April 18-19
Hi All,
More on Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge: We had some friends email us: “…..you missed out the never mentioned aspect of the UK and US propping up Khmer Rouge to help bankrupt the USSR. A despicable point in our nations joint histories.”
Sean and Ry did not mention that fact but we did come across it in our research. Here is a good article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_United_States_support_for_the_Khmer_Rouge
Another article quoted an ex-State Department diplomat……we could not support Pol Pot directly, after all the man was abominable, but we could support China…..you make the link??? “A Wikileaks dump of 500,000 US diplomatic cables from 1978 indicate that the Carter Administration was torn between revulsion at the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge but concerned at the possibility of growing Vietnamese influence should the KR collapse”
What an ugly part of our history…..ugh, ugh, ugh!!!! If anyone has a factual perspective on this we would love to know about it!!
Sean’s story: On the bus ride to Siem Reap Sean told us his story during the time of the Khmer Rouge …..if you recall he was saved by Ry, our guide to the Killing Fields. Sean was 8-11 years old during that period…..he told us of the forced evacuation, of not being able to swim but forced to cross the river anyway, of drowning but Ry throwing him a rope which slipped off, of Ry jumping in the river and saving him, of a time he and Ry stole some rice and got caught by the cook who beat them on the head with a knife, of going to see his parents but was stopped at the last minute, of seeing his grandfather who told him his father was killed….betrayed by a classmate, of his grandfather telling him the KR were going to kill him next and they must escape that night which they did after midnight, but they got lost in the jungle and captured by KR patrols and taken to a new village, of being safe as the Commandant was a student of his grandfather and would keep their secret…….ugh, such an emotional story!!!!
Sean then told us about his arranged marriage: he was 29 and living in Siem Reap and had a girlfriend, he gets a letter from his Grandmother telling him to come home, it is time to get married…..I have a smoking “heart” girl for you…..not smoking hot but smoking heart…….Sean was intrigued. He said he could have argued but he respected his Grandmother too much, so he went home and met the girl. He was most concerned about how clean and orderly was her kitchen……a clean kitchen meant she was a clean and orderly woman and could take care of him. The girl’s family took 2 weeks to do a background check on Sean asking many of his friends about Sean…evidently he passed and they were married. He said he did not love her at first….maybe 85% after their first son was born, 95% after the 2nd, and 100% after the third son……she indeed had a smoking “heart”!!!!
OK…..on to Siem Reap:
“Back in the 1960s, Siem Reap (see-em ree-ep) was the place to be in Southeast Asia and saw a steady stream of the rich and famous. After three decades of slumber, it’s well and truly back and one of the most popular destinations on the planet right now. The life-support system for the temples of Angkor, Cambodia’s eighth wonder of the world, Siem Reap was always destined for great things, but few people saw them coming this thick and this fast. It has reinvented itself as the epicentre of the new Cambodia, with more guesthouses and hotels than temples, world-class wining and dining and sumptuous spas.
At its heart, Siem Reap is still a little charmer, with old French shop-houses, shady tree-lined boulevards and a slow-flowing river. But it is expanding at breakneck speed with new houses and apartments, hotels and resorts sprouting like mushrooms in the surrounding countryside. The tourist tide has arrived and locals are riding the wave. Not only is this great news for the long-suffering Khmers, but it has transformed the town into a pulsating place for visitors. Forget the naysayers who mutter into their beers about Siem Reap in the ‘old days’, now is the time to be here, although you may curse your luck when stuck behind a jam of tour buses on the way back from the temples.”
The afternoon of the second day we went to Ta Prohm……the temple of Angelina Jolie’s Tomb Raider Fame:
“The ultimate Indiana Jones fantasy, Ta Prohm is cloaked in dappled shadow, its crumbling towers and walls locked in the slow muscular embrace of vast root systems. Its appeal lies in the fact that, unlike the other monuments of Angkor, it has been swallowed by the jungle, and looks very much the way most of the monuments of Angkor appeared when European explorers first stumbled upon them. Well, that’s the theory, but in fact the jungle is pegged back and only the largest trees are left in place, making it manicured rather than raw like Beng Mealea. Still, a visit to Ta Prohm is a unique, other-worldly experience. There is a poetic cycle to this venerable ruin, with humanity first conquering nature to rapidly create, and nature once again conquering humanity to slowly destroy. If Angkor Wat is testimony to the genius of the ancient Khmers, Ta Prohm reminds us equally of the awesome fecundity and power of the jungle.
Built from 1186 and originally known as Rajavihara (Monastery of the King), Ta Prohm was a Buddhist temple dedicated to the mother of Jayavarman VII. It is one of the few temples in the Angkor region where an inscription provides information about the temple’s dependents and inhabitants. Almost 80,000 people were required to maintain or attend at the temple, among them more than 2700 officials and 615 dancers. Ta Prohm is a temple of towers, closed courtyards and narrow corridors. Many of the corridors are impassable, clogged with jumbled piles of delicately carved stone blocks dislodged by the roots of long-decayed trees. Bas-reliefs on bulging walls are carpeted with lichen, moss and creeping plants, and shrubs sprout from the roofs of monumental porches. Trees, hundreds of years old, tower overhead, their leaves filtering the sunlight and casting a greenish pall over the whole scene.
The most popular of the many strangulating root formations is that on the inside of the easternmost gopura (entrance pavilion) of the central enclosure, nicknamed the Crocodile Tree. One of the most famous spots in Ta Prohm is the so-called ‘Tomb Raider tree’, where Angelina Jolie’s Lara Croft picked a jasmine flower before falling through the earth into…Pinewood Studios. It used to be possible to climb onto the damaged galleries, but this is now prohibited, to protect both temple and visitor. Many of these precariously balanced stones weigh a tonne or more and would do some serious damage if they came down. Ta Prohm is currently under stabilisation and restoration by an Indian team of archaeologists working with their Cambodian counterparts.”
Most iconic images of trees on temple roofs are from Ta Prohm. Strangler figs (Ficus virens) entangle walls with a net of small roots. The even bigger Spong tress (Tetrameles nudiflora, called Sompong in Thailand and Thitpok in India) have less, but much bigger roots covering walls.”
Ok…..another Wow…..indeed it looked very Indiana Jones like…..we have not seen Tomb Raider but it is now on the list!!!! The King built all this in dedication to his mother…..Wow….must have been some Mom!! A most impressive Temple and not too be missed. The downside was all the people and the heat….it really is too bad that Angkor is overrun with tourists…..it really takes some of the mystique and spirituality away from these magnificent and historic temples!!
We then went to the ODA school……Opportunities of Development thru Art founded by Leng Touch, a child survivor of the Khmer Rouge. He started this school for underprivileged kids and now has 8 schools with 1500 students. They gave a little presentation and afterwords a child of maybe 10 approached us and asked if he could read with us. He brought some books and got so excited as he learned new words. It’s moments like this that help keep our priorities straight and remind us how blessed we are.
Since we did not make dinner the previous night APT offered to send us to dinner that night as this was an off night for everyone….ok…sounds good…thanks. So off we went on a tuk tuk to Sokkak River restaurant. It was an upscale Cambodian restaurant with a mix of Western and Asian tourists…..not sure many natives ate there. We had a four course dinner…..it’s been a week since we were there so a bit hazy on what we had…..I remember fresh spring roles and I had lok lak, Cambodian/Vietnamese stir fried beef and Kathy had the duck…..it was a very good meal….one of many we had with APT.
The next day we did a Quad bike tour….yep……Kathy had so much fun on the motor bike ride in Saigon she said why not to the quad ride in Siem Reap…..although she would ride behind me!!! It was a very fun 2 hour excursion into the countryside where we got to see the various farms and rice fields. The ride itself was very hot and dusty but not too bumpy….a good time for sure!!!!
Next we had the afternoon to go tour Siem Reap ourselves in search of the perfect Apsara dancer wood carving. A brief talk with the concierge who then helped with the tuk tuk driver and off we went!! We ended up going to 5-6 different stores…..of course, the carving we liked we found at the very first store….always, right!!! We did visit the Artisan Workshop……a coop of 1500 artists…..we were shown the process for Khmer craftsmanship…..stone and wood carving, painting on statues and on silk, lacquering, and silver plating…it was fascinating!!!
The night we had our farewell dinner with APT tours…..they had Apsara Dancers come and perform many traditional dances, along with the traditional music and instruments…..fascinating again…..such fluid motion, and exquisite hand motions…..like the Balinese dancers but w/o the expressive eyes. I’m not sure how they can bend their fingers so far back….we heard they start training at an early age and take years to perfect!!!
So, that is it for Cambodia……Kathy put it so well in an email to a friend: I really loved Vietnam and Cambodia, though! The Mekong is a fascinating way of life, and the recovery from the wars in both VN and Cambodia is amazing! These people are very hard workers and really striving to make a better life for their children. Both countries are focused on the future and don’t waste time worrying about the past. Actually, being Buddhist, their
major focus is the present and making the most out of each day! 🙂
What we do to each other, indeed. The atrocities committed by both sides in both wars boggles the mind. How human beings can do what they do to each other is utterly unfathomable to me. On the flip side, the resiliency of
the human spirit and the ability to move forward onto new life despite the past horrors, is equally amazing! We did meet some true, beautiful survivors for sure!
We are off the following day for 2 nights in Bangkok and 3 nights in Chiang Mai…..all on our own…..ODG, how will we manage after being pampered by APT……the logistics were spot on the entire 13 day tour!!!!
Hope all is well!!
John
back to Thailand!!!!
PS: Pictures on the website: http://mysticmoonvoyages.com/siem-reap-and-na-prohm/
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