Cambodia - The ancient Khmer world

Trip to the Kingdom of Cambodia 10-15 November 2006:

(Above: Me at Angkor Wat)
I know it has been awhile now, but I want to share some of my pictures and experiences from my trip to Cambodia the 10th to 15th of November. A trip that opened my eyes to poverty, and another side of the world in which we live in. I was a truly amazing trip, which started off in Hong Kong Airport along with Søren, Cathy, Domien and Evelyne. We flew to Siem Reap in the northern part of Cambodia, where the majestic temples from the Khmer Empire are situated including the famous Angkor Wat. (See my travel map for precise locations placed on satellite maps from Google Earth)

(Below: Us all at a local school)
Upon arrival, we were met by a handful of immigration officers, who at the cost of 20USD would grant you an entry VISA to Cambodia for 30 days. It should be notes that Cambodia's own currency is the Riel, but nobody really uses it due to its low stability, and therefore everyone deals in U.S. dollars. We arrived at night to our hotel Angkor Hotel, in the small and poor, but charming and exciting village of Siem Reap, and the next morning we were quickly off to the temples located to the north of village, some 20 minutes by "Tuk Tuk", a local creation which serves as taxi. In fact it is just a scooter, upon which a small trolley has been attached (can take up to 5 people, if you pay a little “extra”. We got to the Angkor Wat sites, having paid 40USD for a 3 days entrance to the temple park.

Angkor Wat:
It is really an amazing place. The temple stands untouched since its construction in the 12th century, where it was built by Suryavarman II that ruled the land and the enormous Khmer Empire, which spanned from the 9th to the 15th century. It represents and still displays the fantastic culture heritage that the Empire left behind after it fall in the 15th century. It is a huge tourist attraction for that reason, and has come to represent Cambodia to the rest of the world as it was rediscovered by French missionaries in the late 19th century in the then thick tropical jungle still today surrounds the temples. We went Angkor Wat two times, once during the day, and the second time in the early morning when tourist flock to the site to see the sun rise above the 5 remained towers of temple. It is an amazing site that leaves your mind blank, as you try and consume the scenery before your eyes... its very colourful as the sun rises, and slowly the morning light rays passes the temple and reflects from the two large pools located in front of the temple.

(Below: Evelyne riding an elephant)
It was still very warm, despite we were there in mid November, with temperatures ranging from 30 to 36 degrees, and a very humid atmosphere, which really puts you into the tropical forest. As you walk around, you see wild monkeys running around chasing each other, climbing trees, while large elephant herds are lead around by local people.


We also went to Angkor Thom, the largest old city from the Khmer Empire, a city surrounded by a massive 12km sandstone wall. The main temple located within the city is the Bayon temple, which is recognized by its highly distinguishable face sculptures that form the main towers of the temples. It is beautiful, magically and mysterical all at once and it seem quite overwhelming that one civilization could create and built such impressive and detailed structures out of stone.

(Below: Søren taking a closer look at the tree roots)
Of the many temples, and there are many, we saw most of them, including Ta Prohm, which remains the only temple that has not been recovered from the rainforest. This means that trees still stand among the temples, if not to say grow on top of the temples. The trees are enormous and rise high above the ruins of the old temple, with their roots entangling and penetrating each and ever rock and stone. The picture below illustrates the sheer size of the trees, as Søren takes a closer look at the roots.


It is an amazing site, with the jungle noise in the background and Buddhist monks walking the site in their long orange coats. We rented electrical bikes for 4USD a day to drive around between the temples as the distances between are quite large. It was truly amazing riding in the jungle among old artifacts, temples, and ancient culture... local people passing in open Tuk Tuks and smiling waving at us. Despite, one would think that the area would be over touristed, it is in fact quite remote, and for long times you meet nobody at all, apart from the occasional Japanese tourist bus.

In the evenings, we often headed off to Siem Reap city center to enjoy a light Cambodian meal, which in my case often meant eating the local and traditional dish: Amok; consisting of chicken with fresh vegetables in a delicious coconut milk sauce, served in a whole coconut. A little spicy, but accompanied with a banana milk shake, it was perfect and was priced around 3USD.

There is so much more to tell about our trip to the wonderful land of Cambodia, and it was beyond doubt the last time that I am going to visit the country. It was a pleasure, an eye wakening experience and beautiful all at once, and some how, within one week, I felt like I had a strong attachment to the country and its open and friendly people. Cambodia is definitely a "must" for all explorers and it will change the way that you look at your life for ever... that was at least my experience...With these last to pictures, I want to conclude and say goodbye to Cambodia for this time around.

(Above: Søren and I drinking fresh coconut milk)

My travel team:

From left: Domien (Belgium), Cathy (Germany), Søren (Denmark), Evelyne (Holland) and me (Anders; Denmark).

Heard of the word "Discimination"?

Case I: The Squash court

The other week during our weekly squash practice, Søren and I invited a good friend along to play with us, i.e. we were three people playing in one court, which normally should pose no problems as squash can be played as double as well, i.e. at four people.

However, after 15 minutes of intense game, the sport vigilator knocks the door and politely asks us to stop playing as we are NOT allowed to play at three people in one squash court. We go: "Say what? Why not?" Sport vigilator: "Sorry, school policy", and we of course start arguing which obviously does not work. She insists, despite we claim and explain that the Chinese who use the squash courts normally play at three or four, and that the school squash team, which even played with, plays up to 8 players in one court at the time. So we go again: "How come we suddenly are not allowed to play at three?" And she merely replies, school rules and points to a sign, and YES we not allowed to at more than two, but all the local chinese are allowed anyways... clearly discriminating. Let's go to case II

Case II: Assignment gradings

In a course that I have been following for the 4 months here at CityU, we had a graded assignment hand-in, which we received back last week from the instructor. Pleased with my result (83%), I still had one question regarding one question in the assignment which I scored low in, and so I went to the professor to ask. He replied to my question, and said that I could not get more points, despite my answer was correct (simple math mistake pulled me down), but anyway, as I was standing there feeling kind of stupid to have made such a mistake, I overheard a conversion between the professor and another student in Cantonese, which I obviously did not understand, but the result turned into the student was able to raise her grade from 73% to 100% on the assignment with out questionning. Puzzled as I was, I asked whether or not my assignment would in light of that improve slightly? But "NO", I did not qualify for any improvement....discriminating I felt.

Case III: Price Discrimination

Another example where discimination sneaks in and affects your life in Asia... Take a look at the picture below, taken in Cambodia:

As you can see, foreigners are forced to pay more than locals. Why? = Discrimination

Case IV: Hall security guards

In case you did not know, at the university residence we are "protected" by a corps of guards (see picture beneath), which enforces school regulation, and checks entrance to all residence halls by signing visitors in and out (quite similar to an open prison really!) Anyhow, school regulation states that after midnight you are not allowed to have visitors from other halls in your hall. The security guards enforces this rule by performing ID checks all night of all people entering the hall. As exchange student there is not much you can do about it, but as local students, who can speak with the guards, the rules seem much more easy going and can even be bent as far as their visitors may enter after midnight... you get the picture?!

People from my floor!

Can you spot me?

Thomas in Hong Kong 26Oct -1Nov 06

Tuesday, the 26th of October, Thomas, a close friend from Denmark arrived to Hong Kong to visit me for a week. We had both high expectations to the forth coming week, with plans both to visit Macau and Shenzhen in China. In addition, he would have to see all the amazing sights in Hong Kong, meanwhile I tried to coordinate with my classes and mandarin test at CityU.

After a quick pick up at the airport and the beautiful ride to Kowloon, we went to my campus where we joined with a local friend, Mathew, to go for Chinese at the local restaurant, where you can get a full meal including beer for a mere 40HKD (30DKK). We also had dessert, the Chinese way, at a local dessert house. What an experience… Chinese dessert is completely different from Europe’s conception of dessert, no ice cream is served, but black rice pudding, rise balls in soup with red bean frappe, and dragon fruit is some of the more popular dishes.

The first day, we spent walking down the old part of Kowloon, where I showed him the Bird market, the Fish market and the Ladies market in Mong Kok. It’s an amazing tour for those who have never been to Hong Kong before, as it starts off in the poorer and undeveloped part of town and ends down at the waterfront of Kowloon peninsula, overlooking the modern and flashy city that most people affiliate HK with.

It is also a tour that takes you through some of HK’s many food markets, which in western standards seem brutal, unhygienic and disgusting. It is one of those “up in your face” experiences that never leaves you completely again. For example, it is considered wrong by HK standards to buy and eat frozen meat, fish or vegetables, which is very common in at least Europe. This means that poultry, fish and meat is absolutely fresh in the HK markets, the fish being killed at your demand, as well as the poultry. It is very bloody and to many a shocking experience to see the killing of animals up front, especially when you come from Europe, where you rarely ever see such brutality.

To finish of the tour, we ate at Chao Inn, a restaurant located in One Peking Tower at Kowloon with a fantastic view over the Hong Kong skyline, which we further took a closer look at when we later that same night went to the Peak. The Peak is an observatory platform at the top of the Hong Kong Island’s mountains, with a stunning view over the city (See picture)

The following day, I was off to classes while Thomas experienced HK on his own hand… maybe ask him how to get from Tsim Sha Tsui to Central with Star Ferries and you will see he has become a true expect…isn’t that right Thomas?! The evening we spent at Lang Kwai Fong, HK’s bar and club area, where all foreigners hang out in the evenings, enjoying the music and atmosphere.

Lantau Peak:

To find some diversity among the many buildings in HK, we went Saturday to Lantau Peak, the highest point in HK, 934m. We hiked up the mountain from the Giant Buddha statue

for about one hour and passing through the layers of smog that usually covers HK, the sky became blue. We saw the beautiful view over the Pacific Ocean and HK’s Chek Lap Kok airport, the world’s largest man-made island. I will let the pictures say the rest… ohh we also had to hike down, overall a really exhausting, but fantastic trip…

Macau:

Sunday morning, we were off in a group of 8 people to Macau, a small peninsula of China, which is part of a SAR region. Macau was returned to China after 200 years of Portuguese colonization over the area. Macau is today known for its large casinos, which are very similar to those you find in Las Vegas, its beautiful waterfront, and its Portuguese heritage.

The trip to the island is very close to flying, you take the Turbojet boat from Hong Kong harbour to Macau, which skims over the water at 90kmt. It takes thus just over 1 hour to cross to the island. We spent the day looking and walking the streets in the hot sun, it was some 31 degrees, sightseeing Macau’s culture. It is kind of strange to find you self in an European style city in the middle of Asia, and the colonization of the island is still today very eminent, despite the modern casinos are taking over with investments flowing from the U.S.

In the evening we then took the boat back to HK, after going through HK immigration (Yes, Macau is not a part of HK law and thus, another page of my passport is used up, again…it beginning to fill up YEAH!)

Shenzhen SEZ (China):

Back again in Hong Kong, we left for Shenzhen the next morning. Shenzhen is one of Chinas many Special Economic Zones (SEZ), which are located along the Chinese coastline. These are cities or regions that have special laws favoring the international community and multinational companies, who establish their Chinese headquarters in those areas.

We left in the morning, to find out self on the east KCR line to Shenzhen. Having cleared Hong Kong emigration and Chinese immigration, we exited the station and were immediately approached by Chinese salesmen, offering us cheap DVD’s, memory cards, suits, etc. The list is long and you can get anything that you want. The people are very resourceful to earn a quick buck.

We walked around in the city and looked at some of the local markets, where we quickly realized that foreigners normally did not go. People, especially children, stared at us as if we were aliens from a far away planet. Despite, the markets in Hong Kong are brutal as I described, the markets in Shenzhen adds a little more flavor! Sea turtles, exotic birds, large snakes, deer and finally dead dogs are for sale.

After a long day, we left for HK… 30 minutes by train and we were back in a more “civilized” town afterall.