100 Green Coconuts Later...

Cambodia (Phnom Penh and Siem Reap)

Ah, green coconuts. COLD green coconuts even! Everywhere, piles of the giant green balls, full of huge amounts of delicious water and delicate, yummy fruit! Head straight for those next to one of the ubiquitous SE Asian orange coolers - the cold ones are oh so refreshing! We've lost count of our coconut consumption, but I'm sure it's bordering (at least for me and Raina) on addiction. You've heard of death by chocolate? We've got hydration by coconut (okay, so not quite the same ring, but really, you have to admit it's more upbeat and positive if not catchy). They are quite spectacular - ecological, biodegradable, sterile containers that slake both your thirst and hunger - the coconut fruit inside can be any consistency from gelatinous (makes Marc gag, but what does he know?) to rubbery (yum) to almost like "real" coconut (the kind you buy at Safeway and spend hours trying to open and then hours more prying out the coconut and bending your mom's favorite butter knife - really yum). It all depends on the luck of the draw, and the maturity of the coconut (rubbery is the norm). After you slurp the water like you'd just spent the last 10 days in the Sahara with nary an oasis in sight, they hack it open for you (so you don't have to spend hours with a bent butter knife) and may even chop off a piece of husk as a spoon - the street vendors are incredibly adept at weilding those machetes! (Raina now wants her own machete and coconut tree!)

Man it's hot here. In the 90's, high high (remember same same?) humidity. Our clothes stick to us, we sweat even in the cold shower - in fact, we are so sticky it feels like we've been bathing in soda pop. Even in the chill hours of dawn it is never below 75 degrees. One night in Phnom Penh, one of the locals at our guest house couldn't figure out why we'd want to sit out on the dock (we were on a lake, incredibly beautiful at night, polluted by day) in the breeze. He thought it was COLD (it is, after all, winter). There were a number of small dogs living in various shops around there, who at night and in the mornings would be attired in little doggy sweaters - so cute! Meanwhile, we are wilting. Sweat sweat sweat. It's hard to remember the frigid cold of the Himalayas.

So, CAMBODIA! Being here has reminded us of a line from the movie Contact (from the book by Carl Sagan):
An alien makes the following observation to the main character - something like "You human beings are such interesting creatures - capable of such amazing beauty and such horrible cruelty." And vestiges of beauty and cruelty we have seen in abundance.

Some details:

January 5, from Phnom Penh (capital of Cambodia): I just can't get over the fact that we are in Phnom Penh. Running around in tuk tuks, wandering the markets, buying coconuts. Phnom Penh! Cambodia! I just can't get over it - more than anywhere we've been - because Phnom Penh pops up in my memory banks in the same category as the Vietnam War, Apocolypse Now, guerrilla and jungle warfare, US bombings, genocide. You can be a tourist here? Don't they hate Americans? And yet, here we are, in the midst of incredibly friendly people, watching the movie, The Killing Fields, in our guesthouse lobby one night, then visiting the actual places the next day.

We visited the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum, the site of the S-21 prison during the Khmer Rouge regime. There are a lot of photos - I.D. photos taken by the KR - face after face after face - children, men, women with babies, all staring into the camera, faces of those who were tortured, then killed most brutally, ghosts, memories, faces of the doomed, the helpless... And the Choeung Ek Killing Fields - a large memorial stands there now, filled with level upon level upon level of human skulls, bones, clothing, all respectfully and honorably exhumed from the mass graves... The brutality and inhumanity is incomprehensible, and overwhelming. Heart rending. You have to weep. One of our books talks about "the country's descent into a hell beyond our imaginings: a world of war slaves and senseless brutality, where family life simply ceases to be."

To think that anyone over the age of 30 or so has lived through that era, has family that died, or disappeared forever. Much of the population suffers (silently) from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

And the mines. Cambodia is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world - you don't want to go poking around off-trail - landmines claim many many victims every year...

Okay - so that was Phnom Penh - for $4.00 per night we stayed in the back alleys (but amazingly also on a lake) of the backpacker tourist area - sort of funky and ramshackle, alleys winding in every direction with shops and tiny eating places (and the little dogs with their sweaters), where Marc was offered marajuana every time we went out, even when we were looking at other guesthouses ("You smoke? We can provide smoke no problem!" And they weren't talking cigarettes. Needless to say, we of the straight and narrow did not stay there!

So, from Phnom Penh, we took a boat up the Tonle Sap, a tributary of the Mekong River, to Siem Reap, where lies the 8th wonder of the world, the temples of Angkor (and Angkor Wat - you remember wot's a wat, what?). The boat ride was a blast - we rode on top - it's a boat for tourists, but safety-wise, not many regulations. It had a curved roof, like a bus (or a submarine) but with a six-inch railing - if you want to use the toilet you crawl over the six-inch railing, lower yourself to the ledge (no railing), and walk around to the door leading to the interior, all the while the boat speeding ahead. I wonder if anyone's ever fallen off? We had great views of the flat as a pancake Cambodian countryside, floating villages, houses on shore built on stilts...

Three days exploring the Angkor Temples - Indiana Jones, here we come! Dum da dum dum bum ba dum... (so how do you write the theme music anyway?). Over 1000 years old, they are truly amazing, and when you can find one without lots of tourists, you can pretend to be a jungle explorer (but don't go off-trail, remember the mines!). We also visited the River of a Thousand Lingas - and later (thankfully, because it was a really spectacular hike) read that area is heavily mined, but we DIDN'T go off trail!). So get this, lingas are "phallic symbols representing the essence of the god Shiva"! Hmmm. It was a wonderfully quiet hike through the jungle, up past a waterfall, to where the river bottom was carved with all sorts of things (including the lingas, which just looked like circles).

The jungles are beautiful - just the sounds are fantastical. There is this little bug, okay it's a rather big bug, as bugs go, but only the size of a locust I think - not really sure how big a locust is... So, one of these bugs in a tree sounds like a combination of a planer (like in your woodshop), a burglar alarm, a dog whistle, and a constantly ringing bell on a bicycle - at such high decibles you could go deaf if you were too close. And this is just one little bug! There are also incredible bird calls that sound like a video game (whop whop whop whop weeop weeop weeop op op op op oppppppp beeoing oing oing oing - got that?). Very exotic!...

Money - Cambodia uses two currencies - U.S. dollars, and riel (there are 4000 riel to a dollar). And often you pay or get change in a combination of the two...

We saw some Apsara dancing the other night (ethic dancing). We had seen carvings of Apsara dancers on the walls of some of the Angkar temples, and the live dancers looked exactly the same - they hold their hands and feet exactly opposite of ballet dancers - their hands are bent backwards, with fingers curving back, and same with feet - it's very controlled and often slow, quite beautiful - and we thought the carvings were just a weird way of depicting people, but no, it was quite exact! Of course, when we got back to our room, Raina and I had to try it out - OUCH! How do they do that?...

Yesterday we waved to the King of Cambodia!...

The street sellers must have been trained by the NFL - some actually run at you to get you to look at their wares. Anybody seen the newer South Pacific movie starring Glenn Close? Well, I always thought the woman who plays Bloody Mary was overacting - but it is an EXACT portrayal of the selling style here - "You Buy? I make good deal for you. Only one dollar..." and so on. We have said "No thank you no thank you no thank you" more times in the last week than I think all of the, what, Miss Manners wanna-bes, say in a lifetime. But they are so good natured about it, and laugh and just continue on with the barrage, but in such a way that you can laugh with them. (Okay, I'll admit, sometimes you just want to be left alone.) It is a little sad, though, when small children have the entire speil down...

Our hotel lobby displays a sign you wouldn't see in the U.S. In pictures, it says, "No guns, no grenades, no drugs allowed"...

Travel from Thailand to Cambodia - from hotel in Chiang Mai (northern Thailand) to guest house in Phnom Penh - 31 hours, two tuk tuks, three busses (1st class, 2nd class, 3rd class), one shuttle bus, one remork (Cambodian tuk tuk), one bribe at the border to get our Cambodian visas (border immigration is notorious for adding that "extra fee" - you just smile and pay it - actually we questioned it, but hey, we're usually totally clueless as to what is going on anyway, so we hadn't a chance)...

Traveling about in tuk tuks is so much fun - here they are motorcycles pulling a trailer with two facing seats - I can't say I'd want to be in an accident in one, but they are great for seeing the countryside, because you are out in the open air, and can see and smell and really feel the country...

Another oft said statement: "Now what was that I just ate?"...

Traffic in Phnom Penh is astounding - there are so many motorbikes! They fill up every available space at a stoplight (yes, they have stoplights and actually stop for them), flowing around cars and tuk tuks like water, and you end up with this huge mob of them at the front, including a solid mass up on the sidewalk. Which makes walking and crossing the streets interesting...

Okay, it's late and we've got to get up early tomorrow to catch the bus back to Thailand - southern beaches here we come - we're headed to a small island with no internet (we think), no vehicles, not much of anything, so hopefully it will be peaceful and quiet! We'll just need a bonfire and some rum and we can sing just like Captain Jack Sparrow!

We catch our plane back to the states on January 25th - not too far away! Wow, where did the time go? We'll be at Marc's folks for a number of days, recuperating from our rum and cokes.

Not sure when I'll have internet access again. But thanks for reading. And thanks for those of you who've written comments - I love them.

That's it for tonight. Actually, you all are just waking up. So, GOOD MORNING!