Saigon

I'm in Saigon now! This is a much more developed city than Phnom Penh or Vientiane. It reminds me more of Taiwanese or Malaysian urban areas. Interestingly, the red and yellow flags of the communist party are everywhere (hammer and sickle flags), much more than in Laos, where they seemed to be isolated to government buildings. The streets are narrow and traffic is tight. They say the key is to walk slowly and make eye contact with the drivers, oh and to watch out for the motorbike thieves.
I've got a day and a half to rest up. My buddy, Rob, is flying in tomorrow night!

"And it's one, two, three...what're we fightin' for?"

"...You know I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam!"
I'm headed to 'Nam tomorrow morning, Saigon to be exact. Phnom Penh -- what an interesting city. I visited the US Embassy a couple days ago and spent an hour watching the interesting folks that stepped up to the window. There were a lot of engaged couples who had been introduced through acquaintences back in the States and had just met face-to-face in the past month. Very interesting, indeed. Ah, love, 'tis a wonderful and strange thing. Well, mostly strange, anyways...
I visited the Foreign Correspondent's Club yesterday and enjoyed dinner with a nice view of the Tonle Sap and the riverside drive in the evening. I have to admit that I have not been too bowled over by Cambodian cuisine, but I think it's been ruined by a decade of civil war and poverty. It's like a less spicy version of Thai food.
I find myself arguing with mototaxi drivers over the agreed fare of rides around this town on half of my trips. It's a con game they play because I think they're able to tweak a little more money from tourists. Not me. I haven't budged at all, and they scream and howl and cry, and gather other Cambodians around me to complain about me, but I am totally immune to that
sort of treatment. I know I'm paying twice what the locals are paying already. I find a secret satisfaction when I walk away and they're displeased. I haven't felt like this since Indonesia.

Mass graves

Sunken pits around the killing fields indicate where the mass graves hide bones. Bullets were a precious resource so people were clubbed, bayonetted, or buried alive. Infants and children were killed as well. Many of the perpertrators were other children and adolescents.

The Killing Fields at Choeung Ek

I also visited the killing fields at Choeung Ek, where most of the bodies and prisoners at s-21 were taken. This pagoda houses some of the skeletal remains unearthed here. There have been around 9,000 individual remains discovered at this site.

Concertina wire fence

Isolation cells

Looking out at the courtyard

Small cell

Smaller cell blocks

Once a classroom, these rooms were converted to small isolation chambers for prisoners.

Torture room

Irrelevant confessions were obtained by torturing with suffocation, beatings, and lashes with electric wires.

Leg irons

Prisoners were shackled together on long iron rods all day and all night.

Look at the floor

The long leg irons were bolted to the floor.

S-21

I visited s-21, the main "interrogation center" used by the Khmer Rouge government. It was a place of ruthless and pointless torture during Pol Pot's mad reign (1975-79). This place was a school that was converted into a place of pain an suffering. Under the Khmer Rouge, it is estimated that up to 1.8 million people were disappeared.

The Khmer Rouge

In 1975-79 Cambodia, then known as Democratic Kampuchea, was lead by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, a Maoist peasant-worker communist society, that resulted in massive genocide and ethnic cleasning in Cambodia. One of the horrifying results of this regime were the mass graves known as "the Killing Fields" (check out the movie of the same name). Under the Khmer Rouge, the date was set back to Year Zero and people's identities were washed away. They wanted to raise a society washed clean of everything before it (and anything that could pose a threat to their power), so they brainwashed the children and turned them against their families. Anyone with any education that could pose a threat to the Khmer Rouge was sent to prison, interrogated, tortured, and summarily killed. Security Prison 21 (S-21) was the main interrogation center and prison during the Khmer Rouge, and I visited it today along with the Killing Fields.
I have been reading a book about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and it is frightening to think how such a regime could take hold and how a population could turn on its own. It is especially frightening because Pol Pot's regime appears to have been fueled by the same foreign policy that has been practiced in Latin America and the Middle East. When I read the few confessions by the Khmer Rouge and workers at S-21, I immediately wondered if such a place might exist in our time. Strangely, and I am embarrassed to admit this, I thought of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, some place far away from the press and eyes of the people. At the same time, I realize that it was the withdrawl of foreign forces from SE Asia that allowed Pol Pot's regime to proliferate, and the years of terror only ended when Vietnam invaded Cambodia. What is left, however, is a generation still bears the scars of genocide.

Phnom Penh streets

Crossing the river

Tonle Sap River

The Tonle Sap river connects Tonle Sap ("The Great Lake") to the Mekong at Phnom Penh. This massive freshwater lake (the largest in SE Asia) is about 1300 sq km in the dry season and during the rainy season goes up to 13000 sq km. The Tonle Sap river flows upstream (headed north) during the rainy season and reverses at the end of the rainy season, draining the lake.

The Grand Palace

National Museum

Housing a bunch of boring sculptures from pre-Angkor times, Ankgor times, and post-Angkor times. Boooooring.

Phnom Penh around the old market

Sunsetting off a dilapated tower

The road to Kratie

There is was no pavement for the first four hours of this trip. The road was wide enough for a small highway, but they had a long way to go before it would be seeing highway traffic.

Stung Treng

What a pretty city, ugh! This place was all dirt roads. I can't believe we dropped Andre off here. It took us a couple hours to get together a group to negotiate a cheap ride down to Phnom Penh.

Racing fastboat

A boat came up along side of us during the trip down the Mekong.

Hold on to yer hats!

A fast boat down to Stung Treng with some travelmates. They are Andre (Germany), Nadia (Italy), and Guilano (Italy).

Goodbye, Laos!

Looking back across the Mekong to Laos from the Cambodian immigration office.

Cambodian immigration office

You have to take a boat to cross the Mekong to get your passport stamped for Cambodia, but then you have to go back the way you came if you're going by land into Cambodia. How wierd is that?

Leaving Laos

It was Saturday so they charged us $2 a person to leave Laos.

Flooded market at Ban Nakasang

Getting off the boats at Ban Nakasang

Sort of like getting of a gondola at Piazza San Marco in Venice, no? Ban Nakasang was the village on the mainland. From here, we headed to the border.

Cruising up the Mekong

Sunsetting on Don Det

Looking across to Don Det from Don Khon.

Auberge Sala Don Khon

This converted hospital was my place for the night in Don Khon. I had the room to the left. Only $10 (terribly expensive in terms of Laos -- the bungalows were about $1.50 a night).

Road to Don Khon

I took a boat from the mainland to Don Det, one of the islands at Si Phan Don, but I walked to another island, Don Khon (connected by a bridge).

Rice fields on Don Det

Tilling the fields

Munching away

These kids were awesome. They used their fingers to eat everything, rolling a ball of sticky rice with their fingers and popping it into their mouth after a morsel of meat. They were also eating some hardboiled eggs that looked like they had chicken embryos inside, or else they had been filled with some other meat. They expertly freed lotus seeds from the pods, shelled them, and popped them in their mouths. I found it hypnotic.

Noontime lunch break

The sawngthaew to Si Phan Don stopped at noon for about five minutes so that vendors could run up with their wares. As soon as we stopped, there were hands reaching into the bed of the pickup truck with bags of sticky rice, lotus flower seed pods, bbq chicken on a stick, and banana-wrapped goodies.

Bus station buffalo grazing

Water buffalos grazed everywhere in Laos. This was right behind the bus station.

Mud everywhere

This is the Southern bus station in Pakse, or technically, not in Pakse. This sort of flooding is pretty typical all over Laos. Reminds me of Baghdad.

Daytime in Pakse

Evening in Pakse

I spent the night in Pakse. There is some old colonial architecture to see, but otherwise not much to do in this town.

Crossing into Laos

Here was the passport control in Laos. I had to pay 100 BHT in overtime to the Laotian officials.
This is the only land border crossing between Thailand and Laos (you don't need to take a boat).

Squeezed into another sawngthaew

At the border, I hopped on to another sawngthaew headed to Pakse.

Waiting at the bus station in Philbun

In Philbun, I hopped on to a big sawngthaew (basically like a deuce-and-a-half) to Chong Mek, the Thai border town.

The only foreigner aboard

My bus ride from Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand to Philbun, 45 km away from the Thai-Laos border.

The Grand Palace

Three different stupas at the Grand Palace. I don't know what they mean because I didn't go in. It was hot, and I was tired. But I think the King and Queen of Thailand live there and for $10 you can visit it, but you have to wear shoes, and your shoulders and knees must be covered.

The giant reclining Buddha

This statue is enormous -- 45 meters long and 5 meters high. It is at Wat Pho in Bangkok. The temple was constructed around it.
So this is the position the Buddha was in before he attained enlightment, which is to say, before he reached nirvana, which is to say, before he DIED OF STARVATION. Yet he is always smiling. What a contrast to Christianity with Jesus looking pained. Is this reflective of the always-smiling Asian or a reflection of optimism. Or maybe neither.

Khao San Road at dusk

After, another visit to this backpacker ghetto, I was glad I was staying in the Sukhumvit area.

Nana Plaza

Soi 4 off of Sukhumvit Road (and where my hotel was) is lined with gogo bars and this place. Nana Plaza consists of three levels of "strip clubs". Aside from the group of us, there were no other foreign women around.

"Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar..."

Soi 3 off Sukhumvit Road has a bunch of Egyptian, Indian, Pakistani, and North African restaurants. We checked out Neferiti, an Egyptian place. After stuffing ourselves on naan bread, Syrian salad (suspiciously similar to tabouli), hummus, lamb, and curry, we tried smoking a hooka: flavored coals placed on top of the hooka cooled through the water pipe. You're not supposed to inhale, and it doesn't give you a high. It's just a nice-smelling apple-flavored smoke (in which I quickly lost interest).

Traffic on the river

Taking a boat on the river was a good away to avoid traffic as well. Rides were even cheaper, ranging from less than 25 cents to almost 50 cents. The river was full of barges (some loaded with teak), ferries, and dinner cruise boats.

The Skytrain

Bangkok's public transportation has, along with a subway, tuk-tuks, taxis, boats, and buses, the skytrain, an elevated train which can speed you from place to place without the hassle of being stuck in traffic. Rides cost from 25 cents to a dollar, but for $2.50 you can have an all day pass and watch the city glide by in air-conditioned bliss.
I ended up taking all four methods of transportation, most notably using a taxi (80 cents) to get to and from the hotel to the skytrain station (about 1 km away).