Angkor! Angkor! Angkor!

It's been awhile since I actually posted something myself, so I thought I would give everyone an update of how Jer and I have been doing. First and foremost, Happy Thanksgiving!

The last time Jer wrote we were in Nha Trang, Vietnam. Since then we have been to Dalat, Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City, depending opn who you talk to), Phenom Phen and Siem Reap. Dalat is a mountain town in Southern Vietnam, and was originally built up by the French during the colonial period to be a relaxation spot. The city's weather is much cooler than the rest of Southern Vietnam and it was a nice break for us. Dalat's weather means that it can grow many different vegtables (ones more similar to what we usually eat) so the food there was a treat. They also produce a pretty okay wine and great coffee- including the famous "weasel coffee." Besides relaxation the main thing to do there is to take a ride with the Easy Riders, a group of older motorcyclists who took part in the Vietnam War. Most of these guys worked for the Southern side, so they had a difficult time finding work after the war was over, and when tourists started coming back to Vietnam they began giving people guided tours of the countryside. Since many of them worked with Americans during the war (my driver was actually sent to Colorado for training) they speak very good English and had some really interesting stories to tell. Jer's driver was in the Air Force during the was but mostly worked at the base and didn't see any fighting. After the war my driver was sent to a "re-education"camp for 3 years, a tough price to pay for his involvement in the fight. They took us everywhere and we were able to get an up close view of the coffee plantations, the rice wine making process, and the silk collection and weaving process. I wish I could put some pictures up but the connection is a little too slow.

From Dalat we went to Saigon, a huge bustling city in South Vietnam. The city was a little overwhelming at first but we got the hang of it and had a great time. We visited the Cu Chi Tunnels, an elaborate system of tunnels that the Viet Cong during the war. The tunnels are TINY, I could barely fit in them. I was dissapointed in the tour however, there was basically no effort to present an accurate view of the war, at the beginning of the tour they showed a video made in the 1960s about the tunnels that described the Americans as "devils who like to kill women and children." At the end of the tour there was a shooting range where you could try out an AK-47, but I thought it was very poor taste to put a shooting range over an area where soldiers of both sides fought and died, so we left as soon as we could. The highlight of Saigon, however, turned out to be the War Remnants Museum, which actually did paint a more unbaised view of the war. It has a special photography display for all of the photgraphers who lost their lives during the war, a section on Agent Orange, weaponry displays, and an area dedicated to peace. One of the more interesting things about Vietnam was that everyone we talked to wanted the past to be in the past, and wanted to move forward peacefully. We expected some level of individual animostity to Americans (and we truthfully told everyone who asked where we were from) but we never ran into anything at all. The government might say something different, but the Vietnam people have gotten past the war and are looking to the future.

After Saigon we took a bus across the Cambodian border and into Phenom Phen. Going into Cambodia was a little bit like going back to India, there was trash everywhere, unpaved streets, people living in very rustic bamboo huts suspended over fetid water, but there was one BIG difference: the Cambodian people are awesome. In India the people we met were often not so nice or at the most indifferent and just wanted money, but in Cambodia the people (while they still want your money) will also joke around with you and seem to enjoy life more. Phenom Phen is a big city and I was a little paranoid about being there after being warned about frequent high speed motorbike bag snatching (and one case where a girl was dragged into traffic and killed) but everything went smoothly. Jer and I stayed at a longtime backpacker guesthouse ($5- back to cheap accomodation, yay!) near the lake, simply because soon the lake will be replaced by a resort hotel. For some reason they are pumping sand into the lake, and plan to build a resort on top of it. How this makes sense I don't know, but they are going about it very energetically. It also means that all the houses nearby are beginning to flood, so Jer and I thought we should check it out before it all disappears. In Phenom Phen we visited S-21, the famous and horrible prison/death camp used by the Khamer Rouge. It's actually a high school building, so it looks stragely innocuous from the outside. Inside there are displays of photographs of victims and, in 14 rooms, the empty beds that held the last 14 prisoners, along with some of the devices used in torture. They were tortured to death right before the Vietnamese took back the city and their bodies left in the prison when the Khamer Rouge fled. It was very sad and really brought home the reality of genocide, the sheer number of people that died at the hands of the Khamer Rouge or subsequently starved to death is almost to vast to contemplate. To round out an already depressing day we visited the killing fields, where the prisoners of S-21 were taken to die. The site is mostly grass, which covers a hilly landscape made up of disinterred mass graves. There were pieces of clothing on the ground, which we didn't take much notice to, until we realized that the clothes blonged to victims. Sorry to sound so morbid but just thinking about it gives me the chills...

Anyway, after Phenom Phen we took a bus up to Siem Reap, where we have spent 3 days visiting the Angkor temples. There are many different temples and they are all very beautiful. We watched 2 sunsets and Jer got up for a sunrise viewing of Ankgor Wat. We will post pictures soon!! Jeremiah and I also spent Turkey Day in Siem Reap. We didn't have turkey or mashed potatoes, but we did have fresh veggie spring rolls, beef curry, and ginger chicken! The food was excellent and we ate in a place called the Butterfly Restaurant, the whole thing was enclosed in a giant net and there were butterflies, frogs, and jungle plants everywhere. We spent the evening with Tony and Kate, two people we met on a boat ride in Nha Trang, Vietnam and we luckily keep bumping into! All in all it was a great evening. :)