Hanoi: an Evening in the Old Quarter

We're back in Vietnam, which, strangely enough, feels kind of relaxing. We took a Vietnam Airlines flight from Phnom Penh that made one stop-over in Vientiane, Laos for about 15 minutes. We had to deplane, which gave us just enough time to use the bathroom, to peruse the cheesy, airport, tourist shops and the Duty Free store, as well as to buy a snack and get some of the local currency. From Laos we were on our way to Hanoi. I was 1 for 2 on the veggie meals. I really lucked out on the first flight. I had some nice tomato stewed vegetables with rice and fruit. Ted had some beef dish that even smelled awful. But, on the second flight, I wasn't so lucky. I had a triple-decker tomato and relish sandwich on white bread with the crusts cut off. Even the bread was soggy. I took one bite and then stopped abruptly.

Our hotel, the Hanoi Elegance, has internet in our room, which is certainly an added bonus. It is situated in the famous Old Quarter, which we will most likely explore in a few days when we return from our cruise of Ha Long Bay. We arrived kind of late tonight, so we will probably skip dinner and wait for breakfast tomorrow morning, which is also included in the price of our hotel.

Our final morning in Phnom Penh wasn't all that exciting. We began with a visit to Psah Toul Tom Poung, a Russian market that is one of several famous markets in Phnom Penh, but I had had enough of the hot, crowded, smelly markets for a while. It was chaos! And I was losing my patience, overheated, and exhausted. We spent less than 30 minutes total there; I refused to even look at one of the other markets.

That brought us to the National Museum, which is one of the world's most impressive museums of Khmer art. They had a lot of the carvings, Buddhas, and artifacts from the same time frame as Angor Wat. If we were able to travel back in time to the 13th century, the city of Angkor must have been amazing!

Tomorrow morning, we will meet Rachel and Jason early, and then we'll all head out together to Ha Long Bay for our 3-day boat cruise. I'm sure we'll have a lot to report when we return after living on a boat for 3 days! I better get to bed...

The Heat is On, the Heat is On-On, the Heat is... ON in Phnom Penh!

Here we are here in Phnom Penh on an extremely hot day. Holy cow! It’s so hot I’ve been sweating through all of my clothing. Ted and I may have to take a shower before dinner. We arrived yesterday in Cambodia’s capital city, Phnom Penh, via Siem Reap Airways, which was an adventure in and of itself. The airport was tiny and the aircraft tinier. We were in an A-27 (Ted thinks), which just two seats on each side. As it pulled in front of our departure gate, only one engine was on. We were hoping both were working, though we didn’t really know until the pilot turned the second one on after driving all the way down the runway, and just minutes before take-off. Other passengers were also cheering as both engines began running. The 40-50 minute flight was short and relatively uneventful, which is a good thing. I got a veggie meal, which consisted of small lettuce, cucumber, and butter sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Ted had a veggie samosa. I think I ought to opt for the non-veg meals in Asia. I’m 0 for 2.

Our taxi driver was waiting with a big sign with my name on it and the FCC logo. We’re staying at the famous Foreign Correspondents Club of Cambodia, or FCC, which is quite a bit nicer than I’m used to from my backpacking and Peace Corps days. I kind of like the upgrade! We arrived around 6:30 p.m. and were accosted by tuk-tuk drivers everywhere on our way into the hotel. We checked in and then were led to our beautiful room. A little bit of peace and quiet in crazy Cambodia. When we got into our room, all of my clothing was soaked in the backpack because water leaked out of something in my pack. I had to hang my clothes all over the room to dry out, but luckily everything was dry by this morning.

Phnom Penh seems quite a bit richer than Siem Reap and the countryside. The civil war ended only 20-25 years ago, and under Khmer Rouge regime, all educated people were massacred – doctors, lawyers, intellectuals, monks, teachers, students, professors, speakers of French, English, and other languages, etc. The ultra-communist regime created a two-class society, a working class and peasants. There are only two factories in the entire country, and they are both in Phnom Penh. That is where most of the clothing from the Gap and other stores in the US most likely comes from. There are still a lot of beggars and people who are deformed or missing limbs from the war or the landmines that are still all over the countryside. I think I read somewhere it would take more than 200 years, or some crazy number, to completely de-mine the entire country.

We had dinner at the FCC last night, which is super touristy and full of ex-pats and travelers. The food was expensive but excellent. I had my 4th or 5th dinner of amok fish since arriving in Cambodia. I absolutely LOVE Khmer cuisine. We turned in early because we had an early start on today, our only full-day in Phnom Penh.

We began this morning on a self-guided tour of the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Parts of it reminded me of my visit to Auschwitz Concentration Camp near Krakow, Poland almost 10 years ago. Tuol Sleng, known as the S-21 Prison, was a high school that the Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot, converted into an interrogation headquarters and torture chamber from 1975-1979. More than 20,000 people passed through the prison before the Vietnamese liberated it. We were able to view several of the detention cells and torture rooms, with blood-stained floors and pictures of the victims being tortured, as well as watch a one-hour video at the end. There were several rooms with thousands of pictures of the victims of the massacres and very graphic paintings by Vann Nath, one of only seven survivors, in the museum. The museum is intense; some of the photos and pictures made me sick. Kaing Khek Iev, known as Duch, the chief director of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, is currently on trial in Phnom Penh; he is the first person who has ever been tried. He was a math teacher (I think) before joining the Khmer Rouge, and because of his profession, he kept meticulous notes and pictures.

After spending almost 4 hours at the museum, we were on our way to Choeung Ek, the Killing Fields. Only about half of the mass graves have been excavated to date. There were overgrown ditches everywhere, where the bodies, teeth, and bones of more than two million people were tortured and killed. The shallow graves surround the memorial, marked by a Buddhist stupa, that the Cambodians have recently erected to remember those who perished.

Our driver kept trying to tempt us to go to the shooting range, where for $30 US, you can buy a magazine of bullets and fire AK 47s, M 16s, rocket launchers, and hand grenades, but we opted to return to the hotel for lunch. After eating, we spent the afternoon touring the grand Royal Palace of the king and the Silver Pagoda and walking along the river front. Our hotel is right of the river, where the Tonle Sap and the Mekong Rivers meet. We saw several carts full of fried spiders and bugs. I started taking pictures before I was yelled at. I hope some of them turned out! It was my first time seeing a mobile bug snack bar.

Tomorrow we may try and hit up some of the markets and hopefully tour the National Museum, which is famous for Khmer art, before flying to Hanoi, Vietnam. From Hanoi, we’ll be on a 3-day boat cruise of Ha Long Bay, so there will most likely not be as much internet access and posting, but we’ll do our best. We’re having a great adventure but ready to head out of Cambodia and back to Vietnam.

We've reached the capitol...Phnom Penh!

We arrived in Phnom Penh last night after a short plane ride on Siem Reap/Bangkok Airways. We're still not actually sure which airline we flew on, and I don't think the ticket agents did either. One thing we did notice, though, was the plane taxing up to our gate with only one of the turbo prop engines running. I was thinking to myself, that doesn't look right, but what do I know, maybe they just use one to steer the plane on the ground. When we boarded the plane, we were seated right next to one of the engines. I started to get a little nervous when I realized we were heading out to take off, and the pilots had still not started the second engine. I figured the plane might be designed to land with only one engine in the event of an emergency, but surely they wouldn't head off on another flight with only one engine working. After we had gone all the way to the end of the runway and turned around, the engine finally started, and there was a sigh of relief from a group of Japanese travelers sitting behind us. We turned around and smiled, and they laughed as they seemed just as concerned that we were about to take off with only one engine running.

After a 35 minute flight, we were greeted at the airport by our taxi driver from the FCC. He was standing there ready to go with Courtney's name on the sign this time. We gave him our bags and hopped in for the 15 minute or so ride to the hotel. It was about 6:30 when we arrived at the hotel, and it was already starting to get dark in the city. As soon as we got out of the car, there was a security guard helping us with our bags and leading us through a crowd of tuk tuk drivers eager to earn our business for the evening or the following day. It was a little overwhelming, but we managed to get past them and make our way into the lobby of the FCC. The FCC, or Foregin Correspondents Club, is famous in Phnom Penh as the place journalists would meet during the war for information. It was rehabbed in the late 1990's by a company in Hong Kong. The interior is decorated with pictures from the war, and they have a great two level restaurant and bar that overlooks the Mekong River. There are only six rooms in the hotel, and each one is named after one of the famous temples we just left in Siem Reap. We are staying in the Mebon and have a great view of the Mekong River from our second story window.

After checking in at the front desk, we were led to our room by a member of the hotel staff, who carried Courtney's bag up to the room for her, turned on our air conditioner, opened our blinds, and pointed out some of the features in the room. Courtney, being the avid traveler that she is, quickly recognized the opportunity to provide a tip for good service. She reached into her purse and handed the guy 1000 riels, or the equivalent of 25 cents. We laughed about it later and planned to just play dumb and pretend that we didn't understand the exchange rate. After relaxing for a few minutes, we decided our plan for today would be to rent a taxi for the day and head out to see Toul Sleng, the genocide museum; Cheong Ek, the killing fields; the Royal Palace; and the Silver Pagoda. We requested our same taxi driver that picked us up from the airport. He told us that night that we could rent the taxi for the whole day for $20. With the arrangements made for the taxi, we thought we'd venture out and see a little bit of the nightlife along the riverfront. I think we made it about two blocks before we decided to turn back and eat at the hotel. It was just so exhausting being accosted by beggers and vendors every five seconds while walking down the street. There are certainly way more beggers on the streets of Phnom Penh then we have seen in either Ho Chi Minh City or Siem Reap. We headed upstairs to the restaurant in the FCC and sat down to a nice meal. We ordered a jug of sangria, and each enjoyed another Khmer curry dish before heading off to bed.

This morning we met our driver, Mom Sandy, at 7:30 am. When we climbed in the car and started telling him our agenda for the day, he told us that yesterday he had only agreed to take us to the Toul Sleng Museum and the Killing Fields for $20, not be our driver for the whole day. He told we could just walk to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda from our hotel, which we knew we could, but we decided to use the taxi anyways. Mom told us that he was heading back to his village 2 and half hours away in the afternoon to see his family so he wouldn't be able to remain with us throughout the day. We were the first people to arrive at Toul Sleng.

Toul Sleng, now the Genocide Museum, was originally a high school and converted into a prison to torture and kill almost 20,000 innocent people during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. The victims included men and women of all ages, as well as those from countries other than Cambodia. The buildings are poorly maintained, and without proper funding, I don't see them standing for too much longer before the roofs cave in. What remains, though, is a pretty powerful testimony to the atrocities committed here. From the outside of two of the buildings, it looks just like a three-level schoolhouse with classrooms along the front. One of the buildings, however, was left as it was during the days it was used as a prison. Razor wire ran across the entire facade of the building to prevent people from committing suicide by jumping off the top floors. When you actually walk through the buildings, you can see remanents of the cells constructed within the walls of the classrooms, and there are still traces of blood all over the floors. People were held in either single cells or with iron shackles on their ankles in mass holding cells. They were systamatically tortured and made to confess that they were working for the CIA or that they had contacted the Vietnamese army to undermine the Khmer Rouge regime. In all it is estimated that over 2 million people were exterminated during their reign.

We walked through the exhibits in about 2 hours when Courtney noticed there was a movie starting in about 40 minutes. We decided to wait for it, partly because we wanted to see it, and partly because we wanted to make our driver wait for us longer after he told us he wasn't going to take us around for the entire day. The movie started and lasted for another hour. We were glad we waited. It was fairly informative, and it followed the story of two cousins that were married and seperated by the regime. The wife was forced to work in one of the work camps, and her husband was a member of the Khmer Rouge army. The story was being told by the mother of the daughter, who was almost 70 years old. It ended with them both being sent to Toul Sleng, though they probably didn't know they were there together. They both were eventually sent off to Cheong Ek to be executed.

When the movie ended, we met our driver and headed off to Cheong Ek. It was about a 25 minute drive from the genocide museum, and you really get a sense of how terrifying it must of been for the prisoners to be loaded into a truck, blindfolded, and driven that distance to the fields. When we arrived at the site, we saw the huge pagoda that has been constructed to house the remains of the almost 9000 people they have exhumed so far.

Much of the fields still have not been touched. When you near the Pagoda, you can see the piles and piles of human skulls stacked on top of one another all the way to the top of the structure. It must of been at least 10 stories tall. We walked around and took it all in before meeting our driver again and heading back to the hotel.

On the drive home, our driver asked us what time we were heading to the airport for our flight tomorrow. Courtney immediately answered, "You'll be at your village. You won't be able to take us." She was happy that she called him out on his lie about needing to be somewhere in the afternoon. After he dropped us off, we saw Mom hanging out in front of the hotel looking for new passengers. I guess they're all just trying to make a buck in this country, and you can't blame them, but you don't like feeling like you've been ripped off either. We were both happy to pay for the taxi today though, if just for the fact that we were't breathing all of the dust and exhaust fumes, and we even got a little bit of AC during the ride. I didn't have to break out my SARS face mask, which I've been using during some of the dusty tuk-tuk rides.

We headed up to the hotel to relax for a bit and have a bite to eat. We ate lunch at the FCC again, but only after sitting down at a local place and being hounded by children selling sunglasses and books. There didn't seem to be anyone in site at the restaurant to help us, so we just walked back to the hotel to get away from the vendors. After a brief power nap in the comforting AC of the hotel, we headed back out again to tackle the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda.

You would think they were giving something away at this place. There were more people here than probably the whole town of Siem Reap. Well maybe not, but it was certainly really crowded. We paid the $6.25 (everyone pretty much uses US dollars here) for our tickets and headed in to see what we could see. There wasn't much actually. There were some nice looking buildings, the throne room, some artifacts, and some more Buddhas. I think I'm "Buddha'd out" by this point. The highlight for me, anyways, was the three monkeys running around outside of one of the buildings. I took some video of them and entertained the children nearby, who were fascinated watching the monkeys on the screen of my camera.

When we left the Royal Palace, we crossed the street and decided to check out the locals, who were hanging out all along the river front. We were happy we did. We came across a number of carts selling insects! Grasshoppers, beatles, big spiders, and others we didn't recognize. I was shooting video, and Courtney was taking pictures when I heard one of the ladies yelling "NO PICTURE!" We smiled, put our cameras away, and moved on to the next one to sneak a few more shots. How can you resist taking pictures of the bug carts?! With that, we called it a day.

Tonight I think we are going to take a tuk-tuk to dinner and venture to a Korean place Courtney had seen in one of the guide books. It should be interesting. It's either going to be really good or really bad. We'll see...