Cambodia pictures

I am working on the blog for our trip to Cambodia, but in the meantime, here are some pictures on a web album: http://picasaweb.google.com/chadlarsonfamily/Cambodia200702

You went where? Cambodia. That's right. Cambodia.

When I told a partner at my firm that I went to Cambodia for a few days on vacation he replied, "You went where?!?!" He was so flabbergasted he could barely speak. Though I don't know this for certain, my guess is that his reaction is based on 1) Cambodia's relatively recent political turmoil--okay, that is an understatement, it was genocide; and 2) a lack of understanding on the part of most Americans regarding any of Southeast Asia, especially Cambodia.

So why did we decide to visit this formerly dangerous/deadly and misunderstood country? When we decided to go to Thailand we considered a trip to Cambodia for one reason: to see the temples of Angkor. We had read about and seen pictures of these temples for years. It is considered by many to be on the most interesting and beautiful places on earth. We waffled during the initial planning stage of our trip because, despite its proximity to Thailand, getting to Cambodia is expensive. Rumor has it that Bangkok Airlines has flexed its political muscle to keep the road from Bangkok to Cambodia in poor repair--forcing tourists like us to pay outrageous amounts for a 1 hour flight. In the end, we decided that we may not be back to this part of the world for many years to come. We bit the bullet and bought the overpriced tickets. We made the right decision. It was an amazing experience--not just because of what we saw, but because of what we learned from the Cambodian people we met.

We had another early morning on Monday, May 7th as we took a cab from the Selway's apartment to the airport. Our cab driver was deceptively friendly. When Chad asked for change back, repeatedly, the cabby just smiled and walked away (he spoke very good English). Good thing the amount he wanted back totaled only $2! We boarded our very short and expensive flight (I think we figured we each paid $5 per minute) and soon we were in the country of Cambodia. Chad had arranged a car (with driver) and guide for our three day visit. The car and guide would take us anywhere and show us around the temples for as long as we wanted for $50 a day. Not a bad deal. Our car and driver were at the airport to greet us. Wasting no time, we headed for the temples of Angkor.

I'll try my hand at a very brief and simplified history of the temples of Angkor. Because the ancient Khmer did not produce any durable written texts (there may have been histories written on palm leaves or animal skins and stored in some of the temple libraries, but none of the text survived) the history of this ancient civilization has been pieced together by scholars from all over the world. As you can imagine, this makes much of the history of this place hypothetical--but also compelling and mysterious! Angkor's earliest monument/temple dates from about 800 A.D. It was built by Jayavaram II. Most of the temples were built by Jayavaram VII. Not surprisingly, it was the hard labor of the common people that built the temples--and then those people were prohibited from seeing all but the outer-most portions of the buildings. Jayavaram, a Buddhist, tried to please both the Buddhists and Hindus. Many of the temples attempted to blend the two traditions. Angkor Wat, the largest and most famous of all of the temples, is considered a shrine to the Hindu goddess Vishna. Chad and I commented a number of times about how completely unfamiliar these religious traditions, along with their stories and gods, are to us. Perhaps someone who grew up in the Buddhist and Hindu tradition would have the same reaction hearing Bible stories for the first time. The temples were never totally abandoned, but the population surrounding the area became so small that upkeep was impossible. That is why so many of the temples have been overtaken, in part, by the forest. In the late 1800's the French "rediscovered" the Angkor area. Since that time, there have been a number of different conservation efforts. There are different schools of thought concerning how to best preserve the sites--do you try and remove the trees and branches, or is that part of the charm? try rebuilding and replicating or just leave them as they are? take the structures apart and put them back together again? Interesting stuff.

The temples were magnificent. The only thing that matched their incredible beauty was the INCREDIBLE HEAT. Thank goodness we had an air conditioned car. When the sun was beating down it felt like nothing I've ever experienced. I carried an umbrella everywhere to shield Jack and I. Jack did surprisingly well. There was usually some wind, clouds, and sometimes a bit of rain in the late afternoon. He loved that. We also went back to our hotel for a few hours in the afternoon when the heat was at its worst.

We met people from all over the world touring the temples. Kind and smiling people from other regions of Cambodia, a hilarious couple from Korea who videotaped Jack (and we saw them on our flight back to Bangkok), TONS of tourists from Japan, and a few friendly Americans.

Taking some time to get to know our guide, Sophie, gave us some insight into the terrible suffering the communist Khmer Rouge inflicted on the Cambodian people. The Khmer Rouge was the ruling political party from 1975-1979. During that time they killed somewhere between 1.5 million and 3 million of their own people (and the population was only about 7.5 million at the time). These deaths were largely executions, but almost half of the deaths resulted from starvation and forced labor. These are the categories that the Khmer Rouge government considered "enemies":

• anyone with connections to the former government or with foreign governments;
• professionals and intellectuals - in practice this included almost everyone with an education, or even people wearing glasses (which, according to the regime meant that they were literate);
• ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese, Cambodian Christians, Muslims and the Buddhist monks.

Sophie's father was a doctor and his mother was a nurse. When he was just 6 years old they were murdered by the Khmer Rouge. He and his two siblings were split up and sent to small villages to labor in the fields, forced to grow food they were not permitted to eat. He said he was lucky to be in a village where the old people would take care of him and sneak him extra food. He said the people were so malnourished and weak during that time that a group of 30 or 40 grown men could be held captive by a Khmer soldier so young that he could barely hold his machine gun off the ground. The men were too weak to even attempt to overcome him. After 2 years, 4 months and 6 days, Sophie was "liberated" and able to see his siblings again. He said the almost 30 years since that time has gone by much more quickly than those 2 years. You could still see the pain in his countenance. I'm sure his life would have been much different with educated parents. Like so many young Cambodians at that time, he and his siblings were just left to build a life for themselves with no parental guidance or security. It is just beyond my comprehension to be in a situation like that. As you can imagine, Cambodia has yet to recover