Angkor What?

Tuesday December 16th

I have been waiting to get to Angkor the entire trip. It did not disappoint. There is something cool about a picture of Buddhist monks in their yellow and orange set against the stark gray of Angkor. These guys live such a simple life and they are soooo happy.

The word WAT means temple. Angkor is the location. Angkor Wat. This place was built in the 1100's and was part temple part city. All I know is it looks cool and it is a blast to run around inside it. There are actually dozens of temple complexes in this area. Angkor is the most popular. We would visit 4 all together. 5 if you count going to Angkor twice. Day one would be Angkor, Banyon Temple and Ta Promh. This blog entry shows pictures form Angkor only. Banyon will be next along with Ta Promh.

Jack gets into ripping around the ruins.
The token family shot.
Sarah and Jack had a blast climbing all over the place.
Here they are getting their Buddha on.
Here is Marie teaching Anna all about the history of Cambodia.
Here is our traveling group - minus me of course.

From left to right -Marie's sister Cheri, her brother Johann, Sarah, Anna, Jack, Marie, Marie's mom and her Dad.
Marie's Dad and Anna hanging out at Angkor.
Look there I am in a picture!!
Jack and I trying to look cool - as if we have to try.
Anna hanging out with a headless Buddha.
How many kids can say they have done this in their life!!
Off to see the other two temples on our list for today.

The Fast Boat to Siem Reap

Monday Dec. 15th

How do you know you are in a different part of the world? In Saudi it is driving down the highway and seeing camel wandering through the desert. Here in a big bustling city like Phnom Penh what would you expect to see walking down the street? Dog? Cat? I might even buy a horse or donkey. How about a huge and I mean big elephant. Just walking down the street. I was up early, showered and left the hotel in search of junk food for the boat ride today. I am getting a little tired of Vietnamese junk food. Banana wrapped in sweet sticky rice, sweet dumpling stuffed with pork stuff, and what we call a Vietnamese hoagie. I needed stuff that was more chemical than food. So off I went. I could not find anything. Not even Pringles which are huge over here. A whole lot of dried fish but that was not going to cut it. On the way back to the hotel just as the sun was rising over the river here comes this elephant walking down the main drag along the river. It was one of those moments where I saw it, watched it go by and said to myself "there is something you don't see everyday."
Today's boat is different from yesterday's boat in that it is enclosed. More like an airliner. It is a beautiful day so I opt to sit up on the roof as we fly deep into Cambodia. Sarah and Jack eventually join me. It was too cool.

The ride was 6 hours long and the scenery was spectacular. I wish I could show you all of our pictures here but I can't. We are uploading all of our pictures to Picasa so if you want to see them click on the "Our Pictures" link to the left. Here are some of my favorites. BTW - I bought a new camera just for this trip. A Sony Cybershot DSC-H50. I love it and it took some great shots. Here are a couple.We arrived in Siem Reap just after 1 in the afternoon. The place where they dock the boat (can't call it a dock as they just pull up to the rocks on the side of the river and you jump to shore) was crowded with tuk-tuk drivers looking to take those from the boat into town. There is a small village that has popped up here presumably to make money off the consant flow of tourists coming off the boats. It is poor. I thought the kids would be freaked out by the poverty. It is the most impoverished place I have ever seen. Then I thought maybe it would be good for them to see it. They would appriciate what they have more. In the end they were completely unfazed. They did not even notice it. Innocence is bliss. As we hopped in a tuk-tuk and started into town I was thinking "what have I got us into". If what I was seeing was any indication of what was to come this could be a long three days. BTW - a tuk-tuk is a carriage attached to the seat of a motorcycle. The link shows you every imaginable version of this Asian taxi. They are popular in Thailand and all decked out. Here they are more ghetto but they get the job done. This is a picture of a tuk-tuk in front of our hotel in Phnom Penh with our lugage.About fifteen minutes later we rolled into Siem Reap. The Angkor Wat temple complex is on the outskirts of this town. The entire country has put it's stock into Angkor and the money it will generate. Therefore the town was nothing like what I was expecting. First of all the people here are for the most part all employed. Not much poverty in town. There are tourist police that keep the beggers and those hawking all sorts of goods away from the restaurants and other tourists places. The town reminded me of Nassau Bahama's by day and Key West's Duval Street or Memphis' Beale Street by night. It was built for western tourism and it was the most western place we had been to on this trip since Singapore. Most people would come here looking to escape from the ways of the west. After spending a week in Vietnam and parts of Cambodia I had just the oposite view. The prospect of a good bar with beer and a "American" food along with a foot rub sounded like heaven. Here is a pic of Pub Street in Siem Reap at night.We are staying at a hotel called the Bopha Angkor. I was a little nervous as this was the first part of the journey that was on me. Marie's parents had taken care of all the details up to this point. I has arrianged the details for the Siem Reap leg of our trip. If the hotel sucked it was on me. It didn't. In fact it was great. Nice gardens. Great restaurant. Good pool and comfortable rooms. All for a good price. We are all going to sleep in tomorrow as it has been a long couple of days of travel. We will spend most of the day touring the temples. I should also note here that through all the planes, trains, sit lows, tuk-tuks, boats and cabs our kids have been amazing. They have gotten up early without a fight. They are truely becoming seasoned travelers. Here are some pics from our first day in Siem Reap Cambodia. This is Anna posing like the statue in our hotel's garden.


This is the creek that ran in front of our hotel. You had to cross the bridge to get to the central market where the ladies could do what they do best.....

SHOP!!

Up the Mekong

Sunday Dec. 14th

We were up early today for the first time in a bunch of days. I was just starting to get use to sleeping in until 8ish. It was quite the scene for the locals of Chau Doc to see our entourage rolling through the streets loaded with multiple Americans and large bags piled on to of sit-lows. I love this picture. I shows us on our way to the boat. You can see our bags and Marie's dad with his arm around Sarah.

Angkor Wat is our end goal. I have a list of archeological/historic sites I would like to visit at some point in my life. The Great Wall of China, Taj Mahal, Machu Pichu in Peru, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Petra in Jordan and a few others. I have already checked the Great Pyramid off the list although we will return to Egypt this spring to show the kids. So now I can check another off the list.

As we headed up the Mekong river and left Vietnam we hit the rice fields of Cambodia. It is hard to zip past these fields and not think about what went on here back in the 1970's. The Khmer Rouge took over this country and under the watchful eye of their leader Pol Pot they began their quest to create a completely agrarian society. All people living in the cities were moved to work camps in the country where they were then worked day and night until death. They called them The Killing Fields. That along with the execution of all upper class and intellectuals accounted for over 2.2 million deaths of the total 6 million people living in Cambodia at that time.

Our boat trip this day put is in Phnom Penh for the evening after a 5 hour boat ride. We would have another 6 hours up the river tomorrow. Phonm Penh is not very nice although they are currently trying to fix it up. Cambodia is poor and this place is really poor. We are staying at a little hotel on the river. It is nice but the city is a little shady. We found a nice bistro at which to eat and actually had a cheeseburger and fries. First one in awhile. Johann and I were able to use the free wifi there so we could drink beer and update our blogs. Here we are:

We toured the royal palace and then ate dinner. I think we were all anxious to get to bed and move on from this place. I would have liked to have had the chance to go see the monument to the victims of The Killing Fields be we didn't have time. Early to bed and off tomorrow for a long ride to the middle of Cambodia.

Sarah of course found a place to buy something. She has turned into quite the shopper. She makes her grandmother and mom proud. Here are the kids at the Royal Palace. It was nice but once again there was an air to this place that just made me want to get out of here.
So I am not one to end on a down note. All this Killing Fields stuff is a little heavy. If you know me I am a guy who likes a good time. Find a silver lining in a cloud and so forth. So here ya go. As we were leaving dinner in Phnom Penh I saw this billboard across the street and had to have my picture taken. As most of you know I love beer. Moving to a dry country was a real stretch for me. I really don't miss it that much in Saudi. However when I leave Saudi and get the chance to have a few I usually put the pedal to the metal and too much is never enough. In Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia my favorite flavors are Singh Ha, Angkor Beer and Tiger Beer in no particular order. You can buy them anywhere. Tiger is the most readily available. When I saw this billboard I had to take a pic. Life IS good on top. And at this point in our journey I feel pretty damn good!!

The Quiet Before the Storm

Saturday Dec. 13th
A very mellow day. Took a tour by boat on the Mekong in the morning. Hung out around the house. Ate our last bowl of Pho and started packing for our trip to Cambodia. The next couple of days will be very long. Tomorrow is a 5 hour “fast boat” ride up the Mekong across the Cambodian border to Phnom Penh. Then the next day is 6 more hours by boat deeper into Cambodia to Siem Reap to see the Angkor Wat temple complex. This is going to be interesting to say the least.

Here is the gang in the boat.

This is our boat literally pulling up to a banana boat to buy bananas. Very cool.One of the main businesses/industries/resources here is fish. When you go into the market you piles of dried shrimp and hanging dried fish. Smells lovely.
Here we are pulling up to some of the boats that sell different things on the river. You know what they sell because they hang them from their flag poles and other places. I thought the paint job on the front of the boats was pretty cool.

Friday Dec. 12th

Friday Dec. 12th
Today Marie’s mom was throwing one of her typical parties where she invites loads of people and cooks way too much food. This party was to celebrate Sarah, Cheri and my birthday. Even the provincial bishop of the Catholic church was going to come. He is a old childhood friend of Marie’s mom. Roasted whole pig, beef stew, clay pot beef and loads of other goodies. Of course the cakes came at the end. Yes I said cakes. I think there was four of them all together.

This is Sarah, Jack and there cousin Khanh sitting in front of the pig. Sarah and Khanh hit it off really well even though they did not speak the same language.

This is Sarah with her cake, Bishop Thien (left) and the local priest Father Peter (right).
Here is Sarah and I with my cake. The flowers on Sarah's head were made by one of Marie's cousins. Sarah loved it. When she blew out her candles she wished it would never dry up. Too cute - of course.

Chau Doc

To find Chau Doc on a map you would need to find Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) on a map and run your finger to the southwest toward Cambodia. You can't get much closer to the Cambodian border then when you are in Chau Doc. My first impression of the town was that it was like going back in time to an old west town. Obviously there are loads of motor bikes and other modern touches but the feel is there. It is a bustling, lively place. For a rural town it is quite crowded. But to live here for even a few days is to immerse yourself in Vietnamese culture. A good example of this is the sit-low. This is like something out of an old western movie about the gold rush. The kind that have the token Chinese town people running around pulling people on little carts. Here the carts are hooked up to bicycles and they act as taxi's as well as a means to move almost anything through the town. In any other place you might think they are touristy but there is no real tourism out here and they are the real deal. Here are some sit-low pictures.
This picture is just ridiculous. How many Americans can they squeeze onto one of these things. I has to sit like Buddha the whole way back to the house. Here are the kids on a sit low in front of Marie's mom's house. Ready to head out shopping.
The other part of the Vietnamese culture that I always thought was a total stereotype and isn't is the rice paddy hat. They are everywhere. In the market, the fields, and on boats. People here wear them like westerners would wear a baseball cap. Very cool.
Pho - where do I start. If I was forced to name my top 5 favorite foods it would easily be on the list. I love this stuff. Beef noodle soup. And lucky me-here they eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Chau Doc has managed to take a food stand or restaurant and shove them into every nook and cranny in the city. Right at the end of the driveway is the stand that takes fresh sugar cane and puts it through a press and gives you this delicious sugar drink that is literally fresh from the cane. Just up the block is the Pho stand. Most Americans that try to pronounce this word will say "FOE". Nope that ain't it. It is pronounced Fa. Like a long long way to run. An man is it good. On one or two days I had it twice a day. But on most days here in Chau Doc we had it for breakfast. This little hole in the wall place called Cole. I am sure it is pronounced Co-Le or something like that but I will just call it Cole! I have had a lot of Pho in my life but nothing like this. For starters the noodles are fresh. It is like eating spaghetti with fresh pasta. I suppose I could go on forever about this but it is getting late and I will let the pictures speak for the soup. Let's just say that I am typing this in Cambodia and I can't get it here and I really miss it a lot.

This picture is problematic. Marie would say that since this is my bowl of Pho it is not the real deal. I suppose there are lots of ways to make it. I like to simply use bean sprouts, hoisin sauce, fish sauce, lime juice and peppers. Thinly sliced beef, chop sticks and a spoon. Delicious. Marie would tell you you need to use basil or it is not Pho. She is a Vietnamese snob!! She also says that the kids and I use too much hoisin sauce. Whatever. In the end I love it. Here is MY bowl of Pho from my favorite place in the world to eat it - COLE

We rented motor bikes for the week and used them to get to breakfast each day. We would throw Sarah and Jack on and all take off to eat. It was a lot of fun.Here we are eating breakfast. The two guys at the end of the table are Marie's cousins - Tinh and Thom. They are brothers and two really nice guys. Even though I did not speak Vietnamese and they spoke no English we all got along great.

Ha Tien

Monday Dec. 8th

No rest for the weary. We were up this morning and right back onto a bus. This time bound for southern coast of Vietnam. Right on the border with Cambodia to a place called Ha Tien. When I worked at Hatboro-Horsham I used to teach with a guy who had spent time over here during the war. He was a US special forces guy and was actually stationed in Chau Doc. He use to talk about going down to Ha Tien to swim. Two guys would swim while two guys kept an eye and a gun pointed toward the jungle. It is pretty different now. First we picked up Marie's dad, brother and sister at the boat dock. They had come over from the island they were diving at to meet us. We had lunch next to the beach and then relaxed for the afternoon. It is a very nice beach. Here are some pictures from our day at the beach and the trip down from Chau Doc.

This is a random rice paddy along the route to Ha Tien. I thought it looked cool.

Here we are standing in the fields.

This is Anna on the beach in Ha Tien.Fishermen in Ha Tien.Getting our Buddha on at the local temple.

The next four days days will be spend hanging in and around Chau Doc. We are looking forward to some down time.