All change at the border

We have made it to Vietnam, and yet again how different it is to its neighbouring country, Cambodia. The change happened almost instantaneously. We got off the bus at the Cambodian side, paid our overdue fee's as we has overstayed by 3 days. All very civil, nice, quiet, calm. Got on the bus again, and got off 100meters later at the Vietnamese check point. All very confusing as the coach driver kept all of our passports and insisited on handing them out to us by calling out our names, in a Cambodian accent. Xss and I were called forward on a strangled version of 'Edward?' his middle name.

So we drove off from here onwards to Ho Chi Minh, but no we had another check point 10 meters further on. A very offical and military Vietnamese man got on, no smiles and deamnded to see all our passports again. He was not friendly but abrupt and curt. there was an air of seriousness about him that made you stiffle your giggles. Well, no-one had lost their passports over this 10 meter gap so we continued on our way. As we drove off again, the black stage of dusk set in, Brothers in Arms came onto my eye pod, and they were burning the fields off to the right of us. What better setting than to gaze out of the window looking for left over tanks from the Vietnam war!

Since we have so little time left, we are trying to make the most of it so have been on numerous day trips and have had very little sitting around (although we have slept in until 12noon at least two days). First we went to the Chu Ce tunnels where the VietCong hid from the americans during the war. They had made the tunnels bigger so that us westerns could fit down, and i could run along them quite comfortably if i bent over 90degrees at the waist. However the real holes i would of had to crawl down on all fours, and with over 100km of them, and some dug at depths of 10 meters down i think i would have been acused of helping the Americans when i died of a panic attack and blocked the way.

Ho Chi Min seemed like just another big city so we went to the 'War Remnants Museum' formally called 'The Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes' and then left for the beach side towns. The Museum was intersting and i learnt a lot, but now different from their neighbours Cambodia! Here were all these stories of resistance, Hero mother (mothers who were honoured for losing several sons to the war effort), and documentation of all the crimes of the Americans. Nothing on their part or their strategies, but how they had been picked on, withstood adversity and had come back fighting. Vietnam was not down for long, infact it seems that the war and agressive bombing hardly got them down at the time despite 3 millions people dying (only 1million were fighters the rest were women and children).

Well, now we are leaving the beach again for more culture in Hoi An, we are going by train which i am very excited about! I dont really know why this seems exciting but it is.

The 5 and a half slightly odd things i have noticed about the smiley Khmur folk

1. They like their motorbikes. They like their motorbikes so much that they take them on public transport with them. I have seen bikes tied to vans, we had several come on the coach to the beach with us, and worst of all i have seen one on the front of a bicycle thingy with the poor cycling driver pushing with all his might to propel the motorbike and motorbike lover along the streets on Phenom Pehn.

2. The 24 hour clock is different here. 00:00 is midday. It took me a while to work out that it was not just the odd wrong clock, but all clocks are 'wrong'. 12:00AM and PM have also been reversed, which makes for some interesting conversations around bus timetables.

3. If you step out of a tuk-tuk, a shop, off a bike, or are entering a temple you must need a tuk-tuk. It gets hard to politely decline such offers when it is blatantly obvious that you have just arrived somewhere. Its hard to learn the word for Hello in Khmer as you are so often greeted with the word, 'tuk-tuk'.

4. Khmer people are typically very quiet and respectful of others, you rarely hear shouting. However, when someone gets married, music is blared out of numerous speakers, so loud that it sounds like it originates in Vietnam. This begins at 6am and ends around midnight, for a few days at a time. If you are the neighbours, you just have to learn to love these songs or practice your dancing in your house with the free tunes.

5. Khmer's like to wear a lot of clothes. Although it is their summer and faintworthily hot, they are wandering around in their long sleeves and fingerless gloves. This is the lengths they will go to to avoid a suntanned skin. How mad they must think i am to be loving the darkening of my skin!

5.5 There are no roads wider than two cars. Even the main highway to Vietnam has a patch of non-tarmaced texture, and its a snug fit for the two cars to pass by each other. Quick travel is not an option here.

Light White

Too much time to think:

If white mixed with black is grey,

and white mixed with red is pink,

why is there no official name for white mixed with other colours?

Why not call pink light red?

or white and green grenk?

or white and blue bley?

Sunshine Ponderings

Is it ever possible to tan one's armpit? I have been trying out all sorts of uncomfortable and unconventional sunbathing poses and whilst it is possible to tan the skin around your armpit (really your arm), i am begining to think it is impossible to actually tan the area that hair grows out of. Has anyone ever achieved this feat or am i striving for the impossible?

Should i try to tan in between my fingers next?

Teul Slong

Tx has arrived, so the tourism has begun. Its been a good time and really helped me to understand the 'background (but really very prevalent today) attitudes of the Khmer (Cambodian) people. Having finally made it to the temples of Angkor Wat (see previous entry) we then moved on to Phenom Pheng. There is not much to do in the capital but see the torture prison and the killing fields left over from the Khmer Rouge days (1975-79).

This has been completely different to everything else we have seen on our travels. Firstly S21 or Tuol Sleng was a high school until the 17th April 1975. The following day the Khmer Rouge took it over and turned each classroom into a torture chamber or holding cell. The people were all meticulously evacuated from the city under the false claims that the Americans were going to bomb the place and within three days the whole city was empty with everyone being escorted by soldier's to the countryside to become farmers. It was perfectly executed and organised. Our guide was a young girl at the time and had walked 3 months to Battamburg (in the North West) with her family. They then worked as farmers until the Khmer Rouge was over thrown and she then walked back. She found her mother but her brother and father had been shot dead and her grandfather died of starvation.

The Khmer Rouge remained in power until the Vietnamese arrived in 1979, by which stage they had tortured and killed all the academics, teachers, lawyers etc in S21 and thus the country needed the Vietnamese to fill all these jobs for them. (it was suspected that all these professions worked for the CIA and Pol Pot wanted to start a new country from scratch, even declaring the year Year 0) The Khmer seem very patient and almost too laid back. During their times working in the fields with limited food supplies they continued to hope that someone might realise what was going on and help them. You never hear any stories of radicals, and still many Khmer are hungry today.

In s21 over 19,000 people were tortured for between 3-6 months each and then taken to the killing fields to be killed. This lead to mass graves. The crimes of the Khmer Rouge were massive and it was most shocking to learn that 1) most of the tortures at S21 were 13-19 years old and 2) very little in the way of legal justice has been served.

After the overthrowing, the Khmer Rouge leaders 'hid' in towns on the boarder with Thailand. Most of them remaining loyal to the Khmer Rouge and living normal lives for about 20 years. So far 4 people are awaiting trial (awaiting what?) for these crimes, and one leader has been given a 35 year sentence.

The mass graves have not been exhumed and every rain more clothes and bones appear at the surface. Its like the dead refuse to remain in the ground but insist on making themselves known.

On a brighter note, through our travels Xss and i are trying to be nicer to beggars and poor people, as giving someone $1 here seems much more effective than giving $1 to charity at home and it passing through all that bureaucracy. Although some people might misuse our dollar here, maybe it is the giving that counts. Anyway, one lunchtime a particularly dirty young man, without shoes (surely an international sign of poverty) approached us for money, we said no as we don't encourage kids to beg. But them he asked for food. Yep. This is fine with us, what do you want? and he turns and points to K-BURGER, the newest, shiniest and glass boxiest place on the street. Fine. So i brought him a k-burger meal, and he trotted off the proudest K-burger owner ever.

Now, it might not be true, but i like to think that he had been staring into that shop for a long time, dreaming of a k-burger, with a tear in the corner of his eye, thinking he'd never have one. We can make that dream come true, just because we were born in a different country.

Beware of the bugs

Best misquote of the travels:

Aspara Golden Hotel*: Wat Bo Road. Restaurant, Roof top Swimming pool, Laundry service, A/C, worm hostility guaranteed. $10-25.

In other news Tx has arrived and shaken things up bit. She has become self appointed official photographer, silly poses important. And she has already broken the travellers code by merrily waving at other white people in tuk-tuks! We clearly stated when we picked her up at the airport that it was compulsory to wave and say Hello to all the little children who constantly look delighted when they see us and shout 'Hello' merrily- but not other tourists!! Its great she is here and sooo happy. Today we went to the temples, which was brilliant.

The missing statues wore on trend maxi dresses like this.

It's useless fighting a stone statue, even if you are dressed like a thug.

Trying to picture what the gargoyles would have looked like.

*Names have been changed to protect identifies and to prevent the worms being exploited and put in some sort of circus.

Dear Geek......

LE,

I cant wait to see you next week when i come to Cambodia, however i am not sure what the weather will be like and what clothes i should bring. Any tips from the locals? Tx

Dear Tx,

The weather here is hot, hot hot. Bring plenty of light clothing, and something to cover your shoulders (the parts that face the sun) as it is rude to show that skin here. Also something to come down to your knee's else you will be advertising yourself as a hussy. Tips from the locals- wear old fashioned PJ's all the time, everywhere. No joke, long bottoms and full shirted tops, the more teddy bear characters on them the better. It takes a while to get used to seeing the grown women cycling along in them, but i guess they are cool.

Cant wait to see you!

Geek

Another week in Siem Reap

Kids discovering that if you pretend to clean your teeth you can create more spit, and legitimately spit in public.

I didn't think i was getting along that well with my 'creche' class (aged 3-9) but on Friday someone was sick so i had to cover the preschool class instead. As i went to creche to let the Khumer teachers know, the kids all looked very excited and waved and said hello to me. The younger ones now all grab my trousers and try to climb up me as well. I really do like them and was sad to spend the day apart from them.

Taking pre-school was fun as well. As you enter the classroom all the kids shout, 'GOOD MORNING TEACHER' to which i replied 'I am LE and I've come today as Lyn is sick', they all look at me silently.......... and then i remember myself, 'Good morning class, how are you today?' 'I'M FINE THANK YOU AND YOU?' to which you can say anything you want and they will all say, 'THANK YOU TEACHER. They dont really say the above but shout it as loud as they can, while smiling immensely, and stopping abruptly at the end of each word like a drill sergeant.

Even though the preschool are young (4-7) (note that for some bizarre reason they are younger than some of the creche!) they know lots of English and enjoyed naming all the animals they could think of, including some odd ones like Kangaroo and Buffalo (they have volunteers here from USA and Oz) and some alphabet ones like Yak. It made me smile and they were very enthusiastic. I then took them outside to play a game where groups of 3 kids were an animal and when i shouted out their animal and a number they had to race to the other end of the football pitch and collect that many ping pong balls and race each other back. Unfortunately by the time we got to the football pitch and i checked their animals we had 12 Gorillas and only 1 Cat amongst others. So i redistributed names and checked again, this time 11 Cats and 2 Gorillas. I settled for this and they ran up and down a lot and didn't seem to care who won which was great.

Children pretending to be asleep so they don't have to play the animal game again.

Xss started teaching classes by himself on Friday as the other English volunteer in his class has now left. He seemed to enjoy this. He is a giant here so its always funny to see him with these little kids. Several have made themselves his friends, and I'm keeping an eye on all the girls as they keep passing him pretty pictures on which they have written their names and 'I love you'. There is one major culprit and i know she doesn't support Norwich City, so i doubt she'll get very far.

Xss and one of said girls pretending to pick up litter, however she doesn't have any free hands.