Week of April 18th, 2014

When I have some time to veg in front of the TV, there is no greater gift than stumbling across a good-bad movie.  May I recommend to you Four Christmases.  Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon star as a dating couple that have to visit each of their wacky divorced parents on Christmas.  Expectedly cheesy at the end, but mindless fun for the most part and several of laugh out loud moments.

For Spring Break this year, we had the good fortune of visiting more of Asia.  The trip was 4 days in Siem Reap, Cambodia and then a few more in Hanoi and Halong Bay Vietnam.  Siem Reap was recently voted by TripAdvisor users as the 8th best tourist destination and is the city in Cambodia where THE temples are.  Angkor Wat is the most famous, but there are many others.  Have seen them in pictures/TV a million times but never really studied their history.  They date from the period of the Khmer Empire, about 800 to 1400AD.  That Empire controlled most of SE Asia including most  of what is today Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.  The temples were originally built as Hindu shrines, but later converted to Buddhist when that religion became dominant in the empire.  Cambodia today is 98% Buddhist today. 

The temples fell into ruin with the fall of the dynasty in the 1300's and were literally forgotten as Cambodia became a vassal state for the next 500 years and were reclaimed by the jungle.  Drought, the plague, the rise of a stronger Thailand and the switch to Buddhism are reasons given for the decline.  The story of a European explorer taking a photograph of a butterfly and accidentely discovering them in the 1800's was told to us a couple times.  Their rehabilitation has taken decades with significant interruptions due to war and genocide.  Each temple seems to have a sponsor that has cleared it from the jungle...Indian, Japanese and French at the ones we saw.

They are pretty amazing.  I think Angkor Thom was my favorite as it had bas relief (I love that word) that depicted everyday life rather than the religious themed ones at Angkor Wat. 

 

 

Perhaps I liked Angkor Thom better than Angkor Wat as we ran into this pack of monkeys running around.  They seemed friendly enough, at least not the aggressive face ripping kind. 

 

The ones carrying the babies were too cute.

Paul identified with them on a personal level.

Except for the clothes and lack of visible tail, they are dead ringers.  You can obviously see what side of the family the boy takes after.  Something I am embarrassed not to have known previously is the difference between apes and monkeys.  It is the lack of a tail.  Other than the monkeys, Angkor Thom was special as they had the elephant ride available.  15 bucks for a 25 minute stroll around the temple, which is a fantastic way to see the place.  In this photo, as I am mounting the beast, you can actually see him wince in pain.

A fun family moment.  After, they let us give them a whole pineapple for a snack.  Elephants are really great...second best in the animal kingdom to the giraffe in my book.

The third temple complex we visited on the first day was the one called Ta Prohm.  They have excavated that one in a way so you can see how they had been reclaimed by the jungle.  The banyan trees and their amazing root systems growing through the buildings looks like it is out of a movie.

We soon learned that it is right out of a movie.  We were told at every turn how Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was filmed here.  I got the feeling that the filming of this movie in Cambodia is the best thing to happen to that country pretty much since the temples were erected.  Our guide thought that there was a channel that runs it on an endless loop.  With Angelina Jolie adopting a Cambodian child, I think she could win the Cambodian Presidential election (should they ever have a fair one of course).

On day two, part of our tour took us to Tonle Sap lake (the largest lake in SE Asia) where we took a boat out to a floating viliage. 

About 700 people live in this villiage and about 20,000 live in similar ones around the lake.  Primarily fishermen, these villiages have stores and gardens.  Power is supplied by batteries and there is an industry for recharging them.  One thing they don't have are bathrooms, which makes you think twice about jumping in the water.  On the ride out, the banks of the lake are covered in garbage. 

Was nice to get on the water with a bit of a breeze.

Another stop on day two was popping into the Land Mine museum.  We went to a killing field the day before and while powerful, lacked the punch I wanted the kids to take away.  The Land Mine museum however did and is a must see.  The guy that put it together is named Aki Ra and was featured a couple years ago as a CNN Hero.  Conscripted into the military as a child, later became a leader in finding and removing land mines.  He then opened this museum on his own documenting their history and the horrors they caused.  Attached to the museum is an orphanage housing children that lost their parents due to land mines.  Incredible guy.  The displays showing all of the ordinance and documenting the quantity of mines and how many people were killed and maimed by them was impactful,

but what really hit hardest was the wall of testimonials written by the kids at the orphanage.  Written through the eyes of little kids, the honesty of the letters was touching.  Kids whose moms were drunks, or given away by their fathers, detailing the day their parents were killed by mines...hard to read but totally captivating and had to read every one.  One letter detailed how his father lost a leg to a mine and they fitted him with a wooden prosthetic.  Sometime later, his dad is in a field and they hear another blast and he worries that his dad was killed by another one. but the other men came back laughing as his father did step on a landmine but only lost his wooden leg.  They called him Mr. Lucky.

The downtown of Siem Reap caters to the tourist trade.  Night markets selling souveniers and restaurants of varying menus and prices.    It is Cambodia's third largest city and a huge source of foreign income.  I was struck by the complete lack of the Western world present...not a single Starbucks or KFC was seen our entire visit. 

The cuisine is a blend of Thai and Vietnamese influences and was good overall.  The only dish I found as unique to them was a curry cooked in banana leaves called Amok.  Discovered it early in our stay and was in love immediately.  Think I ate it 4 times with various meats added and know I will be searching for it the rest of my life.

The most unusual aspect of Cambodia was that the entire economy runs on USD.  All prices are given in dollars, they only accept them at shops, giving change in their own currency only if less than a dollar, and the ATM's only supply notes in greenbacks.  Have seen places where it is used, but not to the exclusion of that countries own currency.  So bizzare...are there other such places? 

Finally, I think my favorite thing about Cambodia is how they greet each other.  As it is 98% Buddhist, everyone greets you in typical Buddhist style by giving the Namaskara Mudra.

"What is Namaskara Mudra? Namaskara, or Anjali mudra, is the hand gesture that evokes greeting another being with the utmost respect and adoration for the Divine in all. As you can see, the greeting is expressed in a form of prayer coming from one's heart or the third eye.

The Namaskara Mudra can be expressed with palms at the heart level or at the forehead. Why? Because only with the heart, or with a deeper spiritual insight (third eye) can one truly see that we are all expressions of the same light."

Such an absolutely peaceful and beautiful greeting, I found myself giving it back to them right away.  Since returning, I have been experimenting with meditation.  Not sure if it is for me as it is all about clearing the mind and there are a lot of sick voices up there that won't shut up.  I have noticed a difference in that I am a bit calmer about life's little annoyances.  We'll see.

Except for the stifling heat, loved everything about Cambodia and Siem Reap.  If you can go, go, just try to arrange your trip in the Winter time.  Will tackle Vietnam next week.