Birmingham to Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia

We arrived in Bangkok at 1:30 AM on Sunday morning. Exhausted we checked into our hotel, gathered our bags and headed for our room. We were joined in the elevator with a 30 year old Asian woman dressed in faded jeans, stiletto heels a tight sweater, I pushed the 16th floor and asked her “your floor?” which only drew a smile. I looked at Nita and got a questioned look, both thinking she didn’t understand English and would select her own floor. She did not. Upon arrival at the 16th floor Nita and I exited the elevator and headed for our room, I turned to find that the young lady was following us. Making eye contact it became clear to both Nita and me what was going on. I looked to Nita and got that look. I turned to the young lady smiled and shook my head no. She turned and re-entered the elevator. In the room I asked Nita, “do you know what that was all about?” I got that look again.

We were in bed, just the two of us, within five minutes, “What a country!” I fell asleep thinking of “what if, then I remembered David Carradine, that was in Bangkok, things happen for a reason.” Our room was a suite with full kitchen fruit on the table flat screen TV, balcony overlooking the city and a Hugh bath, but we had to catch a plane to Cambodia at 11:00 am, we’ll be back here in four days.

Sunday morning we caught a plane to Siem Reap Cambodia. We soon discovered that Cambodia is possibly the poorest country we have ever been in. A population of 6million with an average age of 36, as a result of the massive killings at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. A country that found itself in 1978 with no doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, no carpenters, electricians or plumbers; they had all been killed. Over the past 40 years the currency has failed 18 times, thus no one trust the banking system and any money that is accumulated is kept in your house. The country reminds me a lot of China except its dirty, the rivers are polluted mostly for human waste. Yet the people are friendly and non threatening their just trying to get by.

This afternoon we visited the city market and learned what the people ate, a lot of dried meats, fruits and vegetables. The common family doesn’t have refrigeration and cooks over an open flame. Later we toured their river village and saw how they lived. I thought I knew what poverty looked like but today I acquire a new definition of poverty, but because these people know no different they appear to be quite happy. We took a ride in an Ox cart which ended at the drivers home where we met his wife and two children. Their home was built on stilts 20 feet off the ground, because the river will flood, inside was a living room which contained a hammock in one corner and a table with a TV in the other the wood floors were polished clean as were the walls, the room was lit by the outside light coming through the windows with no glass. The bedroom contained two more hammocks and a box which I assumed contained any change of clothes.

“Where’s your kitchen I asked.” I had to do this with sigh language because they spoke no English and my Cambodian was limited. The man of the house took me under the house where we found the kitchen table, no chairs, and behind that a stick shed containing an open fire several pots and a few cooking utensils. “Where’s your bathroom.” I’ll let you imagine the sign language. He took me deeper onto his lot and pointed to a clump of trees.

He farmed 2 acres of land that he had inherited from his father, he owned two ox which had pulled us on our ride. If he had two good crops a year he’s earn $1200 and feed his family. They live on top of each other with no plumbing no electricity and a shared well for water. They did all have a TV, run off a car battery which they could get recharged each week for 50 cents. The discouraging part was that the children had no hope of improving their lot in life. They would be lucky if they made it through middle school, the daughter will marry and possibly have a house built on the back of her parents lot, her husband would help farm and the two of them would look after her parents in their old age. Our family didn’t have any parents to look after, they were killed 30 years ago.

Tuesday we took our van, there are only 10 of us on this leg of our journey to spend our morning on the water to see how the people on the lake live. The floating village of over 2 million people living on or in the water on lake Tonle Sap; a 30 mile by 100 mile moving body of water. The lake is fed by the overflow of the Mekon Delta which is fed by several rivers coming from China and Laos. In the rainy season the lake flows north as it fills from the over flow, in the dry season it flows south as it drains into the Delta locate in Vietnam. The people take 350,000 tons of fish out of the lake each year, and yet in four hour on the lake I never saw a fishing pole or a commercial fishing boat, it all done with traps. I saw people living as their ancestors did for the proceeding 500 years. The home all looked rough but relatively new, because with each war they would be burnt out and run off only to come back and rebuild when things setteled down. Children aged 5 to 12 paddled boats in blue and white uniforms to and from school, we could see open class rooms in the building along the shore line. Each village had its own Buddhist Monastery where young boys studied and learned their religion. They are taught by the full time monks and the priests. A priest is a plus 50 year old man who has lost his usefulness to the village. He could no longer fish or farm or perform any other useful task, he could no longer participate in sex, and he could not add to the family’s wellbeing, so he is sent to the Monastery to live out the balance of his life.

We drove back to the hotel for lunch, Nita and I have not been impressed with the Cambodian food other then I like the hot pot for breakfast. After lunch we had some free time so 6 of us hired a cab and went an hour east to see some of the temple ruins. These are massive temple built by the Hindus’ 700 years ago. There are no Hindus left in Cambodia today, you have to be born and Hindu and all the Hindus were killed 40 years ago, so the country is predominantly Buddhist today. The temples are impressive, having not seen the Pyramids I have never seen such a massive building effort; we’ll learn more about how this was achieved tomorrow when we visit Angkor Wat.

We spent the evening in downtown eating at the Red Piano, where Angelina and Brad eat when their in town, and then went to the night market where you can buy anything for next to nothing. Shopping done we hopped into a Tut-Tut, a Rickshaw pulled by a motorcycle, and were in bed by 10 pm to ready ourselves for another eventful day.

Tuesday we are off to see the temples, in the morning we visited several of the lesser temples Ta Prohm and Angkor Thom. These temples date back to the Khmer Empire 802 AD through 1431 AD; after 1431 they were abandoned as a result of wars and repeated invasions from Siamese. At that point the environment took over; the jungle overgrew them for the next 600 years. Then in 1860 the French began clearing the dense forest for the next 30 years. Around 1925 the French started to restore some of the temples until WWII then were forced to leave in 1968 because of civil war. The Anqkor Wat area became a war zone and much of the grounds were covered with land mines installed by the Khmer Rouge and the Viet Kong. In 1991 -1994 Princes Diana led an effort to have the land mines removed resulting in the Angkor area being opened to tourists in 1995.

The temples evolved through a progression of religions including Animism, Hindu and the Buddhist. The walls, statues and stone carvings give a look back into over 1400 years of civilization. Today Angkor Wat stands as the largest religious structure of the world, if you add in the other 76 temples in the adjacent area, it’s months of potential windows into the past. This is a case where a picture is worth a 1000 words.

For lunch today we were invited into a local families home, it was agreed by all ten of us that it was the best meal we’ve had thus far on our journey.