Ambition, Hope, and SUVs

We are about to hop onto the Thai Airways L.A. Express - the nonstop flight from Bangkok to LAX. Only 14 hours and 30 minutes flight time.

Looking back on our visit to Cambodia, one of the most striking things we will remember is the magnitude of the changes since our last visit in March 2006. We got the impression that despite all the problems of the past, everyone is looking ahead to build a better future. The attitude of the people is one of strong ambition to make a better life for future generations in Cambodia. Everyone works (at least one job) and education is becoming more important.

Sure they have their share of problems (corruption, prostitution, child labor, petty crime, pollution), but there is a lot of evidence of a society trying to make giant leaps forward.



Some simple, but telling signs of progress:

• the large international airport terminal in Siem Reap is new since our last visit
• during "rush hour", streets are clogged with motorbikes, and new Toyota, Lexus, and Honda SUVs
• there is more than one stoplight in downtown Siem Reap
• storefronts have stacks of flat panel TVs for sale (and people are buying them)
• streets, sidewalks, curbs, and markets in the downtown area are all under construction
• the price of real estate is skyrocketing
• increasing numbers of children attend school and NGOs are building a lot of new schools
• a brand new golf course opened on the road beyond Angkor Wat
• a Mexican restaurant opened

Our Final Dinner in Siem Reap

Who would have imagined that our friend Chanra wanted to go out for Japanese food. But that's exactly what he craved. He and his family had never eaten Japanese food.

At 7PM he showed up at our hotel on a motorbike with his father on the back (holding his crutches up in the air). On an accompanying tuk-tuk was his mother, younger sister, and an older sister with her four year old son. Caren and I jumped into another tuk-tuk and off we went.
So....here is an unusual sight. A party of eight walking into a Japanese restaurant in downtown Siem Reap, Cambodia, and the two Americans ordering Japanese food for the Cambodians. The only other people eating in the restaurant were Japanese.

We ordered a huge plate of sashimi, miso soup, edamame, three different plates of sushi rolls, a couple of plates of tempura, tokatsu (pork cutlets), rice, and several plates of yakitori. And of course, Asahi beer. Everyone loved it. Chanra's father really liked the wasabi mixed in his soy sauce.

I thought he'd burn the roof of his mouth, but he just lapped it up.

After the Japanese food, we headed for an ice cream shop a few miles away (motorbike and two tuk-tuks in caravan). Everyone had ice cream for dessert. I think Chanra's family felt it was a real treat and they had a great time.


You never know if you'll see someone again. We'll miss Chanra, but I think he is a real entrepreneur and will do well. His dream is to come to the U.S. for 5 years and then return to Cambodia. We tried to explain to him how difficult and expensive it is to live in the U.S., but it is good that he has a dream.

His company is doing well. He has formed a partnership with four other guys, but he specializes in the bicycle tours. The company is Green Elephant Travel.

He has a large group of Swiss tourists coming in on Friday for 10 days of bicycling around Cambodia. He has several more good bookings for December.

If you know anyone who wants to visit Cambodia, cycling or not, they should contact Chanra.

Temple Ruins, Weddings, and Rain

Today, we visited a couple of very ancient Khmer empire temples that for two reasons few tourists go to. Reason #1 - they are far from town and most tours only spend 1-2 days in Siem Reap and don't have the time to travel there. Reason #2 - they are still in an area being cleared of land mines by multi-national teams. Don't worry, the fields cleared of land mines are clearly marked, and so are those areas you should stay out of.

First, we traveled to Koh Ker - a collection of many temples that served as capital of the Khmer empire in the 10th century. Many of the temples are still in their original, unrestored state. Chanra and I climbed to the top of the tallest temple.

From the top, you can see the Thai and Laotian border. The Khmer knew where to build - it is a beautiful site with distant views. How they got the stones to this site to build the temples is still a partial mystery. Some stones were cut from the nearby river beds, but many came from the mountains miles away.

Probably a combination of slave labor and elephants did the work. Even so, they were great architects and construction engineers for their time.



Then we went to Beng Mealea, a complex of 11th century temples still partially overgrown by the jungle. Many Khmer historians believe this complex was a model for building the more famous Angkor Wat. The design is very similar.
Unfortunately, many of these remote temples have been victims of looting. In Bangkok, we visited many shops that were selling huge objects of sandstone that were obviously pilfered from the temples in Cambodia and Burma.


This is supposedly the dry season and cool time of year in Cambodia. You'd never know. It is hot and humid - definitely a three shower a day city. Today, it rained as we headed back to town. The rain actually cools things off for a few minutes.

This time of year, a lot of Cambodians schedule their weddings. It's treated like June in the U.S.. Our friend Chanra is attending a friend's wedding tomorrow (and Wednesday). Weddings here last for more than one day and typically are attended by 500-2,000 people, depending on the size of the village and family.

We were going to go back to Angkor Wat today and meet with an archeologist for a private tour, but we cancelled due to the rain. The upper levels of Angkor Wat have been closed to tourists since our trip last year because it was deemed to be too dangerous and it was damaging the temple. Look back at our blog from March 2006 and see how steep the steps are at Angkor Wat.

Tonight, we are taking Chanra's family to dinner at the restaurant of their choice. We'll let you know where they chose.

A Very Special Meal

This morning, our friend Chanra picked us up at 10AM and took us to visit his parents. It was a very special meeting. I'm sure that very few American tourists are invited for lunch at the home of a Cambodian family. Now we have done it twice in two days.

The Sim family lives about 1 km off a main road in a house sitting on a 5 meter by 30 meter plot of land that they own. Chanra's father was injured in a bicycle accident in Phnom Penh about 3 months ago. He has a rod and several screws inserted in his thigh, so he is still on crutches.

We had our hotel prepare a big fruit and sweets basket that we brought them as a gift.

Chanra looks like his father. We also met his younger sister (he has two older sisters) who looks like his mother.

We had a very good meeting exchanging stories about life in our respective countries. They asked a lot of questions about life in the U.S. They see programs on television, meet people from the U.S., and have some acquaintances that have moved to the U.S., so it is of great interest to them to learn about our country. In a similar vein, we asked a lot of questions about their background and how they live. Caren and I kept thinking how our friend Ed M. would have enjoyed this meeting - he asks a lot of questions to people he meets.

Chanra's mother cooked a very delicious meal. They grilled two catfish on a charcoal grill - one fish we ate with rice and a spicy mango salad, and the other they cut up and put into a soup. The sour soup was very similar to a Thai soup we've eaten in the U.S.. They also prepared a plate of unbelievably tasty sauteed vegetables. And sliced pineapple for dessert.

After the meal, we sat around and enjoyed sitting outside and talking.

Then Chanra took us in a tuk-tuk to Tonle Sap - The Great Lake. This time of year, the volume of water in the Mekong River makes it "back up" into Cambodia and fill the lake to 3-4 times its size in the dry season.

Hundreds of people live in houses that they move with the receding of the shoreline over the months. You don't like your house location, wait a few weeks and tow it to another place. We saw schools, churches, and government buildings being towed. The people make a living fishing the huge variety and quantity of fish in the lake.

This was the first day we really encountered a lot of rain. It poured on our way to the lake, most of the time we took a boat trip on the lake, and on our way back to town. Not bad for a 2+ week trip. The B&R bicycle trip in Vietnam at the same time we were in Thailand, encountered a typhoon hitting the coast, their hotel flooded in another city, and a third city they couldn't reach at all. I think we were very fortunate with the weather on this trip.

Tomorrow, Chanra is taking us to a set of Khmer empire temples we have not visited before - they are located about 80 miles away and very few tourists go there. But they are in their original state and supposedly more beautiful than many temples in the busy Angkor Thom area (where Angkor Wat it located). After our trip in the countryside, we have a very special meeting arranged. More about it tomorrow.

Signs of an Emerging Market Economy

We were last in Siem Reap about 18 months ago. Wow, have things changed. This is what economists call an emerging market economy. Many more streets are paved. Toyota and Honda automobiles are filling the streets, along with the swarms of motorbikes. And the Korean tourists are flocking in by the planeload.

The construction cranes we saw in 2006 are now the new hotels filled with tourists from South Korea. Dozens of Korean restaurants have sprouted up. In the U.S., people from the Northeast flock to Florida and Disneyworld. I suppose people from Korea flock to Siem Reap and to see the Angkor temples.

The End of Tourist Season in Cambodia

I heard from my friend Chanra in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The tourist season has come to an end. The weather is too hot, too humid, and too rainy for many tourists to visit until October.

It was a successful season from a business perspective for Chanra. He made money renting his bicycles to B&R and other tour companies. He also was hired as a guide by several other bicycle tours.

He just led a group of Swiss tourists for 10 days throughout Cambodia. I told him that the Swiss do not tip very well. He called me to say that I was correct. For 10 days, the entire group only gave him US$20.

He should have enough money to last until next tourist season, but he is looking for work to make more money and to avoid being bored. If anyone knows of a job opening in Cambodia for a hard-working, English-speaking (somewhat), smart young man, let me know and I'll pass it on to Chanra.

We have signed up for another B&R bicycle tour - this time to Northern Thailand and Laos. We plan on going in November and stopping for a few days in Cambodia to visit Chanra. Meanwhile we need to get ready for our upcoming trip next week to Morocco.

A Holiday Gift from Chanra

Chanra is a friend of ours who lives in Siem Reap, Cambodia. We met him during our trip to Cambodia and Vietnam in March 2006 when he was one of the local guides on our bicycle tour and a real help when Caren had her Vietnam visa problems.

We've stayed in touch by email, SMS, and internet phone calls (the wonders of modern technology bringing the world closer together).

We helped him out with financing his fleet of bicycles and support vehicles. He now has a thriving business renting the bicycles and support services to various tour companies (including Butterfield & Robinson). Another micro-lending success story.

The other day we received a great gift from Chanra - photos of the bicycles, truck, and Chanra himself. Check them out. Chanra's the fellow in the middle of the first picture and leading the pack of cyclists in the last picture.

We hope to visit him again in late 2007.

Last Morning in HCMC

Caren now knows what freedom feels like. Who would have thought we'd feel like we were going home to HCMC when we were on the flight out of Siem Reap. Caren was sweating when she went thru immigration at HCMC airport (for the 12th time). The immigration agents know her by her first name by now.

We suspect that our tour guide "schmeared" the airport manager in Siem Reap to expedite Caren's Vietnamese visa and get us out of the country. I wonder if they teach that in tour guide training?

So what does she do for her first meal back in HCMC? We go to a sushi restaurant with our tour guide and she sucks down a couple of Ba Ba Ba's. That's the local Vietnam beer in the south. Like Corona is to SoCal.





Then for breakfast she eats this appetizing looking plate of Asian delicacies. Meanwhile Jordan is munching on his croissants (very good ones by the way because as we said before, the French taught these folks how to bake bread).

But you have to eat them early or they become sponges in this humidity.
We're off to Dalat in about 90 minutes and immediately head off for a bicycle ride. Hopefully, we can keep Caren from being "blackballed" from future tours by B&R. If the tour had a daily newsletter, Caren would dominate the front page every day with all her escapades.

We'll be staying at the Sofitel Dalat Palace. A real story to tell about this hotel, but we'll save it for the blog posting when we get there.

Angkor Wat - first impressions

Due to technical difficulties involved with Caren's visa for reentry into Vietnam, we aren't able to download any pictures. The hardware (my SD card reader) is on the plane to HCMC. So...pictures will follow when we meet up with our luggage somewhere and edit this blog at a later time.

UPDATE: See below about our exit (finally) from Cambodia and here are a few pics of the temples.

This A.M. (before the visa problems and before most of the Korean and Japanese tourists crowded the place), we visited Angkor Wat (the biggie). It is huge, but not the oldest or most ornate. It is known because of its size and architecture. Basically, it is the Versailles Palace of the Khmer empire from back in the 1300s. It is the largest religious temple in the world. There is a mixture of Buddhist and Hindu influence throughout the temple since traders from India came thru here on their way to China back in the old days. And Buddhists came here from China and what is now Burma and Thailand.

















We climbed to the highest levels of the temple on a 70 degree staircase in 100 degree heat. (I'm panting just writing this.) The steps are about 6 inches wide. Actually, going up wasn't too hard. Climbing down was the challenging part - not because of the stairs, but because of the lines of Korean and Japanese tourists pushing their way forward to get down.

A family of tourists from Phnom Penh was very excited to take Jordan's picture. They see very few Americans and even fewer bald ones. They thought it was real funny to take a group photo with Jordan.

If we don't resolve Caren's visa problem, we could become friendly with a lot of Cambodians as we'll have to apply for legal resident status. We hope you all enjoy visiting us in our new vacation home here in Cambodia should that come to pass.

Most Americans think that Angkor Wat is the only temple here. That is far from correct. There are dozens of temples throughout the area and various foreign countries are working to restore and preserve them. This entire area is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

During the Cambodia-Vietnam war and the American War, it was agreed to by all sides that this area was to be protected from bombing and destruction. Therefore, various armies stationed themselves in the temples for protection.

One thing we didn't get to do is visit Tonle Sap, the largest lake in Southeast Asia. It is only about 20 kilometers from Siem Reap. There are dozens of floating villages on the lake. One couple from our group went there very early this A.M. We'd visited the floating villages in Myanmar, so we decided to sleep in.

During the rainy season (which lasts for 5-6 months), the flow of the Mekong River is so large that the delta south of Saigon acts like a cork in a bottle. The Mekong River flow backs up into the river from Cambodia and fills Tonle Sap. The lake grows in size by 300%-400% and rises 10 meters or more in depth. Hence the floating villages, otherwise people would have to relocate every change of season.

UPDATE: We made it out of Cambodia! Caren got her "Get Out of Cambodia for Not So Free" card and we got on the plane back to HCMC. She won't have to spend the night in a refugee camp. Back to the comfort of the Caravelle Hotel and the tumultuous motorbike traffic of HCMC.



Ahhhh...out of Cambodia and back to Vietnam. Maybe it's cooler in HCMC. I doubt it.

Stranded in Cambodia

Once again we have an experience that rivals something out of "I Love Lucy". We are still in Siem Reap, Cambodia while the rest of our group has flown over the Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam for the next leg of the trip.

It seems that Caren's visa for reentry into Vietnam is no good. The Viet Cong (they now run the country) screwed up her visa for the second time when we first arrived in HCMC. When they reissued the original visa they didn't give her a visa for multiple entries, even though we've now paid for it twice. The first visa was screwed up by the consulate in San Francisco that failed to sign her visa or issue the correct form. So while the Cambodians and the Viet Cong resolve the problem we are waiting back at the hotel (very nice by the way) while they fly her passport to Phnom Penh (the capital of Cambodia) to the VN consulate. Hopefully they will issue her yet another new visa, fly it back to Siem Reap, and we'll get on a flight this evening. Our tour guide Marco and the local guides here have the logistics under control, but who knows about the Commies.

Otherwise, we stay at the Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor another night. Actually, that's not so bad as this is a very comfortable place with great food. We have no clean clothes with us, since our luggage is on the plane to HCMC, but that shouldn't be a problem. We can go to a night market and pick up an entire wardrobe for $5 and change (after some tough bargaining as they can only do here in Cambodia).

Jordan bought a book about the temples yesterday from a street vendor. The vendor started at $28 and Jordan started at $5. amazon.com sells it for $22. The sale was finally consummated at $7. And yes, all the pages were in the book and it was in English.

Caren gave our local guide, Fin, a Sudoku puzzle and gave him the basic instructions on the game. I don't think we'll see him again if he starts to get hooked and I suspect he may become addicted within the week.

French Chef in Siem Reap

Saturday night we had a fabulous tasting dinner at a new hotel here in Siem Reap, the Hotel de la Paix. Very modern architecture and very chic-chic.

The crazy French chef has been there since the hotel opened seven months ago. He tries to adapt Khmer recipes to modern ingredients and tastes. We had an appetizer with minced snake meat (tastes like beef jerky), fish with red ant sauce, beef curry, a soup with lemongrass, etc. I wonder where he gets the red ants for the sauce. Probably has some Cambodian sous chef run outside to pick them off the ground. There are a LOT of them here. Along with mozzies and an occasional snake.

We took the latest in Cambodian public transportation to the restaurant - a motor trailer or Cambodian tuk-tuk. It is a motorbike pulling a small people trailer. They are all over the place and mostly employed by Westerners.


Got to go to bed now so Caren can rest her bruised ribs and we can prepare for Angkor Wat in the AM after breakfast. We've got to beat the rush of Korean and Japanese tourists.

Dateline: Siem Reap, Cambodia

We have been here for 2 days now and have bicycled both days. Yesterday we did about 10 miles and today we did about 12 miles. It is incredibly hot and humid - a three shower a day place. Bicycling actually cools us off - if you were walking and in the sun, you would plotz.


At the end of our first ride, we wound up at this temple at sunset. The guides set up a small picnic atop the temple, with champagne, beer, and snacks. It was a great finish to the day.


The temples are amazing. We've taken a lot of photos and are having a great time. Our group here in Cambodia is only six of us, plus our guide, Marco, and our local guide, Fin. We pick up nine more people tomorrow for the Vietnam part of the tour.


There is also Chan Ra, the brother of the manager of the local tour company that B&R has to contract with. Chan Ra is a real character who is into wagering on cockfights.

Fin speaks impeccable English that he learned in school here in Siem Reap. He had a benefactor from Brooklyn of all places that he met several years ago and paid for him to go to school. He has a degree in computer science, but can't get a good job here in Cambodia in that field. Being a tour guide is a good job and allows him to earn enough to support his wife and child.

Marco was born and raised in the U.S., but has spent a lot of time in Italy. He is our guide throughout the entire tour and he is a lot of fun. We needle him about his tattoo (a pun) and his need to get a real job. He has a Masters degree in Italian.

This is a VERY poor country. We passed a lot of small villages while bicycling (on the unpaved roads) and saw how the people live. We are very fortunate to live in the U.S. We stopped at one house where the family had a small conglomerate - a large pig pen, a rice whisky still, a corn mill, a water buffalo, a bamboo fence making business, and some farm land. We just dropped in on this family - unplanned. They are considered well off for this area.

A number of people bicycle into Siem Reap from the countryside every day to work construction jobs. They are good paying jobs and they don't have to speak English. There are a lot of new hotels being built here. The largest number of tourists come from Korea, followed by the Japanese, and then the Americans. They expect the number of tourists per year to grow to over 2 million from less than one million in 2004. You should visit here before it is overrun and destroyed by tourism.

Our hotel, the Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor is in old British colonial style. All the food ingredients have to all be imported though. The staff is very friendly and all speak wonderful English (much better than our Cambodian).

Caren had a little accident bicycling today. We were going over a wooden bridge and she hit a loose board with the front wheel of her bike. She fell over (not into the water) and got a few scratches. She also pulled a muscle in her rib cage and got covered with dirt (this place is extremely dusty). She got right back up on her bicycle and "nutted it up."

We are visiting more temples here in the Angkor area later today and tomorrow morning. Tonight we are having a traditional Khmer dinner at the Hotel de la Paix with snake meat, red ant sauce, and other local delicacies.

Then it's back to Ho Chi Minh City for one more night and on to Dalat to start the rest of the trip. Stay tuned for more excitement.

Stark Contrasts

We've arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia. This place looks like it is a very underdeveloped nation, but it is on Dubya's list of democracies. Here, they refer to it as a transitional democracy - meaning that they have an elected Prime Minister, but he suspends civil liberties and imprisons his opposition on occasion. The economy is very poor. Meanwhile, back in Vietnam (the communist country), they are building a brand new airport terminal, the shops we visited yesterday were like stores in the U.S., everyone speaks English, and the place is modern and clean. However, VN is not on Dubya's checklist of democracies.

We're off to visit some of the temples at Angkor this AM and will have our first bicycle ride later this afternoon.

The hotel we're in is one of the Raffles Group properties. Very colonial, very British, very lovely (a British word). They are building a lot of hotels on "the strip" here in Siem Reap. The most tourists come from Korea, followed by Japan, and then the U.S.

More to follow later on today or tomorrow (with pictures).