New Zealand really is a beautiful country

   Flying in over the Manakau harbour this morning on the flight in from Singapore, I was really struck by how beautiful New Zealand really is.

Last post from foreign soil

Well, this is my last post from outside New Zealand. I've spent the last 5 hours or so exploring Changi airport in Singapore. I've seen the butterly house, visted the cactus garden, and had a swim at the rooftop pool. In a few minutes I'll be filling out my declaration form for New Zealand, with more questions than all the other countries I have visted combined.

Are you bringing in any...

food (yes)
plants or plant products including bamboo (yes)
Animals or animal products (yes)
Carrying items that have been used outdoors (yes)
Carrying items on behalf of anybody else (yes)
Potentially prohibited medications (yes - it's all in Russian, I have no idea what it is)
Had any contact with farm animals within the last 30 days (yes)

There is a chance that customs could take a while...

I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone back in New Zealand.

Heading home and post trip updates

I am now in Singapore airport and heading home. I have had an amazing time travelling through Asia, but right now, I am looking forward to getting back to Wellington, getting back to work, and sleeping in my own bed (which will now have new lovely silk bedding from Beijing)

There are some more places I wanted to see that I missed out on due to time restrictions. Notably Chaing Mai, Pai, Vietnam, Laos and South China. They will have to be another trip.
Over the next week or so, in order to provide a more complete record of where I did get to, I plan to include the stories and photos that I missed out on because I was too busy travelling.

Mum, if you're reading this, I am arriving on flight NZ445 at 16:30 into Wellington on Monday the 27th. I have very heavy bags (I've maxed out my weight) as they are full of NZ correspondence school work from Liz's family in Mongolia which was the least I could do for them putting me up. The travel agent told me I would be returning on Sunday the 27th, but after having checked my callender I now realise there was some confusion and the 27th is a Monday.

It will take me a while to get through customs so I am hoping you can meet me after you finish work.

See you in New Zealand!

What I would do differently next time

What I would do differently next time

1) Buy my electronics in New Zealand. This is because brand name electronics are the same price or cheaper in New Zealand, Electronics purchased in New Zealand are guarunteed to have warranties that are servicable in New Zealand and buying electronics in foreign countries in languages other than English is hard work and time consuming.

2) Bring a netbook This is because free wifi hotspots are ubiquitous. Internet cafes are not and finding them eats up a lot of time, especially in countries where there is very little English spoken. Also, at times Internet cafe's can be very pricy (i.e. $10NZ for 20 minutes at Beijing Airport).

3) Always check out the local scams before arriving somewhere (aka read lonely planet - online travel forums etc). On several occasions the lonely planet had details of scams and how to avoid them, but I fell into them because I had not read the perfectly good information I had armed myself with. At other times, I had read the information which saved me from some potentially expensive encounters.

4) Always know how much I am spending before agreeing to services and get it in writing. This sounds extreme, but using a paper and pen as a communication tool to negotiate price is good because it keeps a record of what was agreed and keeps the seller honest. If a price is only agreed verbally, sellers (often street vendors and taxi drivers) will hike the price once goods are received. Paper and pen is good because it keeps a record, so no vendor can inflate the price post sale.

5) Use a GPS from the start, and buy the appropriate local maps before leaving New Zealand or whatever country (where possible). The GPS has been amazing. I never get lost, always know where I'm going, I can meander anywhere with confidence because I'll always be able to get back. The GPS (with appropriate maps) also points out local tourist attractions for me so I don't end up walking past stuff, and it provides an odometer on taxi rides that has allowed me to calculate the rate exactly owed to taxi drivers (and not a cent more) since I bought it. On more than a few occasions since I got the GPS, taxi drivers have attempted to charge me inflated prices, but in every instance they have had to accept my odometer reading and take what I gave them (as I am not flexible when it comes to taxi drivers). One taxi driver in Mongolia got stroppy and one grabbed my shirt to stop me getting out of his cab without paying the $5 US per kilometer he wanted, but fortunately he let go, I leapt out, and threw his opportioned money on the ground (about $2 NZ) so he had to scramble for it if he wanted it and by that time I was gone. I no longer have any patience for fraudsters.

6) Always check out the local public transport options before booking a tour or at least understand there is always a local cheap option. On more than a couple of occasions I'd pay something like $30 USD for a tour somewhere to find that entrace was free and somebody else was smarter and had bought a local bus ticket for fifty cents. Once in Cambodia I paid for a  'tour', and they put me on the local bus everyone else was paying fifty cents for anyway. (they didn't provide any other services).

Beijing, including the Great Wall and the Forbidden City or is it the Imperial Palace Museum?

I was in Beijing again yesterday for one day. I was sad it was only one day but I have run out of time to travel any longer. Perhaps on account of having Chinese friends in New Zealand (and around the world), I felt the most at home in Beijing out of any other place I visited and would certainly be happy to spend some time living there.

With only one day to spare, I made the most of it, and pre-organised a tour to the Great Wall, Olympic park, and some other sights (I will post photos later). I also spent a small fortune on tea and silk, in leiu of a Mongolian horn which I still have the option to order from New Zealand if I really miss it so badly. I am just hoping the tea makes it through New Zealand customs as I am looking forward to sharing it with people back in New Zealand. It is sealed so here's hoping.

While in Beijing I was flattered by the more than a few pretty Chinese girls that seemed to be taken with my blonde hair and asked to pose in more than a few photos with me. I would always ask the reason, and they would always explain in halting English that it was just nice to have a photo together with a cute boy. I was never one to disagree.

Lack of photos

Apart from the countryside I have a real lack of photos from Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia.

The reason for this is the pick pockets. I have found myself a target several times, and while none of the pick pocketting attempts have been successful (I have detected them), I now carry as little as possible, which means not carrying my camera unless I absolutely need it.

I am not the only one who has been targetted. By chance, I met up with the Dutch tourists again that I met at the country side ger camp. We decided to have dinner together, and on the way to the restaurant we were all targetted. Even their elderly parents were robbed (but they also detected it in time successfully).

Out of necessity, I am a lot more aware of the people around me when I walk the streets now. I check who is following me through doorways and always have my hand over the zip on my bag.

I think it'll take me a while once I get back to New Zealand to stop looking at everyone like paranoid android.

The pick pockets seem to work in gangs. I guy walked up to me yesterday, arms open, saying "hello - what's your name - where are you from?". There were also a bunch of sifty guys following close behind me, and I could see what was going to happen next. Making sure I had all my hands safely over all my possessions, I put my head down and kept on walking.

Strange Dreams

I had strange dreams last night of men with large feathers coming out of their heads riding on the backs of giant eagles through the sky.

The basis for this was seeing giant eagles traveling through the country, and then heading with Laura (a fellow traveler) to see the Mongolian Grand National Orchestra, combined with a number of small ensembles, a dance troupe and a contortionist.

We were fortunate to get seats in the middle of the third row (it was a large hall, comparable to the Wellington Town Hall) and it was quite simply one of the most stunning shows I've seen in my life. Photos were prohibited but fortunately somebody else has taken some which I have found on the internet.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbailliez/7724204086/lightbox/

The flute player was amazing, and had his circular breathing well down. He was able to keep up a continuous note for around 5 minutes (the entire piece he was playing), which on flute is nothing short of incredible. His manual dexterity around the instrument was also incredible, far better than my own.

One of the instruments I really enjoyed the sound of was the Surnai, otherwise known as the Ever Buree. I am thinking about buying one to bring back to New Zealand, but they are very expensive. It is essentially a cows horn, with a clarinet mouth piece keyed like a saxaphone. They are $1500 NZ to buy as a proper instrument in a music shop. Tempting, but expensive.

Also yesterday I went to the Winter Palace of the Bogd Khan. It was like the forbidden city in Beijing, very similar architecture, with the difference that all the artifacts were still intact, I could get up close and personal with everything, and I was the only person there. It was the most impressive surviving temple I have seen in Asia. Security was non existent, I just walked in, and then got given a free ticket by a guy departing (tickets normally cost about $2.50). Of particular interest to me were what looked like stuffed birds from New Zealand and the Antarctic. Included in the collection was a kakapo and a pukeko. I am not an ornothologist by any means, so I am going to go back today and take some photos to confirm or deny the birds are or are not what I think they could be. One of the other amazing things I was there was a Leapord Skin ger, made out of 150 snow leapord pelts. Bogd Khan was a King, and nobody who has ever sighted any of his posessions could ever doubt it.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

I've been in Mongolia two nights already, staying in UB at Liz's house. Liz is a New Zealander, but has learned Mongolian during her time here. Her families home is full of reminders from New Zealand. There is an English / Maori sticker in the bathroom telling people to wash their hands and her kids were trying to calculate the travel distance between Auckland and Whakatane when I arrived as part of their NZ correspondence school course work.  We had Rice Bubbles and Milk for Breakfast which has become a rare treat traveling through Asia.

I knew Liz and her family were in Mongolia before setting out, and I was told to contact them if I ever needed to.

Well, as chance would have it, I fell ill on the Trans Mongolian, arrived in Ulaanbaatar, and knew I was not up to finding a dingy guest house, getting ripped off by taxi drivers or keeping my wits about me to guard all my stuff. So, I called Liz, pleaded for help, and within the hour I was in Liz's house, quietly dying in their spare room, which was exactly what I needed at the time.

Tonight, my third night in Mongolia, I feel much improved. I'm in the country side after a 4WD and horse ride out here, (the horse was required to get us over the rivers the 4WD could not handle) and the scenery is stunning, sort of like Strathean in Autumn, which reminds me of home.

The Trans-Mongolian Railway

My original plan for my trip was always to make it to Mongolia. With this in mind, once in Beijing, and with trains only leaving a couple of times a week, it made sense to buy my train ticket at the soonest opportunity and visit Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai properly on my return journey if time permitted.

Buying the train ticket was an adventure in itself and was really my first introduction at how hard navigating in China could get. I had researched the purchasing of the ticket in advance, as originally purchasing the ticket was going to be the first item of business after leaving New Zealand.

Sighting my first Ger, Camel and Eagle from the train was very exciting. On the train I met a girl called Laura from Germany. She was a musician and we spent the next few days travelling together.

The

The robbery

Beijing (first visit)

My GPS proved invaluable again tonight and the compass feature is great. I was able to navigate the 6.5 kms from Tianemen square to my hostel, through a complete maze of Hutong and saw lots of exciting sights, sounds and smells. Old men gambling, street stalls and BBQs, lanterns everywhere, people galore. I loved it.

After the expense of Dalian, where prices were equivalent to or higher than New Zealand for most places we went, I have been enjoying getting lost in all the alley-ways and discovering the street food, all of which can be bought for very low prices.

The old town parts of Beijing seem intimate and have a lot of character. The temperature here is satisfyingly cooler than South East Asia, and the hutongs really are the kind of place I would not mind sitting back in and people watching for a few hours.

While my Chinese is hardly adequate, combined with my guide book and some Chinese peoples very limited English skills, I have been able to get by. Sometimes Chinese people get a bit exasperated with me when I cannot understand anything they're saying. However I feel inspired to go back to New Zealand and be a much better Chinese Language student, particularly of the characters, as written English only seldom exists here, and only then as a courtesy (nobody seems to put much effort into getting it right).

I have run into some trouble with the Chinese language myself while I've been here

Firstly, I think I accidentally tried to sell my taxi driver my GPS. I said 'wo yao mai gps' and the taxi driver said, 'duo xiao tian', which means 'how much?', so I must have got the tone for 'mai' (meaning buy or sell - depending on which way you say it) muddled?

Also, there is no Chinese word for toilet in my guide book. The only phrase it has related to toilets is, 'wo laduzi', under the health section, which combined with gestures may perhaps deliver fast results in the form of urgent gesticulation towards the nearest toilet from some poor Chinese person, but never-the-less I am sure there is more appropriate language to ask where the bathroom is. If any Chinese friends happen to know, I would really appreciate the word for toilet in pinyin as I will be back in China before the end of my trip.

'Qingwen, Wo Laduzi' will have to work for the moment however if I get desperate.

Dalian to Beijing on the night train

There is a sign on the toilet that says "no occupation while stabilizing".

I'm not totally sure what this means, but I assume that at least in my instance, if you have been pigging out on Dalian seafood at an all you can eat sea food buffet, and as a result feel you need some stabilisation, do not spend time doing it in the toilet.

Interrpreting more widely, it also might mean, don't do your business while the train is at the station.

As the sleeping cars were full, and only seated and standing places were still available, the remaining good spots filled up fast

Impressions of Dalian

I was so grateful to Lisa and her family while I was in Dalian, as without them I am not sure I could have survied there. I was continuously amazed at how little English there was, either spoken or on street signs. Basically there was none.

In the tourist dependent countries of Thailand and Cambodia, English signage existed for everything, despite the fact that almost none of the locals could read it.

The Chinese economy does not seem to have the same need for English, and I found very few speakers that knew more than 'hello' or the theoretical stuff they had learned about in school but had never tried in practice.

Dalian was more than I expected. It was bigger (much bigger), more affluent, and more modern than I could have imagined. All the locals told me that Dalian was a small city, and I should wait until I get to Beijing or Shanghai. If that is the case, I can scarcely imagine it.

The pace of development was huge, it was not uncommon to see a row of sky scrapers under construction all at once, and I can't help but feel that there must be a way for more New Zealand businesses to help with the change that is going on there. New Zealand milk powder is already huge in Dalian, is purchased at premium prices, and the New Zealand brand in general seems very strong.

Generally, if New Zealanders' think the urban Chinese are not interested in their products, they're wrong, if they think most urban Chinese can't afford their products, they're wrong, if they think its just plain difficult, they need to try harder.

The opportunities in China seem staggering, and I feel far more inspired to practice my Chinese when I get back to New Zealand.

The square on the sea side, created in the shape of a book

The square from a distance

One of the sculptures in the square (there were many)

There was an ammusment park at the square and we spent some time playing the dodgems. This girl (car #17) was the most vicious, and we unanimously agreed that when she grew up she was going to be a taxi driver

One of the views out of Lisa's brother's appartment. The other view was of an operational aircraft carrier below. After some discussion we decided the aircraft carrier was none of our business, hence the lack of photos

A row of sky scrapers, all of which are under construction (there were many sights like this)

If the pace of development made my head spin, I wondered what
this guy must have thought as he took his goods to market

The direction he was headed in

The great (fire) wall of China

So the blogger website was blocked in China, along with facebook and youtube, so this explains my lack of writing during my time there. I kept entries in my journal however and will transcribe these as time permits.

I am not sure if many Chinese people realise exactly how much they are missing out on. 

First class to Beijing

Previously back in New Zealand, I used to buy my underware from the local supermarket, which I always felt was adequate for my needs.

However, since a visit to Phnom Penh's 'Russian Market' in Cambodia (Russians shopped there during the 1980's), for the grand price of about $5, I now exclusively wear D&G, Calvin Klein, Armani and Louis Vuitton.

Whether the man on the xray machine whispered this to the booking clerk who did the seat assignments, or whether it was the lack of smell in my ice breaker t-shirt I'd been sweating in for a week, or for whatever reason, I was bumped up to First Class on my journey from Bangkok to Beijing.

 As I lay back in the almost fully reclining seats (my feet could not touch the seat in front even at a stretch) and I drank the first class coffee and ate the first class food, I reflected on the fact that sometimes life can turn out very good indeed.

Then, with every high, there always seems a low, and accordingly I got robbed blind at Beijing airport, as I was charged 50RMB (about $10 NZ) for using the internet for 20 minutes. Apparently these are normal Beijing Airport prices. I hope the rest of Beijing will not be the same. 

My last day in Cambodia

How to describe Cambodia? It has such an undiscovered feel to it.

Cambodia seems to me to be a country with many faces. There is the booming economy, and the bright lights of Phnom Penh, where speculation makes inner city property prices higher per square meter than central London.

There is the urban lower class, running street stalls by day and sleeping beside them on the pavement at night.

There are the rice famers of the country side, that work hard all day, often do without clean drinking water, and live in houses akin to the tree huts and 'tree forts' I built with friends during my primary school years.

There are the child labourers, with NGO sponsored English skills, working in all aspects of the tourism industry, selling food, souvenirs, and negotiating nightly rates for non English speaking street prostitutes ($5 a night so the 8 year old girl said) in Siem Reap.

There are the homeless, with all to obvious landmine injuries. Cambodia is the most land mined country on earth, but the rural poor continue to farm the land anyway.

There is the corruption, visa over-charging, fraudulent money exchange, and mis-representation of services, all but one of I found out about the hard way.

There are mothers that walk the streets at night with their babies, asking tourists to buy baby formula for $20 USD so they can refund it again at the 7/11 to split the proceeds with the clerk.

Yet despite all the scams, more often there is an NGO clearing landmines, running an orphanage, providing clean drinking water, protecting a historical site, providing a new sewerage system, building a new bridge, running free computing classes (I spent a day volunteering in one), providing free health care, upgrading a road, the list goes on.

There are also Cambodians helping other Cambodians and helping tourists too, and I met a few amazingly generous and gifted people in Cambodia during my time there. Doctors, Optometrists, English Teachers, Physical Education Teachers, Engineers, even tourists staying another day, all there simply to put something back into the country.

Yesterday I caught the boat from Battangbang to Siem Reap along the Sangkae River. It was quite a journey and I would recommend it to anyone. The journey took about 8 hours, and the river was very narrow, to the point where the driver hit the bank a couple of times and we ran aground once.

I will never forget the villages we saw on the river bank, which were interspersed with miles and miles of rice paddies. The villages had no power, no TV, no Internet, sometimes no clean water, no roads. Their only contact with the outside world was the river and all their outside supplies came in by boat. As we neared each village, the boat driver would honk his horn, and a couple of people (usually young boys) would get in a long boat and race out to pick up / drop off whatever the days cargo for each village was.

The floating villages on the river banks were interesting. They weren't all maintained and touristy like the floating village I stayed in at Khao Sok. They were just enough to get by, and it would have been debatable whether they kept out the rain out or not.

The children obviously didn't see too many outsiders. There is only one sailing of the boat per day (with white tourists) and sailings had only just resumed for the year. Any children we saw were always excited to see us. We would be invariably cruising down the river, when we'd here "ay ay ay ay ay ay" coming from somewhere on the river bank. Looking around there would always be a group of cute kids on one side or the other, waving at us from as we sailed on past.

I'll post the photos I took on the river journey later.

That night, following the journey, I met one of those Cambodians helping Cambodians, who runs a massage business staffed by blind people. So for the grand price of $1 US I got pummelled for an hour by a large blind man before shopping around the market. I had been meaning to buy a traditional Cambodian flute before leaving the country, so after trying plenty, I found one which I liked and am now the proud owner, and that was my last day in Cambodia.

After a full days travelling, I am now in Bangkok Thailand, and tomorrow before lunch time, I will be in the political and cultural capital of China, Beijing.

Batambang and the Bamboo Train

Well, I'm still in Cambodia, and I have the strong feeling I probably shouldn't be, as I am not making fast enough progress to make use of my Mongolian Visa.

The trouble is, apart from the Tuk Tuk drivers, which from an anthropological view point probably qualify as their own unique sub-tribe (or cartel) with their own special extortionate customs, Cambodians are such lovely people.

I am in Batangbang currently, and yesterday I had a ride on the Bamboo Train. The Bamboo Train is ingenious. There are railway lines here, built by the French about 100 years ago, that are completely useless for all intents and purposes because they are so bent and buckled. However the locals have been able to make use of the lines by taking matters into their own hands, and have built bamboo platforms that run on top of a couple of bar bell type wheels, connected by a belt to something akin to a lawn mower engine (or whatever engine they've been able to get their hands on).

This person here sums it up pretty well, so I'm not going to say too much more about the bamboo train, apart from the really cool part comes when two trains meet heading in opposite directions. When two trains need to pass, the train with less cargo is completely disassembled and placed on the side of the tracks. Once the heavier train passes, the lighter train and its cargo are reassembled onto the tracks, and the lighter train continues on its way again.

Batambang is far less touristy than Siem Reap (serving Angkor Wat) and Phnom Penh the capital and it seems tourism has only started to take off here in the last couple of years. I met a British girl called Anya at the bus station in Phnom Penh who is a medical student, and was back here to visit after volunteering here for 12 months earlier in her course. She was able to handle booking the bus, ordering in restaurants, accommodation bookings, and resolve any confusions I created all in the Cambodian language, which seemed to surprise many of the Cambodians we met.

When she went to take a ride on the Bamboo train a couple of years ago, she explained that the locals could not understand why she wanted to travel on the Bamboo Train as she had no specific destination in mind, no cargo with her, and was only concerned about going somewhere (anywhere) and then returning to her original destination, which a Cambodian would never do.

Within two years however, with the assistance of the Lonely Planet, the locals seem to have figured out they have something of a tourist attraction, fares for foreigners have risen from $2 to $20, and the Tuk Tuk cartel has got involved, advertising Bamboo Train rides. Still though, when we stopped at a Bamboo train station out of town, all the kids wanted to say hello, they completely adorned us in palm leaf jewelry (insects, rings and necklaces), showed us around the local brick factory, and shared some music with me (I had my bamboo flute) purely because they seemed to want to hang out with some European English speaking tourists.

I asked the kids if they had any special music requests and to my surprise they really wanted to hear the Macarina. We asked if they knew the actions, and sure enough, they'd all learned them somewhere, so in the middle of nowhere, on the outskirts of Batambang Cambodia, dirt roads and rice paddies for miles, I've got a video of me playing the Macarina on my bamboo flute with a whole tribe of Cambodian children performing the actions.

The other song that seems really big here at the moment is 'My heart will go on' from the movie Titanic, and I have heard it played in a few bars and on the radio during my time here. The Cambodians who have heard me do it, have been most impressed with my flute playing Karaoked against the soundtrack. I have not yet succumbed to repeat requests.

 

The Tuk Tuk Mafia and my new GPS

My Tuk Tuk driver surreptitiously stole $34 USD from me yesterday. He was minding my bag (I should never have allowed him to mind my bag) and the money disappeared. I asked him about it, and he explained that he took the money as it was required for 'services'. 
When I asked him to itemize these services in front of the hotel clerk who spoke English and Cambodian, he couldn't, as he simply had not provided enough service. He tried to explain there was a fee for the owner of the bar we went to, and a $5 USD bag of nuts (which is ridiculous, they cost $0.50 even at tourist prices) along with some other ridiculousness.

The problem was, he'd been driving me around all day, had provided excellent service (without any of the shenanigans listed below) and as a result I'd begun to trust him more than I would have trusted any other Tuk Tuk driver.

He got given the boot as my Tuk Tuk driver for the rest of my time in Cambodia, but I never got my money back.


Here are some of the other (more minor) problems I have had with Tuk Tuk drivers. 


1. Every place I ever want to go is 'very far' and 'pay extra' material. 

2. They take you only to destinations where they want you to go, not where you actually want to go, and forget English rapidly if you voice concern. They will actually drive around in circles for 10 minutes rather than take you on a short fare to where you want to go, if where you want to go is the internet cafe around the corner.


3. They're always a dollar short on change, ALWAYS. If you stand there and smile and wait long enough without handing over a cent, an extra dollar will mysteriously appear in their wallet however for them to give you. 

4. They are seldom able to convert USD to Cambodian Riel correctly when changing money. It always works out in their favor, and I invariably need to correct their mathematics.


After much wasted time and money driving around in Tuk Tuks getting nowhere, today I decided to take advice I should have taken before leaving New Zealand, and invest in a GPS (although it took me four Tuk Tuk drivers and journeys to not find a GPS, and then I found one myself through my own exploration). Tonight I was able to walk from my Hotel, about 3km to the Meekong River, and then walk down the shore line which was tranquil. I didn't fancy the walk back, so with the aid of the GPS and armed with facts about time and distance, and a visual display with which to convince the Tuk Tuk driver I knew what I was on about, I was able to get away with a quarter of the rate I was paying for a similar journey in my first couple of days here.


At the end of the journey, with route plotting turned on, I was able to show the Tuk Tuk driver visually exactly the path he had taken, and accordingly congratulate him on it being very straight. 

Some people might say I'm being a spoilt rich westerner fighting over a dollar here and there (and spending a small fortune which very few Cambodians could afford on a GPS to do it). However I do not think that is the case. I do not mind paying  a little more so long as I can go from A to B with no hassle. When A to B involves a lot of hassle (which is normal) or becomes completely impossible half way through the journey (which is also common) I think I probably have a right to complain in any country. The other thing about the GPS is that it enables me to make a walk vs Tuk Tuk decision, and half the time, with major tourist sites in the city center walking is an entirely practical option.

Still though, sometimes I need a Tuk Tuk, so with the fraudulent personalities of Tuk Tuk drivers in mind, I have now devised a Tuk Tuk driver test. 

If I'm looking for a Tuk Tuk, I give the name of a very visible place that is only 100 meters away, just out of site (or even closer). If the Tuk Tuk driver starts developing a look of intense concentration and saying words like 'very far' 'maybe 5 kilometer', I find a new Tuk Tuk driver. If the Tuk Tuk driver points down the road towards the destination and tells me to walk, he's a keeper. This means I have to go through 15 Tuk Tuk drivers to find a keeper, but I think I found one tonight. 


I asked him where a good restaurant was. He pointed across the road to several restaurants and told me to walk. I asked if he'd had dinner. He said no so we ate together and I paid the bill. He raised the subject of corruption and how the present government and corruption were seriously impeding the development of his country. He was quite the political activist and a serious thinker. He explained how he used to have a tourism business in Batambong, but he wasn't very good at playing the game (when to say yes and when to say no to giving kick backs to the police) so he went out of business. I could feel the genuine bitterness. He told me about friends of his in New Zealand. He said I should visit them when I'm in Auckland and he gave me their details. He's going to be my Tuk Tuk driver for tomorrow.

Completely changing subject (but still sort of following a theme), apparently the following is a true story from the Cambodian Justice system:



Two people are involved in a legal dispute. The plaintiff gives the judge $6,000, the defendant gives the judge $9,000. The judge brings the two before him and says, "You've both given me money to rule in your favor." Turning to the plaintiff he says, "You've given me six thousand dollars," and then turning to the defendant he says, "and you've given me nine thousand dollars, so I'm going to return to you three thousand dollars," and looking at them both, "and judge this case on its merits."

The Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Prison Camp (Camp S21)

Yesterday I visited the Killing Fields at S, Choeng Ek and Tuol Sleng Prison Camp in Phnom Penh.

I did not take any photos as I will never need them to remember what I saw. The experience of walking over fragments of clothing and human bone that had risen to the surface of the ground in the heavy rains, in what was an otherwise peaceful field, combined with the audio tour giving an account of what happened at each spot, and the pile of human skulls the size of a house, is not something that anyone could forget. I visited but one of the hundreds of Killing Fields that are located all around Cambodia that were established by the Pol Pot Regime. It was impossible not to shed a few tears while walking around the site.

I did take two photos while at camp S21 while I was there. I was fortunate enough to meet Bo Meng, one of only 7 people who survived S21, and we took a photo together. I bought his published autobiography from him (all proceeds to charity), which he signed for me, and I was able to ask him a few questions through a translator.

He explained he survived by being useful, which in his case, was being able to reproduce life like paintings. I observed that it must have been very difficult for him to return to S21 after all he had been through to sell books. He explained that he wanted to tell the world what had happened in Cambodia, so that it could never again happen in Cambodia, or anywhere else.

I did take one other photo while visiting S21. Pol Pot's head in a box for all eternity, the head itself created by Pol Pot, presumably as he tried to emulate some of the grandeur of the Khmer Kings of the Angkor Period.

Some statistics about Cambodia

14.5                             Population of Cambodia today in millions
21                                The median age
76.3%                          The adult literacy rate
290,000 to 430,000     The annual fresh water fish catch in tonnes
539,000                       Bombs dropped on Cambodia in tonnes
21%                             The percentage of population killed during the Khmer Rouge rule (1975-1979)
26                                The number of psychiatrists in Cambodia

More information about the Cambodian Genocide is available at http://www.yale.edu/cgp/

 

Putting the genocide in context with the rest of Cambodian history

 Pol Pots head (several copies) on display

 Bo Meng: A survivor of S21, one of 7 survivors out of the thousands who perished there