Friday, December 29, 2006

M for Mature

A few days ago we were in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, and also one of the centres of the Khmer Rouge Genocide that took place in the mid 1970's. While we were there, I visited (Joanna wasn't up to come along, because she was feeling sick, and the experience is known to be extremely emotionally draining) the Tul Sleng museum, and the Killing Fields, . These two places were responsible for the deaths of some Twenty Thousand People. During about four years, the Khmer Rouge were responsible for the murders of around Three million completly innocent Khmer people."Khmer" is the Cambodian word for the Cambodian peoples. From what I've come to understand, the story goes as follows:

During the 1960's and early 1970's Cambodia was in a state of civil war. One of the parties was a communist party called the Khmer Rouge. This party was led by a man called Polpot, and his party's time in power will not be forgotten for a very generations to come. The Khmer Rouge ended up winning the civil war, and promptly "revolutionized" the state; Destroying almost every single factory and bank in Phnom Penh, and burning all of the money in the banks, turning the capital city into a ghost town. The Khmer Rouge wanted to get rid of the unwanted people ie: Intellectuals, athletes, elderly people, anyone affiliated with the previous government and anyone who was a "traitor"or a "spy". The party favoured the "Base peoples" which were the uneducated and simple farmers from rural towns. These people were apparently the future of the Khmer people, even though they had little or no education.

To eliminate the unwanted peoples, Polpot set up various prison camps for political prisoners, often converting schools, turning all of the classrooms into prison cells and torture chambers. The rest of the people, from elderly people to people that had ever been to school, women and babies, mothers and fathers and anyone else, often for being affiliated to wrongly accused political prisoners or wrongly accused spies or traitors of the state, were sent to fields outside of towns, and murdered them. No bullets were ever used, because bullets cost money, and the traitors weren't worth it. The people were killed with knives, hatchets, clubs and hammers. Their hand were bound behind their backs, and they were blind folded and they were beaten to death, in every case. Their throats were cut with the ragged edges of palm tree leaves. Women were often stripped naked, and people were ofter beheaded. The prisoners were forced to dig pits up to 8 meters deep, and then they were executed and thrown into the pits. At the Killing field I visited, Government workers who found the graves after the Khmer Rouge was thrown out, found the bodies of Four Hundred and fifty human beings. Completly innocent people from all over Phnom Penh and the surrounding communites were brought to the field by the truckload and murdered on the spot. I should mention that Polpot favoured young and teenaged boys to be his soldiers and guards. Only boys and teenagers were allowed to be guards. The boys were brainwashed into believing that killing was the only thing to do, and were responsible for all of the murders at the Prison and killing fields. These boys murdered everyone that came to those fields. They would even kill their own families if it came to that.

My guide told me that most of the time the people being executed had been falsly accused, or had been turned in by a relative or co worker on suspicion of being a traitor. Most of the time there was no basis to these accusations and thousands upon thousands of innocent people were murdered in the most barbaric and merciless way. It seems like anytime someone got into a position of power, even if they were promoted, they were watched, and often arrested for charges that had nothing to do with them. My guide just said "these men crazy, they kill people for no reason, they kill everyone".

The killing field I went to was only on two hecteres of land and you could walk around the whole thing in about 10 or fifteen minutes. The ground is covered in the shallow grass covered dents of what were once mass graves. About half of the park is covered by a pond now, preventing the further excavation of half of the bodies. But on that little piece of farm land outside of Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge managed to murder and bury 20 000 people. Arm and leg bones have been placed in little piles along with bits of rags which were prisoners clothing on top of important sites around the memorial park.

At the entrance of the park there is a very large pagoda like building that houses the 8,129 human skull that excavators found on the land that isn't covered by water. The inside of the hollow structure has 8 stories of skulls, with glass casing around square platforms all the way up to the top. Just below the first level of skulls is a collection of clothing that was found on prisoners. The first few levels of skulls have sliding windows that are left open during the day, so visitors can fully grasp the reality of what has taken place there. There is a little shrine outside to place incense and pray for those who lost there lives during the regime's reign. There were times that it was all too terrible to try and understand, and I just cried, sat and cried. It still makes me tear up and feel sick thinking about all of it. I think I'll go into more depth about my experience at the museum later, it's all very heavy to think about.

I feel very honored and fortunate that I was able to see and experience both the fields and the museum, and it makes me wish that more people from the west are able to experience the terrible realities of modern history.

I think it would make everyone realize what can't be allowed to be repeated and how extremely lucky we all are.

-Ben

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Rollin, rollin, rollin on the river

SOOOO,
We are in Siahnoukville (see-en-oo-ville), Cambodia and we're loving it here. But First, Tales from Bangkok:

We ended up staying in Bangkok for three nights, and had a lot of fun. Bangkok was still really crazy and overwhelming, but we weren't nearly as hot this time around, or as cranky. Climatization at work I guess.

Bangkok is a kind of like a sweaty, diesl-ey, smelly slap in the face after being anywhere else in Thailand for longer than a day. There are two large scale traffic jams everyday, temples and high rises sit side by side. Street vendors selling all kinds of delicious fried foods can be found in the most obscure alley ways, and wild dogs roam the streets and sleep wherever they please. There is often so much going on in your line of sight that you have trouble focussing on any one thing, and it gives me at least, a headache. I think that's what the first day of being in Bangkok has been like for me every time we go back. I feel more comfortable with everything now but its still an insane place to be for more than a few days. And By the time we left this time I was coughing up flem and stuff, probably from a combination of smog and sickness.

Solange took Jo and I to MBK, which is one of the biggest malls in bangkok. There is fake everything there; Designer clothing, perfumes, sunglasses, electronics and everything else. There are six or seven floors, and we spent all day there. It was draining just to be in all that chaos, but we survived, and got some dope new "kicks" (shoes mom, shoes) We all ended up spending more than we would have liked, and I ended up spending like $85 that day, which is an insane amount of money here, but I got some sweet stuff. Solange and I bought some burnt cd's mine were:

CCR greates hits (hence post name)
Coldplay greatest hits
Razor Light
Motown 5 cd complation
Red Hot Chili Peppers Greatest hits
and some others I can't remember right now.

ANYWAYS
As I was saying...
We just hung around Soi Rambuttri and Khao San Rd, and shopped and ate a bunch for a couple of days pretty much. We decided to start to head to Cambodia, And after a string of mini-bus rides we arrived at the Cambodian border crossing. The crossing went very smoothly and a nice dude who spoke very good english offered to give us a lift into town for 300 baht. He taught us a few words in Cambodian like "Suicydie" which is hello( but sounds a lot like suicide) and "Awkun" which is thank you. One of the first things I noticed was that they drive on the right side of the road, unlike Thailand where they drive on the left. And we all immediately felt a sense of relaxation, because there were many less people around, life just seemed to be moving at a much slower pace. It was also a beautiful sunset, which didn't hurt either. We were driven to a nice hotel that was actually a converted french colonial style house, with big rooms, and an upper level that you could have ballroom danced on. There were no street lights in Koh Kong, the town we were in, and the only internet we found DIAL-UP. DIAL. UP. It was like being in a museum, I swear to God. We went to a nice little restaurant to eat, and the owner's 5 year old son translated the prices for his mom, it was sooooooo cute. I gave him a little tip and said goodbye. The currency in Cambodia is Riel, but everyone uses the US dollar as currency. 4000 Riel is about 1 US dollar, so when you get change, they always give it to you in Riel, because they don't use American change. To complicate things further, Koh Kong is a border town, so they also accept Thai baht. It was a bit tricky-ish to figure out what somethings cost but it wasn't that hard.

The next day we caught a four hour speed boat ride to Sihanoukville (see-en-oo-ville) We caught three motos(motorbike taxis) to the ferry terminal and secured ourselves a very selfish 3 seats each so we could sleep the whole way. About half way we stopped to more people on, and some Cambodian children came running on with food to sell. They woke me up and in a daze I agreed to buy a baguette from one of them, and right after that they were all shoving food in my face trying to get me to buy me some. I said no thank you, and Solange was watching me and laughing, because she's been to Cambodia already and knows what its like to be mobbed by children. The ride got very, very bumpy after that. I just kept on lying down, and had nice day dreams of bouncing around a rubber room.

We arrived safely at Sihanoukville, and caught some motos to a backpacker part of town on a hill that overlooks the ocean. We found a nice hotel that was again a converted French colonial house. It was only $2 each a night, and had satellite tv. we all fell asleep for the afternoon, and woke up at sunset. We wandered around the little strip of restaurants and stores and found a restaurant that was owned by a very eccentric Finnish man with a hitler moustache. He was very odd, although I very much doubt he had an allegiance to the reich. We had some burritos and some samosas. We went back to the hotel and watched "Striptease" with Demi Moore, whcih was a very bad movie, before we read and went to bed.
And there you have it, the last few days of my life.
You guys to email us more though, or at least comment, because we always read them all.
If you want to know more about how were doing, you need to email!
I Love erbody
-Ben

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

I thought you should know

...that the reason that I haven't been updating isn't because I've been kidnapped or died, simply because we've spent the last week doing nothing but relaxing on the beach(when it isn't raining) and hanging out with Emily and Solange.

The full moon party was insane, like I expected, and we hung out with a group of awesome australians and danced and drank the night away. It was a little too crazy for me, and I realized that my idea of a good time out is not a huge rave on a beach. There was just too many people and too much going on, and I was a little to drunk. I had a good time, but I don't think I'll be going out of my way to attend another one.

A couple of days ago the four of us decided to leave Koh Phangan for Koh Chang (Elephant Island in English) for a change of Scenery. We took a very cheap(bad sign) bus from Koh Phangan to Bangkok, from where we'd catch a bus to Koh Chang.

The bus ride to Bangkok was actually pretty good, we decided to sit in some of the seats in the bottom level of the bus where we'd have more leg room. Good idea in principle, bad idea in retrospect. The leg room was very nice but was overshadowed by the overpowering smell of urinal cake and sewage whenever someone opened the bathroom door. Unlike any of the bus rides we have taken in Thailand, the bus arrived in Bangkok early. This never happens. The bus arrived at 5 am beside Khao San Road, the main backpacker haven in Bangkok. We ate a very early breakfast at a twenty four hour restaurant, and giggled and dragged ourselves up the road to Soy Rambuitri, a very nice and quiet little hostel street we've all become very fond of. We found an internet cafe and I made some phone calls to some very surprised people. I finally got to talk to Jena on the phone and got very mushy and very homesick(well, I actually just missed her, really, really badly, sorry everyone).

Once the travel agents opened at 7am we got some bus tickets for Koh Chang that left at 8 am. I wasn't tired or grumpy after talking to Jena, and leaving Bangkok sooner than later was like music to my ears. On that bus ride, the drivers played some very bad(and by bad I mean terrible) Folk-Rock-Polka crap that was sung by a very bad thai singer singing in english, over the bus speakers. I wanted to die. I think we all did, actually I know we all did. We had been travelling for over 24 hours, and did not want to hear any Folk-Rock-Polka music ever let alone when we were trying to sleep. Thankfully they switched to some South African tribal music about Nelson Mandella(how bad is it when I'm actually relieved by that change). After about halfway we had a lunch break and when we got back on, One of the drivers came through and Joanna heroically asked him to turn the music off in the rest of the bus. Amazingly, he turned it off. We got to the ferry terminal, got on the ferry, and I had a chicken burger in a triple stacked sandwhich (or sandwith as it said on the menu) with a side of sliced hotdog wrapped in bacon (yummy.) We caught a sung thao to a beach called "Lonely Beach" and found a nice little hostel with a very posh outdoor bar and restaurant, and very unposh bungallows.

Sadly, Emily will be heading to bangkok to catch a flight down to Koh Samui to be with some relatives for Christmas in a day or two, but she'll be able to meet up with Jo and I again in Cambodia and Vietnam mid January.

Solange, Joanna and I are going to head to Siennaville in southern Cambodia, where we plan to spend Christmas. I'm most excited about this because of the reference to the very famous Dead Kennedys song "Holiday in Cambodia". Although in the song, Cambodia does not sound like a nice place to be for a holiday. Of course, it is an older song, and the Cambodian totalitarian regime the "Khmer Rouge" was still in place, and still executing massive amounts of they're own people. On a lighter note, Cambodia is thankfully a totally different place than it was even ten years ago, and Solange tells me the Cambodian people are incredibly nice. I'm really excited to get out of Thailand to see more culture, and less westernized everything. I'm also looking forward to going to Phenom Penh and Siem Reap, to see the Killing Fields and see the extent of the Khmer Rouge's damage on the Cambodian people (finally, some modern history). We'll also be heading north to Angkor Wat, the massive walled town of Temples, where we plan on renting bycicles for a couple of days to see it all. Tomb Raider was filmed in one of the temples in Angkor Wat if that helps anyone.

Solange is off to meet her loverboy Josh on January 4th, so Jo and I will be on our own for a couple of weeks. I hope that we'll all be able to meet up again though, we've had a lot of fun. "The Dinks", that is to say another group of friends from Victoria, will be in Cambodia and Vietnam around the same time as us, so we'll probably meet up with them along the road.

I think that pretty much brings you up to speed on everything, and I promise I'll post more when we get into Cambodia, because we'll actually be doing something other than hanging out in hammocks and reading by the beach.
love you all
-Ben

Sunday, December 03, 2006

the little mo-ped that couldn't

oh hayyyyy,

Jo and I met 4 people the first night we got to our hostel, two are from belgium; Stan and Babette, and a german named Guerit and a Brit named Lauren. We started playing poker and drinking and and a really fun night. Today we went with them on a little scotter tour with just our three bikes to see a couple of waterfalls. Unfortunatley, our mo-ped didn't like going uphill much and would start to rattle and make this horrible clicking noise all the way up. It was a bit worrying but mostly funny. The first waterfall we went to turned out to be a little stream in a huge riverbed. I guess we came to see at the wrong time of year. but before we realized that, we hiked 500 meters up hill through the brush before we got to a lookout point. The hike was fun, but tireing, so we went back down and had some nibbles and water. We kept on moving and the roads got a little rougher with big pot-holes and bumps we had to ride over. But it was a lot of fun, other than our rattling little mo-ped. The second waterfall we went to had a very nice little pool with a stream running right into it. It started to rain, and the rain brought out the greens and the yellows in the trees and leaves, and it was beautiful. There were super hyperactive pre-teen thai boys jumping off the rocks and yelling at eachother, and Jo, Lauren and I jumped in and jumped of some of the rocks aswell. It was very refreshing and was a nice end to the day. I dropped off Joanna at our new hostel on a different beach, and went back our old hostel and wore both backpacks and drove to our new hostel. I must have looked funny. Although, we have seen more ridiculous things on Scooters like :

A family of three and they're dog sitting calmy on the back of one scooter.
Four Teenagers on one bike.
A man with two chainsaws on his lap.

I'm sure I've seen more, but those are the ones that standout right now. Anyways, I've got to go get Jo and meet our friends for dinner at the restaurant on the hill.
Stay tuned for our next episode, "the update that erased itself"

-Ben