Saigon, Day 2

Our first full day in Saigon we got up and hit the war museum, which yes, is full of propoganda but we skipped most of that opting for the section with actual artifacts and photography from The Vietnam War-or more appropriately called by the rest of the world-The American War.

I'm very sensitive to anyone purposely hurting each other. I can't even watch fighting sports of any kind. It was sick to see some of the photographs of soldiers while torturing children or having chunk of body parts flung about nonchalantly, counting each piece of what used to be human lives, as Viet Cong whether they were civilans, women, children, or complete innocents.

It's embarrassing to know so little about this was as it was so recent ago (Khmer Rouge, being even more recent, and I know even less about that!). I didn't even know what the Khmer Rouge was/is. Talking to other travelers, it seems this is fairly common. No one seems to know a ton, if much at all about it. We (the other travelers I've met and I),wonder how and why we don't really know about these things. And I don't just mean Americans (we're notorious for not knowing anything about the rest of the world. I can't say that I don't understand where that stereotype comes from; I certainly add to it, sadly enough).But I'm certainly not the only one who's a little daft on this subject.
We couldn't really find any good history or explanation for the Vietnam War either. Nothing is clear or concise in any country's history of the event.
There are guesses and theories but there doesn't seem to be any agreement on the specifics , which is why I guess it was ruled an illegal war by the United Nations. The U.S. is still paying fines, damages, and retributions imposed by the U.N. to this day. The retribution part has been done in the laziest and stupidest way possible: like planting pine trees in the wiped out rainforest areas instead of replanting rainforest where tigers and rhinos used to live.
The whole vegetation, I'm sure, has changed the wild life, soil, everything.
I know a few Vietnam War vets and they weren't ever really sure what the war was about either. A good friend of mine still has a lot of difficulty with the things he saw there.
I wonder what makes the ones who go so far, so far wrong/evil, that makes them do so...like the man in one photograph smiling while hurting a small child. I hardly think he was the enemy, and even if he was, he was above all else, a child! And then some of these men go home to their own families, their own children. The mob/military mentality is a very disturbing thing about the human mind. Ugh. Sick.
And no matter what the war or the reason for it...it's still another human life.
Like I said I'm super sensitive to people hurting each other intentionally. I can't even watch boxing, or a close up of a fight during a hockey match, despite my love of the sport. So to see those things for is, as for most, I'm sure, gut-wrenching! But important to know about and understand what has-and in some places still is, happening.
Afterward we had lunch--which while I'm writing this seems terrible to have the thought of food places in such proximity to such horror, even if only in writing--at an overpriced seafood restaurant. I had dry chicken.

That night we returned to the acoustic car we visited last night. I love this place. The variety of music and quality and talent of the performers. That, and it's a total local dig that doesn't mind us pale folk dropping in. I highly recommend it.

Saigon

Because I haven't written in a while (couldn't find pen and/or paper! I had to take a pen from the embassy I got so desparate) I don't remember everything and certainly not in the order it happened.
However...
Saigon is nuts!

(speaking of nuts, here's some that a few local women shared with us on the bus ride into Saigon. As near as I can make out, they are called "ow"; like "ow" it hurts, "ow". They taste a bit like chestnuts, or maybe even a bit walnut-y. I thought they looked a lot like the heads of the water buffalo they have here. Colin thought they looked more like mustaches. His idea made a better picture.)

The traffic is non-stop, complete chaos. Everyone drives like it's a video game. I do, very badly, want to rent a scooter at some point but it certainly won't be here.
Two nights in Saigon.
The first night we (Colin and I)went to a rec center to get some rock climbing in. No go. As soon as we'd touched the climbing wall it started to pour. We only got two routes done before the gave us a raincheck and stopped us from climbing. The raincheck doesn't do us much good, so we lost that money.
Across the street was a grocery store and I'd been seeing Reese's peanutbutter cups everywhere, which had induced a severe craving. Again, no go.
Colin decided we were going to improvise and make our own. We scoured the grocery store looking for ideas and came up with this:

We engineered a little fondue set, melting the chocolate and dipping out spoonfuls of peanutbutter into our little chocolate puddle. Over fondue peanutbutter cups, I learned that Colin is a geophsyicist and has been working in Cambodia for the past few months. He has one younger brother, and that both he and his dad look, reportedly, exactly like their dad. He loves skiing and has gotten into rock climbing over the last 2 years. He states that he climbs steadily at 5.9 and 5.10's, he can do, but are tough. Awesome.
I did it consistantly for only about 4 months and was starting 5.11's. Man! I need a partner and a gym! (I'm sure his 5.9's are much harder grading system than my gym was, but it's still encouraging.)
Colin is best desribed as having had a very good mother.
Thursday and Friday night (both my nights in Saigon) were spent a great little place: Acoustic Bar.
The place was packed, standing room only both nights. We managed to courch in the same place beside some stairs. The performers were fantastic!
It was funny how I could understand them perfectly as they were singing, with no detectable accent, but had a difficult time understanding some of their accents when they were talking.
On night we ate at a tasty "Rock Grill" restaurant. Your meat cooks on a hot rock that sits in front of you; it was kind of a cool idea and was nice to have some really good food. I haven't had great food in a few days.

Vietnam Border-Chau Doc

I found out it's possible to take a boat from Phnon Penh down the mighty Mekong River ("Giver of Life"), to the Vietnam border as opposed to bus or train straight to Saigon.

So, I woke up this morning with a big stretch and headed out for a quick massage before departure. I went to a place that has blind persons trained in various styles of massage. The idea is to help them maintain self-sufficiency. I kinda like the idea of my massuer not being able to see me for self-conscious reasons :).

It was quite nice but he did a lot of painful pressue point work on my legs. I'm not sure what style of massage it was and I forgot to take a picture.

A short while I later i was picked up by a tuk tuk. (local cab type thing)
And headed to the dock.

On the boat I immeditately made friends with three Northern Irish guys: Stephen 32, Mark 19, and Al, also 19. I chatted with these guys most of the way. I also met a Canadian named Colin, 25, part-way into the trip. There was also a Swedish woman traveling alone who spoke English but a such a terribly strong accent that no one could understand her. We all took turns smiling and looking at her many pictures; mostly of bars she'd been to. She quite took a liking to Stephen, which led him to take a liking to me as a result.

It was getting dark by the time we reached the border.

The Irish guys headed immediately to Saigon while Colin (the Canadian guy), and I decided to check out the border town of Chau Doc, Vietnam. We'd hoped to see something a lit

tle more off the tourist track

We touched down on ground and inadvertantly picked up a quite useful guide, despite our best efforts not to. Mostly, he just started following us around. Dong, our unsolicited guide a.k.a. our unshakable new friend, actually proved quite helpful. He took us to a hotel-dodgey, at best, probably not the worst in this border town. It lives up to the reputation of dirty border towns everywhere...at least from what we saw of it. Dong also showed us to a clean, tasty restaurant.
Afterward, back at the hotel, which was at least 15 degress (farenheit) warmer inside out room than outside, we decided to book the first bust outta town. We had the lights on and the window open a crack, to make life bearable. Bad idea. The room was flooded with tiny insects, almost completely covering our wall near the light. We shut the window and decided to try to sleep with the light on to keep the obnoxious bugs off us. I was tired and slept, albeit, uncomfortably.
Colin eveutally got fed up with the heat and the bugs. He decided to take matters into his own hands, literally. He took on the bugs, smashing them hand-splats at a time. As I faded in and out I noticed him making some major progress. At one point smaching bugs one at a time with his fingertip until they were ALL gone.
At which point, he turned off the light and we slept in a slightly cooler room with no bugs! Let's here it for determined guys.
We got out of town early the next morning and headed to Saigon by bus.

Phnom Penh cont.

I met a girl outside my hotel who'd just arrived from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City, HCMC). We ended up having dinner together, getting stuck at a cafe (the FCC, for those of you who might know it), exchanging travel tips (as we were both headed to where the other had just come from).and watched the geckos on the walls.

We agreed to meet the next day to do at least parat of the walking tour of Phnom Penh. But first we grabbed breakfast.

Mareike, my friend from Germany

There reallys wasn't too much to see and all the really interesting stuff was at the other end of the walking tour, which we didn't get to. We did, however, see the hilltop Pagoda.

By hilltip, it's the only raised ground anywhere near Phnom Penh, and barely raised at that.
The rest of the tour, at least the part we got to, involved like the U.S. embassy and other equally lame sites. The few potentially interesting ones we came to were all closed right as we got to them. (Everything shuts down for a couple of hours in the arly afternoon). Good stuff.

We grabbed some recognizable food (terrible pizza at a pseudo-mall food court) and then headed back to our adjacent hotels for down time and showers. We met up again for dinner and said our good-byes. We've been keeping in touch via facebook with more travel tips and updates for eat other.

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A few fun misspellings. I gave up taking pics of all of them...

At first I just thought happiness pizza was fact in print. I later learned that "happiness pizza" refers to special herbs they put on it...that's right pot pizza.

Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields

water boarding torture device

rules of Tuol Sleng

The next morning before we left Phnom Penh we went to Tuol Sleng,which is a high school that was taken over by the Khmer Rouge. It was awful. And not that long ago. It's amazing how well of a secret it was kept for so long. As Americans, in general, we don't, learn a whole lot about what is going on in other countries, especially politically, but no one really knew a whole lot about this. At least until recently. Shamefully, I've never heard about this until going to Cambodia and even my European friends, at most could say they'd heard the name but didn't know anything about it.

To put it into perspective and how recent this was: there are people my age walking around with torture wounds from these people. Many of the people who did this are still alive-many of them are free men. And the last hearing or trial or something like that was in 2008.

The main guy is at home with his family but very sick, or so reported.

As somewhere it was described, "The murderers were representing their victims at the United Nations for years." (Until like 1998 or something...ugh, again my facts are vague.)

I don't pretend to be very knowledgable on the subject but I can't pretend I wasn't affected, especially when I did see people with the missing fingernails (from having them ripped off as a form of torture) or other ailments caused by the same thing.

Many articles list the end of the Khmer Rouge thirty years ago, but according to Cambodia and the people who lived it, as well at the court dates, those in command were in command a lot later than 1979.

I didn't make it to the Killing Fields so I still lack some serious education on the matter, but it's all very real and not distant enough. There are scars left behind that still sneak up in everyday life.

New Friends.

I am apparently still traveling withe the Chinese girl who's name I can't pronouce. i have managed to learn that she is 38 years old, has a 7 year old some and a husband back home. She has been traveling for a month now and will go home in 2 days. We bought bust tickets fro Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital yesterday. I kind of wanted to explore a little more between here and there first. I am a little annoyed with myself for just going along with it because I couldn't explain that to her. Tunrns out we get along just fine and even find commong things to laught about along the way. And, she isnt' stuk by my side so much like I was afraid she might. All is well and it's nice to have a guesthouse discounts with her.

Don't think I'm immune to the if not many, then very faithful prayers sent my way. It's been pretty stellar and things couldn't go much better than they have been.

Yesterday I went to Ankor Wat and Ankor Thom, some serious temple ruins. I was reading that it is over 200 miles of forest and temples/ruins (they are still used today-in fact, we even saw some weddings!).

It really is best to probably spend several days doing it but one was sufficent. My friend was wearing flip flops and it was hot! hot! hot!

Cambodia is much hotter than my first couple of days in Thailand. To be fair, I was a bit further north and only there for a couple of days. Eitehr way, it's hot here. Cambodia, in a word is, sweltering. I'm pretty much a discusting mess all the time. i don't know it's sweat or just condesation from the air but I'm glossy and dripping constantly. The Cambodians (or Khmer, as they are called), are wearing jackets and seem just fine.

As I mentioned before Angkor Wat was pretty phenomenal. I enjoyed getting lost in the temples and climbing all the steep stairs. Some, "climb at your own risk" areas, even felt a bit like rock climbing. (Hence the dreams of not being able to walk and waking up to a tight bum.)

There is no way for me to describe the ruins, you just have to come here. Very Indiana Jones (I recently found out it's where Tume Raider was filmed, now I have to see that movie).So cool

After a bit of down timein the air conditioning, I decided I have to go explore. I walked around town until I came to the central river running through town. I met a man, who's name I didn't catch, but he works for the Cambodian government in the agricultural department. I accepted his invitation to join him in his evening stroll around the lake.

We chatted like old friends. We talked of Cambodia and it's very recent time of peace, of ti's intense poverty and our hopes for its imporvement, both economically and health-wise. he is very inisistant that I could, and should, come to Camboida and be a nurse. He says i could help protect their children as well. The child -trafficking and abuse rate here is scary high. The kind of high that makes me nauseous. Perhaps, if I were a super hero that would be my power. I would save children by drowning their abusers in my vomitous anger.

People like this man really shouldn't encourage me to do such things :). I've nearly walked into several clinics and hospitals--seriously--and asked, "how can I help?" and "how can I get a license to work here?" I don't need people feeding that fire. :)

Early to bed again (approx 8pm), after a tasty diner of Khmer curry and cookies at a charming, floor-sitting joint right across from out guesthouse. My Chinese friend and I laughed and dined.

And on pic just to show one of the few kids I caught on a bike. Often times you'll see younger kids than this standing in front of the driver, holding on to steering wheel. You'll also see up to 5-6 people smashed onto one of these things as well.

Cambodia! A Land of Adaptability and Survival

When I first arrived in Cambodia I really didn't like it much. It was dirty, very dirty and the people seemed more scam-y. Now I admit fully that I was mistaken. Scam-y, yeah, but trying to make a living out of nothing, more accurate.

This is a quick video of me walking across the Thailand border into Cambodia. It's crazy cool to see what a throw back in time this place is.

I met two women traveling from Hungry at the visa checkpoint (the only other falang on the bus than me; me being the only blonde however). We all decided to share a taxi and needed a fourth person to cut the costs even further. There was a Chinese woman, also traveling alone that we invited to share the car with us. After much confusion we were all smashed into converted old Toyota camry with all our luggage and driver who had a serious cold and kept making gross snorting and coughing noises. I'm taking airborne tonight! Our 2 hour drive took closer to 3.5 as our driver was uncharacteristically slow for the traffic around us, but eventually we made it. I am now somehow sharing a room with the Chinese woman, who speaks very little English and who's name I can't pronounce.

Back to Cambodia.

As with most things, education, exposure and experience changes perspective. My Lonely Planet Guede desribes Cambodia as one big puddle after the rainy season. I'd say that's an accurate description.

One big mud puddle full of beautiful green every where and poeple who, not matter what their game-or storyare polite and for the most part, all that I've encountered anyway, cheerful. Even if you tell them no they continue to smile-guenuinely so. The smile is no scam They're just laughting at their own game. They especially seem to like it when you do the play game-as long as you're smiling, too, of course.

Turns out depsite how poor Cambodia is-most of us never even able to imagine such poverty, let alone such an ability to live happily in it-is an expensive place to be. Everything is "one dollar, lady", even stuff that isn't worth a dollar. My favorite greeting was a man who called after us (us=me and Chinese woman at Angkor Wat, which is worth it's own entry), "Sweet lady! Sweet lady! One dollar, sweet lady!" Something about the cheer in his voice.

Well, there were some beautiful creations mixed in a lot of plain ol' junk/stuff. Add that and throw adorable children into the mix and I'm wishing I had all the "one dollars" in the world.

I did refrain, and did an o.k. job of not buying everything I saw or wanted or that an especially persistant child wanted to sell me, remembering that these children have something I don't....a job to come back to tomorrow.

I did end up buying some bamboo bangles and a large, lovely, piece of art. The bracelets I probably paid too much for, but I couldn't resist. They're really cool. And although I realize they cost nothing to make and they could probably whip out ten of them in 5 minutes, I like 'em. My bargaining skills are less than fantastic as I managed to get one larger bracelet added to my "special price of ten for one dollar, for you lady". My Chinese friend laughed at me as we climbed into our tuk tuk and she showed me the 20 she got for one dollar.

My BEAUTIFUL painting of Angkor Wat (hand-painted) cost me $27. Ibought it froma young man, maybe 15, who says he has been in training for 2 years to become a master painter. He did have some small ones of his own work, which I thought were pretty amaing already, as well. I now realize he's selling his practice, his homework, if you will. Still h is wveryt alented and it's not a talent I possess so I suppose that makesthse works of art even more valuable to me, as it's not an aesthetic I could capture on my own. He was very kind and lacked the despartion asles tactic that so many use, which was refreshing. In the states this art could easily sell for 100's. At least to me, if I had that kind of money. I love my painting.

And Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom were waaaay cooler than I thought they were going to be.

our tuk tuk driver for the day...

the following are of Angkor Wat (Wat meaning temple)