Cambodia

"During the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge genocide I lost 8 of my family members. My aunts, my uncles and both my grandparents... My mother watched one of her brothers get hung to a tree and stabbed in his stomach with a large sharp stick, then left for dead. When she showed anger towards the solders who did it, they hit her in the stomach and she was sick for the next three days. She doesn't talk much about the time when she was 22 and the Khmer Rouge took over the country and enslaved the entire population. " Although not yet born, 30 year old 'Mr. Dollar' (our tuk tuk driver) suffers large scars from this tragic event that will be known throughout history as one of the worst genocides known to man.

Cambodia this time around has unveiled its beauty for us in yet again another tragic form. Flooding has hit this country hard and everyone you talk to says they have never seen flooding like this. Driving in from Thailand we saw nothing but flooded fields and gushing rapids over the road ways. The beauty was to be seen in every element. From the flooded fields of deep, lush green tropics with the skys reflection atop the water. To the locals gathered everywhere swimming and fishing in all the deep pools. It really was a feat for the eyes and mind to absorb it all.

With only one week in Cambodia, we had to make the most of everyday. The first stop was back to the city of Siem Reap. The city built within minutes of driving to the world renowned Angkor Wat. We fell in love with this temple last time we were here and always felt like we never gave it full justice. Showing up at 9am on our first day, we walked around the ginormous engineered piece of art work for three hours, getting lost in its size and sheer splendor. Built in the 9th century, archeologist are still making discoveries in the surrounding area to dawn new evidence that the Khmer people, had in fact, built the largest city in the world during Medieval times. The temples that are open to the public are each in their own way magnificent and jaw dropping. We spent two full days touring around, walking and crawling on many temples. We had to be careful though and not become "templed out", so we made sure to take our time and truly appreciate it all.

Temple Ta Prohm

Out front of Angkor

Angkor Thom

Sunrise at Angkor Wat, we woke at a 4 am on day 2. So worth it.

Majapahit- Built for the Kings father.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

Ta Prohm

One of four swimming pools at the top of Angkor.

Angkor Wat

Angkor Thom

Back of Angkor

One of the many murals carved out of the walls.

From Siem Reap we took a 5 hour bus ride to Cambodia's second largest city Battambang. Arriving to our hotel surrounded by water, we couldn't help but think of Calgary and everyone who was affected by the flooding there. Many of the streets here were full of water. The city however was not shut down and people were not evacuated. We took the water in stride and enjoyed the rarity of a hotel surrounded by a moat. With only a day and a half we got right to it. We arranged a full day excursion for the next day and that night we walked around, toured some markets and found some great street food. Our tour guide/tuk tuk driver Mr. Dollar picked us up the next day at 9 am. Driving us out of town and down an incredibly bumpy road, we were informed that it was our 'free Cambodian massage'. Our first stop on the trip was a small little village with some train tracks running through. We were to take a ride on the "Bamboo Train". Locals have taken use of the train tracks since the end of the war and built their own mode of transport. It has become somewhat of a tourist draw as of late and a source of great income directly to the villages involved. Unfortunately though, the government has decided to shut it down and build a new one somewhere else, to claim full stake of the tourist dollars. We were quite lucky, considering it was to be shut down over a week ago. A simple bamboo platform powered by a 14 horsepower engine, sitting on top of two axles, the home made cart was lots of fun. When you encounter on-coming traffic, the smaller load always loses and has to get up and unload everything off the tracks. It was very easy to disassemble and make way for the others to pass. The train took us to a small village and we were given a tour of the rice factory and the brick factory by about a dozen or so young girls. They all demanded us to buy a bracelet and some were quite miffed when we bought from one and not the other.

Our tour guides. You can tell who are the ones who were a little upset.

 

After a quick ride back to our tuk tuk our next stop was a hill top temple.This temple during the Khmer take over was used as a prison for anyone they wished (Now it's important for you to know that when they took power, they wanted to build a euphoric nation based off absolute self-sufficiency. They enslaved the entire nation and forced everyone to leave all cities and go to work in the country. They targeted anyone with links to foreign nations, anyone who may have been involved in capitalism. Anyone who was a teacher, a banker or had lived in the city. Heck, even if you wore glasses or had an education you were targeted and killed). The overwhelmingly sad part on this tour was the 'Killing Caves' located about twenty feet from the temple. Here the Khmer Rouge would take prisoners and throw them off the edge and down the cliff about thirty feet onto the rocks below. There was a cave for women and children and a cave for men. We absorbed the moment and while walking around at the bottom, tried not to get choked up picturing what took place here.

Mr Dollar

 We left Battambang the following day on a bus bound for Phnom Phen. We arrived mid day and spent the afternoon and evening walking around the water front of the Mekong River. The next day went for a walk to find the King's Palace. Then we were off on a bus to Vietnam.

 Life in Cambodia is hard. We really got our first 'in your face' exposure to some of the absolute poverty in Phnom Penh. There are many NGO's and Non-Profits working, trying to make life better. But with so many people and not a lot of opportunities, there are many who are left behind. It is incredibly hard to watch a child no older then our nephews and nieces out begging on the street. To have tuk tuk drivers run at a bus pulling in just so they can get some business. In Indonesia and Malaysia we noticed a lot of begging, but we also noticed 90 percent of the locals gave money to the beggars. We saw none of this here. We felt very welcomed by the Cambodians. Most willing to practice some English, or just exchange a smile. With getting a small dose of poverty here, we can't imagine how much more difficult India is going to be. That is a long way from now though, as of now we have great joy to look forward to with the arrival of Kelly's mom.

We hope all of you reading this are doing well. We are now 6 months into our adventure.

Cambodia Currency

Luck be a lady......

One thing about backpacking is that you can be lucky or you can be unlucky when you decide that planning can take a backseat to Facebook and exciting, entertaining internet surfing. That was the gamble we took when we arrived back in Kuta,Bali to extend our visa. If we had done some proper planning and research we would have realized that we were suppose to head to the immigration office with at least 7 business days left on our visa...not 3. Unsure of what the outcome would be, we dressed in our finest (which is a t-shirt instead of a tank top) and headed to the immigration office. We were welcomed with the answer "You're are too late, I guess you will have to leave the country". That was the last thing we wanted to do. So with some desperation in our voices we pleaded our case to the officer who pointed us to a different immigration office 30 min away. Happy for us to become someone else's problem. While traveling in 2nd and 3rd world countries we've learned that you can never be too sure if what is happening is legit or not. When we entered the second office we put on our brave face, crossed our fingers and got ready to plead our case. To our surprise, we were told not to worry, we would just have to pay a little extra for a rush extension and everything would be fine. We filled out the paper work and handed it over with our passports. When it came time to pay, the lady in the government uniform gave us a receipt (which was a small piece of paper ripped out of a notebook) She told us to head outside and pay the guy standing near the corner of the building, who was not flaunting a flashy government outfit. As strange as it seemed, we figured our passports were already handed off, so we might as well part with $140 as well. Two days later, when we headed back to the office, we were greeted with a smile by the same immigration officer. She pulled her purse up onto the stool beside her, dug through it and voila, pulled out our freshly stamped passports?!?!? We are still not to sure what really happened but we assume there was some under the counter action going on, with a small commission kept on some ones part.

During our stopover in Kuta, Dean decided that he wanted to get a tattoo. He'd been thinking about it for awhile and was ready. We searched around for a good artist and a studio that looked clean and wasn't attached to a bar. We found one called Rumble Avenue. After a discussion with Addee, the artist, we left only to return a few days later to see if what he drew was similar to Dean's vision. It was! After 4 hours, Dean walked out with a tattoo on his right calf. It looks great and will serve as a great reminder of this trip.

After 6 days in Kuta, we took luck into our hands again and boarded a local bus for the 6 hour journey to the Island of Java. It wasn't until the bus drove off the ferry into the town of Banyuwangi that we thought "hmm, we should have planned this out a bit better. Where does the bus drop us off?" Well, as luck would have it, a local guy noticed that we were starting to panic as the bus was heading out of town. In his broken English and our none existent Indonesian, he figured out where we wanted to go and relayed to the driver that we needed to stop. Being the only white people seen in about 6 or 7 hours, all eyes were on us as we were dropped off outside of a convenience store. Now what??? Lucky again, another local guy (who may have been phoned) happened to show up and took us to a near by hotel. He was also a travel agent who could help us arrange our trip to Ijen Volcano. (Another thing that we failed to research) We couldn't believe it. We made a plan with Maman (the agent/guide)  that would have us hike up Ijen to see the 'blue flames' and the sun rise, then get a ride to Mt. Bromo afterwards. Perfect!

At the bottom of Ijen.

We left our hotel at 12:45am and drove for just over an hour to the base of Ijen Volcano. It was very dark and very cold!!! After a cup of hot coffee we all started our ascend to the top of the volcano. And up it was, straight up! This was the 2nd volcano we have climbed in Indonesia. (The last one was on our last trip, four years ago) We knew we could do it but it was a mind game to keep our legs taking one step after the other. More than one time Kelly could be heard mumbling under her breath, "this is crazy!!!" With Dean's reassurance and encouragement, we all pushed on and we made it to the rim of the crater at about 4am. Our goal was to see the mysterious blue flame that is caused by the miners lighting molten sulfur on fire. Apparently, the flames cannot be seen every day due to weather. Well, we did it! We saw the flames! They were truly a sight to see. We were disappointed that we could not get a good photo...google it!! It's worth it.

Around 4:45am we climbed to the upper rim of the crater to watch the sunrise. What a sight!! It was beautiful!!! We were above the clouds and the sky was filled with crimson reds, oranges and yellows!!! We were so proud of ourselves. The smiles never left our faces.

 

Dean holding on to Kelly so she doesn't fall off.

Burning sulfur in the daylight.

We took our time at the top taking lots of photos. Some with the sulphur miners who carry 70-80Kg's (154-176 LBS) of huge chunks of hardened sulfur up and out of the crater then down the mountain (multiple times a day in rubber boots. It's insane!!) They only make the equivalent of 8 cents/kg. Dean tried to lift the baskets but could not. These men put a new meaning to "working for a living". As hard as the ascend was for Kelly, the descend was equally as hard for Dean. His knees struggled with the steep slopes and this time it was with Kelly's reassurance and encouragement, that we were able to make it down. We arrived back at our jeep at around 7 am. Ijen is definitely at the top of our list of highlights on this trip so far. It was an amazing!!

Miner walking along the rim of the crater with the sulfur.

Miner who gave us a piece of sulfur to keep.

It took 5 hours to reach the town of Probolinggo, which is about an hour from Mt. Bromo. Maman had a friend who was able to arrange our hotel for the night, trip up to Mt. Bromo and a 10 hour ride to Yogyakarta (pronounced Joke-ja-karta) the next day. Lucky? We think so!! Knowing that another early morning and another steep climb might not be do-able for us, we opted to do what many other tourists do and chose to take a jeep up. We woke up at 3:15 am (a sleep in...Yay!) crammed into a jeep and headed for the view point to watch the sunrise. Unlike Ijen, this place was PACKED with tourists. The view was gorgeous but the amount of people kind of took away from the tranquility of the moment. Eventually, the number of people subsided and we were able to get some great photos.

Back in the jeep we headed to the base of Mt. Bromo. The ground was covered in thick ash and it made it very difficult to walk (last eruption was 2011). So we opted to ride horses nearly to the top and then climb the last few hundred meters by stairs. The smell of the sulfur was very strong making it hard to breathe. It didn't seem overly safe at the top. One slip and sayonara....into the smoke you would go, never to be seen again. We snapped some photos and took in the view...yet again, another spectacular moment. 2 volcano's in 2 days. Wow, we felt lucky and pretty proud of ourselves...even if we cheated a bit on the second one. :)

Not to impressed that he had to pose so close to the edge.

It took just over 10 hours to complete the journey from Mt. Bromo to Yogyakarta. That day we saw the sunrise and the sunset and when we arrived at 10pm, we were exhausted! The hotel had hot water. We hadn't had a hot shower for over a month!!!! We were so EXCITED!!! We spent 6 days in Yogyakarta. A few days recovering from the travel and hiking and a few exploring on a scooter. We navigated through the crazy roads with no street signs and a poor map and scooted our way 46km to Borobudur Temple. It is a Buddhist temple built over 1000 years ago. It has 7 levels and we walked every single one of them dressed in our traditional sarongs. It is really mind boggling trying to fathom how these old temples were built. Where did they get the supplies? How did the people end up there? How long did it take? What happened to the people that built it? One can spend a long time walking around pondering these questions.

 

The next day we went the other direction 17km, to see the Hindu temple Prambanan. It was also built in the 9th century but was completely different than what we had seen the day before. Composed of lots of temples instead of just 1 big one. The main temple towering much higher than the others still had a few Hindu god statues inside. Equally stunning, and completely different then Borobudur.

We decided to switch things up and take the train to Bandung. We had heard train travel through Java is good and this was true. We bought executive tickets which cost us $24 for both and settled in for the 8 hour ride. The seats were comfy, the air conditioner was a perfect temperature and the scenery was gorgeous. We kicked ourselves for not taking some photos along the way.

Getting off the train.

Starbucks employees think his name is "Dih"

Bandung is the 3rd largest city in Indonesia. We found our way around the city using the local angkot (minibus) but it was very confusing. We rented a car and driver to get to Tangkuban Perahu volcano just outside of the city. This volcano is one of the few in Indonesia that you can drive right up to the crater rim. Unfortunately for us, when we arrived at the top, the fog and clouds started rolling in. We had just enough time to snap a few photos before we could no longer see the crater.

Luckily, on the other side of the mountain you can climb down to Kawah Domas crater. We decided since we had saved the energy going up we would try climbing down. It was steep but we made it and it was so worth it. There were many spots that extremely hot steam was escaping through rocks and a few pools with bubbling water that you could soak your feet in. We decided to try, and yes it was hot, very hot!! Volcanic warmed water for a foot bath was just what the doctor ordered. We rubbed clay from the bottom of the pools on our feet and relaxed. It was really fun!

Poking out from behind the hot steam.

That water is HOT!

Bubbly volcanic mud pool.

That day we also visited an amusement park full of hot spring pools and then went to a floating market. It was a full day!

All these little boats sold food of all sorts...including cotton candy. 

The train ride to Bandung was so good that we decided to use that mode of transport again to get to Jakarta. We had heard from a few people that Jakarta was just a large, very busy city and that we didn't even need to spend a day there. The rumors were true. It is big. It does have lots of traffic. It is dirty. We did spend one full day there though. We stayed in "Old Town" and spent an afternoon at the sunday market, wandering around the square in between the old buildings. It was very busy and many young local people stopped us to practice their English. We had lots of conversations, answered lots of questions and had our picture taken multiple times. We also had some of the best chicken we have ever had from a street vendor. We may not have put enough energy into exploring this large capital city but we were happy and content with what we did see.

Us with a few of the locals after one of our many interviews.

Well used tuk-tuk.

In the end, luck can bring you a long way but not always as far as you had wished. We both agree that with a bit more planning we probably could have used our time in Indonesia more wisely. It's a good lesson to learn. So, when we arrived back in Bangkok to work on getting our Vietnam visa we planned ahead and got our Myanmar one as well. We had hoped to get our India one done to but little did we know, it takes 6-8 business days. We just didn't have enough time for that as we had to get on the road. On October 13th, Kelly's mom fly's in to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. It is so exciting that we get to share some of our adventure with family and can't wait until she gets here!!! We have a few days to spare before we need to be in Vietnam so we decided we would cross the border to Cambodia to see the sights of Angkor. Yes again!! Yes, they are just that amazing! We have 5 days to make our way north. Then the next chapter of our adventure begins...

Indonesian Currency.