See, taste, sell

First impressions of Viet Nam, the people seem to have a better lot than those in Cambodia. Fisherman sleeping on their boats just the same, only the boats just over the border seem to be three times the size. And houses are made of cement or stucco. Not bamboo, wood and tin. We just passed a church, too. Bright pink stucco, I'm a bit surprised to see a cross on its steeple.

Along a small river, everyone is relaxing in beach chairs. And every house has an antenna on the roof. It reminds me of passing from Ecuador into Colombia, Cambodia to Viet Nam. And again I feel free. A new country, a new adventure.

In Saigon, I've met an Aussie couple at Go2 bar just up from my hotel. As luck would have it, it's happy hour. The first taste of beer in a new country, somehow there's nothing sweeter. I am sitting outside and in the past few minutes, ten people have cruised by offering everything under the sun. Wallets, books, cigarettes, even marijuana. Interesting.

Back at the hotel (Yellow House Hotel--P.S. don't stay there! Unless you like rats the size of cats...), I met two New Yorkers. Funny how you have to travel half way around the world to meet people from the city! Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, we're having a tri-borough ball, cursing NYC style.

Viet Nam bound

It's 8:19 am Saturday morning and I'm on the bus headed to Viet Nam. Wish me luck! In line for the ferry to cross the Mekong River, kids and salesfolk line the street offering sunglasses, lotus fruit and empty hands. A child weaves through the buses and trucks leading a blind man. They all bang on the luggage doors of the bus to get your attention. If you open the window, it's a swarm of hands and offerings. Once on the ferry, full of trucks and buses, one enterprising (or hungry, not sure which) kid has climbed up to the second floor of the ferry. Bird's eye view, he's scoping out who has yet to eat the snacks the bus company provides passengers. He knocks on every window and points to his mouth, a plea for food. With the first package passed to him through an open window, however, he pockets a croissant and drops the remaining snacks to the floor. Onto the second box, he passes it to a buddy just down the stairs. And with the third, he finally opens and eats a croissant. I can't tell if he's hungry, sharing food with family or hording stuff to sell.

Horns function as signals here, used more than turn signals themselves. Before passing, everyone honks a time or seven. Motos, trucks, pedestrians, all are honked at, seemingly as a form of etiquette.

If headed from Phnom Penh to Saigon, by all means take the Mekong Express bus. For $12 and a 7 am departure, the borders and visa process is a breeze. On the bus, the attendant takes your passports just after offering you a snack and water. You cross the Cambodian border about 11 am, your passport stamped and exit photo taken. The attendant gathers the passports again along with your entry card into Viet Nam. Then still on the bus almost at the Viet Nam border, a doctor entered the bus to take our temperatures. Granted, only foreigners are subjected to the procedure. I guess H1N1 has people on heightened security. Check. None showing fever, although oddly enough the local kid in the row behind me has puked three times so far. Gather your baggage and on to Vietnamese customs. Again, the attendant handles the process, all of us waiting for our names to be called. Check, check. Next running your bag through the scanner, and a final check of your passport, and welcome to Viet Nam! The border done in 40 minutes, and you're back on the bus. Little hassle, no trouble. Nice.

Tuol Sleng Prison Museum

While the Killing Fields yesterday were difficult to see, experience, understand, today we visited the prison where people (the elite, intellectuals, rich, city-folk) were detained and tortured for up to a week before taken to the Killing Fields for execution. Tung Sleng Prison, better known as S 21, was once a primary school transformed by the Khmer Rogue into a prison.

When trying to imagine even relive such hideous acts of human nature, it is much more tangible, human and devastating an experience having another person share his or her own story with you while you attempt to take it all in. Today, our guide was in her mid 40s. She had personally been held in a children's camp outside of the city during the Khmer Rouge, from age 10 to 13. From what she said, people were happy with Pol Pot's ideas at first, that the city and countryside would again be united, the rich and poor given equal opportunity and options. But in reality, city life and those in it were decimated. Taken out of the city, separated from her entire family, uncertain where they were, if even alive, hearing her story put a face, an individual experience to the horror. Prisoners were fed two spoonfuls of porridge three times daily, tortured twice a day. Within a week's time, none were able to stand. All in all, it didn't much matter, from what she said. The prisoners were sent to the Killing Fields to be exectued shortly thereafter, left in a mass grave. The cells were hardly three feet wide, many of which still have spots and smears of blood in them.

As you walk through the prison, you are met with the faces of those massacred. Soldiers were required to photgraph every person admitted upon arrival, as much for prisoner identification as for proof to Pol Pot that the soldiers were doing their jobs of bringing people in. A number assigned to each person daily, sometimes over 700 people were admitted in a day. The photographs of the prisoners fill the rooms that were once their torture chambers. Men, women, children. In some of the photos the people are smiling. They had no idea for what they are headed. It's horrible.

After the Vietnamese invaded and liberated the country, seven of those who had been held in the prison survived. A sculptor, two painters, one translator, two mechanics and an eletrical engineer, only a very few whose particular knowledge or skills had proved beneficial to the Khmer Rouge had been spared. Our guide shared with us her feelings upon being set free. She said all she could do was put her hands together in front of her chest in the sign of prayer, thinking, 'Please, let me find my mother...please, let her be alive.' Our guide's father was killed, as well as two brothers and a sister. She lives with her mother to this day. The prison requests that you give a donation to your guide, depending on your experience and what you think reasonable. Our guide put the money we gave her in the donation box at the ticket entrance. I wish she'd taken it herself but hope that whatever ends up in that box truly does go to help a country of survivors.

The Killing Fields

A short ride out of Phnom Penh is Choueng Ek, one of 300 of Cambodia's killing fields. Previously a Chinese cemetery, the Khmer Rouge turned the grounds into mass graves from 1975 through 1978. This location in particular was discovered in 1980 by the smell alone. Khmer soldiers had used DDT to hide the odor and prevent decomposition of bodies.

If I understand correctly, Phnom Penh evacuated, Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, ordered the extermination of a majority of people living in cities: the elite, the rich and the intellectuals. The idea being that all Cambodians should go back to living on the land, the city the root of evil and corruption. Foreign journalists as well were executed so that no information of what was happening would get out of Cambodia. As it was, Cambodians themselves had no idea what was happening, where they were being taken or why.

At the site, you first encounter a memorial stupa filled with skulls of many of the murdered. On the walking tour is a Boddhi tree against which soldiers are said to have swung babies by their legs to their deaths. Bodies have been exhumed from 86 of the mass graves, 43 still reamining closed. The graves three to four meters deep held 70 people. Larger ones, as many as 450 bodies.

Those executed were beaten to death with bamboo, so that no bullets would be wasted. They used bamboo as well so that no shots were heard. Music is said to have been played at the execution to mask screams. Many of the soldiers involved in the executions are reported to have felt justified. The rich and powerful had done nothing to help the poor in the country, so why would the soldiers who now had the power be merciful? The killings were in some form a revenge. As well, those who dissented would be executed themselves.

In 1978, the soldiers in the east and west split, the east wanting an end to the killing. Many fled to Vietnam for help, prompting an invasion in 1979. In total, two million died throughout the country in those five years, whether from exectuion, overwork or starvation. Criminal trials and investigations are still ongoing as of this year, the head judge claiming corruption and interference even as of this month. Our guide for the tour is probably my age. His father, a part of the elite, worked in the government in Phnom Penh and escaped with family to the countryside. So recent, any person you meet on the street has a story, the impact of which is at times hard to hear. Today we have walked hallowed ground.

Kids

The Mekong Express Bus. A contradiction in terms for us today. Neither were we on the Mekong, nor was it express. Nonetheless, we've made it to Phnom Penh. Off the bus, we were assaulted by tuktuk drivers and the price war began. "Miss, Madam, Sir! One dollar!" Everyone here wants to make some cash. And every buck helps. Cambodia's money is the rial, but the preference is the dollar. Outside of all the temples in Siem Reap, children offer you books and bracelets, tee shirts, anything for a dollar. Here in Phnom Penh, adults are hoping to pry you of your dollars. Somehow that's much better.

Another uncomfortable situation here is the sex trade. While in Thailand, the industry is made up of prostitutes and ladyboys, here in Cambodia there is a huge campaign against children in the sex industry. It's horrifying. One of the posters I saw today lists a number to call to report suspected activity. The number started with area code 027. And above each of the numbers listed was a picture representing a kid at the age of the corresponding number. Zero, a baby. Two, a toddler. Seven, a school girl with braids. It hurts my heart. And it scares me that there would actually have to be an ad put up against it. It's an awakening.

Sapped

Cruising the Psale market, you can purchase a number of items this morning. Crickets by the can-full, tiny clams with or without chilis, dried starfish, potato pancakes, breaded and fried bananas. Our guide admitted that when he drinks, he snacks on crickets. Speaking of our guide, if you ever need a guide in Siem Reap, contact Set Kim. I have his number. He's wonderful and has loads of information. Oh, and sugar cane juice! A popular drink, the cane is loaded into the juicer just a carrot, the juice caught in a small plastic bag, wrapped up with a straw. And off you go!

We visited the hospital temple after the market. Probably the most fascinating temple for me, back in the day, you had to travel to the temple via boat. A man-made lake surrounded the hospital, a physical barrier to separate the ill from those still healthy. Inside the temple were four pools and five brahmans. First you would consult the brahman on which pool you would had to visit. And after a dip, cleansed, you'd then enter the shrine where holy water would be poured on your head to heal you. The four pools represent the four elements in life: water, earth, fire and air. The shrines smell like the room underneath the back porch in our house on Hilo Court. Dark, dank, dusty. Mud and water. Moss and mildew. The air thick with minerals.

And on to the temple of the mother. The trees are overtaking the temples. It's beautiful. Spung trees grow on top of the temples, over them, through them. Nature is all pơwerful.

The last stop of the day, we took a boat ride to Tonle Sap lake. A floating village, Vietnamese and Cambodians live in boathouses on the water. They move more than ten times a year. As heavy rains and dangerous weather roll in, they float to a nearby mountain. The water is green with algae, full of life. The villagers use the lake water for everything. Showering, washing, you can imagine. While that may take some getting used to, along with living in a house so small you cannot stand up, the view is pretty incredible. The sky and sea meet in the horizon. Interestingly enough, we got stuck on the way back to the car. Fifteen boats all trying to pas through about three feet of water? Not going to happen. The one in the middle weighted down by lumber, all the others had to go around through the mud. Some captains are better than others, let's just say. Oh, and I cut my heal also. And got drenched in water. Yes, the same water that everyone dóes everything in. This cut's got infection written all over it.

Dedication

Cambodia is amazing. The history. The culture. I'm so happy to be here. It's not modern. People aren't running around on their iPhones worried about getting here, getting there. There's no, "I just couldn't be bothered..." The people here are willing to share of themselves, of their culture. Pride, even embarrassment.

We started the day with Bantay Srei, the citadel of the beautiful girl. Many of the temples were built in honor of a god and also dedicated to a person. Four kids were just inside one of the galleries playing with balloons, including, yes, one little, beautiful girl. They'd blow up the balloon, stick it in your face and let the air out, giggling all the while.

The walls built of different types of sandstone, with pinks and yellows, this is the most colorful of the temples. The stones are a direct reflection of the color of the earth from that time. The quality of the carvings and sculpture is shocking. Hands from 967 etched designs, symbols, lessons into these stones. And they are still here. What fragile lives we live, and yet the efforts of so many in special places of the world still stand. It's a testament to human will in homage to god.

Our second stop for the day was the Cambodia Landmine Museum. Aki Ra, a former Khmer soldier, who is spending his time out of the army undoing the work done while in it, has established the museum and a relief fund to aid the victims of landmines. According to information at the exhibit, thirteen countries in the world are still (or haven't prohibited) producing landmines: Russia, China, India, Nepal, North Korea, South Korea, Pakistan, Singapore, Vietnam, Iran, Cuba, USA and Burma. It costs $1 to build a mine and about $1,00 to find and destroy it. Aki Ra and his co-workers have been able to locate and diffuse up to 36 mines in an hour. Still, landmines have an activity life of 150 years, potential to affect people and their families for years to come. The CLMRF also houses a dozen or so children who've been exposed to landmines. Written consent is required to photograph any of the kids. As I was walking through the exhibit, a fifteen year-old kid strolled by, carrying a cell phone in his only hand.