Backpacking

Cambodia is such a land of contradictions that it is mind boggling. It is a land full of some of the friendliest people I have met and some of the most sophisticated examples of art and architecture the world has ever seen. In Cambodia are the ornate royal temples and palaces of Phnom Penh and the stunning temples of Angkor including the worlds largest religious building, Angkor Wat itself and the Tao Phrom, right out of Indiana Jones and where portions of the 2000 film Tombraider were filmed.

These sights and many that I did not see make Cambodia an amazing place to visit and one of my favorite places in the world.

Then there is the tragic legacy of Cambodia, three decades of strife and war beginning with the American bombardment of Cambodia during the Vietnam War and lasting through the utterly brutal Khmer Rouge regime which ruled the country from 1974 to 1979 and oversaw the extermination of over 2 million people (10%) of the population. The government of Vietnam then drove out the KR and occupied the nation during the early 1980's and the KR conducted a guerilla war until its final defeat in 1998. The KR left the rural countryside rife with landmines and there are some 3 million plus mines still in the ground today.

Thankfully joint international/Cambodian mine clearing teams have made many areas safe to return to, but the progress is excruciatingly slow and the task monumental and far, far from over.

All of this has had a devastating impact on Cambodia's economy and population which I was able to experience first hand in the hundreds of poor children hawking everything and anything at Angkor, the many, many beggars in the streets of Siem Reap and the countless landmine victims on the streets. It is the mine victims that are the most heartbreaking. Thousands of innocent people have been maimed, mostly the rural poor, and with a health care system unable to deal with them many of these victims are unable to obtain employment and are left to beg in the streets. I witnessed many, many amputees at the border, crossing into Cambodia, on the streets of the cities and just about everywhere.

On the border I witnessed many farmers riding modified bicycle powered carts pushing the pedals at chest height with their arms as they were all missing one or both of their legs. I also saw a prison truck, deporting what I assume were illegal Cambodians from Thailand back into Cambodia. It was right out of a movie with people crammed inside gripping the bars and staring forlornly out of the truck.

All of this was painful enough to see, but there were two sights on top of this which have burned their way into my mind forever. The first was visiting the S-21 Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh. S-21 is a former High School that was taken over by the Khmer Rouge and used as an internment camp and torture center. Thousands of men, women and even young children were taken here and never seen again. The classrooms were used as cells and people inside were subjected to inhuman and unspeakable acts of violence. Inside the rooms are pictures of the victims broken, starving and bleeding and in one room there are even bloodstains on the 20 foot high ceiling. The presence of pain and suffering still permeates the place and I could not enter the rooms for more than a second.

As a stark contrast to this dark past, there were many people playing volleyball or football just behind the buildings, laughing and joking while children played in the dirt. It was all rather surreal and to me seems like another testament to the strength of the Cambodian people to survive despite such pain in their lives.

The museum is all there to be a reminder of what happened while most of the world remained silent or tacitly supported the Khmer Rouge regime as a barrier against the Communist government of Vietnam. It is also there to help prevent such things from happening again in the future. As we witness war and chaos in Afghanistan, Iraq and genocide in Darfur I wonder how much we have learned.

The final image which I will never forget from Cambodia was a severely deformed child on the street of Phnom Penh. I only saw the child for a second as I was walking down the waterfront promenade, but it was more than enough. As I was walking my attention was drawn by a small group of people standing around a woman with a small bundled figure in front of her. I looked and to my horror saw that the bundle was a child with its head the size of the rest of its body, like the pictures of alien children in the supermarket tabloids. I was not even aware that a human being could remain alive with such severe deformities and I had no idea what could have caused it. Another friend of mine saw a man whose face had a growth extending halfway to his waist which he was just holding as he walked down the street and people stared.

It was not until two days later when I visited the War Museum in Saigon (Ho Chi Mihn City), Vietnam that I found out the cause. Agent Orange and numerous other defoliants that the US military used during the Vietnam War still severely contaminate much of the countryside in northern Vietnam and eastern Cambodia and Laos. Thousands of children such as the one that I saw are being born every year in Vietnam alone. The American chemical legacy of the war will remain in Southeast Asia for years to come. While it is well known that many US veterans have suffered from Agent Orange exposure I had no idea of the severity and extent of the contamination until seeing it first hand.

These are the realities of life for many people in Southeast Asia, and while I am not writing this to condemn the US government, I am writing it to condemn the acts of horror and violence that inevitably accompany any war, be it the Vietnam War or the War on Terror. In the US we are isolated from such realities and I think this is something that must change as we move into the 21st century.

Witnessing this, more than anything else drove home to me the true costs of war. All sides commit atrocities in war, there is simply no avoiding it.

A few days after my Bangkok Songkran experience I had made it to the ancient city of Sukhothai to check out the ruins of the 12th and 13th century capital of the Thai kingdom.

The ruins were all in park areas with beautiful landscaped gardens, ancient trees, ponds and lots of flowers. I rented a bike and rode around the ruins for two days with my new German friends, Christian and Martin.

While biking and sweating it out in the afternoon sun a Thai family eating in their yard by the roadside invited us to join them. We did and shared some food and beer and had a stilted conversation in English with our few words of Thai thrown in. After 20 minutes it was apparent that the family was preparing for some sort of ritual and they invited the three of us to participate. It was amazing, about 4 or 5 ancient and beautifully wrinkled women sat down on chairs in front of their house next to a little shrine with a Buddha statue.

The other 20 or so family members (and the three of us) lined up to pour water on the Buddha image and then on the women in a much ritualized fashion, and some of the younger women even bathed the women's backs. It was beautiful and I was so honored to have been invited. We sat with them and were offered lots of whisky, beer and some food as well, then said farewell.

Not half an hour later the three of us tourists were beckoned over by another group of Thais sitting in a beautiful spot by a pond and some of the ruins. We went over and found out that they were a group of deaf Thai people who were all communicating by sign language. With absolutely no reference point or any language in common, but a Thai phrasebook, pen and paper, more whiskey and lots of laughter and smiles we somehow had a conversation. It was rough going, but a very rewarding experience.

After my two months in New Zealand I traveled to Singapore on the 15th of March via a brief 3 hr. stopover in Brisbane, Australia. I spent three days in Singapore and found it to be almost like two cities in one, a very clean and efficient and organized city of skyscrapers and modern office buildings and the old rundown districts of Chinese temples, cheap food stalls and winding alleyways.

The population is a fascinating mix of Chinese, Indian and Malaysian with plenty of European Ex-pats (mostly British due to the fact that Singapore was a British colony for a century or so). In terms of religion there are Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Christians, Shiks and even one congregation all in Singapore and I spent my time visiting the various mosques and temples and soaking up the mix of faiths. The food, one of the highlights of my time in Singapore, was amazingly cheap and excellent - about US $1.50 for a great dinner of fried rice, spicy laksa noodle soup or Indian curries. The weather was increadibly hot and humid being less than 2 degrees north of the equator.

There is a tradition of caged birds singing however, and I was rather disturbed by the massive amount of tropical birds being sold in tiny little cages (PETA would have a field day here). I bought a pair and released them in a park, which is also a tradition that is supposed to bring good luck.

The whole business disctict has been laid out according to Chinese Feng Sui principles and particularly designed for generating wealth and good business. Singapore is one of the most prosperous places in Asia so there must be something to their design.

While I was there the Queen of England paid a visit to her former Colony. She was staying at the very expensive Raffels Hotel and I wandereing in late one night to check it out and may have gotten too close to Her Majesty. Six security guards swarmed around me in a hallway (although politely) and escorted me back downstairs. It was all rather amuzing.

My favorite spot was the Botanic gardens which feature orchid and epiphyte gardens, serene lakes, rainforest paths and even a five senses garden.

From the 12th to the 16th of January I headed out to a home stay on a village on Matacawalevu Island. The village was tiny with only about 120 people, no cars, one Methodist church and lots of beaches. The village was a traditional indigenous Fijian village and completely free of any Indian influence, it was like being in another country from the main island. Life was very slow and relaxed with people napping most afternoons away in the tropical heat.

Here are my hosts, Sitoki and Kini saying goodbye at the end of the 5 days:

They fed me 3 meals a day plus afternoon tea. Each meal was served in a very generoud portion and the food was great, lots of starchy root vegetables like Cassava and Breadfruit, fresh caught clams and crabs (I went with them on the foraging expedition for them) and fish with rice. All were always topped with a coconut milk sauce which was excellent. The main course was often accompanied with fresh fruits like pineapple, papaya or mangoes. One morning for breakfast I had roti's and cornmeal pancakes that were dyed with food coloring a brilliant blue. Here is my spot:

The most interesting traditional Fijian activity I was a part of were the daily kava drinking ceremonies. The ancient tradition is still a part of daily life for most Fijians and goes a little something like this; People gather into a room and sit cross-legged on woven mats around a massive wooden bowl filled with the Kava. The liquid kava is made from the powdered root of the kava plant, a member of the pepper family and water. It looks like muddy water and tastes about the same. One person is in charge of mixing the bowl and tending the kava all night. He (it is always a male) made from a coconut shell and fills it either "high-tide" to the brim or "low-tide" halfway and passes it to the first person in the circle. They accept by saying "Bula" the Fijian greeting, clap once, down it in one gulp then clap three times and say "vinaka" or thank you. Everyone else in te room claps three times while you are drinking to show you respect.

Then the cup is passed around until everyone has their fill. After which people sit around chatting, smoking and joking around in Fijian. The process of drinking kava is repeated every 10 minutes or so and can last for 6 hours or more. The effect of about 10+ cups of kava is a numbing of the senses and face, a bit of slowed reflexes and pretty much an overall groggy feeling. It is different than being drunk, and much more relaxed, but not as fun. Of the 4 nights I was at the home stay I participated in kava ceremonies 3 of them and enjoyed myself, but had no idea what was going on most of the time as everyone was chatting in Fijian and only spoke to me in English on occasion. During my longest ceremony where I lasted about 3 1/2 hours my host, Sitoki was trying to let them only fill up my cup to "low tide" but the village chief, "Joe" kept forcing them to fill it to High Tide and got a kick out of seeing how much this white boy could drink. After cup number 18 I had to call it a night. During that ceremony a band had come in from one of the cargo ships and they were singing and playing their island music all night, think Hawaiian, but slightly different.

During the day I went snorkeling or was taken by canoe on trips to other beaches around the island, including the "Blue Lagoon" beach where the movie was filmed. The villagers are understandably very proud of that fact that their idyllic spot was used in the movie.

Sitoki's 2 year old grandson formed an instant bond with me and we played a bit, but he could not understand why I did not know what he was saying when he would ask me things in Fijian, it was very cute. I played some volleyball with the younger folks and also went to the church service on Sunday. The village was converted by Methodist missionaries a hundred years ago and their Methodist Fijian service was beautiful. It was conducted all in Fijian, of course, but the highlight was their amazing island style singing during the service, the harmonizing b/n the men and the women was incredible. I was lucky to hear the choir sing every day while I was there as they were still celebrating the New Year in Fiji (they celebrate for the whole month of January) and so there was singing every night, not just in church.

On my last night I was treated to a sunset cruise which amounted to two of my 17 year old friends paddling me out into open water in a canoe (which we had flipped in into a coral reef the day before) with some good sea swells. We got some amazing shots, and it was quite a thrill being out in the open water in such a small boat.