Author Archives: Megan Ballweber

Angkor What?

With a nightly drunk hotel employee who mocks Borat, who also enjoys hugging and kissing Bryan, and what seems like millions of tuk-tuk drivers and massage people constantly reminding us of their existence, how could we not enjoy ourselves in Siem Reap?

But the real attraction to Siem Reap is due to the proximity to some of the most stunning ruins in the world. The Angkor area reportedly has over 1,000 temples which were constructed between the 9th and 15th centuries, with the center of the attraction being Ankor Wat, known as the World’s largest religious monument.

Being that there were a lot of remarkable structures to see, a lot of walking in the intense heat, and way too many pictures to be taken, two days turned out to be the perfect amount of time to make our way through all of the major sites. After rising at 4:30am the first morning, we headed out in the dark to attempt to capture Angkor Wat at sunrise. It wasn’t easy with a semi-functioning tripod and hoards of other tourists, but we got to witness the massive black silhouette become a beautifully aged stone monument before our eyes. We saved touring it for the next trip and headed to the less famous temples.

Picture: At the end of the first day in our pimped out tuk-tuk driven by the well dressed “Mr. T” and his gold-plated tooth.

We spent the following day taking a break in the city to ensure we didn’t get burnt out, then we made our way to the three most famous areas: Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm, and Bayon. I am completely stumped on how to describe our feelings and astonishment toward everything we saw. I can’t count how many times I was freshly stunned, when “wow” was the only thing I could say. We couldn’t believe the details that still remained after 600-1200 years: the bas reliefs, carvings, and stone faces. Many of the temples have undergone some or a lot of reconstruction, nearly all with the original stones that had fallen away.

Sadly, many of the temples received irreparable damage by the Khmer Rouge, who wanted to wipe out all history and religion and start anew, or from conversion of religions (Hindu to Buddhism or reversed). We saw stone men and Buddhas that had been beheaded, and most of the Buddha bas reliefs carved from walls.

Back in Siem Reap we have been doing a lot of reading and have enjoyed some fantastic food such as Spicy sweet and sour soup with coconut rice (coconut cream that literally tasted like white gravy poured over steamed rice, it was unexpectedly a perfect substitute for mashed potatoes and gravy); a Khmer vegetable curry meal with fried eggrolls as appetizer and for dessert, fried bananas with palm sugar and coconut milk (tasted like sauteed bananas in a perfect caramel sauce), and one night we went to a more upscale restaurant with a traditional Apsara dance show.

Tonight we are headed to Bangkok where we will immediately take a train up North to Chiang Mai. A whole night on a bus just isn’t enough! After a couple weeks in Northern Thailand we will fly out of Bangkok to spend 2 1/2 weeks in Myanmar, then back to Thailand.

Phnomenal Penh!

It has been easy to feel comfortable in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, as it is the most Westernized city we have been to as of yet. Even the large supermarket that we have already visited three times for measly items we can buy closer to our hotel is a comfort. In addition, the ATMs spit out US dollar bills and purchases are made with a mix of dollars and riels. Besides its Western features, this city is remarkable in so many other ways.

Since we plan to go to Myanmar (Burma) later in our trip and knew we would be spending some time here, we decided to go ahead and apply for our Myanmar visa which would take nearly a week to get back. Thursday morning we purchased our airline tickets from Bangkok to Yangon, Myanmar for a little more than a month from now and made our way to the embassy. The application process was a breeze and they never did ask for our proof of entry and exit (airline tickets) as we expected we would need. This morning we picked up our passports complete with Myanmar visas! We are very excited we will have the opportunity to visit a country that is currently in the process of opening more to the outside world and changing drastically every week.

We spent Friday in the heart of the city where we visited the National Museum and the Royal Palace. The National Museum had an impressive array of Khmer art and sculptures, with fantastic educational resources to better understand the meanings to images we see repeated on buildings and sculptures everywhere. It is a shame pictures are not allowed inside most museums. We were able to take some outside in the courtyard though.

The Royal Palace was even more spectacular, with its grand buildings, temple, and related Buddhist structures. One building contains a silver-tiled floor and an emerald Buddha statue, the two main draws of the Palace. The silver tiles, bent, dinged up, and worn, were mostly covered by rugs. Not the wisest flooring material it seems! I couldn’t understand the fuss over the emerald Buddha, which was placed so high on a pedestal that we could barely get a glimpse. It was so much smaller and less beautiful in my opinion than many of the marble and stone Buddhas we have seen. I guess glitz and glam just aren’t my thing, because I was more impressed with the landscaping and shrubbery sculptures! Bryan and I couldn’t help but discussing, while walking through these grand structures and sculptures dedicated to Buddha, what the man who taught modesty would think of all this.

Saturday we decided to pay our respects to those who were massacred by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979. We first visited Choeung Ek Killing Fields outside the city where we were given a headset tour guide. Prisoners from elsewhere were taken to these fields only to be killed. It was a very moving experience as we walked around listening to personal stories from survivors on our headsets. A large memorial sits in front of the entrance where the excavated bones from the mass grave sites are visibly stored. The exhumed graves remain as massive pits dotting the fields, with signs warning to keep an eye out for bones and clothes that regularly surface. We next visited Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, aka S-21, which was originally a school. The Khmer Rouge did not believe in education, so the school was closed and turned into prison and torture chambers. Shackles and torture tools remained on display. One of the buildings was left in the same condition it was found, with barbed-wire netting covering the front, and single cells partitioned with brick or wood. One of the 7 survivors from this prison was on sight, now an old man, signing his book. He survived because they found out his profession as a painter and they used him for portraits of officials and so forth. The Khmer Rouge took vigilant records and photographed each prisoner. As we were walking through the thousands of photos, three local women brought tears to my eyes as they lovingly caressed and mourned each of the faces photographed. As I take it all to heart, it is quite emotional for me to visit sites like this, but it is important to me. We must remember and learn from such events to prevent recurrences, but most importantly, we must recognize the beauty, courage, and strength within one another that shows up in the worst of times.

Friday night we had checked out the weekend night market, with its loud nightly concerts, super cheap clothes, and variety of foods. We had a pretty good sized dinner for $3, enjoyed on a grass mat rolled out on the cement. At breakfast on Saturday morning, our waiter asked if he could tag along with us to the Night Market on our second visit. He introduced us to something called nime, which we previously thought were eyeballs but they were just a spicy snack in little bags. Bryan ate a lot of them that night! He invited us to go to Dreamland with him on Sunday afternoon. Dreamland turned out to be a small amusement park where we rode a few small rides, and one which we had never seen in the U.S., and we found out why! It spun around in a horizontal circle like so many others, but you were in a round cage that rolled like being inside the tire of a monster truck. After one long ride, we were screaming and involuntarily laughing so hard that they must have thought we hadn’t had enough. To our horror they started it all over again (probably to amuse the crowd we drew)! It spun so fast we were profusely sweating, couldn’t see straight, and could barely walk for awhile afterwords. That was rough!

On Monday we volunteered at a small school outside the city for some of the poorest children. The school has a kindergarten, computer lab, and a vocational class that teaches English and German to older students in addition to what the public school teaches. Speaking a foreign language is very important for success to many Cambodians, and the public school nearby has no computers either. I spent time in the morning with the kindergartners while Bryan worked on a couple donated computers. At lunch time we went out with a truckload of kids to drop them off at their 10’x8′ grass huts built on the side of the road and to fill water jugs with clean drinking water for families in the area. It was beautiful to talk to these happy children that didn’t even have clean clothes but were doing so well in class, speaking clear English, and working towards bright futures. We were told one student is being sponsored by a German company and is set up for more education in Germany and possibly a job through that company.

Water Bucket and Beer in Hand

It seems that a month has gone by since our last post with all that we have done. Computer labs are just one of the many things that aren’t worth keeping open when there’s a giant party going on!

Our last post was when we reached Luang Prabang and were just seeing a sneak preview of the Laos New Year celebrations. For the three and a half days we were in Luang Prabang, we wore our bathing suits the entire time. With nothing else to defend myself, I kept the plastic cup that my fruit shake came in. It was perfectly deceiving! Random buckets and large tubs filled with water lined the sidewalks and served as base camps for armies, so I filled my cup and we walked. People thought I just had drinking water until they tried to get me wet and got it first! Sometimes I would scoop water right out of the bowl full that was about to be dumped on me, or race around and steal from their source. Often this surprised them enough that I got away free! The best ones were the people that were standing on the curb with a bucket full and paying attention to an upcoming car without noticing us walking up from the sidewalk, in which case I would sneak up and tip the bucket right back on them. But no matter what we couldn’t avoid being drenched constantly! Water guns and buckets were everywhere. Buckets were dumped on us from passing trucks, from behind fences and over walls, from innocent looking bystanders and tiny children… you get the point. It was nice to see that people of all ages participated equally, accepted all as fair, and took everything with a smile.

Trucks, old jeeps, and tuk-tuks cruised the streets packed with people dancing, tires touching wheel wells.

Outside our hotel on the second day the owners and their family supplied the water and buckets. They were one large group you couldn’t get away from, so we joined them! Bryan went all out, especially taking aim for the unfortunate drivers with their windows down! Vehicles stalled from water intake and some just quit altogether. We met Tina, now a US citizen but originally from Laos and cousin to the owner, who informed us about the meanings to it all and told us her own story. The water symbolizes washing away the old and welcoming the new (they must have a lot to wash away). The little birds in cages and small live fish in buckets that we saw being sold everywhere were similarly symbolic in releasing the old and welcoming the new (they were all released). Tina also told us about how she escaped Laos in 1978 with some relatives after finishing college due to communist oppression. Once they made it out of Loas they were kidnapped in Thailand where they starved and (pause, we drink offered beer, continue) begged for three days that they could get money from her cousin in the states. For six weeks (pause, buckets poured on us, continue) the men came with guns to find out if the money had arrived yet. If they were not able to get money, (pause, Tina runs in the street to get pay back, continue) she claims she would have been sold to the sex slave just as another cousin of hers was. But they got the money and made it safely to the states. She told us in multiple ways she is so grateful to the U.S., and stated her hopes that Laos will become a nation she can be proud of but, although it has come a long ways (pause, admire and laugh at the free spirit teens dancing in the back of a passing truck, continue) since then, she is very unsure about its future.

After Luang Prabang we took a bus to Luang Namtha where we decided to spend a few days doing nothing and saving money. This town is far North, not far from China, and is close to Nam Ha National Protected Area. The town itself is small and was especially quiet because most the locals were still out of town celebrating the New Year. We had a hotel with a nice patio that was surrounded by tropical plants, perfect for sitting and doing nothing. On the fourth day we set out to see what trouble we might find on a three day trek into Nam Ha, which is said to be some of the thickest jungle in Laos and still has some larger wild animals. The trek was a really fantastic experience, and as of yet our best paid “tour”. The food was carried and made by locals and was fantastic! Our first lunch consisted of sticky rice, spicy eggplant, pork, and cooked vegetables, spread out over banana leaves and eaten with our hands at a bamboo hut. After a few hours of hilly hiking we reached our first camp of a large bamboo shelter for sleeping, one for cooking, and a small one holding a “western toilet” (I feel for the person who had to carry it up there). There was a really cool spider in that last hut, not far from your face if you used the toilet. In the photo album there is a picture with Bryan’s hand by it for scale.

Our second day we had to work those legs pretty hard, but well worth it. We spotted a large, very poisonous centipede that was shedding its skin and, partially immobile, being attacked by large ants. Our guide saved it. We also saw a couple very large spiders up in trees. One was approximately the length of my hand!
At the end of the second day we came to the first of two secluded villages where we were given the option to buy some things from the women and children like bracelets and woven bags that they made. It was a weird but humbling feeling to be sitting there with half of the children surrounding you being naked and staring blankly at you, and with a group of men in their underwear walking by to go fishing.

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That night we stayed in the neighboring village next to a small river. It was beautiful. Pigs, dogs, and chickens roamed around us and children played in the water. The people from these two villages have to walk the same trail that we took on the third day for any supplies, to refil the Beer Laos stock, or for medical needs. It was about a four hour trek up a small mountain and then back down to reach the highway. That was the only day where we could get much of a panorama view because of the denseness of the forest. One thing to note is that we saw a whole lot of evidence of “slash and burn” farming that is taking root with all the people in Northern Laos, including these remote villages. Much of it is for Chinese exports. We passed by several areas that were freshly burnt and still burning. One must understand that these people are trying to make a living, so some of it is to be expected, but we were seeing really large areas, and far too many areas, of slash and burn everywhere. Unfortunately the forests aren’t going to win because the Chinese have a hold on Northern Laos (it was pointed out to us that Chinese own much of the property and many of the businesses in town) and the government is too corrupt. When we asked our guide how many tigers still live in the area, he answered “1 or 2”.

In other news, we made it this morning back to Vientiane after 24 hours on a bus and one break down. Nothing big, just no headlights or other electrical. But they fixed it! We will be here for a total of 12 hours and then will be on a night bus to Savannakhet in the South. Wish us luck!

“I’m From Antarctica”

Not all Black Hmong tribe people know where that is.

As soon as we had exited the bus in Sapa, we learned that the many women surrounding us in traditional costume were going to be people we needed to ignore. At times it seemed that with every step we took in Sapa, we would be surrounded by 3 or more of these women repeating “Where you froooom?” and “You buy from meE!”. As soon as we walked by a few, they would leach on and follow us until we could convince them that we would not buy from them, which was sometimes a difficult task.

We are still learning how to take advantage of situations like that to learn about people, while not making them pissed off at us for not buying. We want to learn about the locals of the places we go, but it is difficult, for example, when they are shoving bracelets in your face demanding you buy. That is where our trek from Sapa helped us out. After breakfast our second morning in Sapa, we were taken to a hotel where we would meet up with our guide and three 22 year old girls from Isreal who would be accompanying us. I was surprised a bit when our guide appeared wearing the same traditional clothing as the many women buzzing around us like flies at a picnic. Instantly I knew I needed to change my mindset.

It turns out that the women we were seeing all around town in woven clothes and leg wraps, our guide included, were Black Hmong people who are spread between a few villages in the mountains. They are just one of the many minority tribes that are dispersed throughout the mountains near Sapa. We would be visiting one of the Black Hmong villages, along with a Red Dao (prounounced zow) village.

We begin trekking, and our group of 6 instantly became a group of 12. As we walked farther out of the city, all kinds of things were going through my mind, like “why they heck are these women following us? Maybe they are just heading back to their village at the same time as us. Do they really think we’re going to buy something as we’re trekking? Shouldn’t our guide be telling them to go away and leave us alone so we can enjoy ourselves?” As we begin to walk through rocky terrain and ballancing on the edges of muddy rice terraces, these other Black Hmong women became our personal assistants and keep us from falling. I begin to relax and chat with them a bit more as they could speak pretty good English and they weren’t trying to sell us anything. My thoughts changed to, “Maybe they assist the guide. Maybe she gives them a cut. It is pretty slippery terrain and most of these tourists don’t look much like hikers, they need the help.”

Our surroundings were phenominal! To one side we had the largest mountain in all of Vietnam towering over us, we were dropping into a valley were the walls were carved into perfect terraces, some filled with water, others dry and neglected as it is not the growing season yet, but all beautiful. The fog, which was always present, was high and the views were clear. We got many pictures and did a lot of staring in awe. Eventually we reached the village of where our guide and assistants lived. I snapped a picture of the lady who had been helping me along, and in the background on a terraced mountain side is her home. It looked beautiful. We ate a Pho lunch at a place meant to get large groups of trekkers in and out quickly, but it was pretty good. When we arrived for lunch our ‘assistants’ told us they had to go home now and began shoving things in our faces and saying “You buy from meE!” OH NO! I felt so horrible, I had built relationships with these people over the last 12 kilometers. I told my lady no. I told them all no. I felt so bad. We continued on to the Red Dao village, where after marriage, the women shave their eyebrows and heads and wear red cloths on their heads. We reached our homestay, which was just a larger building with many beds, around 2:30pm and had the rest of the afternoon to ourselves. Bryan and I roamed around and then sat and watched children play, chickens peck, dogs sleep, and fog roll in. It was very peaceful.

We had a nice, large dinner with the girls from Israel and enjoyed chatting with them for a few hours. It was really fun to learn more about Isreal, share pictures, and share perspectives. We also got to drink a lot of “Happy Water” (rice wine) with the girls and the husband of our guide. It was fun! We found out our guide, Lala, had been married 5 months, her and her husband are both 18, and they are pregnant! In their culture, the newly married couple lives with the husband’s family for the first 3-4 years.

In the morning, Bryan and I watched the fog roll out, children play, chickens peck, and dogs eat. After a nice, big breakfast we continued on to another village, over much muddier terraces completely filled with water. Bryan’s foot was as wide as the edge we had to balance and walk on, and the women and little girls (yep, this time two little 10 year old girls joined us as ‘assistants’) walked through the water and held us up when it got slippery. I tried so hard not to let the little girls help me, but there was a point where both Bryan and I needed a hand so we didn’t fall in, and the only one around was a 10 year old. (There is a sign in the center of the park in Sapa that asks that you please never buy from children because it encourages them to not go to school and they could be forced to work.) We passed by a large, but dry, waterfall. It was very large, so I’m sure it is very beautiful when it is running. At lunch a couple of the girls from Isreal decided to buy something from a couple of the women to thank them for the help. They regreted it! As soon as they showed interest, we literally had about 20 women surrounding our table all yelling prices over the others and shoving their purses and bracelets in the girls’ faces, and ours. It is how they live, but I can’t help but feeling it is very sad because tourism has done this to them. It was really nice getting to know some of those women on the first day, learning about their lives and getting to ask questions, and sad seeing them flip a switch and going into sales mode where you couldn’t talk to them about anything else.

Back in Sapa we enjoyed relaxing with some good drinks and food. Our last day there was off and on rain, and the fog was so thick you could barely see a car coming at you. We hopped around between cafes, restaurants, and stores. Bryan started playing games with the Black Hmong women who were trying to sell to us that day. When they would ask “Where you frooom?” He told a couple of them he was from Sapa, which made them laugh, and then he told an older woman he was from Antarctica! I could barely hold my giggles in, and I think she caught on pretty quickly because she started laughing and walked away! The second person he used the Antarctica one on had no clue where it was. When they would ask us to buy something, he would hold the bottle of water out and repeat back at them, “You buy from me!” One woman told him, “when you in our country, you buy from us, when we in your country, we buy from you.” Bryan told her she would never go to our country so she should buy from him now. She didn’t like that. Another woman said OK when he offered the water bottle for trade, and we think she would have done it, but we started laughing and she did too!

Bryan didn’t mention in the last post that we really enjoyed talking to the lady that sold us the trek tickets. We came across her in the first restaurant we went to on the first day in Sapa, and she was so great about giving us advice and just chatting. She was really eager to show us the new hotel her family is building, so we actually got to go walk around the construction zone, up to the third floor, with construction workers and hazards all over the place! They will be doing 7 stories and only had 6 so far. It was done through a combination of cement and bricks, and it appeared the electrical and cables all went right through the cement. Very interesting! She told us they would probably have an example room completed by our last day in Sapa, but she was busy that day so we didn’t get to see it.

Also there are a ton of new photos up [gallery].