Ceci n'est pas un Asia blog - English Version: September 2010

Sihanouk Ville

In Asia, patience as a virtue is of particular value. After visiting the unique temples of Angkor Kwat on our last day in Siem Riep, we decided to get a little closer to our island and drove 12 hours yesterday from Siemp Riep to Sihanouk Ville in Southern Cambodia - a coastal town near the border to Vietnam. This morning, we boarded an old wooden ship with 11 other travelers and wandered through the waves of the Thailand gulf for two hours (half got sea sick). We eventually reached a tropical archipelago, where three of us went for a dip while others went snorkeling. Since Imke had gotten her diving license in Oman, she was part of the scuba diving group. The snorkel group had fun too! A wonderful water world populates the Coral Reef. Fish and coral of all sizes and colors of the spectrum bathe in the crystal clear water.
The two dives at different sites were ended by lunch on one of the islands. We let our souls relax in a hammock.
The group was amusing: French, Belgian, Chinese, and Spanish. The two Frenchmen, both from Paris, are staying at the same cheap hotel as us ($6 per room, cold shower, no AC), where we met the night before. Imke and I got invited to spend a weekend in Paris. Besides this invitation, they are a very nice couple who have been traveling and diving around the world together for 34 years.
But not everything is sunshine here in Cambodia. The rain is still very pleasant, especially since it only appears sporadically and briefly from the clouds. Cambodia fulfilled its southeastern cliche as a destination for sex tourists. In short: Dollars will allow you to do whatever you want. Whether it be shooting cows with bazookas (if you hit a cow, you have to pay for it), “Sir, Tuk Tuk, please?”, or the repulsive phenomenon of poorly tattooed men looking for the charismatic girls who pay on a daily basis. The mutilated red Khmer, or mine workers, only see a small fraction of these dollars.
When one travels, one becomes part of this world, with all of its bright sides- and dark sides. It is sometimes a challenge, but always enriching, and an an opportunity to find one’s own standpoint.
Tomorrow, we are going to Kep, a little further south on the west coast. From there, we go directly to Koh Thonsay, where we will spend 3 or 4 days back in a bamboo hut on the beach.

Koh Thonsay / Kampot

Deutsche

In the last 4 days, I’ve been on a tropical island, wandered through the rain forest, explored a ghost town, climbed through a cave, and hurled through a pepper plantation.

On the train from Sihanouk Ville, we met up again in the minibus with a French couple from Paris. They had spontaneously decided to accompany us to the island of Koh Thonsay, which we sailed to on a small boat from Kep. A gorgeous tropical island with a jungle in the center, surrounded by beautiful sandy beaches and rocks.
We passed rows of bamboo huts, each operated by a different family. For $7 a night, you get a bamboo hut with a small bathroom-the whole shed all to yourself. Obviously, no light, but with a large barrel and trowel to serve as a rinse.

Unfortunately, our stay wasn’t as long as I would have liked. The first reason was purely pragmatic: we didn’t have enough money. The second reason is that Imke did not like it as much as I did. My hope for the traditional bamboo hut experience, combined with a cool place to sleep, was quickly disillusioned. Sweat lodge would maybe be a good term to describe it. I also had an unpleasant encounter with a cockroach under my pillow. What do you expect when through the floor boards, you see chickens running everywhere.
Nevertheless, it was a wonderful trip, exploring the island together with the French couple, sitting on the beach at sunset, drinking out of a freshly opened coconut and reading in the hammock to cool down.
The return trip proved to be much more difficult than the trip there. As the high waves from the sea struck the day, we had to ecape to a small beaach on teh other side ofthe island, where a boat would then take us to the mainland.
The trip was, to say the least, an adventure - getting soaked to the bone, but we made it to Kep. You just have to convince yourself that the captain knows what he’s doing in this weather on this little rocking boat.
From Kep, we went directly to Kampot, where I am now, in an cyber cafe. Yesterday, we had one of the highlights of our trip. In a multicultural group of 16, including the 2 French, we road on the back of a truck in the Bokor National Park. After about a half hour going over the switchbacks, we continued on foot through the rainforest.
The continuous rain was more authentic, whose strength could not be stopped by the dense thicket of leaves. The second day, we got soaked to the bone. But this time, it was an unforgettable adventure that tied our group together. The armed rangers’ fast pace and the wild mountainous terrain unfortunately left us with little time to enjoy the wildlife. The park is home to tigers, wild elephants and many other animals, but nearly half the group only noticed the leeches. Imke got some on her thigh despite wearing long pants, and I got some myself on my calf.
After two hours in the rainforest, we were back at the road, and picked up by the truck. The destination was the remote ghost town of Bokor Hill, built in the 1920s by the French as a retreat for the wealthy. The casino and the church, the two main buildings, were given up by the French in the first Indo-Chinese war, and used as a strategic base from the 70s to the 90s by the Red Khmer. Located in the clouds, it was truly an eerie experience to wander around the premises of the strip of abandoned casinos. The way back to the loading area and throuhg the jungle turned out rain free, although bumpy and difficult. Covered in mud and drenched in a mixture of rain and sweat, the day ended with a boad ride on the river into the sunset.

This morning, Imke and I, as well as the French couple, were picked up by a Tuk Tuk which we rode around the villages until the early afternoon. We stopped in a cave, and Matthias and I climbed through the dark and mysterious tunnels. With the soothing feeling of the sweaty conquest of a cave that surely no man had entered before, we ended on a pepper plantation, home of the shrubs of the famous Kampot pepper. As a side note: Fresh, still green pepper straight off the bush, has a pleasant and not too hot taste. The dried Kampot pepper has a very peculiar taste, quote: “The aroma of black pepper is intense, with a slight eucalyptus note, with an after taste of thyme and mint, and a pleasant characteristic pungency” - The incomparable cuisine of Kornstrasse 9 in Sulingen will be happy with the return of their lost son with half a pound of fresh pepper straight from the plantation.
Now, I will go back to the streets of Kampot and test the feeling of traveling alone. Imke will fly back next Friday from Phnom Penh to Dubai. Tomorrow, we will either go to Takeo, between Kampot and the capital, or directly to Phnom Penh.

Atrocities

Deutsche

Straight from the killing fields and the Red Khmer S.21 prison. The prisoners of S.21 had to endure untold sufferings before being sent for execution at the killing fields. 86 mass graves have already been exhumed, where skeletons were found, many headless and without clothes. In the trees, loud speakers hung, playing the music of the agonizing people’s screams. After execution, the emaciated bodies were thrown from the .8 x 2.0 m cells into the mass grave at Choeung Ek. The narrow paths you step on are covered with the remains of clothes and teeth.

S.21 Toture Cells

Cambodia is at a crossroads between corruption and strengthening of the rich at the detriment of the poor, and a new generation of intellectual elite who may overcome this gap initiated by the Red Khmer peasant state. The ironic cries of children playing in a school by the killing fields gives hope that the latter will prevail.