DJ-RTW's Travel Blog

Doing Our Duty to the Victims of the Killing Fields - Phnom Penh, Cambodia

 This place was Great visited Feb 13, 2008

Visiting concentration camps, torture prisons and other heart-crushing sites of despotic governments is never easy but, nevertheless, we feel a duty to come here knowing that if travelers don’t they will be closed down. As less than thirty years have passed since the reign of Pol Pot was ended by an invasion by the Vietnamese, too many Cambodians (or Kmers as they are historically known) can face the reality of what happened to their parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, and others. It is estimated that some two million (2,000,000!!!) were killed in the three years, eight months and 20 days of the Kmer Rouge regime. The people of Cambodia want to put the past behind them even though none of the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity have been brought to justice. People here are less interested in spending money to investigate past crime and more interested in the government putting money towards education and health care. As they are unable to deal with the difficult truths of the past, we feel we need to continue to support any organization that supports keeping the truth alive. First, we visited the Killing Fields and later the S-21 torture prison.

posted Feb 22, 2008 | Comments (0)

The Adventure Continues (Day 3)! - Phnom Penh, Cambodia

 This place was Great visited Feb 12, 2008

Even though a peaceful, three-day tour of the Mekong Delta promised nothing more than the excitement of travelling on every traditional mode of transport known to Vietnam we ended up having a little more adventure than that thanks to our new-found friends. Jacob , obviously encouraged by Mark and Dutch, ate a tarantula for an appetizer. Funnily enough, the women didn’t find it appetizing: Eileen, Gen (two other Australians to join us), Pat and I just laughed and took photos while the three ‘boys’ went at it. We ended up having a great many-course meal of mostly regular food at a restaurant that provides a funding source for training programs. If you are ever in the area, Romdeng Restaurant should be on your list of must-dos. Everyone was surprised at the size of the city of Phnom Penh and pleased at its beautiful location next to the Tonle Sap river. We visited the Royal Palace (the country is a constitutional monarchy), the National Museum, as well as some of the memorials to the victims of the Kmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot in which 2 million were killed.

posted Feb 22, 2008 | Comments (0)

Day 2 of Tour Brings More Fun - Chau Doc, Vietnam

 This place was Great visited Feb 11, 2008

We took a three-hour boat ride to go to the floating market at Cai Rang but, unfortunately, it wasn’t really operating as this was the first official business day after the three-day new year festival of Tet. Very few vendors thought it worthwhile to get all of their produce in their boats to sell at the market…so we just got a little bit of a look at the boats and what they sell. On our first night with the Aussies and Americans, we had a welcome to the tour dinner where we got to know each other. On the second day, we had a going away lunch for a group of Chinese people who were leaving the group. I got the feeling that the Aussies really like these dinners because that night, we had a going away dinner for Leta and Noug who weren’t joining us for the third day of the tour.

posted Feb 22, 2008 | Comments (0)

Three Day Mekong Delta Tour (Day 1) - Can Tho, Vietnam

 This place was Average visited Feb 10, 2008

After a week resting in Saigon, we took a three-day tour of the Mekong Delta (further south in Vietnam) that would take us from Saigon to Phnom Phen in Cambodia. The first day involved a long bus ride, then boat ride to visit local villages making rice paper (very thin spring roll wrap made of rice flour), popped rice snacks and coconut candy with a stop for lunch at a tropical fruit orchard. What we found to be most interesting were the rural areas where the homes are either built on the riverbank on stilts to avoid flooding during the monsoons or are built as floating homes. As the main means of earning a living are fishing and selling at the Cai Be Floating M \arket, it is convenient for everyone as they all have small boats or ‘sampans.’ As it was so soon after Tet, most of the market sellers were off and with very few boats making up a shrunken floating market but we kinda got the idea. During this trip we met three Ozzies and two Americans with whom we’ve caught up several times in Cambodia. The Ozzies – Patience (Pat) and Mark and their somewhat insane friend ‘Dutch’ – come from Canberra and they’ve actually invited us to visit with them when we’re in town (something we hope they won’t live to regret). Dutch, the nut, took over our luggage rickshaw and tried driving it (see photo) and proved many times over the week we spent with him that his grasps of reality is tenuous at best. I hope his university students don’t find out too soon! The two Americans – Letta and Nouge – are from New York City but are moving to L.A. in the spring and we expect to see them when we visit in May. We laughed so much in the week or so that we kept running into each other …. it was a wonderful break for us to have someone else to have fun with – you know life 24/7 with your husband or wife isn’t all fun and games as you might imagine.

posted Feb 22, 2008 | Comments (0)

Honoring the Heroes of the ‘American War’ - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

 This place was Average visited Feb 8, 2008

Even though you know that the “War Remnants Museum” is a one-sided recounting of what the Vietnamese call the ‘American War’ and we call the ‘Vietnamese War’ we couldn’t miss the opportunity to see how the victims of the war commemorate the gruesome events of the conflict of the 1960s and ‘70s. Hundreds of photographs document the maiming and killing of people, the destruction of cities, the effect of the defoliant Agent Orange on humans and the environment. Some of the more interesting exhibits included photos and documents illustrating the world’s opposition to the USA’s involvement in the war including former presidential candidate John Kerry and actor Jane Fonda who is still known by resentful Vietnam vets as Hanoi Jane.

posted Feb 22, 2008 | Comments (0)