Bangkok, Cambodia, Laos 2006 - 2007

Bangkok: Departure
The Transportation Security Agent was not pleased. He held up my 1-quart zip lock plastic bag and looked pained. It was "too full" - their idea of things baggie was a 3-ounce bottle of Listerine floating pristinely in the bag, like babe in womb. Mine was stuffed with tiny tubes of liquids and gels.

I explained that I would be traveling in Laos and Cambodia for over 3 weeks and would not be able to buy any of this. Was I traveling alone, he asked. Yes - which was technically true, because my friends weren't flying out for almost a week. He sighed, and I did my best to paste a little old grey haired lady look on my face. I knew that there was nothing he could do to me - I had made sure that I complied with the letter of the law.

In fact, I had spent the prior week scrutinizing the TSA prohibited items Web page. No more saving money by bringing the last 2 ounces of a tube of toothpaste. Prescription and OTC meds could go in a separate baggie - but that would mean that I'd need to bring the prescription bottle - so these were crammed into the baggie along with everything else. In fact, packing the baggie was more of a challenge than traveling for 3 1/2 weeks with a carry on. THAT I knew I could do. I went rampaging across the Internet looking for things I could exclude from the baggie and came up with powdered toothpaste, insect repellent wipes, bar shampoo and stick sunscreen.

The TSA list makes fascinating reading. Early on, when they eased up on the total ban on liquids and gels, they decided to allow gel breast implants (cosmetic or prosthetic) and personal lubricant, which they helpfully explained was KY Gel. I could not bring gel heel pads - but I was being encouraged to join the mile high club.

As baffling as KY Gel was, the special notice, posted right before I left, was stranger still. It announced, in large letters, that snow globes of any size, even with documentation, would need to be shipped or packed in checked baggage (now that's a fine idea). This raises several questions. Were so many people trying to bring snow globes on that the issue was escalated to the highest levels of homeland security? Was there such a thing as a documented snow globe? And, of course, why were they focusing on snow globes and not, say, the cargo going into the hold?

When I went through security at the airport, the young woman in front of me had a fit. She had tiny amount of some lotion in an otherwise empty bottle and was screaming at the minimum wage African American security guard who was helpfully suggesting that she could write to her government but could not carry it on. The woman snatched it back, saying she would check it, and went running back through security to the check-in counter. Did she really expect that they could retrieve her bag, which had long ago vanished into the hold?

Once on-board, I settled down for what would be a 24 hour journey, with the first flight taking 14 hours - make that 15 because of the wait on the runway. I was stuck in a middle seat because, as a frequent flyer, I could not reserve seats when I booked. This middle seat was a vast improvement from the one they originally assigned, which SeatGuru said was the worst on the plane. The only problem with this seat was that next to me was a gangly Korean 20 year old who promptly fell asleep, and slept the entire 14 hours. So there I was, 58-year-old bladder and all, trapped. It was not a happy situation. He must have wondered why, whenever he got up to pee, I did the same.

The Korean Air flight was filled with 20-year-old Koreans, probably exchange students going home for the holidays. Atypically, I had an interesting seatmate on the other side. It is amazing how much faster a flight goes when you have someone to talk to.

For those of you who care about such thing. Korean Air is great - plenty of legroom and good meals. Constant juice breaks. Not bad for 60,000 miles!

After a 3-hour layover in Seoul, I was off on another 5 hour flight, to Bangkok. This, too, took off an hour late. It was filled with Koreans going to Thailand to golf over the Christmas weekend. Even though Korea is a deeply Christian country, the guy next to me said that observing Christmas was no big deal and everyone left town. The guy across the aisle, a banker, laughingly observed that the whole world is nervous about North Korea having nukes - except for the South Koreans, who really don't think about it.

Arrived in Bangkok after midnight and happily strolled out of the airport with no need to wait for my bags. By 1 AM I was in my hotel room, the flight all but forgotten.

Bangkok: Tree Top Living
What is the most unnecessary piece of exercise equipment in Bangkok? A stair master.

When I first came to Bangkok in 1988, three things struck me: the traffic, my sheer inability to cross a street and the prostitutes of all sexes. Prepping for this trip, I read that Bangkok claims to have the worst traffic in the world (I'm not sure whether that includes traffic in 12 year olds). So they solved the problem. They built a Sky Train. And, in the Central Shopping District, and sky walkway. It works like this.

A Sky Train, the wonder of Asia, blah, blah, blah, is nothing more than what used to be called "The El" for elevated train. They preceded the subways in Manhattan and are still in place in "the boroughs" as anyone who has ever frozen waiting for a train can tell you. But I guess if they are newly built they get called Sky and are marveled at. They do, however, let you get around town really fast - at least for those parts of town on their route. A dispute over routing has kept them from the area with all the historical religious monuments, i.e., every place a tourist wants to go to do something other than shop, rent a 12 year old or watch a pole dancer.

What I didn't know was that, in the musically named "Central Shopping District" they built an elevated walkway below the train. This means that you no longer have to contend with horrendous pedestrian traffic on narrow, poorly maintained sidewalks, which, for some reason, seem to come with 14" high curbs. And no long, long waits at the corner to cross while the cars zip through yellow and red lights. Instead, you just pop up to the walkway and boogie. However...

The walkway is two flights above the street. Generally, there are no escalators or, if there are escalators, working escalators. There are no elevators. So you spend your day walking up two flights... and down two flights. Even when all you want to do is to cross the street.

Being in a transportation sandwich also means that your view of the landscape changes. You're seeing the middle of every building, so it is hard to tell where you are, until you notice the signs. Jane Jacobs would have a fit, because everything that makes walking down a street interesting is gone. Except that this is Bangkok and there is nothing to notice, because you're in the land of SuperMall. There are at least 7 malls within 4 blocks of my hotel. One of them is considered to be the largest mall in Asia. And they're building another one. The skywalk is attached, umbilical like, to the second storey of each mall, just like in all those "City of the Future" pictures we saw in the 1950s. But if this is the future, you can have it back.

Now, I can see real advantages to the two-tiered walkway. In New York, we could have one for tourists, who tend to gawk and generally attain insufficient ground speed, and one for us natives. Depending upon our agenda, we could take the high ground and get in some cardio while rushing about the City, since you go up and down these things so many times a day that your calf muscles are in knots. Or we could cede the high ground to the tourists as a way to get them to shed some pounds while they're visiting our fair city.

The one thing you don't want to be in Bangkok is old (you don't see anyone over 25, so I assume that this isn't an issue) or disabled. The city is an absolute nightmare if you're either of these. I guess their consciousness doesn't extend that far.

A Bangkok Christmas
"The Twelve Days of Christmas" has a special meaning to me this year. Not only is a special adaptation of it the team song at work but it was also the first thing I heard blaring at me when I entered the skywalk. It was followed by a series of upbeat Christmas songs, to keep everyone in the holiday spirit. There are Christmas decorations by all the malls - trees, nutcrackers, candy canes - all the usual. And young Thais have outfitted themselves in Santa caps or, for reasons I can't discern, illuminated devil horns. Thais are, of course, Buddhist.

I'm not sure what the Thais make of Christmas, other than it being a good time to take pictures of each other by the glowing decorations. Like other Asians (yes, I know that this is a stereotype - but...), they are in LOVE with their digital cameras. Except for all of those that still have SLRs with tripods. So, basically, everyone is running around, taking pictures, tripping each other with tripod legs and, on Christmas Eve, singing carols for change.

The mall most favored by young Thais (and that is saying a lot) has the whole gamut of Christmas imagery, including a tree with a Visa card star, outside it. This mall is directly across the street from Bangkok's most popular shrine, built in the 1950s when (I think) the Hyatt Hotel was being built, where the ever-religious Thais make offerings and watch traditional Thai dance. The shrine is always crowded and is benignly overlooked by a Burberry shop window. Between the Christmas corner and the shrine is the anti-jaywalking fence covered in Christmas lights that spell out "Happy New Year 2007."

Inside the malls, the Christmas theme continues. I took a break from it all - and looked up to see my 50-year-old male server with a lined face wearing a Santa hat with blinking lights with a small rhinestone tiara at the front. My jaw dropped in awe.

Too bad I won't be here for New Year's Eve.

Bangkok: A Nice Place to Visit...
The Thais have finally stopped chirping "Merry Christmas" which is a relief in the 93 degree heat.

Bangkok is, like all major Asian cities, unlivable. People with money live on narrow lanes behind blind gated walls or in one of the huge high rises sprouting everywhere. The poor live as the poor always do, in the left over, left behind places. But, no matter what your income, you still live in a polluted, traffic choked city. The only thing that differs is how you deal with it.

Affluent adults suffer the traffic in air-conditioned cars while their hip young offspring take the Sky Train. The working class struggles with un-air-conditioned buses. There are still a few Tuk Tuks, the three wheeled motorcycle taxis that were ubiquitous 20 years ago, but no one wants to arrive sweaty and covered with pollution. Then there are the public motorcycles - guys in orange jackets who wait for fares to find them while they sit on the sidewalk at intersections. The passenger hops on the back and off they go, weaving through the stalled traffic. The middle class has their own motorcycles, which make crossing streets far more challenging than in New York. On the rare occasions that the traffic stops and you make your urban weave through the stopped cars move, you discover that the motorcycles are speeding through the spaces like some opportunistic parasite. It is an intricate system that mirrors the economic structure.

I have gotten to the point where I can tell the malls apart - certainly not by what they sell, which is the same everywhere. How many shops selling Armani can there be in a 4-block area? But malls are the new urban centers in Bangkok - huge and filled with shops, fast food joints and even food courts.

Food courts are modern Bangkok's way of replicating the street food vendors beloved by the locals. In essence, take all the stands, put them indoors, and eliminate the need to run cross-town to find your favorite curry. Singapore has had them for years. However, Bangkok has put them in malls and made them huge. Here's how they work.

Somewhere in the court there is a desk where you buy a cash card - you use it to buy whatever you'd like and then cash it in at the end of the evening. Now... imagine that you are jet lagged. And hungry. You put $15 on a card and go off to nibble. Except every place you pick doesn't take the card. They charge you directly. You're sure that there are some places that take the card, but you're so tired you're hallucinating, so you pay and move on to the next counter - which also doesn't take the card. Sated, tired and wanting to go back to your hotel, you now have to cash in the card. Assuming that you can find the counter. You make false starts and pass the gift basket place, where pre-packaged gift baskets contain Chivas, prune juice and Ovaltine (I'm not making this up). Finally, you find the counter and stagger back to the skyway and home.

Back to the 1980s
I couldn't understand it. My usual Bangkok Internet hook-up was down. My alternate was down. I was too tired to look further. Which was a good thing because, when I got back to my room, I heard about the earthquake in Taiwan and the damage to the cable. Instant 1980s, when traveling meant that you dropped off the edge of the earth. I had already been enjoying an unplugged trip - no international Blackberry, no cell phone - but I was not prepared for this.

Fortunately, two days later, things are back up, although there is a concern about after-shocks in Taiwan causing new damage. This is the lead story on all TV news, which now comes complete with interviews with the guy responsible for overseeing the cable's operation and repair. They even took the reporter into a server room and showed her a router!

Now, two days without the Net means two days where I didn't get to use my lead in lines, so this will be more of a travel salad than a travel article.

When we think of Thai food, Pad Thai comes to mind. These days, when you think about the Thai people, you need to think about padded Thai (groan!). Most Thais are tiny - size zero is probably large. But here and there you see the supersize set - not anywhere close to American standard but distinctly large for Thailand. These are invariably young people (but, then, everyone I see in Bangkok is young) and they have that flabby look of more to come. I wonder how they manage to buy clothing - most shops don't carry anything that looks larger than a size 6.

One of the downsides of being tall in this town is that you mis-judge the height of things. The sidewalks are impossibly narrow and crowded so I ducked around a street size - and slammed my head onto its bottom. Fortunately, no blood, since I travel with only a couple of shirts. But I walked with a new wariness, having to look up as well as down, at the obstacle course that is a Bangkok sidewalk.

On Wednesday, I made three serious mistakes: I took two taxis and a high-end tour.

As I've written, Bangkok traffic is awful. In fact, the first thing every taxi driver will say to you when you get into a cab is "traffic jam." But I needed to be across town by 7:45 AM to make a tour and thought I'd settle into a cab for a snooze instead of taking the Skytrain. Wrong. I took an hour and I barely made the tour. Actually, it is too bad that I made the tour.

Several guidebooks for the hip raved about the bus/lunch/boat tour to Ayuttia (spelling?) from the Shangri-la Hotel. So off I went from Bangkok in one of those two tier luxury buses filled with blue hairs (my hair is gelled, so it doesn't count). It turns out that you can do Ayuttia in about 30 minutes -and all three sites that they drag you to in less than 90 minutes. But they make them take all morning. I don't find the site at all impressive but then I realize that I am jaded - and I am playing "comparative monuments." I've seen Pagan in Burma and Borobador in central Java - meeting that standard is pretty high. I find this happening more and more as I travel - going to see sites and realizing that I've seen things that are far more breath taking. Or perhaps this is an excuse to shop?

Then there is the 45-minute trip to the luxury boat, where they provide an "international buffet" - ham, smoked salmon, lots of salad for the anorexic teenagers and the token curry and rice. All with assigned seats in air-conditioned comfort. This is not a friendly experience where you're encouraged to mingle.

At lunch, no one looks out of the windows - they focus intently on their roast beef. After a while, the guide starts narrating: here's the hospital, there the university, there the temple, there the dishwasher, here the dryer, there the laundry room. It is mind numbing, mundane and goes on and on and on. All I want to do is to get off the boat - NOW - and picture myself swimming to shore. Finally, at 3PM, the bloody thing docks. The bus guide, who spent the boat portion sound asleep, is first off the boat, hand out for tips. I flee. For two reasons.

When you drive up to the Shangri-la, your car is halted at a barrier and the guards run mirrors under the bottom, looking for explosives. I don't remember whether they check the trunk - and they certainly don't check the interior of the car. Such security precautions do not make me feel good - instead, they scream SOFT TARGET, which, given the number of affluent, middle aged Europeans is pretty much the case. So whenever I see something like this, my goal is to get out of such places as quickly as possible.

I then make my next mistake - I get into a taxi to go to another place I want to see. 40 minutes later, I ask him to drop me at the nearest Skytrain station. 50 minutes into the trip, he pulls over to let me take one of the orange-jacketed motorcycle taxis, which would get me to my destination much faster. Having watched these guys weave in and out of traffic, I decline in horror, and give up my plan. Since rush hour seems to last from 7 - 10AM and 4 - 7PM, there's not a lot of day when things are better - make that "better" by Bangkok standards. I decide that I will restrict my travels to the Skytrain and the Skyway, which I've come to love, despite the chronic knots in my legs from endless flights of stairs.

If I was a suburban American accustomed to mega-malls, perhaps the fact that I actually want to go into my favorite of the 6 of them clustered near my hotel would not seem strange. But this is not my typical behavior until I realize that these are the new urban centers, complete cities with supermarkets, restaurants, endless Gucci/Coach shops (and even an area on the second floor with Mazzaratis, Porches, Lexus - on display. At times I get lost in the vastness of the mall - I have no idea where some version of "out" is - and ultimately recognize the feeling I had in the vast souk in Aleppo where I needed to be guided out. For that is what these malls are, the modern souk, for souks are more than just a collection of shops.

And then there is Sex in the City of Angels (Bangkok) - think unattractive middle aged men with paunches - or old men declining towards frailty, with poorly dyed hair - and Asian women. Much younger, more attractive, Asian women. I'm not talking about prostitutes here - these seem to be real couples - but you sense the eternal bargain - women getting material comforts if they will (literally) consort with these men.

To Phnom Penh
Thailand opened a new airport recently, the largest in Asia. Like everything in Bangkok, it is filled with high-end designer shops - the world as mall. Still, it was nice getting into an airport without having my underwear X-rayed... until the Departure board directed me to a Gate that didn't exist. Gates went from C to G - but the board insisted that I go to A. And there was, of course, no one to ask. Anywhere. The petit female security guards busy with their walkie-talkies were baffled when I spoke to them. Fortunately, the airport realized the mistake and changed to a terrestrial gate, which I reached with minimal security: sneakers ON and no baggie blues!

Where we waited. And waited, until the delayed flight arrived. The gate agent called the flight - with the wrong destination, confusing everyone. And then there was no plane. Even though the airport is new, we still needed to take a bus to the plane, which was somewhere on the tarmac. On we piled and drove, and drove, and drove, until we pulled up next to a plane, sat there with the doors closed, started, stopped and finally were told to board. But the plane didn't say Bangkok Air - it said Druk Air, which, if you know your trivia, you know to be the national airline - of Bhutan. Since the flight was filled with the usual mix of neurotic, highly excitable French tourists and genetically hyperactive Italians, I had to wait only a little while for "the question": This flight IS going to Phnom Penh, right? Yes, the flight attendant assured him, it was.

I had spent the time waiting with a 32-year-old Cambodian who was in Bangkok for corporate training. His story is the story of Cambodia, and of far too much of the world these days. His parents were killed by Pol Pot and his grandmother, who he reveres, raised him. There are so many grandmothers in the world raising a second family, in Africa, in Cambodia and, of course, in America. We stereotype this as an African American phenomena but it is the story of the human race, of all animals, ensuring that there is a future generation that survives.

The flight was short and the chaos at the airport complete. Visas are available upon arrival - but the guidebooks neglect to mention the fact that they don't quite have their system down.

First, you go to the Visa Application counter, where you hand over your passport, a photo and a form. Then you get in line to pay your $20 visa fee and pick up your passport. Except that there is no such thing as a queue, or any attempt at organizing one, and the guy handing out the passports seems to pull them randomly from the ever-changing pile in front of him. The tall, condescending American in front of me loudly observes that the Cambodians are too timid to read out the names. I can't imagine a Cambodian in a uniform being timid - but I can imagine that they don't speak English, so all those nice Roman letters on our documents mean as much as Khmer writing means to me. '

An hour later - and only because I'm traveling with a carry-on - I'm through Customs and searching for my driver. A 30-minute ride through the darkened city brings me to my riverside hotel, to await my friends' arrival in the morning.

Phnom Penh: What the Blind Can't Know
Well, Dear Reader, I suffered in your service. This delicate Brooklyn flower blogged for an hour on a non-ergonomic PC and knotted her shoulder badly. So, at my friend's suggestion, I went to have a massage given at the charity for the blind next to my hotel.

As anyone who has had really good bodywork knows, you are interviewed about old injuries before the masseuse starts. And if they don't ask, you can always tell them when they approach a problem spot. None of which works when the masseuse is blind and speaks only Khmer, a fact I realize when he starts working on my arms, the site of tens of thousands of dollars of micro-surgery. The best I can do is to gently push his fingers away to get him to stop, as he bears down on my inner elbow where my nerve now is but should not be.

As I lie there, I realize how impossible it would be for him to understand the geography of my 58-year-old body and the wonders of modern medicine that keep it running. Here a finger that has been reconstructed. There, a nerve that has been moved. As he works in a world of darkness in a country that endured horrible darkness and is now returning to the light. If I were a 58-year-old Cambodian, it would mean that I managed to survive the Khmer Rouge, who one day emptied the city I now visit. They simply marched everyone out of town, killing the weak and the stragglers. And, had I survived, I would be old, from years of starvation and, when I got lucky, a life of hard work. No dental work to preserve my teeth. No sunscreen to keep the sun from aging my skin. And certainly no fancy surgeries when the nerves in my hands were damaged. Had I been Cambodian, I would have had only pain and increasing disability. It did not expect to have these thoughts during a massage. But sometimes the blind help us to see.

Cambodia: Angkor Wat
New Year's Eve was spent at THE in spot in Phnom Penh, which happened to be the wonderful open bar on the upper floors of our 7 room hotel, the Foreign Correspondents Club www.fcc.com. Given how folks drive normally in Phnom Penh, the thought of going elsewhere and having to be driven home rendered that idea absurd, so we stayed home and let the world come to us. There were fireworks over the Tonle Sap river and funny hats for all. Unfortunately, while "dressing" for dinner, the BBC broadcast news of the bombs in Bangkok, a country largely without violent crime or this type of political violence. Even now, no one knows who is responsible. My friends will spend a day in Bangkok before coming home. I will spend only a few hours at the airport hotel.

The next morning we flew to Siem Reap, a 45-minute flight to one of THE great travel destinations, the many temples at Angkor Wat. This area first opened to tourists less than 15 years ago, when the Khmer Rouge lost their hold on Cambodia, but even 8 years ago tourists were killed going to some of the outlying temples - and the land mines had not yet been cleared from the temple sites. 900 people a year are still injured by land mines here.

I knew that tourism had exploded in Siem Reap and knew, from far too much experience, that towns like this are usually awful, so it is especially important to have a hotel that is a refuge. I had no idea. The town is home to a market selling cheap tourist goods, lots of bars for the backpacker set and cheap hotels. One road into town, which we're on, is lined with cookie cutter 4 storey hotels catering to Asian tourists, who are the bulk of those here: Korean, Japanese and Chinese (probably Taiwan). Hotels are banned from most of the road to the temple, but that is where the high-end hotels are. These cost $300 - $2,000 a day. So finding the right hotel was hard, but we did well - 12 rooms in 6 new buildings around a beautiful pool, with lots of tropical foliage keeping out the road and traffic right outside. All very spa like. Since we will be here for 5 nights, and it is way too hot to sightsee in mid-day, having a place like this is vital.

The temples are packed with tour groups - I have NEVER seen so many tour buses! There are very few European and American tourists. The Japanese are like locusts following their leader in lockstep - they are completely unaware of other tourists, which gets annoying when you're trying to enter somewhere that they are exiting.

Them temples are magnificent, and often very large, with numerous buildings within a complex. Some are "temple mountains" and seeing them fully means climbing LOTS of very high, narrow, steep stairs. At the main Angkor Wat complex, it was so frightening that we didn't do it. Even walking around the temples is a challenge, because you're up and down 18" steps all the time. "Fortunately” I started developing my climbing muscles in Bangkok!

There is no way to see all the temple complexes - nor would you want to. While we have extensive, scholarly guidebooks, I am Phyllis Steen, not a scholar, and really have no desire to, for example, follow the suggested chronological itinerary. Instead we figured out the five "must see" complexes and plan to do one of those each morning. We learned the hard way that getting up early is the only way to do it, because your body overheats so badly as noon approaches. And this is the cool season! But even when you go early, there is no tranquility to be had, because the crowds are so enormous.

And then there are the kids selling things, who, at best, are annoying and, at worst, menacing.

I long ago learned the trick of not making eye contact with even the most disfigured leper - once you do, they will stay with you. But some of my friends are softies who lack this experience and so were mobbed by a swarm of children who became outraged that they would not buy an overpriced book from them.

The children are beautiful, there poverty is severe - but even if you gave everyone a dollar, you would not change anything. If anything, you would increase their expectation that foreigners will just hand over money, which will cause problems for future tourists. Indeed, I met one young NY woman who is traveling alone and who was so rattled by predatory taxi drivers that she was ready to leave Cambodia the day after she arrived. It was all the usual tourist trap stuff - and then some. She hired a taxi, and not a motorcycle, because she had a suitcase, and the moto driver told her that she owed" him money. The taxi driver refused to take her to the guesthouse she wanted and, only after a struggle did she get to her second choice. Now he was refusing to set meeting places at these huge, crowded complexes. It brought back all my memories of visiting the Taj Mahal. Even the driver we hired pulled stunts - he was outside of our hotel, quoted a price that I thought was too high - and then told the tuk-tuk driver I stopped to tell me that he was busy, when clearly he was not. The driver then lied about the availability of transportation back from the site and suggested a meeting place that would have required us to walk several miles that we did not need to. My friends and I had lengthy discussions about whether to engage him the next day - they felt his actions were due to the desperation of poverty while I pointed out that everyone is poor but not everyone reacts this way. I lost the argument - but the next day he was the model driver.

Having just been to The Killing Fields and the infamous high school in PP where people were tortured, mostly by young teenage boys, I have no doubts about the cruelty these slight, beautiful children are capable of in all the genocides of the world. Lord of the Flies.

In Phnom Penh we bought beautiful antique Cambodian silks, which are very scarce because so much was destroyed during the Khmer Rouge years. As you may know, one day Pol Pot emptied Phnom Penh completely - he marched everyone in the city out into the countryside, as part of his plan to bring the country to Year Zero before building a new, egalitarian agrarian society. If the Nazi deportations of Jews are unimaginable, this is more so - and entire city left empty. Apparently, when people returned 4 years later, their homes were intact - there had been no looting because everyone was gone.

Time to go. My friends are emerging from their mid-day naps, sitting on their verandas or swimming in the pool. Perhaps tonight we'll go to the gay restaurant in town...

A Poem
In Cambodia my friends and me,
Live in rooms with Wet Clothing Trees.

Wet black blossoms bloom at night,
Still damp by morning light.

Polyester petals
Set off shiny metal.

Blessing poor tourists
This lovely chrome tree!

Cambodia: Watted Out In Siem Reap

There is a famous Indian novel, Heat and Dust, which could also be the name of today's blog. I am in an Internet Cafe in scenic, downtown Siem Reap where the sun is blinding and hot beyond imagining. The things to do in this town are (1) drink cheap beer (2) get a massage (blind, 4 handed and, I'm sure, X-rated) (3) shop (4) write emails and (5) eat. Among the 4 of us, we've just done all of these. I can't believe how many massages my friend gets - but then, guys don't shop.

We've finally got our act together for seeing temples - out of the hotel by 7:45 AM, see a major temple for 60 - 90 minutes and then whatever minor one is en route. Back to the hotel by 11 or 11:30 or risk heat stroke, and then lunch, pool, etc - unless you're an overachiever/intellectual/masochist, in which case you go to see more temples at 4 PM. But, for me, Siem Reap's Greatest Hits suffices.

Today we went to a temple complex famous for the enormous trees that had grown through the walls. The place was mobbed with Asian tour groups, primarily Korean. Since much of this temple is un-restored, there was little room to walk, so having mobs of zombie like tourists playing follow the leader meant get out of the way or beware! As seems to be the cultural norm in Asia, no photo was complete without someone in it - so each person in each group posed in front of each massive set of roots, to be replaced by the next, and the next, and the next. It made trying to get a photo of the ruins impossible. But don't tell that to the Italians, who picked the place to get the perfect shot with their 9,000 mm zoom Nikon and then waited, impatiently, for everyone else to leave so they could take a photo with no one in it. I think they will be there for eternity. Perhaps this is an Italian meditation or way to achieve enlightenment?

En route to this temple, we stopped at a "one star" site, which was completely deserted. It was fabulously photogenic in the morning light and, with no hordes, possible to feel what these temples were like a mere decade ago. It was quite wonderful.

Along the path to the temple there was a band of 10 men playing traditional Cambodian music. Each was a victim of a mine explosion or was born disabled. They are affiliated with an NGO that was founded by a soldier who lost his legs in a mine explosion and cannot live on his $25/month pension. In this way, they are trying to provide income and dignity to the many, many people in this situation - and to avoid turning them into beggars. Their literature said that there are 5 - 10 million un-detected mines in Cambodia and that it costs $300 to clear each one. Until they are cleared, farmers are unable to fully farm their land if it is a known minefield.

In town there are a half dozen shops that are affiliated with various NGOs. Some are for people with disabilities; others are joint European/Cambodian ventures whose goal is to employ poor women and also to generate a surplus that can be used for public works projects in the villages they work with. These types of programs are going on in many parts of the developing world. The interesting thing here is that some are affiliated with professional European designers so their wares are far superior. One of the sad realities of these projects is that much of what they sell is barely ordinary, so they cannot generate the needed revenue. But it is still vastly superior to other alternatives.

The pushcarts selling books to tourists have their sides painted with brief life stories of their owners. The stories are much the same, and artificial limbs not uncommon. Because the food in Cambodia is so good, I have a surplus of chocolate protein bars, which I travel with in case of gastronomic disasters (e.g., Burma). I have only a few but I give these to poor children since it will actually be good for them. I am sure that they think they are getting candy - but, hey, these taste pretty good.

Tomorrow will be our last day here, and then on to Laos. Cambodia is likely to be an exemplar of modernity, compared to Laos. Since January 2006 they have international ATMs and some of the shops take credit cards. What they don't really have is their own currency, because dollars are used everywhere. You get riels (4000 to one dollar) in change, because there are no coins, but you never change currency into riels. Laos does not have ATMs and will take whatever currency you give them (e.g., dollars, Thai baht), even though they do have currency of their own. It is extremely odd to think of Cambodia as "advanced" but some of what they do is quite impressive. For example, their free to tourists guides to the major cities are quite comprehensive and excellent. I doubt that this will be the case next week.

I dream of a shower and the pool at our hotel. And, some day, a cotton tee shirt and jeans...

Cambodia: Last Wat Done
If in Bangkok a StairMaster is superfluous, at Angkor step classes are absurd. The "temple mountains" require excellent coordination - and small feet - or an all fours ascent and even more perilous descent. But the other temples are much more "over a high threshold and DOWN" "up a high step and DOWN" - every 6 feet or so. You are always trying to avoid tripping over uneven paving (yeah, it is 1,000 years old, and showing its age) and looking up at the wonders around you. Today's temple, the last of the "Best Of" was virtually free of tour groups - except for a Taiwanese college tour that I had the misfortune to be in front of. We were trying to get to the end of a LONG series of galleries, each with two sets of step ups and down - and they were moving quickly. It was like being force marched or exercised by a Marine. Up - over -down - and mind your head, because these same doorways are only 5 feet high. Trust me, getting acquainted with them...smarts... (In Bangkok, I cut around the pedestrian traffic near the weekend market, and ducked under a sign. BAD move - I forgot how short people are. Fortunately, there was no blood - but, boy, did it smart.

We asked our driver and a shopkeeper which NGOs they thought did good work, so we could donate some money to them. The reaction was the same: buy something from people instead of giving, because that way you are sure the money gets to them. The corruption in Cambodia is total. One of my friends read an appeal from an English nurse to donate blood, which is always needed Cambodian religious beliefs preclude donation. Unfortunately, none of us trust the sterility of the equipment, no matter what this nurse says. There is simply too much AIDS - and a host of other diseases.

I am touring with 3 friends, one of whom fits the description of "intellectual" to a T, so it is interesting to see how differently we approach each temple. He focuses on each carving, while I focus on the setting and the light, taking photos of many things that tell the story of the trip and of the sites. But, then, we are both textile collectors - he's a scholar and I admit to being a "textile slut" who loves the sensuality of the colors and the materials. Cambodia is the land of silk, in beautiful, amazing colors and textures. The traditional textiles use ikat dyeing, a very exacting, labor-intensive technique. The larger the textile and the smaller the pattern the higher the skill. It is rare to find a new textile with fine work.

Tomorrow we leave for Laos, and we'd better be prompt, because ours is the only flight to Vientiane. Our hotel is minutes from the airport and the French owner assures us that they will get us through Customs quickly. There is, of course, no money to convert - I managed to save a single bill for a friend's collection because, outside Cambodia, the riel is unconvertible. And Laos will be 8 - 10 degrees cooler, which we are very much looking forward to.

Laos: Currency Confusion
Sometimes it is hard to find a free PC at an Internet cafe - all the monks are using them. Luang Prabang, Laos, a small "city" in the mountains of Laos, is the home of Laotian Buddhism and of many, many old and beautiful temples. These temples all have monastic schools, so the streets are filled with the young monks who study there. I'm guessing that things work the way they do in Thailand, where many young boys go to the monastery but don't devote their lives to them. There seem to be different "ranks" because boys around 12 wear yellow fabric belts on their robes while older boys wear saffron belts, the same color as their robes.

Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage city, so there is a lot to see. The temples have pitched roofs with facades of carved and painted gold, shiny in the sun. Gold designs are also stenciled onto dark red background and, in special places, mirrors, silver and green, are inlaid into surfaces. The carvings are of the life of Buddha and are quite remarkable bas-reliefs.

The old part of Luang Prabang is a narrow peninsula between two rivers, the Mekong and the ???. In Vientiane, much further downstream, the mighty Mekong was mostly dry, since it is not the rainy season. Here it is full.

Luang Prabang is filled with tourists - but no bus tours, as buses are not allowed. Most hotels are "guest houses" - simple affairs costing under 40 dollars. Almost every building in the old part of town is a guesthouse - or a cafe - or a shop selling fake Lao silk. It reminds me of Ubud, Bali in the late 1980s. However here both the Laotian government and UNESCO are trying very hard to preserve the traditional culture by minimizing the destructive influence of tourism. Tourists must be properly dressed to go into major temples - they'll lend you a shirt if you're barefooted - and there are flyers all over town telling you how to behave during the early morning giving of alms to the monks and in temples. In Vientiane, which is the capital city, there are efforts to bar barefoot tourists in tank tops from restaurants and cafes. However, I think the banning of tour buses - and thus the worst type of group tourism - will help the most - although Katmandu, Nepal is proof that even the type of tourism that is happening in Luang Prabang creates problems.

I had planned to buy the beautiful Laotian silk scarves that I've seen in NY, but they are unavailable. Since consumption determines what is produced, most weavers have moved decidedly down-market, making rayon scarves with garish chemical dyes. They shine unnaturally in the sun. At the other extreme - literally - are the boutique weavers, whose wares are magnificent but cost hundreds of dollars. I've seen the down-market trend in India, too, and it is sad to see centuries-old traditions degenerate in this way.

Since I am with a textile collecting friend, who makes any spending I do pale in comparison, I have been exposed to a lot of wonderful antique Laotian textiles - and have, alas, acquired more than I planned. They are about as scarce here as they are in Cambodia, where there was a single dealer. In response, the weavers are copying the old designs - in synthetics for the mass market and with great art at the boutiques.

Paying for things is... interesting. The official currency is the kip - there are 9600 to the dollar, but almost everyone rounds it up to 10,000 and pays in dollars (except for the admission to the Royal Palace, where they make you pay the extra 400 kip). The largest bill in common circulation is 5000 kip - or 50 cents. So purchases can work something like this. You ask a price. They quote it in dollars, if it is large. If you have Thai baht to get rid of, as I do (33 to 1 dollar), they convert it to baht, you pay and get change in whatever currency is handy - dollars, baht or kip. It all works smoothly as long as you keep the bills in your pocket straight, because 1000 baht is $33 while 1000 kip is 10 cents. Just for the hell of it, I converted $20 to kip when I arrived and got a wad of bills that I considered keeping. I have seen 20,000 and even 50,000 kip bills but they are so rare that the chances of screwing up and using a big bill is large. Needless to say, kip are not convertible, so you need to get rid of them before you leave. There is a single international ATM in Vientiane and only the larger shops take Visa.

We had a reservation for a wonderful boutique hotel here - but when we arrived, we found that they had messed up the reservation and had one room instead of three. Virtually everything in town is booked, so our only option was a $40/night guest house down the street - all very clean, with private bath but... basic. Where I was counting on three nights overlooking the Mekong from my balcony, I'm now in a room barely wider than my bed. We don't spend much time there. The most senior manager of the good hotel is French and he made himself scarce when the problem arose, leaving his Laotian manager to deal with us. We wondered what they would have done if there were no rooms, since they admitted the error was theirs. So much for booking the good places in July! In any case, they told us that we could come there for breakfast - which we'd pay for - but today they seemed to have forgotten. The 4 New Yorkers, ahem, won. We plan to be back tomorrow for their excellent croissants.

Our hotel in Vientiane was new and owned by an Aussie. It was on a dirt road at the end of town, overlooking the Mekong (whose bed people were walking on, because it is dry). Vientiane is a small city - 3 km to the most important temple, which is pretty much across town. There's really nothing to see so we shopped - antique silk textiles and various things in the "Morning Market." It has a pleasant, lazy feel.

The differences between Cambodia and Laos are stark. Cambodia is an ancient culture made new by the destruction of the Khmer Rouge and the wounds are recent and show. There are many beggars, amputees and a despair born of poverty, trauma and the opportunities tourist wealth present. Laos has a repressive Communist government but it was not ripped apart. There is a great deal of rural poverty but, in the cities, the people look healthy and well fed. And there are very rich people, like one of the textile dealers in Vientiane, who manage to prosper regardless of who is in charge.

There is almost no traffic in Vientiane - our hotel owner said that people were earning enough money to start buying motorbikes and cars. But that makes no sense, because bicycles don't disappear over night and there were none. Nor were there any beggars, so you wonder what the government is doing to create a good impression for tourists. But this is the type of information that you need to goggle back home because the Vientiane Times is about as informative as the government newspaper in Syria was. Laos also has that other hallmark of totalitarian societies: internal immigration. Even though you're not leaving the country, you need to go through a "control" so they know everywhere you are.

Our hotel owner also shared with us the environmental damage tourism is causing in Angkor Wat (Siem Reap) - it is sucking out all the groundwater, which has to happen given the heat and the sheer number of showers thousands of tourists take each day. He said that one of the temples (probably a minor one) had collapsed into a sinkhole. Considering that Florida has a similar problem with groundwater due to over-development - there, the aquifer is filling with salt water - it is hard to blame it all on the backwardness of the government. But tourism at Angkor Wat is really out of control - we're glad we saw it but we're really glad we're gone and never have to go back.

Well, folks, this is probably "it" for this trip - one more day in Laos and then I fly to Bangkok and then home (for a 24 hour ordeal starting with a flight to Korea that leaves at 1:30 AM). I have about 2GB of photos - that's about 900 - and I've been editing as I go, so it will be a while before I figure out which 50 I will post, and edit them. Trust me, that will NOT be my first priority when I get home. The only good thing about this trip is that we paid cash for pretty much everything so no ugly credit card statements to come - just an ugly bank statement... Depending upon time and inclination, I may edit these posts, and turn them into something more coherent - but, then, I may not.

Laos: One Mo' Time
"Today is a day that is filled with surprises. Nobody knows what's going to happen." Was this a Mousekateers song? It was something Disney from childhood. And it was also my last day in Laos.

Up at dawn to see the giving of the alms to the monks - easy because today the monk-gong-alarm went off at 6:45, not what seemed to be 5AM yesterday. This alarm is sounded by a giant drum at every monetary - including the one opposite our guesthouse. Since I was up anyhow, I threw on clothes - and a down jacket, because mornings are brisk - and grabbed my camera. Many clicks later, back to my room and then out for a pre-breakfast wander. Yes, folks, it is true - your pal up and out long before noon on a non-work day. But, then, I'm in bed by 11.

I spent the morning visiting whatever amazing temple I was near (the last one is called "Wat That" for short - this is not a joke) and just wandering down whatever lane I came upon. There are still traditional style houses here, made of wood - but all of them have "modernized" and replaced their traditional roofs for galvanized tin, which must be unimaginably hot.

Around 4 I split from the gang and wandered off for more shooting. On the street along the Mekong I passed a Hebrew/English sign - yes, the Hassids are here. I walked past it again a few minutes later and there was a Westerner in traditional Hassidic dress smoking and chatting with his wife. I know that the Hassids are everywhere but which stray Jews they plan to bring into the fold here, in Luang Prabang, is...unclear. Well, the Christians had there day, perhaps with as little results.

I ended up at a temple that I seem to have missed and went into the courtyard, to the sound of monks chanting. As I sat outside listening, a monk-in-training came over to chat. He is 20, the youngest of 9 children from a farm in Northern Laos. He has completed two years of monastic college, with 3 more to go. This temple has 34 students - some young, some in high school, some in college. We talked for a while and when it was time for me to go, I gave him my email address because he was first learning computers. He then told me that he'd like to give me something - a bracelet. These are strings of various colors tied around your wrist with a blessing. You wear them until they fall off. I sat there waiting for him to return - and then his friend said that I should go inside the monk dorm to get the bracelet. Hmm... No, no, it is OK - so I went. He tied a bracelet onto each wrist, showed me photos of his family (his mother is my age) and then asked me if I'd like him to pray for me. Now... what would YOU say? Of course, the answer was "yes." He told me that it would take 5 minutes. OK. Then he told me I needed to close my eyes. Hmm... OK. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor with him sitting opposite me. He then told me that this was, uh, the wrong position. I should have my feet flat on the floor and my legs up, knees wide apart. And I should recline ALL the way back on the pile of quilts on the floor. At that point, I got up, explaining that I REALLY needed to meet my friends - and exited, stage left. I did not take the time to tie my sneakers until I was down the street (you remove your shoes in Laotian homes) I guess hormones trump vows when you're 20.

Laughing, I went for a 1 hour foot massage ($4), which is blissful if not the type of luxury we expect - and then immediately to the Internet cafe to rely this tale. Since it is evening, the place is, of course, filled with saffron robed monks...