We are sitting in the executive lounge of the Hilton, having just checked out. I have a free orange Fanta and am just finishing off the blog before we head to lunch and then to the airport to catch our flight in the evening back to Auckland. We get home at about 4:30 on Sunday afternoon before starting work the following morning.
We are very lucky to be leaving today, as there are local body elections on today and the Hilton will not be serving any alcohol – paid for or otherwise – to anybody from 6pm until midnight on Sunday night.
We lay by the pool this morning – it’s called The Beach – outdoors on the fourth floor, so that was a nice little interlude before we checked out. Japanese sunbathing is interesting – don bikini, put clothes on over top, lie on sun lounger covered from head to toe in a towel – cool.
We’ve had a great time in the places we’ve visited and they’ve all been excellent in their own way. Bangkok is amazing from 31 stories up, particularly at night, but one burst of heavy traffic is enough to tell you that living here would be a totally different story. The city has grown from the 6m people when we last visited to 16m much wealthier people now and although it’s a cleaner city now, living here would still be pretty tough compared to our cosy existence in Wellington. Even the beautiful red and white ribbon that you see draped across the city at night is just the headlights and tail lights of the endless lines of cars coming into and going out of the city.
I’ve been experimenting with the editing functions of the photo software this time, so I’ve been cropping and enhancing, straightening, brightening or darkening photos to improve their visual impact. Although it all takes time, it is a fun way to spend time.
Anyway, hope you’ve enjoyed it, we certainly have.
Cheers,
David and Anne.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Day 12 – Friday 9th January – Royal Temple (Refusal) and Wat Arun - The Temple of the Dawn
Our last day of sight seeing today and we’re off to the Temple of the Dawn and the Royal Palace. Both these sights are beside the river, so we’re off on the river ferry. We asked the Hotel Reception what was the best way to get to them and they said most people took the ferries as that was the most adventurous – adventure Hilton style – take public transport.
Asians are very modest people, so every where you go you have to dress conservatively – no short shorts, no sleeveless tops – given that we both wear shorts below the knee and short sleeved shirts, it’s never been any drama and we haven’t had to do anything exceptional at any of the temples of palaces we’ve visited. That was until we got to the Royal Palace in Thailand. As we entered the gate, there were the usual signs about what you couldn’t wear, but these ones went further and three quarter length shorts or anything tight would not be acceptable. This was no problem however, as we could get some long trousers for a 100 bhat refundable deposit. This did not please me and I’ve never handled being told I wasn’t adequately dressed very well, so after two minutes of standing in the queue with every other tourist waiting for my grey slacks, we both got the hump and decided that if we weren’t good enough for the king, then the king wasn’t good enough for us and off we went.
Please accept my apologies if this lack of commentary or pictures is spoiling your viewing pleasure. I’m sure that there have been suitably dressed people in the past, or ones with the patience and humility to obtain a pair of the Kings grey slacks, so if you were to type in “Grand Palace, Bangkok” into Google or Google earth, you will no doubt find some fine picture of this beautiful Palace
Where ever we’ve been in Europe or Asia, we’ve never had any problems with pick pockets, or unscrupulous people ripping you off. However, all round the Palace were signs warning us to “beware of wily strangers offering you Tuk Tuk rides or boat trips”. In Bangkok, there are always people offering you Tuk Tuk rides, so I’m not sure if they are any worse around the Palace, but anyway, we battled our way through the usual array of Tuk Tuk drivers, market sellers and people wanting to help you find your way, even when you weren’t lost and off down to the next ferry terminal to catch the cross river shuttle to the Temple of the dawn.
We saw a great sign on the way in, which I’ve put a photo of up on the site – “No Smoking Alcohol”. It’s not the drinking, is it? The temple of the dawn in another one of the Khmer style temples that you have to clamber up the steep steps, like the ones in Cambodia. The Thai ones are all decorated in porcelain, so are beautiful to look at. They have all had the OSH treatment, as they now have hand rails, which was a real benefit. From the temple of the dawn, you could look back across the river and see the orange roofs of the Royal Palace. There is a photo on the site of the view from the top layer of the Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn) temple.
After the temple of the dawn we caught a ferry back to River City, a shopping complex on the other side of the river to the Hilton, where we had lunch, before spending a quiet afternoon in the Executive Lounge working on our photos, writing the blog, had the complimentary afternoon tea, before another “Night on Paris” – wining and dining free on the Hiltons.
Asians are very modest people, so every where you go you have to dress conservatively – no short shorts, no sleeveless tops – given that we both wear shorts below the knee and short sleeved shirts, it’s never been any drama and we haven’t had to do anything exceptional at any of the temples of palaces we’ve visited. That was until we got to the Royal Palace in Thailand. As we entered the gate, there were the usual signs about what you couldn’t wear, but these ones went further and three quarter length shorts or anything tight would not be acceptable. This was no problem however, as we could get some long trousers for a 100 bhat refundable deposit. This did not please me and I’ve never handled being told I wasn’t adequately dressed very well, so after two minutes of standing in the queue with every other tourist waiting for my grey slacks, we both got the hump and decided that if we weren’t good enough for the king, then the king wasn’t good enough for us and off we went.
Please accept my apologies if this lack of commentary or pictures is spoiling your viewing pleasure. I’m sure that there have been suitably dressed people in the past, or ones with the patience and humility to obtain a pair of the Kings grey slacks, so if you were to type in “Grand Palace, Bangkok” into Google or Google earth, you will no doubt find some fine picture of this beautiful Palace
Where ever we’ve been in Europe or Asia, we’ve never had any problems with pick pockets, or unscrupulous people ripping you off. However, all round the Palace were signs warning us to “beware of wily strangers offering you Tuk Tuk rides or boat trips”. In Bangkok, there are always people offering you Tuk Tuk rides, so I’m not sure if they are any worse around the Palace, but anyway, we battled our way through the usual array of Tuk Tuk drivers, market sellers and people wanting to help you find your way, even when you weren’t lost and off down to the next ferry terminal to catch the cross river shuttle to the Temple of the dawn.
We saw a great sign on the way in, which I’ve put a photo of up on the site – “No Smoking Alcohol”. It’s not the drinking, is it? The temple of the dawn in another one of the Khmer style temples that you have to clamber up the steep steps, like the ones in Cambodia. The Thai ones are all decorated in porcelain, so are beautiful to look at. They have all had the OSH treatment, as they now have hand rails, which was a real benefit. From the temple of the dawn, you could look back across the river and see the orange roofs of the Royal Palace. There is a photo on the site of the view from the top layer of the Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn) temple.
After the temple of the dawn we caught a ferry back to River City, a shopping complex on the other side of the river to the Hilton, where we had lunch, before spending a quiet afternoon in the Executive Lounge working on our photos, writing the blog, had the complimentary afternoon tea, before another “Night on Paris” – wining and dining free on the Hiltons.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Day 11 – Thursday 8th January – City and Temples Tour / China Town
I’ve just been reading the guide book we got from the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh and the page that fell open was about the King’s Coronation Procession. I’ll quote a section from it. “Day 2: According to the cult of the god-king that has been worshipped by the ancient Kings, in the morning, His Majesty King Norodom Sihamoni arrived to take ablutions which were blessed by both the Secular Patriach and His Majesty the King’s father and Her Majesty the King’s mother…”, or as we say in the new world “he took a dump and his parents blessed”. Sometimes ancient cultures should move with the times IMHO. Mum and Dad….your thoughts?
Our driver and guide arrived at 9am, to take the two of us on a City and Temples Tour. The tour included a visit to 3 temples – Wat Po, with the 46m reclining Buddha; Wat XX with the 5.5 tonne golden Buddga and Wat YY with the standing Buddha. First stop was Wat Po, which as well as the reclining Buddha is also famous for the Chinese and European statues that guard the entrance to the temple complex and the Chedi’s, which are the large tombs for the early Thai kings. The porcelain on the outside of the Chedi’s is brilliant – beautifully coloured and in very intricate patterns. The reclining Buddha also didn’t fail to impress. It is 46m long and 15m high, made of concrete, covered in gold leaf and has beautiful mother of pearl pictures on it’s feet. The guide was very good and told us many thing about Buddhism and Buddha.
We learnt that every Thai young man must become a Buddhist monk for at least 3 months to learn about Buddhism, life and how to be a successful husband. The analogy that the use in promoting team work in marriage was that of an Elephant. The husband is the front end of the Elephant – strong, purposeful, setting the direction for the marriage. The wife is the back end of the Elephant and together they must co-ordinate to move forward together successfully as a tea,. Elephant arse and I are back at our last Happy Hour wining and dining our way through another freebee evening.
After Wat Po, we had the choice of going to see the Golden Buddha or going on a long boat trip to the other side of the city to see how the people live by the river. The Long Boats are brilliant, with their big motors strapped to the back of the boat, the propeller shaft stretching way out behind and the driver swinging on an equally long pole on the other side of the motor to steer them.
We headed over the river to a canal on the other side and virtually no sooner had we entered the canal, than the boat slowed to a stop. Three women were sitting in little dug out canoes on the side of a quite large canal. One of them looked up, saw us and slowly paddled over. She announced to us the SHE was the floating market and did we want to buy any of her wares. It was obviously obligatory, so I was pleased that she had a Pepsi that we could buy. It was the world’s smallest Pepsi, bought from the world’s smallest floating market. When we were here before, the people seemed very dependent on selling at the floating market in order to be able to eat. These days, it seems more of a quaint ploy put on for the tourists. As our floating market paddled away, she reminded me of some of the planes we’d been on recently, as the boat was traveling low and slow in the water. I wondered if she’d got the job from Student Job Search – a bit cynical perhaps.
Continuing on our canal trip, with our gold plated Pepsi, we saw the same old houses that we’d seen the first time through, although they were in a much better state of repair, we didn’t see any children swimming in the river, and their was the odd very expensive house plonked in amongst them. Our guide told us that the people who owned the houses were very rich because the “land” they were on was worth a fortune and the rich people wanted to buy the land to build their riverside mansions on.
We were very impressed with the work that has been done on retaining walls on the river banks to prevent flood damage and also in the state of the water. It was much cleaner than it had been previously and apparently the government has done a lot of work to make it that way – well done.
We did see one very elaborate house, that our guide informed us belonged to the Navy Chief and that he could afford it because there was so much corruption in Asia. Given it was a military man’s house, I was kind of surprised at how loud he was making his claims.
After the boat trip, we were off to Temple YY to see the Tall Standing Buddha. This is a new temple and the Buddha is huge. See the photos and look at the size of the man’s feet – and they’re in proportion.
After the temples, the tour was basically over, but this is Thailand, so we just had to be taken to the Thai silk shop to buy a suit, or maybe a skirt for madam. We dutifully went inside, walked around, said no politely a thousand times to the man who was assigned to accompany us. As we left empty handed, our guide looked very down in the mouth. But of course, this is Thailand, so what trip would be complete without a trip to the local Jewelry shop. After the customary fizzy drink, 5 minute video about how and where the Thai gems come from it was into shopping central. I thought this would be a happier hunting ground, and so it turned out to be, because as luck would have it, we managed to find a perfect little sapphire ring that would compliment Anne’s other jewelry, so after an hour of looking, trying, fitting and waiting we emerged with a new ring for Anne and a much happier tour guide.
That being the end of the tour, we had agreed with the driver that he would drop us back in China Town rather than at the hotel, so after being dropped off there, we went for a wander round china town, checked out the market and eventually found a nice little Chinese restaurant to have a late lunch in.
Sometimes when you travel, you do absolutely fascinating things and at others it’s jus shear dross. We decided we would walk from China Town back to River City, which is the ferry terminal where we can catch the complimentary river ferry back to the Hilton. The walk back would have to win the prize for the Worlds most uninteresting walk. On the way we passed through whole suburbs that sold air conditioning ducting, then a suburb selling industrial sized water valves – I exaggerate of course, but it was the water valve district and there were at least 10 different shops.
Once back at the hotel however, there was just time for a shower before heading upstairs for our very happy HH. I think I’ll call it “A Night on Paris”.
Our driver and guide arrived at 9am, to take the two of us on a City and Temples Tour. The tour included a visit to 3 temples – Wat Po, with the 46m reclining Buddha; Wat XX with the 5.5 tonne golden Buddga and Wat YY with the standing Buddha. First stop was Wat Po, which as well as the reclining Buddha is also famous for the Chinese and European statues that guard the entrance to the temple complex and the Chedi’s, which are the large tombs for the early Thai kings. The porcelain on the outside of the Chedi’s is brilliant – beautifully coloured and in very intricate patterns. The reclining Buddha also didn’t fail to impress. It is 46m long and 15m high, made of concrete, covered in gold leaf and has beautiful mother of pearl pictures on it’s feet. The guide was very good and told us many thing about Buddhism and Buddha.
We learnt that every Thai young man must become a Buddhist monk for at least 3 months to learn about Buddhism, life and how to be a successful husband. The analogy that the use in promoting team work in marriage was that of an Elephant. The husband is the front end of the Elephant – strong, purposeful, setting the direction for the marriage. The wife is the back end of the Elephant and together they must co-ordinate to move forward together successfully as a tea,. Elephant arse and I are back at our last Happy Hour wining and dining our way through another freebee evening.
After Wat Po, we had the choice of going to see the Golden Buddha or going on a long boat trip to the other side of the city to see how the people live by the river. The Long Boats are brilliant, with their big motors strapped to the back of the boat, the propeller shaft stretching way out behind and the driver swinging on an equally long pole on the other side of the motor to steer them.
We headed over the river to a canal on the other side and virtually no sooner had we entered the canal, than the boat slowed to a stop. Three women were sitting in little dug out canoes on the side of a quite large canal. One of them looked up, saw us and slowly paddled over. She announced to us the SHE was the floating market and did we want to buy any of her wares. It was obviously obligatory, so I was pleased that she had a Pepsi that we could buy. It was the world’s smallest Pepsi, bought from the world’s smallest floating market. When we were here before, the people seemed very dependent on selling at the floating market in order to be able to eat. These days, it seems more of a quaint ploy put on for the tourists. As our floating market paddled away, she reminded me of some of the planes we’d been on recently, as the boat was traveling low and slow in the water. I wondered if she’d got the job from Student Job Search – a bit cynical perhaps.
Continuing on our canal trip, with our gold plated Pepsi, we saw the same old houses that we’d seen the first time through, although they were in a much better state of repair, we didn’t see any children swimming in the river, and their was the odd very expensive house plonked in amongst them. Our guide told us that the people who owned the houses were very rich because the “land” they were on was worth a fortune and the rich people wanted to buy the land to build their riverside mansions on.
We were very impressed with the work that has been done on retaining walls on the river banks to prevent flood damage and also in the state of the water. It was much cleaner than it had been previously and apparently the government has done a lot of work to make it that way – well done.
We did see one very elaborate house, that our guide informed us belonged to the Navy Chief and that he could afford it because there was so much corruption in Asia. Given it was a military man’s house, I was kind of surprised at how loud he was making his claims.
After the boat trip, we were off to Temple YY to see the Tall Standing Buddha. This is a new temple and the Buddha is huge. See the photos and look at the size of the man’s feet – and they’re in proportion.
After the temples, the tour was basically over, but this is Thailand, so we just had to be taken to the Thai silk shop to buy a suit, or maybe a skirt for madam. We dutifully went inside, walked around, said no politely a thousand times to the man who was assigned to accompany us. As we left empty handed, our guide looked very down in the mouth. But of course, this is Thailand, so what trip would be complete without a trip to the local Jewelry shop. After the customary fizzy drink, 5 minute video about how and where the Thai gems come from it was into shopping central. I thought this would be a happier hunting ground, and so it turned out to be, because as luck would have it, we managed to find a perfect little sapphire ring that would compliment Anne’s other jewelry, so after an hour of looking, trying, fitting and waiting we emerged with a new ring for Anne and a much happier tour guide.
That being the end of the tour, we had agreed with the driver that he would drop us back in China Town rather than at the hotel, so after being dropped off there, we went for a wander round china town, checked out the market and eventually found a nice little Chinese restaurant to have a late lunch in.
Sometimes when you travel, you do absolutely fascinating things and at others it’s jus shear dross. We decided we would walk from China Town back to River City, which is the ferry terminal where we can catch the complimentary river ferry back to the Hilton. The walk back would have to win the prize for the Worlds most uninteresting walk. On the way we passed through whole suburbs that sold air conditioning ducting, then a suburb selling industrial sized water valves – I exaggerate of course, but it was the water valve district and there were at least 10 different shops.
Once back at the hotel however, there was just time for a shower before heading upstairs for our very happy HH. I think I’ll call it “A Night on Paris”.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Day 10 – Wednesday 7th January – Phnom Penh to Bangkok
Today we are off to Bangkok, so our we arranged for our taxi driver from two days ago t pick us up at 7:00am and take us to the airport. Cambodia has been great and we are again increasing the pace as we head to the hustle and bustle of Bangkok – a city we haven’t been in for 20 years. We’re looking forward to seeing what has changed and what has stayed the same in the intervening period.
Cambodia has just implemented a new law making wearing crash helmets compulsory. I read in the paper yesterday morning that they’d had a blitz the previous day and had netted 138 people who weren’t complying with the new law and fined that 3000 Rial, or $US0.73 (73 cents). Given that a helmet costs $US18-20 if you’re of a mind not to wear one, it would take up a lot of fines to make up the cost of a helmet. I decided that 138 offenders was a particularly poor effort on behalf of the law enforcement agencies as I counted over 150 in only 5 minutes on the way to the airport.
In Bangkok, we caught a cab from the airport and as part of the price got a heavily reduced price on a city and temples tour the following day. The last time we went from Bangkok Airport into the city, it took us an hour and a half through overcrowded streets with people on scooters 2, 3 and 4-up and with lots of beggars and shanty towns on the side of the road. In the interim, a new airport has been built on the other side of town, with a 6 lane freeway running all the way into town. The trip took 35 minutes.
We are staying at the Millenium Hilton beside the river and have got an executive level room which is higher up the building and has certain perks included in the price. This was an excellent upgrade as it gives us access to the executive lounge where we get free broadband internet, complimentary morning and afternoon tea, breakfast, 2 items of clothing laundered per person per day and here’s the kicker – happy hour. Well I tell you, this is the ultimate happy hour – 6:00 till 8:30PM, free drinks and hot nibbles provided – dining El Cheapo we call it. By the time we’ve had 4 glasses of wine each and been back to the nibbles bar half a dozen times, we’re well fed and watered. This perk is made even more appealing when you realize that the hotel restaurant downstairs doesn’t have a bottle of wine under $NZ100 and a Sileni Rosé is $NZ135 a bottle. I could just about get a case for that price at home, so the Executive Lounge is providing an alcoholic lifeline to us. “It’s not the drinking, it’s the way we’re drinking”, and there is no better way than free. My God, I sound cheap. (I’m writing this while having the free afternoon tea, which goes from 3:00 till 6:00, when the HH kicks in)
Having checked in, we took the complimentary hotel river shuttle to Saphan Taksin. The terminal for the sky train, which we took to the Siam Paragon Centre – Bangkok’s largest shopping mal, where we spent a couple of hours checking out shoes, handbags, clothes and on the third floor, the car dealers. It was pretty spectacular, but nothing caught our eye, so we caught the sky train to Silom Road and Pattpong to check out the local market. We wandered around it for a while, but it was obvious that the days of shopping in those sorts of markets are behind us, so we caught the Sky Train and the complimentary shuttle back to the Hilton, where we thought we’d check out the happy hour before heading out somewhere for dinner. Once we found out how happy the HH was, our plans for the evening were well and truly put paid to.
Cambodia has just implemented a new law making wearing crash helmets compulsory. I read in the paper yesterday morning that they’d had a blitz the previous day and had netted 138 people who weren’t complying with the new law and fined that 3000 Rial, or $US0.73 (73 cents). Given that a helmet costs $US18-20 if you’re of a mind not to wear one, it would take up a lot of fines to make up the cost of a helmet. I decided that 138 offenders was a particularly poor effort on behalf of the law enforcement agencies as I counted over 150 in only 5 minutes on the way to the airport.
In Bangkok, we caught a cab from the airport and as part of the price got a heavily reduced price on a city and temples tour the following day. The last time we went from Bangkok Airport into the city, it took us an hour and a half through overcrowded streets with people on scooters 2, 3 and 4-up and with lots of beggars and shanty towns on the side of the road. In the interim, a new airport has been built on the other side of town, with a 6 lane freeway running all the way into town. The trip took 35 minutes.
We are staying at the Millenium Hilton beside the river and have got an executive level room which is higher up the building and has certain perks included in the price. This was an excellent upgrade as it gives us access to the executive lounge where we get free broadband internet, complimentary morning and afternoon tea, breakfast, 2 items of clothing laundered per person per day and here’s the kicker – happy hour. Well I tell you, this is the ultimate happy hour – 6:00 till 8:30PM, free drinks and hot nibbles provided – dining El Cheapo we call it. By the time we’ve had 4 glasses of wine each and been back to the nibbles bar half a dozen times, we’re well fed and watered. This perk is made even more appealing when you realize that the hotel restaurant downstairs doesn’t have a bottle of wine under $NZ100 and a Sileni Rosé is $NZ135 a bottle. I could just about get a case for that price at home, so the Executive Lounge is providing an alcoholic lifeline to us. “It’s not the drinking, it’s the way we’re drinking”, and there is no better way than free. My God, I sound cheap. (I’m writing this while having the free afternoon tea, which goes from 3:00 till 6:00, when the HH kicks in)
Having checked in, we took the complimentary hotel river shuttle to Saphan Taksin. The terminal for the sky train, which we took to the Siam Paragon Centre – Bangkok’s largest shopping mal, where we spent a couple of hours checking out shoes, handbags, clothes and on the third floor, the car dealers. It was pretty spectacular, but nothing caught our eye, so we caught the sky train to Silom Road and Pattpong to check out the local market. We wandered around it for a while, but it was obvious that the days of shopping in those sorts of markets are behind us, so we caught the Sky Train and the complimentary shuttle back to the Hilton, where we thought we’d check out the happy hour before heading out somewhere for dinner. Once we found out how happy the HH was, our plans for the evening were well and truly put paid to.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Day 9 – Tuesday 6th January – The Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda
I forgot to mention the price of yesterday’s lunch - $US0.25 each for a good sized plates of noodles with chicken. You pay $US1 for a can of Coca Cola, but virtually nothing for the actual food. Dinner was on the roof top bar of our hotel – fabulous.
I am writing this in Bangkok, on the last leg of the trip. I am writing from the executive lounge on the 31st floor of the Millennium Hilton hotel during the 6-8:30om Happy Hour (more about that later – it’s a highlight). It’s 7pm and dark and the night lights are absolutely brilliant. We were last in Bangkok 20 years ago and in that time it has been transformed from a dirty, poor, bustling city full of beggars, two stroke motorbikes, copy watches and only a few high rises into a beautiful modern city with a night time skyline to match any city in the world. Beneath me, on the river, the ferries and dinner cruisers which are all brilliantly lit up are crusing up and down. There are some local feries that are shaped and lit up like pagodas and they look brilliant as they pirouette around on the river as they maneuver towards their docking stations. Anne is just videoing it, so I’ll put it up on the site for you to see it. It’s awesome.
The sight seeing today was a lot easier (back to 6th January), as we only had to walk down the road about 400m to the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. The Royal Palace is beautiful, with lots of gold tile roofed buildings, detailed carvings, frescoes, temples, and tombs. The Silver Pagoda is so named because the floor of the temple is made of 5,000 1 kg silver covered floor tiles. It sounds impressive, but in reality all the impressive stuff is the decoration on the outside of the buildings.
The Cambodian Government is struggling to pay the upkeep on these beautiful buildings. The Russians did quite a lot of work to help out a few years ago (there is a lot of foreign aid in Cambodia – UNESCO, the UN itself and many other aid organisations are very common sites around Phnom Penh). The Japanese government is building a $US20m drainage system in Phnom Penh to stop the central city flooding in the monsoon season. They also rebuilt one of the bridges destroyed during one of the many military campaigns and it is know as the Japanese Friendship Bridge. We also read about a bunch of American school children that raised $US30,000 to build a 500 children school in one of the provinces. The American organisers who range in age from 13-15 had just been in Cambodia to open the school, so quite a lot of people are doing their bit to help them out.
The weather in Phnom Penh has been absolutely brilliant, clear blue skies and really hot. It makes for great photos, but we’re also glad that there was a bit of cloud cover in Siem Reap, as all the walking would have been very hard work in this heat.
A hard cased drinks seller approached us on our way to the Palace - a young girl of about 10. She asked us “Where are you from? England – Lovely Jubblies. No? Australia? A deengoes got ma baybay” We just cracked up – the accent and the phrases were hilarious. We bought a bottle of water from her just for the comedy routine that came with it.
We’ve been doing some bargaining in the markets, when we buy stuff, although not terribly much, as the first price they mention sounds so reasonable. They expect it though, so we do it as much to be polite as anything else and the banter is a lot of fun. They’re all very friendly and in the main seem reasonably comfortably off, but still probably 15-20 years behind where Thailand (or Bangkok anyway) is.
Our cab driver says that he likes New Zealanders and Australians as we are always so friendly. I thought he was just saying it, until I saw the way that some other nationalities treat the local people – European mainly, but it’s pretty appalling. They are very condescending.
Our hotel advertises itself as being Carbon zero hotel, although I can’t see that it’s any different from any other hotel that I’ve been in recently – flat screen television, little card about re-using towels that gets consistently ignored everyday by the house staff, even if we hang the towels up. I think the most carbon zero thing about the place must be the remote control that opens and closes the curtains – forget the carbon zero, there are so many remote controls it’s certainly effort zero.
The hotel is really fantastic, but I was a bit distressed when I crossed the street to take a photo of its exterior. Take a look for yourself, it would have to be the most architecturally unsympathetic addition to any neighbourhood you could imagine. The buildings on either side of it are identical, with nice balconies and flowers and wooden doorways, and then along comes our lot and plonks this minimalist white thing right in the middle of it. They could have made the exterior façade look like the rest of the street and still had the interior the way they want it. Never mind, that what happens in these sorts of places – good town planning.
We had dinner and a bottle of wine at the Foreign Correspondents Club. This place is a local institution - a friend from New York, even wrote to insist that we drop in there for a drink. Both the Siem Reap and Phnom Penh hotels are owned by FCC, but the original FCC, where we are having dinner started during one of the civil or Vietnam wars and was the watering hole obviously of the foreign journalists. It is an open air restaurant / bar on the second and third floors of a French colonial building. It has bar stools all round the sides and big leather chairs in the middle. You can sit on the bar stools and watch the coming and goings on the Mekong River, or just relax in the arm chairs.
I am writing this in Bangkok, on the last leg of the trip. I am writing from the executive lounge on the 31st floor of the Millennium Hilton hotel during the 6-8:30om Happy Hour (more about that later – it’s a highlight). It’s 7pm and dark and the night lights are absolutely brilliant. We were last in Bangkok 20 years ago and in that time it has been transformed from a dirty, poor, bustling city full of beggars, two stroke motorbikes, copy watches and only a few high rises into a beautiful modern city with a night time skyline to match any city in the world. Beneath me, on the river, the ferries and dinner cruisers which are all brilliantly lit up are crusing up and down. There are some local feries that are shaped and lit up like pagodas and they look brilliant as they pirouette around on the river as they maneuver towards their docking stations. Anne is just videoing it, so I’ll put it up on the site for you to see it. It’s awesome.
The sight seeing today was a lot easier (back to 6th January), as we only had to walk down the road about 400m to the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. The Royal Palace is beautiful, with lots of gold tile roofed buildings, detailed carvings, frescoes, temples, and tombs. The Silver Pagoda is so named because the floor of the temple is made of 5,000 1 kg silver covered floor tiles. It sounds impressive, but in reality all the impressive stuff is the decoration on the outside of the buildings.
The Cambodian Government is struggling to pay the upkeep on these beautiful buildings. The Russians did quite a lot of work to help out a few years ago (there is a lot of foreign aid in Cambodia – UNESCO, the UN itself and many other aid organisations are very common sites around Phnom Penh). The Japanese government is building a $US20m drainage system in Phnom Penh to stop the central city flooding in the monsoon season. They also rebuilt one of the bridges destroyed during one of the many military campaigns and it is know as the Japanese Friendship Bridge. We also read about a bunch of American school children that raised $US30,000 to build a 500 children school in one of the provinces. The American organisers who range in age from 13-15 had just been in Cambodia to open the school, so quite a lot of people are doing their bit to help them out.
The weather in Phnom Penh has been absolutely brilliant, clear blue skies and really hot. It makes for great photos, but we’re also glad that there was a bit of cloud cover in Siem Reap, as all the walking would have been very hard work in this heat.
A hard cased drinks seller approached us on our way to the Palace - a young girl of about 10. She asked us “Where are you from? England – Lovely Jubblies. No? Australia? A deengoes got ma baybay” We just cracked up – the accent and the phrases were hilarious. We bought a bottle of water from her just for the comedy routine that came with it.
We’ve been doing some bargaining in the markets, when we buy stuff, although not terribly much, as the first price they mention sounds so reasonable. They expect it though, so we do it as much to be polite as anything else and the banter is a lot of fun. They’re all very friendly and in the main seem reasonably comfortably off, but still probably 15-20 years behind where Thailand (or Bangkok anyway) is.
Our cab driver says that he likes New Zealanders and Australians as we are always so friendly. I thought he was just saying it, until I saw the way that some other nationalities treat the local people – European mainly, but it’s pretty appalling. They are very condescending.
Our hotel advertises itself as being Carbon zero hotel, although I can’t see that it’s any different from any other hotel that I’ve been in recently – flat screen television, little card about re-using towels that gets consistently ignored everyday by the house staff, even if we hang the towels up. I think the most carbon zero thing about the place must be the remote control that opens and closes the curtains – forget the carbon zero, there are so many remote controls it’s certainly effort zero.
The hotel is really fantastic, but I was a bit distressed when I crossed the street to take a photo of its exterior. Take a look for yourself, it would have to be the most architecturally unsympathetic addition to any neighbourhood you could imagine. The buildings on either side of it are identical, with nice balconies and flowers and wooden doorways, and then along comes our lot and plonks this minimalist white thing right in the middle of it. They could have made the exterior façade look like the rest of the street and still had the interior the way they want it. Never mind, that what happens in these sorts of places – good town planning.
We had dinner and a bottle of wine at the Foreign Correspondents Club. This place is a local institution - a friend from New York, even wrote to insist that we drop in there for a drink. Both the Siem Reap and Phnom Penh hotels are owned by FCC, but the original FCC, where we are having dinner started during one of the civil or Vietnam wars and was the watering hole obviously of the foreign journalists. It is an open air restaurant / bar on the second and third floors of a French colonial building. It has bar stools all round the sides and big leather chairs in the middle. You can sit on the bar stools and watch the coming and goings on the Mekong River, or just relax in the arm chairs.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Day 8 – Monday 5th January – Cheoung Ek – “The Killing Fields”
We did Yesterday’s trip on a Tuk Tuk, which was a great way to travel around. Nice and slow, you’re right in amongst the traffic and you get to see lots. Today we have taken a taxi because The Killing Fields are 15kms outside of Phnom Penh.
The Cheoung Ek Genocidal Centre, the official name of The Killing Fields was much smaller that I had expected and although there are fields around Cheoung Ek, the actual sites of where the killing took place and where the mass graves are located is only a few acres – probably less than 10.
Today there is a large memorial to the victims. It is filled with the skulls of the people whose remains have been removed from those mass graves that have been exumed. Despite the sound of it, it isn’t morbid and the actual site has a bizarrely tranquil feel to it. Most of the buildings that were there when it was in operation have been removed. They were very temporary structures – wood and iron and have not been maintained.
One of the concerning things in Cambodia is that Cheoung Ek has been sold to a Japanese company and the operation of the temples at Siem Reap is handled by another foreign company for 17% of the takings. Cambodia is a poor country, but it seems that they are selling their history and heritage.
Anyway, after Cheoung Ek, we visited the Russian Market, where we found some more silk things that we liked, oh and a silver bracelet at the book store at Cheoung Ek. We had an awesome noodle lunch at a stall in the Russian Market and then went to the National Museum. The National Museum was really cool – it’s not too big and in a fairly open building, so it’s nice and cool. The building, which you can see photos of, is built as a quadrangle round a beautiful garden, so we got some great photos – all for the price of $1US and having to wear a goofy ID card.
We had dinner on the roof top bar of our hotel – awesome.
The Cheoung Ek Genocidal Centre, the official name of The Killing Fields was much smaller that I had expected and although there are fields around Cheoung Ek, the actual sites of where the killing took place and where the mass graves are located is only a few acres – probably less than 10.
Today there is a large memorial to the victims. It is filled with the skulls of the people whose remains have been removed from those mass graves that have been exumed. Despite the sound of it, it isn’t morbid and the actual site has a bizarrely tranquil feel to it. Most of the buildings that were there when it was in operation have been removed. They were very temporary structures – wood and iron and have not been maintained.
One of the concerning things in Cambodia is that Cheoung Ek has been sold to a Japanese company and the operation of the temples at Siem Reap is handled by another foreign company for 17% of the takings. Cambodia is a poor country, but it seems that they are selling their history and heritage.
Anyway, after Cheoung Ek, we visited the Russian Market, where we found some more silk things that we liked, oh and a silver bracelet at the book store at Cheoung Ek. We had an awesome noodle lunch at a stall in the Russian Market and then went to the National Museum. The National Museum was really cool – it’s not too big and in a fairly open building, so it’s nice and cool. The building, which you can see photos of, is built as a quadrangle round a beautiful garden, so we got some great photos – all for the price of $1US and having to wear a goofy ID card.
We had dinner on the roof top bar of our hotel – awesome.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Day 7 – Sunday 4th January – S-21 Toul Sleng
In 1969, the US carpet bombed the Cambodian border zones because the Viet Cong had bases there. This bombing later spread to the whole country. In 1970 Cambodia entered a 5 year civil war after the government was overthrown by the Military leader Lon Nol. The deposed government (who was led by the former King) got aligned with the guerillas of the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot. Because of the civil war, violence and shortages, many people moved from the countryside into the cities in search of a new and better life. Others joined the Khmer Rouge to take on the military regime On the 17th of April 1975 the Khmer Rouge seized power in Phnom Penh. Pol Pot’s model state was to be run by the peasants for the peasants. There were “base” people and “new” people. The base people were the country peasants and the new people were the city dwellers (including those who had moved there during the civil war), intellectuals, diplomats, business leaders.
Pol Pot cleared Phnom Penh and within a month of his taking power it was basically a ghost town. He also abolished the monetary system and people were fed based on their work, hence the population were tied to the place that the government decided they should work. The “new” people were arrested and made to confess their “crimes”. When asked their profession, people who refused to answer were killed. People who admitted to be doctors, engineers, academics etc, were killed along with all their family members under the moto “to change the grass, first you have to kill the roots”.
In Phnom Penh, a former school in a residential suburb was converted into a detention centre known as security office 21 or S-21. Today it is the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum. The buildings in the complex were given simple names – buildings A to D. Building A was where people were tortured, the other buildings were where they were imprisoned. In building A, on the tour, were some implements of torture in each of the class rooms and some black and white photos of how the fourteen final victims were found when the Vietnamese took over Phnom Penh on 7th January 1979. Those 14 victims are now buried in the central courtyard of Toul Sleng. The pictures and exhibits created a very powerful depiction of what went on in the prison for four years.
The school class rooms in the other buildings were converted to prison cells. On level 1 were bricked wall cells – 80cm by 2m – tiny. The doors are only just big enough for us to get through. There were 11 tiny cells in each small class room. On level 2, were similar cells, but made of wood and on level 3, the top level, there were just standard class rooms where the prisoners were shackled together on the floor. Only building C is still completely intact the way that it was when the city was liberated, with the tiny cells and the barbed wire fences. The barbed wire was to stop the prisoners trying to commit suicide by throwing themselves off the balconies.
People stayed in S-21 from a number of weeks to up to 7 or 8 months. All of them were photographed and had their confessions documented. These photographs now make up the rather harrowing displays that you see while visiting Toul Sleng. This meticulous documentation was the same process as used by the Nazis in their concentration camps. Originally, it was the “new” people who were processed there, but as the regime became more and more paranoid, they started terminating their own people. There is talk of “generations” of guards, as the existing guards were exterminated and replaced with new guards, who then met with the same fate.
There are now exhibitions in Toul Sleng showing people who lived through Pol Pot’s regime, there thoughts of life at that time, tales of the fate fo some of their family members and recent pictures of where they are now. There were also pictures and tales of some of the people who worked at S-21.
S-21 is one of 167 security offices throughout Cambodia, there are 343 killing sites that contain nearly 20,000 mass graves throughout the country. There is no absolute figure for how many people were killed during the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror, but estimates are between 1 and 3 million people and as a percentage of the population, it is the worst case of genocide recorded. Our guide had lost virtually all of her family during those 4 years.
At the time of liberating S-21 there were 7 survivors, but more than 17,000 people had been “processed” through the system. The 7 were allowed to survive because they had skills that could be used – a carver, factory worker etc. As we were doing our tour, our guide told us that they grey haired guide taking the couple around behind us was one of those 7. Most people weren’t killed in S-21, although many did die there of starvation. They were taken to Choeung Ek, “the killing fields” to be brutally clubbed to death.
The Pol Pot regime was in power for less than 4 years, but in that time they turned an entire country into a “prison without walls”. They destroyed many of the cultural icons of the country and murdered or starved to death a large portion of the population. There were rumours of the atrocities being committed, but it wasn’t until the country was liberated in 1979 that the extent of the atrocities became apparent.
Cambodia is still grappling with its past. Pol Pot was eventually captured, but died before standing trial. The trial of 10 people is currently in process, but is a laboured process and it is doubtful that any of these now old men will ever see court or punishment.
Pol Pot cleared Phnom Penh and within a month of his taking power it was basically a ghost town. He also abolished the monetary system and people were fed based on their work, hence the population were tied to the place that the government decided they should work. The “new” people were arrested and made to confess their “crimes”. When asked their profession, people who refused to answer were killed. People who admitted to be doctors, engineers, academics etc, were killed along with all their family members under the moto “to change the grass, first you have to kill the roots”.
In Phnom Penh, a former school in a residential suburb was converted into a detention centre known as security office 21 or S-21. Today it is the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum. The buildings in the complex were given simple names – buildings A to D. Building A was where people were tortured, the other buildings were where they were imprisoned. In building A, on the tour, were some implements of torture in each of the class rooms and some black and white photos of how the fourteen final victims were found when the Vietnamese took over Phnom Penh on 7th January 1979. Those 14 victims are now buried in the central courtyard of Toul Sleng. The pictures and exhibits created a very powerful depiction of what went on in the prison for four years.
The school class rooms in the other buildings were converted to prison cells. On level 1 were bricked wall cells – 80cm by 2m – tiny. The doors are only just big enough for us to get through. There were 11 tiny cells in each small class room. On level 2, were similar cells, but made of wood and on level 3, the top level, there were just standard class rooms where the prisoners were shackled together on the floor. Only building C is still completely intact the way that it was when the city was liberated, with the tiny cells and the barbed wire fences. The barbed wire was to stop the prisoners trying to commit suicide by throwing themselves off the balconies.
People stayed in S-21 from a number of weeks to up to 7 or 8 months. All of them were photographed and had their confessions documented. These photographs now make up the rather harrowing displays that you see while visiting Toul Sleng. This meticulous documentation was the same process as used by the Nazis in their concentration camps. Originally, it was the “new” people who were processed there, but as the regime became more and more paranoid, they started terminating their own people. There is talk of “generations” of guards, as the existing guards were exterminated and replaced with new guards, who then met with the same fate.
There are now exhibitions in Toul Sleng showing people who lived through Pol Pot’s regime, there thoughts of life at that time, tales of the fate fo some of their family members and recent pictures of where they are now. There were also pictures and tales of some of the people who worked at S-21.
S-21 is one of 167 security offices throughout Cambodia, there are 343 killing sites that contain nearly 20,000 mass graves throughout the country. There is no absolute figure for how many people were killed during the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror, but estimates are between 1 and 3 million people and as a percentage of the population, it is the worst case of genocide recorded. Our guide had lost virtually all of her family during those 4 years.
At the time of liberating S-21 there were 7 survivors, but more than 17,000 people had been “processed” through the system. The 7 were allowed to survive because they had skills that could be used – a carver, factory worker etc. As we were doing our tour, our guide told us that they grey haired guide taking the couple around behind us was one of those 7. Most people weren’t killed in S-21, although many did die there of starvation. They were taken to Choeung Ek, “the killing fields” to be brutally clubbed to death.
The Pol Pot regime was in power for less than 4 years, but in that time they turned an entire country into a “prison without walls”. They destroyed many of the cultural icons of the country and murdered or starved to death a large portion of the population. There were rumours of the atrocities being committed, but it wasn’t until the country was liberated in 1979 that the extent of the atrocities became apparent.
Cambodia is still grappling with its past. Pol Pot was eventually captured, but died before standing trial. The trial of 10 people is currently in process, but is a laboured process and it is doubtful that any of these now old men will ever see court or punishment.
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