Once a classroom, these rooms were converted to small isolation chambers for prisoners.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
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.
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.
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.
National Museum
Housing a bunch of boring sculptures from pre-Angkor times, Ankgor times, and post-Angkor times. Boooooring.
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.
Hold on to yer hats!
A fast boat down to Stung Treng with some travelmates. They are Andre (Germany), Nadia (Italy), and Guilano (Italy).
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?
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.
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).
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.
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).
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).
Buildings covered with a web of lines
I'm not sure if these were for telephones, cable television, or electricity but this haphazard assortment of wires and cables seen all over Thailand were the most impressive in Bangkok.
Chinatown in Bangkok
We spent the first afternoon perusing the alleys of markets in Chinatown. There were a lot of shops dedicated to Hello Kitty! and giant bags of fried pork rinds. Go figure.
View from the hotel roof
The downtown area of Bangkok is enormous. This is, by no means, a view of the city skyline. The hotel I stayed at had a rooftop bar and pool which was a nice way to relax after sightseeing during the day. Despite these clouds, the weather in Bangkok was much nicer (hardly any rain) and warmer than in Mae Sot.
Squatters camp in Bangkok
On this trip to Bangkok, I found it to be a mix of new high-rises with a modern public transportation, but mixed in this glass and steel world was the past in the form of old moldy buildings and shantytowns like this. This was at the Nana Skytrain stop on Sukhumvit Road, one of the main boulevards with five-star hotels and enormous air-conditioned malls.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
How do you spell Phnom Penh?
After four days of travelling, I've made it to Cambodia's capital of Phnom Penh.
I had great weather on my way to Si Phan Don from Pakse on the back of a sawngthaew. I took a ride on a small longtail boat to Don Det, the backpacker island, then had a nice hike through some rice patty fields to Don Khon, five kilometers away, with my backpack. I smelled great too. Si Phan Don is beautiful and quiet. The Mekong is wide there, but even so, the current is dangerously swift. I relaxed in a nice converted hospital. It was a splurge suggested in my Lonely Planet guidebook and with the rest of the accommodations being elevated bungalows on the river, at $10 a night, it was a pleasure. Power was available from 6pm to 10pm, and there was pleasantly nothing for me to do, other than watch the river flow by, so that's what I did. I met some other travellers, most of whom were heading north, having just arrived in Laos and got some good tips of what to expect for my travels further south in Cambodia and Vietnam.
I headed to Cambodia the next day, not sure how far I could get and how much it would cost me. It turns out that I got away with spending far less than predicted in my guidebook. I shared a sawngthaew ride to the border at Vang Koem, paid $2 to the Laos officials (read: bribe) for being open on a Saturday, then took a boat across the Mekong to the Cambodian immigration where I paid $3. This is not an official border crossing, so I had no choice but to bribe the officials on both sides.
From the border, I took a ride on a fast boat for an hour down to Stung Treng. It was a shallow longtail boat with a big engine. I had earplugs and a lifejacket. The driver was excellent at avoiding logs and massive whirlpools (one of them was about ten feet across). There was a rainshower in the middle of the river, so we headed to the right of an island and avoided it -- that's how wide the Mekong is at certain points; it has its own microclimate.
Cambodia is pretty undeveloped in the north. There wasn't any pavement in Stung Treng, no bus station, no buses. The only way to get south is via boat or a hired taxi. Eight of us grouped together and were able to haggle a minivan ride to Phnom Penh (12 hours away) from $20 down to $12 a person.
The road for the first four hours was muddy and rutted. Some tire ruts were a couple feet deep. We were lucky there hadn't been any rain for a couple days otherwise we would have been pushing the minivan. My butt hurt, and I was tired, but I made it here at 0130 this morning.
It's hot today, but I'm in an air-conditioned internet cafe. There is a nice riverside promenade in this rundown town, and my guesthouse ($3 for a room with a bathroom) is on the lake. A day of relaxing and nothing else!
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Back in Laos
I left Bangkok yesterday morning, saying good bye to some excellent friends from Mae Sot, and I took a 10-hour bus trek heading east to Ubon Ratchathani. It was a dark rainy night when I got there, but it was good to see that I was the only tourist around. Ubon Ratchathani is a large town 90 km from the Thai-Laos border. I had to visit five banks until I found a place that would let me buy US dollars. After taking care of business, I took local transport to Chong Mek, the border town in Thailand. Once again, I was the only tourist on the bus. I felt like I was in Indonesia again.The Chong Mek border is supposed to be the only border where you need a Laotian visa before showing up, so it tends to be avoided by the backpacker tourists. At the border, I had to pay 100 BHT to the Laotian immigration officers for "overtime" since it was after 4pm. I tried to bargain it down, but I couldn't.Laos is beautiful. The sun was setting during my hour sawngthaew ride to Pakse from the border. Both sides of the road had rice patty fields in different shades of green with water buffalos grazing. It was so beautiful to see the mountain reflections in the still water. Quite a few stilted homes had their ground floors flooded underwater. I passed some lakes that had expanded and the elevated resting areas that you see in SE asia that once lined the shores were also underwater.The Laotians squeezed into the sawngthaew with me seemed amused with my presence. They made room for me on the benches and were constantly stealing glances at me. It's great to be a novel tourist again.Pakse is a town on highway 13 (the north-south road through Laos). There are some tourists here as it is a long day's journey from Vientiane and on the way to Si Phan Don, Four Thousand Islands. I will be headed there tomorrow, I think. The Mekong River widens there and harbors four thousand islands, apparently.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Bangkok!
I am in Bangkok now! I stayed in Mae Sot for a little longer than I expected revisiting friends and the clinic. As it turns out, a bunch of friends from Mae Sot were headed to Bangkok this weekend, so I joined the mass exodus. It's great! This is a place where I've not spent more than 12 hours on my five previous visits and never ventured beyond the airport, bus terminal, or Khao San Road area. This time I am staying at the Sukhumvit Road area, which is downtown near several air-conditioned malls, shopping areas, and go-go bars. It sure beats the backpacker ghetto of Khao San Road. I'm close to the skytrain, which connects to the subway and riverboats. The city is readily accessible! Bangkok's downtown is enormous -- a mixture of modern high-rise apartment and office buildings next to old two-story shops next to squatter's shantytowns with rusty corrugated tin walls and roofs.
We visited the weekend market, Chatachuk and Chinatown in one go. I am, it seems, a poor shopper, finding the shuffling aisles suffocating after an hour. Today we visited the Grand Palace for a peek and Wat Pho, with a massive reclining Buddha.
The weather has been warm and humid, which has made it perfect for the rooftop pool and bar, with great views at night. What a change from Mae Sot's daily deluge and neverending dampness. As a result of the rainy season, my clothes, after nine months of handwashing on the road, have acquired a funk that simply re-emerges whenever they get wet.
Friday, August 05, 2005
Another group song at Lucky
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