Scooters, beach and mountains

A few weeks of research have made me conclude the following:

On one scooter you can transport the following elements:
- three adults
- two adults and 1-3 children
- 3 full-grown pigs (they need to be dead though...)
- 3 cages of geese
- the entire contend of your vegetable garden
- around 20 bags with water and gold fish
- 1 cubic meter of flat cardboard boxes
- at least 4 bags of litter
- a glass plate (1,70 x 1,00 meter)
- whatever more seems impossible to you!

After the two amazing weeks in Cambodia Sterre and I needed some peace and quiet and so, after one day in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam, we continued our journey to the north and ended up in the beach town of Mui Ne. There we enjoyed 5 days of sun, sea and sand, complete relaxation, time to think, to read books, to make plans for next years challenges (fieldwork)to talk a lot and to enjoy good food :) We even managed to move ourselves more at the end of our stay and visited the beautiful white sand dunes near Mui Ne...

Then on we went, to Dalat, a place that the Lonely Planet promised us to be a charming mountain village...in the end it was more a city than a village and the things to see where too crowded by fellow tourists to be able to enjoy it...but we managed to find its charms! Highlights were the nights in which the whole city comes to life around the market, the market itself and the cute little train that brought us to an amazing pagoda, where Gaudi meets China and every single square centimeter of wall is covered by colored pieces of glass and broken china, making the pagoda and incredible piece of art where you can be amazed by every single detail!

Another long bus trip left us back in rainy Saigon, where there is much to do, plus free internet in the room (...), good food and the prospect of being home again in exactly one week!!! (something we are both very much looking forward to despite all the good things traveling has to offer!)

For now the prospect is: two more days in Saigon, two days in Malaysia and the rest of the week will be traveling...
On Monday, the 30st of August at 9.00AM we will put foot again on Dutch soil in Eindhoven!

See you very soon!
Sara

The place we called "home" during our beach days

The beach


Fishing boats in Mui Ne


The beautiful white sand dunes with a surreal water hyacinth pond


The feeling you walked into the Sahara


Beatiful little street and beautiful little lady in Dalat


The colder weather inspired us to refresh our knitting skills :)


Where Gaudi meets China


Beautiful detail in a pagoda completely covered by pieces of glass and broken china

Somewhere one the 6th or 7th floor...


Temple in Ho Chi Minh City


Vietnam and its development potential :)

Two faces of humanity

My dear all!
Yesterday was a day of two extremes, of two faces of humanity, it was quite an experience...
We started the morning at Tuol Sleng prison (also known as S-21), a place I thought I would never set foot, and yet there I was, facing the thousands of scared faces, black and white, people looking into their horrible deaths after being imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge soldiers...
Between 1975 and 1979 over 2 million people (a quarter of the population) perished under the regime of Pol Pot. I had read about it for my course of Culture, Violence, Trauma and Reconciliation and the horrible stories and testimonies I had read all came back to me while I was standing between those walls of Tuol Sleng. After my visit I wrote a few words, that now sound very strong, maybe too strong, but still I think I want to share them:
"My heart aches, my eyes want to shut themselves, my feelings do not want to feel.
How dare these gardens be green and how dare the birds sing? Why have they not forever turned grey, dead, in honour of those who perished here?
Why does the sun still feel warm and the breeze soft? Why do we whisper, why do we not scream?
How has this city gone on after this? Is it forgotten, forgiven or forbidden memory?
My stomach turns with pictures I do not want to see, no, I want to see, no, I don't...
How can these doors, of tiny cells, now hanging open but once definitely shut, have something almost beautiful about them in the light shining through barred windows? How dare they?
How can these gardens have something peaceful when they once have been filled by screams of which even the memory can chill to the bone?
Is this a place to keep in your heart with compassion, forgiveness and respect, or is it a place to expel from your heart forever?
Is accepting and forgiving legitimate?
I. Don't. Know..."

However depressing it was, it is part of this city, part of this country, and part of the world. People have done the most horrible things to each other...they still do...But what is so incredible about Cambodia and about Phnom Penh is that it is only 30 years ago and yet the city is an exotically and lively center of life...The most bizarre smells drift by, varying from the odor of my dog when he has rolled himself in a since long dead animal, to incense and spices. On the market colorful and beautiful vegetables mix with half dead fish on metal plates, pieces of meat full of flies, smelly durians and big piles of eggs! Through all this dogs sniff, kids play, scooters pass by and people bargain. Above them one pole sustains thousands of electricity wires that in more and less secure ways provide electricity to this city. Scooters beep, cars and trucks snore, tuk-tuk drivers shout "Lady? Tuk-tuk?", tourist answer "no thanks!", kids beg "lady? postcard?" tourists turn their heads away and say "no thank you". Mobile phones ring or play the last hits on that characteristic high pitched tone, and somewhere the calm figure of a bright orange monk moves through the chaos. And somewhere in the back of your head you think: 30 years ago this city was dead, literally dead...

But yesterday night we saw the other face of humanity: We went to a modern Apsara show. The Apsara dance is the very elegant and traditional classical dance of Cambodia, but the place we went combined this with shadow theater and circus, it was absolutely AMAZING!!!! I haven't been completely mesmerized by a dance before, but this was really really good! Not all the performers were exceptional, but some of them really were :) The elegance, the strength and the way they moved...I would go again every night of this week if only they performed :)
And so it came that we rode home (I still love tuk-tuks!) with a big smile, wondering how something so beautiful and fragile has survived with so much strength.

This morning we dipped into the horrors again visiting the killing fields were too much people were killed with an ax in their necks, hands tight behind the back, knees on the dirt in front of a mass grave and blindfolded. Children were hold by their legs and smashed against a tree...
How? Why? Questions without reasonable answers...

But the city carries on with her busy life and we dived into the so called Russian Market to stroll through mini corridors packed with people and goods, happy to be in Cambodia in 2010 and not in the 1970's...
Tomorrow is our last day in this city of contrasts, Tuesday we say goodbye to Ilse who flies back while we venture by bus into the next destination: Vietnam!

Much love for you all!

Phnom Penh traffic :)

Phnom Penh from a rooftop

Royal Palace

Sterre being Zen in the tropical rain

Tuol Sleng Prison

The doors of the cells now hanging open but once definitely shut

Modern Apsara

Horrid killing fields

Russian Market

Pictures!

Tuk-tuk!

Bayon Temple

How exotic...

Nature taking over...

The beautiful Angkor Wat

Walking through Cambodia's countryside you see wonderful things

In the river at Kbal Spean

Lady? Tuk-tuk?

Lady? You want tuk-tuk? I make special price for you! Not today? Tomorrow then?
Lady? You wanna buy a scarf? Lady? You wanna by postcards, 10 for $1...
Lady? You wanna by bracelets? 5 for $1...ok 10 for $1...ok 15 for $2...
Lady? Cold water? Lady breakfast? Lady...? Lady...? Lady...?

Welcome to Cambodia!

All I knew from Cambodia was its dark past, the cruel things people did to each other here...I arrived in a sunny friendly country, with mega polite people, always with a smile, also toward each other. It gets me wondering how superficial that smile is, or whether Cambodians really succeeded in moving on. Today I heard the first reference to killing fields and the Khmer Rouge, I've been here for more than four days.

The last three days we have been busy visiting the temples of Angkor. Driving around in a tuk-tuk, or rather being driven around has become one of my favorite ways to pass the time. The rather warm and humid air turns bearable while sitting in a tuk-tuk, you can look around and never get bored, things don't go by too fast, but also not too slow and most of all...it gives the real Asia feeling!!! We had a very nice driver: Bun who brought us everywhere we wanted. The first day we visited the old city of Angkor Thom with the beautiful Bayon Temple. After that we visited several other "smaller" temples, gazing, mouth open around every corner. The heat and all the new impressions and the prospect of an early morning made us dive into our beds early. The next morning came at 4.00 o'clock as we wanted to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Although it was cloudy and there was no actual visible sunrise it was beautiful to discover Angkor Wat as it got lighter. The other positive part was that there was barely a soul inside the walls at that time. Angkor Wat is impressively big, though other temples are at least as beautiful and less intimidating :) I kept wondering how it had looked in its full glory, but somehow that seems too much to imagine...it must have been magnificent!!! (If only I had a time machine!)
When it got really warm (9.00) we got back into the tuk-tuk and Bun drove us to the Tonle Sap (Lake) which would become a special though also a bit uncomfortable experience. Vietnamese immigrants, landless and jobless, inhabit the so called floating villages on this lake. In the dry season, when there is not much water, the villages are concentrated on the lake, but in the wet season (now) the water in the middle gets too deep and they move their houses/boats to the fringes of the lake. This means that they change places and thus also neighbors at least twice a year. From the anthropological perspective I thought this is incredibly interesting and I could immediately see many possibilities for research there...but from the tourist point of view I felt terrible...sitting in a boat, being navigated past all these houses I felt like a big intruder, staring into peoples houses and into people's lives, into what I consider people's privacy. I had not really been prepared for that...
Still, it was impressive to see how these people organize their lives on and with the water. Floating goose cages were the max I thought...but also floating fish nurseries, floating toilets, floating everything!
At the end of the day we climbed a mountain to see the sunset around the temples of Angkor, something a considerable number of other tourists had done as well...

Yesterday was my favorite day! We went to a temple farther away, which means: longer in the tuk-tuk! :) just that would have made my day...but it got better...somewhere half way we had a leaky tire...Bun kicked us out of the tuk-tuk and went looking for a new tire. You might ask yourself why this is good, but it meant we had to walk for 20 minutes and that was an entire new way of being in the countryside of Cambodia! Everybody greets you with a questioning look, children wave and shout "hello" and you have time to look around, and see that ox carriage you would have otherwise missed...it made me feel like taking a month to hike to Phnom Penh (though that would be a little warm...)
We then went to a beautiful little temple called Banteay Srei. Though very touristy as well I enjoyed looking at the rich and beautiful reliefs in the red sandstone.
But the best part was Kbal Spean. The river Sien Reap runs through this mountain before getting to the temples of Angkor and the village. In some far distant past people carved gods into the stones in the river, making the water holy before it gets to the temples. It was a beautiful hike, rewarded by beautiful reliefs and the freshness brought by the closeness of the water.

After another nice tuk-tuk ride we got off again at Angkor Wat to cast a last glance at a, once again, practically deserted Angkor Wat, it was beautiful!

Today we have a day of rest, which we really need after three days of getting up early and ignoring the warmth, exploring temple after temple... tomorrow we retake the streets to see some nice stuff in and around Siem Reap and I think that wednesday we will make the journey to Phnom Penh, in search for the awful remains of Cambodian history, the remains that here seem to be silenced by the magnificence of the past before 1975...

This internet connection is too slow to upload photos, so that will follow as soon as possible...

Australia seems already a world away, although you all seam already much closer to me (in time and in space)!

Much love from a warm and sticky but beautiful and impressive Cambodia!