Welcome to the Golden Land!

Hello my dear readers!!! I am finally back after one month in Myanmar*! I am sure you couldn't wait for reading more of my stories... well, this one is really long, with videos and many photos! Oh yeah, was a hell of a job, so please honour and enjoy it...

On my already 5-months-lasting trip, many people told me that I should go to Myanmar. 

And finally I did and I do not regret at all! And as my friend Alice, whom I know from Vienna, is also travelling through South-East-Asia at the moment and seemed highly interested in going to Myanmar, we decided to travel together for one month. It was one month full of new impressions from a completely different world! Is is an amazing country, with an acutally sad recent history and political situation, but amazing people! 

To everything I've seen so far it is quite different indeed - it is a cut-off world: 

Myanmar is internationally boycotted because of the way the military junta is suppressing its own people, which you are hardly becoming aware of as a tourist however. But the situation is getting better with the country opening up to the West, with "The Lady" Aung San Suu Kyi, beloved and much respected leader of the opposition and daughter of the national hero Aung San, free from house arrest after more than 15 from the past 21 years and with quite promising upcoming elections... We shall see, I hope the best! 

As a tourist you only realise indirectly that the government wants to hide a lot from you because of the travel restrictions: 70% of the country are closed for tourism. And you are not only highly limited when travelling but also constantly watched and registered. But on the other hand tourists are treated with biggest care (signs saying "Take care tourists" (sic!) are everywhere!) and the police is really helpful ;)

“Because of the travel restrictions, tourists can stay in Myanmar for weeks and never see any evidence of the regime’s more brutal tactics. I have spoken to some tourists who wonder what all the human right activists campaigning outside Myanmar are fussing about. (‘Everyone smiles at you – it can’t be that bad’ one tourist said with a shrug). Indeed, everything in Myanmar does seem normal: people go about their business in the streets, talking, chewing betel, reading, going to the movies. As one Burmese friend had chided me, ‘What did you expect? That we would all be sitting around on the pavements crying?’.“ (Emma LARKIN 2004 - Finding George Orwell in Burma)

However, even knowing why the country is cut off I enjoyed the effects of the this situation: for me it was great NOT to be reachable at all for a month. But more generally speaking: it was really interesting to be in an Asian country, where people are still honestly friendly, open and interested (and not only when you are buying something) and are still living in their traditional way without being influenced by the West. In the case of Myanmar the most visible signs of this are in my eyes longyis, thanakha and betel-nuts...

Longyis are the traditional Myanmar clothes: a long straight piece of tissue wrapped together to a skirt which both - men and women - are wearing. Men are wearing mainly longyis with a checked pattern whereas women are having all different types of longyis, mainly with flowers; and quite often as a combination with a top of the same tissue.

Thanakha is a paste used in Myanmar as make-up and sun-protector is made of. It is a yellowish cream that mainly women, but also men, put on their faces in the various different ways... When not used to it you might think that they have dirt in their face, or some war paint :)

The proof that people love betel-nuts is visible all over the streets. Inside a big leave, pasted with a whitish lemon-cream they put some cut betel-nuts, roll the leave and then just chew the whole thing. Apparently it gives you energy... We don’t know, because we both definitely didn’t want to try it: the red teeth you get from chewing the nuts look awfully disgusting. After chewing it is spitted on the streets. So the whole streets look like a big slaughterhouse with blood-looking red spitting all over...

But there is so much more, which makes this country so special - and surreal as well...

There are no ATMs (all international banks went out of the country...) and credit cards are not accepted anywhere. So you do have to come with all the money you might want to spend. But even worse: only new crisp USD-notes are accepted. So you end up travelling around all the time with loads of beautiful dollar-bills... But that's still not all you need to know about money in Myanmar nowadays: you’d rather change these crisp US dollars on the black market: The official exchange rate of the kyat is 1,00 USD = 6,28 MMK. Well, on the black market it is “slightly” better: for one US Dollar you get 800 kyat there – which is 120 more!! 

Money and numbers lead me directly to the former leader Ne Win: in order to redistribute the money (taking money from the rich - that was at least his popular reason...) he abolished all 25-, 50- and 100-kyat bills in 1985 - without warning and with compensation of only much smaller value. At the same time he introduced 75-kyat-bills - oh, which suprise: it was in the year of his 75th birthday! One year later, 15- and 30-kyat-bills were introduced, and again one year later all 25-, 35- and 50-kyat-bills abolished - again without warning but this time without any compensation: 75% of the money in use became worthless from one day to the following!! I'll end the money topic with the not last, but last awkward introduction of banknotes: still in 1987, 45- and 90-bills were introduced because of Ne Wins predilection to numerology - his favourite number was - you guessed it - 9!

Ne Win's arbitrary went further than just numerology: Cars are (still!) driving on the right side of the street, although the all have their wheel on the right side. And it is not like in Russia, where I had discovered that the further East you go the more cars you’ll see with the wheel on the right side (in Irkutsk I’d say 75% of the cars had the wheel on the right side… can somebody explain me why it is like this in Eastern Russia??). The reason for this stupidity in Myanmar however is completely absurd: Ne Win, although having introduced "the Burmese way to socialism" (only for popularity reasons) didn’t like communism at all and he wanted to abolish anything “left”: So no traffic on the left side and no wheels on the left side...

Ne Win was not the only arbitrary leader: Sein Win forbid motorbikes in Yangon, after having been overtaken by a motorbike while he was stuck in a traffic jam. He simply couldn’t cope with the fact that somebody was going faster as him. There are still no motorbikes in Yangon today...

The actual rulers are not better neither... you might know that the capital city is not Yangon anymore since 2005, but Nay Pyi Taw – a new built city in the middle of nowhere... They relocated the capital after having consulted astrologists!

But enough of these stories now - I guess you want to know what I did and what I experienced in Myanmar?!

Yangon

The first stop of our trip was Myanmars former capital Yangon: we stayed there a few days before taking a bus to Mandalay. It is a bustling city with a lot of markets, street-vendors and food-stands with delicious food. 

We were there for Independence Day, the 4^th of January, when Myanmar got independent from Great Britain in 1948. We were hoping to see some parades or anything like that, but nothing like that took place. The people were celebrating in far smaller circles: the side-streets were blocked and in the middle big play-grounds were painted on the floor for competitions between groups of kids in different games, accompanied with loud music (mainy Western music translated into Burmese... so no waka-waka from Shakira, but waka-waka from some Burmese singer...). We really enjoyed walking around in the streets of Yangon, talking with the monks who talked to us and also with my CS-friend: Before coming to Myanmar I had contacted all CSers I found in the country (there are not many anyways) and we met with one of the two who had answered on the second day in the morning and then again in the evening of the same day, and had a great night drinking with him and his friend. However, when he started to be curious about our planned trip through Myanmar and all it’s details we started to get rather suspicious...

I have read a lot about Myanmar before coming here and I knew a lot about the suppression of the people. About the military junta, the political system and about the impact of this system on the society. I read Emma Larkins (2004) book Finding George Orwell in Burma, in which she describes Myanmar as a country like in George Orwells 1984 (from where the famous words “Big Brother is watching you” come from - if you haven't read Orwells 1984 so far, read it!!): where everybody is being watched by the government and by neighbors. No wonder that this book is forbidden in Myanmar... Anyhow, now I can tell you that it was not a good idea at all to read this book before coming here! Having read this highly negative and paranoid book, I could not help but doubt some people’s friendliness and become paranoid myself. I am shocked about what paranoia made with me in 2 days and can through these feelings only imagine its horrible impact on society. Because the feeling not being able to trust anyone may definitely destroy the solidarity of a whole society. 

"The system operates on the theory that if you think you are being watched you respond in the same way as if you are really being watched ‘So, you see’, said Myo Kyi, ‘it doesn’t make any difference whether they have informers or not. It is enough that we believe that their informers are everywhere. After that, we start to do their work for them.(…) When I thought too much about the ever present surveillance I found it incredibly unnerving. I would view everyone I met with paranoia, weighting up the possibilities that he or she might be an informer or member of the MI. If someone approached me while I was sitting on my own in a teashop and asked too many questions I would often give him or her a cold shoulder. Afterwards I would feel terrible about it. (…)" 
(Emma LARKIN 2004 - Finding George Orwell in Burma)

So like Emma Larkin in here book, we got suspicious of my CS-friend: The third day in Yangon we were rather busy organising our further trip, but he still wanted to meet up again and accompany us. When having a short tea-break he asked us a lot about our planned trip, where we were planning to stay and so on. And even though we have had a great time with him and his friends the evening before and even though he had helped us a lot, we started feeling really uncomfortable. With every of his questions we were became even more sure to have revealed him as an informer for the government, who wants to find out our “real” reasons to be in the country. If we are maybe not tourists but maybe journalists... Why else should a tourist be of interest for the government? We were even more convincd of this when reading in the Lonely Planet guidebook: “Will I be followed? At some point, most likely, though very few visitors even realise it.” 

But luckily enough I got rid of this paranoia with the time... Yes, you are registered everywhere and it must be really easy for the Myanmar government to track back my whole trip as my passport number appears in every guesthouse and every mean of transport I took. Well, in the end, I don’t really care. What should I fear anyway? Why should I care them knowing that I was in Mandalay on this and that day??.... yes I was there, and so what?! So with the time passing, with a felt distance to the book, I got less paranoid. Myanmar people are simply too nice to believe them all to be informants... 

So of course we met my very dear CS-friend again on our last day in Yangon (you can see - he does look like the national hero Aung San on the 75-kyat-bill!!) – and I now really really regret having had any doubts about him on the first hand! And like Emma Larkin describes it I felt really terrible about having had doubts about him in the first place... 
So: DON'T READ EMMA LARKINS BOOK BEFORE ENTERING THE COUNTRY!!! 

Mandalay

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!" (...) 

Rudyard Kipling

 

After our first impressions of bustling Yangon, Mandalay was a bit disappointing to us. Maybe this was also due to the fact that when we arrived really early in the morning we had to find out that our hostel, the only one which hadn't been fully booked, was not more than a small, dirty prisoncell (on the photo below you can see more or less the whole room!)

Before coming to Myanmar, both - Alice and I - had already travelled for a while. We were both used to cheap hostels with dormitories or even CS-possibilities. You’ll find nothing of this in Myanmar. Without any exaggeration accommodation was the most annoying and disappointing point in Myanmar - especially for low-budget-travellers like us: First of all, only a small amount of guesthouses and hotels are allowed to accomodate foreigners. There are no dormitories, so travelling together was a big advantage as we could always split the costs of double rooms. Per night and room we paid from (cheapest place) $10,- without own bathroom/toilet excluding breakfast to (most expensive place) $20,- with own bathroom/toilet including breakfast. You might say that that’s not so expensive – but after being used to prices in Cambodia it was (accommodation costs per person were between $1,- and $4,- always excluding breakfast). 

However, the most unacceptable point was that prices don’t reflect the quality at all: whereas the shittiest place we stayed in – the mentioned above dirty prison-cell in Mandalay – would have cost us $15,- without breakfast (we were bargained really hard and finally got it for 13,- and insisted on getting a breakfast as well!) – the best place we stayed in was on our second time in Mandalay for $13,- for a large and perfectly clean room including breakfast in a really nice guesthouse with even a great terrasse on the top it... 

Two more things make the accommodation-question so annoying: the few guesthouses are often booked out forcing you to book far in advance – which might be easy if telephone lines were working, but most of the time they are not... And even if you book you might arrive and find out that either your reservation got lost or that instead of the reserved cheap room only expensive ones are left (that we got for the same cheap price after negotiating again... one thing I for sure learned in Asia is negotiating!!) 

 

A Burmese man visits a dentist in India.
The dentist asks him: “Don’t you have dentists in Burma?”
“Yes, we do,” the man replies, “but we’re not allowed to open our mouths.”

Apart from walking around in the city and enjoying the sunset view over the Mandalay hill, we also went to see the Moustache Brothers during our first (out of two) stays in Mandalay: three comedians, who are putting all their efforts in fighting for the political prisoners to be released. Two out of the three had by themselves been imprisoned up to three times because of their political jokes, their criticism of the government and their participation in pro-democracy demonstrations. The show itself was rather awkward – after some many good political jokes of the main entertainer the rest of the evening was reserved for old traditional Burmese days in traditional costumes... But simply because of the admirable efforts they put into the their cause I can only recommend everybody going to Mandalay to go and support them by watching their show and carrying their words to the outside world.

Myitkyina
 

On the 10^th of January is the Kachin State day where a big festival was due to take place in Myitkyina. That’s where we headed to right after our first stay in Mandalay: 22h in the train direction North. Along the railwayline, the further North we got, we saw more and more soldiers and small military huts next to the railway lines, some even with really small shelters (look closely on the photo next to the following paragraph!). Imposing travel restrictions the government is trying to keep problems like internal fights away from the eyes of tourists, but they didn’t manage completely. However, to our great disappointment we had to find out upon our arrival in Myitkyina that the festival had been cancelled due to the fights... Instead of the festivities we got ourselves traditional Burmese longyis done;
and we watched a big Chinlon-tournament (check the clip, it's short and worth seeing!):

The receptionist of our guesthouse was one of the rare people in Myanmar we met, who not only spoke perfect English, 
but who was also willing to talk openly with us. Thanks to him we found out more about these fights that were going on in the North – in Kachin State: Like other states in Myanmar, the Kachin people have their own army, which is at the moment fighting against the Myanmar army because the Kachin people don't agree with what the government is doing in their state without even asking them: they plan to build a pipeline through the state, delocalising many families to smaller and worse places. The money out of this project would only go into the hands of the government while the Kachin people wouldn’t get anything out of it. The same is the case with the planned – and now cancelled – hydro-dam which should have been carried out by Chinese companies.

With the cancellation of the festival we didn’t have any reason to stay longer in Myitkyina and therefore went back South – with the train to Katha, where we wanted to take a boat further South. We both found that Katha was a great little town with even friendlier people than anywhere we had been before (is that possible??). We would have loved to stay one day longer, but the next day in the morning our boat further South was supposed to leave... well, “morning” is quite a flexible term. 

Travelling in Myanmar is far easier than I first thought. In many ways I thought of Myanmar like of Mongolia: the status of living of most of the people on the country-side is still very low, people live from the agricultural products they or their community produces and sells. Whereas in Mongolia the people on the countryside are nomads, in Myanmar there are many small communities. The biggest part of the population (60million – compared to 3million in Mongolia... Ok ok, I admit, you can’t really compare these two countries) is working in agriculture. But while – due to the small density of the country – there are hardly any busses in Mongolia (and only one trainline), and all busses link Ulaanbaatar with the other towns, there are loaaaads of busses in Myanmar, linking many places with each other. Apart from busses, which are the most trustworthy and easiest way of transport, you may as well take the government-owned boats or trains, which are rather a horse- than a trainride considering the way you are bounced around in the wagons. 

However punctuality is not one of the strongest points especially of government owned means of transport (trains and boats)... Whereas our train to get North was nicely on time, we found out what the famous Myanmar punctuality was all about on the train South: instead of 14:00 we arrived at 17:30 ... well, that’s not too bad, compared to the 50 hours our first boat took, instead of 28 hours. And both boats departed hours after the initially announced departure time... Good for the teashops right at the jetty, that make quite a business out of waiting passengers... After a certain point of time we gave up finding out about travel duration anyways, because the question “how long does the trip take?” or “when do we arrive in ...?” were for some reason simply not understandable by the people – Well, in fact there is a reason: not only the leaders of the country, but the people themselves are highly supersticious: my CS-friend explained us the mystery about the unanswerable question "when will we arrive?": Myanmar people believe that when asking this question you make the boat/bus/train being late... Well, it is enough to know that you are heading in the right direction and will therefore sooner or later arrive where you're want to go.

Boat trips – Katha-Mandalay / Bagan - Pyay

The trips on the boat from Katha to Mandalay together with the second one from Bagan to Pyay were two of the highlights of the trip. 

Sliding down slowly on the Ayarwaddy river sitting on the floor on the vast deck was simply relaxing. All along the way we were watching how huge amounts of different goods were loaded in the various villages we passed.

Having liked the boat trip so much we took another boat later on, from Bagan to the small town of Pyay. Whereas the first boat had been really big this one was far smaller, even cosy one might say (see the video - with a cute little fellow who was not as afraid of me like the one on the photo below!) Maybe due to the size of the boat the second difference was that we didn't stay long in any village because there was hardly anything to be loaded or de-loaded... The rest was like on the first trip: we were staying and sleeping on the deck, reading the whole day, watching the landscape passing by.

We saw a big deal of the life in Myanmar especially when travelling with the boat. 

On the first boat we were the only tourists, on the second we were in total 7 tourists. The Myanmar people were all far better prepared for the trip than we were with the typical metal 3-storey food-boxes, mattresses and moscito-nets. Most of them had loads of goods, which they were surely going to sell on some markets. As soon as they entered the boat women were doing thr laundry and hang them up on the deck to dry. The people on the boat were all communicating with each other, children were all around. The women always brought the kids to us – well, the kids were not always so happy about that... 

Through the life on the boat I really got the impression – no wonder indeed – that people in Myanmar are still living far more in big communities who are helping each other than we do. Young children are far more integrated in the community right from the beginning and not treated as a group apart like they are back in Europe. 

I got the same impressions when watching how the arrival of our boat was something like a big happening for these villages – especially on the first boat trip. We were often staying a few hours till everything the village had to load on the boat was loaded. Interestingly enough in most villages the men were loading whereas we saw a few villages where the women were loading and the men only watching them working hard... It is a pity that I don’t speak any Burmese and the people such bad English – otherwise I would have tried to find out more about the relationship between men and women here. 

Trekking from Kalaw to Inle Lake

After our first trip with the boat we were again in Mandalay, from where we took a bus bringing us to the mountain town of Kalaw. And mountainous it was: you can definitely feel the difference in altitude when arriving at 1am and the temperature is as low as 0°C!! This region was a nice change to the heat of Yangon and the cities on the Ayarwaddy. 

It was for us the starting point of our 3-day-trek to Inle Lake, we made together with Julien, a guy from France (like let’s say without exaggeration 80% of the individual tourists we met) whom we had met on the bus. The trek brought us trough really beautiful countryside and many hill-tribe villages. Our guide knew a lot about the country, agriculture, trees and herbs as well as about these hill tribes. 

On the first night we slept in a small village on the road – taking a freezing outside-shower à la birmaine (dressed in longyis) – and on the second night we slept in a monastery, being woken up by a choir of small monks singing nearly as good as the Wiener Sängerknaben ;)











  

The whole trek ended with a motorboat-trip across the beautiful Inle-Lake! 
 

We stayed one further day in the region, riding a bike to a market in a neighbouring village, half constructed on the water. However, there were compared to other places we had seen before far more tourists, and we both preferred the smaller untouristy places – 

but still, off we were to the biggest tourist attraction of the country... 

Bagan

  

Many would compare Bagan with the temples of Angkor, as in both sites you’ll find loads and loads of temples (Angkor) resp. pagodas (Bagan) spread over a huge territory. Whereas in Angkor you can walk through the old temples – many of which are ruins now and have their charm mainly thanks to this – inside of a pagoda there is not so much to see apart from big golden Buddha statues (often ugly lit with couloured blinking lights). Neither Alice nor me we are what could be called excited about Myanmar-style pagodas. However, Bagan is still worth visiting because of it’s own great features: the sunrise and sunset view over the pagodas are simply breathtaking!! And even if the pagodas themselves are not half as interesting as the temples of Angkor, the view over them are making up for it!

Apart from the pagodas we didn’t really like Bagan – and interestingly enough were really disappointed by the food there. It seems like the formula “many tourists = no good street food” is applicable... The food stands in Bagan only offered oily noodles or fatty fried stuff...

In general, Myanmar’s cuisine is highly influenced by Indian and Chinas cuisine. And one thing is for sure: you’ll never die of starvation in Myanmar! We were usually eating on the streets. Our most preferred foodstands were those offering different chillis. We usually chose 3 different ones, and always ended up having loads of small plates on the table: additionally to the 3 ordered dishes – served in small bowls – you’ll get 2 big plates filled with rice, 2 bowls of soup, 2 bowls with some vegetable- and spicy chilli-sauces and a big plate with freshly cut cucumbers and herbs.

If we didn’t find foodstands like these or weren’t in the mood of rice we had some noodles, which were quite good when served in a soup; or simply disgusting, when being like most of the food in Myanmar simply too fat...

On the road – bus, train or boat – you’d also never have to die of starvation because everywhere you stop, women offering mainly loads of (far too fatty) fried stuff (samosas or similar food), as well as steamed mais or freshly cut watermelons on big plates elegantly balanced on their heads...

Pyay

After Bagan we made a tick behind all touristy spots taking another boat down to Pyay. We arrived there after 2 days on the boat. There is not much to see in Pyay – apart from another big pagoda and – for me something worth citing in a guide book: one single big tree full with bats - flying foxes to be precise; the biggest bats!!! I never saw anything like this before in my life!! Everytime I passed this tree looked at it completely amazed.

And of course: no tourists, good food!! On the market in the centre of town we had after a while again really great food: rice dishes as well as the noodles here were delicious. As there was not really anything to do in this small town, we even more enjoyed just hanging around. After Katha – where we have had our first freshly made nans – every town with teashops offering fresh naans were greatly loved by us!! Pyay was among them ;)

They love their tea-shops in Myanmar... and we soon started to love them as well. 
Burmese Tea is special: the tea itself – black tea – must be quite strong, as it is served with milk and condensed milk on the bottom. In a real classical traditional teashop the tea is served in small glasses – you can see the sweet milk on the bottom. The typical equipment of a teashop-table are one plate with around 4-5 small pots made of china, a toiletpaper-holder and a thermos-can filled with Chinese tea, which is for free. As soon as you’re seated the young waiters (in Viennas traditional Kaffeehäuser you’ll only find elderish gentlemen in smokings serving you your coffee whereas in Myanmar young guys of between 8-15 years are rushing between the tables, serving the custumers) will add more to this equipment: a few plates with some mainly fried food will immediately appear – mainly samosas (in Myanmar always filled with potatoes and onions), or bouzis (steamed bread filled with some sweet stuff), or the typical long freshly fried bread. 

If you’re lucky (or unlucky...) to be up at 5am or 6am you’ll see how all these dishes are freshly made, with the dough being prepared, put into small pieces to be finally fried. The best teashops in our opinion, will always be those with a naan-oven! After all this fatty food at least something without any fat! Oh, how delicious is it to get fresh naans – to go with it you’ll get fresh bean-chutney with fried onions... mhmmmmmmm 

Hpa-An

Skipping the Golden Rock - another big tourist destination -, our last stop in Myanmar was to be another small town: Hpa-An was the lucky winner! Again a small town with teashops including naan-ovens - perfect for the last 2 days, where we didn't want to do anything but just relax. We rented bicycles to drive around in the beautiful countryside surrounding the town, visited the Kyiat Ko Lat - a pagoda on a big rock - like the Golden Rock then, just not golden :)

And again one month passed as if it was only 1 day, and I am now back in Bangkok in the flat of my CS-friend, working on the now ready picture gallery of Myanmar with even more impressions and writing on this blog-story since hours :)
And I will now leave you with one important message to all men out there: go to Myanmar and get yourself some longyis: Men in long skirts like these definitely look great!!
 

* (The country's official name is "Republic of the Union of Myanmar" and people in Myanmar do call it Myanmar, not Burma - that's why I will also stick to the name Myanmar. "Burmese" comes from "Bamar", who are only one of many ethnic groups in Myanmar. I therefore also wrote "Myanmar" where elsewhere you'd rather find "Burmese" (pe Burmese cuisine). I don't know - and don't have the time and will to find out right now - which of the two I would have to use to be really correct...)
 

Same same - but different

First of all: HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU!! May 2012 bring only great things, new experiences, loads of love and friendship to you all! And of course travels ;)

I was celebrating New Years Eve in Bangkok together with my CS-host, some other CSers and of course with Alice - a friend back from Austria who is at the moment also travelling through South-East-Asia and with whom I gonna spend the next month in Burma - wohoooo. But now I gonna talk neither about Thailand nor about Burma - now everything is gonna be about Cambodia... same same - but different ;)

Many backpackers travel quickly through Cambodia on their way from Thailand to Vietnam or the vice versa visiting only Phnom Penh and Angkor Wat. Most of those staying longer would make short visits to Sihanoukville or Battambang. Everything else on the map seems unimportant and not interesting to them.

Me too, I admit not having spent as much time as I could or should have in this interesting country. But at least I tried to visit other parts then the ones mentionned above besides the must-sees (Angkor Wat and the sights about the time under the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh)...

Phnom Penh

Arriving in the early night in Phnom Penh I immediately felt the difference to Vietnam: not only was the traffic much less of a hassle than in Saigon (those having been to Phnom Penh before Saigon thought that it was really hassling there... well, wait till you see Saigon :D) but also the people were much more smiling than Vietnamese... This very subjective first impression was further confirmed by later own ones, and those of people I talked to :)

I stayed a few nights in Phnom Penh, meeting up with Alice, who was also there just at the same time. With her I not only went to the Khmer Rouge sights I wrote about 2 weeks ago, but we also to the various markets in the town. And we have been to a home warming party of some expats I got to know through CS...
You guessed it - English teachers :)

Call me naive or romantic, but I found it kind of shocking that only thanks to the fact that they are white and know how to speak English they can afford an amazing flat like the one we were - or lets say it even more generally: a great and easy life - whereas the average Cambodian population lives in small places in dirty neighborhoods earning not even 10% of what these Westerners earn...

Kratie

After Phnom Penh I headed North instead of heading South to the beaches around Sihanoukville like most other backpackers.

Kratie was my first (out of two) stops in the area. And even though there are still far less tourists in Phnom Penh than nearly anywhere else in Vietnam, I felt relieved to flee the "lady tuk-tuk?" shouts of the tuk-tuk-drivers in the capital city.
Kratie is a small town on the Mekong river - right in the middle of nowhere - and that's exactly what I was looking for!! For three days I didn't do anything but relaxing, reading a lot, riding a bike along the Mekong river or jogging and walking through the neighborhoods.

Cambodians are really nice and welcoming people in general. But what I experienced there was simply amazing: I was walking through the huts, in which people on the countryside are living, and I couldn't walk any meter without children shouting "hello!! hello!" happily in my direction and Cambodians smiling to me when I was passing their hut. You end up walking around with a big smile on your face for the whole day and feeling completely happy doing so. I was so impressed seeing these people, who have nearly no belongings and in many cases not even running water nor electricity, being so happy with their lifes. And - again call me naiv or romantic - I was sad knowing that this happiness will disappear the more Western lifestyle will be spreading around the country and infiltrating even the smallest village on the countryside...

Ban Lung in Ratanakiri

The mini-bus ride to Ban Lung was definitely an adventure! I thought that it's gonna be faster and more comfortable than the big bus I had taken from Phnom Penh to Kratie, where I had been freezed by the aircon and tortured with khmer karaoke TV (the Cambodians love it!). Well - mistake! faster: yes; more comfortable: NO!

In the small minibus - designed for around 18 persons - were 26 persons with loads of luggage, squeezed together like sardines in a can. We always had our knees up as on the floor below our seats were huge bags of rice or animal food.
Well, I guess the face of the guy next to me says more than 1000 words...

In this very minibus I met a guy from Israel with whom I spent a few days in the amazing Ratanakiri province! This province attracts not only far less but also completely different travellers than the typical SEA-backpacker: adventure travellers, as you can go trekking in the huge Virachey Natural Reserve, or swimming in a crater lake or below great water falls. As we didn't spend enough time in the region we only did the latter two, skipping the trekking...

We were relaxing at the crater lake for the entire first afternoon and at the waterfalls on the second, having fun with Or's underwater camera (why the f** do I look sooo stupid on underwater photos??) and finally ending up drinking with the Cambodian men having a picnic next to us...





I can definitely confirm what I had read in some travel book or blog about Cambodia:

Drinking has only one aim for Cambodians: to get pissed as fast as possible...

I am so happy having decided to go to this region. I really enjoyed the countryside and the warmth of the people in this area! And if anybody is heading to Cambodia: go there as well and take more time than I did and go trekking in the jungles!  

Angkor

After Ratanakiri I went back to Phnom Penh and then straight to Siem Reap, the town next to the historcal capital of Angkor, where the world famous temples of Angkor Wat and others are located.

Knowing that I am quickly saturated with buildings and sights I only went to Angkor twice: first to see the temples below sunset and on the next morning biking there at 5am before sunrise. I then spent the entire day there, walking through the temples and biking between them... I can't tell you how dead I was by the end of that day!

But it was soooo worth it! Angkor Wat, the most famous of the temples is really impressive! But even more than this temple I loved the Ta Prohm temple, where nature shows its force: sprung trees are literally embracing the old temple and growing out of the building and beneath the stones!

Just makes me think of the little prince:


"Sometimes," he added, "there is no harm in putting off a piece of work until another day. But when it is a matter of baobabs, that always means a catastrophe. I knew a planet that was inhabited by a lazy man. He neglected three little bushes..."

And the third of the three really famous temples in Angkor - Bayon - with its over 200 heads of Lokesvara was also one of my favourites.

Beside these three I of course also visited many other temples in this vast area that I would never have been able to visit entirely in one day...








Only when leaving Cambodia and arriving in Bangkok I realised even more what I liked so much about this country. Bangkok is a huge modern city in a country that is far more developed than it's neighbors. And coming to this modern city I saw even more how long the way for Cambodia still is to reach this level. In this city full of cars I couldn't imagine entire families squeezed on one single scooter like it was the case in Cambodia. And even if I didn't manage to make a photo of such a typical Cambodian family trip by myself (there are enough such pics on the web: check this link) - I took this one of my Isreali friend, me and our driver on a scooter in Ban Lung while driving on a road in Ban Lung...

You can find more impressions about Cambodia in my gallery, which I managed to put together really fast this time, he?! So I again have to say good bye to a country:

លាហើយព្រះរាជាណាចក្រកម្ពុជា

BTW: As I will leave for Burma tomorrow for one month and won't have neither internet nor mobile phone connection I am now saying a short goodbye to the world I know ;) So, next story will very likely not be online before February!!