The Bohdi Tree

Phnom Penh, Cambodia - December 15, 2012

Phnom Penh is the capital city of Cambodia. There are construction cranes and big buildings on both sides of the river. Investment is finding booming. I landed here once in 1967. I only remember a really muddy airstrip with metal grating. At the time I had no idea it was the Capital of Cambodia. Some of these pictures show a more rural way of life. The rice paddies stretch back about a half-mile from the Mekong, then you hit a treeline. There's no sign of roads or electrical wires until you approach the big city.

We'll be spending our 45th anniversary in Siem Reap. So far we see no mosquitoes and we're eating and drinking all the local stuff with no adverse results.

Bennett says the "strange fruit" I put in the last blog is called rambutan,.  In Thai, it's called "ngoh".  That word is also used pejoratively to describe people like Mrs. Phred that have kinky hair and darker skin.

We get a cyclo ride to the Palace of the Cambodian King and a museum of antiquities.

These flowers grow on the trunk of the Bohdi tree. Our guide tells us that Buddha was born, achieved enlightenment, and died under a tree like this.

I don't have time to wait for enlightenment so I'll just take a few pictures and keep moving....

Our guide was seven when Pol Pot emptied out the city and sent all the people to the country to become rice farmers. The guide lost 12 members of his family and only has one relative left. We run the numbers and figure he is about the same age as our son.

A third of the population of Cambodia was exterminated during the four years after 1975 that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge rant the country. We go to Security Centre 21, which was one of several hundred torture centers where confessions were extracted before those millions who confessed to being CIA or KGB were sent to the killing fields.

Each person who confessed after brutal torture turned in everyone he knew and they, in turn, did the same until over 1.75 to 2.5 million were killed and buried in mass graves. They dunked people's heads into barrels of excrement and urine.

Our guide was seven. He says that anyone younger was killed because they were too young to be useful and those older than 12 were also killed because their brains were too set in their ways. He is a little bald guy. Somehow he has acquired a laptop and I spend several hours with him showing him how to make bookmarks and download pictures about the Mekong for his tourist lectures. He took ammunition boxes for of excrement out of prisoners cells...

The suspects were tortured 16 hours a day until they confessed and implicated everyone they ever knew. Some tried to commit suicide by taking a header from the third floor or hanging themselves in the bathroom. To prevent this barbed wire was installed over the balconies.

Our guide had the job of emptying the ammunition toilet boxes at age seven. He says the solids were used in the garden and the "smelly" liquids were emptied into a large urn. When prisoners fainted from the torture they were revived by being dunked into the urn.

Cambodian now has fried chicken and free WiFI.

Pol Pot was reported to be a nice Buddhist boy who would never hurt a fly. However, the nature of man can be strangely plastic regardless of which, if any, religion is involved  Pol Pot was either insane or operating under the insane delusion that reducing the population from 8 million to 5 million and making the remainders all farmers would be a good thing.

This is Security Center 21, where skulls were stored and confessions were extracted.

These are farmers near the memorial at one of the Killing Fields. We find lots of human teeth on the ground as we walk around the trails at the memorial.

Kampong Cham, Cambodia

 This is my 3rd week not smoking. I'm taking a great drug called Chantix which suppresses the urge to smoke and gives you very interesting and bizarre dreams.

I really like this entertaining side effect. This morning, as I was walking in the village, a big white dog kept snapping at my ankles if I wandered too close to the hut it was protecting.

I met a man who said his name was Jim Donnelly and he asked me to go with him deeper into the jungle.

We saw giant tree roots growing in an ancient temple and vampire bats and strange fruit everywhere.

A wall of the temple disolved before my eyes into anguished spirits who circled us chanting strange Buddhist mantras.

I found a skeleton wearing a tatttered flight suit near the temple. His dogtags said James A Donnelly.

Then we woke up and went to visit  Chong Koh Island,

Lots of mosques here, but more Buddhist temples.

The people are thinning out as we move upriver. This is a kapok tree plantation. The trees are used to make fabric and incense.

Sunrise at Phnom Pehn, where the day began.

In the background here you man make out a bamboo bridge which stretches a half mile over the Mekong. This is near Kampong Cham where we dock to spend the night.

Kampong Trolach, Cambodia

We cruise up the Mekong to the little village of Kampong Trolach. The river is wide and swift. There are eleborate floating systems in place to net fish all along the river. Mrs. Phred wishes you to know that she took most of these pictures....

Both Muslim mosques and Buddhist temples appear on the river banks.

The top deck has a bar. Drinks are free unless you want something imported. I've been drinking Harpoon gin with tonic water.

Away from the big city, the river supports people who live by farming and fishing. The population fell from 8 million to about 5.5 million under Pol Pot. It has since increased to 14 million. What you notice most is the absense of older people.

Life expectancy for Cambodian men has increased from 45 to 59 in the last 30 years. Women last about five years more on average.

These farmers use small gasoline powered pumps to draw water from the river for irrigation and other purposes.

When we arrive in Kampong Trolach, about 30 oxcarts are waiting to transport  us several miles to an old monastary in the jungle.

I ride with Ray, a veteran of WWII, Korea and Vietnam. He has a bad back and age age related problems, but he hangs in there for the bumpy ride. The wooden wheels and lack of shock absorbers induce him to buy a ride on a scooter for the return trip.

It's dawn here. The sun is just coming up on tomorrow already as rush hour and quiting time are happening half a world from here.

After the oxcart ride we return to the boat and cruise back to Phnom Pehn. I send Mrs. Phred out to get cash, and she did, but she spent it all at the Russian market for jewelry. One lady had here purse snatched while riding in a tuk-tuk. We were warned to keep a grip on things.

This little girl walked by my cart all the way back to the boat. I think she wanted to practice her English (which was good). We sang the "If you're happy, clap your hands" song. She pointed out her home, grandfather, mother and baby brother as we passed through her village.

Crossing into Cambodia

Chau Doc, Vietnam

In the morning we load into rickshaws for a ride around Chau Doc.

Our guide, Tony, was explaining the Vietnamese subsidized economy that existed until 1985. He had to go to the store at 4AM with a pork or rice coupon. He took a brick with him and when he had to go to the bathroom, he would say to an older person, "Uncle would you watch my brick". He likes the market economy much better. He says the old economy made everyone lazy.

The river here in Chau Doc is covered with little houses that appear to be floating. Actually they go down 15 feet to the river bottom and enclose 200,000 fish (taplia). The fish eat a ton a fish food every day and take a year to reach full size (about 2 kilos). The food costs $350 a day, but at the end the family should make a 40% profit.  The fish are transported live to factories and then frozen and sent to Wal-Mart in the U.S.

These are fish transport boats. they have holes in the side and are partially filled with water for the journey to the factory.

A woman gathers hyacinth stalks to dry and sell.

We  visited an ethnic Cham village on the river later. They are Muslims. The Cambodians invaded here back when Pol Pot was in charge and killed about 3,000 of them. That caused the  reunified Vietnamese to invade Cambodia and restore sanity.

The book I'm reading is called "The Peoples History of the Vietnam War". I'm up to the chapter where the Cambodians go insane and start killing people for saying things like, "the food is not tasty".

Cham children say "hello'.

Later, Mrs. Phred goes shopping in Chau Doc and takes a picture of this furniture. We end the evening in Phnom Pehn after a long run upriver.