My start in Cambodia was just a great one, already the plane trip to Siem Reap was. Even without entertainment system on my plane from Ho Chi Minh there was quite some action going on. After the plane has been boarded by a horde of Chinese tourists (who usually behave as the world belongs to them only) the poor aircrew was busy with fighting them back to their seats when the plane was taking off, answering questions about visa formalities even though English answers did not help anyway, and again fighting them back to the seats during landing. One Chinese woman really wanted to go to the toilet some twenty seconds before the plane touched ground, forcing the aircrew to probably risk their own security by getting off their jumpseats and running after the woman down the aisle. And of course once they caught her they made her sit just beside me. Her subsequent gesture of a plane landing made me believe, that she eventually figured what was going on. The fun continued after landing, when the Chinese horde run towards the airport entrance nearly overrunning the frightened health department staff to hand in the health declaration forms together with a bunch of dollar bills, the latter not being asked for by nobody at all. I was so glad that I already had my e-visa so I could leave the whole mess behind me as quickly as possible.
I got picked up by the tuk tuk driver of my guesthouse and I found a very comfy place with a nice room and very helpful staff. Lucky me there was already a tour organized for the next day together with other fellow travelers, going to visit some of the more remote temples of Angkor. So I spontaneously joined in and together with a couple from Belgium, one from Holland and one from Chile I spent a wonderful day, doing some sightseeing around the temples and in between having some interesting discussions with the two young Flemish speaking couples about the social system in their countries, systems that are currently just changing a lot for the worse. Back in Siem Reap, an inexpensive dinner and some beers made the day just perfect.
The next day I took a tuk tuk driver on my own to drive around the temples and the day after I again joined another group to visit the main temples Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. Well, the downside of visiting Angkor is, that you're definitely not the only one who had the same idea, at times the sites are just so overcrowded, that it's not really fun to hang around. On the other hand, however, it all really is quite impressive and to imagine how these places were filled with life back in the 11th or 12th century, kings, servants and peasants, huge temples, priests & worship, abundant water, rice paddy fields and so on - I wished I had had a time machine :-)
I was then looking forward to meeting Inma again, who was with me on the Myanmar tour just before, and together we visited the concert and information evening of Dr. Beat Richner, head of the Kanta Bopha hospitals in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. Dr. Richner has been working tirelessly for many decades to the benefit of the health and well-being of the Cambodian children. His never ending struggle for funding, the energy he still shows while speaking about the hospitals, his staff of 2'500 well trained Cambodian people, the hundreds of thousands of children saved, the fight against corruption and the ignorant western world, this all left a big impression behind. Still some 85% of all funding comes from private donations, as the government, paralyzed by corruption, is not able to give more support. No wonder if you know for instance, that 90% of the incomes generated by entry fees for Angkor goes to some rich guys abroad and never reaches the local people. Hard to believe when you grew up in a paradise country.
Leaving these stories behind, I took the fast boat to Phnom Penh, which turned out to be a very pleasant 5 hours ride (disregarding that when sitting on the roof of the boat the front wind nearly blew me out into the Tonle Sap, a huge freshwater lake which we had to cross before sailing on the more quiet river that lead to the capital). On the boat I have also met a friendly Canadian guy who already outlined the itinerary I have to follow when travelling the US for five weeks this summer. He had some really good advice and luckily I have his e-mail so I can contact him again when the time comes, as I've forgotten most of it already ;-)
Now Phnom Penh awaited me with another heavy piece from the last centuries history, though sometimes I thought this all must have happened in the darkest middle age. It was the time of the Red Khmer who killed a mind blowing three million of their own people in the years 1975-79, and not only killing them on the so called Killing Fields, but torturing many of them in the most barbarous ways one can imagine, for instance in the S-21 Tuol Sleng prison, one of many horror cabinets over the country. How come human beings are capable of such cruelties? Again, I felt so naive and ignorant, but then again the whole world was, in the year I was born.
Now after this I wasn't really unhappy to jump on the plane to Singapore, where I would meet up with my friends René & Debbie for X-mas time. And it was quite a contrast, coming from the poor Cambodia with its devastating history, to the world of the rich and luxury, where everything is well organized, clean, and very expensive too. I couldn't remember Singapore to be so expensive, but maybe it was also more the difference to the countries visited before. Anyway, we had a good time together and I enjoyed René's drinks and food, his famous X-mas movies Machete 1 & 2, and a little less his skills for accurate weather forecast (I haven't been so drenched for a long time, luckily the temperatures were not too cold, except for the aircon in the taxi on the way back :-). As well I enjoyed the fast internet connection, that allowed me to skype home and even participate in our annual class mates gathering "Bären-Treff", which took place for the thirteenth time already and which I joined via Face Time at 4 am in the morning (Singapore time). After our next evenings visit at Colin's place (nice food, drinks and plenty of discussions) and a very short night I hopped on the plane again, together with René & Debbie, who joined me for the Laos trip and for the New Year's Eve party in Luang Prabang (a name which took René about a week to memorize ;-).
Luang Prabang and generally Laos is a very laid back place, where people would take everything quite easy and relaxed. At least to my tourist's eye it seemed so. We therefore spent a few easy going days in Luang Prabang, enjoyed good food and drinks, some local cuisine with the benefits of the French influence (nice bread & cakes), and then we would daytour with local guides to visit some indigenous villages and by Mekong slow boad the Pak Ou caves that were used at the times of war to shelter the religious and cultural treasures (and wars these people unfortunately had really too many mostly triggered by foreign powers). Then of course we had a great New Years Eve party, enjoying a nice three course dinner, drinks on the village square for the 2015 countdown, and then a few more drinks at the Utopia party where they had a huge fire and some drunken French guy would try to explain us not to cross a certain bridge in this place called Vang Vieng.
Well, we then went to Vang Vieng anyway and could not find this bridge we were lectured about, but this wasn't too bad. Our common trip then ended in Vientiane, were René would leave for his skydiving week in Thailand and set off together with Debbie.
Before splitting up however we made one disturbing visit at the COPE visitor center, which deals with the effects of the completely out of mind actions the United States have to be held responsible for. In the years 1965-1973, in the turmoil of the Vietnam war, the US army tried bomb Laos back to stoneage and while President Nixon lied into the face of the whole world by saying the US would not touch Laos whatsoever, US armed forces at the same time dropped 270 millions bombs, meaning unloading bombs every 8 minutes 24 hours for 9 years! Despite it didn't help them to win the war, still nowadays dozens of Lao people, especially children, suffer from unexploded bombs, getting killed or badly injured. And the US would of course do almost nothing in order to help the Lao people to get rid of this deadly scrap.
