Is there a winery around here?

“We might be sleeping on the roof.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, it says right here that some people have had to sleep on the floors of tea houses, monasteries, and even on the roofs of hotels.”
I tried to picture someone laying on a corrugated tin roof, sloped at a thirty degree angle.  The image reminded me of those amusement park slides for children, where they go down in a potato sack. “Huh, well that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.”

Pagoda covered in gold leaf - Myanmar

We were reading up on Myanmar, trying to get organized.  Online travel forums were full of advice. The general consensus was that booking accommodations in advance was necessary, especially during the tourist high-season. I found this both surprising and annoying. I knew tourism was picking up in Myanmar, but needing reservations or risk sleeping on the roof??  Come on.  Something didn't make sense here.

There are a lot of stories of people having trouble finding a place to stay in Myanmar.  This is partly because the infrastructure for tourism hasn't kept up with the demand since international relations have improved in the past few years.  It's also true that only government-licensed hotels are allowed to have foreign guests, which may be making things more difficult.

But the hotel situation is just the tip of the iceberg if you want to start talking about things that don't make sense.  For starters, is the name of the country Myanmar or Burma?  Nobody can seem to agree.  The name Burma comes from the name Bama, the ruling (and largest ethnic) group in the country. The name Myanmar comes from the work Myanma, which is just the formal way to reference the Bama people in written word. Both names refer to the same group of people and are exclusive of the many minorities also living within the borders.

The controversy is multifaceted. When the military changed the official English name of the country to Myanmar, some people felt that recognizing the name meant recognizing an illegitimate government.  Other people have argued that Myanmar is a more inclusive name, but this of course doesn't make any sense. The argument can even be made that Myanmar is even more exclusive to ethnic minorities because they don't speak (nor read) the Bama language.  Myanmar then, is just another unfamiliar word from an already alienating government. But still, Myanmar is the name that the government calls themselves.  Major news organizations can't seem to agree on which is the appropriate name.  Even the U.S. government, which favors Burma, is at odds with  the United Nations, which favors Myanmar.  So take your pick.

Before we could worry about reserving accommodations, we had to sort out the visa situation and sift through the conflicting pieces of information floating around on the Internet. For example, some people claimed  that getting a visa on arrival was possible, others said that this program was canceled.  Another claim was that you needed a letter from your employer (and business cards) in order for the embassy to approve your application. Reports on processing time varied from a few days to a few weeks. There are also warnings for people who might work in the media or for a human-rights organization.  It's best to "change" your profession, at least for the visa application.

So straightforward answers on getting a visa are hard to come by. But what was true a year or even 6 months ago, may not be true any more. Perhaps nothing exemplifies this more than the recent updates in banking. Planet Money, a favorite podcast of mine featuring stories about the global and domestic economy ran a few stories in May 2013, just 8 months before our arrival. Let me force you to read a few of their blog entries from the series.

Why (Almost) No One In Myanmar Wanted My Money

When you arrive in Myanmar, you can see how eager the people are to do business. At the airport in Yangon, new signs in English welcome tourists. A guy in a booth offers to rent me a local cellphone — and he's glad to take U.S. dollars. But when I pull out my money, he shakes his head.

"I'm sorry," he says.

He points to the crease mark in the middle of the $20 bill. No creases allowed.

So I pull out another, which he rejects because it's a little bit faded, and a third, which he doesn't want because of a tiny tear, and a fourth, which he calls "not very acceptable" because of a little ink spot.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, was largely closed to the world for decades. It's just getting used to the business of international currency exchange. And, like other countries that have gone through economic turmoil (Russia, Iraq, Argentina), Myanmar wants U.S. dollars to look like they just rolled off the presses.

When I start to ask people in Myanmar, they laugh and say they know it's crazy. But they've learned in their history that the last thing you can trust is an old piece of money.

You've probably heard about the human rights abuses under the former dictatorship in Burma. But the old government also used to screw with the money all the time. Officials would suddenly announce that certain denominations of the local currency were worthless. It would be like waking up to find that the $100 bill was worthless.

The old socialist government was worried that some people were getting rich, Zeya Thu, an editor with The Voice, told me. So without warning, they would take the largest denominations out of circulation.

When it happened in 1987, Zeya's parents were getting ready for retirement. They had just cashed out their life savings to buy a plot of land. They were in the room with the seller, about to buy the land, and the government came on the radio and said the bills were worthless.

The country's leader created new bills overnight in denominations that were multiples of nine — his lucky number. Zeya says the math of adding and subtracting 45s would give people headaches.

So people started to sock away their extra money in U.S. currency. And when your life savings is a few U.S. $100 bills, you want to keep them pristine. Like other people in Myanmar, my translator kept his U.S. bills pressed flat in the pages of a book. Like baseball card collectors, people in Myanmar want their bills in mint condition.

The banks in Myanmar could have solved this problem by accepting old U.S. currency. But for a long time they were cut off from U.S. banks by sanctions, so they didn't want the old bills, either.

As a result, visitors to Myanmar have to bring bills so crisp you can cut tomatoes with them. And bills that are less than perfect end up on the black market. I took my $20 bill with a tiny ink spot on it to a black-market money changer. He gave me $17.75 for it.

In A Single ATM, The Story Of A Nation's Economy

Nan Htwe Nye works at an elementary school in Yangon, Myanmar. She started trying to use ATM machines a few months ago, and things haven't been going so well. 

The machines are often broken, she says. "But," she adds, "we hope it will better in the future." This is, more or less, the story of ATMs — and of banking in general — in Myanmar.

She's visiting the headquarters of CB Bank, at the first ATM in the country that was connected to banks all around the world. 

The lobby of the bank is packed with people, many of whom have brought cash from their businesses in giant rice bags. One of the managers here, Zaw Myo Oo, says the customers all want to see the transaction on paper. 

Another room is all money counting machines, with cash piled in the corners like old newspapers. Burly guys lift bags onto their shoulders. 

This all-cash economy is one of the things that is holding back Myanmar's economy. The rest of the world no longer operates on rice sacks filled with paper money. For years, the managing director at the bank wanted to move into electronic banking. But, because there was international sanctions against the military dictatorship that was running the country, Visa and Mastercard wouldn't return his calls. 

The sanctions started to be lifted last year, and Mastercard started taking his calls. And late last year, CB Bank fired up the international ATM, complete with a generator to keep the machine running during Yangon's frequent power outages. Over the next few months, the bank installed dozens more machines, and other banks followed. 

But the people in Myanmar still don't trust the banks. During the era of the dictatorship, there were frequent runs on the banks, and corruption was widespread. "Sometimes you have to bribe the staff at the counter to get your money back," says Zeya Thu, a business columnist with a local paper. Numbers are hard to come by, but it's estimated that fewer than 10 percent of the people here have accounts. 

The people running CB Bank hope the new ATM prominently displayed outside their bank will help build that trust. Nan Htwe Nye, the woman who works at a local elementary school, actually seemed surprised when her money popped out of the machine.

"Today, it works," she said. "I'm lucky."

Myanmar's first international ATM didn't exist until November 2012.  This means that the latest publication of Lonely Planet, which came out in December of 2011, is hopelessly out of date. But even if you have done your homework and you know that the guidebook is obsolete, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. How prevalent are ATM's?  Do you have to be "lucky", as the Planet Money post suggests, in order to get cash out of the machine? If international banks are now doing business in Myanmar, does that mean that they will now accept damaged dollar bills? None of these questions have clear-cut answers.

The ATM's in Cambodia spit out U.S. currency (Cambodian currency is used for very small purchases).  So rather than take our chances with the Myanmar ATM's, we filled up on $100 bills and took any wrinkled/creased/blemished bills to the bank for an exchange.  The Cambodian bank tellers were quite understanding of our situation and happily gave us their best bills. But even coming into Myanmar with a fistful of dollar bills comes with some puzzling questions.  I had read that the official exchange rate was one-tenth of the black market exchange rate, meaning that if you were foolish enough to exchange money at the airport, you would be getting just a small fraction of the amount compared to exchanging it unofficially.

Things have changed though.  Official exchange rates are just as good as black market exchange rates.  ATM's are all over the place. Journalists can get a visa.  The hotel situation is not dire, I didn't spend a single night on a hotel roof.  There are still a lot of things that don't make sense, places you can't go, but traveling in Myanmar turned out to be relatively easy.

Yangon (aka Rangoon) is the country's largest city.  It's a weathered city that hasn't seen a lot of re-investment. "Drab" is probably the best adjective to describe the buildings, streets and sidewalks.  But the city is not without some charm.  Hole-in-the-wall cafes provide a place to get an intimate bowl of soup, street food is plentiful and people aren't afraid to smile.  Daily life happens on the street, vendors sell everything from air compressors to flowers.  If you need something sewn, there's a guy with a sewing machine.  If you need to make a call, there's a woman with her landline strung out to the street corner.

Myanmar

Yangon is also a city full of zombies. Chewing betel nut is a pervasive habit among most men.  The crushed seed, wrapped in leaves and combined with a limestone paste provides a mild stimulant. Over time, it rots gums and teeth, and turns the inside of your mouth a dark red. All this mouth gore and spitting is a sight right out of The Walking Dead.

If Yangon has a unique contribution to the nightlife culture, it would have to be tinsel. There are a handful of clubs on Yangon where you can get a drink and watch a karaoke show by the local talent. Tinsel is what you buy a girl when you like her performance, a monetary tip. When you buy tinsel, the girl gets a wear a glittering garland for the rest of her song. Exciting huh?  Afterwards, she'll come sit at your table for 10 or 15 minutes and keep you company.   If the girl is a favorite, a tinsel war might break out between tables, the winner going to the highest bidder.

A group of us went out to check out the local tinsel stars. The rooftop venues have an  inconspicuous street presence but were pleasant enough, though quite empty for a Friday night. The first thing I noticed was a complete lack of stage presence by any of the performers. I don't know, this may be indicative of a generation growing up without western music videos.  And while their outfits were sexy by Myanmar standards, some of the floral-print dresses would be more appropriate at church than at a nightclub. It was a bizarre experience.

We  picked a girl and flagged down the waiter.  When our girl came over to the table, she looked a little confused. We tried some basic conversation, but that didn't go very well. I think she was uncomfortable. So much for that.  We bounced to the next venue where a girl gave us smile during her performance, a small victory, so we bought her some tinsel. This girl's English was also terrible, but she seemed happy to be sitting with us.  Our friend Corey helped facilitate the conversation by asking questions through pictures on a napkin.  He wrote the name of the venue, followed by a happy face and a sad face.  She picked the happy face.

The girl on the left does not want to smile.

One of the peculiarities of traveling in Myanmar is the maddening bus schedule. Distances are not large, but the moving is slow and so most rides clock in at 8 to 12 hours. Getting around by bus is quite pleasant if it weren't for the insane arrival times, which are typically scheduled for 4 or 5am.  It's a terrible time to try to orient yourself in a new town, not to mention it reeks havoc on your sleeping schedule. The guide book mentions this quirk and gives the explanation that people can't afford to waste an entire day traveling between cities, and so the overnight bus is preferable. It also says that night travel helps prevent buses from overheating under the midday sun. Neither of these explanations are satisfying to me. The streets are dark and empty at 4 in the morning. The day doesn't start for another three hours.

The driver of our first bus ride must have good time because we pulled into a black parking lot at 3:45am. I had only been sleeping for two hours when the bus lights came on. I got off the bus and let my eyes adjust. The air had cold bite and my head was foggy. While retrieving my bag from the storage compartment under the bus I heard some funny animal noises behind me. I turned around and tried to work out whether there were any taxis available. There were no taxis, only horse-drawn carts. I had to rub my eyes to believe it, yep, two-wheeled horse carts. I wasn't in the mood for a cart ride, but I also wasn't in the mood to argue. We loaded up our bags and set off down the road into the dark night. As we click-clacked our way under a canopy of trees, my head began to clear and I had to smile at the situation. It was an unexpected moment. We arrived at a small, family-run hotel where a few men were milling about in winter parkas.  It's a funny sort of normal for these people, but at least we didn't' have to wake anybody up.

Myanmar Album

Situated on a great plain along the Irrawaddy river, Bagan was the home to a great civilization between the 9th and 13th centuries.  Over 10,000 temples and pagodas were constructed here, of which more than 2000 are still standing.  Touring the pagodas means covering a lot of ground under a hot sun.  A motorbike would be perfect for getting around, but foreigners aren't allowed to drive motorbikes. I couldn't find a clear answer for the reasoning behind this but I heard that the government doesn't want to deal with the headache of dealing with injured tourists. Who knows.   Bicycles are available, but after dealing with sandy roads and a flat tire, I was over it.  The funny work-around for the law is to rent E-bikes, battery-powered bicycles. They mostly get the job done, but it seems silly to me.

Bagan  - Myanmar Album

Bagan - Myanmar Album

Bagan - Myanmar Album

The motorbike law in Bagan isn't nearly as insane as the one in Yangon, where all motorbikes are outright forbidden. This quirky law is because at some point, a bike ran into the car of a high government official, and boom, just like that, no more motorbikes.  But even this law doesn't compare to the time in 1970 when, overnight, the government switched what side of the road you were supposed to drive on. The country changed from driving on the left hand side of the road to the right side because the dictator had been advised by his astrologer to "move to the right". These facts of these stories, like so many others, are unverifiable.

 Myanmar Album

Moving further north into the minority-populated mountains is the opportunity to do some guided treks and homestays.  The most popular route takes you through 35 miles of dusty roads and trails, dotted with villages full of people who seem to happy that foreigners are passing through. We were lucky to get a good guide, full of sarcasm, and a group to match.

Trekking  - Myanmar Album

My favorite character was Miguel, from Italy. During our first day of walking, our group of 9 was busy making the usual introductions and small talk.  Miguel stayed near the head of the group, mostly talking to the guide. He was alone and no one had gotten to know him. His English wasn't proficient and he spoke with a very heavy accent. At dinner, we all sat huddled around a small table, eating by light of the fire and drinking beer.  Miguel declined any drink and said that normally he drinks, but his guru said that he should take 3 months to travel Asia without drinking, eating meat or having sex.  At this point, all conversation came to an abrupt halt.
"Wait a second, you have guru???"
"a-Yes.  My life.  It feels empty.  I a-met a-man.  He can show me the way."
"So, how did you meet him?"
"a-Just on the street. In Rome."
"And he told you to abstain from alcohol and travel Asia??"
"a-Yes.  He said. He will teach me tantric sex.  I can make a-love for a-six hours."
Silence.
"Um. So does your guru charge money?"
"Ah-no. He is not allowed. He says after 3 months of no sex, he will begin my training."
Silence.  At this point, everyone was looking at everyone else.
"a-Yes, when I return, my guru will find me a partner for my training. It will be very good."
At this point, we are all trying to be open-minded to this person whom we just met. Here is a guy trekking through Myanmar by himself, on a journey that nobody has access to.  You never know who you are going to meet while traveling.

Trekking home stay - Myanmar Album

The next day Sabrina was walking with Miguel and asked him again about his guru.
"Oh. I do not a-have a guru. I was just a-making a joke."
"What?!  I thought you were serious?"
"Should I a-tell the rest of the a-group that I was just a-joking?"
Sabrina, self-conscious of her gullibility said, "No, I'm sure everyone knows."
Nobody did know. When it finally came to light, a few in the group were not so amused, I thought it was hysterical.

The next night we were up late telling stories around the campfire, drinking rice wine, and the conversation found its way into confessing the most outrageous place to have had sex.  One girl, Jenny, copped to having sex in the library, which she immediately regretted sharing. The night continued on while a few bottles of trekking whiskey were emptied.  The next morning we woke with the sun and the roosters, nobody feeling good. The first thing out of Miguel's mouth, "a-Jenny.  a-Last night.  I wait for you in the library." Pure gold.

Our raunchy group aside, trekking really was a great experience.  The people along the way were nothing but kind and gracious.  When we arrived in a village, the children all wanted to play and the adults where welcoming.  Finding places in the world where people are living outside of the modern economic engine is not an easy thing to do and it's humbling to be on the recieving end of their generosity. Sabrina returned the favor by bringing a bag of candy for the kids and few colored pens for the older kids.  These small tokens went a long way in bringing some big smiles.

Excited for a pen  - from Myanmar Album

We continued on with our merry band of trekking companions to Inle lake, a picturesque region of fishing communities and handicraft artisans. Bicycling is a wonderful way to take in the sights and when we heard the was a winery in the area, we had to go.  After some sight-seeing we looked at our inadequate map and tried to figure out the best route to the winery. After making at least one wrong turn we stopped at an a rural intersection and again tried to orient ourselves.  A local man saw our puzzlement and came over to help, despite his poor English. Someone piped up, "Uh, excuse me, is there a winery around here??"  Crickets.

I know that this is one of those "you had to be there" situations, but trust me, if you could see where we were, in the middle of this poverty-ridden southeast Asian country, it's a ridiculous question to be asking. After another overnight bus into an even more rural state, we signed up for another three-day trek.  Upon arriving in a village, we would turn and ask ourselves, "Is there a winery around here?" That joke never got old.

Inle Lake - Myanmar Album

Inle Lake -  Myanmar Album

Our second trek was with a smaller group and much more physically demanding.  Every few hours our guide would describe the upcoming terrain.  "Up, up, up. Plat, plat. Down, down down." It was interesting seeing the villagers reactions to us the further we got along.  The villages accustomed to foreigners on the first day would eagerly greet us.  By the third day, it was mostly looks of confusion.  Each village seemed to have their own dialect and our guide would have to give us the new word for "hello" as we went along.  It felt like we were walking back in time.

The most vivid memory I have is when we trudging up the side of the mountain on a narrow path and we turned the corner to come upon a few dozen people working to put in a new road, using nothing but hand tools. Men, women and children were all helping with the back-breaking work.  Everyone seemed to be in good spirits, but I all I could think about was being thankful for not being in their position.  It's good to be reminded to put life into perspective every now and again.

Portraits from Myanmar:

Myanmar Album

Myanmar Album

Myanmar Album

Myanmar Album

Myanmar Album

Myanmar Album

Myanmar Album

Myanmar Album

Myanmar Album

Myanmar Album

Myanmar Album

Not the best. But not bad!

A lot of people hear “Cambodia” and they get a vague impression in their minds of an unpleasant and unfortunate place. There are good reasons to have this impression, because for the last half of the 20^th century, that's exactly what it was. The history is of course, complex.

After dealing with French colonization in the 19^th century and a Japanese occupation in the 20^th century, the American - Vietnam War pulled Cambodia into the conflict. When the North Vietnamese moved their supply lines into Cambodia, Cambodia got bombed. In 1970, a military coup took over the government and successfully ran the country into the ground. As refugees flooded into a crumbling economy, food became sparse and people starved. When the Khmer Rouge stormed the capital city Phnom Penh in 1975, people believed that fortune was finally turning around. Instead, the military dictator, Pol Pot, went about transforming Cambodia into his ideal society, killing a quarter of the population in the process. When Pol Pot was finally driven into the jungle in 1979, again, circumstances stood to get better. However, Pol Pot left behind devastated rice fields and stocks had been decimated. A two year famine followed. Throughout the 80's and 90's, the Khmer Rouge continued to operate near the Thai border waging military resistance, littering the country-side with landmines. Fighting would continue until 1998.

Taking all of this into account, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Cambodia can look a little rough around the edges. But it's not true that Cambodia is an unpleasant place today. It is a wonderful place to travel. From the perspective of a tourist, it's a safe and cheap destination. The people are friendly, the landscape is beautiful, and Angkor Wat stands on its own.

Cambodia 2013

Life in Cambodia today is hard to describe. There is definitely the sense of a middle class emerging. The cities are dotted with people doing well for themselves and smartphones are finding their way into the hands of teenagers everywhere. But it's wrong to believe that everything is now OK. There are still many people in dire economic circumstances. One unpleasant indicator is the staggering amount of child sex trafficking. Organizations that are trying to combat this issue say that children are often sold into brothels by family members. Desperate faces are everywhere.

Cambodia 2013

Of course where you have lots of people barely getting by, the competition for getting a little bit of business from tourists like me can be fierce. This is one of the more frustrating aspects of traveling in Cambodia. I call it “begging-for-business” and it can be maddening. For example, If five tuk-tuk drivers are parked on the same corner, you will get asked 5 times if you need a tuk-tuk. It doesn't matter that the last driver just heard you turn down 4 other offers. And of course it's not just tuk-tuk drivers, it's anyone who has something to sell. The constant stream of offers while walking down the street can be hard to handle. Politely declining each offer is an unsustainable approach, but blatantly ignoring everyone feels rude. It's frustrating, but it's hard to know how to feel about this. For people who don't have a lot of options nor a lot of business, what else can they do?

Cambodia 2013

For all the frustration of the “begging-for-business” brings, every now and then it turns out to be something endearing. One woman comes to mind, bringing a smile to my face every time I think about her. We were touring Angkor Wat, where arrays of food stalls are situated in designated areas. You don't want to get near one of these places unless you're committed to sitting down and having a meal. Otherwise, it's not worth the onslaught of people who are are begging for business. We happened into the parking lot of one of these places on our way to a temple and were met by a cheerful woman to let us know that her stall was #9, and that if we wanted anything at all, to make sure and give stall #9 a visit. It was still too early for lunch and no one was eating, which made us an easy target. But I was hungry and so took her up on her offer. As she let us through the parking lot, I tried making some conversation and threw her a softball question, “So, is YOUR food the BEST food?” “Noooooo,” she sang. “Not the best,” she declared definitively. “But not bad!”
I had to laugh. Maybe the right follow-up question would be, “Where can I find the best food?” But I could live with “not bad.”

Cambodia 2013

Less endearing are the small children selling sunglasses and old woman offering massages on the beach, which is where we found ourselves after crossing the Thai border. This where we met up with Stacey, Sabrina's college friend, who was parlaying her work trip to Hong Kong into a personal one-week vacation. Beachfront properties were ramshackle, serving local beer on tap for $0.25 during happy hour, which can last late into the night before the price quadruples. The first night we went out, I ordered a beer and handed over a dollar. The bar-tender said it was still happy hour. I looked at my watch and it was 10:45pm. “Ok....so I'll guess I'll have 4 beers then??” At that price, beer is literally cheaper than water (and barely discernible from it). Loud music plays from distorted speakers into the wee hours of the morning and balloons filled with laughing-gas are popular bar snacks.

Many of the hostels and bars advertise for Western staff, offering a place to stay and food to eat in exchange for working the bar a few nights a week. It's an arrangement where backpackers can go and lose themselves for a few months without taking a hit on their travel budget. One of the more memorable characters who had temporarily parked himself on the beach was Richie Rich from California. Within minutes of meeting him he was sharing his story of being near death as a heroin addict and how his dad saved his life through a little bit of tough love. He was an entertaining guy with a lot of stories, hitchhiking across the U.S. One time a young woman picked him up late at night, with a baby in the backseat. Turns out her husband was off serving in Iraq and she was feeling lonely. Richie told her how much he appreciated the ride, but under no circumstances should she ever, ever, pick up a hitch-hiker with a baby in the car. Too many weirdos out there.

We met Richie Rich on Christmas Eve, on the late-night boat driving us to a little beach party happening on some uninhabited island, somewhere in the middle of the ocean. It was just your typical Christmas Eve beach rave. The DJ was interrupted a few times by an uncooperative generator, but there was a bonfire to light the sky and lots and lots of cheap drinks. We made some friends from Sweden, had a midnight toast, and tried to remember that it was Christmas.

Cambodia 2013

The next day, Christmas day, we spent a groggy few hours in the airport to make quick flight to Siem Reap, the city just outside the great Angkor Wat temple complex. Our friend Stacey was tight on time, so we afforded ourselves the luxury of a short flight vs another 12 hour bus ride. Coincidence would have it that one of my old college friends, Brandon, would be in Siem Reap at the same time as us. So there we were having a little college reunion of sorts in a very unlikely place.

Cambodia 2013

Walking around town was interesting for me, mostly because I was comparing the very busy and social atmosphere to the sleepy town of my memory. So much has changed. Before Cambodia's long period of violence, Angkor Wat was of course a tourist destination, but the world was less mobile back then, so it saw relatively few visitors. Tourism picked up again in the late 90's, but even when I visited in 2003, there was still an empty feeling. I remembered being astonished that I basically had the place to myself. I also remember telling people, to go now, because it's not going to stay like this forever. And it hasn't.

I did a little research and it looks like the number of annual visitors has increased six-fold since I last visited. Plus, I was there during the sweltering summer months, the tourist low-season. This time around it was the week between Christmas and New Years, one of the busier periods of the year. All this to say that we did not have the place to ourselves. It was crowded almost everywhere we went. This was a little disappointing for me because what I loved about my first visit was the sense of discovery, of being alone, turning the corner and seeing something unexpected. That's something you can't experience when you're shuffling behind a line of people. Instead, you're standing there, waiting for the scene to clear out for just one second so you can snap a picture that isn't filled with a crowd of Japanese tourists. Fortunately it's possible to arrive before the morning light and enjoy an hour or two of serenity and pleasant photography before the hoards descend upon you.

The quintessential sunrise at Angkor Wat
Cambodia 2013

Behind the Photo:
The crowd of people getting the quintessential Sunrise shot.

Hoards of tourists or not, Angkor is still an impressive place. The heyday of Angkor was between the 9^th and 13^th centuries and was essentially abandoned by the 15^th century. It wasn't “re-discovered” until the 19^th century, by which point the jungle had reclaimed most of the temples. Archeologists have reconstructed many of the ruins and in some cases, have left some of the jungle behind, leaving a real Indiana Jones ambiance.

Cambodia 2013

Cambodia 2013

Cambodia 2013

After a long day of touring the temples, we met up again with Brandon and his wife, drinking our way up and down “Pub Street”, a commercial heaven of restaurants and bars. Brandon, by the way, was also in my electrical engineering class, and is an incredibly smart person. By 2am we had planted ourselves firmly at the cleverly named bar, “Angkor What?” where the party had spilled out onto the street. A very sober Sabrina was was engaged with a very drunken Brandon.
“I'm 32, I don't have a job, I don't have a house, I'm not married,” Sabrina lamented.
But Brandon put things into perspective, “Thirty-two is a beautiful number.”
“It is?”
“Yeah, it's two to the power of five.”
Let me interrupt for second to explain to the mathematically challenged. Brandon is saying that “32” is the number “2” multiplied by itself 5 times (2*2*2*2*2). In the digital world of computers, circuits are either on or off, which mean counting in binary is useful. A five-digit binary number then, has 32 possible values.
Anyway, Brandon was saying, “ Yeah, it's two to the power of five. You have 2's on each side, a 2 in the middle, and another two 2's.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, it's a beautiful number. Think about it.”
“I AM thinking about it!”

Stacey spent her last day in Cambodia feeling a bit under the weather, which meant we had to cancel a few plans. She apologized profusely and felt bad that we were just sitting around all day, not doing much. I had to explain to her that a day of doing nothing was more than alright with us. We have time to do nothing. After she left, we would spend a few more days of doing nothing, and enjoying it.

Cambodia 2013

Cambodia 2013

Sooner or later though, doing nothing has to give way to nailing down some actual plans, and so we went to Phnom Penh to arrange visas for Myanmar, my one travel goal for this trip.

For a sobering history lesson we visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, known as Security Prison 21. The prison was actually just a regular high school, converted into a prison by Pol Pot. This haunted place is where prisoners were questioned, tortured and killed for fabricated offenses, usually nothing more than political suspicion against the regime. Anyone with an education was automatically suspect. Wearing eyeglasses or having soft hands was sometimes enough to be picked up and disposed of.

Cambodia 2013

From Wikipedia:

Prisoners were routinely beaten and tortured with electric shocks, searing hot metal instruments and hanging, as well as through the use of various other devices. Some prisoners were cut with knives or suffocated with plastic bags. Other methods for generating confessions included pulling out fingernails while pouring alcohol on the wounds, holding prisoners’ heads under water, and the use of the waterboarding technique.

The "Medical Unit" at Tuol Sleng, however, did kill at least 100 prisoners by bleeding them to death. Medical experiments were performed on certain prisoners. Inmates were sliced open and had organs removed with no anesthetic. Others were attached to intravenous pumps and every drop of blood was drained from their bodies to see how long they could survive. The most difficult prisoners were skinned alive.

The story of Pol Pot is fascinating. A somewhat privileged upbringing allowed him to study in Paris, where he flunked out of school and joined an underground communist club. He returned to Cambodia and inspired by the Cultural Revolution happening in China, he gained support from the North Vietnamese and raised a rural army, decrying the corruption of the upper class. When he overthrew the current military installation, it was seen as a win for the common people. But Pol Pot had his own ideas for transforming Cambodia into his ideal society. He wanted to lived in an isolated, independent Cambodia, something akin to the great Angkor empire that existed before him. He believed that dignity existed in the working class and that an isolated independence could be achieved by sending everyone out to the rice fields. Almost immediately he declared all personal property to be the property of the state, declared the calendar year to be year zero, and exiled the urban population of Phnom Penh to the rice fields. Anyone who was uncooperative or even suspected of being uncooperative was immediately killed. In the hard-labor conditions of the rice fields, anyone who couldn't work was killed. Many who survived execution fell victim to starvation and disease. The property and stockpiles of traditional farmers were seized, leaving the families of generational farmers to starve. An estimated 2 million people, a quarter of the population, died in a four year period.

Once prisoners were tortured enough and coerced into signed false confessions, they were loaded into the back of a truck and driven just outside the city to be executed in one of the many infamous killing fields. Since bullets were too valuable to be used on prisoners, executions were carried out with machetes or various farming tools. Executioners would sometimes use the sharp edge of the sugar cane stalk to slit the throat of their victim. Once a blindfolded prisoner had been either clubbed or slashed they were shoved into the mass grave before them.

Cambodia 2013

Killing fields have been found all over Cambodia, but the most symbolic one has been turned into a large memorial. Individual audio tours are available, which have stories told by the few people to survive imprisonment. The grave sites are now little more than indentations in the earth, but bone fragments continue to resurface during the rainy season. The central memorial houses the skulls of more than 5,000 victims.

Cambodia 2013

Phew. After some heavy-duty history lessons, we tried to just enjoy the city. The riverfront area is a place for eating, drinking, doing some outdoor aerobics or reading a book on the lawn outside the royal palace. We had some time to kill as we waited for our Myanmar visas to get sorted and so we stocked up on afternoon coffees, French pastries and a few late-night clubs. Of course while we were sipping coffee, large demonstrations were happening just outside the city. Garment workers were demanding better pay and working conditions. Between collapsing factories and low wages ($80/month), it's easy to see why there is such discontent. Several protesters were killed by the police and many more were injured. It will be interesting to see what tomorrow holds for Cambodia. Just down the street from our hotel was a German style beer garden, sporting a small microbrewery and serving Chinese style hot pot. I think this is a good sign of a reinvention happening, hopefully bringing a brighter future. 

Cambodia 2013

Cambodia 2013

Cambodia 2013

Slip Slop, Don't Forget the Sunblock

High winds killed my dream.  My own personal paradise was just short boat ride away, but the weather was not my friend.  I was trying to get back to a beach, accessible only by boat, where I had spent a cheap, lazy week, drinking fruit juice and eating grilled fish.  When the sun went down, the sky would glow pink and we would play volleyball and drink beer.  All I wanted to do was to go back and taste it again, but it was not meant to be.

And that’s how it went. Instead, we hiked up and down the mountainous coastline, found a bungalow on a remote strip of sand and watched the waves come crashing in and the rain come pouring down.  We went back to town, but it was empty and raining. Our new bungalow was situated high above the ocean on a rocky outcropping.  The swimming pool filled to the brim and we stared out into the grey. Nightly thunderstorms shook us awake.  The hotel restaurant was a simple covered pavilion, which was the only place to go.  Someone asked if tomorrow would be rainy.  The woman behind the counter smiled and said, “No rain tomorrow….but only inside.”

Nangyuan Island, near Koh Tao - Thailand 2013

The tiny island of Koh Tao (turtle island) is known for great snorkeling and shallow dive sites ideal for those learning to dive. It also has the highest concentration of dive shops anywhere in the world, which keeps prices low, low, low.  Diving has been on my “to-do” list for too long, so I finally ponied-up and took the plunge.

In class, I paired off with a 68 year old Dutchman, who had been coerced to Koh Tao by his dive-master daughter.  He was a funny, engaging guy, complimented with a lifetime of travel.  As he fumbled through one of our ocean exercises, he assured me, with a grin, that he would have it mastered by the time he was 70.  After class we had a beer and he told me about leaving home at the age of 17 to avoid military service.  He wandered around Afghanistan for a while before returning home 5 years later, where he was promptly picked up by the police for going AWOL. Great stories.

Diving was, of course, awesome. But unfavorable weather kept rearing its ugly head.  But when I asked the instructor about the coming forecast he gave me a bewildered look and said, “I don’t know, it doesn't rain underwater.”  Sigh.

After completing the basic Open Water course, I went ahead with my advanced certification, which is really just more fun diving with a couple added skills and reaching a maximum depth of 100 feet (vs 60 feet).  At that depth, nitrogen narcosis starts to affect the brain, which sounds a little dangerous but it's just a temporary buzz, similar to inhaling laughing gas.  Getting “narked” (as they call it) felt like having a few beers and then going for a swim.  Not at all unpleasant.

Another highlight of the advanced course was getting to explore a wrecked World War II ship, complete with large artillery emerging from the murky water, but none of that even compares to the night dive. Night diving has a completely different feeling. Coral takes on new colors at night being illuminated by a white flash-light instead of blue-filtered daylight.  After cruising around for a bit, our group settled on the ocean floor and the instructor gave us the signal to turn off our lights.  Even at 40 ft below the surface, there was still enough ambient light to make out the shadowy outlines of each person. We stood quietly for a few moments, letting our eyes adjust to the moving shadows.  Then the instructor started waving his arms frantically, producing a flurry of green bio-luminescent glitter.  The flashlights threw off enough light to make the effect invisible, so we left them off and swam in the dark for another 10 minutes, creating a chain of glowing water for each person to follow, a surreal experience.

Ladyboy show, Koh Tao -  Thailand 2013

Jumping over to the west coast is the Andaman Sea, famous for the deep emerald color of the ocean, surrounded by sheer limestone shorelines. Railey peninsula attracts rock climbers from all over the world with many accessible routes suitable for beginners. Sabrina was apprehensive about climbing, but Wan, our instructor, had a lot of enthusiasm. He could probably climb these routes blindfolded and knew every hold on the wall.  But he was only helpful when he wanted to be. When climbing, there are moments when you're clinging to the rock face, looking for your next move, and nothing seems within reach.  At this point, I would call down, "Wan! Which way do I go?!"
"UP!"
Gee thanks.  It was funny, but only if you weren't the one climbing.

Sabrina climbing at Railey -  Thailand 2013

Wan  -  Thailand 2013

Unfortunately, Railey Beach and Phi Phi Island (famous from the film, “The Beach”) were not without their disappointments.  Phi Phi was hit hard in the Dec 2004 tsunami (the one which killed a quarter million people).  Since then, the island has been rebuilt and the tourists keep coming.  But being rebuilt and being cleaned up are two different things.  Lonely Planet’s opinion is that Phi Phi is in for an ecological crash if the current pace continues.  There is a serious trash problem, one that I certainly didn't notice in 2003. Railey is also looking a little rough around the edges.  I went back and looked at some of my old photos, just to see if I was romanticizing my memories.  It was clear as day though.  Things had changed, and not for better.

Railey Beach -  Thailand 2013

Our hotel on Phi Phi must have had some promotional offer that we were not aware of, which attracted some of the dumbest girls I've ever come across while backpacking. After a few sunny hours on the ferry, Sabrina and I were just easing into the first stages of a feverish food sickness.  We were anxious to check-in and lay down.  A group of 3 girls were checking in ahead of us, and we were all waiting for the staff to finish cleaning the just-vacated rooms.  After the rooms were clean, the three girls were first to the check-in counter to sign their names, pay a refundable security deposit and get their key.  The modest, refundable deposit, 500 Thai Baht (about $15), proved to be a difficult situation.  Instead of someone just paying the deposit and being done with it, they needed to split the deposit, because, I don’t know, fair is fair?  But you’ll notice that 500 doesn't divide up very nicely between 3 people.  This was also a problem. After some very serious mental gymnastics, they figured out that two people could pay 170, while the third person would only pay 160. This was deemed a more practical solution than say, splitting it 200/200/100, given the prominence of the 100 Baht bill. When they started digging in their little coin purses, each of them trying to come up with exact change, it was too much. I grabbed a fire extinguisher and clubbed them all over the head, stepped over their bodies, paid my deposit and got my room key. I mean, come on, fair is fair.

Glamour shots at "The Beach" -  Thailand 2013

After a miserable day and night of getting through the food sickness, I heard some commotion outside of our room and I started listening to conversation going on between a girl and her friends (different people from the check-in story, they were still lying piled up near the check-in counter).  It agonizes me to have missed the entirety of this conversation, but I managed to put together the gist of it.  The most vocal girl kept talking about going to the convenience store to buy 20 bottles of water. Apparently, their friend had a fever and they were going over their options: 1) Go to the clinic. This didn't get much traction because, you know, “that would be A LOT of money”.  2) Pay for a room-upgrade to get air-conditioning (maybe a $10 upgrade?).  This option was given some consideration, but there was some question on the effectiveness of this treatment. 3) Water bottles.  That’s right, obviously the most economic and most effective course of action would be to…..I’m sorry, I have to take a breath to get through this.... would be to go to the convenience store, buy 20 bottles of cold water, and then "wrap the bottles" around their friend. A cold-water blanket if you will.  This genius solution would cost a mere $6.

This idea wasn't just blurted out in moment of frantic brainstorming. This was the idea being advocated, more than once. I should also point out that the daytime temperature was hovering around 90 degrees, so a cold bottle of water would last about 25 minutes before turning into just a tepid bottle of water. At that point, the only question left would be, "Hey, are you gonna drink that??"

I wish I could tell you what happened, that I witnessed this plan come to fruition, but I never found out.  The question that haunts me though is why this conversation, or debate, was taking place out in the hallway, without the input of the person being "treated".  It seems like a pretty simple question, "Hey, I know you're running a fever, would you like to go the doctor, or will some cold water bottles do the trick? Your call." If this conversation was taking place because the patient didn't have the cognition to make that call, then I'm pretty sure that's all the information you need, that person needs to go to the doctor. Whatever, just wrap them in water bottles and go to the beach.

Ao Nang, home to a national marine park, is a beautiful place do some ocean kayaking. A private tour would be ideal, but it’s so much more cheaper to get on a big boat full of other tourists.  We had an interesting mix of middle-age Chinese women and a rowdy bunch of frat-tastic Australians.  The Thai guy running the boat loved him some party music and turned over the MC responsibilities to one of the Australians.  Before each stop, the boat captain would tell our Australian host about the name of each place and how long we would be there.  In turn, he would then add his own commentary, remarking on the weather, complimenting everyone’s attendance and so on.  After finishing one announcement, he paused, not quite finished, and added, “Slip slop, don’t forget the sun block. We don’t want any burn victims.” That line just doesn't get old.

Khao Phing Kan, aka James Bond Island - The Man With the Golden Gun
 Thailand 2013