Cambodia cont'd

Walking in our 'hood in Phnom Penh

A grim reminder of Khmer Rouge

Telephone poles, SE Asia style

While in Cambodia there were three places we spent most of our time. The first was Phnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia. You can’t go to PP or Cambodia for that matter, without learning about the Khmer Rouge. If you don’t already know about the KR the people of Cambodia will educate you. They do not want to forget and do not want the world to forget all the devastation caused by the Khmer Rouge. There are memorials, books, posters, movies and everything imaginable reminding you of it. If you are unfamiliar, the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia lead by Pol Pot from 1976-1979. During this time he and his policies killed an estimated 8 million people.  And these were Cambodian people, particularly the educated, elderly, and children. He placed land mines around the entire border of Cambodia so his own people could not escape. There are still some 3 – 5 million mines that have yet to be removed. You can watch the movie The Killing Fields to get a better understanding of what happened.

Outside our little neighbor hood

SE Asia is worthing visiting just to see what they manage to get on a motorcycle!!

Only way in and out, by a little boat. 

KOH RONG

We had heard about some completely unspoiled beaches in the south on an island called Koh Rong. The island alone was enough of a reason to visit Cambodia. There’s no development, no roads, no golf courses, and only accessible by a 2 hour boat ride. We stayed in a little bungalow called Pura Vida owned by an Italian couple. There was very limited electricity, no hot water, and basic amenities, but the deserted beaches made up for it.

Calm after the storm. Our ride home was two hours of rough seas. I don't think Melissa's face has ever been that pale. She stood the whole trip home and road the boat like it was a surf board. Yeah...no one else on the boat thought it was weird or anything.

Crystal blue waters

As fun as traveling has been, we were becoming a bit road weary. The last home cooked meal we had was in Australia. SE Asia food is great, but you start craving something other than rice and noodles.  Staying at Pura Vida was a welcome relief. They served  homemade Italian food with ingredients imported from Italy. I was in heaven; sometimes we would ask for the same dish twice in a day.

Pura Vida - our little getaway - great Italian food and coffee!

                     SIEM REAP

Angkor Wat was our final destination in Cambodia. A UNESCO world heritage site and made famous by the movie Tomb Raider, it’s still all that and a bag of chips. It was built sometime in the 12th century and the jungle started to take it over around the 16^th century.  The temple is in part held together and being destroyed by massive trees that have grown over it. It’s truly spectacular.

Amazing ruins at Angkor Wat

 

face hidden in the tree roots

  

You don't know what you don't know

This was written several weeks ago and we are just now getting around to posting the articles. So, we’ve done a good job telling you all about the wonderful and amazing things we are seeing in SE asia.  But I’m feeling compelled to tell about the not so wonderful.  Be prepared for a dose of reality if you have not already traveled this way. First off, I have loved traveling through SE asia, which hopefully you can already tell by our posts.  But I would mistaken if I didn’t tell all.  This is the part that is hard to write about. 

Cambodia, while being an amazing country, sucked the wind out of me on a number of occasions.  And for Cambodia’s sake, what I’m about to write isn’t privy just to this particular country; it’s just where I felt I felt it the most.  I have traveled to 3^rd world countries before and have seen poverty in different forms.  I just haven’t seen poverty and corruption quite like this.  And if it sounds like I’m complaining, I’m not.  This is reality and I live in a part of the world that I too often take for granted. What hit me in the chest was when we would see a naked mother sitting on a street corner with several children, feeding themselves out of the garbage.   Or even worse when I would come across a naked little baby on the sidewalk, seemingly all-alone.  These images pulled at every heartstring I have.  I still am haunted these images that I walked away from… And I still ask myself what can I do?

We were fortunate to meet up with a friend of a friend who works for an NGO (non government organization) over here in Cambodia and I got my first lesson on women and child sex trafficking and how prevalent it is.  How orphanages are also being corrupted by child molesters and how women get sold into the wrong hands and end up in sex trafficking because their families thought they were doing good by giving them a better life in the city than in the village.  Which brings me back to images of women with several children, now understanding the why and how.  Don’t get me wrong, there are wonderful people doing wonderful things in this part of the world to help these tragic and demoralizing situations.  But for me, it was one of those things that I have heard about, but never really wanted to believe actually existed.  And then I’m here and can see it with my own eyes.  It’s crazy. 

There are other things we take for granted in the US like hygiene and simple education.   For example, we learn as children to wash our hands with soap when we use the bathroom.  They don’t here.  And I’m not kidding.  You can go to a place like the airport and find no soap in the restroom and perhaps not any toilet paper.  This is common.  My friend Anjanette, who now lives in Bangkok, witnessed a Thai woman get hit by a car over here and was appalled when people rushed to move her limp body off the street while waiting for the ambulance. The next day she was telling this traumatic story to the kids in her classroom and they said, “but teacher, nobody told us we shouldn’t move someone after they get hit.”  You don’t know what you don’t know.  And if you grew up with a squatter for a toilet and never used soap to wash your hands, then you wouldn’t get mad at the fact that there was no soap in a place like the airport (like I do.)  And then there is the labor, what we call the workforce.  I have often said I don’t ever want to work in a cubicle again.  As I’m sure many of you have.  But working in an air-conditioned office, in a cubicle, for only 8+ hours would be heaven here.  Try doing manual labor outside in 90+ degree weather, 12+ hours a day, 7 days a week.  For the majority of the people, that’s life here. 

I was talking with Anjanette one night at dinner and I had a moment.  She says to me, “You know how in the US we always say “if I won the lottery, I would…”  And we fill in the blank. “  I looked at her and realized what she was going to say before she even said it.  People reading this…you already won it.  

Buenos Aires

So we've settled in Buenos Aires for awhile. The questions we keep getting are how did that happen and for how long? Well, it really wasn't planned, it just sort of happened. While in Cuba we decided we weren't really ready to come home quite yet. We still had the urge to get down to South America and so it was decided that we would get an apartment for at least a month and instead of moving around, living out of hotels, we would become temporary residents of Buenos Aires. I had already been to BA a few years ago and really wanted to bring Nathaniel here. We got extremely lucky and found an amazing flat within 3 days of being in the city for $500 a month! If you haven't seen the pics on facebook, we've posted a few for you. While we are here, we plan to practice and perfect our Spanish, eat lots of Italian food and asados (their grilled meat), and try to act like portenos (BA locals.) We will also look for work, just in case we decide we want to stay here longer, which I think we already do! And blessed as it may be, a few days ago I got rehired by Beacon, my dear friend Pallavi's company, so I will be working part time from home. 
 I'm the happiest little camper over here because if you know me at all, you know I love having a house and making it "home". But this may be new for most of you... I've become domesticated. I cook dinner every night. I guess eating out for 4 months is what it takes for a girl to like to cook! You would hardly recognize me in the kitchen...and nathaniel says the food even tastes good.

All we need now is some visitors, so come visit us!  

HCMC

Ho Chi Minh City or HCMC, it’s the largest city in Vietnam and the most crowded. One of the first things you notice is the motorcycles, everywhere! There are over 3 million motorcycles and around 300,000 cars in a city of 9 million people. Traffic is sort of a free for all and pedestrians by no means have the right of way. Crossing the road is a bit of a challenge at first, but then you realize you just have to go for it and the traffic will go around you.

Putting new soles on my sandals cut out of old motorcycle tires

There’s a reoccurring theme in SE Asia- people manage to do so much with the little they have. After all the walking we’ve been doing, my sandals were starting to fall apart. The front was peeling off and the back heals were worn thin. Two industrious young gents approached me on the sidewalk noticing my pathetic sandals and offered to remedy the situation. They had little repair kits and immediately started repairing my sandals. We haggled (I mean Melissa haggled, she’s a bulldog) over the price and for $5 they repaired my sandals good as new right there on the street. They put new soles on the bottom of the sandals made from old motor cycle tires. There are little vendors like this everywhere.

Typical houses along the Mekong

When we left Vietnam, we decided to do so by boat, up the Mekong River, the lifeblood of SE Asia. The river starts in the Yunnan Province of China and zig zags through Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia before fanning out into a delta and eventually dumping into the South China Sea some 2700 miles later. We took a small boat up the Mekong into Cambodia. The river is teeming with life; peoples’ homes are built on tall stilts all along the river. The stilts are used given that there are drastic changes of the water level during the raining season. People fish in the river, bathe in the river, do laundry in the river, and perform every aspect of commerce imaginable. One of the highlights of Vietnam was visiting the floating market. It’s a wholesale market that takes place completely on the river. Each boat at the market has a long bamboo pole sticking straight up in the air with one of each of their items for sale tied to it so everyone else knows what you’re selling. Items like watermelons, pineapples, carrots, and even livestock! Most of the people have traveled many hours in from both directions on the river to get to the market. Each boat comes fully loaded and leaves fully loaded with new goods to take back to their villages.

Whatever is hanging on the pole is what's for sale

Woman selling watermelons 

Cutting a pineapple up for us

Mixing coconut batter

Cutting the cooled batter

We made various detours into some of the villages to check out 
the different things being made by villagers. We went to a family run shop that makes coconut candy. The whole family has an assigned task, young and old. Coconut candy is a production, first opening the coconut, shredding the pulp, separating the oil, and then finally mixing the pulp into a batter. The batter is laid out in a big thin sheets and when it’s cooled, it is cut into small pieces and wrapped in edible rice paper.  The candy is soft and chewy, rich and coconutty, needless to say Melissa was all over it.

The sad reality for most families is that child labor is necessary to survive.

Rice paper drying in the sun

Pouring out rice batter to steam

Another stop on the river was at a family shop that makes rice paper, a mother and son operation. It’s a hot, I mean hot and exhausting process they do 7 days a week. Rice grains have small husks on them which are removed after drying in the sun. Nothing goes to waste in Vietnam and the husks provide fuel for this family's small furnace. Rice is ground to flour and made into a batter. The mother and son work as a team. The son pours and spreads the batter on a burner; he then steams it. The working area is well over a hundred degrees and sweat just pours off you. The mom lifts each thin rice paper with a wicker rolling pin and then lays it out to cool. The rice paper is then dried in the sun before being packaged for shipping.  It’s humbling to see how hard most people in Vietnam work for such little money in harsh conditions.

Hot rice paper coming of the burner

Rice husks fuel the furnance

Our boat captain crawled into the engine compartment

Traveling up the Mekong into Cambodia was like a scene straight out of Apocalypse Now.  As we left the Vietnam border the boat had some mechanical problems. It was around 7 in the morning but already close to 90 degrees. Our poor captain was stuck working in the hot and tiny engine compartment while we were baking in the heat of the sun. After 1.5 hrs we were back on our way again. We were guzzling water as it seemed to get hotter with every hour. We stopped at the Cambodian border for our visas and then traveled 5 additional hours up the river to Phnom Penh. Vietnam was fantastic and we frequently reminisce about our time there. 

Hanoi, Vietnam

Bowl of Hot Pho awaits you in Vietnam!!

This is easily one of my favorite cities we have visited so far.  They say Hanoi was like the Paris of Asia in the 60’s.  The city streets are lined with locals eating and drinking, not in outdoor terraces like in Europe, but rather on little plastic stools on small, jagged sidewalks, alleys, or anywhere you can possibly situate yourself.  The food is also being cooked right where one set up shop, in several large, steaming pots usually with a variety of greens and other things we didn't recognize.   The buildings are old French colonial buildings that have charming cafes and small mom and pop stores.  Walking around the city is fascinating as it’s so different than anywhere else I have been.  It’s so colorful, vibrant, and busy all at the same time and has a thousand different food smells as you walk. 

feather dusters

street side dining

street side poker

bun cha

The Vietnamese work so hard all day, everyday, in the heat, in the rain, and often fall asleep at their post.  Their labor is also fascinating and so different than home.  We simply enjoyed soaking in the culture of this place and of course at a lot of PHO.  Supposedly, Hanoi is the birthplace of pho, but there is some controversy over this.  We went to a few hole in the wall places and a few actual restaurants and we found that they do NOT use plum sauce here.  So, for those of you who love that bit of sweet with your salty, you may be disappointed.  For us, the pho did not disappoint.  It was delicious none the less and as predicted better in the streets.  Another favorite was the bun cha.  Fresh rice noodles, broth, grilled pork patties, a massive plate of Asian greens including lettuce, basil, mint and perilla, and last but not least fried spring rolls.  It’s pure bliss.  Another thing I fell in love with was the fresh cane sugar juice.  AMAZING!!  Fresh cane sugar is pressed through this crusher and reveals the best quencher on a hot day. 

Cane Juice

Another thing you will notice in Hanoi is the motorbikes and bicycles.  They dominate the city and Nathaniel got some cool pics one afternoon stroll…Nathaniel also got into his first altercation here over someone swearing at me.  I didn’t do anything wrong; the point is, he was about to get into a fist fight for me and I of course told him it wasn’t worth it.  Also, the guy was like 5’4”!  I frequently like to tell my husband that he’s a big, strong man now.

Lastly, it’s so incredibly cheap here.  For perspective, we usually eat for about $3, take a taxi for a few bucks, and have amazing accommodation’s for  about $30.  This is also the first time I have EVER slept in a round bed.  Recommended ;) If you happen to make it to Vietnam, Hanoi should not be missed.

street side boba tea