The Road to China Pt.1, AKA Farewell to Laos

On March 29 I awoke early to steady rain and cold conditions in Luang Prabang. This was not the ideal day to make a seven hour riverboat ride, but that is what I had planned and I was not about to change my mind.

I caught a tuktuk down to the boat ramp on the Mekong and boarded a small longtail boat, taking the last available seat near the motor. As I got "comfortable" in my makeshift wooden stool of a seat, I watched as a British girl and her boyfriend approached another boat in our group of three and inquired in disgust whether she indeed had to sit in "that" for seven hours. She went on to declare how she hated "these people" and continued to complain loudly. I wondered to myself whether some people come here truly expecting the comforts of home, such as padded seats and boats with enclosed cabins (which this one certainly had not).

This girl represents only one type of stereotypical annoying travelers, the one which I label, "Spoiled Girl whose boyfriend convinced her to come to SE Asia, and it is just not working out." I will make a more exhaustive list of 'the archetypes of travelers whom I disdain' at some later time.

Returning from my tangent, we departed the boat ramp shortly after 9:00am and proceeded to motor up the Mekong at a decent if not swift pace. Immediately I, and my fellow passengers, realized just how miserably cold and wet this trip would be. I, wearing my polypropolene long sleeve, added another layer with my thin but colorful sweater and warm wool paperboy's cap. The wind kept blowing right through me though, and I soon added the only remaining piece of warmth I had, a thin silk scarf that I wrapped around my neck and face. When even that failed to retain an adequate amount of body heat, I resigned myself to the fact that I would be cold for the next seven hours.

The boat contained an awning that protected us from rain of the vertical persuasion, but when the rain and spray from the water come from a more horizontal angle, it does not much good. What the boat lacked in warmth and protection from the weather however, it made up for in the views of the terrain that it offered. Although my ability to appreciate beauty was compromised with my dropping body temperature, I was able to admire the Karst formations (jagged limestone mountains covered in green), sublime landscapes, and scenes of river village life as we motored up the Mekong than turned off to the North up the Nam Ou river.

For the entire seven hours, as I reckoned with the cold and my failing mental capacities, we stopped only one time, on a remote river bank, to relieve ourselves. I had neglected to eat before leaving, and needless to say there were no restaurants or bodegas along the way. The river kept on and on and I pleaded incessantly with the universe to allow the village of Nong Khiaw to be around the next bend, but it was not, until about 4:30 pm, when we finally motored around a oxbow in the river and there was the town with a bridge spanning the river.

I disembarked in a daze and walked, shivering and jaw clacking, up the hill and across the bridge to the nearest guesthouse, which offered palm and rattan bungalows by the river. I checked in and wrapped myself in every blanket I could find. Once the jitters stopped, I wrapped myself up again and walked across the only road in this village to a small restaurant and got myself some food and coffee. I went to bed early that night.

The next day (yesterday) I was ready to leave for Oudomxay to get onward transport to the Chinese border, but after a breakfast of eggs and sticky rice, I noticed that the clouds were breaking a bit and it was getting downright warm. I decided to stay for another night and enjoy the village and surrounding countryside.

I walked 2.5km to a cave where the villagers hid out during the 5 year carpet bombing of Northeastern Laos during 'Nam. There was a crude concrete stairway built up to the mouth of the U-shaped cave, crude displays detailing where different sectors of the town had set up shop (literally, the town moved into the caves to avoid the bombs), and a rickety if not downright dangerous bamboo ladder to reach the last part of the cave.

After exploring this, I moved on to another cave that was truly cavelike, where you could walk back into total darkness. A little lad saw me coming and insisted on being my guide for 20,000 kip (not nearly as much as it sounds). This was all good and well, because my flashlight was about to die and his was a bit stronger. He showed me in broken English and gestures where people would eat, sleep, and otherwise carry out their lives in the cave, and where the mouth of it had been damaged by bombs, with some of the stalactites having broken off and fallen to the floor.

Happy that I had accomplished something today, I walked back to town and wasted the rest of the afternoon and evening eating, reading, and drinking. I spoke with a Lao tour guide from Vientiane for a while who was hosting a group of French around the country. His sister lives in San Francisco, and he told me there are a whopping 50,000 Lao people living in the US.

This morning I awoke, had some breakfast, and caught a minibus out of the village to Oudomxay, where I now reside for the night. I am only 3 hours from the Chinese border and evidence of that fact is in abundance. This town is unattractive and has nothing to offer the traveler-tourist, but I will be catching a bus to Jinghong, China first thing in the morning.

Good bye Laos! You have been wonderful and my favorite country thus far. Your people are mild-mannered, and if not always cheerful, they are definitely kind and not obsessed with the almighty dollar (or Euro). I will miss thee and hope I can return one day.

my hello kitty party cup of iced coffee in Oudomxay

Luang Prabang: Heart of Laos?

We left Vang Vieng on March 22 in the morning and for the next 7 hours traveled about 200 km on windy (wine-d, not win-d) mountain roads soaring above Karst landscapes. The bus was a bit grungy, but at least we had seats, unlike the unfortunate souls sitting on plastic stools in the aisle for the whole trip. We arrived at the bus station south of LP in the evening and took an over-sized tuktuk downtown, checked into a guesthouse, and finally we were really in Luang Prabang, the predetermined "heart" of mine and Lauren's travels together.

Seven days later, aka this morning, I left LP on a miserable, cold, wet long-tail boat. I'm not really sure what happened in the intervening week, and I won't make you suffer through an excruciating drawn-out attempt at a recap of what happened, because really, not much happened. Luang Prabang was one of those places that is difficult to qualify. I'm not sure what it is about this place that makes it special; perhaps it's the well preserved colonial architecture, or the mountains or rivers that surround it; but when it comes down to it, I can think of lots of places that are more picturesque then this.

It may have something to do with the fact that this was the place I was supposed to meet Peter, so I'm trying to romanticize it more than is appropriate. Either way, there is something special here.

The days there were spent mostly lazily, waking up late, eating, drinking coffee, and maybe seeing a temple. One day both Lauren and I were sick all day with some mysterious illness. We just watched TV and then tried to eat some noodle soup.

We went to a multi-tiered waterfall by sawng thaew (pickup truck) one day with Justine and I got to practice my Spanish with a guy from Argentina. Once there, we hiked around the turquoise pools and up to the top fall, then I jumped off a rope swing into the cold water.

One day we watched the movie 127 hours in a Canadian-owned bookstore. I had heard some people say that they would rather cut their own arm off then watch that movie, but I enjoyed it. Bravo James Franco, some good dark comedy there.

We walked for hours on end around the night craft market and bought some souveniers for some of you people. We had a ceremony for Peter on the banks of the Mekong, then Lauren left the day before I. I saw an old friend from Siem Reap my last night there. Although only three weeks had passed since I had seen her, it seemed like years.

LP was special, and I know that nothing I have said really conveys how. I have not been able to pin down the reasons why it is so, and perhaps it is better that way.

The truth is, I am using a really expensive internet connection in Nong Khiaw, a tiny village north of Luang Prabang. I am going to China tomorrow, if possible, because there is nothing to do here that is not ruined by this pouring rain. And I just spent seven hours in an open boat on a river in the rain. I'm cold and tired and trying to finish this post before I go to China, where I cannot access my blog.

I'm not even sure if people are still reading this. Well, I am in a dark place now, traveling solo again, and I feel all of a sudden like I need to be done with Laos. Not because Laos has wronged me, but because it just seems like the time, and I have a schedule to keep (approximatively 13 countries to go).

I am setting up a new email address to keep in touch with me in China: brett.allin@hotmail.com (easy enough to remember). I will try to have someone post for me by proxy for my time in China.

And I will post pictures in due time. Ok, y'all be safe now.

[EDIT]

And I ended up staying in this pleasant village for another day so I have time to add some photos. The sun has come out and I'm no longer on the verge of hypothermia. Here they are:

Dragon, Royal Palace Temple

Bamboo Bridge across river

View South from the hill at sunset

View East from the hill at sunset

Sunset from the hill; tourists love this stuff

Boat across the Mekong (to see some temples)

One of the turquoise pools at the watefall

The main falls

Atop the hill in LP with Peter in mind

City view (the blue vehicle is what we call a 'Sawng Thau')

Into the North

The night bus from Pakse to Vientiane was unremarkable, except perhaps for the tiny "beds". Luckily Lauren and I got our own two-bed sections to ourselves. We slept well enough and awoke upon arrival at the Vientiane bus station in a steady rain. We boarded the back of a very large tuktuk with about 6 other people and our bags and were transported the 4 km into the city center. We got some coffee and breakfast hoping that the rain would let up, then set out on foot looking for a decently priced open room. We lucked out on the adorably dirty Youth Inn. As Lauren caught up on some Zs, I went explorin'.

Vientiane is the capital of Laos, and is rather modest in size in population when compared with other SE Asian capitals. The sights include a replica of the Arc d'Triomphe, a few hundred thousand wat/temples (per usual), and the crumbling French colonial architecture. Unfortunately we only planned to spend one day here before moving further north, so we did not get to see every corner of the city.

I walked up to the National Museum, umbrella in hand, and explored the dark corridors of that old building looking at prehistoric artifacts and exhibits on the modern history of Laos, that have an unmistakable Anti-American zeal to them (it seems that the facts of Lao history have a well-known Anti-American bias; it must have been all those bombs that were illegally dropped here during 'nam). The English translations were a bit shabby, so I mostly just looked at the pictures and revolution-era weapons.

After that I met up with Lauren and we spent the rest of the day walking around, eating and hydrating. Lauren ran into a friend from Bankok with whom we went out that night, also joining up with Justine, the French girl that we had met on the bus from Pakse. We stayed out until closing time, which is about 11:30 p.m. here.

The next day we rushed to get on our 9:30 a.m. bus to Vang Vieng, and then sat until it departed at 10:45. Just a few kilometers north of Vientiane, the road entered a mountain wonderland of Karst formations covered in lush green vegetation. It was a rough and windy road for the rest of the way, but the scenery more than made up for that fact.

A few hours later we arrived in Vang Vieng and were blown away. This place looked like a scene out of the popular American television series Lost. The small town is set next to the Nam Song River in with tall Karst mountains in the background. If you didn't know abot this town, you might say that this could be the most peaceful place on Earth.... but it's not, thanks to Vang Vieng's having been decisively colonized by that subset of the Western travel scene that views their SE Asian adventure as a non-stop party.

What Vang Vieng is known for, the reason why all the young travelers come here and spend several days to several weeks, is the tubing. And when I say "tubing", it does not properly convey what goes on here. I will explain in due time though.

We walked around the main street for a while, paralleling the river and found an open bungalow on the river island which is reached via a crooked and rickety old wooden footbridge, complete with hammocks and mosquito nets (and even an indeterminate number of pet rats). We dropped our stuff then headed back into the centewr of town for some food. I tried the Lao Laap, a spicy meat salad which I will attempt to make when I get home.

After that we witnessed another interesting spectacle in this town. On one street, there is a string or restaurants that play, on a loop, one of two TV shows: Family Guy or Friends. These shows seem to be perfect after a day of tubing on the river, as the travelers come here and lie like zombies in front of the TV, drinking smoothies or beerlao. So we watched Friends and Family Guy for the rest of the day (Ok, maybe not the whole day).

The next day we tried the tubing. You pay the tube mafia, which has a shop in town, about 50,000 kip plus a deposit, and they give you an inflated truck innertube and a ride 3km upriver to the launching point. And then the debauchery begins. Within the first 50 meters of the river, there are approximately 7 bars, all blasting various types of pop music and offering free shots. Most of these places have built large rope swings, where you climb up a tall platform that has been thrown together with two-by-fours and nails, or jury-rigged water slides. These contraptions range in safeness from moderately dangerous to nearly suicidal. We heard that three people have already died this year from collisions between tubers and jumpers. That's the price you must pay to be in the land of no civil suits. Nonetheless I tried one of the ropeswings with no problems.

As you float downriver in your tube, the barmen throw a lifeline out and try to reel you in. This charade continues for the whole 3 km ride back to town. Luckily the bars and restaurants further down river become a bit more low key and less spring-breaky. That is what the experience felt like though: Spring Break year-round.

We got back to town safely, meeting some floating friends along the way. We went out that night with our new tubing friends and ran into Justine again (It is an interesting phenomenon, how you keep seeing the same people along the traveler's trail). I stayed out until 5:00 in the morning in order to fully enjoy the spirit of this place.

The next day we relaxed around town and enjoyed some wholesome American television. Can you guess what we watched? It was all good fun. We bought our bus tickets for the long road to Lunag Prabang, leaving in the morning, and went to bed early.

me with mr. penguin (that's for you mom)

Up to this point, the North of Laos has been quite a different scene. From what we hear, the North has been on the travel map for many years, while the South has stayed relatively untouched until now. We hope that Luang Prabang, 200 km north of here, is not like Vang Vieng, and we're pretty confident that it will not be.

And now indeed we are in Luang Prabang, but I will save that for another time. And by the way, in case you're worried, that 6.8 earthquake in Burma last night was only a couple hundred km away from us; I didn't feel a thing, but apparently Lauren did.

Pakse and Motorbike Adventure on the Bolaven Plateau

The boat and bus trip from Si Phan Don was an uneventful four-hour affair. Upon arrival at the Pakse bus station in the afternoon, we hitched a ride in something that wasn't quite a tuktuk, but rather a moto with a rickety homemade sidecar into which Lauren and I managed to squeeze ourselves and our bags. The ride was jarring. We checked into the Sabaidy Guesthouse and spent the rest of the evening drinking the best coffee I've had yet (it's grown in the highlands near here), walking around town, and getting some local food.

The next morning, February 16, we awoke around 7:00 a.m. and walked down the street to rent a couple motorbikes (we thought it might be better to not keep our proverbial eggs in one basket and instead get two bikes; they were only about $6 per day anyhow). We took a quick ride through town to get some breakfast and more of that stellar coffee, then followed our map and headed for high ground.

The Bolaven Plateau is a region near Pakse with lush green hills that is set a couple thousand feet higher than the rest of the area. We headed up the highway towards Salaven and sped up a bit on the desolate and smooth road. The journey through here was highlighted by small villages and coffee plantations with the backdrop of the Plateau off to our right. The dusty land turned greener and we passed the occasional mountain stream.

After about two hours and 85km, we reached our principle destination for the day, the Tat Lo waterfalls, which is a series of three waterfalls within about 8 km of each other. After hiking a short ways to the second of these cascades (and witnessing a comical old white couple riding an elephant that looked like it was about to dump them in the river), we returned to the parked bikes just in time to see a teenager opening the gas cap to my bike, holding two empty water bottles. He walked away sheepishly and we left with plenty of gas (and that's why you always lock your seat cover).

After a quick lunch in one of the restaurants in the small village near the falls, we headed back up the road towards the third of the falls, Tat Suong. This was by far the most impressive and must have been about 150 feet tall. In the wet season I'm sure the water roars over the edge, but now, nearing the end of the dry season, there is a mere trickle pouring over, and at least half of what flows over gets blown back up in a swirl of mist by the winds rushing up the cliff face. After walking back up the steep slope to the bikes, we headed to the nearest village to fill up the two liter gas tanks so we could take the long way home.

We headed off in the other direction away from Pakse until we reached another highway that headed up further into the highlands. We saw the best scenes of the day on this 125 km stretch back to Pakse as we passed remote villages where the people seemed more intrigued by us. The kids walking back from school all waved and yelled joyful greetings (or perhaps cheeky insults) and we smiled and waved back.

The mountain scenery was beautiful up here, and for the first time in SE Asia I felt cold. The afternoon ride home was peaceful, and once again I had the feeling that this truly is the best way to get off the tourist track and see the country. Lazy clouds rolled across the azure sky and I got that sense of adventure in me that I don't usually feel in the cities or around other travelers.

I was brought back to Earth from these joyful heights when near the end of the 200+ km journey I pulled off the highway to use the bushes, a bit too abruptly, and skidded out on the gravel shoulder (and that's why you always come to a complete stop before pulling into the gravel). I took a nice belly slide into the grass and gravel shoulder but was not injured, aside from some minor abrasions on my hand and a sore thumb. I knew it couldn't be that bad when Lauren pulled up and laughed at me. And kids: that's why you don't try to learn how to ride a motorbike in a foreign country. Don't worry mom and dad, I don't think any of the places north of here rent motorbikes to tourists. I'll just have to get my license when I get back to the States.

We rode cautiously back into the small city of Pakse and returned the bikes (after I removed the grass from the spokes and straightened the front basket). Exhausted from the all-day trip, we had dinner and retired to our room.

Our final day in Pakse we were planning to leave early in the morning for Tha Khaek to begin an arduous three day trek to the allegedly impressive Kong Lo Cave. We decided over coffee that morning, however, that it would be best to regretfully abort that mission so we could spend more time in the North of Lao(s) before Lauren has to return to BKK on 3/30. So we booked an overnight bus to the capital, Vientiane, for that night departing at 8:00 p.m. and explored a bit more of Pakse, stopping at the post office and a Mekong riverfront restaurant and otherwise just tramped around for a while.

And that's the entry folks. We now are in Vientiane (say: Vien-chan).

And for today's study guide:

Please answer the following questions individually and then discuss in groups of 4-6 people:

1. In your opinion, how has the advent of the internet facilitated travel to remote regions of the world?

2. When motorbiking in Laos, what three items (at least) should you always remember to bring and use?

3. To which place in the world would you most like to go? Would you rather get there by teleportation or bicycle/pedalboat? Why?

Into Laos PDR: Si Phan Don, AKA: Mekong Archipelago

When it came time to leave Phnom Penh, Lauren and I bought a ticket each for the only reasonable way to get between that city and the Laos border: The nice gringo bus. For about eleven hours we traveled the rough single lane roads through minor cities in northeastern Cambodia. There wasn't much to do besides sleep and stare at the passing stilt-home communities.

The border was a breeze as the bus driver handled all the visas and passports. You can see the progress of the tourist trade in Laos here. Only a few months ago you could not receive a visa upon arrival at this remote crossing (Don Kralor). Now both countries are constructing large new immigration offices here. As for now, it is only two small shacks and a counter-balanced pole acting as the gate between nations.

Just over the border, now past sunset, we disembark along the road at the turnoff to Si Phan Don, or, the Four Thousand Islands of the Mekong. We jump into the back of a covered flatbed truck for transport down a dark and dusty road, choking on dust, to the shores of the Mekong, where we board a long-tail boat and travel the shallow expanse of the dry season Mekong to the small island of Don det, a budding attraction for travelers. A few years ago, there was nothing on any of these islands besides small villages that relied on fishing for income. Now two of the islands, Det and Khon, have small traveler villages with bungalows on the water and a minor variety of restaurants.


It was at one of these places that Lauren and I each rented our own bungalow, complete with bed, mosquito net, and porch with hammocks. Don Det is a lazy place where one with a less restless spirit could hole up and lay in hammocks for a few weeks straight. We did a bit of that but also chose to explore the area.

Our first full day in this place we rented some tiny bicycles and set about riding the length of Don Det (about 2 km), crossing the old French railroad bridge to the neighboring island of Don Khon, and riding the legth of that island as well. At the far end of Khon there is an old pier where you can look across the Mekong into Cambodia. At certain times of day there is supposed to be a pod of Irawaddy river dolphins that chills out here, but you can only really see them by boat.


We rode back up to the West side of the island where we saw a modest beach and later a large cataract waterfall that was quite impressive even in the dry season. From the falls we were able to locate a small swimming hole for a quick bath in the Mekong.


After filling up with some noodle soup near the bridge on Khon, we headed back to Det to get some hammock rest on our porches and enjoy the sunset and the soothing (or perhaps headache-inducing) sound (roar?) of the cicadas in the large tree on a nearby island. After that was dinner and an unfortunate incident at a riverside bar which I will try to cautiously describe.


Before going to bed, we decided to grab a drink. I ordered a straight laolao (a local rice whiskey) while Lauren felt adventurous and ordered the "Happy Laolao" cocktail because we had been seeing it on many of the menus in town. When the waitress mistakenly brought us two of the cocktails, I did not contest. It was a mix of laolao, lime juice, sugar, and some sort of crushed leafy material that I thought might be basil. We ignorantly drank up.

Without going int0 a full account of the next few hours, I will just say that when you order anything with the word "happy" in it in SE Asia, expect that you might end up more than just refreshed, with an effect that I will just call some type of food poisoning (for our younger readers). It was an interesting night nonetheless.


Due to the Happy Laolao incident, the next day was a bit of a wash. As it was our last day in Si Phan Don, and we had already seen the typical tourist sights, we resigned ourselves to drinking fruit shakes (not of the happy variety) and laying about in the shade. That is, after all, the best way to enjoy Don Det. The next day we caught a boat and a bus north to Pakse.


In my short time in Laos, I have seen how it is still a bit pristine, perhaps too much so for its own good. In Thailand and Cambodia, you are often being bombarded with sales pitches and offers for tuktuk rides. Not so here. The people are laid back and unpretentious, and things move a bit more slowly. When at first we arrived here and realized how every place we went to eat, the service was slow and terrible, my frustration quickly turned into enchantment. The fact that the people here do not cater to the western desire for snappy and attentive service is something special. It reminds me a bit of being in El Salvador. The Lao people are still relatively unjaded by the traveler, and therefore you often experience more genuine interactions with the Lao than you normally would in the traveler haunts of Thailand or Cambodia. I have seen nary a beggar or salesman here.

I know with near certianty that in a few years, places like Don Det will be much more overrun. This place is too good, too genuine and nice for the tourists not to colonize it. You can see the change in the riverside construction projects 9still modest at least) and newly paved roads.

It is the way of the traveler though. In the quest for genuine experiences off the beaten track, we beat down the track a bit more, thus making it easier and more accessible for the next wave of travelers. Slowly it changes from the adventurous travelers who are trying to escape the travel-party scene of Siem Reap or Thailand, to the travelers who will only come to a place after it has become well established and easy to access by comfortable modes of transportation.

Change happens though and we should not fear it too much, and while it might make the Laos experience less genuine for the adventurous traveler, perhaps it will help the locals gain some more independence financially, if not culturally. Perhaps in a few years, the Burmese government will begin to allow more access, then we will have a whole new nation of fresh meat after Laos has been decisively colonized by the traveler's dollar.

That is my rant for the day. I hope you enjoyed it. I am currently writing this in Pakse and my sister and I will be taking an overnight bus to Vientiane tonight. For our next adventure installment: Pakse and the Bolaven Plateau via Motorbike.

And Dan: to greet someone in Laos, you say "Sa-bai-di"; thank you is "Khawp Jai". "Don" is island and "Si Phan" is 4,000. Have fun with that.

Phnom Penh and Farewell to Cambodia

The bus from Siem Reap was uneventful, though I enjoyed watching the bus overtake tractors, motorcycles with trailers, ox-pulled carts and even the occasional Mercedes (the Mercedes drivers must be the government officials). After navigating rush hour traffic in P.P., the bus arrived at the end of the line about seven hours after departure. I quickly negotiated a fare with one of the moto drivers who was bombarding me and hopped on the back of the bike, bags and all, and was zipped through traffic to the Nomad's Guesthouse on St. 108, where I saw my sister Lauren upon pulling up to the place (she having arrived a couple hours prior on a flight from Bangkok).


After our brief reunion and awkward hug, we dropped my bags in the room and set about finding a place to eat. We walked down to the place where the Tonle Sap River meets the Mekong and I caught my first glimpse of that mighty river, which is just a wide swath of nearly tepid water by the time it reaches Phnom Penh. Hopefully a couple months from now I will stand far upriver, somewhere near Tibet.

We settled down for some food and Angkor at a local eatery off of the main tourist drag where we could find some reasonable prices. After just a few hours enjoying our drinks street side, we ambled off to catch some sleep.


The next day was an uneventful day of rest and Lauren and I explored a bit of the neighborhood and climbed to the tallest "hill" in all of P.P., which must have been at least 8 meters high! We enjoyed the minor temple on top and the monkeys around the park. The locals got a laugh out of our fascination with these city inhabitants, for whom they must have about the same level of interest as we do for squirrels.


Our final day in Phnom Penh was full of emotionally draining exercises in the history of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. In 1976, or some time around then, the Khmer Rough attempted a radical forced change in Cambodian society. They evacuated all of the city inhabitants to rural areas in an effort to start a nation-wide agrarian cooperative. While the idea of an agrarian coop sounds pretty non threatening to me, what really made the three years of the Khmer Rouge so horrific were the Nazi-like torture, genocide of minority groups (in order to have a more uniform society), and the the imprisonment and execution of anyone deemed a threat to the new social order; namely intellectuals, or anyone they thought to be an intellectual or enemy of the state. Pretty strange for a regime run by rich intellectuals who had learned Marxism during their studies in Europe.

Our tour of this history began at the Killing Fields, a site about 15 km outside of the city where prisoners were taken to be executed. The victims were men and women of all ages. The regime decided that it was safer for them to kill the whole family of their alleged enemies, rather than risking later revenge being taken upon them by their victims' descendants. We saw where the prisoners were brought in by truck, housed overnight, then where they were killed, usually by blunt force trauma, and buried in mass graves. In the center of this seemingly peaceful field is a giant stupa (tower) displaying some of the skulls of the many thousands who were killed here. The rest of the site is mainly a series of mass graves, some of which have been excavated and the human remains have been exhumed, and some where there are still tatters of clothing and bone fragments exposed at the surface of the packed soil. Walking in these places, I felt an energy go through me that I can't quite explain.


We went on to read the history of the three years of the Khmer Rouge regime, and the subsequent decades of KR rebels holding out in the hills and finally the beginnings of the prosecution overseen by the International Criminal Court. After leaving the fields, we went to Prison S21, a place where enemies of the state were tortured until "confessing" to transgressions against the new order. We saw the pens where they were held and the devices with which they were tortured. After the prisoners were expunged of all the information that could be gotten from them, they were sent to the Killing Fields for a near certain execution.


Studying the history of this regime and the ongoing criminal proceedings against them, I was forced to reflect on my own background in the criminal defense field. The ICC proceedings represent an area of criminal law that I have never really thought of. Whereas I usually think of criminal defense as representing the lowly and disadvantaged, the ones who usually have little power in society, the Khmer Rouge trials represent, at least on the surface, the heinous crimes of those who had the most power. It is harder to reconcile this with my own ideals.

However, near the end of the tour of the prison, we did see some firsthand accounts of members of the Khmer Rouge regime. They often voice a sentiment that they began fighting for what they saw as a good cause, and by the time they realized the brutality of their employer, they had two choices: to obey orders or be killed themselves (probably along with their families as well). These people of course include the ones who were carrying out the brutal acts.

I suppose though that the only way a society can properly deal with those people who have done the most to damage the ideals of human decency, is to deal with them in an orderly and just way. I can understand the sentiment of those who suffered the most though, who often state that all the old leaders should just be killed rather than undergoing the lengthy and imperfect trial process. It was a day full of philosophical reflections, to say the least.


Moving on, we headed back to our side of town, bought tickets to Laos for the morning, and got some tasty Indian food. We calmly said farewell to Cambodia and set off for Laos on a nice bus in the morning. I have rather enjoyed Cambodia, spending about ten days here. It is easy to travel here because everyone seems to speak English so well (much better here than in Thailand). I have never seen someone get visibly angry or upset and hope to come back here one day.

Laos holds much excitement though, and I look forward to getting to know that place. In the next chapter: Si Phan Don.

Siem Reap and Such

I got myself stuck in Siem Reap for five nights, enjoying the companionship of fellow travelers. The plan had originally been to spend one full day here, allowing me to see the nearby ruins of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, before spending two full days traveling to Saigon in Vietnam and meet a friend who lives there. My plans were foiled by the fifty cent draught pints and my realization that this place required more than one day to enjoy.

My first full day in this place I wandered around aimlessly with an Aussie traveler that I met on the boat from Battambang, Zoe. We met a couple British couples that night and spent a few hours enjoying the area known commonly as "Pub Street". These were some real quality people and I enjoyed hearing about Rob's travels in Cambodia five years prior and his reflections on how things had changed since then. The travel industry has really taken off in the last half decade, and many of the paved roads connecting the cities were not even asphalted until a couple years ago.

Day two here was also quite mundane. It was enjoyable to me and full of experiences that wouldn't be justly conveyed in a blog post. The next morning, Zoe and I rented some bikes for the day and rode the six kilometers north to Angkor Wat, supposedly the largest religious structure on the planet. Braving the hordes of other tourists, we crossed the bridge over the huge moat and entered the West Gate of the man-made island. We explored the bas-relief outer walls of the temple and concentric square structures of the inner temple.


We later rode on to Angkor Thom, the city just 2 km north of the wat. Some several hundred years ago, this was a Khmer city of about a million people, filled with wooden homes and other structures surrounding the rock temples. The wooden structures have long since collapsed and decayed, and all that now remains are the stone buildings, the most impressive of which is the Bayon, a huge square temple filled with huge sculpture of faces built into the walls and apexes.


Seeing ruins always feels a bit tedious to me. At a certain point you begin to wander around dumbfounded, knowing full well that the rock structures you are seeing are all wonderful and grand, but failing to be able to muster any enthusiasm. I tried to picture the great civilization that once stood here and see the rows of houses and crowds of city dwellers, but I seemed to fall short.


However there was one final places that did bring about a sense of wonder in me. We rode on to the ruins of Ta Phrom, another temple structure from the 12th century or so. Archaeologists chose this particular ruin for a different project. Rather than clearing away the trees and foliage that covered all these places when the French first "discovered" them, and repairing the damage that had been done by the centuries, they instead left the place relatively untouched. As a result, there are centuries-old trees growing over the walls with tentacle-like roots grasping the sandstone blocks. The bas-relief walls are colored by moss and there are blocks lying haphazardly about.


What I loved about this ruin is that it was truly a ruin. It was not cleared up and rebuilt for the tourists. Seeing the work that nature had done to claim this place back into the jungle gave me the truest impression of the years that had passed. It made me ponder what our own great cities and man-made wonders will look like once they have been 800 years since abandoned. I've heard that some parts of Detroit are already being reclaimed by the elements. Satisfied with ourselves, we pedaled slowly back to town as a thunderstorm ominously rumbled behind us.

My last day in Siem Reap was another lazy one. I bought my bus ticket to Phnom Penh for the next day, March 9, where I would meet my sister Lauren. I met back up with the two British couples that I had befriended three days prior. We saw a traditional Khmer show, a sort of musical with all types of masks and costumes. The performance was done by the children of one of the many local orphanages for donations. I was pretty impressed by their acting and dancing skills. After the show the kids eagerly practiced their English with us and we were infected by their joyful nature. It was nice to get a glimpse of kids being kids here, as most encounters with Cambodian children have been with the ones that sell postcards or trinkets for some hidden boss that collects their earnings.

After one more stint on Pub Street, I went to bed, happy with my stay here. And then it was on on to the capital the next morning to see the familiar face of my sister. And that's where we now sit, safe and sound.