We bid Christopher adieu over a romantic candlelit dinner in a French restaurant in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Only two bros of the original four remained. Andrew and Jared were off to Cambrodia.
We booked a last minute flight to Siem Reap on Lao Airways, the airline that Justin decided not to fly due to its dodgy safety record. Our fears were allayed when our in flight breakfast box was emblazoned with, "You are safe with us!" Our fears were reinstated, however, when we touched down in a city that was most definitely not Siem Reap. Although Lao Airways safety record has improved from the days of what Ting called, "Chinese-made knockoff Soviet turboprops," their aviation practices remain quixotic, such as flying passengers to the border town of Pakse to disembark, go through immigration, and then re-board the plane to points south.
After we arrived in Siem Reap, we went straight to Ankgor Wat, a stunning temple complex that many Khmers described as the "heart and soul of Cambodia." You may know it, however, from its prominence in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2000).
The temples were engraved with everything from epic battles for the control of empires to macaques engaged in unorthodox, number-based sex positions (see below). The grand scope of the temples was impressive, but the details really amazed us.
After Siem Reap, our next stop was Battambang, Cambodia's 2nd biggest city. Despite its name, it was nothing like Tony's hangout in The Sopranos.* The best part of our trip to The 'Bang was the journey -- an 8 hour boat ride through Evergladesque swampland and water-swelled rainy season riverbeds. We met two gorgeous German doctors with whom we spent the rest of our day.
Near the massive lake of Tonle Sap we passed many floating villages. Some houses floated on wooden rafts, and some stood high above the swamp on stilts. Families dined together or rested on hammocks strung under their houses. Tourists are still something of an oddity in this undeveloped region of Cambodia, and we got many friendly smiles and waves as our boat plied the serpentine waterway. We stopped at one of the floating villages for lunch, where the toilets were holes in the floorboards opening into the water directly below. Perfect place for a swim!
The main tourist attraction in Battambang is the Bamboo Train, which was constructed from--obviously--wood and iron. Its non-eponymous nomenclature intrigued us. The Bamboo Train's design features included a go-kart engine and one rickety track...for both directions. If we were way cooler than mere tourists, we would have been Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom.
Because of the single track, whenever we encountered an inbound train, we had to stop, disassemble the cart, and remove it from the track by hand. Quite an inconvenience, but still more efficient than Amtrak. Zing!
We used this stop-and-go mode of transport to travel a few kilometers to a small nearby village, where we stopped for a while to rest and be bombarded by villagers selling various goods and services. Jared made friends with a rambunctious gang of 8-year olds, who whisked him away to show him the village brick factory, as well as their impressive sports and martial arts skills. The friendship quickly went sour when they demanded U.S. currency for their tutelage and Jared refused. Once the 8-year olds accepted this, they ignored us and contented themselves with beating each other up on the train tracks.
That evening we attended a circus we'd heard a lot about. Produced by a local NGO to create opportunities for impoverished kids, this circus featured music and acrobatics that were quite impressive and entertaining and brought us to our feet in applause time and again until the Grand Finale, in which a human tower collapsed, sending an acrobat headfirst into the ground. His compatriots dragged his limp, unconscious body offstage. When they came out for an encore, the fallen one was missing and we clapped awkwardly until the lights came on.
The German doctors tended to the boy, fighting for jurisdiction over his care with a pushy Parisian nurse. We stood by, ready to render legal services if necessary. Frauline doktors reported that he was OK and smiling.
Brief interlude: as we write this entry, we are on a bus back to Siem Reap; the onboard entertainment is bull-on-bull fighting. It is one of the most disturbing things we have ever seen. Clarification: it is a video of bull-on-bull fighting. Crowds cheer (on the bus and video) as these massive bovines bash heads at top speed and then brutalize each other with horns.
Now on to something in fact far more horrible: our first encounter with the history of the Khmer Rouge massacres. Outside Battambang we visited the Killing Cave, where the Khmer Rouge murdered at least 10,000 people in the 1970s. After Pol Pot's regime relocated peasants to this region to disorient and subdue them, it put them to work in unfamiliar fields and villages. The Khmer Rouge identified perceived opponents of the regime and brought them to a converted temple as their final prison. Then, they took prisoners to the top of the Killing Cave, which was an opening high above a cavern that used to be used as an amphitheater for theatrical performances.
At the mouth of the cave, they shot or macheted the condemned and dumped their bodies into the steep cave. Thousands of skeletons remain there, including skulls with bullet holes. This site was heart wrenching, but even more so when we realized that such locations were common around Cambodia in the 1970s, when more than two million innocent people were killed in a similar manner.
On that unavoidably depressing note, we are approaching Siem Reap. Jared is about to leave for Boston, and Andrew will continue the journey in Phnom Penh and then Myanmar for two weeks. Maybe he'll even blog for you if you check back...
Thanks for sharing our trip with us by reading our blog, especially to the one person who is actually reading this (hi mom!).
Ladyboys out.
*Bada-Bing, obvi.
We booked a last minute flight to Siem Reap on Lao Airways, the airline that Justin decided not to fly due to its dodgy safety record. Our fears were allayed when our in flight breakfast box was emblazoned with, "You are safe with us!" Our fears were reinstated, however, when we touched down in a city that was most definitely not Siem Reap. Although Lao Airways safety record has improved from the days of what Ting called, "Chinese-made knockoff Soviet turboprops," their aviation practices remain quixotic, such as flying passengers to the border town of Pakse to disembark, go through immigration, and then re-board the plane to points south.
After we arrived in Siem Reap, we went straight to Ankgor Wat, a stunning temple complex that many Khmers described as the "heart and soul of Cambodia." You may know it, however, from its prominence in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2000).
The temples were engraved with everything from epic battles for the control of empires to macaques engaged in unorthodox, number-based sex positions (see below). The grand scope of the temples was impressive, but the details really amazed us.
After Siem Reap, our next stop was Battambang, Cambodia's 2nd biggest city. Despite its name, it was nothing like Tony's hangout in The Sopranos.* The best part of our trip to The 'Bang was the journey -- an 8 hour boat ride through Evergladesque swampland and water-swelled rainy season riverbeds. We met two gorgeous German doctors with whom we spent the rest of our day.
Near the massive lake of Tonle Sap we passed many floating villages. Some houses floated on wooden rafts, and some stood high above the swamp on stilts. Families dined together or rested on hammocks strung under their houses. Tourists are still something of an oddity in this undeveloped region of Cambodia, and we got many friendly smiles and waves as our boat plied the serpentine waterway. We stopped at one of the floating villages for lunch, where the toilets were holes in the floorboards opening into the water directly below. Perfect place for a swim!
The main tourist attraction in Battambang is the Bamboo Train, which was constructed from--obviously--wood and iron. Its non-eponymous nomenclature intrigued us. The Bamboo Train's design features included a go-kart engine and one rickety track...for both directions. If we were way cooler than mere tourists, we would have been Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom.
Because of the single track, whenever we encountered an inbound train, we had to stop, disassemble the cart, and remove it from the track by hand. Quite an inconvenience, but still more efficient than Amtrak. Zing!
We used this stop-and-go mode of transport to travel a few kilometers to a small nearby village, where we stopped for a while to rest and be bombarded by villagers selling various goods and services. Jared made friends with a rambunctious gang of 8-year olds, who whisked him away to show him the village brick factory, as well as their impressive sports and martial arts skills. The friendship quickly went sour when they demanded U.S. currency for their tutelage and Jared refused. Once the 8-year olds accepted this, they ignored us and contented themselves with beating each other up on the train tracks.
That evening we attended a circus we'd heard a lot about. Produced by a local NGO to create opportunities for impoverished kids, this circus featured music and acrobatics that were quite impressive and entertaining and brought us to our feet in applause time and again until the Grand Finale, in which a human tower collapsed, sending an acrobat headfirst into the ground. His compatriots dragged his limp, unconscious body offstage. When they came out for an encore, the fallen one was missing and we clapped awkwardly until the lights came on.
The German doctors tended to the boy, fighting for jurisdiction over his care with a pushy Parisian nurse. We stood by, ready to render legal services if necessary. Frauline doktors reported that he was OK and smiling.
Brief interlude: as we write this entry, we are on a bus back to Siem Reap; the onboard entertainment is bull-on-bull fighting. It is one of the most disturbing things we have ever seen. Clarification: it is a video of bull-on-bull fighting. Crowds cheer (on the bus and video) as these massive bovines bash heads at top speed and then brutalize each other with horns.
Now on to something in fact far more horrible: our first encounter with the history of the Khmer Rouge massacres. Outside Battambang we visited the Killing Cave, where the Khmer Rouge murdered at least 10,000 people in the 1970s. After Pol Pot's regime relocated peasants to this region to disorient and subdue them, it put them to work in unfamiliar fields and villages. The Khmer Rouge identified perceived opponents of the regime and brought them to a converted temple as their final prison. Then, they took prisoners to the top of the Killing Cave, which was an opening high above a cavern that used to be used as an amphitheater for theatrical performances.
At the mouth of the cave, they shot or macheted the condemned and dumped their bodies into the steep cave. Thousands of skeletons remain there, including skulls with bullet holes. This site was heart wrenching, but even more so when we realized that such locations were common around Cambodia in the 1970s, when more than two million innocent people were killed in a similar manner.
On that unavoidably depressing note, we are approaching Siem Reap. Jared is about to leave for Boston, and Andrew will continue the journey in Phnom Penh and then Myanmar for two weeks. Maybe he'll even blog for you if you check back...
Thanks for sharing our trip with us by reading our blog, especially to the one person who is actually reading this (hi mom!).
Ladyboys out.
*Bada-Bing, obvi.
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