Cardiologists Beware
Greetings again loyal readers!
I'm pleased to say that I'm here and having the time of my life in Beijing; a city that never sleeps, let alone serves vegetables.
But, we had to get here first, and that was an experience unto itself. Indulge me please...
In practise for the mighty Trans Siberian (more on that later) we caught the direct train from Nanning in the south, up to Beijing on Monday morning, rolling out of Nanning station at 9:50am.
We took what's classed as a 'hard sleeper', costing us about US$60 all the way to Beijing. It's apparently one of the fastest trains in China, but dawdles along at 160km/h compared to Japan's mighty Shinkansen (ooooo, still by far my favourite train in the whole world,universe, and everything - no returns.)
A journey that long is a good way to get a handle on the world's most populous nation, I'd have to say. Unlike Japan - where you can steam along at 300km/h between Tokyo and Osaka without seeing a break in the buildings - China has vast tracts of countryside, with almost all that I could see given over to developed farming. Also unlike Japan, the countryside is very beautiful, with concrete and power lines surprisingly discreet.
It's a big mother indeed, and most of the scenery of the first day continued on in the same vein; rice paddies, vegetable plots, and comrades carrying shovels and hoes as far as the eye could see. In the rural transport sector, forget being seen in anything less than a three ton three wheeled truck. Four wheels are for squares in this part of the world, stupid extra wheel...
The farmland is broken up with little villages (buy shares in bricks, pronto) which are all of similar design; small gabled brick huts with tiled roofs. In the smaller settlement these are detached dwellings, but in the larger communities they started to have small design features which were common to all the buildings, and were tangled together with a web of low walls forming private courtyards and streets. This is the best description I can give while rocketing past at 160km/h.
I wasn't going too fast however to see my first sheep in a really longtime, and have to admit that a tear or two of longing was shed, as I came face to face with that mighty animal - Behold the Mutton, in all its glory.
There were plenty of pigs and goats as well, but seeing them off the spit was too much of a shock to me, and I remain unimpressed. These were accomodated in much the same manner as the locals, with little brick roofed pens. Why is it that goats like to stand on top of things?
So, most of the first day was spent glued to the window, trying to imagine what it would be like doing it for 6 days solid. A good night's sleep was had, after dinner of instant noodles (chicken's feet seemed to be the favourite of the locals) and a couple of complimentary beers kindly offered by our neighbours.
One of the best things about China so far has been the almost total absence of you damned foreigners. We've met more locals here than in almost any other country, and we've only just got here. Our hair must still be on fire as we are still attracting stares just as well as we were before. The new trick is for people to just rock on up and start fondling Jules' dreadlocks. The percentage of people who ask if it's ok to do this is about the same as that of goats that weren't standing on top of something.
I, and I presume the rest of the carriage, was woken around 7am when the military recruitment advertisments started playing on the train TVs. Wonderfully inspiring, (unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to join) these showed a guy belting out a stirring dialogue in song, as all the divisions of the armed forces lined up behind him. The ads finished with the might of the Chinese Air Force unleashing a hail of missiles onto some unsuspecting target. It would have been really great, if it wasn't also really scary.
Shortly after the army recruitment drive came the obligatory calisthetics, and as I sat sipping my coffee (Jules was up there with them) the whole car got up and wholeheartedly stretched their way into the new day. Just to make sure that I'd let my last grip on reality slip away, the conductors then passed through the carriage demonstrating the unbeatable strength of the socks they were selling -by stretching them between two people and scratching them with pencilsand wire brushes. I did a quick check of how many times I've ruined socks by catching them on a stray pencil or wire brush and decided to pass up this otherwise excellent offer.
By now we were approaching Beijing, where mining seems to have becomethe major rural pastime - mile after mile (leave me alone, you metric freaks...) of power line hangs from posts sitting on little pedestals of land, the surroundings having been lowered by two metres or morefrom constant digging. Vast amounts of acreage have been lowered intothe ground, and in the vertical walls of these depressions you couldsee the occasional door covering an underground room. According tothe Lonely Planet, over 100 million Chinese live in buildings with one or more wall buried in the earth, terrible for shelving, tough colour to match to...
Along the way we met up with Bessie, who is training at the Beijing University of Acupunture and Moxibustion. She was returning from one year's maternity leave down in Nanning, to resume her studies, and insisted on helping us once we arrived in Beijing. Thanks to her we managed to actually exit the massive train station in Beijing, board a bus, and get over to her university. As if things weren't too much like a Coen Brothers movie by this stage, we were led into her professor's office (no english, not a lick) where we took green tea and proceeded to mime out our adventures. The poor lady was more than a little bit frazzled at all this, so wordlessly disappeared from the room, only to return with three students who proudly pronounced, "We are students of this University!" and kindly offered to 'introduce us to' each and every one of the sights of Beijing that we happened to show interest in.
After tactfully allowing these offers to evaporate into the social wastelands, Bessie took us onward to begin the mission of finding us a hotel. It's a lot more expensive here, but the amount you're prepared to pay increases inversely in proportion to the temperature, and after four hours in the biting cold, we decided to go it alone, taking our map in hand and hitting the taxis.
We're now settled in the south of Beijing, about 1km south of the famous Sky Temple, after looking at 6 different hotels before making it here. We promptly celebrated our check in with a meal round the corner, where we discovered that our Russian Roulette style 'lets-just-point-at-something-on-the-menu' strategy had inevitably hit a full chamber. Now, I know, loyal readers, that I'm a fan of a little bit of warming fat; it's good for the complexion (especially when rubbed on), and keeps out the winter cold. You could even say(and some have), that I'm a bit of a 'fatty', but this was unprecedented - we ended up with two of the fattiest meals I have ever seen in all my days of guzzling fatty meals. My beef noodles contained half a dozen lumps of stewed fat, and our plate of beef stew had SO much fat that if any of the broth dripped on the table, it set hard within 30 seconds.
Eeeeewwww....
Still, it was delicious to the last drop.
Our time since then has been slowed, as the fat is starting to congeal in my joints, where I hope it will be stalled and prevented from reaching my heart.
It's BITTERLY cold here, and clothes shopping is high on the agenda. Having come from more than 6 months of summer weather, I'm pretty poorly prepared, but have my eye on a big old furry hat and matching jacket, which is sooooo next season you're just going to wet your pants.
We took in the opera last night, a snap decision which proved to be pretty fun. Perhaps aimed a little more at the tourists than the locals, it's full of a lot of jumping and leaping, which is great for fans of Mary Lou Retton. It's also full of a lot of extremely high pitched, drawn out singing: One minute of singing (over some of the most discordant music I've ever heard, even during the recording of the Cosmic Wheel's Difficult Second Album) produced merely the caption, "I find us congenial." They did all the classics, including'The Innkeeper', and 'The Goddess of Heaven Scatters Flowers', but it was 'Donating a Pearl At Rainbow Bridge' that really took the cake. This ended with the female lead - let's call her Pearl - standing in a circle of men, spinning around kicking the 8 or so staffs that were being continuously thrown at her; some of the best foot juggling I've seen since 1986.
I took the final leap in preparation for the last stage of the journey, and laid down my deposit for the Trans Siberian. On December 4th at 10:50pm I will leave Beijing, travelling non-stop to Moscow, where I will arrive on the 10th of December at 6pm, 9004km later. Recent changes to Russian visa application procedure from China have meant that the only way I can do it is to book an accomodation package- despite having someone I can stay with in Moscow. It's an expensive option, but Rakish Richard just can't back out now, and I'm now booked on the train journey that 'makes every other train seem like once round the block on Thomas the Tank Engine', according to one book. Along with my booking, I also got a free CD of 'train themed' songs, which eased the pain of forking out nearly 900 euros for my ticket and accomodation.
I don't profess to have done this with any of the finesse of forward planning, and the whole journey can be done a lot cheaper if you can eliminate the need to book accomodation in Russia. MonkeyShrine are the folks I went through, and they can put together ticket-only packages if you have visas sorted out. They're at www.monkeyshrine.com. (Don't all of you budding businesses expect free advertising here either, it ain't gonna happen...)
So loyal readers, with my passport now on its way to Hong Kong for express processing, I have 9 more days to pass here. Think I'll goand see a preserved communist leader, hear the state's version on theTiananmen Square Massacre (where students massacred innocent soldiers, apparently), and there's some big wall around here too that I might check out.
Beijing really is a vast city. It's taken me hours to get around, the scale of it is pretty staggering. It's pretty obvious too that the city is already in the grip of pre-Olympic preparations, and I've counted at least 20 super-size construction projects on the go - any of which would be a huge building in Tokyo or London. I have no idea where the massive sums of money for this are coming from, but no small amount is certainly being taxed from my wallet, as accomodation and admission fees are several times more than anywhere else we've been. The next week or so will be costly, but I have a good feeling about Beijing, despite the cold. Once I'm kitted out in my army surplus hat and jacket, I'll be ready for anything.
Well, I've almost digested my first ever Peking Duck, (clocking in pretty high on the 'fatty' scale) and it's about time for beddie-byes for this lad.
Till next time, and thanks again to Berin 'Amazing Grace' McKenzie, my chief media distributor, muse, lord and master, idol, (and copy editor) extraordinaire.
Your man on the winter diet,
Arch :)
PS: Just kidding, I didn't really eat all the beef stew. I have standards, for Pete's sake...
The People's Republic of Restricted Internet
Good morning loyal readers, I come to you today through a helpful medium. No, not someone who is contacting me in the spirit world, but my good friend Berin who is posting this from Japan after I had to email it to him. He is my North, my South, my East, my West. I am humbled by his magnificence and it is not stretching the truth to state, for the record, that he is in fact AMAZING, and IF his name was Grace, well, they'd call him an Amazing Grace.
It appears that along with the BBC, CNN, The Sydney Morning Herald, and RealDoll.com, my very own blog site is blocked by the umbrella of media control that extends well into cyberspace. I weep for the thousands of Chinese readers who have been denied the opportunity to read of my exploits...
However, if you're reading this now, I know my operative has completed his mission to post and should now be calmly burning all records of the transaction; xie xie Jake Dagger, xie xie very much.
I now have 6 of my 19 thousand kilometres completed, and feel like I'm really starting to 'get my train on' now. After doing the math in Hue, we caught yet another overnight bus up to Hanoi, arriving thoroughly flat at 7 in the morning. I spent a good half hour scraping chewing gum off my bag, then my shoulder, then my back. I was luckier than those who sadly picked up traces of vomit as they made their way on and off the bus.
We were well accomodated, this time with Swedes Dave and Carlos in tow - Fred the Canuck having left us in Hoi An and headed back to Korea. All the Swedes I've met seem to be a sign that I have to get over and check out the Ice Hotels, Absolut Vodka, and delightful Ikea furniture.
I know it's a city of ancient culture, beautiful lakes and rivers, water puppetry, and colourful markets, but few things could compete with the Air Force Museum, which we went to see on Thursday. It was a practical smorgusboard of Mig's, including some massive helicopters, spiffy jets, and strange insect-like trainers. I sensed a small disparity between the information portrayed in the displays, and what I previously held to be true. For example, "...during this time our heroic pilots shot down over half of imperialist America's tactical air forces..." This was mixed evenly with the humourous, "...with rockets, SonB [the pilot] shot down an American B-52 over Hanoi, and its entire crew were fired..."
My personal favourite was the partial Mig 21 inside, that we could sit in and have photos taken, all the while making the obligatory swooping, shooting, and general mechanical noises. I'm 29 years old, and proud.
After that, we had sadly not enough time to see all of the Museum of Enthnology, which was excellent, and really needed at least another hour. If I have to pick a highlight, it was the exhibit of a local fishing trap salesman's bike - laden with over 800 hand made traps all carefully arranged to leave a little space for the poor man to pedal. Very cool, and I recommend it if you're headed this way.
Sadly though, we were forced to book our train tickets the next day, after finding that the twice weekly train left that very night. Hurried farewells were said (Chocolaate Mousse, I'll miss you most of all...) and we dashed out to the train station for the overnight international train up to Nanning, the capital of the Chinese province of Guangxi.
Waiting around on the platform really was like something from a movie (suggestions for which movie you imagine it might be would be welcomed), with plenty of whistles and large-hatted officials everywhere. We were bundled on to our train around 7pm, before our two little carriages trundled north. We were woken around 11pm, at the border, Dong Dang, where the local officials brusquely took our passports, x-rayed our luggage, took our passports, told us to go outside, gave our passports back, told us to come back inside, then told us to go outside again. More by good luck than by good management, we were re-bundled into the train before kipping down and arriving in Nanning at 7am yesterday morning.
So, it's kind of cold here, brrrrr!! We've only gone about 500kms north from Hanoi, but the evenings here are mighty crisp. Days are sunny and warm, but I feel I've got a little winter clothing to stock up on before hitting Siberia (uh, duh).
Apparently Jule's and my hair is on fire, as without fail, every single citizen of this country has stared long and hard at us. Now, I'm not just talking about a sneaky Japan style peek - old man walk over from where they're sitting, stand directly infront of you, then scan over your whole body (including reading materials) before wandering back to their seat. Yep, a stary old bunch from what we've seen.
The food is holding up well. Last night we thought we'd get Chinese, a good move. In between trying to watch the ninja movie, our waitress went round EVERY TABLE IN THE RESTAURANT and took the other customer's meals so that she could show us what they had (Chinese menu only people, come on, keep up!). This was pretty fun, but after convincing her that we only actually needed one meal, food was on its way. Fortunately some of the kanji are shared between Japan and China, so I was able to ensure we were eating 'cow meat', as well as ordering some tea and rice to go with it all. Sadly China doesn't share Japan's phoneticising of English words, so madly miming 'beer' didn't really get me anywhere until I too found some on another customer's table... Japan was never this hard...
So, we're taking the train out tomorrow, our first really big ride - 32 hours on the sleeper to Beijing.
Keep up the comments, but know that I can't actually log in to check them until I get to Russia, dabnabbit!
In the meantime, I have some missed birthdays to atone for. Your man the emigre journalist,
Arch :)
Let's Talk Distances, Shall We?
We're stuck in Hue, not really excited by the prospect. Still, we're waiting for the evening bus out of town, and I thought I'd plug in and say hello.
Hello.
I was having a bit of a think about the trip to date, and started adding up some of the ground we've covered to date. We're about to board another overnight bus, and when we arrive in Hanoi tomorrow morning, we will have covered 1,143kms in 7 days. Not since Indonesia have we traversed the land at such a rate, and it got me thinking...
Ahead of us, we have at least a trip to Beijing - that's 2,325km on from Hanoi - before the train as far as Moscow - another 9,004kms. From Moscow, I'll bundle on towards London - chalking up another 2,500kms on the way.
Behind me - strictly in terms of overland travel - I've come from Medan in Sumatra (the last place we got off a plane, the now legendary 727 flight ...), through (very roughly mind you) Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Luang Prabang, Vientiane, Phnom Penh, to Siem Reap and back to Phnom Penh again, before blasting out to Saigon - a total of about 4,000kms.
SO - here's the stats to date, sports fans;
Medan to Hanoi = 5,140km
Hanoi to Beijing = 2,325km
Beijing to Moscow = 9,004km, and
Moscow to London = 2,500km.
Once I check into the Casa Weight around Christmas time, Rakish Richard will have covered a grand total of 18,969kms.
Just for reference, that's the equivalent of just under half the circumference of the planet (40,075km), or driving between Auckland and Wellington 29 times...
With a little over a quarter of the total distance covered to date, I have another 14,000kms to cover in the next month, wish me luck.
So, loyal readers, that's the end of today's little rant, I'm off to get the bus. In my Big Ups section of the blog today, I'd like to congratulate Ben, a.k.a. Astronaut/Badger, whose debut (home recorded - is there any other way?) album is receiving airplay in sunny Minnesota (he's a pasty Pom, by the way, but he can can carve like Kelly Slater on a right hand break), so look him up, he's got some phat beats and dope samples.
On that note, I leave you,
Your man seeking sponsorship by the kilometre,
Arch :)
Who's Your Mack Daddy?
Greetings loyal readers, and thanks for the spiffing comments on my last post. I will reserve my comments on the 'content' of said postings for the time being, but please keep up the volume.
Well, how about Saigon then?
'Twas a fun time indeed, and I'm especially pleased to say that the new camera is up and running, downloading to the iPod nice and smooth, and I'm snapping away like Robert Capa at every opportunity.
First test run was at the Reunification Palace, where tanks are left outside, just as they were when they stormed the palace in 1973. It's a pretty swanky example of nice 60's government architecture, still looking a lot better than anything built in New Zealand 40 years later.
Next stop was the War Remnants Museum in Saigon, which featured lots of slightly one-sided information about the Vietnam war - complete with some very frightening pics of birth defects caused by defoliants, and lots of correspondence from our favourite preserved leader - Uncle Ho. Personal highlights of course, were the masses of aircraft, tanks and artillery kept out in the courtyard. I was lolling about in a gleeful stupor when I came across the mighty Douglas Skyraider - a plane that has enchanted me (and taunted Berin) for quite some time now.
Friday took us to the Fine Arts Museum, which was kind of, how you say? Crappy? Some of the work, especially the sculpture, was quite good, but there was a woeful lack of good information. Most of the exhibits were in little dark rooms, with plaques amounting to nothing more than "Wooden Buddha", and "Stone Buddha". The year would have been helpful...
So, skip the Fine Arts Museum unless you have a deep interest in curation.
Arriving home that night, we found that the bus up to Hoi An (our next stop) was a surprising 24 hours for only 1,000kms, and we were forced to leave that night - with the Canuck Fred and Swede Carlos in tow.
Ill prepared for the trip, we set off at 9pm, leaving Saigon in a cascade of long-exposure photography, and steamed into the night. Ahhh, Saigon nights, Cheviot days, it was the best of times, it was the hardest of seats.
Up until our 2am 'dinner stop', the young man infront of me was enjoying his ride, with his seat extended back deep into my crotch, but I made certain to convey my dissatisfaction with a salvo of knocks, thumps and gentle physical reminders, and once we debussed at 2am, his seat was ramrod straight and I had no more trouble - other than the standard erratic driving and too-long-legs that plague me anyway.
However, much to our surprise, on arriving in Nga Trang, we found we'd just missed the connecting bus by half an hour, and had to make an unscheduled 12 hour stop there until the evening bus. This turned out to be quite the blessing, with the four of us spending a lot of time perfecting our body surfing stunts at the beach. Burned but looking a little more like someone called Travis, we left Nga Trang - a fleeting stop on our trip, just a burgeoning romance and all too soon parting - for Hoi An that evening. The rest of the ride wasn't pretty, let's say, so to cut it all to the goal, we arrived in Hoi An at 7am yesterday morning.
Hoi An is a nice little World Heritage site, a lot like Luang Prabang in Laos, but with far more conical hats and kanji written everywhere. As with the rest of the trip there are a multitude of smiling children, but dammit Bubbles - they're fully clothed!
Local delicacies include White Rose (no, NOT that incident out back of the King's Arms) and Cao Lau - a noodle soup that can only be enjoyed here in Hoi An as it's made with water from the Ba Le well in the old market. I'm rather hooked on the stuff, and have enjoyed 4 bowls already.
As is the custom here, I'm having some suits made. Those of you aware of my continuing sartorial trendsetting can rest assured that the two items I'm currently having tailored (had to add just a little into the waist...) are both 'pimping' and 'macking' suits. After a number of sketches on napkins I conveyed the required width of my lapels and the degree of flare in my leg successfully, and in two hours, USD$52 lighter, I will be the proud owner of one eggshell blue two button (plunnnnnnggging neck) suit and pants with white stitched highlights, and one grass green pin-striped three button suit with cutting edge lapel detail. My continuing weight problems seem to still plague me, as between trying on the two different pants I seem to have gained some pounds. Suggestions are welcome, but I won't touch that whole Atkins farce with a bargepole.
So, it looks like there'll be a couple more days here to check out the beach, wander around the oh so quaint little town, and possibly arrange for a complete corduroy dinner suit to be made.
Readers, I am a happy man.
Your man with the diamond tipped cane and shoes with goldfish in them,
Arch :)
And THEN There Was The Time I Was Packin' Heat...
Welcome back loyal readers, I return from weeks in the jungle...
Tonight we come to you LIVE, from the heart of Saigon town, and to enhance your reading experience, I suggest you begin this programme with the requisite stereo listening of Uncle Billy Joel's 'Goodnight Saigon'.
In our last episode of our famous radio play "Rakish Richard's Escapades For Boys", our lithe and slender hero was hacking through the jungle towards the legendary temples of Angkor Wat, pursued by a pack of tenacious tripod-wielding tourists. Let's see how he got on...
Well, that Angkor Wat joint really is a pretty fly joint, I have to say. Let's check my notebook (leather covered, kept in my utility belt between the whip and the duct tape) for some details. We began - after a rest day, it's a tough trip down to Siem Reap my friends - by taking in the full experience; sunrise over Angkor Wat. This of course meant a 4:30am start, baguettes for breakfast, and traipsing through the entry gates around 5:10.
But, it was all worth it, ohh by the hammer of the gods, it was all worth it.
We decamped just inside the main gates, with a lotus filled pond between us and the temple. I'm going to try and break this tremendous thing down into a few simple adjectives, so bear with me loyal readers, it could be a rough one.
First, it's MASSIVE. The massiveness of Angkor exceeds the number of pastels in Miami Vice, the depth of Helen Clark's voice, and the numerical skill of my beloved sister. It eclipses the vastness of Pakuranga's wastelands and the entire literary output of Barbara Cartland. It mocks the Pyramids with its halls, walls, galleries and beautifully tight stone jointing, and kicks sand in the face of the scale, breadth and ambition of Berin’s stag night. It's a big one indeed, and when smarty pants Mr. Architect of Angkor sat down to carve some plans, he really SMOKED this one...
Starting off as just an outline, the whole structure started to grow and gain depth as more light fell on it. As the sun broached the top around 6am I was - loyal readers - simple agape.
Secondly, it's OLD. Now, I know you've all seen old; in the faces of aged relatives, in the hallowed halls of the Precious Books section at the library, and in some of your own faces (Shame on you, mirror gazers - one in particular who thinks that if his name was Grace, they'd call him an Amazing Grace). BUT, this bad boy was thrown up 900 years ago, and doesn't look a day over 150. She wears the best part of a millenium pretty well, and given a 26 piece backing band, she'd be well within her rights to shout,"Jump back! I wanna kiss myself!" (On the other hand, the Plain of Jars was already 2100 years old before they started building Angkor, so...)
Thirdly, it's one of about 70 temples that you can visit, some of which are easily as large as the most famous (Angkor Wat, duh...) in the whole complex. We clocked up a dozen or so, and only just scratched the surface.
Lastly, it IS Architecture, with a big thumping capital ‘A’. Not only that, but once you brush away the scrub from round the bottom of the ‘A’, you find a narrow entry, opening up to spaces most Architects still couldn’t master if they tried. As if this wasn’t enough, there’s a thousand more chambers opening off this first one, such that if you tried to drink up the spaces (don’t even start me on textures! Form? You can’t even imagine… Ooooo, but the exquisite light, the controlled movement, the mastery of masons making stone fly like clouds! I feel dirty just thinking about it…) you’d die bloated before you came up for breath. This was only the third time in my life where the strength of a building has given me goose bumps and elicited a truly visceral response. (First time, Tadao Ando’s Church of Light, second time Frank Lloyd Wright’s Yamamura house.)
Anyhow, Angkor highlights;
Bayon, famous for the carved faces of the King, looking in all the primary directions. Facey. Julie lost her bike key here, but by some miracle it returned to us courtesy of the local 'Police'. I felt really bad getting them out of their hammocks and making them get dressed, but they managed to magic up the key somehow...
Preah Khan, mostly ruined, and made for some really good climbing about and Linga appreciation. Musty.
Ta Keo, somehow this one didn't quite get finished, I think they held back some money from the builder. Very cubist, steep, rich, a real cracker. Blocky.
Bantey Srei, the Womens' Citadel. This had some of the best carving of the lot, beautiful red stone, PERFECTLY scaled buildings and spaces between, all bathed in sun that proved particularly dangerous to a certain balding man who sat there sketching for two hours. Burny.
Ta Phrom, where Tomb Raider was filmed. Got some great sketching done of trees growing out of rocks - clinging over displaced keystones with roots working open cracks over many a century - before spending a few hours just trying to find my way into the centre. This one got a second visit on the third day. Rooty.
We splashed out on a little tuk-tuk for the first day and a half, who took us out for sunset, and jaunted between the immediate temples. On our second day he took us out to Bantey Srei (35kms out from the main complex) before we laid him off in favour of bicycles. Bikes worked out well (lost keys aside), but cost us dearly in the gluteals, say no more...
3 days, 5kms walked/climbed (they have some REALLY steep stairs there!), 50 kms cycled, 97 ‘Mister, buy postcard from me’ offers declined.
So, our three day passes expired, and when it became evident that no amount of begging could get them extended, we resigned ourselves to the bus trip down to Phnom Penh, where we were met by a friend of our last guesthouse and safely deposited in welcoming accomodation within minutes of arriving. Simon's Guesthouse looked after us well, with good food and spectacular sunsets, and we even had our pictures taken for a promotional brochure just after walking in the door - keep your eyes peeled, I'm the one wearing the 'Laos' T-Shirt...
Now here we are, and Rakish Richard now wakes up to another November, with his faithful volleyball, to take in the sights of Cambodia’s capital city. We arrived just in time for a four day national holiday as the new king took the throne, which was, um, nice.
Despite our marathon efforts at Angkor, we still opted for a wander through the back streets to make our way to Tuol Sleng, the former high school known as S-21, where prisoners of the Pol Pot regime were imprisoned, tortured, and killed at a rate of up to 100 souls a day. Not the cheeriest thing to start the day with, but certainly an eye opener when you think you’ve had a bit of a hard time of things. A particularly eerie place, (especially after having spent two years working somewhere that looked EXACTLY like it) far different from seeing such things remotely from where they actually happened. It was gruesome. It was creepy. It was interesting.
Our next day started with a contrast that weighed on my contrast a little, but didn’t actually stop me from doing it; a trip to the shooting range, coinciding strangely with an email from Morgan showing Ollie doing exactly the same thing…
We tripped out of town on the back of motorbikes, braving the worst of the traffic (far easier to write about than to experience) all the way to the 91st Airborne unit’s training base. As a huge 7-bladed transport helicopter took off in the background, we chose our weapons from a laminated menu (just like lunch!), in front of a wall of M16’s, AK47’s and Kalashinakovs. Sadly single rounds couldn’t be purchased (the American M60 machine gun would have been an obvious choice, but at $100 for 150 rounds it just didn’t stack up) so I went for a clip each from the Russian Tokarev T33 and the American Colt .45.
Fred (my brother in arms, so to speak) and I emptied our 36 rounds into a shared target, but sadly could claim only 8 ‘hits’. There was one bull’s-eye, which I’m pretty sure I got, seeing as I fired at least two shots on-the-side gansta style…
Just to take the contrast a little further, we mounted our bikes again and headed out to the killing fields of Cheung Ek, 14kms out of town. This was as to be expected, another sobering experience. The now famous stupa of skulls (all 8,965 of them) offered some good sketching and fairly convincing contemplative time, but it was the remnants of clothing, bones, and even teeth that can be found around the excavated mass graves that brings it home.
Pol Pot; catchy name, bad guy.
That was Phnom Penh, and on the 3rd we bussed out of town and made for Sihanoukville, where a short stop revealed that it wasn’t quite what we were looking for. Now, as if finding out that my name is VERY close to the Cambodian word for ‘shit’ wasn’t enough, somewhere along the way I lost my beloved camera – the zipper on my daypack was undone, the bus was empty, and someone now has a lovely picture of Fred and Julie… Condolences should be directed to me by email, no flowers thank you.
Still, we continued by chartered taxi (Mr Te; good driver, bad with numbers) past the famous pepper producing prefecture of Kampot and on to Kep, where we stopped a couple of nights.
Kep is a strange place, as close to a ghost town as I’ve ever seen. At the end of the Khmer Rouge’s rule, this town was looted and all the buildings stripped of everything that wasn’t dynabolted down – leaving dozens of beautiful ruined concrete shells, cleverly inhabited by the few people who still live there. Quite a sight, could’ve taken some great photos I’m sure… After our rest day (election results coming courtesy of our guesthouse owner as I tracked down my camera, by crackly phone from Phnom Penh, “Yes, yes, Bush is again…”) we took a boat ride out to Rabbit Island, where everything was Irie. Three days over there wasn’t enough to get used to the stampeding cows, fresh seafood and magnificent boat building I undertook with nothing but my trusty Swiss army knife, but we had to relent and begin one of the biggest travel days yet.
On the 8th, we caught our little boat back to Kep, taxied from there to the Vietnam border (walking over borders is fun! Now I’m in Vietnam! Now I’m in Cambodia! Now I’m back in Vietnam again!), took motorbikes into town, caught the 5pm bus to Saigon, then taxied into the center where a great little guesthouse found us wandering, and we were all wrapped up and in bed by 1:30am. Quite the day. Pretty tuckered out. Not as bad as crutching 400 ewe lambs though, let me tell you.
Cambodia was really great. After losing over 2 million people, the national psyche is one of great optimism, rampant reproduction, and impressive resourcefulness. It’s a similar attitude to Laos I think, making for spectacularly friendly people and children so smiley even dentists would wince from all the teeth.
Well, Rakish Richard and his trusty volleyball are now back in ‘Nam, and due to the preapplication of our visas have only 12 days to race up north, seeing as much as we can, before having to enter China. Plans for the Trans Siberian are as changeable as a changey old variable thing, and time is now pressing. Ironically, the time it will take me to apply for my Mongolian visa is the same amount of time I had allowed to go to Mongolia, so the latest option is going DIRECT from Beijing to Moscow, 6 ½ days straight travel. Stay tuned sports fans.
On a brighter note, I went shopping today for a new camera, having decided there was no way I could leave the latter part of my travels unrecorded, and splurged on the splendid Sony Cyber-shot® Digital Camera (DSC-T1). It's a doozy, and I'm pleased to be back in the saddle again.
Well then, thanks for reading. Big ups to my Dad, for having his birthday last week, and also to my toooootally radical former supervisor in Japan for sending over my final pay cheque.
Your man, otherwise known as 'Shit' in Cambodia,
Arch :)
PS: Special thanks to the lovely person who gave me the link to Concord Dawn's 'Morning Light', I'm crying...
PPS: OH POOR SOUL! The Mighty John Peel has passed away! Now The Cosmic Wheels can never do a Peel Session! Unless... we get some potatoes, a knife, and have someone record THE WHOLE THING... ha haa, nyyyyaaa haa HAA, MMWWWAAAAA HAAA HAAAAAA!!!!!!
