7 Days in already??

Can we really be 7 days into our trip already? Let me backtrack to the beginning...Saigon. Bo, my cankles, and I landed in Saigon at 10pm on Saturday evening. We were met by a very nice driver from the guest house/minihotel we were staying at. We loaded up and were off--easy as pie. It took me about 20 minutes to fall in love with Saigon. It is hot, steamy and chaotic. The traffic is like nothing I have ever seen before. Everyone has a motorbike. And there are bicycles, cyclos (which is like a bike with a seat on the front), taxis, an occasional car, and buses. Throw in a few random pedestrians crossing the street at will, and you've got the full mix. There are minimal street lights--and they only serve one purpose...to stop traffic. There is no direction to any of it. People cross in front of other people, buses turn through oncoming motorbikes, sometimes people drive up the wrong side of the road...yet there really don't seem to be any accidents at all. The roundabouts are insane. On several occasions I made Bo stop and just watch the traffic. And the motorbikes are not really used for individual transport in Southeast Asia. There are generally at least two people on them. Ofter 3. I have seen entire families of 4 on a Vespa-size bike. And apparently the kids learn to hang on at a VERY young age, (the infants are in the arms of another passenger, but it seems if you can walk, you can hang on). Yet somehow, through all this chaos, there is harmony. It's like a foreign symphony that I don't really know how to hear. It is fluid, harmonious chaos at its best. And the whole city seems to be like that. Noodle shops, food carts, restaurants, hotels, badminton--something is going on everywhere you turn.
Bo and I spent Sunday in Saigon going to the Independence Palace and to the War Crimes Museum, both of which were very interesting. The War Crimes Museum was pretty heavy, as I'm sure you can imagine. It was built in 1975 by the victorious Communist government, so it had a slightly anti-American bias, but any which way you deal the cards our government did some pretty atrocious things to the people of Vietnam. That being said, we followed up the museum by walking through a local park and watching some kids play. There was a huge Christmas display, complete with fake Christmas trees, gifts, elves, and as many gaudy, blinking, shiny holiday baubles as you can conjure up. We walked through, but quickly exited when we realized you had to pay an entrance fee so you could go in and pose for pictures in the different Christmas scenes. On the way home we were attempting to cross a really busy stretch of road, and ended up down a local alley (aka sidestreet?). There were food carts everywhere and we stopped at one to check it out. They ushered us inside so we sat down for a cold Tiger Beer and a snack. Nothing is better than a cold beer and hot street vendor fare when it's steamy and 90 degrees out. We had a very amusing interaction with the people working in the restaurant. There was much laughter, from both parties, as Bo attempted to order. Eventually we got the message across and had the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. It was some sort of rice paper-wrapped bun thing with rice and some sort of scallion/spinach vegetable inside. It was served fried and split open over a fried egg with a dipping sauce. Heaven!
On Monday Morning, we took the 5 hour bus ride from Saigon northwest to Phnom Penh, capitol of Cambodia. Phnom Penh is also bustling and heaving at the seams. It's not as walkable a city, so we often took Tuk Tuks around--carriages pulled by motorbikes. The most important thing to remember in dealing with Southeast Asian traffic is to not make any sudden moves. Decide when you are going to cross the street, and do so in one steady movement. I also prefer not to look at what's coming at me. Anyway, we were able to walk to dinner and whatnot, but had to tuk it to our adventures on Tuesday. Tuesday was another heavy day--we went to S-21, which was a Khmer Rouge torture prison from 1975--1979, and then out to the Killing Fields. The horror of the Khmer Rouge is shocking. They were so effective in their campaign of torture and terror, and literally beat, scared and starved the country into submission. The Killing Fields were so peaceful, yet there were still bits of clothing scattered about from the 17,000 victims that were killed there. They've only excavated some of the graves, and have placed those bones and skulls in a giant glass memorial. Still can't believe this happened in my lifetime, and that they were just removed from power in the 90s. The Khmer Rouge killed roughly 3 million people. Today about 50% of Cambodia's population is under the age of 16--there are kids everywhere! The poverty in Cambodia is rampant. There are many street kids that follow you for blocks asking for money. It's pretty heartbreaking. But it's also inspirational to see how hard these people work and to see what they've risen out of.

Wednesday we saw the Royal Palace and then jumped on a bus to Battambang, in the northeastern part of Cambodia. We did not pre-plan, and tried to purchase a bus ticket about an hour before it left, only to find out it was full. The tuk tuk driver was quite resourceful and took us to a different bus station. As soon as we pulled up I knew we would not be on a nice, spacious bus with the reclining seats. We were the only foreigners in the station. Luckily there was a nice man working there that spoke English and made sure we got on the correct bus. And it was the locals bus. It cost us as much as the tourist bus would have, which presents the question--did we pay too much, or are these local people getting ripped off? This bus was jam packed for the 4 and a half hour trip. At one point there were 7 or 8 people sitting on tiny plastic stools in the aisle. And there was no reclining to be had in those seats--had the person in front of me attempted to do so, I would have lost my knee caps. Those seats were not built for 5'10" white girls. The bus rides through the country side are fascinating. We got into Battambang and got a nice room at a place with a rooftop bar and restaurant and had some Angkor beers as the sun went down.

The next day, Thursday, we hired two motodrivers to take us around to a couple temples in the country outside Battambang. We stopped at a few different local villages along the way to see how people make bamboo sticky rice, rice paper, rice noodles, and how they grow mushrooms. It was very interesting, and impressive to see how everything is used in the processes--there is little to no waste. These people work so hard for cents a day. The rice paper was especially interesting, as we love to go out for rice paper wraps in Denver, and we've bought some to cook with at home. We always wondered about the pattern on the surface of the paper, and it turns out it is pressed in as the paper dries on a woven rack. Everyone was very gracious, letting us look in on their daily lives--though I'm sure they thought we were crazy foreigners. Then we went to an 11th century temple, where a very nice 10 year old gave us an impromptu tour (for $1, of course). And after that we took a long, dusty, bumpy road (very few of the roads were actually paved on this day) to a hilltop temple and the site of the Killing Caves. We had lunch at a local spot, and a 14 year old gave us the tour up the mountain, around the caves, and up to the temple. He chatted with us about people getting bludgeoned and pushed into the caves, and about wanting to beef up to look like a WWE wrestler. We both really enjoyed the diversity of this day--and it was especially nice to have the two guides with us. I had some interesting discussions with my driver along the dirt backroads, as we passed screaming kids, stray dogs, cattle and rice fields.

And now it's Friday. This morning we took the boat from Battambang, through the Tonle Sap River and Lake, to Siem Reap. The boat ride was amazing. We went up the river and saw the local life along the banks. Fishermen, floating houses, homes on stilts, and everywhere naked kids yelling and waving excitedly. The river wove through the banks and the floating villages for 7 hours, eventually dumping us into a huge, wide-open lake. It's dry season here, so at some points the water was very shallow and the boat barely made it through the enclosing brush. We sat on the roof of the boat the whole way, loving every moment of the view. Tomorrow we begin to explore the areas around Siem Reap--namely the Angkor Wat site. Angkor Wat is an ancient temple from the Khmer empire and is supposed to be breathtaking. Can't wait!