The World is a Wonderful and Horrific Place

Seeing as though Vas has covered all of the basic bullet points from our last few days, I want to take the opportunity to get real and reflect on a few things. The things that we have seen, the people we have met, and the things which we have done over the past two weeks is absolutely unreal. We've climbed mountains, traversed white water, partied hard with Thai locals, received the wisdom and blessings of Buddhist monks and one very amiable Cambodian prince, and walked through the fields where nearly 20,000 innocent men, women, and children were senselessly murdered. We've slept in huts, 4 guesthouses, a bus, and not one, but two, lovely Sun family homes. We've ridden cars, cabs, busses, trains, elephants, motorized long boats, a motorized speed boat, a sky train, bicycles, "red trucks", and every imaginable form of tuk-tuk. We've eaten pad thai, rice noodles, jellyfish, cow's intestine, french toast, waffles, lots of pizza, shitty hamburgers, roast duck, and easily the best steak I have ever had in my life. And to think we haven't even made it to Angor Wat or Ko Samui yet...

I actually want to elaborate more specifically on Phnom Penh and our experience yesterday a bit. Prior to coming here, I had actually done some research on the Khmer Rouge by reading "First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers" by Loung Ung, and had been anticipating our visits to Tuol Sleng and the Choeng Ek killings fields. To think that this all occured less than a decade before my own birth is absolutely mind-boggling. The government of Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia's name under the Khmer Rouge) actually held a seat at the UN until 1990, and the government which ousted the KR in 1979 was actually condemned by most Western states for several years. As Vas mentions, it is difficult to convey the emotions one feels when walking through the fields of Choeng Ek, with human bones literally protruding from the earth beneath your feet, or the halls of S-21, covered with gruesome photographs of the corpses found there and images of the prison's victims. Nonetheless, I will tell you that one of the most profound moments for me was when I caught myself breathing a short sigh of relief when stumbling across a photo of an elderly man among the hundreds of faces strewn throughout the halls, feeling grateful that he was at least able to lead a full life prior to the war, unlike most of the prison's victims.


What I find most amazing, however, is the lasting impact the Khmer Rouge has had on Cambodia. Because it occured only three decades ago, nearly every single individual has been directly affected by it in some way - families were uprooted, dispersed, and destroyed, and many still remain hopelessly separated. Though the country's potential is enormous (thanks to one particularly inspiring individual), the poverty is rampant in Phnom Penh in ways I did not expect, and in no way comparable to what we have seen in Thailand - an immediate example of how less than 4 years of bloodshed and chaos can set development back more than 20. Just when I was beginning to think there was nothing worse than the persistent tuk-tuk drivers of Bangkok, I was introduced to the impoverished children and landmine victims of Cambodia...

Nevertheless, Lonely Planet aptly describes Cambodia as a country of extremes. Thus while poverty seems ever-present and dark memories of the past linger in the present, the beauty and opulence of places like the Royal Palace and Angkor Wat remain.


This brings me to a much lighter note (an example of the 'extremes' we have encountered here). Last night was in fact one of the more enjoyable we have had here. Along with ten or so relatives and family friends, we were fortunate enough to be served what was easily the best steak dinner I have ever had, cooked especially 'with love' by Mr. Sun himself. Though none of us specifically requested a drink at any point during the evening, they just kept coming! And when the high prince of Cambodia asks you to have a shot of cognac with him, you don't say no. Ask Vas. I also think we danced to "Thriller" three or four times. Forget Michael Jackson though -- I've just been told that Billy Mays passed away today. Damn.


Today was a slow day, as we spent most of it hanging out with the Suns. We did see Wat Phnom, which was interesting, and then went out on the family boat on the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers. We then returned home, played some pretty competitive volleyball games, had dinner, played Go Fish, Old Maid, and Hide and Seek, and Anthony and I are now watching the US of A play Brazil in the Confederations Cup Final in South Africa. 2-0 at half!


Anyway, I had more that I wanted to say, but it's 2:30 in the morning and I'm drawing a blank. We have a 7:30 bus to Siem Reap as well, which is not going to be a ton of fun.

Miss you all! And a big thanks once again to Ratavy, Nyny, and their family for showing us such a great time and welcoming us into their home.

Kyle

Off to Siem Reap

YO! We are losing readership...it's time for an update. After a rousing game of hide and seek with Mony, Nyny and Ratavy...we're crashed on Ratavy's couch awaiting the U.S. - Brazil Confederation Cup final. We won't have much time to sleep, since we have a 7:30AM bus to Siem Reap to catch. Let's recount the last few days...

After arriving in Phnom Penh, we were warmly greeted by Ratavy and Nyny at the airport, crashing for the night.

The next day we took to the streets of PP with a packed day ahead of us. Despite its bright future, Cambodia is a country with a scarred history, a history aptly memorialized around the city. We headed first to the Tuol Seng genocide museum, site of the S-21 prison and a proper introduction to the atrocities of the Khmer Rogue genocide (I'm no history buff, so a quick Wikipedia search would do you good!). It was a moving complex -- a secondary school whose classrooms had been converted into torture rooms and small holding cells. Pictures lined the walls of those who had died there, and much of the site remained preserved in its initial state. It was difficult and at times disturbing, but served as a stark reminder of what we can never let happen again.

From there, we rode about 40 minutes outside the city to the Killing Fields, a site where tens of thousands had been brought to be killed. A memorial in the center of the field held almost 8,000 human skulls that had been excavated from the site. Most of the site remains in tact, many of the bodies still buried there. It's hard to verbalize the emotions one feels visiting a place like this, so I will leave it there.

One thing we were quick to quick to notice was the scale of development here in Phnom Penh; it's a much smaller city than Bangkok. We also had our first real dose of children beggars. Some were cheeky, others were desperate, and overall it was tough to say no. Having experienced something similar in India, I knew first hand it would be impossible to help them all. But we spared a few dollars here and there and did our best.

Next, we hit the Palace, home to the Royal Family. A vast complex of beautiful buildings and obvious opulence -- quite similar to the Grand Palace in Bangkok. Pretty legit -- pics to come. "Yo yooooooooo"... Ben was quick to point out the exact building where Obama would have tea, should he ever visit Cambodia. This was followed by two or three stories of his own visit to the Oval Office, and how he was in the War Room during the invasion of Baghdad. For those of you who have been privy to Ben's exaggerations, I'll let you figure those out....but they helped to pass the time nonetheless.

We headed home to get ready for the big graduation bash at Ratavy's house, which, as Ben alluded to earlier, was AMAZING. Maybe one of the best times we have had on this trip, a truly memorable celebration. I'll let Kyle take that one...

We are off to Angkor Wat tomorrow! I've been looking forward to this the most on the trip...

A shout out back to everyone in the States, I miss you guys.

Vas

Unbelivable

Amazing night in Cambodia. I think the best night yet.

More details to come....

In the Pehn

Yo. First and foremost, thanks again to Ratavy for her unbelievable hospitality. We're at her house here in Cambodia with her family, and it's been awesome. Last night we hit up dinner with her and her family -- a fantastic meal at a French-Cambodian restaurant with GREAT bread. What more could I ask for? This'll have to be it for now, time for breakfast.

Vas

Lost in Bangkok

Just a quick update before we head over to Cambodia. As Kyle mentioned, due to the rail workers strike, we ended up taking an overnight bus down to Bangkok. Sadly, none of us slept much due to the blaring music, erratic driving, and many interruptions. No worries though, we made it safely.

When we made it into the train station we decided to head to a guest house near the riverside. Our cabbie clearly had no clue where we were going, so I called the guest house and asked them to give him directions in Thai. Nearly 20 or so minutes later, we were still driving around in circles. The cabbie called the hotel again and spoke with many people along the way, but we were still going in circles. At some point Antony pulled out his guidebook and directed the cabie. It is alway a bad sign when we have to give directions to our cab driver in Bangkok.

Lucky the guest house althoguh out of the way is pretty nice. From there we decided to head to the movie at Siam Square. The imax was sold out so we went for the regular showing. Although the movie was weak, the experience was worth it. We were in one of the nicest mails we have ever seen, and the theatres wre incredible. There was also the most extensive foodcourt we could imagine. Vas and Kyle missing huntsman decided to hit up ABP. I of course couldn't avoid the mangosteen sorbet.

There was also a gourmet grocery store near the foodcourt. I was introduced to m,y new favorite fruit -- golden kiwi from New Zealand. Sorry for all the typos. The computer is very slow and lagging a sentence behind my typing. I'm just going to try post.

See you in Cambodia

Living on a Prayer

Today is Day 13 of 26, I believe. Or 14, I forget. Either way, our trip is roughly half way complete. Though it feels like an eternity since we first set foot in JFK almost two weeks ago, I can't believe it actually has been that long already. I think we all are becoming at least mildly homesick -- whatup to all of our lovely mothers, fathers, siblings, significant others, relatives, and dear friends -- you are all missed very much and thought of/spoken of often. But not enough to leave just yet!

Let me begin by making a few addendums to Ben's post... The life insurance (provided by AIG...) was actually 200,000 baht, not 6000. By 'pouring rain', Ben means that it rained lightly for maybe a third of the trek. Considering how stifling the sun was when it wasn't raining, it was generally welcomed by us all. Shiloh IS the cutest puppie alive, and I miss him dearly. I also don't know how Ben failed to mention that, aside from my performance the night of our return, the nearest to death experience we have had so far occured during our white water adventure. We were split into two rafts - Anthony and I in one with a guide, and Ben and Vas in another with theirs. At this one rapid, mine and Anthony's boat got stuck between two rocks in the middle of the rushing water and literally bent in half, with me hanging on to the edge of the raft. Just as I was ready to jump and say my prayers, our guide was able to get the thing loose. EXTREME.

Okay, I'll pick up from there. Our night out with M and Pipe that night was absolutely legendary. I blame Pipe entirely for my complete intoxication. Thankfully, the other guys were well enough to take care of me. We went to Roots, Rock, Reggae, a live music bar off the beaten path just near our hostel that happened to be a local favorite and a staple among the Peak Adventure employees. Amazing time and great experience overall.

Yesterday was largely a bust to be honest. We had planned to go to Doi Suthep National Park, home to Wat Doi Suthep, roughly 16km outside of Chiang Mai. Disappointed from arriving after closing time the day before, I woke up before everyone else and walked down the street to the Chiang Mai Womens' Prison, where I received a 30-minute Thai foot massage from an inmate for 100 baht, or roughly $3, including a 33% tip (she deserved it - my feet were nasty after three days of all that hiking, rafting, and rappelling). All of the proceeds go toward supporting the inmates once they are released.

After that, I did return to find the guys eating breakfast at our wonderful MD Guesthouse. That place is sorely missed. After checking out, we took a 'red truck' up the mountain to Wat Doi Suthep. When I tell you that was the windiest road I have ever been on, I am by no means exaggerating. It seemed like forever before we reached the top, and I'm fairly certain that each of us was on the verge of vomitting. It took me two hours to fully recover. The temple itself was nothing special - similar to all the rest we've seen - but it did have an interesting 360-some-odd step staircase which was kinda cool, and a spectacular view of Chiang Mai and the surrounding valley. Sorry, no time for pics now. We'll get some up when we get to Ratavy's tomorrow in Phnom Penh. After that, we wasted 30 minutes of our live by heading further up the mountain to some palace whose name isn't worth even looking up right now. There were some lame gardens, some unexciting buildings, and a dry water reservoir, but that's about it.

After that, we headed back to the MD House, grabbed some food, and played a bunch of spades until it was time to catch our overnight bus back to Bangkok. The bus itself was amazing - fully reclining seats, double decker, massaging chairs, free food and drinks, pillows, blankets, etc., but none of us slept very much as the Thai movie and music they played sporadically was so loud, and we stopped twice to have our passports checked and once for a 30-minute rest stop... In fact, all of the others are still in bed. I need to go wake them so we can catch the 2:00pm showing of Transformers at the Paragon in Siam Square. It's supposed to be a cinematic adventure - each person gets their own lazy boy or something. I dunno, Vas has been raving about it for days. Tomorrow we head to the airport for our quick flight to Cambodia. Can't wait!

Laaater,
Kyle

If You Fall, You Will Die: Jungle Trek

One of the most anticipated events of our trip was our jungle trek. We spent countless hours discussing the pros and cons of different tour companies, different jungle locations, and various amounts of time. The short version:

Burr: Do we really need a tour guide? I'm just going into the jungle and we'll find the villages on my own.

Vas: Do we actually have to go on a trek? Can't we just rent a movie and stay at the guest house and do laundry. I saw a good pizza place down the street. Where are my tums?

In the end, taking the advice of our waterfall "Peak Adventure Guides" we decided to embark on a two day, one night, Peak Adventure Tour. The company picked us up at our guest house at 8:30 am and drove us to their corporate headquarters. It was then that we met our tour guides, our new lifelong friends, who lead us through the hills and mountains of Thailand, M and Pipe.

At Peak headquarters we met a few of our travel companions and signed our liability waiver. In case of death or dismemberment our heirs would receive 6000 baht less than $200.

From there, 12 people started our journey together. 4 were on a one day trek and 4 others with us 4 were planning on sticking around for two days. A big shout out goes to Wanda aka Prada who unfortunately didn't it make it all the way with us. Her large size prada bag was too much to lug through the jungle (although Vas did enjoy talking about the re-burgeoning IPO market for VC portfolio companies to her HBS grad boyfriend). The first, but certainly not last tear was shed by Vas when they slowly departed in a peak van.

Our trek started at an elephant camp. Vas and I paired up as did Burr and Anthony to ride the elephants. We weren't expecting much, but it was significantly more exciting than we thought. We bought some bananas and sugar cane to feed the beasts whose back's we were on, in hopes that this would stop them from bucking us off. A huge shout out goes to our driver. Only he knew that the fastest way to calm TitTat (our elephant) was to put his cell phone in TT's ear and play a Kanye ring tone. I guess even elephants want part of the goodlife.

After the elephant ride M and Pipe led the four of us into the Thai jungle. We anticipated a four hour hike, so Ant and I were prepared with our Merrill Moab Gortex. What we were not prepared for was a four hour hike, almost completely uphill, in the pouring rain. We were soaked from head to toe, covered in mud, and out of breath for four hours long. Vas was quick to make jokes about our matching shoes, but his Air Force Ones (which led him to many championships on the hoop court) let him down in the jungle. He spent more time crawling through the mud than walking.

We finally made it to the Karen village where we were to spend the night. M and Pipe showed us to our room at the hut in the village. It was slightly more austere then we had first imagined. M and a local villager cooked us our first dinner in the jungle, which was surprisingly one of our best meals so far. It consisted of chicken and mushroom soup in a creamy coconut milk broth, sweet and sour vegetables, glass noodles with bamboo shoots, and ended with a fresh cut mango.

Although it was very tasty, I was hesitant to eat much after seeing our sous chef --pipe pouring water out of a oil can to cook and wash his knife with. Following dinner we walked around in an attempt to meet some of the villagers. It was quite an eye opening experience. Families lived in one room huts without running water or electricity. They typically had a cow or pig tied to the post of their houses. We didn't get to speak to many of the villagers, but did use our knew Karen word -- dubli -- meaning hello and thank you. Anthony was able to give a high five to one of the young boys kicking a soccer ball

Once we got back to our hut we saw a different side of our tour guides. Pipe and a local villager Patti turned into quite the sommeliers for the evening. For some reason we couldn't get a cold bottle of water the entire trip, but they seemed to pull an endless supply of ice cold homemade rice whiskey from the middle of the jungle. Although I have been to a fine wine pairing class, I did not know that rice whiskey would go so well with bamboo shoots.

After many rounds of rice whiskey our tour guides began to open up. Pipe who barely spoke english began to tell stories and teach us different brain teasers. The most interesting person we met though was a local villager named Patti (which is a term or respect meaning something like uncle in the local village tongue). He taught us many tricks and even gave us a home made bamboo toy. Although we had to buy him many beers from himself to learn the ancient secrets. By the end of the night he convinced us to call him Mr. Party which was seemed normal at the time even though he spoke literally no English.

Finally we all decided to retire to bed. Burr almost certainly dreaming of his new Friend Pipe the entire night. Surprisingly due to the fact that we were sleeping on rugs on wooden floors with no AC we woke very early, and before M and Pipe. The place did have a few key amenities---most importantly a built in mosquito net. At that moment Vas posed a math question for the group. Vas: I have at least 100 mosquito bites on my body. What is the probability that none of these mosquitoes had malaria?

After waking up early we met a new friend appropriately named Shiloh by Burr. He was one of the cutest puppies we have ever seen. He quickly jumped up onto us and was very playful. A quick side note -- one of the most distinctive things we have noticed in Thailand is the sheer amount of stray dogs running around. We all were warned by the able Penn Student Health Doctor not to touch any dogs due to the high probability that they would be rabid. There was no way Shiloh was rabid right?

After a quick breakfast we packed our bags and began our trek down the mountain with Shiloh at our heals. We tried to get him to stay back at his home but he refused, following us for literally 3 hours and a handful of miles. He led the way most of the trip, but we did have to help him down a ladder and across a few irrigation canals. Finally we came across another village with a dog or two. There we prepared to cross a raging river and said our goodbye to Shiloh and crossed without him. There, Burr shed the second tears of the trip. After crossing the river and climbing through a rice field or two we looked back to Shiloh standing at the rivers edge barking for us. Burr cried again and Pipe had to restrain him from running back to rescue Shiloh.

Finally we were off to some white water rafting. We were reminded of the adage in broken English from our repelling the day before "If you fall you will Die." Somehow I again was paired with Vas. Luckily his paddling skills were slightly better than his non existent swimming skills. It was hard to follow instructions from our rafting guide because the only English he knew was "high five." Luckily we made it through for the final high five. We also taught him our other motto: "Vas too good for paddle," as Vas dropped his paddle during many of the rapids and he had to jump out of the raft and swim through the rapids to retrieve it.

After the rafting, we took off our helmets and vests, but the guide told us to keep them on for the ride home. Naturally I chuckled but he informed me that they were putting the rafts in a truck and we were going to sit on them, so we needed helmets in case we fell. Still thinking he was kidding, I laughed again. A few minutes later. Vas' knuckles turned white as he gripped ever so tightly on to the side of the pick up as we sped through turns---still sitting on our rafts.So this post is entirely too long. But after the trek we took a quick shower and our guides met us at our guesthouse to take us to a nearby Reggae bar. Burr had the time of his life. We carried him home. The lobby guy at our guesthouse remembered him from last night---kyle doesn't.

All in all it was a very successful trip.