Newley Purnell

After Angkor Wat, we took a flight from Phnom Penh to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Vientiane’s a sleepy city spread along the banks of the Mekong river. Not much happens there. And that was a nice reprieve from the din of Phnom Penh and the overwhelming sensory onslaught of Siem Reap.

We spent our afternoons (and evenings) sipping the excellent local brew, Beer Lao, and watching the city go by. And that’s about it. Three days of not much of anything. It was perfect. The only major sight-seeing excursion we took was to the quirky Lao Revolutionary Museum. It contains a look at the history of the country, but sadly, the whole building–including the exhibits, most of which are dusty and crumbling–is in a state of advanced disrepair.

I’ll take a break in describing our Southeast Asian sojourn to share some interesting links I’ve come across while digging out from under a pile of emails. Enjoy:

“Child pimp and ho costumes”

RateMyProfessors.com (where was this when I was in college?)

Starbucks Gossip Weblog

DropCash, “a simple way to organize a fundraiser.”

“How to be creative”

The top 50 fast food chains in the US

Roulette Chocolate

After a few days in Phnom Penh, we took the bus 5 hours north to Siem Reap, the town closest to Angkor Wat. We purchased 3-day passes and set about exploring the ruins. They’re absolutely incredible.

Though the area is collectively referred to as Angkor Wat, that name actually describes just one of the temple complexes. Other notable ruins, often miles and miles apart from one another, are Bayon and Ta Prohm. The temples, taken together, represent the remains of the Khmer empire, which lasted from the 9th to the 12th century. Angkor Wat is called the “largest religious complex in the world”; the temples are old and decaying and yet, in their own mysterious way, still seem alive. (“Tomb Raider,” starring Angelina Jolie, was filmed there. Indeed, the place seems like it’d be the ideal location for an “Indiana Jones” film.) Photos, as is so often the case, don’t adequately convey the experience of seeing the place in person.

For me, the two most incredible aspects of the area are:

1) The fact that you can walk in and through and on the temples; you can touch the intricate carvings made hundreds of years ago, and if you wanted, you could even pick up and walk away with some of the many crumbling stones that litter the site.

2) The beauty of these ancient temples stands in stark relief to the horror of the Khmer Rouge regime, which only expired a little over 20 years ago. My journal entries from our time in Cambodia, in abridged format, read something like this: “Phnom Penh/killing fields: blood and guts and teeth and bones and depravity. Angkor Wat: grand achievement and sublimity.” These two stretches of Cambodian history represent the two extremes of human accomplishment.

Here’s one more indelible image I took away from Phom Penh. I forgot to mention this in my last post.

I saw four women crammed onto the seat of a small scooter careening down the main riverside boulevard–not an unusual sight in itself, since people here in Asia tend to treat scooters as family vehicles.

But this scene was a little different. One of the women was holding aloft an IV bag for her friend, a lady sitting in front of her who had some sort of drip going and looked green about the gills. I suppose they were headed for the hospital. (Or maybe the woman just needed some hydration.)

Gary Glitter, the British pop star who had a couple hits in the 70’s, was convicted of kiddie porn offenses in England several years ago. So he fled to Phenm Penh, Cambodia. It’s no wonder: the Southeast Asian kingdom has a reputation for being soft on sex tourists. Jill and I spent four days in the Cambodian capital and I can tell you this: that reputation is well-deserved.

Prostitution permeates the city. It’s a relatively pretty place, with French architecture and a tree-lined waterfront strip. But sex workers are everywhere. I saw numerous white men in their 30’s or 40’s strolling around with Cambodians–both men and women–in their teens and early 20’s. I even saw a guy who looked to be about 30 get on a motorycle and drive away with a Cambodian girl who was, at most, 13 years old. Hookers and johns are everywhere, and the cops don’t care.

Beyond the prevalence of the skin trade, my other lasting impression of Phnom Pehn is the complete insanity of the Khmer Rouge regime. Jill and I visited the Choeng Ek Memorial Killing Fields outside the city, an extermination camp where over 8,000 skulls are on display. We walked around the mass graves and the horror was palpable–we stepped on and around and over bones caked in the dirt, teeth strewn about the path, and the vicitms’ clothes, which still litter the ground.

The Khmer Rouge’s murderous Pol Pot, in an insane attempt to transform Cambodia into an agrarian society, abolished schools and set about exterminating intellectuals, ethinc minorities, and gays. The madness lasted from 1975-1979, and some 1.7 million people–about a fifth of the country’s population–was murdered. But visiting the killing fields, in its state of unreconstructed disorder, gives the impression that the genocide only concluded a few years ago.

We also made our way to the gloomy S-21 prison, where captives were held and tortured before being sent to the killing field. Sadness and depravity on a monumental scale. For more on traveling in Cambodia, see John Collins’s “Welcome to Khmer Rouge Land!”

I only have time over the coming days to tell you about our just-concluded Southeast Asian sojourn in bits and pieces. So consider this post the first installment.

Jill and I spent the first night of the trip in Bangkok. (Yes, “One Night in Bangkok,” as the song goes.) We had a layover there before catching a flight early the next morning to Cambodia.

So on the recommendation of my brother, who lived in Bangkok for three years, we had dinner–a fabulous Thai feast–at an outdoor food stall near the Victory Monument Skytrain stop. After that, we headed to the adjacent Saxophone Pub and Restaurant for some live music and local oat sodas. It was a great evening.

People love to say bad things about Bangkok, but this was my third visit to the city, and I really think it’s a fascinating place. Dirty and hot and gritty, yes, but also dynamic and pulsing with international flavors.

A quick note to say we’re back in Kaohsiung.

Wow. What a trip. The magnificence of Angkor Wat; the horror of the Khmer Rouge’s brutality thoughout Cambodia; Laos’s Luang Prabang, one of the coolest cities I’ve ever visited. It was all incredible.

I’ll be writing more here about our travels, but just wanted to post word that we’ve returned home safely. Classes–both the English ones we’re teaching and the Chinese one we’re taking–resume today. And we’re getting our photos developed ASAP; I hope to post some of them here soon.

I won’t be writing anything here for the next three weeks. This weekend, Jill and I depart for a 20-day sojourn in Cambodia and Laos.

Our itinerary is open-ended–just the way I like it. We fly from here to Phnom Penh, Cambodia (with a one-night layover in Bangkok), and then we fly home from Vientiane, Laos. Other than that, only the winds of fate shall determine our course. (For Cambodia, we’ve naturally gotta see Angkor Wat. And in Laos, we’ve tentatively got our sights set on Luang Prabang and destinations further afield.)

I’ll be back at you somewhere in the neighborhood of August 15th. With stories aplenty.

–I wrote a lengthy item a few months ago about how much I love the band Wilco. And so I’d been eagerly awaiting their newest album, A Ghost is Born.

I’m quite disappointed. There are vast stretches of the record that are simply…well, bad. Hard to listen to. Ugly-sounding.

My feeling is that the band (and by “band” I mean Jeff Tweedy, the songwriter and frontman), fresh off the success of their quirky–and brilliant–Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, felt they had to keep pushing the limits of their sound. The result is an album that’s too strange to enjoy.

In a recent article on Slate, “What’s So Great About Wilco?”, Stephen Metcalf rails against the band. He mostly says they’re over-rated, and that Tweedy’s an insecure prima donna. He may be right.

(Side note: what I hate about most rock journalism is that the entire genre often feels like a venue for over-educated hipsters to demonstrate just how cool they (think they) are. Take Metcalf’s clever–if irrelevant–jab at the unwashed masses who adore corporate rock:

“To a listener accustomed to Hootie and the Blowfish, Wilco sounds like the Minutemen–daring, allusive, funky, weird, and yet so right. To a listener accustomed to the Minutemen, Wilco sounds like Hootie and the Blowfish: classic rock for frat boys.”)

I will say this in Wilco’s defense: so far all of their albums have been different and enjoyable in varying manners. Perhaps this one’s just the same. But it’s gonna take a while to grow on me.

–Other stuff:
Drinking those cool Krispy Kremes: “Doughnut retailer unveils frozen beverage line, including a glazed-flavored drink.”
Fast Company article on Whole Foods: “John Mackey’s approach to management is equal parts Star Trek and 1970s flashback. It seems like a recipe for disaster, but at Whole Foods it’s a prescription for world-beating growth — and maybe for a world-changing company.”
“Giant Rabbit Is As Big As 3-Year-Old”

Checking in on Bolivia, the AP says: “Nine months after nearly 60 people died in street fighting against plans to export natural gas, Bolivians peacefully voted to do just that in a referendum that appeared to boost a president trying to calm simmering social unrest.”

The story’s complicated; I defer to Bolivia expert Miguel Centellas to sort out the details.

Elsewhere, the Christian Science Monitor’s Lucien O. Chauvin tells us: “Sunday’s Bolivian vote divided indigenous groups; elsewhere natives battle for control over resources.”

Chauvin goes on to note that in Ecuador:

…the country’s indigenous movement, one of the strongest in the world, could be splitting. In the 14 years since the first nationwide uprising in June 1990, which protested the use of natural resources, Ecuador’s indigenous movement helped overthrow two presidents – Abdala Bucaram in 1997 and Jamil Mahuad in 2000 – and usher in important constitutional changes guaranteeing respect for their rights.

“Lucio Gutierrez took advantage of all the sacrifices made by the indigenous movement and then betrayed us. I believe that his goal is to eliminate the indigenous movement,” says Luis Macas, a longtime indigenous leader who served as agriculture minister in the Gutierrez administration.

We shall what happens to Lucio. I know I must sound like a broken record at this point, but I’m telling you: the Ecuadorian Prez’s days are numbered. (Although my buddies Mike F. and Jordan L. have said not so fast.)