Cambodia Part II Jan 27 to Feb 3

Well, yet again, I am writing past the event Im suppose to be blogging about!
( I think I'm repeating some descriptions but oh well!)
But I guess as a summary, Phenom Penh was a really interesting city. Being the capital it was much more crowded, and overall I felt that it was a "dirty", "hard" city... much different than the small town charm of Siem Reap. There were beggars everywhere trying to sell things, and many commercialized tourist areas that really didn't fit the tiny window of what I saw as "Cambodia". But we had some important interviews which revealed how bureaucratic non-profit work can be. Even if most of the politicians are on the same page with you, one person with a power kick can cause a lot of problems. It was a testament to the persistence of the non-profits out there. Right on! So we did the tourist sights as well, going to the kings palace and the Killing Fields and Prison from the Khmer Rouge. The palace was beautiful and rather strange; it was almost a self contained village. The Khmer Rouge was a communist government in power in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 who attempted to create an agrarian, or "natural" society, by exterminating all intellectuals, capitalists and people with foreign connections. Nearly 1.5 million people were killed through forced labor, torture, or starvation. The killing fields are now just ditches where their bodies once were piled, and the prisons housed hundreds of beds with barbed wire handcuffs, most likely used for torture. It was an eerie thing to see, and to think it was nearly in our lifetime! Some of the members of the Khmer Rouge government are currently on trial. Heres more about it if your interested... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge. But the Cambodian people have persevered, and in my opinion triumphed, in that they are so welcoming to foreigners and seem to be developing their country as it heals from their terrible past.

So we stayed a few days in Phenom Penh then returned to Siem Reap, and I was anxious!
Upon returning, I started to notice that my nagging cough was getting worse, and as soon as I would wake up and take my first breath outside of my hotel room, I would start to cough. The air is just constantly smoky and dusty. I have never experienced anything like that. Maria luckily had a "cough scarf" that I could wear around my mouth and it provided some protection, but it was a real pain! This made running outside impossible for me. But I tried to drink the problem away with tea, lime juice, and lots of water. When it was really bothering me, I would go to De La Paix, this extremely ritzy hotel, 5 min walk from mine that had AIR FILTERS via air conditioning that really helped. The posh lounge area and amazing cafe didnt hurt either! Needless to say, I got very well acquainted with the local pharmacist and De La Paix!

So we had to go to the site to do some surveying and check out the cracks that were forming near the embankment. I had a crash course on surveying. That was the first time I used a "level" and "rod" with a GPS in order to create an elevation map of the area. It was really interesting. A day or two later we were all suppose to go back to the site to continue working on the monitoring wells, but my cough was getting out of control so I stayed behind. I spent the afternoon online trying to make sense of the survey measurements I had taken the other day. I learned a lot about GPS and its amazing the way it works using units of degrees, minutes and seconds to measure distance relative to the equator and prime meridian to tell you exactly where you are anywhere in the world at any time! I have a newfound appreciation for it!

After finally giving up trying to communicate on Skype, I quite randomly booked a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to meet up with Ana and finally get a handle on how and when I would get to India and where I would go in between. It was time to make decisions whether I liked it or not. As soon as I booked my flight for Feb 3rd from Siem Reap to Kuala Lumpur, I felt like there was so much more I wanted to do and see in Cambodia I knew it was time to go.

We went to the site one more time, (I will miss the 40 min drive to site in the back of the pick up truck waving to locals... ) and we had to complete 4 monitoring wells, which are installed at 25 and 50 meters on either side of the dam to measure the amount of seepage through the embankment. It was an interesting process. We used an agar (a metal stick with a cylindrical cutting edge on one side) to create a 4" diameter hole in the ground around 20 feet deep, or until we hit groundwater. Then a 2" PVC pipe with slits ever 4 inches and wrapped in filter fabric, was inserted into the hole. Then sand is packed in the hole, around the PVC pipe to keep it in place. Then we mixed cement, gravel, water and sand to create cement. We used "man-power", meaning four of us holding a tarp with all the ingredients on it, one by one yanking at the tarp to forcefully mix the ingredients until it was homogeneous. Basically, it was a human cement mixer and thanks to the guys, it came out great! We poured the concrete around the top of each well to secure it and added a cap to the pipe. Now to measure the water level we just insert something in the PVC pipe and measure how much is "wet". It was cool to see this process... and fun to do some manual labor in the sun and forget about my cold!

So then I only had two days left and I knew that I had to see Angkor Wat, one of the Travel Wonders of the World, before leaving. Its only a ten minute drive from Siem Reap. People come from all over the world to see this historic Hindu- Buddhist temple. By the recommendation of Chai, I went to the Angkor Museum in Siem Reap to give me a background on the monument. Well, it was a really good thing I did. I even did the audio tour, which I usually write off as a rip off, but it was really helpful and kept my mind focused on what I was seeing. Cambodia truly did flip flop during history from Hindu to Buddhist, but is now predominantly Buddhist. I learned that the main three deities in Hinduism are Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and the most powerful, Shiva the Destroyer. These deities are portrayed in statues with very specific characteristics. The Buddha statues are a bit different, but to my eye they often look the same.
With a friend of Chai's as my private tuk tuk chauffeur, I went to Ta Prohm temple first, from the mid-12 century and it was built as a Buddhist temple. It was amazing and that is where one of the Tomb Raider films was shot. The way the trees grew into the ancient stone was a like a dramatic reflection of the fight between nature and civilization. Just next to Ta Prohm is Bayon, an amazing Buddhist temple with giant faces of Buddha with a peaceful expression, in all four directions. Next was the famous Angkor Wat... The entranceway was full or tourists to an uncomfortable degree, but I tried to block that out and soak it all in! As expected, every entranceway had two "Naga's" or Serpent deities on each side which is suppose to be protect the temple along with Lions with their mouths ajar showing their teeth. The temple had a statue of each of the three main deities and then a courtyard with four prasat or towers surrounding a fifth tower which is the tallest in the center. There is a large mot surrounding the entire complex, and it was said that the temple is suppose to be a replica of Mount Meru, home of the Gods in Hinduism. The structure was started in 1100 and took over 3 centuries to complete, starting as a Vishnu temple and later being converted to a Buddhist temple. The evidence of these changes and political strife are clear by the missing limbs of many of the statues. Despite all the crowds of people the shear size of the temple, (over 500 acres), still allowed me to find a peaceful spot to have a snack and stare off in the distance. There was definitely an energy about the place.

So the next day I was off for Malaysia, not knowing what country I would be in the following day. Not a bad way to live!