Cambodia Pictures

Poi Pet - Cambodia's Rough Border Town:


No Spare Tire:


Gas Station:



Roadside Home:


Roadside Pottery:


The Streets of Siem Reap:


Monk at Ankor Wat Sunset:


Ankor Wat Sunset:


Ankor Wat:


Ankor Bands:



Me at Ankor Wat:


Cambodia's Children of the Temples:




Andrea and Me at a Temple:


All 13 of us:


Kids at the "Swimming Pool":


Ankor Statue:


Cambodia River:


Smile:

Cambodia - Really Long (Sorry)

Although I may try, I cannot possibly describe how different everything is in Cambodia. However, I will try to give you a glimpse into my brief account with the country.
First, the quick overview of my journey is as follows (times are approximate):
Day 1 - 1.5From Thailand into Cambodia (Wednesday, March 23th, - Thursday, March 24th)
1. 8PM - Take the Singapore MRT to the Changi airport.
2. 11PM - 2.5 hour Air Asia flight to Bangkok
3. 12AM - Taxi ride to the bus station
4. 3:30AM - Purchase bus tickets to Araynaya Prathet (Thai border town)
5. 4:00AM - 4.5 hour bus ride
6. 8:30AM - Take tuk tuks to the border
7. 9:00AM - Purchase VISA
8. 9:45AM - Clear Border on Cambodian Side
9. 10:30AM - Get in Toyota Camry Taxi headed for Siem Reap
10. 1:40PM - Arrive at hostel
11. Shower and change
12. Purchase temple pass and visit Ankor Wat
Day 2 - Up at 7AM and visiting temples until dusk (Friday, March 25th)
Day 3 - Up at sunrise and visiting temples until sunset (Saturday, March 26th)
Day 4 - Traveling from Cambodia back to Bangkok (Sunday, March 27th)
Day 5 - Returning from Bangkok to Singapore (Monday, March 27th)

The journey from Singapore to Cambodia was probably the most significant portion of my trip, both emotionally and physically. Transitioning from a very developed and modern country like Singapore to Cambodia, which is ranked 130th of 175 on the UN's Human Development index, truly accented how incredible a disparity exists in our world. Even between Thailand and Cambodia, there is a significant and easily observable difference in development and resources.

The Thai/Cambodian border is a remotely safe area, but there is a constant threat of theft and throngs of people hang around the border looking to make money from travelers, particularly easily identifiable foreigners. Beggars are frequent and include children looking after babies and people left limbless by land mines. Beyond the initial layer of people looking for money are a group of aggressive locals that insist on arranging for taxis and providing advice on travel. Despite our best attempts to avoid these “helpers” they followed us closely and even walked behind for a kilometer as we tried to arrange our own taxi. Eventually, we found a taxi, but these people still managed to get their cut from the taxi driver. Not speaking the language means that we were pretty much at there mercy.

Once in the taxi, we thought we were set to go. Our driver spoke no English at all, but we soon ascertained that we were delayed because our Camry (90% of the taxis in Cambodia are Toyota Camrys) did not have a spare tire. We stayed at the side of the road for a about 10 minutes then made a quick trip to the Camry depot, where our driver picked up a white ticket - which we later learned is required by the taxi drivers to pay off “officials” when they take passengers out from Poi Pet (the border town) - and our spare tire.

Once on the road, we quickly discovered the reason that the 200KM drive from Poi Pet to Siem Reap takes three to four hours. The road, although initially paved, is in such poor condition that vehicles have to swerve into oncoming travel, slow to almost a stop, drive off the road, and weave in and out of traffic on a regular basis. It's amazing how much abuse those Camrys can take. The only driving rule that is somewhat adhered to is that you must yield to larger vehicles. The taxi drivers, drive quickly and aggressively. We frequently passed other vehicles by swerving the opposite direction around holes in the road and taking on oncoming traffic, sometimes passing cars on the right, other times on the left. At least twice, we ran motorcycles off the road because we were driving in their “lane”. It was scary and a little unnerving how quickly it became routine to brace for bumps and prepare to be in a head on collision.

On the way to Siem Reap we also experienced a Cambodian gas station. This is a small hut at the side of the road where old pop bottles are lined up and filled with gasoline. The workers, two young girls, took a tube and a funnel and filled our car with gasoline one bottle at a time.

Although it is possible to fly to into Cambodia, visiting overland provides a much more in-depth look at the Cambodian people and their lifestyle. We passed hundreds of houses that were nothing more than bare wood and a thatched roof. Also, Cambodia is in its dry season and everything is extremely barren and desolate. The fields appear in severe drought and the road kicks up a fine red dust that coats everything from the houses to the people. It becomes readily apparent that many Cambodians have few possessions and spend the majority of their days transporting to and from small towns or tending to their homes and families.

Those Cambodians that do visit other towns do so by any means possible. Along the way we saw hundreds of people, and nearly hit about half of them, riding bicycles along the red dirt road. The standard practice is for the Camry to just honk whenever passing a vehicle, be it a person, a bicycle, or a semi-truck. As a result, the horn was used every two minutes or so.

The vehicles in Cambodia include everything from carts pulled by people, to motorcycles with six or more locals, to tuk tuks, to a mix between a motorcycle a tractor and a flatbed trailer (motorcycle handlebars, tractor engine, and big flat surface for people or goods). If it has wheels and it moves, people will drive it. We even saw a motorcycle (without a trailer) carrying three kings size bed mattresses. It's impressive.

About an hour into the journey the road turns into a deep red gravel. It continues to be bumpy but the gravel makes the holes in the road less severe and it's easier to drive along the shoulder. Unfortunately, this also meant that there would be bridges over waterways. The word bridge is a relative term. I was a little unnerved when we approached the first bridge and the metal on each of the supports was warped into a wave pattern. The bottom of the bridge is made of wood and covered by loose metal sheets. It turns out this was one of the best bridges we crossed. Further ahead we crossed bridges that had large holes in between the wood, metal floor that were bent up at a 30 degree angle, and then finally a bridge that collapsed all together. Luckily enough, it's the dry season so it wasn't a major problem to take a quick route through a dry riverbed and up the other side.

Nearing the end of the journey the landscape began to change dramatically. The countryside began to turn to jungle and about half an hour outside Siem Reap the road turned into a nicely paved highway. We were entering tourist land. It was a amazing how different this part of the country was from the dry fields that stretched from the border to the edge of the jungle.

In Siem Reap we had a pleasant hostel with clean safe rooms, a restaurant that used vegatable (no peanut oil), and free bananas. It was really good and a nice break from the road.

Soon after arriving we took off in a rented van and got our $40 (US) three day temple passes. We then made our way to Ankor Wat - the most famous temple. As soon as we drove up to the large expanse we were all very impressed. The temple area is huge and the lake in front provides a grand entrance. We spent the next hour and half exploring this ancient temple. It was amazing the size of the area that the temple covered. As well, each of the pillars had, albeit well worn, intricate carvings. I can't imagine how long it would have taken to build.

Upon returning from Ankor Wat, we went out for dinner and enjoyed the town of Siem Reap. The town itself is far better than Poi Pet and it was very nice to walk around at night. The restaurants advertise happy herb pizza - a pizza with marijuana in it. I was quite surprised at this, I guess Cambodia doesn't share Thailand and Singapore's view on drugs.

After dinner we all went to bed early, as we planned on getting up the next day at 4:30AM to see the sunrise at Ankor Wat. Unfortunately, it began to pour around 3:00AM so we delayed our departure until around 7:00AM. We spent all of Friday walking around different temple sights within the Siem Reap area. The Ankor temples stretch out over 200 square kilometers and it seems as though there are an endless number of temples. We saw only a small fraction of the temples and they all were unique in their own way. About half the temples are Hindu based and the other half Buddhist. Some are extremely tall with super short stairs, and other stretch out almost a kilometer in length. My favorite site was one where the trees have taken over the temple area. They grow on top of the ruins and it's amazing mixture of nature, architecture, and history. At this temple we saw the man that's on the front of the Lonely Planet Cambodia book in a similar pose to the cover shot.

Saturday was another day of temple watching, but this time we watched the sun rise as we took our van out to the farthest out site - about an hours drive away. When we arrived, 6:00AM, we were told we had to wait until 8:00AM so the police could open the site. At this site we had to hike about 35 minutes to see a dry river bed with some carvings in it. It wasn't worth it, but the hike was nice. It's also an area that has only been free of land mines since 1998, so we had to be very careful to stick to the path. We ended the day with a trip to the world's largest swimming pool - actually a man made lake that is 8KM by 2KM. I'm not sure why they call it a pool, but it's a popular hang out for the locals.

I won't comment too much further on the temples. They were visually impressive and I can't imagine how they could have been built 1000 years ago. I can't imagine how they could be built now, especially considering that we saw no source of rock and Cambodia seems to struggle to build houses, never mind giant temples. I will however talk about the people because that's what made this trip have such an impact.

Cambodia is a country with a violent history and struggles with one of the world's highest populations of land mines. Their effect is profound even today. It's common to see people missing limbs and looking to tourists for their sole source of income. Cambodia is trying to put its violent history behind it and the people are very focused on peace and trying to move on to their future. Throughout all the temples everywhere you go there are groups of children that will come up and sell you small crafts. These kids speak very good English, but their entire vocabulary is based around bargaining for goods. It's sad to see that the kids are not in school and instead have been trained to try and get money from tourist. However, it's also wonderful to see the kids because they are still so innocent and smile when you talk to them or they see you coming. These kids broke my heart a thousand times. I wish I could go back and buy everything that they had to sell. Unfortunately, the kids are everywhere and it would be impossible to buy something from all of them. Also, when you do buy something quite frequently more and more come and try to compete for your attention and your money.

There was one little girl that really broke my heart. She was selling little bracelets but nobody in our group was interested in buying any. We had been plied and solicited for two straight days and we were tired of being “sold to”. Then she came up individually to a couple of people gave them a bracelet, said they were free, and ran away. About half an hour later we were waiting for our bus at a different location when we saw her again. She came up to me and put a bracelet on my camera - which was a round my neck. She said “free for you” giggled and ran away. I didn't want to take the bracelet, just in case she wanted it back, but about 2 minutes later she came up and took it off my camera and put around my wrist. She was about 5 years old and the cutest kid I've ever seen. She then giggled again and ran away. Every time we would look at her she would smile and run behind the kids. The van then arrived and we packed in to go. She offered to sell me 20 bracelets for $1, but instead I gave her the dollar and thanked her for her gifts. When we were leaving she watched us go, waved goodbye and told us she loved us. It's amazing how this little kid that's covered from head to toe in dust was able to make us all feel special. Perhaps I'm just a sucker for a good routine, but I couldn't help but want to see her smile and be happy.

I realize that only a few of you would have read this entire passage, but I hope that you enjoyed it if you did. There's so much I could say about Cambodia, but I'll never been able to fully describe what I experienced.

Bangkok - March 27th - 28th

After our return from Cambodia we had a night in Bangkok. This is an extremely vibrant city with lot going on and everybody trying to sell you something - for really cheap. We stayed at a hostel off Koh San road - a tourist haven in the middle of the city. Our evening was spent wandering the streets, having a beer or two, and looking at everything Bangkok had to offer. My favorite unappealing site was the fried scorpions for sale (in Cambodia you can eat fried Cockroaches) and my least favorite was the offers of “massage then funky” or “boom-boom lady”. Bangkok is an interesting place and has a lot of interesting site that I'm looking forward to checking out later on.

Concert at the Esplanade - Youssou N'Dour and the Super Etoile

This concert was absolutely fabulous. First, the concert hall is beautiful. Although not as large as I imagined the smaller size gave it an intimate feel that was accented by the warm hard woods and the luxurious seating. I was sitting with my Finnish friend, Minna, and we were located in “student” seats on the first balcony. What's interesting is that these seats were lined up in a circle all sitting front to back, not side to side. However, the seats were not fixed in place so we angled our chairs nicely and had the opportunity to talk and have a perfect view of the concert. Luckily enough, our seats were not needed very much.

The concert began with Susheela Raman, BBC World Music Award winner for Best Newcomer. An English born, Australian raised, Indian she sang most of her songs in Tamil and mixed traditional songs from Tamil Nadu with new songs written by members of her band. She has a rich deep voice with the range of a talented opera singer but a style reeking of soul and jazz. Her music has a rich spiritual nature to it and an ethereal style.

As good as Susheela was, Youssou and the Super Etoile were on a whole other level. All in all, there were 11 performers on stage all night long. Youssou, an African tenor, provided the lead vocals with backup from his band and a solo female vocalist. The musicians consisted of two fellows on lambe drums (similar to bongos) and backup vocals, one playing the talking drum (tama drum), another on a typical western drum set, two guys playing keyboards, two lead guitars, and a bass. Each of the musicians were good enough to have a concert of their own, but their ability to match rhythms and complement the other instruments was amazing. During certain songs there was a dancer who would come on stage and gyrate as I have never before. I swear she doesn't have a solid bone in her body. Every member of the group was dressed in beautiful African robes adorned with bright colors and eye-catching patterns.

The performance was phenomenal. Several songs would blend together and the African rhythm driven by the strong percussion melded with Youssou's powerful voice. Within a short time the high energy performance had the audience out of our seats, dancing in the aisles, and clapping along. Few songs were observed from a seated position. Once again, the majority of the music was based in a different language, but it was powerful message that transcended this barrier.

One of my favorite songs was called Africa and Youssou commented that too often people focus on AIDS, poverty, and disparity and forget about the joy and happiness that exists throughout the continent. Youssou is a Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations, and an Ambassador to UNICEF. He has been involved with concerts that range from celebrating Nelson Mandela's freedom to raising money for children living with AIDS. Youssou is able to celebrate the best qualities of African culture while helping to address endemic problems that plague the continent.

I can't remember a concert that I've enjoyed as much as this one. It was a truly spectacular and uplifting experience.The crowd gave long standing ovations and the group played 3 encores.

For more information on Youssou go to www.youssou.com.

March 17th, St. Patrick's Day

Despite what you'd think, St. Patrick's Day is not a big holiday here in Singapore. However, myself and few other international students managed to make a good day of it. After visiting the travel clinic in the morning and getting a rabies and cholera vaccination installment, I headed to work for a long day. At 7pm I gladly hit the pavement for home. I arrived back at NTU by about 8PM and went straight to the staff club (a bar on campus for staff AND students) to meet up with the other internationals. We had a good time drinking beer and sharing stories, with a few people enthusiastically sharing their beer bong. Having had two vaccinations and no dinner, I chose to skip the bong and stick to my glass. By about 10:30 the group was organized enough to get 6 cabs, and head out to Muddy Murphy's Irish pub. The bong came along to the pub.

As you can imagine, as one of Singapore's few Irish pubs Muddy's was packed full and blaring live music. Guiness hats and green wigs were everywhere. It was a good time and nice to hear some Irish music. Probably the best part of the night was when they began giving out free bowls of Irish stew. I was famished and it was the best tasting stew I've had in a long time. By about 2AM we made it back home and I headed for bed - still wearing the green afro that I had forgotten I was wearing.

I GOT PAID

After working for two months, I finally received my first pay cheque this past Friday. Apparently the paperwork was filed incorrectly and then they had a personnel switch in HR, so I was lucky enough to experience a “slight” delay in getting my cheque. However, now I have it and I'm happy to receive my little sum.

One of the idiosyncrasies of daily life is how banking is done here. At most of the banks there is are phones so people can stop in a do “phone banking” at the bank. Strange. Another difference is how cheques are deposited to your account. Unlike Canada where you just put the envelope in the machine, in Singapore you put your name, account number, and phone number on the back of the cheque and deposit it in a giant bin in one of the banks. Considering it took me two months to get, I was more than a little wary to just drop it in a slot and walk away. It seems to me as though it would be too easy to just lose a cheque or decide not to update the account for a while. I've since checked my balance and discovered that I have one “pending” deposit. I don't know why they don't just add the money to my account, but I hope it's in there soon.

Singapore Science Centre - Two Stars

So, I haven't updated things in a little while. Here's what's been going on.
Last Saturday, March 12th I went to the Singapore Science Centre. The centre itself was directed at an age group of about 6 - 12. Shawn and I wandered about for an hour or so while killing time before our iMax movie. We quickly found that we didn't know how to use many of the exhibits and rather than read the detailed instructions, we would label it “broken” and move along. We then killed some time at Science Center's food establishment - McDonalds. Here I had the pleasure of realizing just how easy I am to pick out from a crowd. I ordered a “sandwich” and they promised to deliver it to my table. When they brought the burger written on the receipt was “White” (Me) and “Eurasian” (Shawn). Shawn's actually of Indian decent but in Singapore he has been frequently labeled Eurasian (one parent European, the other Asian).
We then watched “Mystical India” on Singapore's omnidome. This was really cool. The theater itself is shaped like a beehive dome and the screen is giant 360 degree panorama. When they project the movie, it really feels like you're traveling to India. The storyline itself was a little weak, but the visuals were amazing.

Pictures from Random Events

Me and a Lotus - only 4 in Singapore and all are owned by the same person. This car isn't street legal in North America, so you'll never see one in Canada.

Me and a Lamborghini or two



Random Picture of Me

Chinese New Year - Me and the Germans - Dan and Dirk

Cristel (Sand Diego) and Raj (Edmonton)

Me Cristel and Shawn (Edmonton) - on St. John's Island

Singapore at Night

I went out on Sunday night and took some pictures of Singapore after dark. Here are the fruits of my labour:
Raffles Place at Night


Bridge

Singapore's Famous Merlion

The Esplanade at Night

The Fullerton Hotel - Occupies Singapore's Colonial Post-Office

Fullerton Inside

SteamBoat

First, I'm sorry I've been slacking on the picture taking. I'll remedy that sometime soon. Until then, enjoy the pure text bliss of my stories.

Now, I'll tell you about a really good supper that I had on Thursday. My Canadian friend Shawn invited me, Leslie, his friend from Edmonton, and Silvia, an Indonesian we met at New Asia two weeks earlier, out for a nice Indonesian dinner. I knew that there was the risk of peanuts so I e-mailed the restaurant and asked about peanuts/peanut oil. Shawn, being very considerate, phoned and asked as well. I got a response indicating I should stay away form the salad and the Satay. Shawn was told they use vegetable oil.

However, upon arriving at the restaurant, we quickly realized that reality differed slightly. They had a lot of Satay on the menu and they had random things that had peanuts on it. The kicker was that they brought out peanuts as the free “snack” item while people waited to order. I decided the restaurant wasn't safe so we relocated to the Chinese restaurant about 6 feet away. I hope we didn't insult the Indonesians.

The Chinese restaurant we went to was a buffet restaurant. However, this is nothing like buffet in Canada. Buffet simply means that you pay a set price and get as much as you want. However, they still serve it to you. It was also my first experience with “SteamBoat”.

To start a giant bowl of soup is placed in a hollow in the middle of the table - with a burner beneath it. We had two different types of soup - a chicken base and a ludicrously spicy chili soup. Then, they bring you all kinds of raw vegetable, meats, and other delights. You pour the them into the soup and wait for them to cook. It's similar to fondue but you put everything in at once and everybody just fishes out whatever they want. We ate for over 2 hours! People arrived and left before we were even half-way done. In fact, we closed the restaurant. SteamBoat is really good, but it's all about picking the right mix of veggies, meats, and sauces. The spicy chili was good at the start, but after several tears and losing two litres of sweat, we all decided that it was to only receive about a fifth of the food.

That's all for now.

I think I'll be going to Cambodia in the near future. More on that later.

Sunday - Race Day

So, for anybody who read my recent posts, you will know that today was race day. Myself, Maria (Sweden), Andre (Germany), and Dre (United States) headed out at 6:30am bound for the national stadium. I'll be brief in recounting the events:

1. Sprint to the Puzzles - fun I lead the pack and was first to arrive at the puzzle station.
2. Puzzles - the first three were fairly simple, involving word searches, simples quizzes etc. The third one took us, and a few other teams, until the end of the allotted 10 minutes. It was a number sequence, and we missed the fact that the portion below was the clues and not another puzzle, as was the case in the previous puzzles.
3. Sprint to the bridge - once again good, with our team gaining a position.
4. Bridge Jump - The jump was about 20 feet, but it was very much a matter of not thinking about the jump. I know that about 15 feet from the water my eyes nearly bulged out of my head. Dre and Maria said it looked funny, like I was taking an extra step. However, ton's of fun.
5. Swim - the swim was fairly good, but the water was quite gross, and extremely salty.
6. Run to the cycling/kayak point - this was definitely the low point of the race for me. All we had for breakfast were sardine buns (yes with sardines in them). I felt a wee bit nauseous and the 2KM run was not that much fun.
7. Kayaking - it took me a few minutes to get into the rhythm of the kayaking and I was steered us in a strange looping pattern, but Maria and I made it to the shore just as Andre and Dre arrived with the bikes
8. Biking - this was good, but a bit too short. We arrived well in advance of the kayakers because they had a much longer route. I had the chance to drink some water and ring out my socks.
9. Run to the G-Max tower – this was good, another short sprint.
10. G-Max tower – upon our arrival sky opened up and began pouring. This was welcome relief from the hot sun, but it meant that the race was put on delay and we couldn’t climb the 200M ladder that was at the G-Max. It was too bad that we had to miss this part of the race because it looked like fun.
11. Run to Fort Canning Park – ok, I’m really not much of a runner. Time to stop with the running.
12. Fort Canning Park – here we had to fill in 5 different questions that were on answers on signboards throughout the park. We ran around like chickens without heads looking at every sign to try and find the answers to questions such as “the other place that has one too”. This task took a lot of time and was a challenge because we didn’t know the layout of Fort Canning and didn’t really know what exactly we were supposed to be doing.
13. Run to the Finish – more running. We crossed the finish line at 11:13am, just over 2 hours past our start time of 9:07am.
14. Climb – the final part of the event was a short climb that Andre did for our team. He climbed about 10M up one side of a wall, and abseiled down the other side.

Synopsis: I’m tired, but it was a great event. It was really well organized and a lot of fun. I wish there was less running and more biking, but that’s just my personal preference. I think we ended up finishing around 17th place, but Maria is convinced we should have been top 10 based on our time. The good part is that we were only about 20 minutes behind the top team, which I think is pretty good for a 2 hour race.

Anyhow, that’s all. I’m off to bed.

Goodnight!

Weekend Writing

My original plans for Friday were a little derailed, but in a most pleasant way. After work, I arrived home with the plan oh heading to bed early and just relaxing for the evening. However, I remembered that a friend, Andres, was having some people over for his birthday and he invited me. Although his Hall is across campus and a 30-minute walk, I decided I would bite the bullet and go visit.

On my way to Hall 13, I stopped by the grocery store at the canteen, bought myself a tall Tiger beer and headed off on my walk. This was my first Tiger beer since arriving in Singapore; I have to say it's quite good. Tiger also enjoys the most prominent marketing presence of any brand in Asia. Virtually every restaurant will have at least one Tiger insignia prominently displayed for all to see. Tiger beer is almost synonymous with food and in a country obsessed with eating this means Tiger beer is everywhere.

The NTU campus is the perfect place for an evening walk. There is a lot of greenery, and when Singapore gets dark, usually around 7:30pm, the sky opens up to reveal a blanket of stars. With the evening comes a nice breeze off the sea and the temperature is just about perfect. It's very relaxing to walk along, sip a beer, and enjoy the scenery.

Once at Hall 13, we played beer pong for a while, put Andres to bed at about 11, and then headed out to a nightclub by the Singapore River. The night was actually lots of fun and I got to talk to a lot of people I rarely see because they are on the opposite side of campus.

Today, I'm doing absolutely nothing. I'm just taking it easy before the competition tomorrow. Our plan is to meet up at 6am to head to the national stadium. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm praying for rain.

Alberta Government & Post-Secondary Education

Bill 1 - Alberta Government's Post-Secondary Plan
http://www.gov.ab.ca/home/index.cfm?page=1016
The Alberta government has once again, miraculously, put a smile on my face. Although I have not read all the details, on the face of it $3 billion for a PSE endowment, $1 billion for scholarships, and $500 million for the ingenuity fund looks good.
Check out the details if you're interested (and I know you all are).

Mike