Siem Reap, Cambodia

After what seemed liked the fastest month ever today was the day the I left Thailand to spend a month in Cambodia.

I anticipated a very long travel day, however it turned out to be not so bad. A 16 passenger van picked me up at 7am and I assumed I would be transferred to a large bus as I had in past trips. I assumed wrong, there ended up only being 4 of us in the van and this would take us to the transfer point to get over the border. The ride was about 4 hours and it would have taken longer but I think our driver was auditioning for Thailand's version of The Cannonball Run.

Once we got to our transfer point we went through the process of filling our the paperwork to get the visa (if we didn't already have one). The visa cost $35 US, the cheapest visa I've ever gotten. The process took about45 minutes and after some clear instructions we grabbed our luggage and made the 10 minute walk to the border. There was a guy from the transfer agency that went with us to ensure there were no issues.

On the Thailand side I ran into a small problem. My departure card had the date of 8/29/10, but in my passport it was 8/28/10 so they said I overstayed by a day and had to pay a fine of 500 Baht (~$16USD). From there we walked to check into Cambodia and immediately I noticed a difference. Many of the people were without shoes and there were many children that appeared to be on their own. There were many wooden carts lined up to be used as taxis, but these were being pulled by men,many again without shoes. Some of the wooden carts were loaded up with things like coconuts and being pulled. It's the rainy season here so the ground is very muddy, I don't know how they were getting any traction with their bare feet. We walked about 5 minutes and then came to the Cambodian immigration. Although the guard was spoke to his colleague about something in my passport it was stamped and I was allowed to proceed.

We took a bus to the "taxi" station which was about a 10 minute drive. The taxis were in fact Toyota Camry's, which I thought was weird given the luggage that each passenger had, and it was 4 passengers per car.

The ride Poi-pet to Siem Ream would take 3 hours. There were only 2 lanes on the road, which at times there were 3 cars across it. The road was used by cars, trucks, buses, scooters, bikes, cows, you name it. A lot of the scooters had large reed-like baskets on the back with a least one very large pig in it, sometimes there were two. I think the pigs were dead, as most were upside down, unless that is their preferred method of travel. I did see one scooter with a trailer attached with a pig (alive) standing on the trailer and seemed to be enjoying the ride.

We made 2 stops, once for gas and the second time for to get the car washed. As I got out of the car I noticed a dead dragon fly on the ground. One of the other drivers picked it up and while his back was to me I saw him raise his hand to his mouth and when his hand came down it was gone, so I'm assuming he ate it.

On the drive I noticed that the amount of children I saw seemed to outnumber the adults. It may have been that the adults were at work, but many seemed to young to be hanging out by themselves, especially so close to the road.

The hostel I'm staying at has signs in the lobby clearly stating no guns, no grenades, no drugs. I'm hopping these signs are from the past and someone just forgot to take them down.

I will spend almost all my time in Siem Reap as I signed up with a company called Globalteer to do volunteer work kids, so should be quite familiar with this city and the culture by month's end. It will be nice to be in one place for such a long time, however I think I'm going to see poverty at levels that I have not seen before.

The issue of land mines in Cambodia is pretty well known. In most of the guide books on Cambodia there is a section that addresses land mine safety. The country side is very beautiful and therefore people are enticed to explore it, also there are temples that are in remote areas that can be visited. Both of these activities should be done with reputable guides. Some additional tips the books give are to stay on paths, and pay attention to any warning signs. In one of the books I read it talked about the fact that if you are touring a remote area and need to use nature's toilet it's best not to be shy and feel the need to stray from the path so others can't see you as you may inadvertently discover a mine.The millions of land mines in Cambodia are a result of the many military/political conflicts that have occurred here. There was no system for keeping trackwhere the land mines were placed and how many were placed which is a large part of the reason the removal process is so difficult and time consuming. It's estimated that it may take another 20 to 30 years to locate and remove the remaining mines.

As I walk around town I can to the damage the land mines have done here. I mainly see men and boys with various limbs missing. Some are missing a single arm or an leg, while others are missing multiple limbs. It's common to see men on crutches going around trying to sell books and/or DVD's as a way to make a living. For those that are missing multiple limbs they may be in a type of modified bicycle to get around.

There is Land Mine museum a bit outside the city, but well worth a visit. The museum is run by Aki Ra who was a former Khmer Rouge child solider. He estimates that he laid thousands of mines himself. Originally he worked by himself and very little tools clear the land mines. He now works with an agency to help clear the land mines. When he first started clearing land mines in the various villages he would run across children that had been injured by mines. Eventually he started taking in some of the children and now there are many that live at the land mine museum and have the opportunity to attend school.

There is a lot of good information at the museum, especially in regards to the history and future of the Cambodian people. One of the important topics covered is the effort to ban the use of land mines throughout the entire world. There is the Ottawa Treaty which became effective in 1999 which is basically banning the use of mines. I was quite surprised/embarrassed to realize that the US has yet to sign this treaty. I won't pretend I fully understand the politics behind our reasoning for not doing this. From what I understand is that it has to do with the issues between North and South Korea. Apparently millions of various types of mines have been spread across the demilitarized zone as a way to keep the peace. A couple things that I have read on the subject state that the mines do not belong to the US, they belong to South Korea and that many are so old that they may no longer be affective, although some must still be good as there have been reported injuries to non-military personnel as a result of some of these mines. Again I won't pretend to fully understand our reason behind not signing, but I think if some of those politicians were to come here and see the damage that these do they may be convinced that it's time to get on board.

I figured since I was going to spend most of my time in Cambodia in the city of Siem Reap I would take advantage and get a regular exercise program going. While volunteering at the school I would not be walking as much as I've been doing on most days, but I still wanted to get some exercise in. I thought that I would find a nice yoga studio, not that I'm good at yoga, but it's easier on my knees which are currently not to happy with all the walking (especially all the steps). There is a cafe that offers yoga classes, but they charge $6/class which seems a bit much by Cambodian standards, so I looked for other options. On the way into town I've passed by a school that plays very loud music and there appears to be people exercising. I inquired about the place at the guesthouse I'm staying and Rose who is the volunteer coordinator found out that it's an aerobics class and the cost is 1000 Riel which is like 0.25 cents. While aerobics on cement was not ideal for my knees, the price was right and I can do yoga anywhere, I thought it would be nice to exercise the way a lot of the locals do.I tried to recruit some of my fellow volunteers from both the guesthouse and school to join me.

Margo one of the teachers at the school joined me for the first day. She and I were the only non-Cambodian people in the class. There were mostly women and a couple of men, and even a couple of kids, and all of them were much better than Margo and I. To be fair they clearly had been going to the class for a while a knew all the moves by heart. I'll expose myself here a bit to tell you I'm not the most coordinated person and so the sight of me doing aerobics is not always pleasant. It was quite the professional set up with large speakers and an instructor with a fast-food type headset. The music was really upbeat and fast, there was even a remixed version of Barry Manilow's Mandy, I'm pretty sure I was the only one singing along. Margo and I modified some of the moves but the others in the class didn't seem to mind this or even the fact that we had joined their daily ritual. I continued to go to the class and got a little better each time and some of the other volunteers joined me on occasion.

There are actually 2 classes the first being the aerobics class and we learned that right after there was a class that was various types of dances. It was discussed at the guesthouse that we should try the dance class, this was not my idea but I thought sure I'd love to learn some new dance moves. So Robin and were the only ones that decided to go. We showed up (by now I think they were used to me and my crazy moves), paid our fee and waited for the music to start. Once it did we knew we had made a gigantic mistake. While we thought that we would be learning new dance moves turns out that everyone else already knew them. It was all we could do to not sneak out of there. It was like we stumbled into dress rehearsal for a music video. Everyone else was dancing beautifully to the music and Robin and I were in the back doing what appeared to be a really bad version of the hokey pokey. It might not have been so humiliating if Robin and I could have stayed unnoticed in the back doing our own thing, but almost every dance had a move in each direction so for part of the dance we were essentially in the front and everyone could observe our hideous moves. Again they did not seem to mind the fact that we were butchering all the dances. A couple of times the instructor came back to try and help us, but I think she quickly learned there were better ways to spend her time. We lasted through the entire class but it was by far the most embarrassing thing I've ever done in my life. The one good thing that came out of the experience is that I now feel so much better about my perfomances in the regular aerobics class, which is what I'll stick to from now on.

So at the school that I'm working at they have a regular social worker that goes out and visits the homes of the students. There is also a volunteer from Holland that studied social work that goes with him on occasion. After a visit to the hospital to follow on up a person that they took for treatment the volunteer from Holland was trying to get a group of the volunteers and Khmer teachers to go and donate blood. While they were at the hospital a women came up to her and asked her to donate blood so that her husband could get surgery. I had already thought about giving blood as I had seen a sign at the children's hospital on the way to the temples requestig blood donors due to the recent outbreak of dengue fever. My only concern in donating was making sure that everything used on me was sterile.

So five of the volunteers from Belgium and myself decided to donate. In Cambodia donating blood is not very common, as there is a fear that you could get sick. One of the tuk tuk drivers told me it has something to do with the thought that the old and new blood mixing together will cause illness. First we would check the place out to make sure we were all comfortable with the set up. Two of the girls from Belgium actually draw blood back home so they knew what to look for, and I have donated enough times to also know what to look for.The hospital was not even close to anything I've seen in the US. There did not appear to be an official waiting room as there were a lot of people just waiting around outside the various buildings. We headed to the blood bank which was housed in it's own building. It was a bit small so we quickly filled up the place.There were 2 ladies working in the clinic that really only spoke Khmer, but we had one of the Khmer teachers with us to help with the translation. We asked to see the equipment that would be used, with the needles being our main concern. We checked everything out and felt comfortable with the set up, they seemed to have no problems with all our questions.We started with a questionnare which asked many of the same questions that are on the paperwork in the US. Somehow I ended up going first and so they checked my pulse, my blood pressure, and my iron levels (this is normally the point where I fail), and everything was at acceptable levels. Last thing they did was weigh me, which just looking at me it's clear I'm nowhere near being underweight, but they were just following procedures. Then they cleaned my arm, found a good vein and put in the clean disposable sterile needed. My blood is a little slow, but once I was done they put the bag (350ml) next to me so that I could have a photo taken (I'm sure not part of the standard procedure). They had me lay there for a bit and once I sat up they had a nice cold Coke waiting for me (they also had these for us as we filled out the paperwork). They could only do one person at a time so we sat around talking, drinking Cokes and eating the cookies I brought. I'm sure the ladies worked well past their normal time, but never indicated this was an issue. They even gave each of us a t-shirt, and started a blood donation card for the Cambodian blood blank.

Once we were done we were able to go and meet the man that would benefit from our donation. Again this was like no hospital that I've ever been to. There were family members outside the buildings, small kids runninig around in various states of dress, people eating, and people praying. When we walked into the ward where the man was there were about 20 beds with no curtain or partion separating any of them. There were family members standing around the bed, some sitting on the bed, there were people laying on the floor hooked up to IV's as it appeared they had run out of beds. We met the man and his wife and their child (who was playing on the not very clean floor). They were very grateful for what we had done and both seemed very relieved that the surgery could now be carried out.

The next day at school I talked to the kids (and showed them my arm and photos) about what we did in hopes of showing them that it's safe to dontate. They did seem a bit excited about the free sodas and t-shirt, but they still were scared, of course they are a bit young. Don't know if it will have any affect but even if one of them decides to donate when they are old enough it will be a good thing.

The evidence of child labor in Cambodia was visible to me as soon as I crossed the border from Thailand. I saw about 5 or 6 barefoot kids crawls up from underneath this muddy bridge. The clothes they were wearing were quite tattered and dirty, some were wearing pajama tops or bottoms (which turns out to be a common outfit seen around Siem Reap). They had a canvas bag and were looking for cans or plastic bottles. On the drive from Poipet to Siem Reap I could see kids working in the rice fields, minding the cows along the roadside, and collecting sticks. The kids were of various ages and sizes and were working right along side the busy highway.

I spent 3 days visiting the temples of Angkor Wat and the ones in the surrounding areas and it became routine to be approached by kids selling various items, from bracelets, to books, to scarfs, to paintings, to food and beverages. The normal routine would be for them to ask you where you were from after which they would spew out some facts, things like the countries population and the presidents name (sometimes the first ladies name as well). They try various tactics to get you to buy things. Some start with a price and the when you keep walking they start lowering the price. They also try and guilt you into buying things, one girls told me if I did not buy bracelets from her it meant that I did not like Cambodian children. I'm well aware that by purchasing items from these kids that it just means they practice of child labor will continue.

In town at both day and night it's common to be approached by mother's carrying young children and asking for money so they can buy milk for the child. These women even go so far as to rent out younger kids when the current models get too old. They like to wait outside convenience markets and and ambush you on the way out and in. In one store I saw a man buy milk and give it to a young boy (~4) whose mother (although it may not have even been his mother) was waiting outside with another child. Once outside the child took off running towards another lady handed her the milk and she gave him some money. So I think it was all part of some of some scam.

At night it's really common to see children as young as 6 or 7 carrying around little babies in an effort to get money from tourist. These kids are out until all hours, I've seen them as late at midnight. There is one particular baby that I have seen more than once. He is one of the cutest little baby boys that I've ever seen and looks quite healthy. Given the late hour he is always sleeping when I see him and completely oblivious to the fact that he is being exploited. It takes everything I have to not grab this baby boy out of the childs arms and make a beeline to the airport to catch the first flight back to the US.

I'm sure for some of the kids they don't have any choice as to whether they want to work the streets, but there are actually some kids that feel obligated based on their families situation. One such boy attends the school that I'm helping out. I ran into him one night and he saw me and tried to hide from me. Part of the deal with the school is that the kids are not to work in the streets. The next day I spoke to the schools director the next day and he was well aware of the situation. The family is in debt, father of the boy is disabled and the older don't help out so the 10 year feels it's his duty to help his mother out. It's bad enough that he is working on the streets, but also since he stays up late when he has class in the morning he falls asleep. Though I'm surprised he comes to school at all, but the kids here seem to really enjoy learning.