Lord of the Ring(git)s, the Two Towers

The best way to travel is with a group of friends. Countless times throughout the trip we leaned on one another to help facilitate the traveling process. One significant drawback however, is trying to keep everyone happy. After a weeks worth of travel it became evident that there was a difference of opinion in how to travel. Some wanted to pay extra and travel in comfort and I wanted to hop trains and hitch rides. Through a democrazy vote, it was decided that we would take an unexpected flight to Malaysia on our way back to Thailand.

Kuala Lumphur, Malaysia

As I stood in line waiting to get my visa stamped I realized that the only thing I know about Malaysia, is that their Olympic team was not quite as good as China's in Badminton. I had no idea what the country's flag looks like, what language they speak, what the capital is, what kind of central government they have, how to spell Malaysia, if their people are called Malaysians, or the geographical shape of their country (for those of you who haven't studied Geography in the last 10 years I would suggest looking it up, the country has two huge parts divided by about a hundred miles of the China Sea). For the day and a half I was there, I wouldn't say I learned a tremendous deal about their history or culture, but here are a few fun tidbits.



Patronas towers in background.

The currency in Malaysia is called Ringgit which we obviously called gringotts. Malaysia is a Muslim country and has the call to prayer five times a day. Kuala Lumpur is mostly famous for the Patronas towers, the tallest twin towers in the world. The city also has the world's largest bird reservation.

What was most surprising in Kuala Lumpur, a city of 8 millionish, was how quiet it was. The city was also tremendously clean. The city had the same kind of feel to it as Salt Lake City, the people were polite and straightforward, but the city seemed sterile. I will say it was a nice break to feel invisible as we went about our day. In China, I am a gaping anomaly that is constantly gawked at. In Thailand and Cambodia, I was seen as a regular foreign tourist with fat stacks of money in my wallet.

The best part of our short stay was the food. I love Chinese food but now and then I get a big old hunkering for a good old hamburger, which to my delight, is somewhat of a Malaysian specialty. What is different about a Malaysian hamburger is that it is cooked on top of beaten egg yoke which gets folded up once its done cooking to make sort of an omelet burger. The real kicker is the sauce (it doesn't taste anything like, but is equally delicious as arby's red sauce or my family's sweet vidallia onion dressing.) The best meal I had there was a mixed seafood soup, a flavorful combination of oysters, squid, claims, and shrimp. It was the best seafood I've had since the salmon at my sister's wedding.

Phnomena

On the way to Phnom Phen we got a good look at the country side of Cambodia. The landscape was desolete and reminded of some of the poorer areas of Venezuela. All the main roads to Phnom Penh were blown up in the mid-70's as a socialist strategy for the Khmer Rouge, I will get to them later, so the journey was neither fast nor smooth. *Insert from Kassy: As you may or may not know, I have an unfortunatley small bladder. The bus had an interesting bathroom stop. We simply pulled over to the side of the road and everyone from the bus got off and proceded to relieve themselves withing arms reach of each other. Women, men and children alike; several people even fully relieved themselves if you know what I mean. I have never placed myself above peeing on the side of the road, but it was rather difficult to do with a bus load of Cambodians watching. I think they were overly curious to see a white person. I did however learn why women always wear a shall/ square scarf in the scorching heat. You can use this to wrap around yourself for privacy.

Phnom Penh

The city itself is supposedly the next big up and coming city for young travelers to explore. If one chose to turn a blind eye, the city would be very enjoyable; I found the city to be very eye opening.

The first day we were in Phnom Penh we went to visit the S-21 prison/genocide museum as well as the Coeung Ek killing field. Under the command of communist leader, Pol Pot, these two monstrasities were created for the purpose of torture and human extermination. During his years in power power, 3 million of Cambodia's 8 million population was exterminated. There are still roughly 400 Cambodians that die each year from land minds left by the Khmer Rouge, a third of these casualties are children.

In 1975 they took over a local Phnom Penh high school and converted it in to a hynious prison used for interrogation and torture. The prison is now a haunting genocide musuem that is set up the exact way it was 35 years ago along with pictures of some of the victims. The Khmer Rouge was mostly made up of uneducated farmers who were inspired by Pol Pot to hate anyone remotely close to the middle class. During their revolt, anyone who wasn't part of the Khmer Rouge was targeted and labeled a traitor. Many of the prisoners had no idea why they were arrested, but admited that they were imperialist traders after being subjected to endless tortures. Although most prisoners were Cambodian, they had a section of writen confessions from foreigners. I had one of a male reporter from Minneapolis, who admitted to being a CIA spy. He was one of two Americans executed at the prison.

After signing a written confession of their guilt, the prisoners would then be transported to the Chueung Ek killing field. During Pol Pot's reign of terror, the Khmer Rouge had three hundred designated "killing fields," Chueung Ek was the largest. I first heard about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge about a year ago in my history of terrorism class. During this lesson I was undoubtedly slouching in a chair, chewing on a pen, and drinking my coffee casually while waiting for the bell ring to go play frisbee golf. The history lesson become expotentially more profound as I walked into the killing fields to see the skeletal remains of the thousands of slain victims. The excutions were barbaric. As a way to save money, most prisoners either had their throat slashed by razor sharp branch, hit with an iron bar, or had their head smashed multiple times against a tree. Women, children, and babies were not exempt from these practices.

The killing fields was not the only particularly troubling experience in Phnom Penh. I am usually a huge proponent of "laissez-faire" let the people do as they please, but after a couple of days in Phnom Penh I was praying for some ethical reinforcement. Unfortunately, a relatively large percent of the city's tourism is not generated from it's culture, history, or people but because of the lawlessness. It makes you sick to your stomach seeing middle age men holding hands with 14 year old prostitutes and not having anyone to report to.

Another morose problem is the high level of children beggers. Through the years, I have discovered that I have a soft spot for children. It is exceptionally difficult not to buy something from a shoeless child whose face is covered in dirt, especially when the child is begging in English. Kassy was a constant magnet for them, and when she refused, many of the children would often respond with "Why? Don't you like children." A particularly sickening remark for the person who is making a profit off of child labor to teach them. One child, after trying every trick in the book told Kassy to "Go fuck herself." All the money the child collects throughout the day will go into some dispicable adult's pocket who will intentionally keep the children underfed to attract more sympathy from froeigners. As the child ages, there's a liklihood that they will be sold into prostitiution.

Phnom Penh wasn't all bad. The local people were really nice and helpful. Many parts of the town were very pretty, and we discovered some really awesome local restraunts. My favorite was a Cambodian barbeque. I am thankful for my experience in Phnom Penh, it was harsh reality that throughly upset me. I wouldn't say it was exactly a "positive" experience, but one that has changed me and made me reevaluate some of my life goals.

Angkor What?

 

Hidsight being 20/20, our travel plans could have been a lot more efficient. Instead of flying into Bangkok, staying there for two days and then bussing to Siem Reap, we could have just flown into Siem Reap, Cambodia. We also could have saved a bunch of time and a little money had we done the visa application online for free prior to arriving at the border. Our punishment was two hours of waiting in line, a 25 dollar processing fee, and a first hand experience of a corrupt border patrol. Since the moment we walked into Cambodia, Kassy could have been one of Lemon Snickety's characters from a series of unfortunate events. She was easy prey for the guards who charged her double for her "preprocessing" fee. John and Thomas didn't have a full empty page in their passports and were charged an extra 10 dollars. Once we were across the border, we took a four hour shuttle to Siem Reap.

Siem Reap

 

Once we got into Siem Reap, we took a tuk-tuk* to the hostel a friend was staying in. Fortunately for us the hostel was full, and they sent us a little down the road where we found shelter behind a family owned restaurant. The rent was ten dollars a night split between four people and the family adored us. By the end of our stay the grandmother was bringing local Kmer food to our door. We all asked for restaurant applications before we left.

Our first and second day were spent doing the Lance Armstrong thing (no we were not injecting steriods) around Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world. Some of you, like me three months ago, might know it better as the place where the movie "Tomb Raider" was filmed (Angolina Jolie is worshiped in Cambodia) and was the inspiration for the game temple run. Angkor Wat is the largest temple, but there are nearly 30 seperate and huge temples all within a 15 km radius. One of the temples has 2,000 huge faces carved all around it, each one depicting a different emotion. It was truly unbeliable how much freedom tourists are granted at these temples, you could walk anywhere and touch anything.

Siem Reap also had a great night life. 50 cent draft beers and dollar massages made for a couple of great nights. One cool thing we tried was putting our feet in a tank of water and having the fish inside suck off our dead skin off. Due to some misfortunes, we no longer have a video of of me shrieking as 60 fish swarmmed my feet. I might have mentioned before that I have serverely ticklish feet, and for the first 10 minutes of the experience I was thrashing around. I eventually desensitized a bit and by the end I really enjoyed it. My feet were silky smooth coming out.

On the fourth day, we gave a sad goodbye to our host family and caught a bus to Phnom Penh, the Capital of Cambodia.

A tuk-tuk is a motorcycle drawn carriage (for those of you who took my advice and watched Ong-Bak, the Tuk-tuks are what's driven in the chase scene.) The best way to travel, besides a magic carpet ride, is through a tuk-tuk. They are cheap, wonderfully comfortable, and readily available. The down side of tuk-tuks, is there abundant surplus which means anywhere you go there will be constant soliciting. They are like pop-up windows that you can't find the close button in.