Sihanouk Ville

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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

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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

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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.

Impressions

Impressions from our recent trip.

Sunset in Ankhor

Ta Prom

Angkor Wat

Sunset on Koh Thonsay

Clement in an abandoned casino in the clouds.

Backpacking

Ceci n'est pas un(e)...

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As the name of this blog Ceci n’est pas un Asia Blog may cause some confusion, at this point in the blog, a brief digression into art history and philosophy shall clarify the reference to René Magritte.
Ceci n’est pas une pipe - this is not a pipe*. Magritte presents the observer with a pipe as the image of an object existing in reality. But, according to him, this object, when captured in oil on an empty two-dimensional canvas, is not the pipe anymore as it originally was, and is therefore not available in its originial context.
The everyday object is converted into a piece of art, thus acquiring a new context.
This is not an Asia Blog plays with the fact that my written words are only a reflection of what I actually experience. The experience is transformed through the words and plays a similar role for the reader (recipient) as Magritte’s pipe.
Moreover, it is the connection between language/character and imagery that Magritte is concerned with here - word and image are not directly connected. “What Magritte renders with such visible strangeness is symbolized through the non-relationship - or at least the very complex and random relationship - between the painting and its title”. says Michel Foucault in his same titled book Ceci n’est pas une pipe (1973).
Magritte himself writes about his work: “the titles themselves are selected such that my painting cannot be put in a familiar place, which the mind automatically wishes to create in order to avoid uneasiness”. Here, he assumes that the mind acts automatically, to not have to constantly deal with the “uneasiness” it must face in everyday life.
Similar to the Brechtian alienation (where an action [in theater] is interrupted by a commentary or song to destroy any illusion the audience may have), the recipient is thus forced to consciously use his/her mind and question it. If one were to imagine the painting without caption, the pipe is nothing but the mere picture of a pipe.

Back to the context of this blog. My written word, or someone else’s written word, is processed by the individual and each reader produces a different subjective representation. The integration into the Internet medium and the framework of the blog promotes accessibility to readers. But this will ideally be broken in a similar way by the allusion to Magritte’s work.

*René Magritte, Ceci n'est pas une pipe, Oil on canvas, 63.5 × 93.98 cm, 1929, Los Angeles, County Museum of Art, The William R. Hearst Coll.
Photo Credit: http://www.library.yale.edu/librarynews/ceci-n-est-pas-une-pipe.jpg

Angkor

There are things worth getting up at 5 O'clock in the morning for: the sun rising over one of the many lakes in Angkor is one of those moments in life that you never forget. The temple complex, built in the 12th Century, is much larger than I would have expected. Buildings and ruins are scattered throughout the jungle - you climb old stairs to the top of the temple and get a view of the jungle, get lost in stone hallways, marvel at the various relief sculptures, while butterflies flutter about showcasing all colors of the rainbow.

The jungle ambiance : the smell of fresh rain, the noises of unknown animals in the canopy. Witnessing the fusion of architecture and nature is indescribable. It's definitely one of the most beautiful experiences I've had.

One thing that does slightly hamper the experience : I need to correct what I said in the previous post... It is actually very hot!

Tomorrow we will go back to Angkor and this time we will visit the most famous temple there: Angkor Wat. It will probably be very busy, as many tourists from all nations abound in this region. The advantage this morning was the early time - Imke and I were almost entirely alone at the temples, which made the visit all the more enjoyable. According to Tuk-Tuk drivers Angkor Wat is pretty much packed at all times of day. A tip for any reader who might want to go someday: follow the tourguide or the tuk-tuk driver's advice, and do the visits in reverse order! Then you will get the first sights all to yourself.

Another addendum to yesterday : I lost $2 playing pool against the locals. An interesting variant in which all players (in this case, there were four players) get a certain number of cards. Each card represents the value of a ball (jack = 10, etc.), and the objective is to sink the balls corresponding to your cards - after each ball you sink you "play" the corresponding card. If an opponent has already played that card, it's worthless. Whoever has played the most cards wins. The next game is started by the winner of the first round. The order of the following players seems to be guided by the cards. For more detailed rules, the language barrier was too great and my budget too small.

The Cambodians in general are very friendly. You'll do well if you like smiles! Here you can reach agreements in prices, trades or other daily situations, with a winning smile. And since the Cambodians smile so much, I am doing it too!

I does feel a bit like India, when it comes to city structures, sensory impressions and the type of communication. But there is one crucial difference: The rickshaws here are called Tuk-Tuk :)

Siem Reap, Cambodia

It was a real Odyssey, but last night we finally arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia. 27 hours of travel including plane to Bangkok, bus to the Thailand/Cambodia border, and cab to Siem Reap.



The bus from Bangkok to Aranya Prathat, the bustling border town between Thailand and Cambodia was our first opportunity to take a look at the country and its people - without the hustle and bustle of Bangkok. Once at the border town, we fell prey to our first scam. There are countless ways to obtain a visa on arrival - and of course the tuk-tuk driver brings us precisely to the places where you pay more. This particular scam is described in the guide books, but we still did not catch on. We *could* go to the Cambodian consulate across the border, but can it be trusted? No. Even at the border they asked us for more money.
When we were done with all the border controls behind us, we had to take cover under a shed, as heavy monsoon rain started. There, a bit of luck : Harald, a student at a vocation school in Ulm (Germany) joined us and asked if we would be interested in sharing a taxi to Siem Reap (the major city next to Angkor Wat). It was his second time in Cambodia, and he was traveling alone.
So here we are! We both still have trouble believing it.
We will now explore the city for a bit. The weather is quite pleasant, with temperatures around 30 deg. C (86 deg. F) and the humidity at about 80%. The only thing that really takes some getting used to is the torrential rain that floods the streets every day.
This afternoon we will take a tuk-tuk to Angor Kwat, to enjoy the sunset and buy the tickets for the next two days.
I will be writing more in the next posts about the country of Cambodia and its culture. The Khmer vegetarian curry last night has me convinced already on the culinary side.