same same. but different.

i am so fucking sick of that phrase. i swear it is everywhere. on t-shirts of every market across mainland south east asia. at first, when i saw it in thailand and laos, i thought, oh witty. then i see it in cambodia. and now i see it in vietnam. there goes all originality out the window, man. there are bars named after it. there are guesthouses named after it.

same same. but different. well DUHHH…!!!

saigon has a tendency of making people freak out. maybe because i’m not quite used to thing here yet. traffic here is INSANE and there is constantly an endless flow of motorcycles. and you know what, it’s sunday. i honestly cannot imagine how crazy it will be on a weekday. i guess i will find out tomorrow.

i woke up at 5.30am to catch the phnom penh bus here. oh ada scandal punya story to share, but it’s kinda hush hush!!! i actually purchased the cheaper ticket here – the one where you kena tukar bus kat the border. when i went to pick up the ticket this morning, this abang at the counter told me that that particular bus did not run today, but he’s got good news for me if i can keep a secret – he’ll let me on the more expensive direct bus – tak payah tukar bus – to saigon, instead. no catch, just that i cannot tell all the other passangers that i bayar separuh harga je.

oh kay!:)

oh, at the border ada lagi satu scandal punya story… but this is really something you kena pandai-pandai sort out for yourself if you’re ever doing what i’m doing. there is an arrival tax to enter vietnam. on the coupon, ada tulis 2000 dong. kalau takde dong, kena bayar either USD1 atau 1000 riel.

a little currency conversion lesson:

USD1 = RM3.515
USD1 = 4000 riel
USD 1 = 16000 dong

can you see how besar the difference is? rugi gila kalau bayar pakai USD! nak bayar pakai riel pun kira rugi jugak but less la. and who is a poor backpacker to argue with an immigration officer? i needed to discard my riel anyway.

unlike cambodia where they love the dollar, the dong is pretty strong here. boleh kena rip off lagi kalau pakai dollar. i kena pegi tukar my dollars for dongs tomorrow.

downtown metro saigon. this photo is an experimental shot.

saigon’s really metro. macam kl actually, but without the high rises. this is not to say that they are without the glam of it. plenty of bright flashy lights and designer outlets. i’m not too sure if i am damn happy with what i see – but i am reserving my judgements for when i am seen more of the city. more development comes with a warning for higher crimes and more pollution. while saigon is unlike bangkok and kl, there might be some hope here for some local character. we’ll see.

oh, we’re traveling now with paul – from holland (he’s a freaking full two meters’ tall), and rainy – from austria. it’s good to have safety in numbers especially when you’re trying not to be killed by the insane traffic here.

the faces of phnom penh

the numbers this far:
days traveling: 6
countries visited: 1
provinces visited: 2
feet blisters: 6
most number of passangers spotted on a motorbike: SIX!!! (phnom penh)

if i was not the one who snapped this very photo i would not have believed it either.

crazy or what? SIX people on a motorcycle navigating through this insane city. count them. if i was not the one who snapped this very photo i would not have believed it either. they say this is not the worst though, and i should be expecting some real circus acts in ho chi minh. i am sure i really cannot wait.

phnom penh traffic includes the occasional elephant…

i am sunburnt. can you believe it? it is scorching hot here and i am already sunburnt. this is from all the walking we have been doing all around town.

findings at the russian market

there are two parts of the places to see in phnom penh. i visited the national museum and the royal palace to see just how grand and wonderful things can be – there is just so much detail to the work of generations of cambodia – how their statues bring life to expressions and how even the normal everyday things like chopsticks and spoons you use to scoop rice is given intricate details. so much thought has gone into these things, details that are lost was the world progress towards modernisation.

and then there is the side of cambodia which have been scarred by the horrors of war and more imminently, the khmer rouge regime. i visited the cheung ek killing fields and the toul sleng genocide museum and walked away a changed person. the inhumanity reflected by the two places is horrific. far worse than what has ever happened back home. at least back in malaysia, we can blame colonisers for oppressions. over here, it is their own people who do the killing. over two million cambodians died at the mercy of fellow cambodians during the reign of pol pot. they were tortured, interrogated and killed. people with any sort of education were immediately destroyed. everyone else were driven to the fields, where all their produce went to the khmer rouge. they were not even allowed to cook at home. if even a potato was found at home, they will be killed. the khmer rouge rationed everyone two bowls of porridge a day. weakness kept the people from rebelling.

these places reflected the horrors of the four dark years. in photos. in torture instruments. in movies. in the stories of the survivors. everyone i speak to in cambodia has had some family member lost to the khmer rouge. it is painful. it truly is. and in this light, when you look at the kids on the streets and people begging on the streets with missing limbs, your broken heart just shatters. there is nothing left.

billboard in downtown phnom penh

but cambodia is a country striving on. despite the terror of the past, it has become a city of crazy traffic and polite people. oh the people here are just so polite! even the tuktuk drivers. they will ask you if you want a ride, and when you say no, they will smile and wish you a nice day. and they are just so polite about it. i was waiting for V yesterday and a tuktuk driver of who i declined a ride chatted with me about where i was from and about my stay in cambodia so far. they don’t like force you to take a ride with them. they just let it be and don’t like keep on insisting. i think that is just great.

on a last note, aku salah makan yesterday la i think. i stomach was churning and churning right after lunch… and it was then la that i decided to go to the genocide museum. bleh! i vomitted out lunch there and was the most pathetic thing last night. i took everything in my first aid kit: charcoal la… poh chai yun la… panadol la… and prayed that the meds don’t just cancel each other out. this morning okay sikit la. i don’t feel like puking anymore but the smell of food is a tad nauseating and i’m just sticking to soups and tea for now. my perut is still tengah pulas and pulas but i should be better in another day.

four nights in phnom penh so far. i have a ticket to saigon tomorrow morning. i will write again from vietnam.

what if god was one of us?

the numbers this far:
days traveling: 4
countries visited: 1
provinces visited: 2
most number of passangers spotted on a motorbike: 4 adults + 1 pig (siam reap)

i’m in phnom penh!

rewind 2 hari dulu – i did go to angkor – was after sunrise and it was cloudy all day long. i did five temples in one day – bantaey srei, angkor wat, ta phrom , phnom khen and the angkor thom ones including the terrace of the leper king and bayon.

you know, being here is a love and hate kinda thing for me. the feeling of walking up to the great angkor wat ws beyond words. i was personally on the verge of tears. i was confronted with some of the most incredible structures ever built by humankind, a feat wich may never EVER and i do mean EVER be able to be replicated again. at the micro level, the carvings on the sandstone are intricate. at the macro picture, the entire angkor complex is awesome, as in huge. as i strolled through the ruined corridors endowed with apsaras, i imagine how the angkorians used to live, surrounded by these marvels and i wonder whatever have stripped out lives from symbolisms?

the steep steps of the angkor. climbing it is a great symbol of humility. personally, coming down was far more difficult than climbing up.

you see, i am a cynic. but don’t get me wrong, i am completely blown out of my brains by the angkor. but there were a hundred… make hat a thousand other tourists there doing the tourist thing, and i am shocked by the disrespect people have for these places. and i am not saying seorang or dua orang. this is the people by the busloads – people who climb on the rocks, or touch the already crumbling carvings and make stupid poses with the statues.

carvings at bantaey srei

but you know, it is one thing to be physically abusive to the UNESCO world heritage sites. it is a whole nother story to disrespect its historical prominence. these people pegi situ, ambik gambar and them leave – without asking abou its history, its story, its mammoth impacts which molded the foundations of the khmer empire, how it raised and fell and raised again with the war and the painstaking restoration works that occur here. this is important. i truly strongly believe it is important.

me at bantaey srei

how can one go to a place as wonderful by this and not be touched by it?

i took a USD4 bus to phnom pheh yesterday. it was supposed to be a five hour bus but it ended up being five and a half hours long. i swear my bus driver is mad. he would honk FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON – and get this – ALL THE WAY – here. there was on slow vehicle in front of him. there was no incoming traffic. suka hati je honk the entire way there. dah la loud gila the honk.

i have to point out that traffic here has absolutely no rules. there are no lines on the road. where there are lines, no one follows them. no one follows traffic lights either. no one wears a helmet. and no one stops.

upon arriving here yesterday, we met up with V who took up guest house hunting and i swear i can never navigate phnom penh traffic. it is madness personified and there is absolutely nothing funny about it. AT ALL. crossing the streets is a life-or-death thing here and i have been frightened out of my skin for traffic more than once here already. when you see me, ask me to show you a photo of the city’s traffic, in particular, one i took this evening. it is crazy.

street children – called ’scavangers’ here – is a real problem and i swear it totally breaks my heart. you see, if you give them money, it will encourage them to stay scavangers. giving them food has exactly the same effect but it is the lesser of two evils. giving them sweets is like feeding them poison. these kids should be in school. instead, they are selling guide books or postcards on the street and that makes me angry – what are the parents doing? and when you learn that the parents are drunkards and do nothing at home, you just get frustrated that a kid of five is the one keeping the family alive. and when you learn that some kids do not even have a family to go home to, your heart just breaks. there is absolutely nothing left to do. and there are not ten kids or a hundred kids – but thousands, roaming the streets all over cambodia.

aside from all that, phnom penh is pretty amazing. the building here are refeshingly not high rise. and the imporant buildings are done up SO NICELY, you could just stare at it for hours. i was at the national museum today. ingat nak spend just an hour there – we ended up spending twice the hours. by the time we came out, it was evening. phnom penh people have this thing about evening picnics by the waterfront. there are countless hawkers there selling lotus pods, pamelos and pineapples.

it is pretty damn amazing.

5am in the rain

excerpt from last night’s dinner’s menu

it’s 5.30am cambodian time and i should be at the temples by now watching the sunrise.

instead, i am here. at the guesthouse’s free internet service with a coupla other backpackers – a singer from holland, a dancer from uk, a guy from germany and a girl from sweden – ranting about the pouring rain outside.

the guesthouse guy said that it has been raining until 3pm and has only been getting heavier ever since.

i only bought the one day temple pass (USD20) so its has got to be today. while the others’ moto drivers have turned up to sigh that it’s not going to happen, mine – who is not even here – is probably sleeping right through it. macam, got up, saw it raining, and gone back to sleep. that kinda thing.

the guesthouse owner pops his head into the lounge-like room we’re hanging out in. my moto driver called to say that he’ll come by at 8am. i feel like going back to sleep but i know that if i do doze off, i’ll not get up again until 10am.

i went to catch the sunset at phnom bakheng yesterday evening. sikit je nampak. orang penang kata “ha-luih” which is like more halus than halus. it’s like a tiny strip of orange, tapi got ramai gila orang kat situ to wait for it. locals ada. ada some japs. some orang putih.

my first night’s impression of siam reap: it’s just really touristy here la. because of the angkor. although the temple is like 30 minutes away, tempat ni yang menjadi happening. i just have this aching feeling that this is not real cambodia. not just yet. everywhere i go, someone somewhere is catering to the tourism industry whether it is a tempat makan or selling guidebooks or transport and tours to the temple. you get the picture.

i get a feeling that if you take the angkor out of siam reap, there really is not much here besides farmland. i still don’t know if it is completely the traveler’s fault. i suppose to some extend it is. and naturally, since there is a market for things, there is someone catering to it. it just does not feel like cambodia. maybe i’m just cynical. maybe a day at the temple grounds will change that. i really hope it will.

because of the exposure to tourists, most cambodians can speak some english. not amazingly though, but okay to get by. there is some insances when i need to simplify terms. there is a fine line though, between smiplifying terms and baby talk – a line of which i am most careful not to cross.

i’ll probably go to phnom pheh tomorrow. we’ve get to decide if we should take the boat there or the bus. the boat goes through the tonle sap and costs roughly USD25 for five hours. the bus does the same time for USD5. it’s a big difference but the boat will see more things.

tengok la.

late morning in siam reap

hello cambodia.

i passed by square after square of freshly harvested rice fields as the plane touched own in siam reap international airport.

it is all coming back to me now. slow internet. ricketty keyboards. orang tengok dari belakang as i type this entry.

loving it.

akan pergi to the temples of angkor petang ni.

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