Joseph au Cambodge: April 2006

Home Sweet Home

Got back safely in Phnom Penh. Have a lot to tell and many pictures to post. Will try to do that in the coming days...

Other views of Angkor this morning

The sun rises on Angkor Wat's north-eastern tower.

The northern side portique seen on the previous picture gets light while the sky in the back is still the color of dawn.

Inside the courtyard, the tourists are still scarce.

The details appear slowly, showing different colors or lack thereof.

In other places, light touches directly the pillars through the windows and lights the details of these beautiful sculptures.

Angkor at sunset and sunrise

After watching the beautiful sunset yesterday night at Phnom Bakheng, I could not resist the temptation to witness the sunrise at Angkor Wat.

So, believe it or not, I got up at 5 am, to be on the motodop at 5.20 and arrive at Angkor Wat around 5.40, in time for a beautiful sunrise and a visit of the temple in a fascinating atmosphere.

Sunset at Phnom Bakheng, April 17, 2006.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat, April 18, 2006.

I must say, even at 5:40 I was not the first one to get there...

Bang Pa-In and Ayuthaya

No pictures of the Bang Pa-In palaces themselves (laziness, interdiction) and few impressive pictures of Ayuthaya either (rain) but here is a glance of the mood at both places.

Bang Pa-In
View from a Royal boat-house into the river whose name I forgot (shame on me), the one which flows through Bangkok. Rain starts pouring.

Ayuthaya
The ruins at Ayuthaya, former capital city of Thailand (Siam at the time, of course).

Could not get closer to show you this beautiful portique in more detail and without bus and car because of the rain... I couldn't move from my shelter!

The streets of Aytuthaya in the rain. In addition to the natural rain, youth were pouring rain on each other in celebration of the New Year (not seen on this picture).

Bangkok Skytrain

All the pictures I took in BKK have the Skytrain in them. So let's introduce the Skytrain with this pciture taken at the Victory Monument square.

Advertisement of course in the Skytrain, while people rush in.

A view of skyscrapers and buildings under construction from the window of the Skytrain.

A friend, May (right) and her friend, who were very helpful in Bangkok and especially in taking me to Bang Pa-In and Ayuthaya, seen... on the Skytrain platform!

At night, everyone is tired, while the artificial light turns the cars yellow (May in reflection in the window).

With regard to this last picture, of course, respects should be paid to Walker Evans, master of subway photography!

Sunset over Angkor

I went to Angkor for the sunset and I think it will remain one of the highlights of my life.

The temples are overcrowded but at six pm, the light was dimming, the people going and I was left almost alone at the top of Phnom Bakheng, just by Angkor Wat, in a fresh breeze, with the thousand-year-old sculpted stones standing there in the blue light of the beginning of the night....

So much for poetry.

Contrast between Cambodia and Thailand

I spoke in a previous post about the contrast between Thailand and Cambodia.

It is indeed really striking to cross a border and arrive in a different world. I already mentioned corruption, bad internet access (and disfunctioning computers).

I should add, among the things which strike me:
- Quasi-absence of paved roads in Cambodia (I can't find the word in English, I mean the contrary of dirt road, "route goudronnée" in French) whereas in Thailand the rule is multi-lane roads with a separation between the two sides (at least from Bangkok to Aranyaprathet)
- Electrical infrastructure: in Thailand electric poles carrying high-voltage are everywhere along the roads whereas in Cambodia, it always seems a miracle when there is electricity (each place has a little generator if they have electricity at all, the wiring has always had some amateur fixing, etc).
- Poipet seemed particularily poor, even though it must get a lot of money from the cross-border traffic, and the visit of wealthy people to the Casino. I guess that this money vanishes like often.
- In Bangkok the use of air-conditioning is systematic in buildings, restaurants, apartments, whereas in Cambodia it is much less so.
- On the road in Thailand, a lot of cars (and no cars filled with 10 people when they normally seat 5), a lot of public transportation, and no one traveling unprotected at the back of pickups (except the youth during the New Year celebrations to pour water on one another and on the innocent by-stander).
- The state of preservation of historical and religions buildings: in Bang Pa In, the palaces and gardens are in perfect state, whereas in Cambodia even the Royal Palace and the National Museum need repairs badly.

Of course not everything is clean and modern in Thailand. The train I took on the way back from Ayuthaya was in pretty bad shape, you see people searching the garbage for plastic bottles and aluminium cans in Bangkok, slums are numerous in the city, etc.

I'm not tackling here the reasons, but let me mention that in the Wat Pho pagoda which I visited in Bangkok, I saw middle-aged monks in apparent good health and good spirits, in addition to the younger ones, whereas in Cambodia often the chief monk is only 30 years old: the missing generation and the trauma of the survivors in Cambodia are really

I couldn't stop thinking on the way from Poipet to Siem Reap: is it possible to have here a good road and good hospitals and schools without having elsewhere in the country a multi-million inhabitant polluted capital city and without taking a huge toll on the environment with the garbage, electricity and gas consumption, exploitation of natural resources etc. ?

An article in Cambodia Daily on the week-end before I left quoted a Chinese official as saying: "in the current state of Cambodia, you must take initiatives to develop the country without caring about the environment"; if you think too much about the envrionment, you don't do anything. Maybe he's right.

Anyway, sorry for this boring monologue, congratulations to anyone who read that far and more soon with the visit of the Angkor temples!

Poipet to Siem Reap

Dear all,

Poipet to Siem Reap: 7 aduts, two children and the taxi driver in a regular Toyota Camry! Needless to say we were a little bit glued to one another. Dirt road for two thirds of the way, rest of the time not much better. Scenery beautiful, with hills in the background, palm trees, banana trees, rice fields, ponds, water buffaloes, ducks and birds. Three hours' trip.

The road is sided over a few kilometers with concrete blocks every 50m. I wonder what they were brought there for, but my intuition is they were brought there and never made functional for some reason (funds stopped flowing in or vanished?)

Siem Reap is more "civilized" and I was lucky enough to find a cheap hotel for 3$ a night. Arrived here 10 am. I think I' ll wait until tomorrow to attack the temples and just wander around today.

Let's go!

Joseph fait une excursion au pays des Thaïs (suite)

J'ai publie l'article precedent (d'ailleurs sans le relire, desole pour les fautres de frappe) pour etre sur de ne pas le perdre... J'ajoute donc ici que`lques qutres details.

On má dit que les familles sont completement desorganisees en Tahilande : les valeurs traditionnelles ne sont plus enseignees par les parents qui travaillent trop et laissent leurs enfants à l'abandon. Les hommes prennent systematiquement (?) une deuxieme femme plus jeune, la premiere devant s'en accommoder.

J'ai passe mon temps en Thaïlande à réflechir sur la question de savoir si les thaïs sont plus heureux grâce à leur niveau de d''eveloppement que leurs voisins cambodgiens. Question à laquelle je répondrai peut-être dans 4 mois, mais en attendant je suis bien mieux au Cambodge qu'en Thaïlande. Mais je ne suis pas le cambodgien moyen.

Pour l'annecdote, au bureau des renseignements de la gare de Bangkok, le plan figure à l'est une masse blanche (sans routes ni voies ferrees) denommee "Democratic Kampuchea". Il y en a toujours qui auront du mal à tourner la page...

Bonne route à tous et "cheers" aux francophones à qui je me suis adressé d'emblée en retrouvant mon cher Cambodge !

Joseph fait une excursion aux pays des Thaïs

Bangkok est une ville gigantesque, dont les autoroutes m'ont fait penser à Los Angeles et Sao Paulo. La population de la ville est 10 miillions. Il y a des embouteillages monstres et seulement trois petites lignes de metro toutes neuves. Beaucoup de gratte-ciels, une publicite extremement envahissante, une infrastructure routiere et des transports en commun (bus), cela m'a fait un choc apres ma petite Phnom Penh provinciale.

J'ai loge a Sukhumvit, un des quartiers chauds où j' ai pu me faire une idee à Soi Cowboy et Soi 33 de ce qu'est le business de la prostitution à Bangkok. J'ai pu visiter Wat Pho, magnifique, mais pas le "Grand Palace" faute de temps. Ce matin petite expedition rzpide a BangPa In et Ayuthaya (l'ancienne capitale detruite par les birmans avant la creation de Bangkok) sous la pluie avant de prendre le bus pour Aranyaprathet et traverser la frontiere. Je suis maintenant a Poipet. La encore contraste frappant en traversant la frontiere. La corruption est au rendez-vous (un employe du Casino fait les formalites d'entree au Cambodge en lieu et place d'un VIP chinois qui passera sans s'arreter au poste frontiere moyenneant les 200 bahts (5 dollars) glisses dans son passeport a l'attention du policier; emploi du baht et du dollar au detriment de la monnaie oicielle, Internet Café pourri ;-) , absence de bâtiments de plus de 3 etages quasiment, etc.)

Update on the recent weeks

Dear Friends,

A few updates...

Reading of David Chandler's biography (Brother Number One: A Political Biography, Westview Press, 1999)

I read the 1992 edition, which was written before Pol Pot's death in 1997 but it was of course very interesting. Indeed very little is known about Saloth Sar's psychology, feelings and some years of his life are completely undocumented. The author describes witnesses' accounts of Saloth Sar's apparent gentleness, his ability to charm and convince small audiences.

From what I understand the Khmer Rouge came to power with absolutely no experience of leadership. The Khmer Rouge cadres were elaborating their ideology between themselves, away from any contact with reality and all they had previously done when they caught the power was to persuade poor rural people unhappy with Lon Nol and naively thinking they would restore their King to power, to fight the "revolution". The organizational and military skills came from North Vietnam, in my view the lack of popularity of Lon Nol and the alliance with the King did the rest...

The turning point therefore strikes me as Lon Nol's coup against Sihanouk and Sihanouk's subsequent alliance with the Khmer Rouge, without which they wouldn't have got the popular support to overthrow a regime led by the King.

Watching the DVD of "Killing Fields", by Rolland Joffé, with Sam Waterston and Haing S. Ngor as Sydney Shanberg and Dith Pran.

This famous 1985 movie tells the story of New York Times' journalist Sydney Shanberg and his Cambodian friend/interpreter/colleague when they tried to stay as long as they could to report on the Khmer Rouge taking power. Sydney Shanberg was evacuated to Thailand with the remaining foreigners after the fall of Phnom Penh on April 17, but Dith Pran was handed over to the Khmer Rouge and became one the two million "April 17 people" or "New people" which the Khmer Rouge considered as ennemies and persecuted harsher than the rest of the population simply because they were in Phnom Penh, the last part of the country to fall into their hands, on April 17, 1975. Dith Pran of course was to be even more at risk because of his "intellectual" background as a french and english-speaking journalist.

Going to Sovanna Phum.

See related post.

Work

A lot of work these past two weeks and still a lot to do before I take 10 days off for Passover which happens to fall at the same time as the Khmer New Year. We're making progress though on buying the computer equipment and hiring a Khmer computer engineer. The building is taking shape nicely.

Travel plans

I plan to travel to Bangkok on Wednesday morning to spend the first days of Passover and Shabbat Hol ha-Moed there. They describe the seder at the Chabad House as "Mostly attended by Israeli travellers (mostly very young crowd) all in Hebrew, approximately 600-800 guests": I can't miss that!

Then I plan to take a night bus from Bangkok to Poipet, from there another bus to Siem Reap, spend Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday there, travel on Friday from Siem Reap to Battambang (by boat if possible, I was told it's the most beautiful trip in Cambodia, but this is the dry season and, according to the latest reports, the water is very low) and on Sunday back to Phnom Penh.

That's all folks (for now)!

Joseph

Sovanna Phum

Dear Friends,

The Sovanna Phum association promotes traditional Khmer performing arts.

It has many activities (I recommend their website, http://www.sovannaphum.org/) and in particular a show every Friday and Saturday night. Although I had already seen snatches of "Sbaek Thom", the shadow theater with big leather shadow puppets, I had the opportunity to experience it yesterday night in all its beauty and spiritual atmosphere, with the initial "Samreah Kru" or Master Invocation, a ceremony to call upon the Master of the Arts for protection.

I am eager to come back for the other shows of Sovanna Phum: dance, "Sbaek Touch" (the shadow theater with smaller, articulated puppets, telling popular stories rather than the holy Reamker tale), and more!

Congratulations to Sovanna Phum for their great and vital work.

Joseph

The excursion to Kirirom (explanations and pictures)

Dear Friends,

Apart from a few pictures aranged in a comic way, I haven't written much these past weeks and I apologize for that.

Let me try to tell you a little about my recent deeds and thoughts in Cambodia...

My excursion to Kirirom

The pictures you saw of me and two friends were taken on the day we went to the Kirirom National Park.

The friends are Nicolas and Fabien which I met at the Khmer classes of the French Cultural Center. Thanks in large part to them the mood is very good in the class and we often meet outside of the classes, whether to eat, to have a drink or for an excursion like the one on the Silk Island which I wrote about and the one to the Kirirom.

The Kirirom is a mountain which gives its name to a National Park, approximately 100 km south-west of Phnom Penh, towards Sihanoukville (the sea port and beach resort). One gets out of Phnom Penh on road 4, and drives past the airport (Pochentong) for about 70 kms before making a right on a road leading into the mountain. There are two touristic sites next to each other: Chambok and Kirirom. The first one is an ecotourism site set up by a Cambodian NGO called Mlup Baitong. We were greeted there by a team of 4 or 5 good-spirited young men and women. The price for foreigners was $3 each, plus the bicycle rental, to get into the site and be allowed to climb to the waterfall.

We tried to bargain and get away at a cheaper price but there was no way. We thought the money would really serve a purpose because there was a sense of community among the youth there and paid.

One of the youth served as our guide. He couldn't speak English, which made us improve our Khmer (at least theoretically... we should have learnt how to say root, liana, waterfall and to name many trees and fruit).

We enjoyed the short bicycle ride and the climb to the waterfall a lot, so we didn't regret the 3 dollars. It was amazing, after climbing in the heat, how the temperature dropped next to the waterfall: from over 35 degrees to some 25 degrees in a matter of meters I would say.

When we were done, we went down the road leading to Chambok to get back to the road leading to Kirirom itself. As a contrast to the entrance to Chambok, we were stopped at the entrance to the National Park by several less young officials in uniform who didn't seem to do anything apart from playing cards while waiting for the tourists to make some money through them. An official sign stated the fee for foreigners at $5 each. We were less confident there that the money would be well used, given the lazy aspect of the officials. After paying the $15 nevertheless, we were given entrance tickets which showed immediately they were reused: the paper was creased, the date had been erased and overwritten! That meant our $15 were going directly into the officials' pocket. After complaining and accompanying the official to his office to make sure he was pulling out new tickets from the stub, we got clean tickets and went in. We thought it was a small victory over corruption, although of course the chances are high that the superior of these officials was just as corrupt and that we put $15 into the pockets of an already rich official rather than in the pockets of low-level (poorer?) officials.

There is no way of knowing but I prefer the possibility of higher-level corruption. Moreover, I think we gave a clearer sign of our values by doing this way rather than, as, I realized later, other tourists do, which is paying half-price ($2.5) directly to the official and not requesting an entrance ticket...

I thought afterwards that the bad state of the road leading to the mountain showed was not surprising if the entrance fees never got anywhere...

We started climbing the road on our motorbikes. At the start of the road, the climate is as hot as in the plain, we even saw small forest fires, but, like at Chambok, there is a sudden change in the atmosphere at maybe an altitude of 500 m: it gets colder and more humid suddenly. The smell of the forest becomes strong and it is really relaxing to spend some time in bearable temperatures before returning to the heat of the plain.

There are several waterfalls. We went to one which was not too impressive in itself but we enjoyed the view and the walk in the . The only ennoying thing was litter scattered all around the creek, downstream of the place where people come to eat and rest. That's why we went for a short hike upstream.

You saw in a previous post that I had to opportunity to try the water of the creek... That's when I fell into the water: I slipped on a wet stone and found myself waist deep into the water. My cell phone and wallet were in my pocket but both survived the dip. My backpack proved quite waterproof, except for the pocket containing the map. Minimal dammage therefore (none to your servant, most importantly) and a lot of fun. We went on climbing for a short while, then turned around and when we met the pool where I had fallen, my friends pressed me to show for the camera my fondness for that pool. That's how you got the photo sequence I posted :-)

That's about it for the Kirirom excursion. Here are a few other pictues (all pictures are © Fabien):

Nicolas and I driving, on the way back.

A beautiful view from the road: a woman and children taking cows or buffaloes to the water, with hills in the background.

When getting closer to Phnom Penh on the way back, the traffic was getting heavier, with such trucks as this one carrying pigs. When I tried to overtake this truck, a momentary lack of concentration on the road when I realized the load of the truck, and excessive speed, almost cost me an accident...