Living as I do in Korea, I took the opportunity to visit some other nearby countries in Southeast Asia. Here are my impressions of those countries:

Vietnam

I still struggle to call Saigon by its new name, Ho Chi Minh City.  Saigon just rolls off the tongue, and most people know where it is.  HCMC just doesn’t have the same flow.  The local currency is the Vietnamese Dong (16,000 VND to $1), but dollars are widely accepted as well.  It was the cool dry season in SE Asia, which meant it was only 90 degrees and 85% humidity.  It gets hotter in April and May, and then there’s the monsoon season from June to Oct, where I believe it rains 24 hours a day for 6 months straight.

Image Credit: Christina Brzustoski

Crossing the street in Saigon is an adventure.  The traffic is just as crazy as Istanbul, but with one major difference.  In Istanbul, people drove cars, which tend to follow semi-predictable paths.  In Saigon, everyone has a moped or a motorcycle, and they will drive them through any area imaginable.  To cross the street, you just start walking.  As you move, the mopeds and motos will swerve around you.  Keep a nice, steady pace, and you will usually make it to the other side in one piece.  Sometimes it helps to close your eyes.

There aren’t many ancient buildings in Saigon.  Between the French, the Japanese, the Americans and the Viet Cong, somebody knocked it down.  There is a large museum of the Vietnam War documenting all the terrible things the Americans and South Vietnamese did.  During this time, the Viet Cong were apparently throwing flowers and passing out teddy bears, because there’s no mention of the things they did.

It’s interesting to note the difference in attitude.  In Korea, the communist North invaded the US-backed South, but the South won.  At the Korean War Memorial in Seoul, the US is portrayed as a heroic protector of freedom.  In Vietnam, when the communist North invaded the US-backed South, the North won.  Thus the US is portrayed as an imperialist occupying force driven out by Vietnamese patriots.  A clear reminder that history is written by the winners.

My favorite part of Saigon was just wandering the streets.  They have both broad French-style avenues and twisting narrow lanes.  Every street epitomizes the word ‘bustling’.  There is movement (mostly on mopeds) and commerce everywhere.  Like China, it’s not really communist economically.  They’ve kept the totalitarian structure, but decided selling things is a good way to make money.

Cambodia

I joined a small tour in Saigon.  In Europe you can just hop on a train and go wherever you want, but I felt some organization assistance would be helpful in this part of the world.

Image Credit: Christina Brzustoski

It’s a 6 hour bus ride from Saigon to Phnom Penh.  It’s not far, but the main road is 2 lane and crowded with all manner of vehicle, including bicycles.  There was a contrast at the border between the stark communist style of the Vietnamese customs building and the ornate Cambodian one.

We crossed the wide muddy Mekong river on a ferry and drove past wide flat rice fields dotted with wooden houses raised on stilts.  This is a far cry from the industrialized agriculture of the West.  The people live and work on the land, and are reliant on the yearly rains to flood the fields so they can grow rice.

The next morning, the tour visited the Killing Fields and the Toul Seng Torture Museum in Phnom Penh.  Remind me not to get thrown in a Cambodian torture prison.  I think that might qualify as the worst thing that could possibly happen to someone.

In 1975, Pol Pot and his soldiers entered the capital.  They expelled everyone from Phnom Penh and made them work the land.  Intellectuals were targeted, tortured and killed.  Millions died of starvation.  Cambodia’s population fell from 7 million to 4.  In 1979, the North Vietnamese invaded and drove Pol Pot back into the jungle.  When your regime is so brutal that the North Vietnamese have to liberate you, you know things are bad.

The next day was another long short drive.  180 miles in 7 hours.  Again, the main highway was 2 lane, with an assortment of motley vehicles.  I ate a fried cricket at a roadside stand, but I passed on the fried spider.
The pool at the hotel in Siem Reap wasn’t chlorinated; instead it was salt water.  I hope no one has polio.

That night we saw Apsara dancers, which is a traditional Khmer dance going back to the time of Angkor Wat.  It features slow intricate movements by women who used to be, but are sadly no longer, topless.

Angkor Wat

The next two days were spent hiking and climbing thru the jungle around the Angkor Wat complex. It is, quite literally, an ancient city lost in the jungle.  The area contains not only Angkor Wat itself, but also dozens of enormous temples and ruins.  We saw 4 temples the first day, including one where trees had grown into the very walls.  I can only imagine the awe and wonder of the first Europeans to ‘discover’ the ancient city (the natives knew about it all along).  It is one thing to watch Indiana Jones brush back the foliage from an ancient ruin; it is quite another to do it yourself.

Image Credit: Christina Brzustoski

Defining a Wonder of the World is not easy.  Age, size and complexity all play a part, but in the end, it’s a subjective measurement.  If my jaw falls open, my stomach drops, and words escape me, then I’m looking upon a Wonder.  The Great Wall of China, the Alhambra, Hagia Sophia, and the Parthenon all qualify.  Angkor Wat stands boldly among them.  Words cannot do it justice.

Tonle Sap Lake

Instead of driving, the tour took a boat across Tonle Sap lake.  There are entire villages which float on the lake.  There are houses, restaurants, schools and temples, all floating on the water.  The villagers scrape out a living by fishing.

Bangkok

You can instantly tell that Thailand is richer than Cambodia as soon as you cross the border.  They have highways (which they drive on the wrong side of) that are actually highways: four lanes, divided, and no bicycles or tractors allowed.  There are 7-11s and fast food and all the trappings (for better or worse) of civilization.

We did a nice job dodging a scam in Bangkok.  A man told us that the palace was closed (it wasn’t) and offered to find us a tuk tuk (a moto towing a seating area) to take us to some other sites.  Then, lo and behold, a tuk tuk appears, offering us a ridiculously low price to take us around.  Something didn’t seem rite, so we walked away, and later read that they use this scam to take you to gem shops for the hard sell, from which they get a commission.

The palace was cluttered with an overwhelming array of gold, glass, porcelain and gems.  Every surface glittered.  After that, we saw the 150 foot reclining Buddha at Wat Pho (surrounded by a tourist horde).  Somehow, when Buddha told people not to become attached to material possessions, I don’t think building 150 golden statues of him was what he had in mind.

We wandered thru the rest of the temple complex, which was just as stunning and tourist-free.  We crossed the river to visit the 5-prang (tower) Wat Arum.  There’s a steep staircase going up to almost the top.  In America, it would be closed off because of ’safety’.  In Thailand, they let you climb it, and if you fall and break your head, that’s your problem.  So I climbed to the top for a wonderful view of the city, and made it back down, head intact.

Koh Samui

Tropical island paradise.  The airport doesn’t have walls.  You can do this when the low is 78 degrees in January.

Somehow, no matter how much sunscreen I use, there’s still a spot that gets burned.  This time it was my right shoulder, an inch wide strip along my left forearm, and a triangle on my left thigh.  Should make for fun tan lines.

We flew home overnight, and were greeted in Seoul by the remnants of a snowstorm, and temperatures of about 10 F (-12 C).  Ugh.  I think 85 degrees Fahrenheit is the single biggest temperature differential I’ve experienced in one day, even living in Kansas.

If only they needed more English teachers on tropical islands.