Adventures in Thailand and Cambodia (and Myanmar)

And so, I am back. Back at my same desk in the CIFOR offices in Bogor, looking out over a small garden with a pink hibiscus directly in front of me and everything wet from the rain. A whole like what it was like before.

It is amazing how little changes over a month. But for me, I have many new adventures and places in my backpack of experience. This is my first day back from my trip from Chiang Mai, Thailand, to Chiang Rai, to Tachielk, Myanmar, to Chiang Mai again, to Sukothai, to Um Phang via Mae Sot, to Bangkok via Phisanulok, to Hoontown, to Siam Reap, Cambodia via Scam Bus, to Phnom Phen, to Sihanoukville, and back to Bangkok, via Krong Koh Kong. One month, technically three countries, really two. Here’s the tale:

Bogor
This trip has been in the works for awhile. When I got back to Bogor from my five weeks in America, I was less than thrilled to be back at my desk, and then back in Jambi, so I set my sights on getting away from it. I knew my contract was going to end mid-December, and I knew I wanted to work with bears after it was over, but I gave myself a month to play around. There is nothing like backpacking for carefreeness—you will leave the place and the people around you every couple of days. Totally the opposite from village life in Indonesia, where everyone knows your every move. So, backpacking makes a great rest from my Indonesian work.

Soon after I got back I emailed Tim and Alex, two guys who are working in Sumatra, setting up camera traps to look for a bipedal ape that is only rumored to exist. I had met them through a CIFOR researcher, and they seemed the type to be interested in backpacking for a month. To my surprise, they were both interested and available, and so we made plans. Nothing too settled, just Thailand and Cambodia, starting in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. I also recruited Trudy, a communications officer/ ornithologist at the World Agroforestry Center, which shares the same building complex as CIFOR. She didn’t have as much time as the rest of us, but was going to meet up with us late and leave early. So, a big crew—four of us for most of the trip.

Batam
I flew into Batam, an Export Processing Zone, where the Indonesian government gives incredible tax incentives to foreign countries to come and manufacture using cheap Indonesian labor. Needless to say, the island is overrun with windowless factories and empty lots. Still, Indonesian workers flock here because the money that they can make in the factories in the EPZ is far more than they can make in Jakarta (roughly $2 not including transportation, food etc in Jakarta, and about $6-8 a day in Batam). Of course, the cost of life is higher, but people can rent a room for $15-20 a month and still have money to send home. I got out of Batam as fast as possible, hoping on a ferry to Singapore, only 45 minutes away. The boat experience is crazy because it takes you from the squalid EPZ and deposits you at a port which is actually a huge developed bright and shiny mall. Of course 90% of Singapore—and 100% of the Singapore tourists see—is bright and shiny, so it should not really be a surprise. Still, it makes you blink as you get off the boat.

Singapore
I met the boys in Singapore, staying in the backpacker’s dorm where I always stay in Singapore. Singapore is a wonder of economic development, it is so clean, and it is incredibly diverse, with huge Indian, Chinese, Malay, and Western communities. It provides housing to all of its citizens. But at the same time, Singapore gives me the impression of being slightly off, a little like a horror film where all the perfectly smiling people are actually zombies. Singapore puts more people to death each year than any other country—quite a feat when you consider that you can walk across it in a day. And everything is so clean, and so expensive. It makes me think of an amusement park, where everyone you can take the train to see a sanitized “Chinatown” and “Little India” and “Malay Village”. These all really are neighborhoods and subway stops. In addition, most of the basic infrastructure is work done by non-citizens—Indonesian and Malay immigrants who come for the decent wages but do not get any social benefits. This means that Singapore can claim a very high average income per citizen, and not include those who do construction, cleaning, etc. But, darn it all, it is really clean, and that is really nice after many months in Indonesia. (All credit for my knowledge of how Singapore works goes to Ben Furnas and Craig Johnson, both of whom studied abroad there. Thanks.)

Tim, Alex, and I were only in Singapore for one night before we caught a plane to Chiang Mai. The appearance of Asian budget airlines has meant that there are absurdly cheap flights all around SEA, and now branching into China. It is incredible. So, we hoped 3-hour $40 flight (it had been $20, but we waited too long) to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

Chiang Mai
I had only been in Thailand once, in Bangkok for four days at the end of my bike trip in Vietnam and Cambodia. I didn’t much know what to expect from Thailand outside of Bangkok. Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand, huge, but it prides itself on being the cultural heartbeat of the country. The town is divided between the old city, which is surrounded by a moat and old stone walls, and the new town, which spreads outside the wall for many many kilometers. Inside the walls is the “cultural” part. It is an interesting set-up: There is not actually much to do in Chiang Mai, contrary to the impression you get from the guide books. There is, however, a great deal to do outside of Chiang Mai. There are tour agencies every few doors, and tour agencies in every hotel and guesthouse, all offering treks and excursions. The most common involve getting up at eight am, going on an elephant ride, getting in a minivan to see a “native tribe”—extra to see a “long neck” tribe—getting back in the minivan to either see another tribe or a water fall, and then coming back to town by 5am. The tours vary a little—there are some that include more temples than trekking, others more elephants than “long neck” tribes, but they are all similar. For those who opt to stay in Chiang Mai, there are courses: cook Thai food ($25 a day), learn Thai massage ($20), meditation (some offer courses that last many months). Other than that, there are temples (wats), the old wall, the moat, and a couple of nice cafes.

We spent the first day exploring: the wats, the wall, the moat, a couple of nice cafes. There were really some beautiful places. The wats have gardens around them that are so calm and green. The weather was so much colder than Indonesia—in the 70s in the heat of the day—so it was wonderful to spend time outside and enjoy the green and the cool. Many of the temples had bells strung to the highest pinnacles, which rang out with the wind. We went up to Doi Inthanon, a spectacular temple which is high on a hill over looking the city. It is incredibly ornate- something I cannot easily combine with the concept of Buddhist simplicity. Still, there is much I do not know about Buddhism, and that is part of it. There were golden pagodas, thousands of Buddha statues, including ones made of green glass, shining in the light, and those painted bright shiny gold, with ornate gold inlay. Just dazzling.

The next day, the boys decided to go on a tour to ride an elephant and see a tribe. The concept of going to see a tribe make me feel all uncomfortable and weird. It is like pornography: yes, I am sure that it can be empowering for the community, but that doesn’t mean it seems right to me. There is too much of a history of colonialism and the power/money dynamic is just to powerful to make it seem possible to just to wish it away in the name of community rights. Just like pornography. Anyhow. I did not go on the tour. I rented a bicycle and explored the city, heading far outside the walls. Thailand is such a developed country. It is certainly not Singapore or Japan, but it is rich. Its markets are wide open to foreign investors, which is clear from the 7-Eleven’s which dot every street corner. I mean, there still are stalls, and there still is visible poverty, but it is the exception to the strong white concrete buildings which fill the streets. Only in the villages and the tiny back streets are there wooden houses.

So, anyway, I biked, got lost, found my way again. In the afternoon, I put my bike on a bus and went back up to Doi Inthanon temple. I did not stay at the temple, but bought a bucket of strawberries, hung them on my handle bars, and started biking down. The hill was incredibly steep, but very well paved and dry. On the way down, I stopped at a small path leading off the road, hid my bike, and followed the path. It led to a freezing cold crystal clear river. Following the river, I found myself at a huge waterfall. There were Thai couples there, sitting with their toes in the water. I climbed down a path near the waterfall, then climbed up the waterfall itself. So cold and clear. When I got up to the top, I found my way back to my bike, stopping on the way to dip into the water and jump out, shivering. It is so rare to properly shiver in Indonesia. Unfortunately, somewhere in this little adventure, my glass has slipped off my head, and I can only assume, down a waterfall. I biked home squinting.

The boys got back from their tour as I got back from my ride. And yes, it was as cheesy I expected. In the village, they got to see people selling handicrafts, but that was pretty much it. Perhaps it is better that way.

Chiang Rai
The next day, we moved on to Chiang Rai, a smaller town further to the north, in the infamous “golden triangle”, which used to provide the world with the majority of its opium. Even now, with Afghanistan’s supply letting up, it is still rumored to provide a large portion. Like Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai is not lovely in itself, but is lovely for what surrounds it. Still, to give it the props it deserves, it does have a really lovely night market, and the town itself is smaller and much nicer than Chiang Mai. And so much colder. Two blankets, socks, sweater to sleep cold. Brr.

Myanmar
Our first full day in Chiang Rai, we caught a bus to Myanmar, or Burma. Myanmar is what the Burmese (ethnic group) call their country, so it only seems far to follow their example. The border is less than 2 hours away, and it is possible to get a day pass into the country by giving the incredible horrible government $5. So, mea culpa, I gave the incredible evil government $5 and went to Myanmar for the day. Now, I know that is impossible to generalize anything about a country by spending one day in a boarder town, but here is what I noticed: It looked like Indonesia. Like a rural town in Indonesia. The poverty that is so invisible in Thailand was on the street again here, in the form of little warungs, little stores, people with shabby clothing, normal rundown motorbikes. Even the warungs sold the same cheap plastic toys and paper collecting cards that I used to find in Putussibau, a town near where we lived when I was a kid in Borneo. The books were incredible. It is very hard to get books in Myanmar, and those that exist are cherished. In the market, there were used books for sale, very used, clearly by many many people, all rebound with blue plastic covers and tape on the binding. Each store had a couple on display, like they would have a particularly nice set of shirts or really tasty cookies. I did not see any new books. Also fascinating was that people looked so much more Indian on the Burmese side of the border. Much darker skin, large noses. We stopped for lunch at a stall, and the curries tasted of Indian, not Thai, spices. The market had samosas for sale. The monks had deep red robes on, instead of the shades of orange to saffron that denote a monk’s rank in Thailand. There were also women’s in jilbab, Islamic headscarf, and stores selling Christmas ornaments. Thailand is something like 98% Theravada Buddhist, and so this was a surprise. Finally, gas and oil was sold out of large glass soda bottles, making it look like stores were selling opened bottles of fluorescent yellow and green Coke and Fanta. Street side gas stations are normal in Indonesia, but they generally have drums of gas and proper plastic gas bottles, and in Thailand, street side places just don’t seem to exist.

So, yes, Tim and Alex and I wandered around. Up through a temple with the maroon-robed monks, up a hill to a gaudy temple painted GOLD, down to a village, where the kids stared like we were from anther planet (just like they do everywhere in Indonesia). Then down to town, stopping at a warung for what turned out to be Indian food. Side note for anyone familiar with Indonesian food: there was sambal on the table, but was just full raw chilies and unpeeled garlic, not properly ground up with salt and msg. How weird! Then we wandered down to the main market where most of the people coming in for a day end up. On our way, we heard the sound of singing in English, and we stopped and put our heads around a corner, where it turned out that private English lessons for about 15 kids were going on. The kids could not speak English, but they did sing “My Heart Must Go On” for us. They were all giggly. Then to the market. Interesting: the “traditional garment” of Burma is a sarong with another name, but almost all the sarongs in the market were imported from Indonesia. Maybe 2 brands from Thailand, 8 from Indonesia. Now you know. There were also interesting things for sale: roasted chestnuts, samosa, big oranges, thick winter coats, things I had never seen in Thailand or Indonesia. And of course lots of cigarettes for those looking to avoid the Thai cigarette tax. Then it was five o’clock and we had to scurry back to the border before we found out what the Burmese government does to people who overstay their “visa”.

Chiang Rai
Our second day in Chiang Rai, we rented motorbikes and explored the countryside. All of us had ridden motorbikes at least once, but it took us a few trips up and down a side street to feel confident. The people renting the motorbikes did not seem to mind our lack of confidence at all; I think they make most of their money from people crashing the bikes and then having to pay to get them fixed.

It was a cold day, and I put on my thick sweatshirt and wrapped my hands up in my sleeves. We first went to a wat in a cave, a few kilometers from town. It was completely dark, with only the first few meters lit from the cave mouth. Not many tourists went there, and although there was infrastructure for electric lights, most of it had fallen apart and was lying on the bottom of the cave. We explored with our hands until we reached a large opening, where we started taking random pictures to see by the light of the flash. There were many small Buddha statues, and one huge white one dominating the room. There is something about seeing religious monuments in the dark that make them so much more powerful. Then we got back on the bikes, went to see a waterfall. Ithaca has spoiled me for waterfalls. They are all lovely, but it does not seem special when I had equally beautiful ones at my doorstep for four years. Finally, on back to town, we stopped at an absolutely absurd wat. I said that the ornate-ness of the wats overwhelmed me normally. This was beyond everything. It was all white, intricately inlayed with mirrors. I was there on a cloudy day, but supposedly during the sunny days, the mirrors make the building simply sparkle. It was the dream and project of a single Thai artist who was interested in modern approaches to traditional religious art work. He designed the entire thing, and had been constructing it for years. It was no where near completion. Incredible, stunning, but why?

We got back safe and alive on our motorbikes. Still, motorbikes are a sad excuse for riding a real bicycle. I missed feeling healthy after finishing the ride, and motorbikes are just as bad as cars for missing the details of the road.

Chiang Mai
The next day, Christmas Eve, we went back to Chiang Mai to meet up with Trudy, who was flying in from Indonesia. The days around Christmas were calm ones; as I said, there is not that much to do in Chiang Mai that is not a course or a trek. Trudy had never been to Thailand before, so we took her to the wonderfully calm wats with the music of the bells in the wind. On Christmas day we sat in one of the temples and discussed world religion, sounding not unlike a Christmas special on PBS. But I should not be so cynical; it was a nice conversation.

As for Christmas, I was definitely more into the holiday that the others. I had bought a green woven lampshade, very long, which I hung up in our guesthouse room (we were all sharing a room) as a Christmas tree. I had bought some Christmas tinsel in Burma (why not?), and hung it up in the room. Bobbles purchased in the Chiang Rai night market were tied to the lampshade. All in all, I think it made a good impression. The others were not quite as able to get into the spirit of the whole thing, but I enjoyed myself. Signs of Christmas in Chiang Mai were limited. One large hotel had a huge silhouette of a Christmas tree done up in lights on the outside of its building, and a couple of enterprising sellers in the night market stocked Santa Hats. On Christmas Eve, there were chorus and bands of Thai school children singing Christmas carols at the night market. That was lovely. They were incredibly out of tune, really off, but still it was in great spirit. They had bags of candy they gave out after every song. I bought presents for the boys and Trudy: a purple silk tie for Tim, an ugly little metal sculpture that Alex had expressed a liking for, and a bag for Trudy.

On Christmas morning, I gave out the gifts under my mock Christmas tree. That night we went to an Irish Pub—there are Irish Pubs everywhere in the world, it is incredible—to have a special Christmas dinner. They put one on every year, with turkey and ham and stuffing and veggies and everything. It was much in the spirit of my Christmas tree: Perhaps not perfect, but trying hard. I got dressed up (the others didn’t….), and we had a nice Christmassy meal. And that was Christmas.

Lampang
At this point, Tim and Alex and I were a bit tired of Chiang Mai. There is only so long you can spend in a town that does not have much to do, and we had been there five days. So, we decided to head south to Sukothai. In between Chiang Mai and Sukothai is Lampang, home to the Royal Thai Elephant Conservation Center. We asked the bus to let us off at the side of the road, and with our packs hiked up the hill to the Center. The Elephant Conservation Center takes in elephants that have been injured from all over Thailand; elephants are still used in some areas for farming and logging (although illegally in the case of logging—side note: all logging in Thailand was banned sometime in the 1980s. All of it. Of course, there is still illegal logging that goes on, but still). Some elephants were injured by landmines, which are still common along the Thai-Burmese border. The Center provides free medical treatment to all the elephants, and takes any elephants that have become too dangerous, or which are not wanted any more. To help raise revenue, they also run a mahout training school for tourists, some of whom come for months at a time.

We got there in time to see an elephant show, showing what elephants can do in farming and logging. Did you know that a huge elephant can turn around 180 degrees while standing on a thin log? They are incredible. The Trudy and I went to the elephant hospital, where there were something like 10 elephants being treated. One had been stabbed deep into the stomach; I think it had gone on a rampage during must and someone had been trying to protect themselves. It was great to see the whole set up they had. Then we picked our packs back up and walked back to the main road, where we flagged down a bus, and caught another bus, and ended up in Sukothai by night.

Sukothai
Sukothai is in the middle of Thailand, in the hills. It was the center for the great Sukothai empire around the 13th century. This is the draw of Sukothai now- the ruins of the capital of this empire. The old city, some 15 kilometers from the new city of Sukothai, is a World Heritage Site, a huge set of temples and ruins left over from those days. In the morning, I talked the others into renting bicycles and we biked the 15 kilometers to the site. I love being on bicycle. People on the side of the road give you a huge smile, and often the thumps up or a wave when they see you on a bike. Never get that in a car. Anyhow, we biked out to the site, which was beautiful. There is a central area, which is clean and manicured, and where many of the temples have been rebuilt with red brick to make it seem more complete. Then outside of this central area are the temples which have not been fixed up as much. It was only in the 1950s that improvements began.
Trudy and I split from the boys and explored ourselves, on foot and on bike. It was hard to tell what was original and what was recreated, but it was still beautiful. There are huge standing Buddha sculptures, over 2 stories tall, throughout the main portion of the park. In the center, there is a temple complex, with many Buddha sculptures, large and small, hidden in alcoves. The surrounding areas are manicured lawns and flowers.

It was lovely, but more to my taste was when Trudy and I left the main complex and headed out to the temples outside. Most dramatic was Wat Si Chum, where a sitting Buddha image, perhaps 50 feet high, and the same distance from knee to knee. The enclave around it just fits it, so to see it you have to be a few feet from the statue. Incredible. Then Trudy and I biked out into the sugar cane fields, towards the hills which surround the area. The day was perfect, cool and sunny. As we biked on, we passed signs for many smaller wats, hidden off the main road. Following one of the signs, it led me up to a small clearing, where a wat still covered in grass and trees was hidden. Clearly, people had begun to clean it up; it was not totally overrun, but it was nothing like the clean temples in the main park. It was on the top of a hill, and so looked over the hills around it. A totally perfect day.

There is another interesting World Heritage Site near Sukothai, ruins from the same period, but we decided in the interest of time to give those a miss and start the next day for Um Phang, a small town in the very rural province of Tak, where we were told you could go elephant trekking and see wonderful waterfalls.

Mae Sot
We began the trip by catching a minibus to Mae Sot, a small town on the boarder with Burma. We were only here a few hours, but if given the chance it would have been interesting to spend more. Like the Tachelik, the boarder town in northern Thailand, this town was far more Indian, and far more Muslim. Women with head scarves and men with the hats (I should know what they are called), were common on the street. Many of the people looked Indian, and when we stopped at a food stall, the people could not speak Thai, only Burmese. I love places that mix cultures, languages, and nationalities like that. So interesting. But we did not really have time; Um Phang was 7 hours from Sukothai.

Um Phang
So, we switched our bags over to a glorified pickup truck with a roof cover welded on. The road from Mae Sot to Um Phang used to be known as the Death Highway: the road goes directly along the boarder with Burma, where rebels used to stop passing, sometimes killing those inside. Even now the road is dangerous, with steep cliffs and deep valleys, and the little road making hairpin turns. I was impressed, though, the driver was slow and relatively safe. As safe as you can be on a road like that. The inside of the truck was totally packed, and when we got out of town, we added eight more guys who clambered on to the top of the van and hung off the end. When they got off, a few miles onward, Trudy and I decided to try, and held on to the back of the van, giving us incredible views of the surrounding mountains. We also passed some Burmese refuge camps; they are many in the area.

What a strange little town Um Phang is. It is not much more than a village, and caters to far more Thai tourists than western ones. As the owner of one hotel said, “Yes, more Thai tourists. This is because this is Thailand. More Thai people.” I suppose he had a point. Um Phang makes its money out of one tour, and one tour alone: Wake up at 8 am, have breakfast. Go on a raft downriver for four hours, passing waterfalls and hot springs. Get in a van and drive to see the “Most Beautiful Waterfall in Thailand”. Have lunch there. Spend the afternoon at the waterfall. Go home. It is possible to spend the night at the waterfall, and then the next day, so see a tribe and ride an elephant. And no, there is nothing else to do in Um Phang. At least, that is what the tour agents said. It cost, before bargaining, something like $50.

Not interested in going on a tour for $50, we decided to find out what else could be done in Um Phang. We set out the next morning, walking towards the hills. The mountains we had driven through had shrunk down to hills by the time we reached Um Phang, but they were still tall and green. We walked out of town and kept on walking. We found ourselves on a small road, a glorified farm path, which led us up a hill and then weaving through more. On the top, there were wonderful views of the area. In total, we walked about 15 kilometers. Jungle trekking, I am sure a tour agency would have called it. It was beautiful, though, to get away from people and just to walk. We probably should have brought water (as Trudy reminded us to do!), but we all survived. When we got back to town, Trudy and I decided to take a swim in the little river behind our guesthouse. The water was shallow with little rapids and was wonderfully cool. The owner of the guest house gave us life vests, and we floated down the river on our backs. To get back upriver, however, we had to climb on to the banks and into someone’s farm, who I am sure was very amused to see two western girls in their swimsuits (I was also wearing shorts) and life vests running through their fields. When we got back to the guesthouse, we found a broken white chair in the water which served very well to provide elephant rides. SO!: We had jungle trekking, rafting, and elephant rides all in one day. Free of change. Yay!

Bangkok
The next day, we were back on the bus, this time planning on traveling the whole day and night to reach Bangkok by early morning on New Year’s Eve. Leaving at 8am, we got back on the bus to Mae Sot, this time sitting on the roof instead of hanging off the back. Totally comfortable, with my back up against our packs, and feet braced the roof rack. Trudy sat with me. From Mae Sot, straight back to Sukothai, where we caught another bus to Phisanulok, the nearest train station. We had grand plans of taking a second class sleeper, complete with beds, to Bangkok, arriving all fresh in the morning. By the time we got to the train station, all the second class seats/beds were sold out and we were stuck with third class seats. If only we had known. We got on the train at 11 pm and found almost all the seats, which were dirty grey linoleum, taken. We walked to the end of the train and finally found three seats free, where we hunkered down in all sorts of uncomfortable positions to get ourselves comfortable for the night. Thank god I am short. I slept okay. The others did not sleep at all.

We got to Bangkok at 6 in the morning, right as the sun was rising. A taxi ride got us to Khao San road, mecca of backpackers in Southeast Asia, and to the New Siam hostel, where I have stayed every time I have been in Bangkok. Then we went to bed.

Then, a few hours later, we woke up. This was, of course, New Years Eve, and Trudy and I devoted ourselves to preparing for the big evening. We had no idea what we were going to do, but we did know we needed to get new outfits. I think it is more than fair to be silly about clothes if it is once a year. So, we hit up Khao San road for shopping. I ended up with a lovely red skirt, a black tank top, bright red silk for my hair, red earrings. I am sure you, dear reader, do not care. Anyhow. More interestingly, while shopping, I was attacked by a puppet seagull. I was looking at postcards, I think, when a seagull swooped in. We got in a conversation, the seagull and I, to the amusement of both the seagull and the surrounding shoppers. The seagull was part of a small parade, all westerners and puppets. They were part of a community puppetry festival thing that was happening a few blocks away. So, after Trudy and I were done with our shopping, we checked it out.

Hoontown (New Year’s Eve)
Hoontown, which is Thai-glish for Puppet Town, was actually two blocks of Soi Sam Sen # 5, a few blocks from Khao San road. It was a festival that brought together puppeteers from America, Thailand, China, and places in between. I have an incredible love for free community art festivals. I mean, what could be better than getting people together to make art. Kids come with their parents, artists come, everyone comes. It’s especially great when it brings together people from all over the world. We were their in the early evening and checked out Chinese puppetry, but decided to come back for “new year’s with the community”, as it said on the program, at 6.

The guys were up for it, so around 6, we all went back over to Hoontown. It was totally changed. There were, in fact, no more puppets. The seating was replaced with tables, and on the stage, brightly dressed Thai kids. Confused, we wandered around a bit. Trudy and I were together when we suddenly got accosted by a very cheerful and persistent Thai man who made us sit down at one of the banquet tables. I think he thought we were puppeteers, because we ended up at a table with many of the puppeteers from that morning.

Soon, everyone was up from the table as the music at the stage, which had been the main stage for puppetry, began. Thai girls in bright pink prom dresses with back up dancers got up and sang while the kids in the crowd got up and danced. Then little kids got on stage and did a choreographed dance. Then a tiny little girl with a hula-hoop. Then two boys did Thai boxing. All this time the adults, who I assume were the parents and aunts and uncles, were cheering and dancing. The westerners, who were almost exclusively puppeteers (and us), were dancing like crazy. I am sure the nice Thai families thought we were nuts, but they seemed to enjoy it. We got lots of grins, and huge Thai ladies got up to dance with the western boys. All good family fun. The community festival went on until about 10pm, with lots of kids singing and dancing, and lots of little kids dancing with the foreign guests. By this time, I had met most of the puppeteers, who were mostly from San Francisco, Seattle, and NYC. One guy asked me if I rode a bike in NYC; it turned out he worked as a messenger while I was in the city. Another girl started to extol the virtues of Critical Mass to me until I told her she was preaching to the choir.

Around 10:30-11, the community party started to die down as the little kids got sleepy and started to head home. By this time, Tim and Alex, who were not as excited about community festivals and puppeteers as I was, had left. Trudy and I joined the throng of puppeteers on our way to Khao San road, where the entire road had become a party. There was a band playing on a stage in the middle of the street, which was so packed no one could move. We pushed our way to the front, where people made room for the funnily dressed westerners—many of the guys were in full body red jumpsuits—with their puppets. We had been there a matter of minutes when I found myself thrown over the back of one of the puppeteers and tossed on to stage. I was teamed up with a puppeteer from San Francisco, and given a beer, told to link arms, and drink. We totally won. The other team did not have a chance. Probably the first and last time I win a beer chugging contest in front of thousands. I was awarded an incredibly ugly baseball cap, and leapt into the crowd. Crowd surfing is great. Crowd surfing after winning the beer chugging contest on Khao San road at New Years? Check. Great New Years.

New years day was spent recovering and actually watching puppetry, and helping the puppeteers strike their festival. By far the best few days I have spent in Bangkok.

Siam Reap
On January 2nd, we caught the bus to Siam Reap, Cambodia, home of the temples of Angkor. Had we properly checked the Lonely Planet, we would have known that the tourist bus from Khao San road to Siam Reap is aptly nicknamed the “scam bus”, and that we should have taken anything but. Ah, that we had properly read the LP. The scam works like this: The trip from Khao San to Siam Reap is about 12 hours, so if you leave at 7am, you should get in at 7pm. What the scam bus does is take an extra long route, and stop at many unnecessary places along the way to make sure that you don’t get in until at least 11pm, when they drop you off at a guest house where they have an arrangement. That’s just the beginning—they take care of your visa at the boarder, over charging you $10 per person. They also switch buses on you at the border, going from a quite comfortable bus to a total bone breaker that takes you over Cambodia’s unpaved roads. In addition, and here is the kicker, for the entire trip, I did not have a seat. Honestly, this was probably better because on the ride in Cambodia, I got to sleep on a luggage rack in the back of the bus. I was the only one with any leg room. In the end, the trip was so bad that there was good camaraderie amongst the passengers. And we got there.

So, around 11:30 pm, we got into Siam Reap. Quite irritated at the whole thing, Trudy and I did not feel like staying in the guest house they dropped us off at. The boys were game, so we shouldered our packs and walked out into the Cambodian night. After an hour, getting a ride into town, and going to many closed places, we found a nice place, a quarter of the price of the place they dropped us at, and went to bed.

Angkor Wat
The next day, we headed to Angkor Wat. This World Heritage Site is home to some of the most amazing temples in the world. Built from the 8th to the 12th century, with additions in the 15th and 16th, these temples are stunning. They were built by the kings, each outdoing the last in the creation of an amazingly overwhelming monument. The first were Hindu temples, the later built as Buddhist, with the Buddhist kings ransacking the old Hindu temples and putting states of Buddha where Hindu gods had been. There are many temples, many more than I could see in my three days there. We got there in the morning, and spent went straight to Angkor Wat, the central and most incredible of the temples. I am pretty sure that I read that this is the largest religious building in the world. There is no point my trying to describe each temple; I will post pictures. But Angkor Wat, and many of the other temples, are incredible in that they are not just overwhelming structures, remarkably well preserved, but once close, there is unbelievable detail in carving. Interestingly, much of it is from the Ramayana and Mahabharata.

Our three days there were spent apart from each other, mostly. I think Tim and Alex stuck together, but Trudy and I went our own ways. We had bicycles (yay!), which gave us freedom to see all the temples, all of which were a few kilometers away from each other. My favorite temples were two of the most popular: the Bayon and Ta Phrom. Ta Phrom is the one also known as the Jungle Temple. It is the temple that is being both torn apart and held together by gigantic trees. Not much has been done to it since it was discovered; some trees have been removed, but many passages are still blocked, and it is easy to find oneself in a corridor or courtyard no one else has wandered in to. The detailed carving is still intact in many places, but it is crumbling. While the rest of the temples are so well taken care of, it is beautiful to see a place where things are as they were when the temples were discovered. The second favorite temple, possibly the most famous after Angkor Wat itself, is the Bayon. It was late the second evening when I went to the Bayon for sunset. Sunset is a big deal at Angkor, there are specific places where people go watch the sun set. The Bayon is not one of those places. This meant the place was totally abandoned. The Bayon is famous for the faces carved into its pillars, slightly smiling faces looking out every direction. I was there as the sun was setting and had it all to my self: I just lay on my back and looked up and the strange and beautiful faces.

After three days looking the temples, I felt my ignorance more than anything. I had read about the temples, sure, but they were so ancient, and there is so much history, it is hard to grasp. Interestingly, the temples are Angkor are free to Cambodians, and many people live in villages around the area. The place is packed with kids, many selling post cards and bamboo flutes, but more just playing. Walk off the main path in any direction, and you reach someone’s house, with a big under the floor and some chickens. It is a very alive place. The importance of Angkor to Cambodia cannot be underestimated: it is on the flag, it is the national brand of beer, it is everywhere. It is particularly important to a country that has been through as much as Cambodia in recent years to be able to look back and see when they were a great empire.

After three days in Angkor, we were ready to move again. I am glad we took that much time to see the temples, but at the end, it became an overwhelming amount of sandstone. Beautiful, but I think I would need to know a lot more about it to make it worth spending more time there. Someday. Siam Reap was also where Trudy left us, to head back to work in Bogor. She hopped on a flight back to work, and we got on a bus to Phnom Phen.

Phnom Phen
For a long time, I have been interested by Phnom Phen. It was designed by the French, who, if they give nothing else to their colonies, at least give them beautiful cities. When the French still ruled, it was known as the “Paris of the East”. Then the Khmer Rouge came to power, and thousands upon thousands of people were killed here, or taken from the city to be worked to death in the country side.

My one and only day in Phnom Phen, I rented a bicycle (as always), and explored. The city is built along the banks of the Tonle Sap river, right where it meets the Mekong. Many of the roads are the classic French boulevards, lined with trees and lovely old buildings. The beautiful parts of the city make the poor and scarred parts more shocking. I was biking, looking for a community dance studio where there were supposed to be traditional dance performances, when I made a wrong turn and ended up at Tuong Sleng, the high school that was renovated into a center of torture by the Khmer Rouge. Thousands of people died there, including kids, pregnant mothers, and monks. I did not go in, just looked in. As I turned to leave, a man whose face was gruesomely scarred by acid begged me for money. Acid was used by the Khmer Rouge and is still used by thieves today. Then, when I was on my bike riding up the river side, I decided to stop in a little river side café to get some cold tea. Because it was a place that attracted middle/ upper class travelers with money, there were so many beggars, mainly people who had lost their legs to land mines, or, the Lonely Planet informed me, snake bites. It feels so hypocritical to drink tea with milk while a ten year old with both legs amputated it asking you for money.

Another thing: Cambodia, for all practical purposes, is on the US dollar. The actual currency is the Riel, 4,000 Riel to the dollar. To most travelers, Riel is used as spare change. I tried to use more Riel than dollars, but people definitely prefer dollars. Anything with prices in Riel is aimed at foreigners, and is much more expensive than its local equivalent. Even when buying things in stalls, people would convert prices to dollars for me. It was strange, and just added another level of alienation between travelers and people who actually live in Cambodia.

But the city is beautiful. I started my day biking to the one hill in the city, where a woman named Phen was supposed to have placed three images of Buddha. Phnom means hill, Phen’s Hill. Now it is a temple where monkeys climb on the trees and elephants give rides along the circumference of the hill. Then I biked down and around the incredible geometric central market, a huge market selling food, mostly. I didn’t really go anywhere in particular, but ended up at the beautiful river bank, one of the lakes, down small alleys, and of course Tuong Sleng. The city really is beautiful; there are parks and trees everywhere. I can see how it was an incredible place to be before the Khmer Rouge. That night, the boys and I went to see a Cambodian dance performance at a little community theatre, which was great. Once again, I love community art performances. It was a little theatre that charged the foreign guests, then, once that was full, filled the rest of place up with Cambodian kids. I think it’s a great idea.

Sihanoukville
The next day we left Phnom Phen for Sihanoukville, a backpacker’s beach on the southern coast of Cambodia. It was everything a beach could have been- white sand, crystal blue water, people roaming the beach to sell me pineapple. I only had one day, but I spent it lying in the shade on the beach, and swimming in the blue water. The boys were out of commission for the day, but after a week on the tourist track in Cambodia, I knew many of the people on the beach. There are real benefits to following the tourist track. So, I swam, explored new beaches, had a lovely relaxing last day before…

Bangkok
After two nights on the beach, I took leave of Tim and Alex and headed back to Bangkok. I needed to get my Indonesian visa taken care of. The trip back was really good. I caught a boat to the Thai border. I sat on top, getting totally burned, despite tons of sun cream, but watching beautiful deserted beaches drift by. The water was so blue and beautiful. On the top of the boat with me were all the foreigners, in the boat were all the intelligent Cambodians. In Thailand, I caught a bus from Trat to Bangkok. In Trat, I had dinner on “Trat Food Safety Street”. Thailand is the only country I have been in where its night food stall market would be called “Food Safety Street”. It’s a movement from the Thai department of health.

There is not too much to be said about my last days in Bangkok. Without puppeteers or Trudy, it was a little lacking in diversions, although I did see Narnia and March of the Penguins- still in the theatres in Bangkok. A friend from the Cambodian tourist circuit came into town; that was fun. I had dinner with my one friend in Bangkok. I also began to master Bangkok public transportation: the sky train, the subway, the river boat, and the buses. Unfortunately, is generally cheaper to just take a cab. Still, as a sucker for public transportation, I took when I could. But most importantly, finished the visa, got on a plane, and am now back in Indonesia.

Bogor
And now I am back in Bogor for the next week or so, and then off to East Kalimantan, where I will be working in a sun bear rehabilitation center for the next few months. Then the grand plan is to get back on the road, travel up through the beaches of southern Thailand, then fly to Colombo, then up through India. Fly home from New Delhi.

What are you doing this summer? Want to come?