Wrapping it up

  Sorry it has taken me so long to write this summary of the trip but I have been busier than the proverbial "one armed paper hanger" since I returned. 
  First off, this was a terrific trip. I learned a lot. Nathan was fantastic as both photography instructor and tour guide. Both his living in Phnom Penh and speaking Cambodian made a huge difference, I believe, in what we, as a group got to do and see. Chris and Peggy were a delight to travel with and the sharing of experiences from previous trips was fun and enlightening. 
  As for Cambodia, I loved it! There is an "aliveness", if that is a word, to this culture which has made such a dramatic recovery in just the thirty or so years since the Khmer Rouge were driven out. During their reign the country was driven back nearly a thousand years as Pol Pot tried to reestablish an agrarian culture devoid of any modernity. People, in addition to being persecuted, were starving and had to eat anything they could get their hands on, including spiders! Today, the country seems to be making huge strides in improving infrastructure (I had a better cellular signal there than at home!) and modernizing as quickly as possible. This is a little scary and sad to some folks, who don't want to see the country lose its character. But people are busy doing all sorts of things that indicate a reviving economy and food seems plentiful. Still, compared to us in the west, these people have virtually nothing in terms of material possessions, but still they seem happy. Maybe I am being too simplistic or seeing what I wish to here, but everyone we met was very friendly and quick to smile. Many people speak English. Of course we were in predominantly tourist areas so that may not be representative. In speaking to one of the Buddhist monks that allowed us to photograph him I was told that learning English helped one obtain a good job.  I also learned that many young men became monks in order to obtain an education and would eventually return to secular life. 
  One interesting fact was that the US dollar was the "currency of the realm" so to speak. Many prices were quoted in dollars and most ATMs issued dollars. The local currency, the riel, exchanges at 4000 to the dollar and is used like small change. Apparently there is no actual coinage in circulation. 
  The food was wonderful, very similar to Thai. Lots of seafood. Everything was very fresh and I never got sick, but we only ate at restaurants so I can't speak about the "street food". My favorite was Tom Yum anything, but especially shrimp. Fresh fruit was a delight. You don't know what a mango really tastes like until you have had one that was tree ripened. 
   So, would I do it again? Absolutely! Where to next? Well, there's someone at home who would like to clip my wings a bit but I am hooked!  I absolutely want to continue the adventures. If I have my druthers it will be off to Burma.  I'm always on the lookout for interesting folks to travel with, so, if you are adventurous and have a place in mind, or on your bucket list, let me know. Maybe we can team up for a new expedition. You don't have to be rabid about photography, but it helps. Contact me at apex01@roadrunner.com. 

Last Day in Bangkok

   Today I was totally on my own, although I did see Nathan briefly to say goodbye before he caught his flight back to Phnom Penh. I needed to catch up on my blog so completed a couple of posts sitting down by the hotel pool. The pool itself was kind of interesting. It was located on the third floor but outside the building on an enclosed courtyard of sorts. I expected to be pretty small given that the hotel is self was in this densely packed area, with no real space between buildings. That's not to say the hotel interior was cramped at all, in fact my room was pretty spacious. I just was surprised to find this large an open space containing the pools. The main pool was at least 20 by 40 feet and there was a smaller children's pool as well set off by itself. It would have been pleasant enough to just spend the day there but I decided to go visit the Jim Thompson house, hoping for some good photo ops.

  Jim Thompson was the American architect who is credited with reviving the Thai cottage industry of hand woven silk. He visited Thailand during or just after WW II and fell in love with the Thai culture, built a beautiful, large house in the traditional Thai style but slightly westernized to incorporate his lifestyle and decorated it with many priceless Asian antiques. The house was built in the "jungle" on a klong, or canal as boats provided the best means of transportation in those days.
Daily he would travel on the klong to the local villages where he would work with the artisans, the silk weavers, on colors and designs for his products. He developed this into quite an enterprise over the years and then just mysteriously disappeared in the late sixties. Although many searched for him, no trace was ever found. Newspaper reports were made of sighting of Thompson in Malaysia, but those were probably mistaken identity cases. The Jim Thompson Foundation maintains his house as a museum and tribute.

  The first time I visited his house, just a few years after Thompson disappeared, I seem to recall it

was still in a rather remote location. But, Bangkok has certainly  grown in the past 40 years and the place is surrounded by urban sprawl. Still they try to keep the illusion of the jungle by surrounding the perimeter and  grounds with palms and dense vegetation and serene pools with water plants and fish. A very nice restaurant, gift shop and artists studio have also been added. The gift shop features many beautiful silk items. They are not inexpensive, but the quality is unsurpassed. Yes, girls, I did stop in there.
  Arriving at the house I was lumped together with some other English speakers for a guided tour. In the old days you were just allowed to wander about. But this was nice and some of the peculiar features of the house were explained, such as the very high thresholds in the doorways between rooms unlike our houses where there may be a low threshold between room in a Thai house you have to step up over the threshold, in this case something like a foot or so. This is to keep spirits from traveling from room to room. Apparently they are too short or lack feet to be able to step up and over. Our Thai tour guide was very pretty, petite and knowledgeable. But what really struck me was she had that same kind of sing song cadence to her voice that tour guides all over seem to have that let's you know your on a guided tour. Photography was not allowed inside the house proper but I did takes some pictures outside and on the grounds.
   I took a tuktuk back to the hotel. Glad I had brought a business card from the hotel, otherwise I'm not sure how I would have explained where I wanted to go to the driver. Still had a couple of hours so had a quick dinner of pad Thai, showered, and packed up ( is it possible this backpack has gotten heavier?). The taxi ride (Toyota Corolla - no tuktuk for this trip) to the airport took an hour. Check in and security went smoothly and now I'm on my way home!!
  Unless something interesting happens (I hope not!), I won't bore you with the final details of the trip home, but I will do a kind of summary of my impressions of the trip in a day or so. Thanks for coming along. Hope it was interesting.

Thai Royal Palace

  This morning we got to "sleep in". Meeting in the lobby at 9:00 we were going to pile into a couple of tuktuks and headed off to the Royal Palace. But one of the drivers advised me my shorts were too short. Not wanting to offend anyone with my sexy knees I ran back up to the room and quickly changed into long pants. Our driver was very pleased, smiled and gave me the thumbs up.
  The two drivers took different routes which made Nathan a bit nervous as we didn't know where Chris and Peg were. I think it was actually a little competition between the drivers as just prior to arriving at the palace we turned the corner and ended up just in front of the other two in their tuktuk. Our driver had a big grin, obviously pleased that his short cut had worked.

  At the entrance we found out that our clothing issue had not been totally resolved as Nathan's shorts, which came well below the knee, were deemed unacceptable by the clothing police at the entrance and he has to end up renting a pair of baggy pants at a facility set up just to accommodate visitors. 

  The palace grounds were mobbed with tourists and so we resolved to just do the best we could in terms of photography. The palace complex is overwhelmingly large and elaborately decorated. There was no way to take it all in in a photo anyway so concentrating on details rather than overviews was the way to go. In one area there was an active Buddhist shrine and I took a few pictures of folks
making sacrifices at the altars. Many of these were in the form of food or lighted incense or bits of gold leaf pressed onto a statue of the Buddha.  Couldn't resist photographing one woman lighting incense in her "I love NY" t-shirt.

  On the palace grounds is the temple of the Emerald Buddah.  Removing our shoes we went inside but were not allowed to photograph there so I took a picture through the doorway after leaving the temple, though I wished I had a longer telephoto lens. 

  Several buildings had enormously long murals on exterior, portico covered walls. I took some pictures of a Thai artist working carefully on a mural, all the time plugged into his iPod. 

  We did not go inside the weapons museum, but I did photograph the poor guard who was standing so still, like a statue, in that hot sun in heavy uniform.
Tourists would pose with him. Some would try to break his concentration and try to get him to smile. I've seen this done almost anywhere there are honor guards posted at tourist attractions (one exception - I've never seen it at Arlington).  There's a reason those guns aren't loaded!
  Hot and thirsty, we decided it was time to go and worked our way back to the entrance so Nathan could return his rented pants and retrieve his shorts. Tuktuking our way back to the hotel it felt good to get back in the A/C. After lunch Peg, Chris and I took a taxi to MBK, a huge (I mean hugeaaaaah) shopping mall with many genuine article shops and gobs of "knock off" shops. In the knock off shops one can bargain for the price. Taking a taxi back to the hotel we joined Nathan for the "last supper" of the group as shortly after we said goodbye to Peg and Chris as they departed for the airport and their flight back to the UK. No tears, but hugs and firm handshakes signified that I have two new friends "over there".

Bangkok here we come

Bangkok here we come.
    Today we made the long overland journey to Bangkok, Thailand. But first, we went for a ride to nowhere and back on a local tourist attraction, the bamboo railroad.  This is one of those, "you have to see it to believe it" deals, so I'm hoping to be able to up load pictures and maybe even a short video clip.

   After breakfast on the rooftop of our hotel, Star, we check out and loaded the van with all of our stuff. The hotel manager very graciously presented us each with a gift of a nice scarf.  Off we went for the short ride to the "train yard". Some background information is necessary here. This section of narrow gauge rail had been abandoned and the cars allowed to decay until the were totally useless.

But some ingenious locals conceived of a way to put this scattered and dismantled equipment to good use. They constructed the bamboo railroad for their own transportation between villages before it became a hit with tourists.  Constructing light weight platforms of bamboo which rode atop salvaged railroad car axles and wheels, they had something akin to the old hand cars one used to see in some old time movies. Except, these were not hand powered by pumping a lever. Instead there were powered by a small one cylinder engine attached to the drive axle by a v belt and pulley. To go faster the "engineer" pulls the pivoting engine towards him, tightening the belt. To slow down he loosens the belt. A wooden brake shoe provides a means to stop the contraption, we hope!
  It was a wild ride indeed! You won't find this at Disney! We all piled onto the flat bamboo platform and sat down. Seat belts? There weren't even any seats, just a small cushion atop a piece of carpet. I guess this is the closest I'll ever get to riding a flying carpet! There wasn't really much to hold onto either. And then there was the issue of what to do when you met another car coming the other way! No problem GI, we just stop and dismantle the car and let them through, then reassemble the contraption and take off again.  Not sure of the top speed of this thing but it sure seems fast when are that close to the ground.  In any case it was a blast and we were glad we did it.

  Back in the van we started the long and relatively uneventful trip to the Thai border.  Along the way we stopped to photograph a group of young monks, apparently blessing a family household or receiving a blessing, not sure exactly, but the line of orange robes made a nice picture.  Reaching the
border we went through passport control, said "soak so bai" to Cambodia and transported our bags to our new Thai vehicle.  This van was totally "tricked out" with a TV, stereo etc. But the best part for me was the reclining seats. Now we were zipping along on multiple-lane highways instead of the dusty and bumpy roads we had been on before. Stopping for lunch, several of us had fresh coconut water as our beverage. This is served by slicing the top off of what we would consider a "green" coconut. What little actual coconut "meat" that had formed inside we scraped out and ate with a spoon. The coconut "milk", as I have typically heard it referred to was nearly totally clear and not milky at all and we drank it through a straw.

  We hit Bangkok rush hour traffic for a bit, but soon were at the hotel. Everything in Thailand seems a bit bigger and more affluent than Cambodia, but I already miss some of the charm of the Cambodians, with their quick and easy smiles.  Here it is much more cosmopolitan. Many more westerners here.

  After a quick check-in at the hotel Viengtai, we meet in the lobby and walked through what seemed like an endless array of street food vendors, souvenir shops, outdoor foot massage salons, and restaurants to get to the river front just in time for sunset. Got a few nice shots, nothing spectacular but it was fun watching all the people. One section of the park seemed reserved for struggling street performers to practice juggling, break dancing, playing musical instruments, etc. In another area an
outdoor aerobics class was going on. There were people everywhere.

  On the walk back to he hotel, we stopped to take pictures of the traffic coming around a bend in the road in front of an impressive looking building. Wanted to get a tuktuk in the foreground. Tuktuks here seem to generally accommodate only two passengers but are more substantially built. These are not just carriages adapted to be hauled by a motorcycle. These are designed and constructed as three wheeled vehicles and most have a sign on top that says "taxi".

Battambang by boat.

  Departed hotel at 7:30. After a short 20 min trip to the port we said goodbye to our driver, who has been with us since Phnom Penh and boarded a small boat for the long trip to Battambang. Starting out across the Tonle Sap lake one begins to appreciate the close connection between these people and the water. All across the choppy, brown water are make shift buoy markers denoting fish trap locations. We pass several boats, some our size and many smaller, all heavily laden with a variety of goods. Entire families fill some of them and you realize that your looking at a floating home. Once out in the "middle " of the lake, the traffic thins a bit and I realize I can't see the other side of the lake. Nathan says this is the biggest lake in Southeast Asia. Let's see, we didn't get any kind of safety briefing like at home. Where are the life jackets? Oh, they're stored overhead.
  I'm surprised to find out that this small vessel has a toilet on board.    Going inside what would be considered a really small closet, it's hotter than the dickens because you are closed off from the breeze and right next to the engine. But there is the commode sans any kind of seat. Again, thank you Lord for making me a male. Right on target, but gotta hold the door shut with one hand.


  Not much to photograph now so I pull out "The Dark Side", non fiction about how the "war on terror" was used to basically abrogate our constitution. Scary stuff but fascinating reading. 

  Finally we reach the other side and the entrance to the river that leads to Battambang. Now there are tons to photograph. We pass floating villages, tons of people all plying the river in some way. Either
directly by fishing using a variety of means or transporting and selling merchandise. Kids swimming in that god awful looking water, young women shampooing their hair, they all stop and stare. I smile and lower my camera and they smile back. The kids wave and make the peace sign. It's wonderful. Again I'm amazed at how these people can be so happy with so little (in terms of material things). 

  At various points we are made acutely aware that this is the dry season and the river gets pretty low and narrow in spots. I might actually call it a large creek at times. Our "Captain" is obviously very proud of his association with the tour company, All Points East, through which I booked this trip, given he's wearing their t shirt and their emblem is in the boat.  He and his mate manage to get through every obstacle including clearing a prop fouled by a fishing net.

Our Captain

  Along the way we see a small boat with four or five people in it. Some discussion takes place between them and the Captain and their boat starts to follow us for a bit, pulls alongside and transfers this beaming young lady and her baby aboard our boat.  When I take this beautiful little girl's picture she breaks out in tears. Mom laughs and tries to console her. Even when I show her her picture, she won't stop crying. I apologize and soon mom has her calmed down. A few miles up stream we pull over to the river bank and let her and the baby off at their home. 

  More neat stuff to photograph. Elaborate bamboo rigs used for lifting large, rectangular fish nets form a great back drop, fishermen casting their nets, etc. I dont see anyone catching anything large, these all sardine sized fish.
  Finally we reach Battambang.  It has begun to rain, very unusual for this time of year. We have to navigate some very steep steps to get to our ground transport. Porters help with the luggage but I hoist my 40 lb camera back pack on my back and climb the stairs. Transferring to a van we are

whisked off to the hotel Star in town.  The room is ok and there are computers I can use to transfer files from my camera memory cards to the portable hard drive.  It's late already and after dinner I just want to read a bit and collapse.

Last Day in Siem Reap

  Today we had the morning "off". After breakfast I got on the Internet with my iPad and uploaded the text for the previous two days blog postings. Still couldn't upload any pictures as the iPad browser

doesn't have the necessary capability. Then Chris appeared and we chatted for quite some time during which he seemed fascinated with the operation of the iPad. I think I convinced him he needs one. It was nice sitting there by the pool and we had a few gin & tonics (for medicinal purposes only of course!). They are supposed to help ward off malaria. Than in the afternoon we made the trek out to another temple, Beng Mealea. This twelfth century temple has only been open to the public since 2007, when mine sweeping operations were completed in the surrounding area.

  The really interesting thing about this temple is that is almost in the exact "natural" state of disrepair as when "discovered" in the early 1900's. Except for the addition of a series of wooden boardwalks to

ease access, no actual reconstruction has been done. Anyway, you can pretty much climb all over the ruins to your heart's content, at your own risk, of course. Found some very nice, well preserved examples of the multi-headed cobra symbols at some of the temple gates.

After returning to Siem Reap, we had dinner at a French restaurant. I had a beef dish that was excellent. Went back to the hotel early and started organizing and packing for the early departure the next day.

As an aside, if you click on the  photos they appear in larger format.

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