Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (10)

The next day was more or less of the same temple trudging for me. The names elude me now, but there is one I do remember: Neam Preak : it's a man-made lake with a horse in the middle of it and in the middle of the jungle. It is forever etched in my mind, cos the walk there was the longest and most gruelling.... like walking on hot embers or stakes of iron.

Was dehydrated, in need of constant liquid replenishment and to be honest I had had enough of the temples. Had a picnic lunch of stuff I'd bought at the shopping mall (try that it's cheaper and much more convenient). Back to the town, but first, a final look at Angkor again.
Hordes of tourists were descending from buses upon one of the wonders of the world. The walkway to the temple was full of them. There was a Cambodian child in pram with a deformed and enlarged head. My mum who had once worked as a nurse in hospital children's ward said she had seen children like that and that their lives were short. She stopped to play with the child. It made gurgling sounds and gave us what we thought was a smile.
Some local girls in Cambodian dancer dress were lined up by an enterprising guy who was charging 10 dollars to photograph them or topics with them. My mum took a pic of them not realising it was a business venture and when the guy asked for some money she promptly erased the offending photo in front of him.
So to the swelling crowds, the dust and heat and famed temples of Angkor, I bid farewell. We were satisfied.

Ankgor had been good.

The carvings extrordinary. Certainly a place one should visit. Was a bits orry to say goodbye to the stone faces of Bayon and the Victory gate.

They were my favourite stone figures.
Maybe I will visit again one day.
One last trip to the tourist trinket market in the Old quarter of Siam Reap full of stuff mostly from Thailand. The multi-coloured rice-sack Saigon chique handbags were nice. But I really think the Cambodians should try a bit harder and produce stuff that is more of Cambodian origin.
Now it was for us to continue on to Ayutthya. The Cambodians say a lot of stuff was taken from Angkor and environs to Siam. So we were to go see on the morrow the remains of the place that had sacked the place we were in now.
We jump forward to Bangkok!

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (9)

After a forgettable foot massage, I chatted online for 10 minutes to my bro in S'pore. Now internet access is cheap 50 cents an hour. So have some of that Cambodian money on you or you'll have to pay a dollar. Some places just do not want to give you change at all. Siem Reap is hot, muggy ..humid even in December. There is no cool season there at all. At least here in Mandalay we have about three and half months cool season and its even a bit chilly in the mornings. 42 miles from Mandalay, there is a hill station where it can get a bit freezing at night. But Siem Reap is just plain hot. So if you are ever going there pack those shorts and T-shirts. How long a stay should I stay in Siem Reap? I hear you ask! Well, for those not really into culture / archeology / social work / cooking classes, I guess about three days should be just about right. Two days for the temples and one day for exploring the town. They say there are other places like lake-dwellers communities and faraway temples but you would need about another 2-3 days to visit them all. Siem Reap has a newish shopping mall and I think I also saw about 2 others in various stages of development. When I told my friend Chris when I got back from Cambodia, he was astounded. What? Shopping malls?

Crikey !

Cos there weren't any in 1994ish when he was there. Man, " Only Angkor was open to the public then and we had an armed guard and they were still clearing landmines, so all the other temples were off limits. "Well" I told him "Times have certainly changed." Yes the town and temples and number of tourists has certainly changed.

But what of the people? Especially the younger ones? And orphaned ones? I am sure there are respectable organizations working in those areas, but I saw some very badly written (in English) fliers distributed by 7-8 year old kids who said they were from orphanages with donation boxes in front of the Romulus temples asking for donations. Shouldn't these kids be doing lessons? And I guess so many tourists has sadly turned some kids away from going to school, but starting off careers in tourism by beginning with asking for a dollar for stuff like rearranging your flip flops at monastery door unasked. The "one dollar please" here, and "one Dollar" there can be a nuisance. I had to borrow a pen off one lady tourist in a temple and she sarcastically said, "One dollar" as she gave it to me. But enough of this stuff. Who am I to criticize others ?
But anyway, I advise you to check out credentials in depth / detail, any orphanage anywhere in Asia ( or the whole world for that matter ) as some people try to make a living off being a " Director of so-and-so Orphanage ". You know, kind of like the kids are like the Giraffe women of Burma on display in pseudo villages for tourist perusal in Thailand. I mean the kids are brought (with consent of parents ) from genuinely poor families ( so not technically orphans )and fed and taught badly and then discarded or sent back without the means to make a livelihood when about 15 years old to make way for the younger ones who will bring in more donations and cement the livelihood of the so-called directors or founders of the place.

It's sad.

In the morning as we were off to the Romulus group of temples we saw an on-foot procession of locals, proceeding to the monastery with offerings all carried by hand. The town gentlemen were in smart trousers and shirts, the town belles were all made up, coiffured and in silk sarongs. My mum remarked she was getting a Cambodian sarong after seeing their nice colours.

It was wonderful that customs like that are still in existence.

Written By Mr. Soe Lwin, Principle of BEST Language School in Mandalay.

These posts are relayed from Singapore.

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (8)

Personally, I have no idea on "how to go about being a tourist". Seems funny doesn't it. Going all the way to Angkor and saying that! Yes, laugh all you want. But I really mean it. I mean some people do or I think they do know how to go about it. You know, some strut, some explore meticulously, some romance through or look for it in places. Some looked bored or exhausted. Some try to interact with the locals. Some try to have the wildest hedonistic times of their lives. Some pretend they are Audrey Hepburn and (forgot his name) waltzing thru the Cambodian forest on a tuk-tuk (in lieu of a Vespa). OK, OK, I trudge through places, I guess that's my style. Anyways, then came the question of how the local people of the "tourist places " in Asia identify me as a tourist from a thousand paces. Me, I am as brown as any of them. Not particularly sophisticatedly dressed either. I am in cheap Chinese made togs like the locals too. Same haircut and etc. But then the answer strikes me. My looking at ordinary everyday stuff for them with interest, my furtive glances in all directions at a crossroads and hesitation before choosing a direction, my very presence at places where no locals go except shopkeepers go and then the big one: THE LOCALS HAVE NEVER SEEN ME BEFORE!. They (Asian locals) may not be able to differentiate the subtle (or not so subtle) differences in Caucasians, blacks etc but they do know whether my Asian mug is one they've seen before, whether it's one that grew up in that town or not. And there must be more signs that rule me out from being one of their own.
Now in Siem Reap, lots of eating places, that any tourist sheet can tell you. But what I ate was more local. And cheap. Forgot how much but was cheap. It was some instant noodles done up in a soup and with pork and veggies. In other Asian countries it will be locally freshly made noodles but there in Siem Reap, the noodles came from a packet. That I did not like. Taste-wise I dunno cos was so laced with MSG and got me thirsting for the next 3 hours. After the whole day trudge. My feet were killing me. Like walking of nails or raw bone. I soaked my feet in hot wate, I kneaded them myself. I poured myself a gin-medicine-painkiller and rushed it down my gullet. And then another one. And then, only then, I realized the significance of all those " FOOT MASSAGE AVAILABLE" signs.

Written by Mr. Soe Lwin, Principle of BEST Language School in Mandalay. He is my brother, he took a trip to Cambodia and Thailand with our mom last December and these are the records of his travels.

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (7)

Next day at dawn there we were at the mythical Angkor. From the car approaching we could see the enormous moat surrounding the temple complex. Our guide started to explain about the place. My mum tramped off on her own leaving him with me. The day was a bit cloudy, you know murky, so there was not a grand hit-you-in-the-face first view of the Angkor. But it was good enough, the first sight of the place. Beckoning one forward to the mysteries of its interior and history. Actually Ihad not read up much on the place at all. Some people like to read in advance about everything about a place. Some like to read 'n look. I like to read everything afterwards. That way I get to kind of like, visit the place twice. Match the scenes and views in my mind with the opinions and information of the books. I leave the names and places of the various temples for your perusal of guide books, in the information on the internet and expert analysis for the… the..experts. I will just tell you that we took the "Mini-tour" the first day which means all the "must see places". But I tell you the temples, murals, art, architecture was fabulous. The names I remember: Angkor Thom, Bayon, Terraces of the Leper King and Elephants and the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider temple and whole lot more. All with their own large compounds, heaps of fallen stones to negotiate and crannies to explore and photograph. And take photographs we did. Of ourselves, in turn. Me and my mum's photos snapped by otherpeople. Other people by us. It was eerie, strangers from many foreign lands exchanging modern cameras in ancient temples, and capturing their souls and those of the temples to take home with them for display on screens if anyone would look at them photos. Sharp photos, murky outta focus ones, pics showing sweat smears on the lenses, all were taken back as booty from our own personal tomb raids. Cameras of all shapes, lengths, and sizes were out of their holsters and "shooting" away. We needed to record our journeys to one of the wonders of the world and record we did. That digital archive by all of us will remain until the end of time or until digital records are destroyed by some computer virus.

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (6)

The car from the hotel was there to pick us up at the airport and on the way there we saw hotels of all sorts. Most of them looking very similar. Big blocks of pale brown all with signs with the word, "Angkor" in them. Angkor Central Hotel, Angkor Millennium Hotel, Royal Angkor this, Royal Angkor that. There were LOTS of hotels, the whole town seemed to be full of hotels. Our hotel was not on the main road but on a quieter side street.
After checking in, arranging a guide and transportation for the next day, we went off on foot to see the town. The guide offered to take us around and show us the sights of Siem Reap, but we declined. We wanted to see, explore and feel out the place ourselves. The back streets of the town seemed pretty much like Myanmar in many ways except for the numerous phone card and handset selling shops. I noticed that the motorcycles and tuks tuks went SLOWLY! Can you believe that ? Slowly, gently, not a lot of honking at all. This must be what the traffic is like in heaven . LOL. We strolled along the main boulevard, dropping into replica antique shops, handicrafts shops. But why were there so many "foot massage" places? I was to know on the morrow.
The Cambodian currency is the "Riel" but dollars are accepted too. The problem is if you pay with dollars there no change. A Coke is "a dollar" whether it is really 50 cents in Riel or at a supermarket. So change some money into Riel (the rate was 4000 Riel to a dollar then) if you ever happen to be there. Yes, you can use the US dollar everywhere but it is good to have some riel on you too. Much cheaper!
On the main road to the main "Old Market" area we stumbled into a comparatively dimly lit market with tourist knick knacks and lots of stuff. I wanted a T-shirt with the word "Angkor" on it and got what I wanted: an "Angkor Beer" T-shirt and another one saying, "Danger! Landmines ". But that was after some hard haggling. Those XXL size ones for me cost 2 bucks apiece, that whittled down from an initial 5 dollar asking price.
My mum got 3 small T- shirts for 4 dollars, a good price but only after checking out the quality of them. They come in so many types and qualities that you must be careful.
After a so-so meal of noodles and a warm "Angkor Beer", we went back to the hotel with our plunder. Around 9 my mum said she was a bit hungry again and out I went for some bread. I took a tuk tuk to look for a bakery with some fresh bread and found a marvelous French bakery called the "Purple Pumpkin". They had great ice-creams too. But the tuk tuk driver was a bit of a nuisance offering to take me to night clubs and asking if I wanted companionship of the female or boy-female kind.
I politely declined.
Anyway the next day at dawn, we were to be at the famed Angkor Wat and after some late grub we dropped off to sleep.

Mr. Soe Lwin is the principle and teacher of the most respected English Language School in Mandalay.
He took our mother, on a trip of her dreams (her latest dreams) in the last week of 2008.
Please read previous posts for a full account of the trip.

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (5)

By Soe Lwin, Yangon

Please accept my apologies for not posting in the last 2 weeks. Since returning from Cambodia, tons of work was awaiting me. A backlog of truly epic proportions that dragged me down and ate all of my time, like a monster from the deep.
But yesterday I managed to get that beast of work under control and now happily will continue my posts of our travels. The trip to Mrauk U, I will fill you in on later.
We jump to the Angkor episode first.
Well we were ready to go and frankly speaking, a bit apprehensive.
What if…. this or that happened… would we … could we … be able to …..?
All that stuff goin through our minds. At the same time we had an "OK, we'll get there when get kinda acceptance". So away we were at 8 am on the 26th of December to the Yangon airport which is about 10 minutes from my mum's house on my brother's car, a small Suzuki 4 wheeler, me at the back with the bags when I heard a shrieking scraping noise from under me, from the rear suspension.
Here we go again. Another obstacle! But one of course that could be surmounted with ease. “Taxi!", I shouted and that was that. The flight to Bangkok was good. Thai Airways is pricier than a lot of other airlines but sure does serve good grub in card board boxes. I loved the touch where they offer you wine in the morning although I didn't have any. My mum remarked male cabin attendants had a thin layer of makeup on their faces and looked a bit girlish.
Suvarnabhumi airport, to me at least looked like a flat cake with big triangles painted in tidy patterns on it. So modernistic and futuristic it was that it looked "un-Thai” to me. If you don't use the moving walk-ways, getting about the place is hard on the feet too.
No need to visit the gym after going around that place. It looked half-finished and cold. Must have been a jollier place during the demos of last month, I thought.
We identified some Burmese military attaches and their families and introduced ourselves to them. They were going to their first postings in Hanoi and Phnom Penh and my mum proceeded to give them some advice about living abroad and to save and not spend on frivolous things etc.
I guess she was nostalgic when seeing them as our family had been like them 40 years ago. A bit out of our element she said as she was then and they must have been like that too.
The restaurants at the airport were all a bit pricey but a friend had told me there was a small cheap shop on which floor I had forgotten that was quite alright.
Then after a few hours we caught the Bangkok Airways plane to Siem Reap. The airline calls itself a "Boutique Airline". I am still scratching my head about what that means and how it is different from other airlines. The turkey sandwich in the paper lunch box was good. Out the window we could see the Cambodian lakes and marshes and after about 40 minutes we landed at Siem Reap Airport.

Mr. Soe Lwin is the principle and teacher of the most respected English Language School in Mandalay.

He took our mother, on a trip of her dreams (her latest dreams) in the last week of 2008.

Please read previous posts for a full account of the trip.

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia, Photos

Yes, YES, My Mom and Brother have reached and returned from Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

The stories will be posted, but here are some pictures (as proof) of their visit.

More to come!

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (4)

I just got off the phone to my brother and mother, who are at the time of writing this blog, are in Bangkok, and tomorrow will be returning home to Myanmar, after a epic trip to Cambodan and Thailand (an epic trip for us ordinary Myanmars).
The trip was everything and nothing like they expected.
My mother is thrilled and happy and both of them are very, very tired.
Mom says that there is over 2,000 photos taken for these blogs. And is thrilled that her tour is going to be recorded and read all over the world.
But, dear bro says to give him a few days to recover from this Odyssey.

They are dying for some Myanmar food!

Visit this blog to read all about the journey in the coming weeks.

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (1)

I was supposed to be off to Angkor Wat, and see the splendors of the Khmer civilization but the siege of the Bangkok airport prevented me from that. You see, I went to Yangon airport and 8 o'clock sharp to check in for the flight to Bangkok (from where we would go on to Siem Reap in Cambodia where the Angkor is) with my mum and bags, all ready to fly out. But what was this large group of about a thousand people doing, milling around in front of the airport's entrances? This was not right! I asked around and found out that we would have to say good-bye to our holiday trip to Angkor again. Why again you ask? I will explain.
My mum was downcast, a bit hot and miffed. I knew she was very disappointed. We had been planning this trip for a more than 2 years now. We didn't get there at the beginning of 2008 because of the Great Fire at the Yadanarbon market and my school was burned to cinders along with it. And with all the relocating and start-up of classes and school, the trip had to be postponed. So you understand why my mum was a bit more than disappointed when the flights were cancelled to Bangkok.
So we made our way home and I started thinking on the taxi on the way. I still have the money; I still have about a week's vacation. So what we need is another destination! I don't want to go back to Mandalay with my tail between my legs and an embarrassed grin on my face!
We go home and have a bit of lunch. I naively thought “what if the flights to Bangkok start again tomorrow?" I go check the internet after lunch. To be honest I did not understand the magnitude of the problem in Thailand. Come on, whoever had heard of Bangkok's airports ever shutting down? This was a nearly 1 in a million or billion chance and by Gawd, I had to have tickets fly there at the time the 1 in a million / billion chance presented itself.
The next day I was off to the airline offices. Full of worried looking people they were. Refunds, cancellations, rerouting were the words that filled the air. So I asked the Bagan Air place: Can I get tickets to Tacheliek? Or Kawthaung? Or Sittwe? Sorry Sir, was the answer. Arghhhh… I was getting frustrated. Then I got an idea.
To be continued …..

By Soe Lwin, BEST Language School, Mandalay

Mom's trip (26th November 2008) to Angkor Wat, Cambodia, & Thailand, Suvarnabhumi Airport and Thaksin the Satan

We are Myanmar’s, and the happiness of our parents is one of the paramount tasks that we the kids, most willingly undertake. And this is a story of an attempt to fulfill that objective and the events that are happening even as I write this, that made it even more memorable. Really, really memorable!
A classic case of “if things will go wrong, then they will go wrong!” despite anything you can do.
My mother has spent the last five years dreaming about going on an overseas trip to a destination of her desire. It is not a simple thing for a 65 year old who depends on the financial support of her grown children to think about. The situation is even more difficult when she is from Myanmar (Burma). But we have all promised her that she would definitely be going, and mere lack of money would not stand in her way. She should just pick the places or places that she would like to go and the time of the year and one of us would accompany her in this trip of her life. It would be the first trip abroad in twenty something years and the first trip without her husband, our father who had passed away eight years ago losing a battle against liver cancer.
The destination selected was Angkor Wat, Cambodia, as she is a devout Buddhist, this destination came as no surprised. Thirty years ago in a similar situation like this the destination selected then was Buddhagaya in India. A trip enshrined in our family memory.
Originally I was the one who was supposed to take, dear mom, on her pilgrimage to tour Angkor Wat. But events transpired to prevent me from embarking on the trip. I got a job in Singapore which is from where this story is being penned. So it was up to my older brother to take up the responsibilities of ensuring that the trip took place.
Now my mother is a former nurse, an operating room nurse, a veteran of staring down all sorts of people, and also the mother of three boys and one boyish girl, and the spouse of a Myanmar diplomat, and the oldest of member of her generation on her side of the relatives. Although she has mellowed down quite a bit, there are times when the old fire and temper comes out, a lot less frequent then before but it still comes out when the occasion demands it. A few years ago when our district was collecting money for a community activity and funds had to be raised, people were wondering who would be the one to approach our mom for the required contribution, a thought that brought grown men of the district into a most sorry trembling state. In the end they made her the treasurer and a board member and got her to collect all the contribution of the community which she did so well that she still is the treasurer, Hillary Clinton would have been proud. And my sister has to top up the amount when it sometimes is short because she miscounted or something.
The first hurdle was getting a passport, even with the system currently in place that works at light speed compared to the nightmare of a system of old; it took her 3 months, mainly because she forgot to put in her old passport number, which was something 25 years ago before the common use of copier machines in Myanmar. The fire and temper settled that, so things fell into place.
Then she started saving money not only for the particular trip but also for the subsequent trips around Myanmar to tell everyone in the clan about it. And this was done in a cool 6 months.
Then on the 25 of November, yesterday, my brother came down from Mandalay to embark on the trip scheduled for the 26th of November 2008. Bear in mind that all and every tiny detailed had been ironed out, with my brother with extra cash, stashed secretly away to buy extra convenience and a little luxury, if it came to it.
Then,
Thaksin, the former prime minster of Thailand just got himself a new title – the Satan, as christened by dear mom.
Actually the airline staff of the airport got it first, even if they wore metal jackets and had the skin of old wild rhinoceros would not have soften the piece of mind my dear mom gave them when they told her the flight to Bangkok, and for her transit to Siam Reap, was canceled.
The hordes of antigovernment demonstrators had taken over the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok bringing all flights and my mothers’ tour to a standstill. She was hopping mad, and literally jumped into a taxi and fumed the way home.
My brother also enraged because his shopping plan had been ruined.
He simply could not speak kindly of the Thai’s all afternoon and probably for the coming months too. But he was also quite amused as he observed that dear ol’ mom, still has every single bit of the energy and fire that we saw in her growing up. He said was refreshing to see the energy. The same could not be said for the airport and airline staff. He also felt sorry for all the family members who were going to have to hear this story over and over again for the years to come at family reunions.
And they are calling the airline every hour for updates of the situation in Thailand. For this will be a trip that will be taken.
Let’s see where this goes. Stay tuned for updates on this topic.
Now I finally understand why Burmese used to go over to Thailand to beat them up in the old days of old history.