Thursday, June 16, 2011 – Monday, July 4, 2011
By Dad, with some edits by Mom
Some overarching themes of the trip:
Carla was re-connecting with her Cambodian roots. This is perhaps the main reason why we made this visit, and this re-connection was a major theme of our trip, visiting the orphanage, tracking down her primary nurse during the 3-4 months she was in the Phnom Penh orphanage, trying to locate someone who knew about her birth in Kompong Speu province, locating the village where she came from. We repeatedly explained Carla’s adoption story to many interested people during our trip.
When we lived in Cambodia 1988 – 1993, there were frequent comments about “how things used to be”—vacationing on the beach at Kep or Kompong Som, taking day trips to Kirirum, traveling overland to Thailand, soccer games in Olympic stadium, etc. This was in the context the Khmer Rouge threat, land mines, embargo on aid from the West, the Khmer Rouge encroaching towards Phnom Penh at times, etc. During this trip we had the strong sense that these “good old days” were, to some degree, being restored. If the shadow of Pol Pot is removed from the country, the country is transformed.
In the Cambodian news:
Violent clashes between Cambodian and Thai troops over the disputed Preah Vihear temples on Cambodia’s N-NE border with Thailand. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen: “If Thailand is going to be rude, we have to fight back.”
Case # 002—Trial against Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, Nuon Chea, Ieng Thirith began in Phnom Penh, accused of genocide. These are the only Khmer Rouge leaders remaining and are elderly. Can justice ever be done? Nuon Chea, former #2 in the pecking order (after Pol Pot who died in 1998) comes to court wearing a knit cap and large sunglasses. None of them are cooperating (except perhaps for Khieu Samphan). Case # 001 was the conviction of Duch, head of the Tuol Sleng prison.
The communications revolution has hit Cambodia head on. Small cell phone kiosks are everywhere, perhaps 5-10 per city block downtown. The country has simply skipped over telecommunications using actual wire and gone directly to cell phone technology. Tuk tuk drivers give you their cell phone numbers and tell you to call them when you are in need of their services.
Speaking of tuk tuks, these motorcycle taxi-trailers have replaced cyclos (bicycle-type taxis where the rider sits in the front) as the means of getting around. The streets swarmed with cyclos during the late 1980s, now they are almost absent. Moto-double are also very common, as are cars. Not the Soviet made Nivas or Ladas, but Toyotas, Fords, etc. Traffic congestion is dramatically worse than it was 18-20 years ago. However, it all moves slowly and surprisingly and happily we didn’t see any accidents the entire time we were there.
Traffic laws are beginning to be enforced, including stop lights, helmets worn by motorcyclists, etc. We were told that when the stop lights were first introduced people stood there with long sticks and lowered them in front of motorists when the red light went on and raised them when green came on. The “walk/don’t walk” signs are interesting. When it says “walk” there is the countdown to “0” with the outline of a walking person. This person walks faster and faster, eventually running as “0” gets closer.
Ruth is in the middle of an interview process for a new MCC job, and this topic came up in our conversation together fairly frequently during the course of the 2 ½ weeks. On our long bus rides, Ruth had a chance to put down some thoughts on paper related to the potential interview.
Hana finally was able to visit Cambodia, the place that everyone else in the family had been to except her. All of the children were really into this visit, and we were fortunate to have good travelling health and few major glitches.
We had a wonderful time together as a family, almost every day.
Thursday, June 16
We drove from Baltimore to NY City in the PM. In spite of the fact that our trip spanned rush hour, traffic was wonderful, for the most part. The GPS worked great! We were fortunate to have Phil and Marla Schmidt (friends from church who have moved to Kansas) and their three children visiting Baltimore and able to house sit for much of the time we were in Asia. We drove across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge from Staten Island to Brooklyn, into Queens, passed by Coney Island and drove along the Rockaway beaches. The long term parking lot was near a large park. In this park there were several cricket matches going on, kites were flying, there were runners, etc. It was clearly a multi-cultural neighborhood.
We parked and took the shuttle to Kennedy Airport. A credit card discrepancy at the Cathay Pacific ticket counter had to be resolved, and eventually we were through security and waiting. Carla was texting furiously during this time, getting this in last minute due to not being able to do it from Cambodia. The kids all got along and enjoyed laughing together, they all seem to be anticipating this trip very much!
Friday, June 17
The plane took off on time at about 1:30 AM, and a bunch of movies, magazines, airplane meals later (about 15 hours to be exact) we were in Hong Kong. Because of the International Date Line, it was tomorrow, however.
Saturday, June 18
Seeing all of the Chinese writing all around the Hong Kong airport, we (unrealistically) expected Andy to translate for us (after only a one month course at Goshen College!) He will be coming back to Asia for his fall semester in China. We frequently pointed out to him that this was a “practice run” for his SST trip and that we were flying right over China where he will land in September.
Ruth and I reminisced about our first transit through Hong Kong airport, at night, en route to Bangkok in 1988 as a newly (6 month) married couple without children. Things have surely progressed for us as a family since then! After another few hour wait in the Hong Kong airport (daylight this time—we could see the mountains surrounding the airport), a meal at McDonalds (great service—everyone was so polite!!—I think that working at McDonalds doesn’t have the same stigma in Asia as it does in Baltimore), we were on the plane for the 2 ½ hour flight to Phnom Penh.
Approaching Phnom Penh to our 10 AM landing, Ruth and I remembered that when we first arrived in Nov. 1988 we could easily see pock marks in the fields—bomb craters. This time these were not evident; perhaps they have been gradually filled in over time and seasons? It is getting into the rainy season, and rice was being transplanted from the paddies into the fields.
At Pochentong airport (much improved since the early 1990s!) Carla got permanent (multiple entry) visa at half price because of her Cambodian birth and ethnicity. The rest of us each paid the full price for a single entry visa. She was treated respectfully; overseas Cambodians weren’t looked upon so highly in the early 90s.
We took a cab ride (needed two cabs) across town (a much changed Phnom Penh—traffic congestion, lights, motorcycles and tuk tuks everywhere, some modest skyscrapers being erected, however building on some has been halted due to the economic hard times) to the Hotel Goldianna in the center of the city. The cabs often would avoid traffic lights by cutting across corner gas stations, following a steady stream of traffic doing the same. We settled into our rooms and tried to nap to counteract the fatigue of jet lag. It was 2-3 AM in Baltimore while it was broad afternoon daylight in Phnom Penh.
Andy and Lana Miller (and baby Aaron) picked us up in their MCC pick up truck, some of our kids gladly rode in the truck bed, and we went to the Maryknoll led Catholic church service at the World Vision office auditorium. We re-connected with Sister Louise Ahrens—we have been keeping in touch via Christmas letters—and it was good to see this lovely person who we got to know in 1991-2. Other Maryknollers that we had been friends with (Frs. Jim Noonan, Bill O’Leary, John Barth, Srs. Joyce, Dolores) are not in Cambodia anymore. A quote from the homily: “A bird does not sing because it has the answers—it sings because it has a song.” It was a nice service; the attendance has increased in numbers from a handful (Ruth and I were two of the charter members of the group way back in 1990, I think) to more than 300 and is very international, multi-cultural and racial. It felt good to be back there in such a multicultural and diverse environment.
the service Millers and we went out to supper to a small Indian restaurant. A friend of theirs from the church owns the restaurant…good Indian food and breads, etc. Afterwards we came back to our hotel and the four of us talked for quite some time outside in the warm Phnom Penh night air with the sounds and smells of a rejuvenating Phnom Penh in the air.
Sunday, June 19
We enjoyed a delicious buffet breakfast at our hotel, delicious fruit and omelets, excellent coffee, after a night interrupted by some jet lagged sleeplessness.
and Lana arranged for a trusted tuk tuk driver, a young man named Dinh, to meet us at our hotel in the AM. Dinh spoke fairly good English, but our Khmer language came back gradually too. So we communicated fine. We hired him for most of the day, all four of us managing to get into one tuk tuk. We rode along the streets, Ruth and I often commenting how things have changed. The city seems to be thriving, so many cars, new buildings, so much change that we could hardly get our bearings for where we were…it almost felt claustrophobic. Discussions and observations later made it clear that the “prosperity” and increasing activity has been largely confined to the urban areas, with the countryside remaining very poor.
drove past the Psar Thmey (New Market), the Monorom Hotel where we had our office for the first three years (1988-91), and on to the Hotel Sameki, now called the Hotel Royale, operated by Raffles, five star, $200 and up per night, “Phnom Penh’s leading address” (phrase taken from The Lonely Planet guidebook). And to think that this hotel had been our home for three straight years! Needless to change, it had changed too. (The kids got tired of hearing me say this, and that I was “disoriented”. Chris had them in stitches doing an impression of me saying that.) We snooped around the Hotel Royale, taking photos, etc., (Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons was playing in the very deluxe lobby) until I think that folks wondered and became suspicious about what we were doing there (having our tuk tuk driver take photos of us in front, for example). So we left. The old National Library (Bibliotheque) next door looked much the same as before, not much had change there—same peeling paint.
We rode north along Monivong in search of the Nutrition Center where Carla was brought, ill, at 2 weeks of age. It was this Center where we visited when we decided to adopt, making almost daily visits, and from which we adopted Carla when she was about four months. It was not there anymore and no one knew where it had gone. In its place was an expanded Hospital Calmette (dialysis center).
From there we rode along to Wat Phnom (from which Phnom Penh gets its name) and visited the Temple (Wat) on the hill. Chris and I rode an elephant (named Sambo) for one slow lumbering lap around the Wat, with one prolonged pause halfway through for the elephant to stop and make a huge poop. We got in a conversation with the elephant owner about his history as an elephant trainer in Kompong Speu province. His family trapped and trained 5-6 elephants and then during the Pol Pot regime the elephants were taken away and abused and almost all eventually died. Sambo survived and eventually they moved to the capital and have been giving rides for many years. We mentioned that we remember the rides being available during the years we were living at the Samaki and had ridden on Sambo at that time.
As we commonly needed to do (and enjoyed doing), we explained to him about Carla, her history, and our adoption of her. And that even though she is Cambodian she does not yet know how to speak Cambodian but wants to learn.
We then went looking for our house/office that we had moved into after the Hotel Samaki, the first one along Norodom Blvd. It is now part of a bank (combined with the building next door to it). Chris learned to walk on the balcony of this house on the same day that Prince Sihanouk (later King) returned to Phnom Penh after a long exile. We stood on the same corner where the spies had hung out after MCCer Miriam Hershberger had been expelled from Viet Nam. These spies were watching these suspicious MCCers, I am sure one of the most boring jobs ever.
We then located the second house/office (on Street 228, a quieter side street—moved into in late 1991) which is still a residence. The current residents graciously allowed us to enter through the gate and we looked around a bit. We showed Andy the spot where he first learned to walk and where the children played daily out in the back. The little gazebo is still there and the neighborhood is much unchanged (the little house based laundry business across the street is still there). We took a short walk through Tuol Tempong market and had lunch together right outside the market in a little Khmer open air restaurant.
kids seemed into it even though the travel in the tuk tuk wasn’t all that comfortable. We rested at the hotel a bit, Andy spent some time explaining time travel to a very intently listening Hana (I would have liked to learn about time travel but I wasn’t invited to this session). Hana is doing some school summer reading and essay writing and remarked that “I think that I like to write.” She also obviously liked to take pictures, because this is what she has been doing incessantly!
In the afternoon we all went to Tuol Sleng Genocidal Museum and had the tour. This has been rejuvenated with some floors opened up for display and tour that were closed before. There was a booth at the end where we were able to buy a book written by one of the seven survivors, Bou Meng. He was there and signed the copy and had his photo taken with us. This tour was once again a strong memory for Ruth and I since we would tour it often with visitors and delegations. It was very sobering too, in a new way, not having seen it for a long time. The world was certainly way out of kilter in Cambodia during the late 1970s. The recent conviction and sentencing of Duch, the former head of Tuol Sleng, lent immediacy to this tour, as did the upcoming trial of the remaining four Khmer Rouge leaders. Ironically, the trial of these four leaders, now elderly, was slated to start in the following week.
on that evening Ruth and I went to “dae leeng” along the Tonle Sap River, the kids stayed back to rest and watch TV. There was so much activity, walking and dancing and exercising, boiled peanuts, sodas and balloons for sale. It was a comfortable, wonderful evening. We had a conversation with two young men who initiated this conversation by asking us to take their photo together. One of them told us his story about growing up in Takeo province; he is responsible for his parents who still live in Takeo. They are poor and have health problems. His siblings are dispersed (one sister is a lesbian, he said in a very matter of fact way).
Monday, June 20
We went to the MCC office and met with the current MCC team, all in a big circle. We also had a reunion with Madame Pheap who during our MCC term had cooked for us and took care of our children, and with Chy Long (an MCC driver who we knew as Plouch). They were happy to see us and Madame Pheap asked us to come back to work in Cambodia.
The team was curious about how things were during our years here—the aid embargo, living in hotels, needing permission to travel outside of the city, being spied upon, working through central government ministries, communicating via weekly pouch, then occasional telex (story about Christopher’s birth), then fax and email. Cyclos, Soviet/eastern bloc presence, Khmer Rouge threats, UNTAC and then elections.
We had lunch with the team and travelled out to Prey Veng with Ryan and Daphne Fowler, one of two MCC couples living and working there. We hired the driver named Pirun and his van for this trip and the for the later one to Kompong Speu and Kompong Som, and enjoyed getting to know him. Ryan and Daphne were good hosts and we stayed the night in their house. We met Mok, the MCC assistant in Prey Veng. The route to Prey Veng traversed the (now repaired) “Broken Bridge”. Now that it again spans the Tonle Sap river, it is called the Chruoy Changvar bridge. The road to Prey Veng using this northern route is very smooth but it seemed to take longer.
In Prey Veng we walked to the hospital and then to the Prey Veng lake. The hospital seems well utilized, it looks like it is fairly full, but I did not meet anyone I knew. We went by the former MCC house. It still sticks out like a sore thumb with the unpainted wooden addition on the top higher than other buildings, a bit worn and run down. It is still used by the hospital. When we were reps, it was provided rent free by the hospital to house MCCers.
Tuesday, June 21
We breakfasted with Ryan and Daphne, and visited with Sokhuen of the Prey Veng irrigation office. The MCCers are still connected with this office, helping with grant writing, etc. We did not see our friend Buntha who works in Kompong Cham during the week, returning to his family in Prey Veng on weekends. Sokhuen said he would give greetings.
We also visited the Prey Veng orphanage which is run by a group from Singapore. It’s a very big compound, and the children seemed occupied with studies and seemed content. Chris caught a lizard right outside the compound, and was very pleased with himself.
We then visited a prosthetics workshop and rehab center right outside of town run by Veterans International. Carla was very interested to see the procedures and equipment they use for Physical Therapy, saying that it was more than she had to work with in Peru. It seemed like a well run place. There were two PTs there to talk with, and a prosthetics lab in the back, which looked active. It was remarkable to see from their statistics how few land mine victims they are dealing with as compared to 15 years ago. Now most of their patients are accident victims.
We took another walk through the Prey Veng hospital. The pediatrician on duty said that she was in a hurry to return home (it was 11AM) so couldn’t meet with us. (This contrasts with the “red carpet treatment” that we used to get as reps, something that I was never really comfortable with. We sat and visited a bit with the children who were hooked up to IVs sitting on the porch. It seemed that they all had a parent nearby tending to them.
We had lunch with Fowlers and Pirun at a Cambodian restaurant that Fowlers chose, sweet and sour fish soup, etc. It was delicious, the kids noted that it was the first really Cambodian restaurant meal that we have had since arriving. At the table next to us was a very loud American from the Phnom Penh Post, telling some listening Cambodian all about US AID…It was a little bit annoying.
After lunch we drove to the outskirts of town to a raised piece of land reached by a stretch of very poor potholed road through some rice fields. On this land was a pagoda where monkeys live nearby. We fed the monkeys little bananas and enjoyed the close personal contact with these animals. They would take our offerings and then look us in the eye, nibble at the banana, look at us again, etc. We all enjoyed this encounter. We had never been aware of this attraction during all those years of MCC in Prey Veng. It was truly a delight.
We said good bye to Ryan and Daphne and drove to Neak Loeung, the “old way” we used to come and go from Prey Veng. The road is much the same, not too bad but not too good, narrow and paved but bumpy. It winds through rice paddies and fields, water buffalo and cows, houses on stilts. It was a very hot day (this is late June near the equator, after all) and we enjoyed the air conditioning in Pirun’s van.
In Neak Loeung we checked out the hospital where I used to work one day per week during the last half of our MCC term. It is still being used but it seemed sleepy, so I am not sure how well it’s operating. We saw a sign for Dr. Chhor Sopphy’s clinic near the hospital around the corner, and stopped by to see this friend. He was surprised and happy to see us. He is not working at the hospital anymore, rather works in the district health dept and also has his own private clinic. He seemed a bit dejected about his situation. He gave me the phone number of Dr. Narin, another friend, who is now in PPn in the Social Hygiene Dept. (But we never got a chance to contact Narin.)
We took the ferry (there are now two ferries running) across the Mekong. Sopphy said that there will soon be a bridge at Neak Loeung, which will change the character of this rough ferry town dramatically. We bought lotus “fruit” on the way back, round seeds a bit larger than peas, tasting a bit like peas, lodged within a larger blossom. It brought back memories of my previous frequent trips across this ferry, snacking on the same thing during my trips.
“Not everything that counts in life can be counted.” (Most things that count can’t be counted.)
That evening Carla, Ruth and I went for a walk around the neighborhood while the others stayed back in the hotel (Goldie’s Guest House) and watched TV. Carla remained intensely interested in what she was seeing and experiencing, wishing that we would have taught her the Khmer language growing up. Across from Goldie’s is a restaurant and along the front of the restaurant we can see 20-30 electric wires traversing. What a mess. It reminds me of our days in Phnom Penh, this electrical chaos hasn’t changed. We walked to a couple of western shops and bought some food staples and toiletries.
During some down time we would watch CNN in the hotels, with news of the Greek debt crisis, the uprising in Syria, Wimbledon, etc.
Wednesday, June 22
We left the next morning for Kompong Speu, Pirun driving his van again, heading west and then south. Carla wanted to sit in the front seat to pay better attention to this especially (for her and for us) crucial part of the trip. Our goal was to locate her birth village (Trapeang Kraloeng), visit the orphanage where she was brought initially before coming to Phnom Penh, look around us at this fairly purely ethnically Cambodian area for folks who look like Carla (1st, 2nd, 3rd cousins (?)…), and try to locate someone who knew of this incident, perhaps the actual person who carried her to the capital (a “Mr. Kang Kek”). We drove, seeing the beginnings of the Elephant Mountains looming off in the west. Kompong Speu was one of the last (and closest to Phnom Penh) areas of Khmer Rouge activity in the early 1990s while we were still there and continuing until 1999.
We drove through Kompong Speu to Trapeang Kraloeng Market along the main road, had lunch at a restaurant at the market, waited out an hour’s downpour in the restaurant, ordered some café au lait (the kids are trying out some Khmer—ordering “muey tiet” and saying “au kun”). At the restaurant we learned of a man from Trapeang Kraloeng who has been living there since 1979. We asked if we could talk with him, but were told that he works at the police HQ down the street and has been partying all afternoon. They thought that it might be best to meet with him in the AM.
After the rain let up, we walked through the bustling market, There are lots of faces like Carla’s. There was an abundance of delicious fruit in season. Rambutan, mangostine, lychee, durian, dragon fruit, bananas of all kinds, custard apples, etc. Unfortunately mangoes were going out of season so good ripe ones were hard to find. But we did manage to get some and boy were they ever scrumptious!!
got a cap in the market with “WOW CHEER” on the front. Hana got a ring, and Carla got flip flops, Ruth and I bought a portable woven straw-type mat. Andy seems to prefer not to buy souvenirs. He just saunters around, looking forward to seeing Angkor Wat. I got an interesting canned drink in the market. It is called Yeo’s Grass Jelly Drink and it has a “grassy” taste, I guess you would say, with quite a lot of pieces of gelatin throughout and at the bottom. It is refreshing as a cold drink. We enjoyed our refreshing drinks in the market, sitting in the stall, chatting with the seller, who, along with most people we talk with, seems genuinely interested in our lives and in Carla. We explaining for yet another time why we are in Cambodia, talking about how it was here in 1988, our Khmer language skills slowly coming back.
We returned to Kg Speu and visited the Provincial orphanage where presumably Carla was initially brought when she was a newborn, and then on the Phnom Penh because they didn’t handle babies. Pol Sokly, the director of this orphanage told us that the PPn nutrition center (the orphanage where we got Carla) had moved a few years ago and she told us how to get there. Everyone was so cordial and interested, calling Ms. Sokly from home to come in to talk with us. They all confirmed that this orphanage isn’t equipped to handle babies and when someone brings a baby in they send them to PPn which is what happened to Carla.
evening we went to a vocational training center for the night. Susan, a Singaporean and former airline stewardess, is the person in charge at the school and energetically gave us an overview of their mission, sponsored by Project Khmer Hope (PKH). An IVEPer in Philadelphia this year had put us in touch with this center so we would have a lodging place for the night we wanted to spend in Kompong Speu. We had a simple supper with the >100 students studying tourism training, technical repairs, English, etc. They all come from high risk backgrounds, mostly from Kompong Speu area, and are being trained for long term sustainable work responsibilities. We sat after supper with a number of the students, laughing with them. One guy, also from Carla’s village, was especially entertaining. We asked if he has ever traveled outside of Kompong Speu and he said no, “The fox stays in the valley.” He also stressed that Susan is putting this into their heads again and again, “No pain, no gain.” When he came up with these sayings, his limited English made them even funnier and we laughed and laughed together with the other students. He also remembered that during the 1990s he had to guard the rice in his village home, Trapeang Kraloeng, so that the Khmer Rouge did not steal it. He is only a couple years older than Carla. He also told Carla that, since she knows English so well and she’s Cambodian, she should come back to Cambodia to help the country.
We watched from the gathering darkness as our four kids joined the students for evening English classes in the well lighted open air pavilion. Susan, with her characteristic energy, brought our four to the front of the large class and played a spelling and pronunciation game with their names. It was funny to watch from a distance. The class then divided up into groups of 5-7 and Susan asked each of our kids to sit with them as resource person for English. The topic for the evening was mixed cocktails, so I am not sure that our children were much help (they better not have been!). Ruth and I watched all this from our safe vantage point, talking together and enjoying the scene. Chris kept looking up on the walls to find lizards while helping the youth with their English.
Reflecting on our time so far, Ruth and I have felt blessed with one good day after another, enjoying hospitality, warm smiles, watching our children enjoying their many new experiences.
Thursday, June 23
Breakfast at the vocational center was rice cakes, hard boiled egg, and some delicious small grilled fish. We got a tour of a child care center/orphanage next door. It is run by a Malaysian mission and a Malaysian gentleman who helped start both the vocational center and the orphanage gave us the tour.
stopped at the same restaurant in Kompong Speu as yesterday, ordered coffee, and chatted together. Pirun and Ruth went to the police station to try to track down someone who knows Mr. Kang Kek. They were very accommodating and went through the provincial records, piles of paper logs on a shelf, and found no match. They did tell Ruth and Pirun of the exact location of Trapeang Kraloeng village (phum). We went in search of that village, asked around, searched again over some back dirt roads and eventually found it, confirmed by asking some old guys playing cards on a roadside stand. Photos were taken, including of a growing number of kids who gathered, and we walked around this sleepy village a bit, talked to some people sitting together, asked about Kang Kek, and left. This is the family friend mentioned in Carla’s adoption records who had taken her as a newborn baby to the orphanage after her mother presumably died in childbirth. They suggested that there was a Mr. Kang who had moved to the village across the highway, also known as Trapeang Kraloeng. So we went to that village and found this man. He had also known another Mr. Kang, who had moved to Phnom Penh. So that is likely where the man who brought Carla to the orphanage lives. talked for a while with this family under their house in the cool and enjoyed their gracious hospitality. The mother of the household recalled a couple of times in the past 20 years when there was drought and lack of rice, and nursing mothers had to send their babies to Kompong. Speu and Phnom Penh because their milk ran out. And they never knew what happened to these babies. then left, stepping around puddles on the muddy road. We drove back to one of those old French mile markers that had the village name on it and took photos there with Carla. I think that Pirun our driver found our actions somewhat strange but he was intrigued and helped us along with all the sleuthing.
We then continued on our journey down the same highway towards the beach, Sihanoukville (Kompong Som), satisfied that we had done our best to look into Carla’s background. As a family we were all interested in this process because we have talked about going back and doing just this for a number of years.
We took a side trip up to a mountain top recreational and nature preserve area called Kirirum. This was a fairly long detour, cutting deep into and up the mountain. MCC had supported some forestry projects in Kirirum in 1990 and we never could go up to make a visit there because of the Khmer Rouge activity at that time. So this time we made it. It was cooler, temperate, pine trees, a breeze blowing. Cambodians come there on weekends to get away from the city and the heat, so on this weekday the visitors were very sparse. We were the only ones there for lunch at the restaurant. We took a short hike, it started raining so we returned and headed back down the mountain and on to Kompong Som and the beach. The road was in excellent shape, built by the US Army Corps of Engineers in the 1960s to ship war materiel from the deepwater port at Sihanoukville up to Phnom Penh and on to Vietnam. We had heard of this smooth road from Meak Yim, our Ministry of Industry guide during our early Cambodian days, because he had been an English translator helping the American build the road in the 1970s. It has to be the best road in all of Cambodia!
We arrived at Kompong Som and checked into the Orchidee guesthouse. We had supper on the beach, a windy evening but enjoyable. I bought some terrific prawns from a vendor. We wanted to buy four or five, but she convinced us to buy ten because “ten is more delicious than four.” There were a number of people who came by to beg from us. The surf was crashing into the beach from the Gulf of Thailand with some force. We bought some fireworks from a young boy who convinced us to buy by saying over and over again “It’s funny, buy, it’s funny.” (We decided that he meant to say that it is fun.) We were concerned for his safety as we watched him light the end of the stick while holding his face and hands close to that end to protect his lighter from the wind…Once it was lit and the fireworks started pouring out of the end of the stick we were relieved and enjoyed the spectacle.
Friday, June 24
The next day was a day to relax. We had all been running fairly non stop on the trip so far and needed this down time. We had a nice breakfast at the hotel, took some walks, relaxed, watched TV, swam in the swimming pool, some went to the beach, had our clothes laundered by a family near the hotel, bought some souvenirs in the market. The markets here in Cambodia is fascinating, but some of the kids are getting tired of walking through them. The real shoppers in the family still enjoyed it, mainly Ruth and Carla.
We stopped to get money from the bank, and Jonathan didn’t pull it out of the slot quickly enough so the money went back in. On checking our bank statement online, it had been withdrawn from our account ($500) but we didn’t have the cash. We went in and reported it right away. They said this happens sometimes…We kept pursuing it until finally the money reappeared on our bank account about a week later. Whew! The only real hitch on the whole trip and even that was eventually resolved!
We had supper at a restaurant down the street from the Orchidee. We were the only patrons and we talked with the owner, a young man who said that he had risked a lot of his savings and was now having to sell the restaurant because it wasn’t succeeding. The food was good, made by the restaurant next door. We had a good time talking with the owner and we enjoyed hearing each others’ stories.
After supper we hired a tuk tuk to take us on a tour around the peninsula, including some beaches, the deepwater port, a stretch of very shaded and suddenly very dark (and spooky) road, a half finished bridge and island development project, spearheaded by a Russian tycoon, now in “the monkey house” (as the tuk tuk driver put it) because of his tendency to hold in his custody and molest young Cambodian girls, about 12 at a time….We found out later that the sex trade in Kompong Som is very active, taking advantage of young children from poor families.
Saturday, June 25
We had a delicious breakfast at the hotel on the balcony, away from the suddenly crowded (Saturday) restaurant area. There seem to be many Japanese tourists coming to Kompong Som. We went on another market trip to downtown, riding on a tuk tuk, Carla and Chris took a moto double. The main market in downtown Sihanoukville seemed to give an especially strong market experience, fish alive in basins, strong smells of various things, noise, many beggars, some rather pitiful. Some of the kids needed a break so we went back to the hotel, Carla, Ruth and I had lunch at a small nearby Khmer restaurant area, very modest. We had lot cha, a noodle dish where the noodles look like worms. It was tasty and very inexpensive. We all went to the beach in the afternoon, the swimming and wave jumping was fun. There were jet skis zooming around, some coming in to the shore not too far from swimmers. It looked a bit vulnerable, and we found out later that a friend from our MCC years (Judy Saumweber) had been swimming at this (or a nearby) beach and had been injured severely by the jet ski when it didn’t see her swimming in the water (evacuation to Singapore, didn’t know if she would survive, etc. but she did after many anxious days). We bought some durian fruit but it didn’t taste so good because it wasn’t fresh.
Our dining experience that evening was interesting—a Russian restaurant which was also a zoo for reptiles and amphibians. There were snakes, many crocodiles, a slow loris (which did in fact move around his cage very s-l-o-w-l-y). The meal wasn’t special and it was expensive—I couldn’t recommend it—but the animals were part of the deal and made for an interesting evening. The mosquitoes were also kind of annoying. I ordered chicken Kiev thinking that I would be really getting the authentic item at a Russian restaurant, but it sure wasn’t anything too special. Others in the family had better meals than I did.
Sunday, June 26
We woke early for the bus, Mekong Express, after a night of heavy rains. There was a shuttle that took us from the hotel to the main bus station. The bus was pleasant, the Asian pop music wasn’t too loud and there was a “stewardess” who gave us a snack, a face towel and announced part way through about a palm oil plantation as we were driving through it. Her English wasn’t great, and it was obvious that she had memorized a bunch of words that she perhaps didn’t understand and that had gotten distorted in pronunciation as time went on. There was a movie also to look at but with a lot of violence. One vignette from the movie that I recall was a little Asian girl in the back seat singing a catchy tune at the top of her voice as the two grumpy older men in the front seat look at each other and roll their eyes. The road from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh was excellent, as described before.
Phnom Penh we had lunch at the Boat Noodle Restaurant, along Monivong, a block or two from our Hotel (again Goldie’s Boutique Guest House). This restaurant is modest, delicious, cheap and authentic. It rapidly became our favorite restaurant in Phnom Penh.
That afternoon, along with Andy & Lana Miller and Aaron, we took a boat ride on the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers. Along the banks of the river in Phnom Penh are a number of boats that are rentable (along with their drivers). We spent a couple of hours out there, talking and relaxing down below in the shade while the kids were up on top, in the sun but without adults to bother them. They also had a better view.
A quote from Carla to the others on top “If you fall off, it’s really going to happen.” We all had supper at a lovely Khmer Vietnamese Restaurant near the Independence Monument, with Apsara band and all. Afterwards we stopped at a bookstore to get a book that Hana wanted to continue her school reading. Carla is taking an interest in reading books about survivor stories from the Khmer Rouge years.
Ruth, Carla, Hana and I went dae leenging that evening. We are learning that the weekend evenings along the River are party times for (mostly young) Cambodian people. Dancing en masse, doing aerobics as a group, at one point we saw a Jabberwocky type troupe (as Carla explained it). Really pulsing with life and a lot of fun. Carla and Hana really seemed to enjoy it. We returned by cyclo, there aren’t many left in Phnom Penh but we found some along the river.
Monday, June 27
Ruth and I went out and bought French bread and croissants from an excellent (small) bakery hidden away around the corner, not too far from Goldie’s hotel. Those flaky authentic croissants, some water, and coffee ordered from the hotel made up our simple breakfast. As I was waiting for the croissants to be brought out (they were fresh!) I enjoyed watching the heavy motorcycle, tuk tuk, bicycle and car traffic at the nearby busy intersection. The drivers look ahead, calm and no evident emotion, swerving as necessary and somehow making it through without any accidents. The baker was busy and a monk came along with his begging bowl. She said something in Cambodian and he moved on.
We boarded a bus for Siem Reap, this time Paramount Tours, which wasn’t as nice as Mekong Express. Ruth called a hotel in Siem Reap from the Phnom Penh bus station to reserve a place for us to stay the next few days. As simple as that! The road from PPn to Siem Reap, heading north was not as deluxe as the one to Kompong Som. It included some long stretches of unfinished dirt road. We stopped with the bus load of people at a roadside restaurant/shop area for lunch. The kids are beginning to enjoy the grilled fish with rice that I remembered fondly. Chris at one point wondered why in Cambodia you never get tired of the rice. It is magnificent rice, harvested not too far from where it is eaten. That may have something to do with the answer to Chris’ question.
Sideth met us at the bus stop in Siam Reap and brought us to our hotel—the Central Boutique Angkor hotel. It is the off season and the hotel was not so busy—we had the pool almost to ourselves. There was construction going on for another pool right outside our room, so there was some extra noise but not too much.
hired Sideth to drive us around for the temple visits during the next two days. I bought tickets in Siem Reap for the return trip the first day of the Khmer Rouge trials was being televised. I had a conversation with the man at the desk about the trials. He said that he would prefer saving the expense of the trial and just punishing the lot of them. We talked together about the importance of “due process” and an independent judiciary.
After checking into our hotel we walked to Koulen Restaurant for a buffet dinner (it may have been the best buffet that I have ever eaten in my life) with an Apsara and folk dancing show afterwards. We recalled how our family used to watch our videos of Apsara dancing—Carla would imitate the dancer and Chris would imitate the monkey who dances around the graceful Apsara. The monkey portrayed more of an evil and pesky presence—something that Chris seemed very gifted at.
Tuesday, June 28
Our guide for Angkor Wat was Lon Lev. At first we wondered about him and how we were going to get along together, but he had a warm personality and a sense of humor that grew on us, and we ended up having a good day. He was as exhausted as we were after a day of walking around looking at the temples, the raised relief carvings and the stories, climbing around on the huge rocks, going up into the tower (Hana had to purchase a skirt because her shorts weren’t felt to be appropriate for the topmost tower of Ankor Wat). The large stones were quarried at Kulin Mountain and dragged by elephants, rafted, etc. to get to the place where the temples were built.
We went to Ta Prohm next, where the huge trees from the jungle are knotted throughout the temple like snakes. This is also where actress Angelina Jolie was Lara Croft in the Tomb Raiders show. Our guide said he translated for Ms. Jolie, and she became “a very good friend”…“She came to Ta Prohm, jumped around on the rocks, and left.”
We stopped at a small market to buy some sodas and use the facilities. The ladies at the market were friendly but not pushy. There was a little boy who had just learned to walk who kept knocking over the soda cans display and running through the market pulling down things to get attention…
We went to Phimeanakas, the Terrace of the Elephants, the Terrace of the Leper King, Baphuon (“the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle” that UNESCO is trying to put back together). We climbed the “Royal Palace” and other old temples, in the hot sun, Lev, our guide, explained it all. We had sore feet, but were happy to have the privilege to see all this man-made wonder. Charity, Compassion, Sympathy, Equanimity were the themes of the many stories around the temples.
Haiku #1
Old Temples, hot sun
Lev, our guide, explained it all.
Sore feet, but happy.
Charity, Compassion, Sympathy, Equanimity.
Wednesday, June 29
We decided to visit some outlying temples that were distant from the central Angkor Wat temples and thus use our van driver for easy transportation that day.
We drove to the River of a Thousand Lingas (Kbal Spean). It was approx a 2 mi round trip hike, up and down a large hill. A young woman guide at the top helped us and as we have come to expect (?!) from the Khmer that we meet along the way, showed us kindness and warmth and a genuine interest in our story. People in Cambodia seem to really like foreigners --our speaking some Khmer and having Carla along opened up door after door. The hike up was a surprise highlight, a chance to see some small animals and nice views across the valley. Chris especially was interested in the lizards, frogs, millipede, spiders, and the snake that we saw. It was a chance, if only for a short time, to move through what felt like a rainforest in Cambodia. The carvings from the 1500s (Reformation time!) are in the stone in the river, ending at a natural bathtub for the king to get his nightly fertility treatment before a beautiful water falls.
We drove back toward Siem Riap and stopped at Banteay Srey—probably the most lovely of all the temples. It is smaller but with very intricate and beautiful carvings. The stone used at Banteay Srey is red volcanic rock. This rock gave the carvings and formations a pink tinge making it unique among the temples. This was Mom’s favorite temple. The sun was very hot, but a rainstorm came along just as we were finishing up our tour and we ran to the shelter to wait for it to stop.
We stopped along the road to peer at Pre Rup, but by this time the kids were pretty “templed-out” so we quickly piled back in the van and moved toward Siem Riap.
On the way back we stopped at a set of roadside shops to get some sugar palm candy. It was a wonderful treat and the kids agreed. We also bought some souvenirs at this stand and talked with the women selling. It was fun because we were the only tourists and the market ladies weren’t so insistent that we buy from them. We could relax and look at things without feel rushed or put upon.
times Chris “dove” into a mud puddle to go after a little frog, to the amusement of onlooking Cambodians. One of the highlights of the trip for Chris was catching (or trying to catch) the geckos. He got some little lizards but the big (and deep voiced) geckos proved too elusive.
That evening we discovered a good out-of-the-way restaurant serving Cambodian food around the corner from our hotel. We ate there a couple of times during our visit to Siem Reap, once we took carry out in plastic bags back to the hotel room—Saumlau Mchu Trey—delicious! But this might have been where Hana and Mom picked up some minor intestinal problems…
After supper we took a tuk tuk (all six of us on one tuk tuk!) to the main market to shop and get some souvenirs and drinks. We returned through dark streets.
Carla and I watched the Karate Kid on TV that night.
Some Haiku for the day…
By Dad:
Sideth drops us off
Climbing to see the lingas
Green snake on the rock.
By Mom:
Apsara’s so nice
Beautiful women dancing
Noi-noi-noi-noi-noi.
Thursday, June 30
We dropped off our laundry the next morning at a nearby home laundry ($1 per kg).
The next point of interest was Bayon. It felt odd to drive right on by Angkor Wat without even stopping, hardly acknowledging it. But we had already “done” it and were headed in a different direction.
Bayon is a temple that has the face of King Jayavarman VII, carved in the stone towers everywhere you look. It was a little strange, seeing his face everywhere, he was certainly an egotistical person…. He was the one who, in his attempts to rehabilitate the empire after the defeats of his predecessor, converted from Hinduism to Buddhism. At Bayon, a friendly woman who was overseeing one of the altars, heard our Khmer and motioned us aside. She gave us some quarters and asked us if we have dollar bills in exchange. US tourists tip her in coins and she doesn’t know what to do with them (there are no Cambodian coins). So we exchanged her quarters for some of our dollars and she was very happy.
Near Bayon was a temple with a huge statue of the Buddha where the nuns there prayed for each of us and tied red yarn around our wrists. A cute little girl was there to help the nuns with their prayers for each person.
ate lunch at a restaurant near the market in Siem Reap, the menu of this restaurant was almost as thick as the Baltimore phone book—we have pictures to prove this. A street magician came to entertain us for a while, doing card tricks, diving through a flame on a ring, after which he asked for contributions. Most of us ordered entrees such as Lok Lak, Samlau Mchu Trey, Moen Cha. Andy ordered a tuna sandwich.
lunch we set out to look for our elusive Buddhist-Christian former Jesuit brother friend Bob Maat. We heard he was in Siem Reap, and we asked at our hotel desk how to get to Handicap International office. We went there and finally found someone (most of the staff were on siesta). This person pointed us in the direction of another office—where the HI office had moved to. We went over there in our tuk tuk and talked with another guard. He said that he knows Look (Mister) Maat (we thought). It turned out it was Look Matt, another person entirely. Another lead given to us by Sister Luise Ahrens, Maryknoll in Phnom Penh, was a Father Ashley, and his phone was “not in service.” Well, we tried….
Chris, Andy and Hana went back to the hotel to swim and Ruth, Carla and I set out for other adventures. First was a fish foot massage (at a place called “Dr. Fish”) for the two ladies (I was the photographer). These fish nibble little bits of dry skin off of your feet and (I am told) it feels really weird. We talked with the guys who ran the place and had a good time laughing together. Once again, they were eager to help (more than you would expect from just wanting to take our money) and showed great interest in finding out about us and about our story.
Carla asked to buy another book relating personal accounts of the Khmer Rouge years. Then we went back to the hotel for a swim. We bought some food for a picnic at Angkor Wat to see the sunset (we had heard it was beautiful in the sunset and Hana really really wanted to go to see this and take pictures). On the way there in tuk tuks the sky opened up and it rained and rained. We found a pavilion near Angkor Wat and Hana ran out in her pancho and took some pictures of the rainstorm. We had our picnic supper there, had a good time watching the rain fall, then when it abated we went home, had hot tea in the hotel room and watched Animal Planet together.
Friday, July 1
It rained all night so next day there were puddles to walk around, and mud. But it wasn’t too bad. The shuttle to the Phnom Penh bus picked us up and we had to wait because King Sihamoni’s motorcade came through. I asked someone who this was and he answered “My King.” We watched the motorcade from the bus, but didn’t see the actual King inside his car.
At the Phnom Penh bus stop chaos reigned as did dust and heat and we fought through it all to get our luggage and to reach the place on the other side of the street where mom had hired a couple of tuk tuks. After the dust settled, Hana looked at me and said “I liked that chaos.” We went to the MCC office to do some business, then to the market to buy some souvenirs (a number of kramas and some sacks of coffee).
We had supper at the Boat Noodle restaurant with Max Ediger, recently arrived from Vietnam to live in Phnom Penh to work with a peace school. His friend Paddy from New Zealand came along with some Cambodian friends. Max and Paddy told of the peace school, then Max told the kids about his experience of staying behind in Saigon after the S. Vietnamese government fell and the US withdrew. He recalls the time leading up to the fall, when he and another MCCer would climb to the top of the roof of the MCC house and watch the bombing. He said, “I’ve always been either a bad example of a good Mennonite, or a good example of a bad Mennonite.” I said that story of watching the falling bombs from the roof of the house was a good example of a bad Mennonite, and that the kids should never try it! He stayed in VN about 3 more months after the fall of Saigon, being there for a total of 13 months. It was an interesting story, one that Max probably doesn’t get to tell too often anymore. The children listened intently, and afterwards, Hana said “He was interesting.” Max shared his memory of coming to Phnom Penh in 1992 when we were here, and that when we visited Tuol Sleng prison Carla refused to enter. Carla says that she remembers that too. This was an interesting connection between the two of them.
Saturday, July 2
In the morning, with the help of our tuk tuk drive Dinh (and a rudimentary map that the supervisor of the Kompong Speu orphanage had made for us), we finally found the orphanage (the same orphanage the Carla was brought to but at a different site out of town). This center has evolved from being a place for all orphaned children to come to live to being a place where orphans with special medical needs come (HIV +, Down syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, etc.). We talked with some folks and they made some calls and arranged for Carla’s first nurse, Pok Oeurn, to meet us there the next morning.
We got some refreshing drinks and drove back into downtown and to Wat Than where handicapped veterans or mine injured amputees have a workshop. We bought some souvenirs at the Wat Than gift shop then went to have lunch at the Boat Noodle restaurant. The kids say that they are getting tired of the Boat Noodle restaurant.
We rested, and watched some news, then Dinh took us to the Olympic Stadium where we told the children about our coming to the Stadium during our term when we were not allowed to talk with regular Cambodian people outside of the government ministries. This stadium where we exercised was a place where we could cross paths with Cambodian young people as we joggged, talking together about mundane daily matters, building friendships. We took a few laps, the surface of the track is the exact same surface that was there 20 years ago, I am sure. The stadium looks much the same, but cleaner and better groomed. A sign announced that the day before (July 1) Cambodia had played Laos in the first round of the World Cup soccer playoffs. (Laos won).
Saturday evening we again attended the Catholic church service at the World Vision auditorium. Andy went along with us, and we walked a long ways to get there. Some of us who were charter members of this service (John and Helen Kerr, Miriam Denis and us) were asked to stand up and be recognized. This group all went out for supper together at “East West Restaurant” across from the Boat Noodle, and we had a great time talking and reminiscing. This reconnection with NGO people in PPn helped us to feel like this kind of experience—working abroad for a period of time, perhaps Cambodia—would be “doable” again sometime.
Sunday, July 3
During the morning we once again travelled by tuk tuk (our faithful driver Dinh) to the orphanage where Pok Oeurn was waiting for us. We had a great time talking together using a combination of French and Khmer. The children were patient with us as they understood neither language and Ruth translated. Hana went off to take some photos with the children of the orphanage. Pok Oeurn has retired but has been active in advocating for services for orphans, helping organizations set them up, etc. We promised to send her some photos through her son’s email address (roeurng@yahoo.com). She projects the sense of someone who is quite happy and content living with her five adult children and many grandchildren—she seems like a dignified and wise person.
We had lunch with Mannu and Uma Pereira. Uma has an Indian-Nepalese restaurant that we dined at, and the food was wonderful. The Pereira’s are from India and Nepal, respectively, and we knew them when they were with us at the Samaki Hotel in the late 1980’s. We worshipped together at the Maryknoll service and that was where we reconnected. Mannu has been with an international NGO in Afghanistan and recently returned. They are considering returning to India where he would work on his family’s coffee plantation. Dr. A.T. Pereira, Kirehully, Eco-friendly coffee. He spoke of a book that he has read called One Straw Revolution, by Masanobu Fukuoka.
He told us some stories about medical close calls with his children, once when his daughter got acute appendicitis (that happened when were neighbors at the Hotel Samaki, right after the Pereiras arrived in Cambodia) and the other where his son had to be evacuated to Singapore because of Dengue fever and almost died.
on that afternoon we met our driver (from the Kompong Som trip) Pirun and he drove us to Choeng Ek where the mass graves from Toul Sleng were and where there is a large memorial stupa erected, full of skulls, memorializing the atrocities of the KR.
In the evening we again went to dae leeng along the Mekong River, this time as a whole family. We weren’t able to find a Cambodian dress that Carla very much wanted, and that was a disappointment for all. But we had a nice time—our last evening in Cambodia together—buying boiled peanuts and corn on the cob, and some delicious fruits that I forget the name, watching the young people dancing, doing aerobics, walking around just celebrating life and celebrating new possibilities for their country (that is how I imagined it, at least, I don’t know what they were thinking.)
We all treated ourselves to a frozen yogurt dessert at a little shop across the street from the river walk. On the wall was a poster with a long list of benefits that yogurt/probiotics provide. The list went on and on and I am sure was apocryphal.
We gathered together four cyclo drivers, all older men, and processed (four cyclos in a row, we made a bit of a scene) among the throngs of motorcycles, tuk tuks, cars, etc. back to our hotel. The men enjoyed talking with us in Khmer, learning about us and we about them. They appreciated that we had been in Cambodia when the cyclo was king.
Monday, July 4
as it has been on a few occasions, was croissants and coffee. Wonderful coffee with sweetened condensed milk sitting in the bottom of the cup of thick black delicious coffee. We went to the airport with Pirun and braced our selves for our looooong trip back to Baltimore which really wasn’t so terribly long after all. Carla has been engaged in this trip the entire way and seemed thoughtful and a bit sad at her departure. When that young person at the Vocational Training center in Kompong Speu suggested that she return to her country (Cambodia) to help the people, I think she took it to heart.
At the airport we were notified that we weren’t allowed to bring the mosquito bat along with us. This bat is shaped like a tennis racquet, runs off of batteries, and you swing it back and forth where there are mosquitoes and it shocks and kills the bugs on contact with a loud hiss and pop. It is quite spectacular. We had gotten a demo from the folks at the Vocational Training center in Kompong Speu, and thought it would make a good conversation piece in Baltimore, during backyard cookouts. Oh well…we tried.
At the airport in Phnom Penh (Pochentong) there was a group of Missionaries of Charity (Mother Teresa’s order) waiting for the plane. One of them was reading a book intently and I was glad to see that this very serious group of nuns is able to read for pleasure. I got a look at the title and, there in big letters, “Mother Teresa”. Well, sort of for pleasure . . . .
We were entertained by many movies on our individual screens, a couple of good meals, and some fitful sleep on the long flight home, again through Hong Kong. We arrived safely in NYC at 8:30 p.m., boarded our shuttle bus for the long-term parking lot, loaded into our van and drove home. We arrived home around 1:30 a.m. but couldn’t go to sleep for awhile, getting settled in, dealing with jet lag and unwinding from this satisfying and enriching trip.
During this trip we sensed God’s presence with us, providing many wonderful opportunities to connect with the Cambodian people and a piece of our family’s early history.