Ted (Laos) - Wanderings

So it seems I've procrastinated quite well, and haven't written in over a month. Where do I start?

Maybe by country?

Thailand:

Visited the infamous death railway in Katchanaburi, where thousands of European and Asian POWS and conscripts died building a doomed connection between china and india. Sad that it was so commericialized with weekly firework displays replicating the bombing of the bridge back in WW2, and hawkers swarming around entrances to museums filled with photographs of dead bodies and emaciated forced laborers. Right on a river, it was green and beautiful like a lot of cities in Southeast Asia. Amazing cooking course too. Our curries and stirfrys turned out almost as good as the chef's!

Then saw Kira in bar-closed Khon Kaen (but we had fun anyway) and visited my old volunteer haunt in Nong Khai before bouncing into Laos. Haha, I think Kira's covered enough of Thailand already =)

Laos:

Vientiene- Capital of Laos, tame and lazy compared to a lot of capitals with a more secret night life, delicious fruit shakes (and tuna sandwiches), a very biased war museum (hurray for american imperialists!), some scattered french architecture, an incomplete arc de triumph-like structure built with concrete donated by the U.S. for an aiport... Very laid back, but not much to see.

Vang Viene- Backpacker capital of Laos, beautifully green mountains, squiggly and bumpy roads, caves, lazy tubing river, etc. The main "town" is full of restaurants with couches and pillows to sit or lay on, blaring television sets playing episodes of Friends, Family Guy and the Simpsons and serving banana pancakes, pizza, greasy things and not so good lao food. Oh, and 'happy' shakes and pizzas. I spent two days riding a rickity rented bike around, admiring the cliffs and sheer greeness of everything. Also watched a lot of simpsons one night. I think it would have been more fun with some crazy beloit drunks, because most of the people "hanging out" were high and immobile. Later I found out all the drunks were across the river, painful hindsight :(

Luang Prabang - Cultural powerhouse of Laos, full of old french buildings, tiny winding streets, temples, markets, painting stores. Definitely a place easy to wander. I've seen so many temples that it's hard to distinguish between them with just words from across the globe (with a faulty memory), but there were some powerful ones here. Beautiful paintings of the Lao version of the Ramayana, a magical epic that originated in India and, which features Hanuman, the magical monkey king who can do all sorts of cool things like fly and change his size and shape. He's not the main character, but he should be.

Pakse - Because of limited time, I didn't make it to the enigmatic plain of jars in north-east laos, which is basically... plains and plains of large stone jars dating back thousands of years with no clear origins. A very strategic area during the vietnam war/secret laos war. So I went to Pakse, which is a small city with no real attractions except for my vietnamese tour guide friend Thuyen, his mom's delicious noodle soup, and beerlao. Thuyen did take me to the old city of Champasak, once a Lao kingdom, and the nearbye Bolaven Plateau, but I was itching to get out of Laos.

Overall impressions- Greenest country I've ever been too. It was so green that even though there was garbage along every inch of roadside in some places, the plants just swallowed it up. So green that when a Lao family came on our VIP bus (very necessary on these bumpy hell roads where you don't want to be sitting next to chickens and fish that could easilly fall on you), and basically threw up the whole 6 hour ride, it was ok. P.S. They should hand out bigger bags for those situations. And the people? Laid back, smiley, and friendly. And the beerlao, bless its heart, and all the people it brings together.

Cambodia:

Siem Reap- ANGKOR WAT. Words cannot describe. Angkor Wat is the largest religious construction in the world and it did not dissapoint. Besides being huge and impressive from a distance with large spires basking equally in dusk or sunset, there were stunning bas reliefs and stone carvings depicting battles and myths. Angkor Wat is only one of the structures in the area, another big one being Angkor Thom, a large, fortified city, which I thought was even more impressive. Inside it had a temple complex with dozens of huge heads peering town, and the bas reliefs here depicted everything from daily life to Gods duking it out with huge armies. Thousands of figures on these walls. I was blown away. I spent three days bicycling around the temples marveling at civilization. I couldn't believe it. Sure they were all built with forced labor, and many people probably died building them, but Angkor Wat and friends together are the first thing I've seen that actually rival nature in beauty. Siem Reap, the city right next to Angkor Wat is dusty, small and easy to navigate. I loved it. THe area had a lot of beggars and hawking children, but not too overwhelming.

The people were really sweet there, but the moto driver from the airport...man-baby, no other word for it. He drove extremely slowly trying to sell me a moto tour of the temples, then dropped me off at the wrong hotel and told me it was the right one. Then the guy at the counter told me it was the right one. And the rooms were garbage, and expensive. I figured out the real name of the hotel, and as I left, angrilly, this moto driver yells out, "Fine! leave! I don't care!" I wanted to kill him, but I spared his life and found another place nearbye.

Phnom Phen- Cambodia's capital, center of the fucked up Khmer Rouge that tried to instigate a cultural revolution by depopulating its cities and sending all the educated people to work in the fields under frequently deadly conditions. Besides being a dumb idea,it was poorly thought out and like many communist regimes, impossible demands were made in insanely short periods of time. I visited the famous school turned torture-prison in the Toul Sleg (I can't remember the spelling) area of Phnom Phen and walked around the former classrooms in silence as they were now only filled with steel beds with chains and covered with stains of various colors. A few days ago I was marvelling at the beauty of Angkor Wat, and now I was in this monstrous place of the worst of human possibility. I didn't make it to the killing fields where thousands were killed either by bullets or by being bashed against walls, but I think the prison was enough. This happened in the 70's! ANd shit like this is still going on in some places. Where the hell are we?

Overall Impressions: Cambodia is a little dusty with bad roads, less green than laos, but endearing. Very underdeveloped, poor with thatched and falling apart houses everywhere, its a different kind of life. But you're so amazed that the people still seem happy. Especially the children. I couldn't help but feel a little insecure that just a few decades ago, many of the educated people were killed off, and that there was no getting around the fact that murderers from the Khmer Rouge were walking the streets. I know that many of them were afraid for their own lives and families, and that reconciliation is so important, but how do you live alongside people that ruthlessly killed, maimed and tortured for whatever reason? I later found out that A) You could kill someone in Cambodia and get a way with a several thousand dollar fine (paid to the military), and B) near the killing fields, there is a place where you can blow up a cow with a rocket launcher for $3000. A lot of war museums and old battle grounds feature firing ranges in Southeast Asian countries, and I just can't get over it. You see all this beauty, but you're scared for the world at the same time.

I'm running out of time, so I'll try to cover vietnam later. Sorry for cramming this all together. I love travelling. I feel like it's doing more for me than two years of class at Beloit since it's putting everything into context and making everything I've learned a lot more real. That and I'm a bad student... I know I've put some strong feelings in this entry, but overall, the people here are some of the nicest I've ever encountered (besides some Vietnamese that I will get to later), and the cities and towns are alive, relaxing, and make you feel like you could melt right in at times. I'm still amazed by all the greeness, trees, bicycles, random dogs, etc I see here compared to the suburbs of Chicago.

I hope you're all having a great time! I really want to wander all over after reading all of your entries. I wish I had some background European experience to put everything more in context. Let's all stay healthy,

Ted