How to be an Intrepid Traveler
I just finished an 18 day tour through Cambodia and Laos with Intrepid Travel, guided by the awesome Sakai, an Australian who has made a home for himself in Cambodia and was an invaluable asset to the trip.
The trip ranged between the hilarious, the beautiful, the poignant, and the horrifying.
I will try to keep this fairly short, since at the time of writing I have also gone through Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, and don't think I have enough room to cover all of them in this go. Out of all the countries, Cambodia affected me the most, perhaps because I was given the opportunity to interact more with locals than anywhere I traveled in Southeast Asia.
Our trip began in Siem Reap, home of the historical and awe inspiring Angkor Wat. It is a huge complex of 9 kilometers squared, and within it are dozens of smaller temples (Wat means temple). It took two days to go through a select few and two stand outs are Ta Proehm, a fantastic structure half recovered by nature with trees growing through the roof and crumbling walls. The temple looks like something out of an Indiana Jones movie but actually acted as a location for the original Lara Croft:Tomb Raider. Angkor Wat itself is magnificent and worth the journey to Siem Reap by itself. For art lovers the bas reliefs lining the outer walls and iconic examples of Buddhist art and for history lovers the bullet holes within the art from the battles between the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge from the late 70's adds another interesting dimension. Something for everyone. On our second day, the group was treated to a special home made curry by the Cambodian monks of Siem Reap and we ate in a temple with our feet carefully pointing away from Buddha, surrounded by signature monks with shaved head, orange robes, and abstaining ways while we indulged in curry.
My experience in Siem Reap was further enhanced by having the opportunity one evening to teach an English class to a mixture of monks and laymen at the Life and Hope Foundation. The subject was sports and as a class we discussed which sports everyone liked to play and it was great fun to make the monks laugh by imitating what baseball was, or aerobics, or roller blading, since these were a few of the sports no one knew of. Everyone knew what soccer was though!
On a more serious note, most people know, if from nothing else than Angelina Jolie's recent humanitarian efforts in the country, that Cambodia has been through a hellish time in the past fifty years. I won't go into every minute detail I witnessed that laid bare all the destruction and cruelty that can arise from power in the hands of a sadistic dominant few who can mastermind such brutality from ignorant masses. After going through the Landmine Museum in Siem Reap and spending a morning in Phnom Penh at S-21 or the Tuol Sleng (Poisoned Hill) Museum and the Killing Fields, I was exhausted, shocked, and broken hearted. Some of my memories from that day will haunt me for the rest of my life, and I am glad of it, as the pain of so many who died by torture, execution, and starvation and those who survived but lost all their family should never be forgotten. And I still get a little passionate about Cambodia if you can tell. Two months later. I think the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders still living, sadly Pol Pot passed away, should be rushed to prosecution but the corruption and dear in the current government is still too high for justice to occur.
Yet the Cambodian people are beautiful, optimistic, and kind. After Phnom Penh we traveled up to Kampung Cheung where we stopped at a little known gem of a temple that has recently been painted from head to toe in a Buddhist mural that could rival Michelangelo efforts in the Sistine Chapel. I sat on the floor for twenty minutes, my mouth agape and my mind agog, until a little wrinkled and toothless Cambodian woman crept over to ask me my name and my age. She spoke no English however, and I no Cambodian so we talked through smiles and sign language. She was genuinely excited to have met me, I could tell from her ever present grin and brightness in her gaze and I was thrilled as well. It was a short and simple exchange but filled with nothing but happy curiosity and goodwill. A special travel moment I will well cherish and remember.
At this point, I could add so much more of my trip, eating a spider's leg in Skoon, trekking barefoot through mud up to my ankles to reach the lovely waterfalls of Luang Prabang, and getting leeched for my efforts, buying years worth of presents at the scrumptious night market of Luang Prabang, and riding an elephant bare-necked, which I like saying because it sounds a bit pervy. But I will stop for here, because I have said all I needed to, and will write more another day.
I just finished an 18 day tour through Cambodia and Laos with Intrepid Travel, guided by the awesome Sakai, an Australian who has made a home for himself in Cambodia and was an invaluable asset to the trip.
The trip ranged between the hilarious, the beautiful, the poignant, and the horrifying.
I will try to keep this fairly short, since at the time of writing I have also gone through Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, and don't think I have enough room to cover all of them in this go. Out of all the countries, Cambodia affected me the most, perhaps because I was given the opportunity to interact more with locals than anywhere I traveled in Southeast Asia.
Our trip began in Siem Reap, home of the historical and awe inspiring Angkor Wat. It is a huge complex of 9 kilometers squared, and within it are dozens of smaller temples (Wat means temple). It took two days to go through a select few and two stand outs are Ta Proehm, a fantastic structure half recovered by nature with trees growing through the roof and crumbling walls. The temple looks like something out of an Indiana Jones movie but actually acted as a location for the original Lara Croft:Tomb Raider. Angkor Wat itself is magnificent and worth the journey to Siem Reap by itself. For art lovers the bas reliefs lining the outer walls and iconic examples of Buddhist art and for history lovers the bullet holes within the art from the battles between the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge from the late 70's adds another interesting dimension. Something for everyone. On our second day, the group was treated to a special home made curry by the Cambodian monks of Siem Reap and we ate in a temple with our feet carefully pointing away from Buddha, surrounded by signature monks with shaved head, orange robes, and abstaining ways while we indulged in curry.
My experience in Siem Reap was further enhanced by having the opportunity one evening to teach an English class to a mixture of monks and laymen at the Life and Hope Foundation. The subject was sports and as a class we discussed which sports everyone liked to play and it was great fun to make the monks laugh by imitating what baseball was, or aerobics, or roller blading, since these were a few of the sports no one knew of. Everyone knew what soccer was though!
On a more serious note, most people know, if from nothing else than Angelina Jolie's recent humanitarian efforts in the country, that Cambodia has been through a hellish time in the past fifty years. I won't go into every minute detail I witnessed that laid bare all the destruction and cruelty that can arise from power in the hands of a sadistic dominant few who can mastermind such brutality from ignorant masses. After going through the Landmine Museum in Siem Reap and spending a morning in Phnom Penh at S-21 or the Tuol Sleng (Poisoned Hill) Museum and the Killing Fields, I was exhausted, shocked, and broken hearted. Some of my memories from that day will haunt me for the rest of my life, and I am glad of it, as the pain of so many who died by torture, execution, and starvation and those who survived but lost all their family should never be forgotten. And I still get a little passionate about Cambodia if you can tell. Two months later. I think the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders still living, sadly Pol Pot passed away, should be rushed to prosecution but the corruption and dear in the current government is still too high for justice to occur.
Yet the Cambodian people are beautiful, optimistic, and kind. After Phnom Penh we traveled up to Kampung Cheung where we stopped at a little known gem of a temple that has recently been painted from head to toe in a Buddhist mural that could rival Michelangelo efforts in the Sistine Chapel. I sat on the floor for twenty minutes, my mouth agape and my mind agog, until a little wrinkled and toothless Cambodian woman crept over to ask me my name and my age. She spoke no English however, and I no Cambodian so we talked through smiles and sign language. She was genuinely excited to have met me, I could tell from her ever present grin and brightness in her gaze and I was thrilled as well. It was a short and simple exchange but filled with nothing but happy curiosity and goodwill. A special travel moment I will well cherish and remember.
At this point, I could add so much more of my trip, eating a spider's leg in Skoon, trekking barefoot through mud up to my ankles to reach the lovely waterfalls of Luang Prabang, and getting leeched for my efforts, buying years worth of presents at the scrumptious night market of Luang Prabang, and riding an elephant bare-necked, which I like saying because it sounds a bit pervy. But I will stop for here, because I have said all I needed to, and will write more another day.
posted by Laura, aka "Nornabelle" @ 4:10 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home