Floating Village/Phnom Penh (Cambodia Part II)

The temples (including Angkor Wat, the Bayon, etc) were amazing, to the point that despite my statement at the end of the last post that I was done posting pictures of them I can't help but add a few more.

I actually can't remember which temple this is (Bakheng?) but I remember that we liked it

Another representative stone carving. If you like this kind of thing we have at least 4000
more pictures almost just like it (ancient Cambodians had mad stone carving skills)...

Another shot with another great tree

As breathtaking as Siem Reap and the ruins and temples in the Angkor complex were, it turned out our favorite parts of the trip were in the days that followed. Despite the genocidal horrors of the Khmer Rouge (could this really have happened during our lifetime?) and the subsequent poverty, Cambodians are still remarkably upbeat, generous and willing to talk to foreigners. The pictures that follow show our trip to the floating village outside of Siem Reap (the people, who all live on boats, move with the seasonal tides), and finally to Cambodia's capitol city of Phnom Penh.

Note the barge-like houses in the background

Another inhabitant of the floating village

Sunset...at the river village

Royal Palace in Phnom Penh

Ditto

After taking in the palace we headed for a local park, where we got a taste of what it would be like to live in Phnom Penh: families relaxing, adults letting off steam after work by playing soccer, and children entertaining each other and the cute blond-headed foreigner.

Unlike in Thailand (where the monks all wear the same color of robes) the
Buddhist monks in Cambodia were a bit more colorful

Sunrise over the Mekong river: the silver lining to
Maisy's insistence on waking up literally 'at the crack of dawn'

This was the most humbling experience of our trip: the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum. At this site thousands of innocent Cambodian men, women and children were tortured and murdered. Of the 7.5 million Cambodians living during this time period (1975-79), 1.5 million were murdered through starvation, forced labor, or in facilities like this. As a proportion of the the total population the Khmer Rouge's purge is considered the most lethal of the 20th century.

In a cell of this size dozens of innocent prisoners would be held by there own government. As Dianna noted there was an amazing disparity between the wonders that man can accomplish at Angkor, and the horrors that we sometimes inflict on each other, as represented here.

We were feeling kind of bad about things after the museum, but this guy helped cheer us up after we reentered town.

Dianna and Maisy sporting their new sunglasses

Our strategy for bag retrieval at the Chiang Mai airport is simple:
Maisy distracts people and I grab suitcases as fast as I can.

Cambodia: Siem Reap/Angkor Wat...

Cambodia ended up being one of the most remarkable experiences of our collective lives. For that reason I'm going to take a step back from the smart aleck/juvenile humor theme that I normally weave throughout these entries as I try to portray this incredible country. We took way too many pictures, so the entries covering this subject will probably be a little photo heavy. I think we'll split this into two entries for this reason. This first entry will describe a few of the myriad of ancient temples that are near to the current Cambodian city of Siem Reap (including the aforementioned Angkor Wat).

As a back story the temples pictured here were built by a dynasty of Angkorian emperors who ruled the region for a period of 500 years beginning in the 9th century AD. Each succeeding ruler tried to outdue the one before leaving behind these amazing structures, most of which are now well over 1000 years old. Despite the enormity of these buildings many of them were covered entirely in intricate stone carvings. We were left marveling at what mankind can accomplish. Without further ado, some representative pics:

Fun on the plane ride

Sunrise at Angkor Wat (note the pj's on Maisy)

The Bayon, another huge temple in the area

As time has passed the jungle has tried to reclaim the area that was cleared to build the temples.
Apparently old gnarly trees like this one actually help support the old walls

Representative carving

Maisy pausing for a little R&R after a busy morning at the temples

Native preparing flowers to sell to tourists

Two Cambodian monks at the Bayon pausing to humor us and our hyperactive camera

This particular temple (the Bayon) has over 200 carved faces like this one which were meant to watch every corner of this vast empire. 90% cool, 10% creepy

There is something about this region of the world that provides unique impetus for thought.

Dianna pausing to enjoy some of the local wildlife.

Now enjoying the local wildlife a little less...

Maisy and a huge rock...that is all

Hanging out with the locals.

That may look like chocolate or choco pie, but it's actually dirt,
of which there is a plentiful supply in Cambodia.


Flowers, puppies, toddlers, cute local children, my beautiful wife. This scene was begging for photos to be snapped


Our last day in Siem Reap we hiked several kilometers through the jungle to a spot where ancient artists had carved scenes into the riverbed. It was amazing to be out of the city and hiking again.


One such carving. I think our guidebook said there were around 500 of these in the area. This particular carving is in a dry part of the river during this season, but will be covered once the monsoon season returns.


Maisy's new friend. He will make a repeat appearance in a future posting I have planned with more video content.

My attention span for uploading pictures is exhausted, so I think I will split the posts here. The next segment will show Cambodia's capitol (Phnom Penh) as well as our voyage to meet the famed Cambodian river people.

Happy President's Day!

Tomorrow we are leaving for Cambodia to spend a week exploring Angkor Wat. For those of you new to Angkor Wat it (along with at least 15 other sites) is considered one of the seven wonders of the world and has been deemed the largest religious building on Earth. "Bigger than the 'Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel'" you might ask? Yes even bigger than that. "But is it bigger than the SPAM museum" no, but SPAM isn't a religion, it is a mysterious meat product made out of pork, beef and McDonald's chicken nuggets. It (Angkor Wat, and possibly SPAM) was constructed in the 9th century. I'm still awaiting word from my brother Dan as to whether or not there was extraterrestrial help with its construction (engineers can tell just by looking at these things). Here is a representative picture in case anyone else wants to venture a guess as to whose hard labor is responsible for building it (could it have been some Cambodian kid's eagle project?).


On a completely unrelated note, the walking videos we have posted of Maisy seem to get a lot of attention, so we are posting a third one below. This one has a twist: it is a bloopers reel. Maisy's progression to full motility was a labor of love, as evidenced here.



Much love and Happy Presidents Day (!) to everyone. We'll see you on the flip side of Cambodia.

Our Nepalese hats. They are a consolation prize for not being able
to go to Nepal.They keep your head warm even during those chilly days
of Thai winter when temperatures plummet into the low seventies.

Holiday roundup

I'm not sure how to start this post, which means I'm all out of juvenile jokes and cheap knocks on the Yankees. We haven't written anything in a while though, so keeping with that trend I'll dive right in with some pictures (uh I mean videos):


Maisy enjoying the fruits of her Christmas bounty. The neighborhood pets now live in a state of constant fear of her reckless driving.


Dianna has already abandoned her presents (seen here on the chair) in favor of Maisy's new blocks. The two of them have become masters of foam block architecture in the ensuing days.


It's never too late to start learning the banjo. Many thanks to Paul and Pier Larsen for hauling my Christmas present halfway around the world. If your next question was "but can you play 'Bile Dem Cabbage Down'" then you will be pleased to know that the answer is an emphatic 'yes'.


A few days after Christmas we embarked for Sukothai: the first capital of old Siam built in the 12th century.

Maisy, Dianna, me, and yes, the Buddha looking on behind us. Not sure who the guy on the left is, but his shirt leads me to believe that it might be Tom Cruise.






Not really sure what to say about these guys, but at least they aren't wearing pink shirts


The preferred mode of transportation around the many square kilometers of ruins. Only the really hardy tourists take on the added challenge of strapping a wild 11-month old to their chest though.


Maisy doing a little exploring on her own. I feel okay about publishing this picture because her grandparents live 12,000 miles away.

White Elephants

If everyone else has family reunions similar to ours one of the notoriously strange episodes that occurs at each one is my brother Dan trying to explain to people why he thinks the earth is hollow (he's an engineer people--apparently they have equations for this kind of thing). But that's not the weird family reunion thing I wanted to write about. That honor goes to the 'white elephant' gift exchange. In the educational portion of our blog we will explore exactly where this term comes from (seriously this entry is bound to be just as boring as it sounds).

In Thailand the legend of the white elephant begins with the origins of the country's main religion--Buddhism. One night the Buddha's mother had a dream in which a white elephant ran into her womb (I'm really not sure exactly how to use the word 'womb' in a sentence, but that was my best shot). The next day she awoke from the dream to discover that she was pregnant, and several months down the line Buddha was born. In honor of this episode Thais began looking at white Elephants as holy. In reverence to them these creatures are not used for labor (unlike the elephants at the elephant farm by our house who are forced to make weird looking paintings with their trunks to sell to tourists--it's like some kind of elephant sweat shop). Farmers and other landowners quickly realized that owning a white elephant was not necessarily a good thing. They still had to feed and take care of them, but the lazy albino behemoths didn't work. Representing this dynamic the term 'white elephant' came to symbolize something that didn't have any particularly useful function. At some point this phrase was adopted into the English language, from where it was borrowed by family reunion planning committees (I imagine that things as serious as family reunions must be planned by committees). So without further ado, here are some pictures of 100% real white elephants:

Not as white as I imagined either before seeing the pictures, but still...


Yep, this guy is as useless as Julio Lugo, or Jason Giambi (that one is for you odeman)


Picture published in Thailand of an elephant voting. He's also wearing a Santa hat, so I think he might have another gig booked after this one at a local mall.


So this one is a normal, non-white elephant. Notice how useful he looks. As a matter of historical record (and as her facial expression indicates) this is Maisy's first view of one of these guys.

In Memorium: Nikon Coolpix 5600

A quick check of the dates between our last entry and this one will reveal that we haven't posted anything new in a while. Contributing to my laziness was the fact that our old beat up digital camera was 'borrowed' permanently by some Thai rapscallion. Without pictorial proof, finding a coherently themed topic to blog about has been more difficult than usual. However, to honor our fallen camera I am including several as yet unpublished pictures in memory of the Coolpix 5600. True the lens cover only closed half-way, and it was also instrumental in alienating us from all of our friends who have any animal rights tendencies (see below), but it will still be sorely missed (until our new camera arrives with some friends from the States). Without further ado, some of our favorite shots from Thailand as recorded by our ill-fated friend, the 5600:

In case some of you were curious, they do indeed sell pieces of meat on sticks to feed the leopards with at the Chiang Mai Zoo. Also pictured here is the beginnings of the mullet that I am cultivating.


Close-up proof of the fact that for roughly the same price as a pack of M&Ms, and less than the cost of a Nutrageous (which per ounce costs about the same as gold in Thailand) you can feed a carnivore of your choosing.


Maisy and her new friend at the park. As a result of Maisy's combover hairstyle the pictures to follow occurred.


This was what I believe Dianna refers to as a 'girls day out'. I'm not sure what that means exactly, except that it did allow me plenty of time to lounge around the house reading Red Sox articles in my underwear.


First haircut. Sadly on this same day my dream of growing father/daughter mullets died.


One of my favorite pictures taken by the 5600. In response to their queries I showed this to a group of NGO workers at the Thai-Burmese border, after which I was referred to as the 'guy with the wife who looks like a model'. That was an improvement on my previous nickname (the guy who only wears Red Sox t-shirts).

Mad Walking Skills

As we were setting up our Christmas Tree (straight from the green plastic Christmas tree farm), Maisy decided to add to the festivities by using this as an opportunity to showcase her first steps. She had an ornament in each hand and nonchalantly pushed off the chair and took a few steps towards us. This video is actually of her 17th-35th first steps, but its the same general idea...