She Travels

Next Stop: Trekking in Sapa and the Hill Tribes in Northern Vietnam

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 04:14:35 +0200

After our return from Halong Bay - which I will write about in a later blog post - we took the night train from Hanoi to Sapa, a remote town in the mountains of Northern Vietnam between China, Myanmar, Thailand and Laos. The landscape around Sapa is breathtaking and makes it a great destination for trekking. In addition to that a lot of interesting ethnic minorities live there - different hill tribes, each with their own language, traditional lifestyle and clothing. During our trip there we met the Red Dzao and the Black Hmong people.

The night train left Hanoi at 9pm and was surprisingly comfortable, and it was possible to get a good six hours of sleep before the arrival in Sapa around 5am. We had a long breakfast, and strolled a little bit through town before we were able to check into our hotel and get ready for a day of trekking.

The landscape around Sapa is beautiful and I was looking forward to my first hike after knee surgery earlier this year.

We hired a guide from one of the minority people, the Black Hmongs, and she picked us up at the hotel at 9am; she turned out to be very competent and a fun person to spend the day with…

We walked 14 kms that day - and I really enjoyed it.

We spent the day hiking with her and two other Black Hmong women - very nice and friendly people. This is one of the other Black Hmong women who came with us on the trek:

The Red Dzao women shave the top of their head and their eyebrows after they get married, as this is thought to be more beautiful and also to bring good luck. They wear striking, elaborate red headscarves with fringes attached to them - the more fringes the more important the person (see also first picture of this blog post above..)

The Black Hmong women wear a really cool outfit that consists of several layers…

They wear the beautiful traditional clothing every day - independent of age…

… and they grow their own hemp to produce the material for their clothes. During our hike we were surprised to come upon big patches of tall marijuana plants, which, they told us, are used to make hemp. The women also grow the plants that they need in order to dye the cloth indigo - and that is why they have blue stains on their fingers, as you can see in the picture below…

Many of the minority villages are several hours of walking away from Sapa, and a lot of these women walk to Sapa and back every day in order to sell their handicraft to tourists. They carry everything in woven baskets on their back.

When they have babies they do the same walks and simply carry the baby on their back instead of the basket.

And they learn at a very young age how to do that…

One of the main characteristics about the landscape in Northern Vietnam are the terraced rice fields. The hill tribes are subsistence farmers who live off their land and the livestock they own. They do not pay taxes, but at the same time also do not receive any government pensions or other social services. They grow rice for their families, which is backbreaking labor - and in a bad season the land does not provide enough rice to feed them. In that case the Vietnamese government helps by distributing 300kgs of rice per family to the villages.

Water buffalo are an important part of life here…

… and even the small kids help with the work in the rice fields… though sometimes more…

sometimes less efficiently…

Sapa has a much cooler climate than the rest of the country, and in many ways it doesn’t feel like Vietnam anymore - some of the minority people speak better English than Vietnamese; but then you look around and find propaganda of the Vietnamese government even in the most remote villages. Note the first billboard below is hand-painted and shows people of different ethnic minorities…

Lately the Vietnamese government has been building schools and has started to provide electricity also for the more isolated areas - which the people in the villages appreciate a lot. We passed one of those schools, and school kids were practicing a dance - obviously overseen by Ho Chi Minh…

… outside the school as well as…

… inside the class room.

Also, it seems that money going to UNICEF is actually doing some good in this area…

At the end of the trek we arrived at the home village of one of the women - and her best friend was waiting there for her with a bottle of rice wine. We were invited to try the wine, and it was seriously strong stuff!

The next day I couldn’t resist buying a second-hand Black Hmong outfit to take home with me, and while Nat was climbing Mount Fansipan I had a lot of fun with the Black Hmong girls helping them sell their handicraft to tourists while dressed like one of them.

Next Stop: Phu Quoc

Sat, 09 Oct 2010 13:35:00 +0200

After the bike trip we were in the mood for a couple of days on the beach - and decided to head to an island called “Phu Quoc”, which was only a 1-hour flight from Saigon.

Fortunately booking airline tickets just the day before you want to fly is easy in Asia - and prices do not go up for last minute travel, which very much supports our spontaneous travel habits…

It was interesting for me to notice that most South Vietnamese people still call the city Saigon, not Ho Chi Minh City. That name is much more used by people in Northern Vietnam.

Here you can see the Mekong River at its end point, flowing into the South China Sea. This is a huge river. And it sustains 60 million people. It starts in the glaciers of the Tibetan Plateau and flows through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and finally Vietnam. And ends here.

The island turned out to be the ideal setting for a “romantic retreat” - and surprised us with beautiful and unspoiled white beaches.

During the day we watched the activities of the fishermen…

…and we obviously had the “best food ever”…

There are very few tourists in the low season…

… but we had good weather most of the time, with the occasional rainstorm in the afternoon, and some ridiculously beautiful sunsets.

We went on a 1-day diving excursion, and were very surprised by the unusually spacious and luxurious dive boat.

The crew cooked food for us on the boat, which was simple but very good. The diving itself was macrodiving (meaning only very small creatures in the water, no bigger fish, turtles, sharks etc - the name comes from the “macro” setting on your camera) with very limited visibility, so we were not too excited about what we saw. Nevertheless we had not done any diving for the last year, so it felt good to be back in the water. And the islands of the dive sites were really beautiful.

But maybe we need to review the sections of “how to use your fins” in the PADI book…

The day after the diving my right ear suddenly started to become red - and redder - and even more red - until it became clear that something was very wrong with that ear and that we should consult a doctor. Nat was joking that I might lose a part of my ear and look like Spock… So we emailed our doctor in San Francisco pictures of the ear - whereupon he replied within 10 minutes, prescribing 2 different antibiotics: “You need to take this very seriously - this infection can destroy the cartilage in your ear, and you can lose a part of your ear as a result of this….”. So Nat’s joke was prescient AND funny.

(My ear is mostly ok now).

Nevertheless we had lovely dinners on the beach…

… and after our 2-day stay on the island had turned into 6 days we realized we had to say goodbye to lazy island life and pick up the speed of our traveling, otherwise we wouldn’t see half of Vietnam by the time our visa runs out…

Next Stop: Mountain Biking through the Mekong Delta

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:40:00 +0200

Leaving Cambodia was surprisingly difficult for me - I had really fallen in love with that country and its people.

We decided to travel down the Mekong river by boat to the Vietnamese border, and then continue by bus to Saigon. This is the Saigon City Hall.

Crossing the border between the two countries on the river was quite interesting - in Cambodia you rarely see a street sign in the countryside - in Vietnam even the river is regulated with dos and don’ts…

After a couple of days in Saigon - an interesting city, that did not conquer my heart - we decided to explore the South of Vietnam - the region of the Mekong Delta - by mountain bike.

Vietnam is a very heavily populated country in some areas, and the streets can be very busy.

A lot of people wear the traditional conical hat.

During the four day ride, we didn’t see any other tourists, and the locals were curious about our endeavor…

…kids came running into the street to look at us…

The Vietnamese call the Mekong River “Nine Dragons”, as it has nine arms, and countless side streams and canals. As a result there are thousands of different bridges - some of them just an arrangement of spindly logs expertly positioned over the river.

Some bridges are a little bit more elaborate…

We biked for four days and crossed an endless number of these nerve-wracking bridges on the way.

The biking was relaxing and easy, mostly flat…

and crossing over all these crazy bridges was fun.

Everywhere we went people liked to show us their children and grandchildren…

The biggest challenge was to protect myself from the burning sun during the hottest hours of the day.

Fortunately I had learned some tricks from the Vietnamese people:

So, here I go…

Statues of Ho Chi Minh and Socialist propaganda are everywhere…

and there are loudspeakers even in the most remote parts of the countryside.

The most memorable moments were when people invited us into their gardens or homes, which happened on several occasions.

These women were playing cards and invited me to join them…

That was great fun, and despite the fact that they spoke no English they patiently tried to explain the game to me so I could join!

All the signs on the cards were in some kind of beautiful script though, which looked very interesting - but all cards looked the same to me. Some helpful color markings saved me every now and then, still it’s good that I did not play for money.

This family invited us into their garden to drink tea with them, and we spent some time chatting and playing with their little puppies.

The men of the family were interested in looking at our mountain bikes…

…the woman were interested in studying my teeth from close up. Unfortunately not many Vietnamese people are able to keep much of their teeth beyond the age of 30 or so…

For many centuries the Mekong Delta was a part of Cambodia, and many people there still speak the Khmer language - and it was very nice being able to communicate with the people with the basic knowledge we had picked up in Cambodia.

This is a coffee break at a local roadside coffee shop with Kevin, the other member of our little cycling group.

People are much better off in Vietnam than in Cambodia - kids are wearing earrings…

…have bikes their own size and ritzy schoolbags… all of this was rare in Cambodia.

This family invited us to drink some rice wine with them - a very strong concoction that resembles more a “schnaps” than a wine :-) and it was dangerously strong after several hours of biking right before lunch…

This was a typical lunch stop…

… we were happy to just sit in the shade and eat our food…

and when I asked “where I could wash my hands” (as the British say) this is where they led me…

Sometimes the paths were really muddy though, and almost impossible to bike through.

At some point Nat was giving a helping hand to some workers on a truck which they found hilarious and they insisted on taking photos of us with their mobile phones…

Here is Tico our guide wearing a Grapefruit on his head… He was a very competent and funny guide, born in the Mekong Delta, with a fascinating family story - and he seemed to know every single path and trail out there by heart…

Tico also told us that some of the locals asked him why “we are doing all that…” - meaning - “why are they biking on the tiny, muddy roads in the burning sun through the villages when they have a wonderfully air-conditioned van at their disposal???”

We all consumed a ridiculous amount of water during the day…

… and at the end of four days of biking we were tired but very happy…

- and already making plans for the next bike trip!

Next Stop: 2-day Elephant Trek through the jungle in Mondulkiri

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 05:01:00 +0200

After a night in the Nature Lodge in Mondulkiri (the very mountainous Eastern part of Cambodia)…

…we set off for a 2-day elephant trek through the jungle which was absolutely awesome; this was our elephant:

We did roughly 5 hours of elephant riding that day - broken up by a short lunch - in order to reach a waterfall somewhere deep in the jungle. This is the village from which we started - where the elephant “lives”, so to speak…

The intensity of colors and sounds while moving through the trees is amazing and becomes stronger and stronger the deeper you come into the jungle.

Sitting on an elephant also provides you with a whole different perspective. From way up there, for example, you are able to observe, and to pass through, many diverse spiderwebs with enormous spiders in them.

After a couple of hours I decided to ignore everything that fell or crawled on me with a diameter of less than 3cm… (yes, I know what you are thinking - and yes, I surprised myself as well …:-)

At one point the elephant suddenly stopped and refused to move any further. The elephant “driver” - this is what the locals call him in English - and our guide looked around, trying to figure out what the problem was, and then the guide pointed up to the tree right in front of us.

And there it was. A large green snake, perfectly camouflaged in the leaves.

By coincidence a local Bunong man was coming up right behind us in that moment and seemed quite excited to see the snake; he used his machete to cut a very long branch from a nearby tree, and then swung it violently at the snake…

… so that it fell to the ground…

… and then - while staying far away with his long stick - killed it by hitting it several times, and then cut off its head with the versatile machete.

As he marched off with the decapitated snake, I called out and asked what his plans were with the snake; he grinned from ear to ear and said “soup!!!”

Later I learned that snakes are quite expensive here, so this was obviously a real catch for him.

Elephants are very intelligent creatures and it was fun to watch the elephant tackle all kinds of really difficult terrain. He can go up and down really steep, slippery, muddy hills, and we crossed several wide rivers with all four of us sitting on the elephant.

This is where we had lunch, and after 2 to 3 hours on the elephant I was happy to stretch my legs and walk around a bit. People live in this hut when they tend to the ricefields right around it. It’s basically a small farm right in the middle of the jungle, only accessible by a single track walking trail, and cut off by a river.

The night in the jungle was very exciting. We slept in hammocks covered by a mosquito net and completely sealed with zippers. With the number of creepy crawlies around us, that was a good thing to have ;-)

When Nat was putting up the hammocks he had to be very careful, as scorpions were sitting behind the wooden bars of the hut.

The guide used water from the river to cook some rice and vegetables for us - and we were extremely delighted to have a warm meal. Meanwhile it had started to rain very hard, and after 30 minutes our little hut was completely flooded with water.

Surprisingly the jungle was probably one of the noisiest places I have ever slept. There were insects out there making noises like a chainsaw (I am not kidding…) and I have to admit I did spend a little time wondering whether we’d be visited by any tigers…

We got up with sunrise the next morning - and during our 5-hour journey back home we learned that our elephant was 105 years old. Born in 1905. What has this elephant seen in his lifetime….!

Next Stop: Kratie and the Mekong River

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 05:06:00 +0200

Next we had planned to do a elephant trek in the jungle, and on the way to the Wild Wild East we had a stop-over in Kratie. Kratie is located on the Mekong river…

… and is famous for the endangered Irrawaddy river dolphins. Going to see the river dolphins by boat means walking a fine line. One the one hand, it is important to make sure the boatsman does not disturb the dolphins by approaching them to closely. On the other hand the increasing interest of tourists in these beautiful creatures has stopped the locals from hunting them and has lead to a strong desire by the locals to protect the endangered dolphins. Selling dolphin souvenirs and charging for the transport / boatride and food and water during the trip (today there are only 30 to 70 Irrawaddy dolphins left) is a big source of income for the locals.

The little riverside town is quite atmospheric in the evening.

And we found a couple of nice cafes at the riverside and enjoyed hanging out there, catching up on email and drinking superb fruit shakes.

Once again I had *so much fun* participating in a riverside dance class in the evening…

Kids in Kratie have figured out an innovative way to generate some income: they are running around carrying scales - offering tourists to weigh themselves, prices are negotiable between 25 cent and 1 dollar for that service.

I witnessed a very funny episode, though, when the kids approached a group of American tourists who were sitting at the restaurant at the table next to us - and the kids found out the hard way that not every female traveler is keen on weighing themselves right before dinner ;-)

We rented bikes and the next day a scooter to explore the little town, and that was a lot of fun…

… and of course when asking for helmets during the rental process we were only rewarded with friendly but enigmatic smiles…

We stayed at a nice guesthouse called Balcony (you can see where the name comes from….)

and had a perfectly fine room for $4 a night (though breakfast was not included ;-)

In the evening we had an awesome time with the kids living there teaching them funny little games…

… and deploying Nat’s “indispensible” travel equipment!!

Next Stop: Overland trip from Battambang to Kratie

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 04:48:00 +0200

We rented a car (which in Cambodia is only possible including a driver) to get from Battambang in the Northwest of Cambodia to Kratie in the middle of the country. Driving through Cambodia is never boring, with total chaos on the streets and a very beautiful landscape.

The land is completely flat, with emerald colored rice paddies everywhere, and sugar palms thrown in for good measure.

The typical Cambodian house in the country is made out of wood and built on stilts to withstand the rising water levels during the rainy season.

Houses like these in the pictures are typically inhabited by 10 to 15 people, with several generations living under the same roof; in the shade underneath the house the family keeps their livestock (chicken and pigs mostly).

You often see small kids taking care of even smaller kids, 5-year olds carrying 2-year olds on their hips.

And this is how people protect their kids from the rain…

Our driver was great - in his mid-fifties and thus in his teenage years during the Khmer Rouge period. He blew us away with his account of how he survived the terror regime - living in labour camps and witnessing friends and most of his family being murdered or dying from starvation; only 2 of 8 family members survived.

I asked him at the beginning of the car ride how he managed to survive the terror regime and following that question we had a 3 hour conversation with him about that very complex and interesting topic. I have recorded most of that as he was extremely open to talk about his experiences - I think almost pleased that foreigners like us are interested in what he has to say.

He said that surviving the Khmer Rouge came down to two things: (1) Always eating clean food, and (2) getting the easiest, least physical jobs possible. So instead of picking rice in the field, he got the job of ploughing fields with the oxen doing all the hard work. When he got malaria for three months, he said he was cold for one hour and then hot for two. His skin turned yellow. And he knew that if he got diarrhea, he would die. So he cooked all of his food several times, “until all the water out,” so that he wouldn’t get sick. “That’s how I survive.”

Next Stop: Battambang

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 04:32:00 +0200

We traveled to Battambang with a local bus, as we often do here, and everybody in the bus was watching some bloody ghost / murder / vampire movie on the TV in the front of the bus - including the bus driver…

But we wouldn’t dare to complain - especially as we were traveling obviously soooo much more comfortably than other people on the same route…

Every time the bus stops a big crowd of people comes running up to the bus offering snacks they have prepared at home - many of those vendors are wearing the traditional scarf to protect themselves from sun and dust, the Krama…

There is always a choice of interesting delicacies …

… roasted crickets…

… and of course the ubiquitous fried or grilled tarantula…

But more often than not we rely on the little food stalls that sell “packaged” food….

Cambodians love their Karaoke…

Battambang turned out to be a charming, bustling little town “with loads of French-colonial architecture in an appealing state of semi-decay” as Nat phrased it so perfectly in his earlier blog post. Not a lot of tourists are visiting yet, so it feels very authentic.

There is a nice riverside area where people are strolling along and working out in the early evening…

On the evening of our arrival we found a little kitten in distress, in the middle of the street - it was crying and obviously had lost it’s mother. We tried to walk away and let things go their natural way - but realized we couldn’t.

With a huge amount of poverty and street children in need of food and care it seemed almost absurd to want to help a little animal - and understandingly enough none of the locals we encountered during this episode showed the least bit of interest to help the little creature out.

First we tried to feed it some milk, and then Nat set off on a search to find its litter - which thankfully he did.

Before leaving Battambang we undertook to ride the “Bamboo train” - a very old, very simple train that was built by the French in colonial era and is being used by locals today to transport themselves and their equipment and tools to the widespread rice paddies in the area. (Battambang is said to produce the best rice in Cambodia, and it is very, very tasty.)

You find an excellent and more detailed description of this little adventure on my husband’s blog - who by the way is the most funny and most fun person I have ever met - and I couldn’t wish for a better travel companion.

Next Stop: Military standoff at Preah Vihear, a temple at the Thai - Cambodian border

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 08:33:00 +0200

Two days ago I sat at a bamboo picnic table positioned right over a fortified standoff line with two soldiers from opposing armies - one Cambodian, one Thai - with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades on both sides.

How did it come to that?

We left Siem Reap - which by the way is a must-see in Cambodia, not only because of the famous temples of Angkor Wat - and headed for Anlong Veng in the North. Anlong Veng was the last stronghold of the Khmer Rouge during the 1990s; several high-ranking KR officials were captured in the area during the last 10 years. Pretty much everyone living in Anlong Veng over 40 is a former Khmer Rouge, including the people who sold us lunch and dinner there. Weird thought.

We visited Ta Mok’s house (he was better known as “the Butcher”) where the KR had their strategy meetings and planned their guerilla attacks for more than a decade. This is the map they used, which Ta Mok is thought to have painted himself.

After that we saw Pol Pot’s cremation site… we are getting different answers on how he died, but the prevailing theory is that he died from a sudden heart attack in his old age.

His body was fittingly burned on a pile of garbage and old tires.

His grave is literally in a family’s backyard, and looks desolate. Again - fitting. But some people burn incense there every now and then - a disturbing thought.

These are the cages the Khmer Rouge officials used for their prisoners.

A lot of people in the area were sporting military clothes, including kids…

Our next stop was a smuggler’s market at the Thai - Cambodian border… where we saw people walking and cycling over the border in both directions.

We went into the market in order to explore the details- but Nat, who was walking 20 metres ahead of me - was yelled at by a wildly gesturing and very angry military guy and told to turn around immediately and get t.. f… out of that area…

Later we learned this is because guns and all kinds of weapons are being sold there - as well as stored for a possible Thai attack.

The next day we got up before sunrise in order to drive to Prasat Preah Vihear, a very large, beautiful temple which is exactly at the border between Cambodia and Thailand. Thailand has been unilaterally encroaching on Cambodia in this area. The Cambodian prime minister took the matter to the international court of justice, which ruled in Cambodia’s favor. But still, Thailand has taken bits of land here and there, and Thai nationalist politicians are even claiming the Preah Vihear temple itself (a UNESCO world heritage site). The Cambodian people are determined to keep Preah Vihear as part of their country and heritage.

As a consequence both sides have built up a fortified army base at the border and have deployed hundreds of soldiers there (you can actually read about this conflict on page 4 in this week’s time magazine.)

To get to the site, we rode in the back of a pickup up a steep mountain road. At the top we found a vast temple site populated exclusively by soldiers (not a single fellow tourist), grounds everywhere prepared for battle, with foxholes containing rocket propelled grenades and machine guns on tripods here and there.

We walked for about 10 minutes up towards the temple, through the prepared battle grounds, passing soldiers who were looking at us warily - though when I muttered some of the 20 words of Khmer language that I have managed to pick up until now a hint of a smile came to their faces.

At some point during our visit of the vast temple grounds a policeman offered to guide us through the territory and we gladly accepted, as there is a slight weird feeling of intrusion involved in marching past strategy meetings of soldiers on duty.

After we had finished visiting the temple he asked us if we were interested to see the actual Thai border. Well.. yes… of course!!!

He led us down a big staircase of about 200 stairs towards an area where there was the border market - some little shops and restaurants for the soldiers, all occupied by groups of soldiers and their families watching TV. Walking further we came upon the border where there was wirefence and sandbag fortifications with machine guns on top of them.

After that he led us to an area where both the Cambodian and the Thai soldiers have built up their defense line only about 20 metres from each other, and as we approached a senior looking military official asked us to sit down with him at the table. He offered us food that we could not refuse under the circumstances - Nat, who is vegetarian, has eaten his first pork in many years; suddenly a Thai soldier came over from the other side, asking us where we come from and if he can take a picture of us with his cell phone. After that of course it was easy for us to ask them to sit down for a photo with us as well. And that’s how we got this picture.

Apparently on calm days Cambodian and Thai soldiers gather together at his table for lunch, dinner or just having beers together. It was clear to us that the tension at this border is entirely driven by far-away nationalist politicians, and not the soldiers themselves. As you can see on the following map both governments have a fundamentally different understanding of their countries’ borders…

All in all this was a mindblowing experience - walking right through the trenches and foxholes of an ongoing military confrontation.

Next Stop: Northern Cambodia

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 06:22:00 +0200

We spent the last few days traveling through the Northern part of Cambodia - people there are very poor but extremely friendly - and there are almost no other tourists in those areas.

This is what the roads look like.

We can see demining activities going on in many places - as some of those areas have been heavily mined during the Khmer Rouge period.

Six people on one motorbike is a common sight.

A very big difference to Europe or the US is that most aspects of daily life happen right outside the house - for everybody to see - such as cooking, sleeping, eating, washing up etc…

… and everywhere you see kids riding adult bikes whose pedals they can barely reach - wearing adult shirts and shoes that are way too big…

… but even in the pouring rain we are greeted with big smiles everywhere we go…

Khmer Rouge: Falling in love is a death sentence.

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 17:08:00 +0200

From a political viewpoint this is an interesting time to be in Cambodia - with “Duch” (pronounced “doik”) , the director of the largest Khmer Rouge interrogation and torture center “Tuol Sleng” or S21, finally having received a verdict - more than 30 years after the downfall of the Khmer Rouge regime. Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, and several other high ranking Khmer Rouge officials have already died of natural causes, without having had to face a court for what they have done to their own people.

For those of you not familiar with the details about the KR regime: the KR were obsessed with the idea of “agricultural communism” - in its extremest form. They were in power for about 4 years between 1975 and 1979 - with civil war raging for many years before and after that. Between 1.8 and 2 million people were killed during that time - through individual and mass executions, torture, starvation and exhaustion.

The KR took power on April 17th and within hours forced everybody to leave the cities, intentionally separating children from their families and sending everybody to labor camps across the country. (People were lied to and told they had to leave only for a couple of days, as the Americans are about to bomb the cities - little did they know that many of them were never to see any of their family members alive again.)

The KR executed everybody who looked or behaved “intellectual” or “rich” or “urban” in the slightest way (in other words: capable of starting or participating in a counterrevolution…) - countless people and their families were killed for wearing glasses or being overweight. People were not allowed to have contact with other family members, and they were forced to eat in huge dining halls, never in small groups. Falling in love was a deadly sin - people were immediately executed when suspected of that. Money, clocks, religion, culture was abolished, in order to start a new “time”, Year Zero.

We had a guide at the National Museum in Phnom Penh who was 7 years old when it all happened. She was forced to walk for 3 months from Phnom Penh to Battambang, with people dying left and right from exhaustion and undernourishment on that journey. And she had to watch the KR kill her father and one of her brothers. When the Vietnamese invaded in 1979 and the Khmer Rouge fell, she walked back to Phnom Penh to find her home occupied by squatters. It was first-come first-served.

The Cambodian people are silently outraged by the fact that it has taken so long for Duch to have to face the court and that now he has been sentenced to “only 19 years” of prison - after having admitted his responsibility for killing thousands and thousands of men, women and children. Duch was personally responsible for at least 14.000 people being sent to the killing fields - and in order to save bullets he ordered his soldiers to kill babies by smashing them into a tree.

Below you can see a pile of clothes from Duch’s victims; people had to take their clothes off for their march into the killing fields so that they could be reused.

So - spending time in prison with the hope of walking the streets as a free man with age 86 is the “just” punishment for that?

Why - somebody tell me WHY - this man should not be in prison for life?

The Khmer Rouge era is over - definitively. But some people who lived through it are still scared to talk about the Khmer Rouge period, as former Khmer Rough soldiers are a part of today’s government and former executioners live undisturbed among “normal” people in villages - causing fear and uncertainty for the village inhabitants. Our guide at Tuol Sleng lowered her voice when she told us that she is scared of them. There are also dubious and corrupt government initiatives and programs going on - and it is possible that abuse and terror is still happening.

After a couple of days in Phnom Penh I was actually surprised not to see more streetchildren and homeless people - and I have now learned that the government has started a “program” under which it regularlysweeps children and homeless people of the streets and sends them to a “reeducation camp” nearby. This camp is not accessible, closed to the public and UN watchers can only visit once a month at a preannounced time.

Not good. Not good at all.

Next Stop: Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 04:40:00 +0200

Cambodia has completely overwhelmed me. In a very positive way. I was prepared to see a very poor country that is still recovering from years and years of civil war and the terror regime of the Khmer Rouge.

But I was not prepared for the incredible warmth and friendliness that embraces me wherever I go. I have been to several Asian countries before, but I have never seen people so quick to smile, so happy to have a conversation, so eager to invite you into their groups despite the fact that they speak almost no English.

Walking through the streets of Phnom Penh feels like a trip back in time, with streets overflowing with all kinds of vehicles and people pulling carts and small motorbikes carrying 3 to 6 people at once dominating the street.

When you come to an intersection there seems to be no apparent rule for priority: once enough motorbikes and vehicles have gathered from one side they push into the crossroad and force the traffic from the other side to stop. The streets are extremely busy, but traffic as a whole moves quite slowly - and gives this small capital city a very pleasant, sleepy feeling.

People set up their little portable hairdresser shops and are roasting pigs right on the sidewalk, and sometimes you can see women carrying precariously balanced baskets on their heads (check out the woman on the left).

One phenomenon that really struck me is that in the early evening you find outdoor dance classes everywhere across the town. Somebody comes with a portable CD player, sets up big loudspeakers and starts teaching a choreography - and everybody joins in! They charge around 30 cents, and obviously - I couldn’t resist…

Wherever we go people pull out little plastic chairs and invite us to sit with them - they normally don’t ask for money, but simply seem to be curious about us. For example, I was asked if people in Germany eat snow - as it seemed just wonderful to them that in my homecountry clean water would just fall from the sky in such an easy to consume form.

This picture was taken after we sat and chatted with this family for a while - in a very poor and neglected-looking side street somewhere in Phnom Penh. I had the idea to make some prints for the family, so the next day we went to a photo store and had 5 prints made of the picture to bring them back to them. When we came there and showed them the prints they called everybody together and within 30 seconds we were surrounded by excited faces and happy exclamations in Khmer language. After a couple of minutes though a little girl looked at me sternly, thought hard for a moment, and then suddenly very shyly said “Thank you”. Thinking back to that moment still brings tears to my eyes.

Seeing the street children everywhere really gets to me - there are over 20,000 children living on the street in Cambodia, and it is hard to understand how one can help. It is both a result of the Khmer Rouge regime and various civil wars - but more and more often their mothers or fathers die because of HIV - and today HIV is already responsible for every fourth orphan.

While we are here we are trying to support local organizations like “Childsafe” and are eating at restaurants that are staffed by former street children, such as “Friends” or “Romdeng”- and by the way - the food they prepare is delicious…

Everybody discourages us from handing out money to children / people on the street, as it is hard to tell who is being controlled by gangs and syndicates that force them to beg - but I find myself giving food and water whenever my intuition tells me the need is real. This little boy for example talked me out of my bottle of water - and then emptied it in one go.

Nevertheless, it feels like not enough.

(Pictures from Phnom Penh follow).

Next Stop: Malaysia

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 19:15:00 +0200

In Malaysia we went to Kuala Lumpur…

… visited the temple of the Batu Caves…

…where we got attacked by a holy monkey…

… visited a pewter factory…

… went to a fish spa…

(these are NOT my legs….)

…visited a tea plantation…

…had a fun dinner with Phil and our Malaysian friends Yoon Kit and Ditesh (and I learned the hard way that if asked in a Malaysian restaurant if you like spicy food you ALWAYS say “NO”, no matter what you can handle at home)…

…and spent some days on the Perhentian Islands.

You get the whole story by clicking through the pictures!

Next Stop: Seoul

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 17:56:00 +0200

Korean Air turned out to be a very pleasant surprise - good food, very attentive service, and the most ample entertainment system I have seen in economy class seats. But upon arrival at Seoul immigration, I was stopped, and asked to accompany the immigration officer to the border control office.

Nat was not allowed to come with me, and I have to admit I had a very nervous moment there. Or two. Or three!

Being detained or deported from South Korea sounded like just the way to kick off a year of adventures…

As I sat in the office, a parade of immigration officials entered the room to stare and grunt at my passport and myself, each with more stars on his shirt than the one before.
Fortunately, after several hours of serious conversations and involvement of the German embassy we were admitted into the country and let free to roam the streets of Seoul.

What struck me in our 48 hours in Seoul was the juxtaposition of very traditional ways of doing things with high technology more advanced and ubiquitous than we have in the West.

Here you see a typical shot from the streets of seoul.

But for example after check-in at the airport you can hold your boarding pass against a scanner on a giant flat-screen, and up comes a beautiful interactive map that has a detailed explanation of the way to your gate.

I recorded a video which you can see below.

Cool, isn’t it?

Seoul Airport: the airport of the future.

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 17:23:21 +0200

Seoul Airport: the airport of the future.

Big Mommy and Big Daddy’s home in West Virgina.

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:02:45 +0200

Big Mommy and Big Daddy’s home in West Virgina.

Next stop: West Virginia

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:01:00 +0200

Before finally leaving the weastern hemisphere for an undefined amount of time, headed for South-East Asia, we visited my awesome grandparents-in-law in their lovely home in West Virginia.

My grandmother-in-law, whom we call Big Mommy, introduced me to their newly acquired pets: 3 little fish in a small outdoor pond. Then I learned their names - she proudly introduced the three of them as: Useless, Needless and Pointless.

What is more they had had a new arrival the day before - and I had the honour to baptize the little blue fish that you can see in the middle of the pond.

Only one name came to mind. Superfluous.

Don’t you agree?

Useless, Needless and Pointless. And Superfluous.

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:59:19 +0200

Useless, Needless and Pointless. And Superfluous.

"The most difficult subject can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any..."

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 04:49:00 +0200

“The most difficult subject can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.”

- Leo Tolstoy, 1897, as quoted on the opening page of The Big Short by Michael Lewis, the book I was reading on the flight to Kuala Lumpur. Really good.

“Antique Garage” : Funky little restaurant in...

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 03:19:00 +0200

“Antique Garage” : Funky little restaurant in Soho. On the upper left side you can see the mechanism of the actual garage door that closes the restaurant.

Once around the world

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 03:14:00 +0200

Start: New York City

I kicked off the trip with three days in New York where I just floated randomly through the city.

I was feeling mixed: excited about the year of travel that we had ahead of us, exhausted from the gargantuan project of moving out of our apartment in Munich, and unable to imagine that in a few days I would be on a flight to Seoul, en route to Kuala Lumpur!

New York is packed with interesting little brunch/lunch/dinner places, such as the Antique Garage in SOHO (see picture above).

At dinner one night at my hotel, I had a funny multicultural encounter. Seated at a large communal table between a German family, a couple of Italian guys, and a French couple, I could not help but to overhear their conversations. The German family spent dinner complaining about everything they had come across in New York: weather, prices, traffic, etc. The Italian guys were discussing the latest fashion, and the French couple were of course comparing New York food with the food in their beloved homeland, and - obviously - found it thoroughly lacking.

So, stereotypes come from somewhere, don’t they?