Temples of Angkor

Some of my favorite pictures from Angkor...

Cambodia

I was fortunate enough to be invited to tag along with a Singapore Rotaract and Interact international community service project in Siem Reap, Cambodia this past week. The project focused on water sanitation and child mortality. In all, Rotary's theme of 'Make Dreams Real' especially for children was promoted thoroughly throughout this trip. This made me really proud that Rotary actually executes their theme on the ground. I felt all the projects for the interactors and rotaractors alike were geared toward this common goal. Through de-worming kids and building toilets for village schools, the idealistic goal to provide a better and more enriching life for children can be reached.

In summary here is what I did in Cambodia:
- visited the floating villages on Tonle Sap Lake
- visited the Temples of Angkor, watched the sunset, sunrise and saw many other smaller and beauitful temples!
- shopped at night markets and ate some delicious Khmer food
- visited Angkor Children's Hospital and Siem Reap Referral hospital where Rotaractors provided health education to patients, also handed out food
- went to a village to do groundbreaking Rotary ceremony to dig wells
- went with Interactors to the local village school where they built a toilet and donated water preservation bowls. we played with the kids and taught them songs, donated many materials and also cooked for them.
- Visited an orphange in Siem Reap to donate materials and perform songs and dance for them.
- visited the National Angkor Museum and the War Museum
- Had dinner with the Rotary district governor along with Rotarians from sponsoring clubs

Cambodia is incredibly beautiful and sad, complicated and simple. I spent 9 days in and around Siem Reap. And although I only really got to see a small portion of this country, I honestly fell in love with it. Yes it is very poor. Tourism around Angkor is taking off and the 5 star hotels lining the road from the airport to Angkor seem oddly out of place. But there are beggars, there is little development. I hear Phnom Penh is different, but not that much. The history of Cambodia doesn't match the smiling Cambodian faces and adorable children. The simple lifestyles and poverty doesn't line up with how much money the country brings in from tourism and NGOs. But I think things aren't as simple as I want them to be. And the situation is complicated from what I can discern after talking with doctors and different people from NGOs.

The Temples absolutely blew my mind. I feel I'm getting spoiled by some of the amazing wonders I have got to see around SE Asia, things may not impress me as easily anymore. The picture to the right is Ta Keo temple. The main temple of Angkor Wat is astounding in its size, meticulous carvings, and its preservation. People say you become glazed over after seeing so many temples, but I refused to succumb to desensitization. Each temple was absolutely wonderful in its own unique way (I will love all my children equally.) The history behind the Khmer empire is impressive. While these temples were initially Hindu, Buddhist religion replaced many of them and often serve to worship the Khmer rulers as god-kings during their reign (9-10th century).

Having the opportunity to visit medical facilities, speak with doctors or NGO representatives, and getting out into the villages to actually interact with families and children was so enriching and different from being a regular tourist. I love traveling with friends and just having a good time, but the tourist hounding gets old after a while. I think one of the happiest moments of my life was in an orphange in Siem Reap watching the kids play with hula hoops Interact had donated and when they performed a song for us. I would have not had that opportunity if I had not been with Rotary. Furthermore, I think I got to see more of reality and makes me realize how different lifestyles can be culturally and historically.

I encourage people to visit places and maybe go off the beaten track and try something different to see life, and perhaps not to be treated so much as a temporary visitor. I have some qualms about donating money and injecting a surge of attention to certain organizations and then leaving. After all, it may not create sustainable livlihood for the people and may make their economy more dependent on donations. But every little bit helps and if you do your reserach you can find organizations that temporarily help and also catalyzes longterm sustainable efforts.

Vietnam

Things don't always go as planned, sometimes for better or for worse. But it is always brings a new and unexpected outcome. I have been "backpacking" for about 3 weeks now. If you were to see me, I think you could definitely tell. Initially, I had planned to go on a Rotaract service trip to Thailand, working in the north in the Golden Triangle. Unfortunately the trip was canceled. On top of that, my ticket to Phuket was canceled the day before I was to leave because of the airport crisis in Bangkok. There was a flood of foreigners at Phuket's airport during that time before it temporarily shut down too. For better or for worse, I ended up going to Vietnam for 10 days instead of Thailand. The picture above is District 1 in Saigon.

It was an incredible experience not only because it was the first "communist" country I had ever been to (there are only 5 communist countries in the world: Cuba, China, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea) but also because of the beautiul and vastly different scenery that Vietnam has all over its country. In summary, here is what I did:

- I flew into Ho Chi Minh City and stayed there for 4 days
- I visited the Vietnam-American War museum
- Went to the Mekong Delta for a boat ride and lunch and saw the floating markets where rice paper and coconut candy was made by hand
- went to the Cu Chi tunnels for a day with a Vietnamese war veteran as our tour guide
- Flew up to Hanoi and stayed around there for 5 days
- visited the Ho Chi Minh Masoleum and museums
- visited the Vietnamese Museum of Ethnology
- I spent a day at Tam Coc near Ninh Binh taking a boat tour
- traveled to Haiphong and Cat Ba island
- spent 2 days and 1 night on Halong Bay on a boat
- spent 2 days traveling back to Saigon before I left for Siem Reap, Cambodia for a Rotary service project.

I wish I could share everything I experienced and felt, but it's not really possible. I'm just grateful. Grateful to Rotary for allowing me to experience life in a different country, to be on this side of the world, and to see things with a new perspective. In all, I loved Vietnam. The pho (beef noodle soup) is absolutely delicious! I ate pho at LEAST once a day every day! Trust me, its worth it, and its inexpensive all over Vietnam. Seeing the War Museum from Vietnam's point of view was startling at first. To be honest, I couldn't quite wrap my mind around it since I distinctly remember learning about the Vietnam War in my high school American History class and how much it was a tragedy for both sides. But there was emphasis on the american soldier's experience. Clearly, movies have dominated much of what my generation perceives about the Vietnam War. And a lot of the time I thought about the Deer Hunter, etc. But it's so real seeing the Viet Cong underground tunnels, or hearing the heart breaking story of a Vietnamese veteren's life and seeing the crude techniques for traps and torture. It's cliche, but the reality of it is not what I perceived and its terrifying and really devastating.

Vietnam's history and reverance for Ho Chi Minh is incredible. Like Stalin, Lenin, and Mao, Ho Chi Minh's body is "preserved" and on display in Hanoi. Lines of Vietnamese along with tourists see his body. There's debate to whether or not that this is even his real body or not. Nonetheless, the respect is clear and profound.

Halong Bay was beautiful, unreal, and so untouched. It's a little conflicting because the tourist attraction that it has become will inevitably hurt the natural growth of the limestone rocks. But the night spent on the boat was peaceful and gorgeous. The simple lives of the fisherman living on the water made me awe.

My impression of Vietnam is that it's quickly developing and of course adapting to the tourist economy. One of the first things I noticed when I got to Saigon was that there were no Starbucks or Mcdonalds anywhere in the city. You can see the slow integration of things like a KFC or a Highlands Coffee shop. But the rural areas are covered with flat land and rice fields with many farmers and villages that make you feel like you stepped back in time. It was really pretty and I hope I can come back to visit more places in the country again. There is really too much to do and things are so spread out. The pictures below are from Halong Bay.