Cambodia: Phnom Penh to Vietnam: Dalat
Dear All
Vietnam has really surprised me. I was expecting to come to a country overwhelmed by war stories and shooting ranges but I have found much more - more than I have seen in the rest of Indo-China and Thailand. Vietnam opens it doors and empties out the pockets of the tourist walking single file down a trail of beaches, weirdos and museum after museum. Cambodia seems much emptier comparatively as the two tourist holes offer little but more chill out. I managed to waste five days in Phnom Penh subsequently.
I found an excuse to slow down a little in the country of Asian subcontinent mentality. I gave my passport on Thursday evening for a Vietnam visa meaning that it cannot be returned to me until Monday and I can't leave until Tuesday. A self-destructive instinct to find a little solace in a small lakeside hotel where the food is great and the hammocks lay open for you put my old broken bones at ease for those pleasant days in Phnom Penh. I spent whole days reading, relaxing, socializing and cherishing the nothing-to-do city. Unlike what I expected from tourist rumor, Cambodia isn't as aggressive and cheating as I expected. Past the first day of being in PP, the taxi drivers and drug dealer began to leave me alone and start talking to me as friends - something I didn't experience in the anti-social world of Laos or the anti-tourist world of Thailand. I actually made some Cambodian friends in Phnom Penh. Though I did very little with my time in the capital, I did spend the first day cruising the sites and observing the tourist attraction.
From 1975 to 1979, Cambodia experienced one of the world’s worst auto-genocide. The Cambodian Khmer Rouge killing off it's own people is one of humanities most terrible faces. The advantage to a momentary historic war event like this is the eternity of admission fees that tourist will pay to learn about the massacre. I started my day with Andy, the professional traveler, and Kent and Wakako, to the firing range.
We arrived at the shooting range right after breakfast. The dusty uneven roads that lead up to the open field that houses the range only strengthened my anticipation for the gun. After the end of the war, the left over ammunition was in part used for shooting ranges for tourist with the possibility to shoot a chicken for $25 and a cow for $150. I chose to shoot at the paper target with the Muslim picture on display. 10 bullets, 10 dollars. I have never held or shot a gun before and though I am a pacifist by nature there is this macho need instinct to fire off a weapon. I decided on the handgun as I figured those men that chose the AK-47 were trying to compensate for something. As I lay down the trigger the recoil lung my hand back. I missed. Then again. Then again. Then the shooting range manager showed me the little nub on the front of the gun and the split site on the back. Then I was in full gear. I managed to get the Muslim with two bullets to the head, one right on the center bulls eye and the rest scattered around the paper. Revenge for all those mosques that play their loudspeakers at full blast near my hotel at 5am. After using a weapon of death, I was now ready to see real death first hand.
The Killing Fields in Phnom Penh are a tribute to the hundreds of thousands of Cambodian who died during this horrific period in their history but thanks to Pol Pot and his merciless iron fist, the tourist are shelling out 2 dollars each to see an open field with dug our holes where mass graves used to be. In the center of this field is a stupa – a monument filled with skulls and bones of many of the unknown victims of the massacre. Now, it is a tourist roundabout cashing in on the sacrifices of the past. The future of Cambodia remembers their dead with two dollar bills. I have been to several concentration camps all over Europe and I can justifiably say that I get the same feeling from the Killing Fields as I did from the camps – they are open spaces with little to indicate the true terror that the people must have experienced. In retrospect and for anyone coming to Cambodia, if you are really interested in genocidal history and man’s inhumanity to man, read a book – any book about this topic. Dirt and bones mean little more than a life list tick.
Next, the tuk tuk driver took us over through the psychotic and misdirected traffic over unpaved roads to the S-21 Museum – a previous elementary school turned torture chamber. The three levels of classrooms in several building became makeshift isolation and extraction rooms but, again, the evidence towards this was compromised with little more that an unmatressed bed with some implements of torture laid over the bed base and a picture on the wall depicting usage. Some other rooms were transformed into compartmentalized solitary confinement cells made of wood, metal or concrete. The saving grace to this museum is the movie they show at 3pm depicting one couples personal account leading up to their torture and false confession for being treasonous against the Khmer Rouge. I finished the day unfazed and mildly exhausted. We made a small attempt at seeing the Russian Market (named so because Russians patronized it many years ago) but it was near closing so we saw little of it and headed home to relax and relax I did – for three days.
Phnom Penh’s Khao San sits elegantly on the lakeside facing the sunset. I fell in love with my guest house and, slowly, with the Cambodians. I have heard many complain about the scamming, touting and general evils of this semi-boring country but I found it to be welcoming and well, still boring, but maybe that’s it’s point. After the second day, the touts stopped bothering me and began to invite me to share their life stories and, if I wasn’t so busy being a touristy-socializer, I could have enjoyed the local nightlife. I was even invited out for a massage with the married tuk tuk guys who told me that the massage comes with a free, ah hem, hooker. I passed. I don’t like massages.
Though my room had no bathroom, I had carpeting, a shelving unit and a table and chair making it feel like a real room – almost a bedroom. I flashed back to days when I use to have carpeting and could walk in my socks without slipping on the floor. Now I don’t even own sock. How things have changed.
Cambodians also love boxing and they can be seen crowded in their local grubby restaurant staring at an 18 inch TV or at the nearby arena to see an imported westerner rack in free wins by pumbling a Cambodian skinny weight with no effort at all. It’s not only the accommodation and food that’s cheap.
By the time my passport was returned with the Vietnam visa, I had a full belly of my guesthouses fantastic food, a well-developed hammock hemorrhoid and agreed-disagreement about the Iraq War and the F911 Michael Moore film with Andy. I was saddened to leave this half healthy half wealthy country where the pseudo French architecture and car washes/gas powered tire pumps sits next to stilted bamboo shacks with palm leaf roofs. There is a mishmash of wealth from tourist cities and a continued poverty in the countryside. There are no public buses so I took the typical tourist bus to Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City.
The route through to the Cambodian Vietnam border is lined with more villages and open space. The border crossing is a bizarre mix of bureaucracy and distance. The Cambodian side was simple enough- an overcrowded double manned booth gets the truckloads of tourists to fill out a departure form and hand in their passports while they wait for the slow stamping process. After a good wait you need to walk a short kilometer to the entrance of the Vietnam side. The scam here is if you want to get your bag off the cart that is wheeling across but only halfway down the no mans land, you need to give the drivers a dollar. Scamming us to the very end. I have learned in Asia that nothing comes for free so I grabbed my bag before it got loaded. Many of those who haven’t developed the patience of a Buddha like myself were complaining at the border people for making them wait and the cart guys for scamming them. The Vietnam side has a similar wait with an x-ray of your luggage and a 2000 Dong (approximately 10 cents) fee for a non-existent health check. We waited more for the tourist bus to pick us up at the other side and off we were into my last country of Asia – Vietnam.
Vietnam is significantly more wealthy than Laos and Cambodia and it become evident for the remainder of the ride up to the Capital. The rice fields lead into plantations, which open into cities with well structured gas stations, street signs and romanised characters for their alphabet. There is a definite Chinese influence here with green tea served in the restaurants along side classic Chinese breakfast of noodle soup called “pho bo”. The women wear conical Chinese hats and the street food reappears again as it stopped existing in Cambodia. Though the green tea here is served cold and not hot like in China, I begin to reminisce about my time in the Middle Country. The Vietnamese look a more Chinese than the rest of the SE Asians. Even the capitalism of this Communist country reminds me of China. I arrived at Ho Chi Minh at the travel agency, a common theme here the land of tourism, and settled into my dorm.
Saigon is actually just the center of the city whereas the official name is abbreviated to HCMC similar to how Sydney is just a small section of the entire metropolis. Again, there is a Khao San like area here called Pham Ngu Lao Area. Unlike Khao San and more like Calcutta’s Sudder Street, the Pham Ngu Lao Area goes beyond one street and pours into the neighboring side streets and tiny alleyways where locals live side by side with the 75 cent per CD stores, mini hotels and bar after bar. Nightlife is a major pull to this city seeing as there are no common areas in any of the hotels here. Vietnam is not for chilling out nextto your bed and with this, you must venture outdoors and do stuff. I did two.
The Vietnam war, like the Cambodian equivalent, a serious tourist attractant racking in big Dong for the country which would otherwise have little to show for itself. I went to the ultraboring Reunification Palace and the War Remnants Museum.
The Reunification Palace is the building where Ho Chi Minh was sitting when the Communist crashed through the front door on 30 April 1975 (my exact birth date) and demanded his resignation. The interior is comparable to a dull unimpressive and antiquated version of an Asian Whitehouse with conference rooms filled with old furniture and bunker basement room store desks covered in old rotary phones. The War Remnants Museum, one of several hundred filling the empty spaces in every city to always remind you that 5 million Vietnamese died whereas on 60,000 died on the American side, is a photo gallery of specific events that occurred in the war and specifically included a film about Agent Orange and it’s mutating effects on the population even to today. I know nothing about this war and have come to a conclusion. I am now on a personal anti-war protest – no more war tourism for me and will not frequent any more museums regarding this event.
Saigon itself is a nice walkable city with many beautiful building in the center and many parks as well. The traffic is some of the most chaotic I have ever seen. Here is the secret to crossing the street – walk slowly. The mostly motorcycle traffic that flows in all directions and often on the wrong side of the street will notice you and veer out of the way when the notice you. Though your first instinct may be to run across in a single leap, try not to and you will make it. Otherwise, use one of the locals as a human shield. Except for the Cambodian (and the Russians), people rarely kill their own kind.
The next day I took a tour. I rarely take tours as they are often shite and compromised but my US$4 tour package is one of the only ways to get to the Cu Chi Tunnels and the Cao Dai Cult temple.
The Cao Dai are a cult made from a mixture of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and a sprinkling of several other philosophies for good measure and whose doctrine involves a means of escaping the reincarnation circle by living a good, pure life. They are monotheistic and follow a Chinese style of Ying and Yang. The offensively bright temple with its images of Shiva and other Hindu gods sit on the roof. Their symbol of the divine eye (a pyramid with an eye and an eyebrow in it) stare openly at the welcomed tourist who can observe their noon time ceremony of chanting, sitting and standing. I suppose this is a good way of expanding the cult by allowing free access to the services. The Cao Dai who attended the service are very old and look like they have gone through the reincarnation process a few too many times like a dollar bill that has been through the washing machine. We left fairly quickly as the praying was getting repetitive.
A few hours of driving later, we arrived at the Cu Chi Tunnels – a good though synthetic example of Viet Cong life underground during the war and how they survived with little but tapioca root and Ho Chi Minh motto signs. We got toured through several bunkers and crept around under the tunnels to give us the real feeling for the place but it just reconfirmed my new protest – NO MORE WAR HISTORY. I’m a hippy at heart and feel uninterested in the war. To understand more about this tunnel read http://www.plansinsand.com/logue2/mar07.html as Ralph gives a better portrait of the events that happened here. The two hours spent at the destinations were compromised by the hours of driving that needed to be done. The tour lasted from 8:30am to 6pm. Amazing how little we actually did. I spent the next night at the local drinkery with the familiar faces on my bus down and the next day planning my trip up the Vietnamese artery.
Vietnam is like a two lane highway – all the areas of interest are up and down in a straight line. As a result, the country in all of SEA that first opened up to tourism, has set up a open-tour package with the buses whereas you can by your bus route up or down the highway at one time. This tourist bus sheepherder seemed like a bad idea to me at first as you must commit to a date to leave all the cities you want to see when you book the ticket but, in retrospect, it is far easier and cheaper to do it this way. I decided otherwise and with my new travel companion, Celia, we headed up to Dalat – the city of kitch.
Vietnam’s commuting system is filled with commission stops everywhere. From the restaurants that overcharge you to the hotels you stop at at the end of the journey, you are walking into a commission circle that seems impossible to escape. I have tried hard to find the local way of commuting but it is more difficult and expensive to manage. The route to Dalat took three extra hours and we took the room in the hotel we arrived at. The rooms outside of Saigon always come with a free toothbrush and small tube of toothpaste – bless them.
Dalat is a hill station-like city designed for the locals to escape the heat. I really like hill stations and this one holds no exception to the kitsch that the Asians can fill into their vacation. Instead of taking the US$12 package tour of the city, we rented a motorcycle for US$2 each and braved the twisted traffic.
I did try to drive a Vespa through the city but I couldn’t get it out of first. I now have a new item on my life list – learn to drive a Vespa.
Cruising the rainy streets of the Dalat with it’s several roundabouts and hilly roads, we made our way to highway 20 at cruised a maximum speed of 45 km/h (apparently 60km/h is the max you can drive on any road and the motorcycles have been modified to not even get anywhere close to that mark). We got to Datanla Falls (5000 Dong each + 1000 Dong for parking with an extra 1000 Dong charge for foreigners) after getting lost several times and headed down the slippery staircase to see a half assed waterfall with a cowboy and horse available to take your photo with and a man in a bear costume. Next, we got to the Chicken Village where a giant statue of a chicken sits off a dirt path and stares onto highway traffic. No body knows why the statue was put there but it is gaudy and ugly and very kitsch so I liked it. Next on the kitsch-o-meter is the Prenn Falls (8000 Dong) with a wide but unimpressive waterfall and a zoological park with animals in cages too small for them. The upsetting thing wasn’t the size of the cages but the way the Vietnamese were treating the animals especially the monkey that were teased before they were rewarded with food that they shouldn’t eat like candy bars and chocolate. Asians and animals, right? After the falls, we got to the Crazy House (6000 Dong) – a freak show guesthouse cum art gallery that is designed like Alice in Wonderland but on even more acid. The rooms are named after the sculpture that sits in the middle of the floor that follows the rustic theme. The Kangaroo Room has a kangaroo in it with red Christmas light glowing eyes that give it an evil look and furniture that has brown log shape and a non-square architecture. The entire building is shaped like a giant tree but obviously made from concrete. The tourists that pull in everyday most likely support the building more than the guesthouse would. There is even a spider web and a small moat. It was so ugly it was excellent. Finally, to end our day, we visited the Crazy Monk, artist and Buddhist owner of his own pagoda, whose obvious wealth makes the neighbors envious (which we were given an example of when we asked for directions to his place and were received by snide remarks and distaste). We got to go into his place and see the numerous head sculptures made from concrete and the room upon room filled with his artwork –styles that resemble thick brush Chinese art and a definite Van Gogh fan club leader. His mild Buddhism mentality beautifully covered up his egomania as he mentioned several times about his interview on CNN and his worldwide notoriety. This was the crème de la crème of kitsch and ended our day on a wonderful positive note. At night, the center of the city turns into a pedestrian mall and so we returned our bike before nightfall and cruised around taking photos of the fluorescent Eiffel Tower look alike and giggling at the mobile popcorn making machines that have speakers attached to them blasting loud pop music. All in all, a twisted kitsch experience, good day of driving on a motorcycle again and a reminder that I will not be heading to Burningman this year and need to get my weird fix in one way or another.
I am now in Nha Trang and don’t know why. It seems like a typical beach area but surrounded by a full on city. Like with all Vietnam, I am enjoying this place and the people who are friendly and extroverted and even the touting doesn’t bother me much. I will see what is going on with this place as I jus trolled in and all I have seen in the inside of this internet café. I will head to Hoi An and Hue in a few days.
Be Well
Oren Jalon
World Traveller
