Tag: <span>Cambodia</span>

Adventures

Ocean Swims and Jellyfish Stings

After two months of travelling, and not having had yet been to a beach I was eager to get down to the south of Cambodia and visit some of those beaches.

But I hated Sihanoukville. It was raining basically the entire time I was there and the beach down there was so incredibly dirty. It was a bit of a reality check discovering this after hearing so many wonderful things about the beaches in Cambodia and seeing so many incredible photos. Every morning I woke up it was grey and raining, so I didn’t even make it out to any of the islands. Honestly though, what is the point of going to an island for a day when it’s just raining the whole time?

After two days in Sihanoukville, I decided to head East to Ream National Park. And here it was: a small piece of paradise. I stayed at the Monkey Maya in a 16-bedroom dorm with mosquito nets covering the bunk beds and the sound of the ocean lulling me to sleep every night. The hostel/ resort is located on a private beach with beautiful (and clean) white sand surrounded by the Cambodian jungle.

It was stunning here. And peaceful.

Being off season, there weren’t many people at the Monkey Maya, which made it all that more relaxing. It was a nice spot to just not do anything other than read and snooze in some of the hammocks.

The area is also known for plankton. I’ve never seen plankton before so needless to say I was in awe. It looks like stars have fallen from the sky, getting trapped in the ocean and lighting up beneath the surface of the water with your every touch. Their fluorescent blue twinkling on the waves beneath the inky black sky.

My last night at the Monkey Maya, there was small but solid crew of people and, after a few shots of whiskey, swimming in the ocean to see the plankton was agreed upon. A few of us didn’t have the foresight to put on our bathers so we just stripped down naked and ran in.

This night, the plankton was even brighter and more magical than the previous night. It was darker and we swam further out and, being naked, it was surreal to watch my body shimmering blue with every move under the water. The waves crashed loudly around us, bringing a sparkling plankton filled foam with it. We could only really tell where one another was in the water from the dark, shadowy human forms that were surrounded by the faint blue glowing plankton.

After about thirty minutes of twirling and kicking and splashing to watch the plankton, two figures hurriedly exited the water, their little white bums shining out through the darkness.

It’s not just plankton in the water but jellyfish too. One of those little white bums had the unfortunate pleasure of being stung by one… On the tip of his manhood.

The poor guys spent the res of the night with his dick wrapped in a cloth of vinegar, trying to soak out the stung while his friends stayed awake with him in case he had a reaction.

I hope he can laugh about it now.

Adventures

A Day at The Killing Fields and S-21

I didn’t do much planning or research before heading to Cambodia. All I knew was that I wanted to volunteer for a week at the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary and, of course, visit Angkor Wat.

What I didn’t plan for was the Killing Fields or S-21. This mostly came from my own ignorance and not researching or reading into Cambodia and the history of the country before arriving.

Beaches and Angkor Wat, right? I was completely unaware of the country’s dark and recent tragic history. We didn’t learn anything about Cambodia in the school back home [in Canada]. It’s just not included in our history classes.

It wasn’t until one of the volunteers I was working with at the Cambodia Wildlife Sacntuary mentioned the Killing Fields and how I needed to include it in my trip that I added it to my itinerary.

She was absolutely right. The Killing Fields and S-21 is an incredibly important visit to make. It was a horrific and difficult day, learning about this dark past of Cambodia, that left me in tears. I think the most shocking thing to me though was the fact that I did not know this had happened. It wasn’t even that long ago – 1973.

For those of you who don’t know about the Killing Fields and S-21, they are essentially memorials for the mass genocide that occurred in Cambodia in the early 1970s.

According to the audio tapes I listened to in S-21, while the world was focussed on the War in Vietnam, there was a secret war being waged in Cambodia. More than 110,000 tons, or more than 2 million bombs were dropped on Cambodia during this time. Still to this day, Cambodia remains the heaviest land mined country in the world.

So when the Khmer Rouge Regime marched in to Siem Reap, the people were happy to see them. They thought this meant freedom and an end to the bombings. The terror was just beginning though as Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge Regime had extreme communist views, forced everyone out from the cities into the outlying villages, and then forced them one again even further out. He demanded rice production be increased to a number that was simply not attainable but had people working themselves to death.

Anyone intellectual was viewed as a threat to him – if you wore glasses you were screwed as this was viewed as a sign of intelligence. Pol Pot questioned and tortured thousands and thousands of people, including his own army generals when he felt threatened by them, leading to the execution of more than 1/4 of the population.

The Killing Fields and S-21 are set up in an informative and impactful way.

I started the day at S-21, one of many schools turned prisons during the Khmer Rouge Regime. With the entry ticket, you are given a headset that guides you through the prison, recounting what happened there and teaching visitors about the Khmer Rouge Regime. It’s a sobering walk through the buildings, seeing the different torture tools that were used on the prisoners and the horrendous conditions in which they were kept.

It was a school and it very much looks like it once was a school, making it all the more chilling because you can practically hear the sounds of children bantering in the classrooms while you learn that barbed wire was strung up across the balconies to prevent prisoner’s attempting to jump to their death.

S-21 was a good spot to start the day as the tour here gave a lot of background information on the Khmer Rouge Regime, as well as included personal stories of survivors and testimonies from members currently on trial for their crimes against humanity.

From S-21 I went over to The Killing Fields. The Killing Fields is known for its five-storey high memorial to the victims of the Khmer Rouge made from skulls that have resurfaced from these mass graves during rainy season.

Still to this day, during rainy season, bones of people murdered at Pol Pot’s orders are turning up as the heavy rains push the bones up from below.

The tapes here walk you through the different areas where mass graves were found, explaining the different ways that people were executed. The whole tour finished with an audio recording of the propaganda that would loudly play over the speaker phones in that area, which had an incredible and lasting chilling effect on the tour.

The visit is a difficult one. As I said, it left me in tears. I don’t understand how we can treat one another so horrifically. However it is an important visit to make. Out of respect for the country and their past, but also out of respect for history. History needs to be studied and recounted so that we can learn from the mistakes of the past. Hopefully we can learn from this tragedy moving forward. If we can’t learn from this tragedy, then hopefully we can learn to respect the value of life.

Adventures

From Battambang to Phnom Penh

This is a four part story about my first harrowing bus experience in Southeast Asia.

Anyone who travels Southeast Asia has at least one story about a terrible journey from Point A to Point B.

Don’t get me wrong, while travelling in Nepal, I took a few busses that left me praying in my seat that I would make it without flying off the cliff that was an inch from the tires of the bus whipping around the corner, or that the driver playing chicken with oncoming traffic would merge back in time. However my worst travel experience didn’t come from the windy, bumpy journey from Kathmandu to Pokhara, but the unnecessarily long and frustrating trip from Battambang to Phnom Penh.

Part 1: The Six Hour Wait

For those who do not know, Battambang is a small town between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. It’s an interesting stopover between the two major cities because it was once a French port in Cambodia. All the buildings there are French colonial style and the contrast between the beauty of the architecture in the area with the surrounding poverty is shocking.

It’s not hard to get to and shouldn’t be hard to leave, so I don’t know where I went wrong.

The bus I wanted to take out of Battambang was the 2:30 p.m. bus to Phnom Penh, which would have me arriving around 8:00 p.m. Travelling on my own as a female, to a city that does have warnings to take extra care in, I had no desire to arrive later than that.

At 2:00 p.m. (sharp) a tuk-tuk driver pulled up to my hostel to take me to the bus station, as per the pre-arranged agreement with the place that I bought the bus ticket. I hopped into the back of the tuk-tuk, hauling my 20 kilo bag up on the opposite seat and off we went.

When we got to the “bus station,” essentially just a table with an umbrella and a bench beside it, the driver took my bag out of the tuk-tuk, put it on the bench, said something in Khmer to the man at the desk before turning to me to say “right stop. 2:30.”

I checked my watch and it was 2:20 p.m. Perfect timing.

But 2:30 comes and goes. And no bus showed up. The guy at the “desk” didn’t speak English, but nodded when I asked if the bus was coming before motioning for me to sit back down. It’s Cambodia though I simply thought the bus was running on Cambodian time.

Fifteen minutes later, there still wasn’t a bus. Then it’s 2:50 p.m. and even for Cambodian time standards that’s a little excessive. So when a new man shows up at the “desk,” one who spoke English, I was happy to be able to find out how much I had to wait.

“Oh! No bus!” he exclaimed.

“I’m sorry, what? But my ticket says the bus is leaving at 2:30.”

“No. There’s no bus at 2:30. The next one is at 4:00!”

Well shit. So there I was, at this bus station that wasn’t really a bus station, in the middle of the city, with this massive backpack of my stuff, weighing in at 20 kilos. At least it’s only one more hour until the 4:00 bus though, so I settled in with my book and waited.

Part 2: From the City Station to the Chicken Station

4:00 p.m. rolls around. A man with a motorbike pulls up to the bus station.

Not a bus. A motorbike.

The man said something to the guy at the “desk,” who replied to him before motioning for me to get on the motorbike.

The last time I was on the back of a motorcycle I wound up with a second degree burn on my calf from the exhaust. That’s a story for another day but obviously that was what I was thinking about when I was looking at that motorbike. And how were we going to do this with my 20 kilo backpack PLUS my 7 kilo carry-on backpack?

Obviously the driver put the big bag in front of him, straddling it between his legs. Why didn’t I think of that?

So with my big bag nestled safely in the front between his legs, I hopped on the back of the back, side saddle because I am a lady after all. And I don’t wan’t to burn my leg on the exhaust.

The driver then took off, whipping down the road, swerving potholes and other drivers, waving off tuk-tuks that were pointing and laughing at the ridiculousness of us. And probably also at the look of pure terror on my face.

After 20 minutes driving North of the city, we pulled into a bus stop with plenty of chickens and stray dogs to welcome us. My knuckles were white from holding on so tightly that I could barely unclench them before climbing off the back of his bike.

The driver then walked over to the man at the desk there, said something in Khmer and turned me to say “wait here” before jumping back on his back, tearing off down the dirt road.

It was 4:30 by the time we got there. At least now I’m somewhere that looks like an actual bus station however, there still wasn’t a bus in sight.

Once again, I waited, thinking “Cambodia time… Relax.”

By 4:45 though I feel as if I have been patient enough so I went and asked the man at the desk where the bus was, showing him the ticket I had made the other guy re-write to say the new bus with the new time.

“Oh… No… Sorry. No bus at 4:00,” he said. “The next bus is at 6:00.”

And I lost it. My patience has completely worn out. I was supposed to be on a bus at 2:00 p.m., ensuring I would arrive in Phnom Penh by 8:00. There was no bus at 2:00 and the next bus I was told I would be on doesn’t actually exist so now I feel as though I am being jerked around. On top of that, I don’t speak Khmer and no one spoke English so there was no way for me to figure out what was actually going on.

This poor man got the grunt of my frustrations… As in a sweaty, tired girl bawling in front of him. Let me tell you, even with a language barrier, this man understood my tears. And it doesn’t matter which country you are in, a woman crying will always make a man uncomfortable.

But what could I do? I made this man issue me a new ticket for the next supposed bus, sat back down in my chair with a chicken running around my feet and settled in for a two hour wait. I couldn’t go anywhere because my massive and heavy bags, nor was there anywhere for me to go to because I was in the middle of nowhere.

6:00 p.m.: there is still no bus.

“Oh… No… It’s at 7:00!” the man exclaimed when I went over to inquire, looking slightly scared in anticipation of my reaction.

Wonderful, I thought. I would now be arriving after midnight. That made me very uneasy.

Finally, at 6:30 p.m., people began to show up to the bus station. I had been sitting there with no one but the bus station guy, a half naked Cambodian man cooking on a nearby grill, and chickens running around and squawking every five minutes. People showing up on their motorbikes with bags was a huge relief.

Three busses stopped and let people off after 6:30. Each time, I looked at the man at the desk and he would simply shake his head no at me. Until finally… A bus arrived, I looked at him and he nodded yes with a smile on his face. He was just as happy for me. Or just really happy to see me go because he didn’t want me crying on him again.

By the time they got the bus loaded up with everyones motorcycles, mattresses and fresh produce, it was 8:00 p.m. and we finally hit the road for Phnom Penh, me jammed in the back with all the Cambodian men staring at me, sitting on a bag of onions.

Part 3: The Journey

Being the only tourist on this bus, I spent most of the ride being stared at. Until I fell asleep and then my eyes were shut so I don’t know if people were continuing to stare at me.

About two hours into the ride, a baby started to cry. As you do when you’re a small child on a six-hour bus ride.

The child’s mother got up as the bus lurched around, soothing the baby, bouncing him up and down on her hip trying to calm him down.

Suddenly, a woman in front of her turned around and starting speaking very sharply to her. And the she started to yell at her.

Keep in mind, this is all happening in Khmer and she was speaking way too fast for me to understand what she was saying to the mother. Regardless, I could understand the tone and volume of her voice and this woman was not please with the mother.

The mother simply stood there calmly, continuing to bounce her baby, not even dignifying the woman’s shrieking with an answer. Another lady though, was not having it. From what I assume, this lady ended up defending the mother, yelling back at the woman.

Now, all the men that I was with at the back of the bus were sitting up in their seats, staring at the squabble that broke out, commenting to one another and smiling, clearly finding the fight humorous.

The two women continued to yell at one another, their voices getting louder and louder, and their tone getting more aggressive. The bus driver pulled over and stopped the bus because, I can only assume, he couldn’t concentrate on the road with the insane shrieking occurring behind him.

It was a good thing he did though because the fight escalated even more and the first woman turned around and began hitting the second lady with her umbrella.

Meanwhile, the crying baby? He was done. He was over it. He realized he was getting his mother yelled at and had stopped crying. He was just sitting in his mother’s arms, watching the whole thing with this expression on his face that looked like he was saying “what? I’m done crying. Calm the fuck down.”

Part 4: Two A.M. Arrival

This was exactly what I was trying to avoid by booking a 2:00 p.m. bus: arriving at an odd hour, in a new and unknown city that has a reputation for being slightly more dangerous. Plus, at that point, I had been travelling for 12 hours, trying to get somewhere that shouldn’t have taken more than six.

I had arranged for the hostel to send a tuk-tuk to pick me up at the bus station, however upon arrival, there was no tuk-tuk waiting for me.

Of course, being the only tourist coming off that bus, all the drivers there pounced on me.

There was one man who spoke a little bit of English and offered me a decently over-priced ride to my hostel. However it was on the back of his motorbike. Seeing no other options, I took this man up on his offer. I repeated at least five times to him my destination, and he repeated the destination back to me every time, nodding his head, laughing and smiling the whole time.

We agreed on a price to get me there, agreed on the destination, and shook hands about all this agreeing.

So off we go. Second time in 24 hours on the the back of a motorbike with more than 20 kilos of my stuff, being driven by a man who I’m sure was slightly drunk. The whole time he was trying to talk to me but his English was so broken I couldn’t understand him. He spent most of the ride saying “ok, ok, ok” and laughing, which made me more nervous. What on earth was he laughing about? I still have no idea.

After about 15 minutes on the back of his bike, flying through stop signs and swerving last minute to avoid other drivers, he dropped me off at a hostel… The wrong one. It was his friend’s hostel obviously, and he wanted to stay there because then he would make commission off my booking. I already had a place booked for the night and I had told him this multiple times.

Upon realizing I was at the wrong spot, I went back out and told him I did not want to stay there. I had a booking elsewhere and we had agreed before I got on his bike that he would take me there.

“You don’t want to stay here?”

“No sir, I do not want to stay here. I want to go to the hostel I pre-booked, the one we agreed that you would take me to.”

“Okay I take you there.”

So I got back on bike with my load that is my current life. As we took off for the correct destination he said: it’s ten more dollars.

I literally have no words for this. I was exhausted and furious and tired of being jerked around. But I was also on the back of his bike, with all my stuff. I debated jumping off the back, calculating how badly I would get hurt and if it was worth losing my big bag which has everything I need for the next six months. It wasn’t worth it.

For the next ten minutes, I was fuming as he continually said to me “ten more dollars.” But being on the back of a bike is no time to be arguing with your driver about how much you will pay them. So I sat quiet and prayed that he was actually taking me to my hostel.

He did. We arrived at my hostel and this time I saw the actual name of what I had booked. I got off his bike and took my stuff from him while he held out his hand expectantly for his payment.

“I’m just going to check that this is the actual place I told you to take me to before I pay you,” I told him.

“It is! It is!” he exclaimed, pointing at the hostel name on the wall.

“I just want to check for myself since you initially took me to the wrong place.”

I rang the buzzer, waking up the poor nighttime receptionist sleeping on the couch, took all my stuff inside with me, checked in for the night and booked an extra night because, after that day I wanted to do nothing more than lay out by the hostel pool tomorrow.

I then went back outside with the cash ready in my hand. No digging around in my wallet in front of this guy. I presented him with the amount we first agreed upon.

“This is what we agreed upon when I got on your bike so this is what I’m paying you.”

“No!” he said. “Ten more dollars! I had to use more gas!”

“I’m sorry but it’s not my fault that you decided to take me to a different spot than what we had agreed upon. I said the name of this place multiple times to you, and you repeated it back to me. This is the amount we agreed upon for you to take me here so this is what I am paying you.”

And that was that.

 

 

 

Adventures

Chan’s Story

This is the story of Chan… One of the most amazing people I have ever met.

Chan has a beautiful round face that lights up when she laughs or smiles… Something she does quite often. Her shoulder-length hair is dark as liquorice and her deep brown eyes twinkle when she is happy. But behind that twinkle there is sorrow. A sorrow so deep it is constantly hiding under the surface of those beautiful brown eyes.

Chan sees her face like a pancake. she doesn’t realize how her laugh brings joy to those around her. She thinks her eyes look like poop and she wears a turtle neck under a button down, three pairs of pants, and a wide-brimmed straw hat to keep her honey almond skin from getting darker. She thinks she is too skinny and is constantly trying to put on weight to be more appealing to Cambodian standards but, all the weight goes to her face which she thinks makes her look even more like a pancake.

Chan is one of the hardest working individuals I have ever met. Never seeming to tire and putting all the boys to shame. She is a little energizer bunny, always giving 110% even under the sweltering hot Cambodian sun. She taught herself English and can chew threw sugar cane quicker than an elephant. She never takes vacations and gives her mother 100% of her earnings.

Her mother has one of the farms in the area surrounding the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary. Every ten days, when Chan gets paid for her work at CWS she gives the entirety of her earnings to her mother so that she can buy whatever crops she needs for the farm. Chan keeps nothing of what she has earned for herself, nor does she even think about keeping any of it. Her mother needs it for the farm, so why wouldn’t she give her all of her wages? She is that selfless and that hard-working.

Chan’s mother is also very sick. Most likely from malnutrition although I never found out what with. Any extra time that Chan has, which is incredible that she even finds extra time considering she is always working at the sanctuary, she is helping her mother out.

Chan is truly one of the most beautiful people I have ever met – inside and out. But she is filled with insecurities and a sense of sorrow… A sorrow that seems to be constantly hiding behind those twinkling brown eyes.

She credits Lek, the lady who runs the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand, with saving her life. The Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary is one of ENP’s projects and, until CWS opened up, Chan wasn’t able to earn any money.

When the sanctuary first opened, Chan worked with some of the other girls in the kitchen, constantly eating the leftover food to try and gain weight.

But she was already suffering from a slew of stomach problems… Stomach problems that, in all likelihood, stemmed from serious malnutrition.

When Chan was younger, to curve the hunger pains, she would eat anything she could. Including dirt from the forest ground. Food, and nutritious food at that, wasn’t easy for her to come by.

Finally, after so many years of not eating properly, and consuming dirt to make herself feel full, her stomach had had enough. So she took some rice, went out to a hut in the jungle, and settled in for death to join her there.

Chan was dying. She had accepted her fate and went off to die in a way that wouldn’t bother anyone. Alone and in the jungle.

But Lek happened to be visiting that weekend and she noticed Chan’s absence. After asking around for her, she learned that Chan had, uncharacteristically, asked for time off. I imagine as well that Chan’s medical state would have been guessed at.

Lek wandered around the jungle looking for Chan and, somehow, found her in her little hut of death. I’m not sure how Lek found Chan, but she did. Upon seeing the condition that Chan was in, and where she had gone to have her final moments, Lek took her to a hospital and paid for all her medical bills.

Chan credits Lek with saving her life. From the story she tells about this time, Lek did save her life. And what a wonderful soul Lek saved.

While Chan’s story is one that I will never forget, it is her spirit that left a lasting impression on me.

Thank you, Lek, for finding Chan. And thank you, Chan, for being such an incredible person. You truly inspired me in the short amount of time that I got to know you.

Adventures

One Week, Four Elephants

My experience at the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary was fantastic.

But by the end of the week I didn’t feel good about myself. I felt like I hadn’t done enough, nor like I had been utilized adequately by the sanctuary.

I went into the week expecting (and honestly looking forward to) scooping a shit ton of poop. We definitely did scoop a lot of poop (I’m real good with a pitchfork and wheelbarrow now), however I felt like the sanctuary could have better utilized our eager hands to contribute to the long term goals of the sanctuary.

Yes… The elephant poop needed to be scooped. And yes, I would have been disappointed if I didn’t get to scoop that poop. But I was expecting to be doing more work than what we were assigned.

One of the other issues in Cambodia that I was completely unaware of was the country’s problem with deforestation. According to CWS, Cambodia used to be 70% forests and now only has 3% left. The sanctuary sits right on top of the land that has been affected by the deforestation (one-million acres to be exact).

Going into my week volunteering at CWS, I was expecting to be spending a lot of time planting trees in the jungle. I imagined something similar to the tree-planting out West, back in Canada. However, instead of contributing to rehabilitating the deforested land, we spent time helping with the sanctuary’s garden… Something that was already being done by some of the local girls who work there.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved spending a week with elephants, scooping poop, cutting sugar cane and going for jungle walks. However I wanted to do more. I wanted to contribute more to the park and have the work that I was doing there have a longer-lasting, beneficial effect on the sanctuary. CWS has an amazing vision and goals but I think the steps to attain these goals needs to be better executed.

At the end of the day though, even if I didn’t feel like I had been utilized to my full potential, the knowledge I gained at the sanctuary about elephants and Cambodia was eye-opening.

Plus I fulfilled a lifelong dream of mine to take care of my favourite animals.