Steinbeck had "Travels With Charlie", we have "Travels With Dan"

After our volunteer time at Care For Dogs Foundation we went and spent a week relaxing in Pai, Thailand with the plan on meeting Dan Sears in Phnom Penh on 3 Feb. A combination of late planning on buying a bus ticket and the Thai elections made us end up doing the trip between the two towns in one long push instead of two. It was a 42 hour marathon consisting of mini bus-bus-tuktuk-taxi-bus-walk (across the border)-short bus-bus-bus. It was the one time since we had left Koh Samui we had reservations at a hotel and we didn't arrive until 7am. The reservation was non-refundable so we checked into our room for the last 5 hours in order to take a shower and nap. I hope we don't repeat such a journey any time soon. It takes days to recover from something like that. The good planning with poor execution continued when we discovered that the Vietnamese embassy was closed for the week due to the Tet New Year. Instead of spending a few days in Phnom Penh and then going to Siem Reap and Angor Wat we decided to flip flop the plan. This meant getting back on a bus and back tracking 7 hours to where we had just been. 

Angkor had been on our hit list of sights to see for a long time. It is one of the archaeological wonders of the world. Because of this Siem Reap is a bit of a zoo. Over 2 million visitors come here each year and the temples can be quite crowded at times. Luckily we had been given the insiders guide to seeing Angkor by Trevor Ranges who wrote the National Geographic guide to Cambodia. I knew his sister in high school so she facilitated the connection. Trevor gave us an itinerary of when and where to be in the huge complex of temples to best avoid the crowds and his plan worked perfectly. We spent 3 days exploring and got some great shots without crowds of people. We were able to take pictures with no one in them but then going by the temple an hour later there would be several hundred people milling around. It very much enriched our experience there. 

Sunrise Angkor Wat                  

Sunrise Bayon Temple, Angkor

Angkor Wat                               

Inner courtyard, Angkor Wat    

Ta Prohm Temple, Angkor                           

Victory Gate, Angkor Thom                         

Pre Rup Temple, Angkor           

 

It was here that we became friends with Fanny who was traveling by herself. She joined us for one of the days at Angkor and also went with us to Phare, the Cambodian Circus which was a Cirque du Soleil type experience. The circus provides a means of education for disadvantaged youth in both traditional education and the arts. It has helped many a young Cambodian over the years be able to learn skills to better their lives and to travel the world. It was a very entertaining show that supported a good cause.

 

The strangest part of the exploring Angkor Wat was when we had just made an incense offering to a Buddha.  We stepped outside and seconds later we hear a loud thunk.  We look up to see a pigeon rolling down the temple stairs making loud thwacks every step that it hits.  We looked at each other like WTF!!!  We make an offering and now birds are dropping dead out of the sky.  A security guard watched this all occur also and went to examine the bird.  Looking at the carcass is was obvious that the bird had been dead for some time and must have been dropped by another bird.  Freaked us out for a couple of minutes until we realized this.    

Dead bird omen

 

Then it was back to Phnom Penh. If we never travel this road in a bus again that would be fine by us. In Phnom Penh we were worried that getting our Vietnam visas from a communist embassy was going to be an exercise in patience with visions of a nightmare DMV in our heads. We expected a crowded lobby, long lines, and crabby workers. Turns out the DMV could learn some lessons from the communists. The process was super quick and efficient. We dropped our paperwork off and were done within 10 minutes and told to come back the next morning to pick them up. Pick up the next day took all of 2 minutes. That gave us the rest of the day to explore the Toul Sleng S21 prison and the Choeung Ek Killing Fields. Two places where some of the worst crimes of the Kymer Rouge genocide occurred. It was a sobering and depressing place to visit and contemplate how horrible humans can be to each other. In the 3 1/2 years that the Khmer Rouge ruled almost 1 in 4 Cambodians died from disease, starvation, overwork, or outright execution ending only when the Vietnamese invaded and occupied the country. 

View from inside Toul Sleng prison

 

After that kind of day we needed some alcohol so we met up with Fanny again and went out and celebrated Dan's birthday (which had officially been the day before). We found a rooftop bar and had multiple rounds of brightly colored fruity cocktails. It was good to end the day on a lighter note.

Celebrating with the birthday boy

From there it was on to Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). This may be one of the most chaotic places I have ever visited. Bangkok was bumper to bumper cars with tuktuks and motorcycles in between. Saigon is a massive river like flow of motorcycles all cutting in between each other in all directions. We were glad that we had been practicing crossing the street in SE Asia for the last few months because you literally risked your life every time you stepped off the sidewalk. Even on the sidewalk you were at risk as they used that as path to go the wrong way down one way streets. I got to where I would raise my hands and shout "I'm alive!" every time we successfully made it across a major road. 

Rivers of motorcycles

 

 Saigon is one of those cities where you either embrace it or hate it. We all chose to embrace it and ended up enjoying it much more then we had initially expected. On one of the days Kathleen and I went out to the Chu Chi Tunnel complex where the Vietcong lived underground in tiny tunnels during the war just outside the city. Huge battles and heavy bombing occurred here to try to control this area. Our tour guide at the complex turned out to be a former Viet Cong who still has a defect in his upper arm where an M60 machine gun bullet hit him from a helicopter. Listening to his stories you could tell he was very proud of his service and what the Vietnamese had done to repel the "colonial invader" to gain their independence. Yet at the same time he very much felt that bygones should be bygones and that "Vietnam should have more friends. When you have more friends then you have less enemies". I have met many American Vietnam vets but this was the first person I had ever met that saw things from the other perspective. 

Crawling through one of the Chu Chi Tunnels

Former Vietcong tour guide Doung                   

 

We also toured the War Remnants Museum which used to be called the Museum of American War Crimes. Once the US had reestablished diplomatic contact with Vietnam they toned down the name but it is still full of a lot of anti-American propaganda. No matter what your thoughts are about the Vietnam conflict it is worth a visit here to see the Vietnamese perspective. To this day there is still unexploded ordinance causing problems and the effects of Agent Orange and the dioxin we sprayed here continue to cause neurological disease and birth defects.

Dan has to eventually get back to the states for work so had more limited time. Because of this we skipped going to the Mekong Delta south of Saigon and hopped a plane up to Hue which is near the old DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) that marks the separation of South from North Vietnam. It is the old Imperial capital and has a large citadel where the emperor used to live. This was the site of a large month long battle during the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War which damaged much of the ruins. The Vietnamese are currently rebuilding some of these structures.

Citadel outer wall and moat, Hue               

Citadel flag tower                                        

 

It was in Hue that we heard the tragic news that our friend Chad Kellogg had lost his life on Valentine's Day in a climbing accident in Argentina while rappelling down a mountain called Fitz Roy. We had last seen Chad at our wedding in November and had been invited to go live with him for the winter in El Chalten, Argenitina but plane tickets had been cost prohibitive. Chad was also one of the few people that we had seen during the trying days of summer when Kathleen's Dad was sick. We are very thankful that we were able to spend a week with him and his girlfriend Mandy in Thailand – sea kayaking out to small islands, chilling on the beach, eating good food, dancing at the wedding, and just enjoying each others company. Chad was an inspiration and dear friend to many. It is a loss that will never be replaced in our lives and one that we are still coming to grips with. He will be missed, but the memories live on.

Sending a candle down the river for Chad and Mandy         

     Kathleen and I kayaking with Chad, Mandy, and Krissy before the wedding

 

Part 2 of travels with Dan will cover the food orgy in Hoi An, exploring caves in the central highlands, Hanoi, and kayaking Halong Bay.  Stay tuned.