You try being a Turk and see how it is

It is very hard not to start every blog with "We", and this is a last attempt at trying not to do that. But we are in Phnom Phen, the capitol of Cambodia and haven't been to the killing fields or the holocaust museum, maybe we will go tomarrow maybe not. Our plans to go to Vietnam have been cancelled by my turkishness as I had to jump thru some bureaucratic hoops that we dont have the time, patience, will, or money to do. So we will head back to Bangkok and then head for Laos. We can get a 14 day tourist visa on arrival there and then... After Angkor there is not much to do in Phnom Phen and it is a big city and the people have gotten a bit ruder around tourist circles. There is still and open invitation to meet in Manali in May and ride motorcycles thru Ladakh and Leh, the highest motored pass in the world. Also if there is interest to meet in Turkey in the fall, we plan to get there by September. So if there is an itch that we can scratch, let us know.
love all who read this blog, and trying to love others who don't,
alp

Angkor What?

Three day temple tour extravaganza~score! our hopes for ruins galore were not disappointed by Angkor and its vast park of buildings and rubble. starting our first morning by motorcycle-drawn rickshaw, we came to Angkor Wat and its huge promenade over a massive moat before dawn. it was eerily exciting to approach the huge three-domed temple as each moment the light increased, not knowing a thing about what we would see. we climbed all the way to the terrifying top, enjoying the wind and the statues of large-bosomed dancers with hairstyles reminiscent of anime characters, while most of the tour groups below sat at the base, waiting for their perfect "sunrise over Angkor Wat"photographs. The famous temple was majestic but I was personally most impressed with the wackiness of the Bayon, another renowned building with tens of humongous faces carved out of dark stone, peering in different directions with mona lisa smiles. Likewise, the jungle-temple of Ta Prohm also was gorgeous, as it was left by the french to look as it had when it was first found in the latter half of the nineteenth century by an explorer searching after butterflies. there were massive trees towering out of buildings and spilling over walls. the last two days, we decided to cycle around the ruins, which turned out to be a rather serene way to enjoy the scenery. we were even blessed with some fabulous weather this morning as the sky broke into an impromtu mango rain (the rains that proceed the monsoon season and herald the beginning of the mango season) for ten minutes and clouds shaded our path for the rest of the day. Ruin tourism is probably my favourite form of cultural sightseein; it encourages independant exploration, gives one an appreciatation of the landscape of a place, and makes one feel awe for the mysterious collapse of civilizations.
Ingrid

Most of Angkor's high quality structures were erected by the king Jayavarman VII. Angkor Wat, Bayon, and the Angkor City plus a wealth of other structres. What makes the style of this king so apparent, other then the higher quality rock used, is the topless women relief carvings on almost all the walls of the buildings. The man had a harem of coutless women and put their carvings everywhere. What is fascinating is that in a place like Angkor Wat which is located on a kilometer square, making it the largest temple in the world, there are hundreds of these women carved on the walls. The wat is the funerary temple of this king who apparently believed in an Egyptian style afterlife idea. The wat is really impressive with a moet around it that is 150m wide. The circumference of the temple has a wall that has bas relief carving of their creation myth, battles from ramayana and so on. It might take us a while to upload pictures, but we wil let you know when we do.
alp

The Ripping Fields

Well were we wrong. After the thai border, we journeyed six or seven hours on a road that reminds you of the outback. No asphalt with plenty of holes and bumps. And this of course excited us seeming like we were going to a place less travelled. When we arrived in Siem Reap what we saw was a different picture. Plenty of giant and fancy hotels and civilization. There is an airport in Siem Reap which apperantly brings plenty of tourists with dough. So far we have not ventured to the Angkor Wat, mainly getting ourselves adjusted to carrying three currencies and finding the cheap and authentic food. The latter is proving to be problem as we are overcharged for everything from water to bread. It is a hassle and brings an annoying quality to this town. Unlike Thailand everyone speaks english, at least enough to rip you off. The tourism in this town has made it perfect for tourists and frustrating for the traveller. Tomarrow we buy our three day ticket to Angkor Wat which will make it worth the hassle. And we hope as we venture further into South-east asia this place will be the most touristy place we have visited.
alping

Its like buddha baby

in honour of our leaving the clean water and cinema halls of thailand for the minefields and temples of cambodia at seven tomorrow morning, i thought i should take some time to catalogue those eccentricities of this fine nation that we have otherwise failed to relate to you all. a) thais, young and old, are addicted to menthol and camphor inhalents and it is possible to see them being shoved up noses everywhere! i want to embark on a nation-wide campaign to inform people of their addiction but i think they are too nasal-cavity-fixated. b) there is a handy bum-sprayer in every bathroom, so that you needn't ever worry about being caught without toilet paper (already an obsolete item to my man and myself... we gave that stuff up months ago and you should consider making the switch yourself. do you really want to rub that shit in?) c) transvestites and androgenous people are an accepted part of the fabric of thai society. we have seen some damn pretty men. most thai women and men have the same body type anyways~ no asses and similar faces. d) even monks don't finish their food, which we think is a crying shame! everytime we approach a table just vacated by a thai party, there is enough food remaining to feed the two of us. e) thailand caters to the hardly exclusive category of male "sex tourists," who come here to DATE their prostitutes and can be seen shopping with them nearly everywhere in bangkok. there are also neighborhoods full of go-go bars, in which dozens of waifs wave their bodies around like leaves, looking exceedingly bored under coloured lights. f) as we have told mimi and jason, there is the charming tradition of spirit houses, which are miniature houses built for the fairies of the premises so that they don't disrupt the proceedings of the main building. some are very lovely looking, so go the Bangkok photos to see an example of them. g) unlike india where the depiction of phalluses is very abstract, thais prefer the more life-like approach and are alarmingly realistic, albeit often times huge. they are fertility symbols and are present at shrines, temples, and even in amulet form. h) we are very fond of the park over the canal from our guesthouse, which daily hosts a gang of people evidently practicing to be in the circus (i.e. juggling, poi, and playing with sticks), gender-bending breakdancers, and a massive aerobics course instructed also by an androgenous lady-man. have you got a clearer picture of why this is such an interesting and enjoyable place? we hope so. cambodia may be a bit behind in the internet revolution so you may have to wait a few weeks to get the next installment of notes from us. you can always rerun our previous episodes. we never did.
with jungle love~
ingrid

ingrida and i were appalled today at the restaurant of the natural history museum where three monks left their table with enough food on it to feed three other monks. this we have been seeing from other thais and had mostly thought that it was due to city ethics. well apart from these shameless monk what i want to say is, organized religion is the same everywhere, buddhism is no different. at first i couldn't figure out why anyone would convert from buddhism to islam, and i am sure there were not so willing conversions but the idoletry here is up the roof. a lot of temples there isn't just one image of the buddha but there are dozens if not hundreds, and it sort of looks meaningless. the feng-shui of a lot of temples is really whack. i can see how a mosque is much more tranquil then a wat. but ofcourse i am not defending one religion over the other allah and buddha know that i love them them both the same. the organization of the religion is really what kills the spirit of the religion. just like organized government but i will not go into that right now, suffice to say that anarshi is the best way, because it is not a description of a way. get the tao?
alp

Southern Comfort

We are back in Bangkok where the internet is more affordable and sitting in an air-con internet cafe is a more desirable event. We traveled in the Krabi province first going to Lanta island where we were too cheap to go on a snorkeling trip and came back to Krabi for more inexpensive and authentic food. Rented a bike and traveled for a day. Afterwards we took a longboat to Hat Tonsai which is the climbers central in Thailand. We somehow got the best bungalow for the cheapest price on the peninsula where we had a stupendously good time, resting, reading, and coming up with solutions to future problems. The Noam Chomsky book Hegemony or Survival is a great book for getting perspective about American actions, highly recommend it although it is bound to put a fire into your system. On our way back to Bangkok we stopped at Khao Sok National Park hoping to find the largest flower in the world that smells like rotten meat but to no avail. Now we are back in the big city and enjoying it, our plane tickets are scheduled for May 13 now and we will head for Cambodia in a few days. We were going on tuesday but in light of Jean Pierre Jeunet's new film A very long engagement opening on March 17 we will overstay our visa two days to see that and the Motorcycle Diaries, as we will probably not find those movies in our travel ahead and they are worthy for bigscreen. In the meantime we will get our Cambodian visas here in Bangkok instead of at the border which will save us some money in compansation for the twenty dollar fine we will pay for overstay. We have put our pictures up for those with pictographic memory. I miss all of you out there and we will go motorcycling in the himalayas in May particularly Leh, Ladakh and Kashmir if we can, anyone interested in meeting us in Manali? The bike rental is about $5 a day and accomodation will be reasonable since most people don't go that far up north. You can see where we want to go in the photoalbum manali, it will start with Rohtang La and go further this time. I doubt there will be much interneting that we can do until Vietnam once we leave Bangkok so till then,
alp