When two lanes become four or five: On the road in Cambodia

I knew that taking a tuk-tuk in from the airport might be a bad decision, that an AC taxi would be more comfortable and perhaps faster, less dangerous and less like smoking a pack of cigarettes in 30 minutes but think of the fun I would have missed! Traffic in Phnom Penh is a frantic flurry of chaos, a ballet of cars, bicycles, tuk-tuks, motorcycles and the occasional brave (or stupid) pedestrian. It’s like the opening of the Beijing Olympics, only in the daytime and without fireworks.

I spent eight days in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. It was an eye-opening experience, especially after being in Bhutan where happiness is a huge part of the culture. It seems to me that Cambodia is struggling under a heavy load of history and poverty. A Canadian woman I met who was attempting to volunteer there had heard that the population is very young, like 50% are under 16. She said, “They are doing the best they can with little leadership and the best of intentions, but no experience.”

While in Phnom Penh, I visited the National Museum which contains a beautiful collection of Khmer sculpture and is housed in a really neat building, and the Royal Palace, a mini-version of the Bangkok Royal Palace. Both are good places to take a break from the constant inquiries of tuk-tuk drivers, and children selling water and postcards. On the other side of the spectrum is the Tuol Sleng Museum. It is a devastating reminder of the Khmer Rouge atrocities, housed in the actual building where torture took place. (There were hundreds of places just like this.) These are tough images to shake. Being an ostrich with her head in the sand, it was hard to believe that a tragedy of this proportion could have happened in my lifetime, but it did and well, it is happening now in other parts of our world.

My favorite thing to do in Phnom Penh was wander despite the fact that it was extremely hot and the sidewalks are used for parking lots, making walking a challenge. I walked for a while and then sat somewhere for a beverage and then walked to the next place. The buildings are in a variety of styles and conditions. There would be small shops next to grand bright shiny banks next to a market that was in disrepair down the street from a bright shiny mall. ‘Twas a good place to wander.

After a painless six hour bus ride I arrived in Siem Reap, home to a zillion temples, among them Angkor Wat. (En route, I watched the scene along the road, grateful that I didn’t have to live there. The houses were simple wooden buildings, on stilts, with no screens on the glass-less windows and not much evidence of doors or anything inside needing to be kept under lock and key. There were often basic bridges of bamboo crossing the small ravine that ran along the highway. So very different from my comfort zone.),

I went to the temples on a bicycle and was so thankful I did. En route, I met a young British woman who kept me company on our 30+ km ride. I have to say Angkor Wat was not my favorite. It was massive and impressive and amazing, but others were more fun to wander around. And being on bikes, without a guide, we were free to see them at our own pace. There was also the mystery of having no clue what was going on, which we both enjoyed. My favorite was Ta Prohm which is famous for being in the “Tomb Raider” movie with Angelina Jolie. It is being taken over by fig trees—it’s very cool looking, kind of sci-fi. The temples reminded me of the Greek ruins: when you have a ton of old stuff around, it isn’t important much less possible to make it all look pretty. And often Mother Nature does some pretty-making of her own. I also really liked Bayon which has 216 faces smirking from every angle. It made me laugh.

The other highlight of Siem Reap (other than the food—who knew the food would be so good?) was a visit to Tonle Sap. This lake is huge. When I was there, just at the end of the wet season, I was in a boat, toodling around among the tops of the trees. During the wet season, water from the Mekong fills up the lake and swamps the forest; during the dry season, the lake drains a lot of water off down the river and the folks, who all live in floating villages, have to move their homes out into the middle of the lake. There are schools and stores and basketball courts and “dry docks” all floating out on Tonle Sap and twice a year, they have to call on the tow boats to move them. I have got to go back in the dry season to drive among the trees I have only seen from above.

Having survived twenty hours in the air and a total of over 30 in a vertical position en route home, and a week of jet lag, I am settling back into life in North Carolina. It snowed last night which was really different from the high heat of Southeast Asia. I have been looking at pictures and reading about Buddhism and eating ema datse, Bhutan’s national dish of peppers and cheese (two of my favorite foods). I tenderly filed my passport and promised her she’d have further adventures sooner rather than later. Shoot. I really love to travel despite the global warming, politically incorrectness of it. One thing I always know, like they say in Asia, it’s going to be “same same only different.”

How many Bhutanese does it take to get 15 chillips up and over an 11,000+ foot pass?

First of all, know that chillip is what we hope is a nice way of saying tourist or traveler in Dzongkha. And the answer is…more than you think. Considering there were 15 of us, we were for the most part in two-person tents equipped with cots and thermarests, were served three meals a day at tables with chairs, not to mention served popcorn, cookies, and whiskey in the pouring rain, perhaps it was just enough.

For 13 days, I was among a fortunate group of people who got to visit Bhutan, The Land of the Thunder Dragon and travel a portion of the national highway to see its remarkable landscape, including doubly remarkable drop offs and that powerful stream that was pouring over one hairpin turn, visit its temples and towns, and meet some of the charming residents.

My trip started with a bang. I almost didn’t make it to the starting point because we were having a little known and much localized gas shortage. Driving on fumes, I pulled into a gas station with no gas, begging for guidance. A woman who worked at an adjoining fast food joint had just seen an open station. I just about kissed the attendant when I got there. Emergency abated, I got good BBQ in Charlotte (found on chowhounds.com, one of my favorite travel sites) and checked into a cheap friendly airport motel.

Checking my email, I found that my plans were changed: a couple days in Bangkok turned into one in Bangkok and one in Kathmandu. This brief detour was a nice bonding experience for the group (which included some from another group who we overlapped with a couple days) and for me, returning to a place I had been 13 years before (wow) was fun. The changes were obvious—a huge increase in the population of Kathmandu had changed the traffic and the ambience and it was wildly busier than when I was here before.

The following morning we were off to Paro, Bhutan. My recollection of the Kathmandu airport is a blur of bustle, buying Cokes, glimpses of the snow-capped mountains and then we were on the plane. Just a reminder: I am in the land of the Himalayas. These are really tall mountains. Climbing into the clouds, we had a thrilling view of the tops of some of the bigger ones, including Everest. It put smiles on everyone’s face. I myself had trouble wiping that smile off for most of the day. The approach into Bhutan was equally smile inducing, though the course into the airport appeared challenging. Initially, we were high above densely forested steep hillsides and soon we were lower and banking around and between those hillsides. Then live and in person, I could see the typical buildings which until this moment I had seen only in photos. It was magical. The forest was a deep green, the buildings white with rust red-brown decorations— a charming contrast of colors.

And so the trip unfolded. We started out in a grand hotel with prayer flags flying, a group of 15 from all over the US, plus a leader, a guide, driver, and luggage wrangler. We were well taken care of.

We started slowly, acclimating to the altitude with some hikes, some drives and lots of dzongs (the grand temples). There’s only one road running east to west and it takes several days to cross the country. I can’t tell you the number of times I thought, This is the national highway??? It is curvy and narrow with serious drop offs (that seemed to concern only me), and a few erosion issues (that seemed to concern only me).

Just about every turn inspired oos and ahs and a few gasps from yours truly (see above). As my mother’s daughter, I felt it was my responsibility to keep the bus on the road and will the road to stay in one piece despite Mother Nature’s work to undermine that. Tenzin, the driver, ably assisted. Seriously, though, it was gorgeous countryside, a marvel to behold.

Mid-trip, we took to our feet up a muddy creek bed to a lovely meadow where our tent city appeared, and we enjoyed two nights on the edge of a village in the middle of nowhere. Later, I spoke to a businessman in the capitol who said he grew up in a town a nine hour walk from the bridge we had crossed earlier. An orthopedic surgeon at the same event had a similar story. So the middle of nowhere is all relative. Through these western eyes, the fact that someone walks nine hours out of these mountains and winds up studying in Delhi or Austin or London is mind boggling, but it happens here all the time.

After a riveting archery tournament (the national sport) and an evening of dancing and singing with our neighbors, we took off straight up a different muddy creek bed and hit the pass at noon. (Our leader Tshering told us in the beginning that he would handle all the details but the weather was our responsibility. The “pass day” was my day. I guaranteed no rain to the pass and it worked out that way but shortly thereafter it was bucketing down rain.) We huddled together in a “drive through” chorten (little temple-ish building) and ate our lunch, and a couple hours later, soaked by rain and a river crossing, we were in the dining tent sipping Special Courier whiskey and eating cookies and popcorn. A mediocre day of weather, it was a wild evening. Me? I climbed into my sleeping bag to avoid the chills, feeling satisfied that I got over the pass and remembering why I don’t typically drink whiskey.

After our trek, we made our way back across the country, attending two festivals. One included the unfurling of what was a three or four story high hand appliquéd tapestry which is only displayed once a year in the early morning hours before the sun hits it. It was stunning and the event around this was quite the early morning scene.

The second festival was in the capitol of Thimphu. The festivals are cause for everything to shut down, including governmental offices and schools. The Thimphu tsechu included dances and skits in a brand new outdoor facility. It was quite a production, lasting several days, and from what we saw, it was very well attended.

There are so many highlights I haven’t touched on. The consecration of a monastery that had been rebuilt after a fire which lasted more than a week has left lasting memories I have a hard time putting into words. Karaoke night in Thimphu was perhaps better left un-described, but I laughed a lot...the bathroom at that bar really shouldn’t be described either but I just wanted to remind Jeanie of it. Chiles drying on the roof, children laughing and smiling and waving along the road, hanging out with fourteen strangers who became friends instantly—it was a good trip.

And Bhutan is a remarkable country. I haven’t gone into all the reasons it is special—the self imposed isolation that has kept it from being overrun by outsiders and altered in the way that other Asian countries have been, the environmental sensibility that is protecting the black necked cranes, among others. It is a magical kingdom. I hope it can stay that way, and navigate the future that should prove to be challenging.

Proof that when you drop a half-cup of red pepper soup...

...it covers way more surface area than one could ever imagine. (And of course, the cup splintered into a ba-jillion pieces and of course, I was in a hurry, and you wouldn't believe how many rags it took to clean up.)

I am not sure this was what the internet was created for, but living alone, I felt I needed to share it with someone...

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Back from Asia and all is well

I spent most of the day staring at the computer and my photographs and trying to figure out how to show them to people and how many is too many -- even forgot to eat so you KNOW I was focused -- and now I can't look at them any more (but you can --I hope -- at http://pnewlpnews.spaces.live.com/photos/). I apologize because there are too many but, don't look at them if they bore you! And I want to come up with words before I forget anything and I haven't slept more than 6 hours in the last two days and there is so much mail...Anyway, one more picture and then I curl up in front of the TV under blankets because it is COLD here.