paper, scissors, with a hint of truth or dare added in. One kid has a VCD player or laptop and I’m thinking these must be the rich kids.
A white, boxy car (like our old Colt) pulls up, with blue lights, loud music, and a guy hanging out the window in the back seat, holding his hands up. The crowd cheers. These kids seem to be kings, or at least think they are. A dance party starts around 11 or 12, after the games have wound down and most of the kids have gone home. The dancers, 15 guys (including the ringleader from the night before) and 1 girl. It’s late, but that doesn’t stop them from blaring their music.
Cindy’s friend came to visit from the US and we had dinner with them. Her friend’s baggage was lost (foreshadowing?!). She is an artist and told us that she must have been the first person to commemorate the anniversary of Kurt Kobain’s death by listening to a Nirvana song on repeat (because of the time zone shifts). It also seems they were quite the hippies, referencing a story with, “before I started shaving my legs.’
Women
Beer garden, Khmer style. A dozen girls are on stage, passing the mike so each could sing. Meanwhile, they all played backup dancer, though looked like they were not enjoying themselves. Maybe it’s considered sexy to look bored out of your mind in this culture? They’d twirl their hand,s left step rock back, right step rock back. Their clothes range from a black see-thru shirt with a short, pleated skirt to eveningwear or even a tank top and jeans. The colors were bright: orange, green, pink.
There were ‘beer girls,’ each one in a different tight outfit, advertising their beer brand. Paul, who accompanied us, said that the singers and beer girls would all be taken home for a price, maybe $30. Now, in a country where the average monthly salary for professors, police, etc. is only $20, that seems like a lot. Paul thinks that most of the people frequenting there for such purposes would be Cambodians from abroad who have come back. He said that some of the girls have boyfriends, but they don’t care because they are making good money.
Nina was a 21 year old Cambodian girl who worked at an internet café/travel agency that Keith and I went to while in PP. She and her brother took us to catch our bus out of town and I had a very interesting conversation with Nina on the way. She said that there was an American woman who came to Cambodia several times, working for the Red Cross. Nina said the girl ‘loved her very much,’ and I thought she meant in a friend way. But she meant in a romance way and said that the Red Cross woman wanted to ‘make sex’ with her, but that she was scared. Nina said that two women in Cambodia can marry. Sometimes there is a ceremony, where one will pretend to be the man. Other times it’s just unofficial. She said a lot of women didn’t want to marry men because they would drink and beat the wife, but that women didn’t do that. I asked her if she preferred men or women and she said it was even, a tie.
She also said that her cousin, who owned the internet café and is in his mid-20s, keeps a girlfriend locked in a room upstairs. He pays her family money, so they don’t mind. But supposedly it’s love, especially on the girl’s part. He keeps her up there out of jealousy and possession it seemed. She’s had two abortions already and Nina thought she might be pregnant again.
I’m sorry I didn’t start having these conversations with her sooner so I could have learned more; it’s extremely interesting (and in the second case, messed up) insight into gender/sexual relations there.
KAMPONG THOM
We stopped in a little podunk, one-horse kinda town after Phnom Penh so that I could take part in a two day field visit with a German NGO team that will be starting similar programs in another area of Cambodia. We met with a local village group that meets to address problems and then bring them to the attention of the village leader and commune council members, a group of people who work at the pagoda (another word for a Buddhist temple, also called a wat) on socio-economic projects, and commune council members. It was interesting to see how development projects are carried out through the traditional structure of the pagoda and how the pagoda has had its own forms of aid/welfare since before the West started projects (rice and buffalo banks, for example). Considering this whole trip was funded by Fulbright, this was the ‘research’ aspect!
Not many tourists stop in this town, which is halfway between PP and Siem Reap. The hotel we stayed at wins the “worst hotel” award from both of my trips, maybe of my lifetime. There were lots and lots of bugs. Kinds I’ve never seen before, including one that looked like it was inside some sort of clear casing. Ew, ew, ew. I was paranoid about bed bugs, since there were so many OTHER bugs, so we slept with the lights on. The neighbor played loud, local music till midnight and it started up again at 3 am. I woke up hourly and killed a few bugs. There was the smell of pot in the air and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some ‘one-hour’ trade going on. At to think that the Lonely Planet recommended this place! Granted, it was probably one of two or three places…
We sat at an outside café and ordered mango juice…only after a few sips, I realized it was not mango, but durian. Durian is a famous fruit, notorious for its horrible smell. So horrible, in fact, that Fear Factor contestants had to eat it once as a challenge (usually pig brains or live worms are normal fare). Malaysians love it though. However, signs posted in public transportation prevent it from being brought aboard in KL and Singapore! I tried it before and could handle it, but wouldn’t choose to eat it.
Some adorable but dirty kids lurked nearby, asking us “what is your name?” After we responded and asked them back, they would repeat, “what is your name?” It was all they knew. When people at another table got up to leave, the kids rushed the table, eating the leftovers. Then I felt guilty because I didn’t want to drink my gross juice but didn’t want it to go to waste. So I let one of them have it later, when there were only one or two about.
I took Keith’s picture and that made the kids want me to take their picture. It’s great fun having a digital camera because then they can see the picture right away. At one point, the kids were carting bags of trash to a truck, presumably their job or helping out their family.
Two boys came to talk to us, though the older one was the spokesperson since he knew some English. He was 21 years old and had two more years of high school left. The other claimed to be 18 but couldn’t have been over 15. The first became Christian, saying his friend introduced him to the church and that he had been lonely but now Jesus is his friend and salvation. He asked if we were Japanese!?! I think it must be that most foreigners who come to this town are Japanese because a Japanese UNV worker was killed during the elections in 1993 and his father who is a government minister is now developing the area.
After finding out that there are poor people in the US, he asked, “America is rich. Why do you have poor kids? Why doesn’t the president help?” Refer to above: curtailing corruption in Cambodia could definitely help its own people…
We decided to get a service taxi out of town (instead of loading up in the back of a pickup truck with about 20 other people and all their belongings!). We were the first two, so we had to wait around till the rest of the car got filled up ($5 each, at least for Keith and I…). They usually cram 6 people besides the driver in, but the girl in the front seat paid for two spots so she had it to herself. That means Keith and I got cozy with two strangers in the backseat. The road was bumpy, more dirt or gravel than pavement. We ended up getting a flat tire, but fortunately it was all fixed and we were back on the road before it started to rain 10 minutes later. It took us about 3.5 hours to reach Siem Reap.
Images: Naked boys everywhere, maybe 2-4 years old. Men wearing only towels on the street (storefronts are often housefronts and I guess it’s not that different than a sarong). A woman bathing by an outdoor well in her sarong. A guy eating roasted cockroaches as we wait for our service taxi to fill up. Women doing construction work (no choice, it pays). Two sightings of women in bras near their wooden, stilted houses; no biggie. 3 men on one motorbike, the last one holding a live duck by its feet.
ANGKOR WAT
Siem Reap is the access point for Angkor Wat, temples built between the 9th and 13th centuries, “intended to glorify both the kings and their ancestors” (Lonely Planet). I’ve never been one much for old stuff, at least not too much of it. Yeah, sure, the Pyramids are cool, but certainly not the only reason to visit Egypt. Petra (in Jordan, part to Indiana Jones Temple of Doom was filmed there) and old Roman ruins (in Italy or even Lebanon) are fine in limited quantities. Same goes for castles in England and good ole Angkor Wat (part of Tomb Raider was shot here).
We bought a three day pass for $40 US and got a moto driver named Sovanne (Show-va-knee) for $5/day for the both of us, me sandwiched in between the two of them. I got sick on the first night and was out of commission for the second day. I’d say it was food poisoning, but Keith and I shared the exact same things for dinner and ate at the same place for lunch. I suspect that the chopsticks we used at lunch weren’t very clean though…(have I mentioned how throughout SE Asia, dishes are washed without cold water!? The kitchen faucet in my apartment doesn’t even have hot water!) Anyway, it turns out that I couldn’t have handled three full days of temple wanderings. As it was, on the second day exploring (which was our third day of the pass), I’d often let Keith go ahead and just read at the entrance (Middlesex is a good book, fyi).
Chris, the other Fulbright student in Malaysia, had warned me about all the beggars, particularly children. But really most of the children were selling stuff, not begging. Postcards, wooden flutes, tshirts, etc. And boy were they pushy!
My favorite lines: “If you don’t buy, then you’re not handsome!” A not-so favorite: “If you don’t buy, I’ll kill myself.” The constant “hey mister” in the high-pitched tone got to be a bit annoying. But I was relieved to not see too many beggars. There was one child, sitting without many clothes on, with a bloated stomach and visible ribs: an image from one of those religious charities’ TV commercials.
Don’t get me wrong—the temples were cool. It was just that they started to all look the same after awhile. We caught a sunset up on the top of one, with about a million other people, so it wasn’t exactly peaceful. We got up bright and early and saw the sunrise, too. My favorite places were where the trees and vegetation was taking over and growing out of cracks in the foundations and walls of the temples. There were occasionally nuns and monks near some Buddhist statues, who would bless you (if you paid a small fee). Keith insists that I got sick because he did it, but I didn’t.
The town of Siem Reap is basically one of those not-so-pleasant towns that survive almost entirely on tourism. Didn’t seem to have too much of a soul of its own.
A day or two after getting our clothes laundered (so cheap and they come back ironed! As if Mom were around!), I found something…gross…on a shirt or two. I’m almost sure it was lizard crap. The clothes had been lying on a plastic bag on the ground and there were other…presents…about the room. Ewww!
Cambodia is the first country where I didn’t hear any Western music! Maybe it was that it was right before the New Year, so they were playing traditional music. Or maybe I was just in the wrong (or perhaps I should say right) places, because a couple I mentioned it to later said they had heard some.
I noticed some men with few red circular marks on their backs in Vietnam and then again in Cambodia. One of the men at the Commune Council meeting even had a red circular mark on his forehead. Get this: it’s from putting a flame inside a glass/jar and then suctioning it to the body. It’s supposed to relieve headaches and hangovers! I suspect that it just causes pain to distract you from your original ailment!
Still to come: Beggars.
