More Pictures

Angkor and on the trail of the Khmer Rouge

We seem to have covered a lot since we arrived in Siem Reap. First a boat trip to Tonle Sap Lake which is the home of 2,000 people living in floating homes. It is very important for them to be able to go with the flow as there is plenty of it! The lake is connected to the Siem Reap River which is connected to the mighty Mekong. In the dry season the rivers pull water away from the lake and the level drops. In the wet season water flows into the lake and it floods with water shifting their homes as it does. It doesn't bode well for a successful postal service. They make their living from fishing (no surprise there) and they also have rice farms on the shore. As part of the community there are a number of markets, schools, a church or two and 4 Karoake bars.

Thursday was the big day as we saw both Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat. Luckily for us the day was mainly cloudy. If it had been sunny we would have retired to the hotel for a midday break. However we ploughed on through both complexes. They really are complexes. Whilst they were built around temples they were also homes for the king and the court plus centres of learning including military training centres. If you have been keeping up with the other blog episodes you will remember the Chams. Well they had a few run ins with the Khmer empire so the empire needed a mean fighting machine to respond. They are on a fantastic scale. Angor Thom's scale is breadth while Wat's is height. Wat (the earlier of the 2)  began as a Hindu construction and Thom as Buddhist but they changed in their lifetime so they religious symbolism fluctuates. Thom was built as a fortress to beat off the pesky Chams so the carving is not as intricate as Wat - they might have been in a bit of a hurry to get the structure assembled in the first place then to carve out the symbols of victory once it happened. It is characterised by structures with four heads at their peak facing NSE&W. The guides say it relates to the king who is akin to the Buddha in various states of meditation and enlightenment. For me there is also a kind of crossover to the Hindu god Brahma who is captured in stone with 4 faces facing NSE&W. 

Today, our final day, we visited some other temple structures that are quite different to the gigantic scale of the temples of Wat and Thom. They are both much smaller in area covered and in height. They both pre-date the two giants. Banteay Srei which 10th century, built in pink sandstone, has the same quality of delicate carving as Wat. It too started life as a Hindu inspired creation and the carvings depict scenes in the lives of the big names of the Hindu deities. As well as the pink stone, it has a green hue which comes from the lichen growing on the stone. Preach Khan is very angular in its structure and it's purpose was a monastery and religious college. 

As a bit of a break from visiting temples we took a climb up a mountain (or so it seemed) to visit a river, the water of which flows over some interesting stone carvings of Hindu gods. It is situated within the hills that head up towards the Thai border. It was also the haunt of soldiers of the Khmer Rouge when they were ousted from government in 1979 but continuing the civil war.

Finally we went to a land mine museum which is the centre of a charity which funds both the clearance of mines and also the education and care of children maimed as a result of land mines and polio. They reckon there are still 5 million land mines in Cambodia. The world and his wife have all been responsible for planting these things across vast acres of Cambodian soil.

Phnom Penh

First impressions of Cambodia are of a much poorer country than Vietnam - probably more akin to Laos. However it is more like Thailand in terms of the wealth of gold and gemstones present in their religious artefacts. Within the Royal Palce we visited the Silver Pagoda so called because of the solid silver tiles that cover the floor. There are 5,329 tiles in total each weighing 1.125 kilos. There are hundreds of small Buddha statues in the pagoda and one Central one which is about a meter high, solid gold with 2,086 diamonds decorating him. The biggest is 25 carats and the next biggest is 20. Behind him sits a smaller but still a significant sized sitting Buddha carved form a block of emerald. The architecture in Cambodia is very similar to that of Thailand. Ceremonial costume is also like that in Thailand. Vietnam is much more influenced by their Chinese heritage. Cambodians are facially different to the Vietnamese and have darker skin. The ancient Khmers whose kingdom covered much of Southeast Asia have much in common with the people of Southern India. The writing looks similar and is nothing like Chinese characters.

Our guide in Phnom Penh is young and very outspoken about the government - not in a supportive way. He is also very much anti the Vietnamese. Eventually his reasoning became apparent in that the CPP party which is the ruling party is in debt to Vietnam in helping to defeat the Khmer Rouge. In his view the government have given away too much to Vietnamese interests. A few examples are - The temples at Angkor are controlled by a Vietnamese company which takes most of the entrance fees which must be millions every year; a huge area of forest has been given over to Vietnamese interests and they are felling trees and clearing the forest; there are large numbers of Viet immigrants who are not legal yet they are allowed to vote. Also there may be some baggage left over from the KR because part of their beliefs were that the Khmers were a superior race to the Vietnamese and Chinese.

Our visit to the Killing Fields was quite blood curdling. I imagine it is similar in ways to a visit to a Nazi death camp. The monument and visitor centre outside of Phnom Penh is only one of a number of such death camps across Cambodia set up by the KR. Given that in the 4 years of their reign of terror they managed to directly murder about 25% of the population (that excludes the others they managed to starve to death because they didn't allow them enough food to sustain them in their hard labour in the fields) there would need to be a number of such 'facilities'. Apparently they brought them from the prison, where they'd been tortured, during the night when no one could see and then killed them. They spared every expense in the methods for killing the victims - most entailed bludgeoning them to death with sticks or hoes. They also used the serrated edge of parts of a particular palm tree to sever the arteries in the neck. They have identified 129 mass graves although only 86 have been excavated. There is a permanent monument which houses the retrieved skeleton parts -there are over 9,000 skulls in this one site.

There seems to be little in the way of a clear philosophy for determining who they arrested, tortured and killed. The KR wanted to install a very strict Maoist/Marxist system taking the country back to 'year zero' where there was only an agrarian way of life. All educated people were the enemy so they were targeted. Members and supporters of the previous government including their army were targeted. Inferior races were also eliminated - Chinese, Vietnamese, Chams. People of religion were included so the number of Buddhist monks was decimated. However they then turned on the ordinary people on the flimsiest of excuses. It seemed to us that Pol Pot was a psychopath.

Saigon City and the Mekong Delta

We started our visit to Ho Chi Minh City, still called Saigon by most, at a brisk pace. It is much hotter than we have experienced so far, apart from Laos. What is most striking about Saigon is that even with such a lot of modern high rise development it has managed it's new buildings to fit in with its huge wealth of French colonial architecture. It is bigger than Hanoi (or Hanoi-sy) as our last guide Thanh taught us. It looks a lot more prosperous. This is not the start of a song but there are reportedly 4 million motorbikes in Saigon. They are everywhere and crossing the road is definitely a skill you have to learn pretty quickly if you are ever to get anywhere. Everyone seems to wear a face mask to protect themselves from the pollution they are exposed to riding on their motorbikes. As well as it's cultural heritage - Notre Dame cathedral, the post office, opera house, the Rex Hotel where the last evacuation helicopter left from the rooftop, the Continental Hotel established in 1860 and where Graham Greene wrote the Quiet American - shopping  is the new obsession. There are the new shopping malls with the big designer names and then there are still the traditional types of shops, a lot of them tailors, which attract visitors from nearby countries like Malaysia and Singapore which have much higher prices for silk and jewellry. There is a very big Chinese community and they have massive markets, both retail and wholesale.

We visited the War Remnants Museum which charts the destruction which was inflicted on the country and it's people by the American War. As well as the canage of the time with the use of Agent Orange (the toxic defoliant) and napalm, the point was starkly made about the lasting effects of Agent Orange through genetic changes which still result in severe birth abnormalities. There is also a reconstruction of  a South Vietnamese prison which they inherited from the French. The variety of torture techniques numbered 20 and they were all savage. It is amazing that the people seem to have "moved on" as we are fond of saying, quite so readily.

The Unification Palace is an example of modern yet elegant Vietnamese architecture. Originally it was built by the French as the Governors House. It was damaged and completely rebuilt by the Vietnamese. As you'd expect the rooms are large and they made good use of windows to achieve a constant throughput of air so it is cool without aircon. The carpets are a work of art - beautiful colours and even the huge ones are all one piece.

On our second day we had a trip out to the Mekong delta region. The fields we passed on the way are lush and produce many kinds of crops - the inevitable rice, sweet potatoes, corn, beans, tomatoes, salad veg, squashes, the list goes on. There are lots of new grand houses that farmers have built which suggests they are doing very well. The delta itself has fishing, fruit farms and is a holding place for commodities which are then loaded into cargo boats and transported up the Mekong. We visited a floating market and this one is a wholesale market. Each boat has tonnes of one product and businesses turn up and negotiate a price for part or all of the vegetable or fruit they are selling. The family lives on the boat but is part of an extended family that has a farm which produces the crops for sale. We visited a fruit farm and while enjoying some tropical fruits (with a side order of chilli salt to season the fruit -yin and yang) we were treated to some singing and music from traditional string instruments.

Central Vietnam

We flew to Danang from Hanoi and got to our hotel in Hoi An late in the evening. The hotel was wonderful - the rooms were individual villas with opening out onto the beach. The decor was ultra modern with lots of stone tiles and wood. We took a walking tour of Hoi An the next day. It is a place of commerce with a vibrant market and lots of attractive shops. I had a pair of sandals made. Once I chose the style and the leather, I placed my feet on a piece of plain paper and the assistant traced around my feet and took some width measurements. 5 hours later they were delivered to the hotel. There are over 300 tailor shops in the town and the claim is that you can show them a picture of what you want and they will make it up in 24 hours.

The main types of shops seemed to art shops, lacquer ware, wood carving, paper lanterns, leather and clothes. There were also some nice looking cafés/tea houses. The Vietnamese like to drink VERY strong coffee cold and with ice. Sometimes they add condensed milk.

The town has a river flowing through it and in the monsoon which usually hits sometime in Oct/Nov the roads adjacent to the river flood and the people have to use boats to get around (sounds familiar). We visited a house which had various markers to show how high the water reached in some exceptional years. In 1964 it must have reached nearly 7 feet from the floor of the house. In more moderate times it was between 4-5 feet deep. 

The next day we left Hoi An to drive to Hue, the old Imperial City. In Danang we stopped off at the Cham museum. The Chams originated from India and used to occupy and rule south Vietnam. The sculptures were of Hindu gods. The Chams eventually were pushed further and further south by the Viet people and now there are about 150,000 near Saigon.

We stopped on the way for some coffee - we asked for it hot. What was presented was a small glass of their strong cold stuff but the glass was placed in a small bowl of hot water. It is not a particularly effective method! We visited a couple of tombs of the Nguyen emperors. Tu Doc reigned in the mid to late 19th century. He was definitely quite taken up with his final resting place as he designed it himself and once it was finished he used to bring his court out to the place and he had a royal house there, a few temples and a theatre. Once he passed away they kept his actual burial place a secret by executing everyone involved in the interment. The second tomb was that of Khai Dinh the penultimate emperor who died in 1925. He was given a very lavish set of buildings but not designed by him. Our guide told us that the emperor was not trusted as he liked to pluck his eyebrows, wear lipstick and paint his nails. We overheard another guide who was more explicit - he was gay, he said, and preferred the boys to the girls!

Today we visited the Imperial City (in the rain). The sight covers over 500 hectares. Most of it was severely damaged by the infamous Tet Offensive in 1968. However in 1992 UNESCO recognised its significance and have provided money for restoration. The work is underway but the pace is slow. The city was home to the Imperial Court, the army, the Mandarins, the concubines, the servants and the royal family. Joe public wasn't allowed in. Within the city lay the Fobidden City and only the emperor and his wife and concubines were allowed. Any man other than the emperor who entered was killed - that's a clear rule.

Selected Photographs

Fishing and farming

We left Hanoi for the coast to spend some time in Halong Bay. The weather turned cool and misty which is disappointing. We drove through a lot of farm land of rice paddies and vegetable cultivation. The planting of rice is just getting underway in the northern area. There are a lot of healthy looking salad crops in the fields - a farmer can expect the equivalent of half a dollar for a kilo of lettuce in the market. On the journey we also saw a lot of construction - quite a few big housing developments with no one in them. It is the usual issue - houses but no schools and shops so people don't want to move there. We passed through a coal mining area and saw 2-3 big power stations. It was fairly industrialised in large parts.

We stopped at what can be described as a place of sheltered employment for disabled young people. According to Thong, there are still many casualties of the American War with a fairly high incidence of children and grandchildren of war vets having birth defects. Disability is not really understood in the society so such children would normally be isolated and hidden from public view. An old soldier has set up a charity to develop training and work opportunities for such young people. They practise the traditional crafts of lacquered wood products, jewellery making,silk embroidered pictures, making clothes and bags and making stone and onyx sculptures.

Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage sight and is special because of the landscape of around 2,000 pinnacle shaped limestone and dolomite outcrops scattered across the bay. Cappadocia in the sea. We joined our boat which was our overnight home to sail around part of the bay. We had a couple of excursions during our 22 hours aboard. We went by small boat around a floating fishing village where there are 500 residents in about 134 houses. They have a school and 2 nurses who stay there 5 days in a week. The people fish and take their catches to the market on the mainland so they can get money to buy their other food and essentials. We also visited a cave which was home to Stone Age inhabitants of Vietnam.

We had an early morning trek up a hill for a misty view! The boat was great with a sauna and massage treatments available. There was a good mix of fellow passengers - Mexican, Aussie, French, Americans and us. We learned how to make Vietnamese Spring Rolls and ate some lovely food. We were trading stories about what our guides had told us - one guide was very much 'according to the party line' but another was more like our Thong. The Americans felt comfortable and didn't feel that they were being held accountable for past atrocities.

There is also a big business in cultured pearl production in the bay and nearby river for sea water and fresh water pearls. They showed us what they use instead of a grain of sand to encourage the oyster to produce the pearl - ground up oyster shell formed into a small ball. It takes 3 years for a sea water pearl to develop and only one year for the freshwater pearl. In the fresh water shell there can be 4-5 pearls but only one in the sea water shell. 

Hanoi City

We had a whirlwind tour of the city covering a wide variety of the city's heritage. It is a capital city and is busy - zebra crossings are for decoration only. We visited many temples and pagodas (they are temples too). The people are devout bringing gifts to the temples. - food for their ancestors and for the poor. Must ask what happens to the food offerings brought for the ancestors - is it like the Father Christmas carrot, mince pie and sherry? They also bring money for the monks who use it as they think fit - some for themselves, some for the upkeep of the temple and some for poor relief.

I noticed at one temple that there was no requirement to take off the shoes whereas at others there was. Why? I asked - because many pairs of shoes were stolen at that temple so the rules changed. So Buddha recognises that it is not meant as disrespect when they keep the shoes on but a necessity for dry feet outside!

We visited the Museum of Ethnology to learn more about the 54 different ethnic peoples and within each ethnic group there are subgroups - some with as little as 300 in total. Within the collection of artefacts there are constructions of the different styles of housing they have developed using the different materials they have at their disposal.

Thong our guide is a subversive - he seemed quite sceptical about the government and their brand of communism. Whilst one of the few remaining communist states, the government is happy to encourage investment from capitalists corporations and countries to bring about economic change but there is no plan for political change. However his prediction is that they will eventually "lose their control" as these outside influences and the internet infiltrate society. He looks forward to this happening.

He spoke quite a lot about the various wars that have taken their toll on the country and it's people. One of the lakes (there are many lakes and the big Red River shaping the landscape) is nicknamed the B52 Lake as so many US pilots, including John McCain, were shot down and fell into the lake. They call it the American War and he mentioned many of the consequences of the bombing the US were responsible for. It was not an anti US rant but there has had to be much reconstruction of bridges and highways, before any advancement of infra-structure which is hard for the hard pressed economy. Even though there is much more investment from outside it is still a poor country. They have a number of projects that have started but have been mothballed due to a shortage of funds.

The city isn't particularly a pretty one - while there are some stunning French colonial buildings much of the new building is depressing concrete construction with little or no finish and looking grubby. Land is VERY expensive and so they build narrow and deep - tunnel houses they are known as.

We saw Ho Chi Min's mausoleum which Thong says costs $1m a month to guard - his view is that is would be better spent on schools and hospitals rather than fancy guards in uniform. There is a massive reverence for the old boy or uncle as he known, so it is hard to understand exactly what they would be afraid of. The actual interior is locked off to the outside world out of opening times - some video cameras with a couple of people monitoring them to check if anyone is trying to break in would probably suffice.

We had a cyclo (rickshaw) ride round the narrow streets of the old town last thing in the day. It was fairly scary at times but nothing like being a pillion passenger on a motorbike in India.

Luang Prabang to Hanoi

Day 2 in Luang Prabang gave us a boat trip on the mighty Mekong. First we had to go to the temple - the oldest temple in Luang Prabang which has 32 temples recognised by UNESCO as important sights. The temple buildings had wonderful glass mosaics on the outside representing morality stories such as don't fall out with your mother-in -law as her son might just throw you out!
The river trip took us to the Buddha caves - only 200 steps today. There were two caves one called the Lower and the other the Upper. There are over 4,000 statues of Buddha in the caves which are brought there by local people on the anniversary of the death of an ancestor.
On our return to dry land after a lunch of traditional Lao food we visited what used to be the Royal Palace before Laos became the Peoples Republic. Again the walls were covered with glass mosaic decoration; in the former palace the Japanese Government had provided the money to restore the mosaic decoration.
We finished off the day with a visit to the newest temple in Luang Prabang. The internal decoration involves a lot of gold paint and gold leaf as well as many statues of The Lord Buddha. The people are deeply religious and their working day begins with a visit to the temple. The predominant religion is Buddhist but some of the Hmong people also combine it with ancestor worship. Many people bring food to the temples for the monks.
On our final day in Laos on our way to the airport, we stopped off at a craft village where the people preserve local crafts of weaving and paper making (with material from the mulberry tree).

Arriving in Hanoi is a different world to that of the very much rural Luang Prabang. Hanoi as the capital city is very big with about 7 to 8 million people. It is still the national Thet (new year holiday) so apparently the traffic was fairly light i.e. it was moving, but it still looked busy, busy to us.
Weather is quite cool and it is showery. We arrived at the hotel in the evening so only time to settle in and get something to eat. 21,000 Vietnam Dong equals 1 dollar. In Laos they did a lot of prices in US dollars but not here so everything seems really expensive till you do some mental arithmetic  - reminds us of the days of the Italian Lira. Kieran asked our guide a question about Chinese investment in Vietnam and we soon learned that there is little enthusiasm for China here. Old scores are still not settled.

A Hill Between 2 Rivers

We had a relaxing day in the very tranquil courtyard of the Hotel de la Paix. We met our guide at 4pm for our journey up "the sunset hill"  - my title not the Laotian one. We climbed 328 steps led by Boun Chanh our guide. He is tiny. The steps took us through a temple complex and at the top crowds of visitors get there for sunset. We met many Buddahs on the way (in statue form ). On one side of the hill is the Nam Khan River and on the other is the Mekong. Apparently the Mekong rises in China and flows through parts of Tibet, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and then Vietnam. While waiting for the sun to set and our photo opportunity, we learned a little about Laotian culture from Boun Chanh. There are 3 main peoples of Laos all with their own language - the Laotians, the Khmer and the Hmong. Boun Chanh is of Hmong descent and they come from the hill country. His parents brought the family to Luang Prabang as they value education. All education has to be funded by the family so many children do not go to school. However boys from poor families will often opt to become monks and in that way they receive an education. At one time parents used to choose the prospective spouses for their children but now this has changed. There is marriage between the different peoples but if there has been no education for the children then they will only speak their native language so that tends to narrow the choice.
After getting some sunset pictures we made our way down the other side of the hill to see the night market. They close off a large part of the main road at about 5pm and the traders get going. Lots of textiles, carved wood, silver jewellry, paper products like lanterns and books. It was endless.
Just attaching this photo taken on my iPad as a trial for future blogs.

Norton to Bangkok

Having left Norton at 16.30, Peter dropped us at Terminal 3 with plenty of time for check-in etc. Just as well because airport security were being extra cautious as well as some passengers being extra idiotic! Our carry on bag was strip searched - they found an image that looked like a screwdriver but couldn't find the culprit. All my meticulous packing wasted!
Flight was good - all on time. Glad I'd packed my earplugs as there were some robust snorers aboard. Arrived at Bangkok on time at 15.40 and wow has the airport changed a lot since we were last here about 20 years ago. It is huge - probably a mile from the arrival gate to the baggage reclaim area.
Weather is hot and humid - 32 degrees. Looking forward to a good sleep ready for the trip to Laos and the start of the tour.