Vietnam/Cambodia

Family and Friends,
I had a great time in both Vietnam and Cambodia. I wish that I could have spent more time in both places because I feel like I only scratched the surface. I spent my first day in Ho Chi Minh City and did a Semester at Sea trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The Viet Cong used the tunnels during the wars against both the French and the Americans, and it was interesting to see the tactics that the opposing side used during the war. They were very crafty and smart with the techniques that they used, and even though they didn’t have a lot of money, they used their knowledge of the area to create the elaborate tunnel system that helped them fight off the French and the Americans. It was a bit of a tourist trap but it was informational and effectively showed how some of the Vietnamese soldiers lived during the war.
The second morning I was off to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. I was placed in the parent’s trip, which was fun because not only did I get to meet new people, I got to meet their parents as well. We spent the afternoon touring the imperial grounds within the city and visiting an art museum. As the sun was setting we boarded a boat and floated down the Mekong River. While on the boat we saw a floating village, which is just that, a village of small homes that float on the river away from the surrounding communities because the people who live there are actually Chinese and not allowed to be in the country. The most special part of the day though was our visit to an orphanage that evening. As with every other country where I have done something with children, they were all very excited to have visitors and they brightened everyone’s day. When I got there, a little boy jumped in to my arms and didn’t leave me side for the entire time I was there. The orphanage where they live is run by private donations and over 100 children live and go to school there. We got there after it was dark, and there were no lights on, but the kids wanted to play anyways so we played on the swing-sets and played soccer with them, and once again it was hard to leave them behind knowing the hard lives that they will have to face.
My experience the following morning affected me more than probably anything I have ever seen. In the morning I went to one of the killing fields where Cambodians were ruthlessly murdered by their fellow countrymen in the late 1970’s. A political party called the Khmer Rouge and its leader Pol. Pot. came into power in 1975 and sparked the mass killings that ensued. The field that I visited was used simply as a place to murder people after they had either given a confession of being a spy working for another country or refused to give one. Over 9,800 people, women and children included, had been murdered and buried in the field. I walked around the area and read the signs that described the details of the massacre, which I will leave out of my blog but I would more than willing to talk with anyone about when I get home. The area was still littered with bones and clothes from the victims, and all of the mass graves have been left as open holes, as if to symbolize the loss of such a large percentage of the population. After four years of genocide, 1,700,000 people, 25% of the country was dead. Perhaps the most affecting part of the killing fields was the building in the center that has been erected in remembrance of the victims. The building is about 4 stories high, with 17 levels from top to bottom filled with the skulls of the excavated bodies. It’s one thing to hear the numbers of people that were killed, but to see the numbers in such a raw form was shocking and disturbing. After leaving the field I traveled to a former prison and interrogation center that has been converted into a genocide museum. It showed the horrific conditions that the people were kept in and depicted the ways that prisoners were interrogated and tortured. The museum also has a collection of hundreds of mug-shot style photos of the prisoners that were taken right before they were either tortured or taken to the killing fields to be executed. I don’t know if there is something more profound or affecting than a person’s eyes, and these pictures proved that. Just by looking into the eyes of all of these people, I could see that they had given up hope, they were already dead inside. I could do nothing more than to walk around and shake my head in disbelief that something like this occurred thirty years ago. Violence, hate and destruction of that kind is almost incomprehensible, one would think that the people of the world would learn from the mistakes of the past and learn from them, but these types of things are still going on today in different places around the world.
The entire morning was obviously emotionally draining, and I spent the rest of the day traveling to Siem Reap, another city in Cambodia to visit the temples of Angkor Wat. The Angkor Wat temple complex is the largest religious site in the world. It is more than 400 square kilometers and holds 292 temples. The most recognizable temple is the main temple at Angkor Wat and if all goes well then I should be able to post a picture of it on the blog. I woke up for to see it at sunrise, and it was definitely worth the lack of sleep. I took some of my best pictures from the entire trip during the perfect sunrise that rose directly behind the temple. After the sun came up, I spent the rest of the day going to other temples in the complex. I was surprised at the amount of people that were there to see all of them, but when I was finished with the day I understood why they were all there. The temples are essentially temple ruins, most of them were built in the 12th century and they are now covered in moss, which makes them a beautiful contrast of grey stone and emerald green. My favorite temple from the day was one that was in the movie Tomb Raider, and there are 52 giant faces carved into the stone. It’s hard to explain exactly how they look, but they are so big, and every piece of stone was hand made, so each face is unique. I felt like I was at an amusement park or in a movie the entire time I was in the temple ruins because they looked so surreal. I think the pictures that I took are nice, but they don’t do it the same justice as being there in person. After an entire day of temple hopping I flew back to Ho Chi Minh City for my last day in port.
I visited the Vietnam War Remnants Museum the last day in port, and it was another experience that was much different than anything I had ever done before. The museum’s main building was full of stories of civilians who had been affected by the war. There were photos of Agent Orange babies, napalm victims, and the victims of some of the atrocities committed by the American troops. It was a new experience for me to see a museum from the other side. All of the photographs made me think about all of the wars that happen in the world and ask myself why they continue when they bring out the worst in people. It also showed me that terrible things happen from both sides of the spectrum, and the bad things that you hear about are relative to the country in which you live. The museum was probably the most worthwhile thing I did in Vietnam. The rest of the day I spent cruising around the streets of the city on a scooter. Vietnam is full of scooters; literally hundreds of scooters will stop at every red light. It makes everything seem very hectic in the city, but I think I got used to it pretty quickly. As far as poverty goes, Vietnam and Cambodia have poor people just like India does, but the poverty is not nearly as widespread or as visible in the cities. To see the extreme poverty you see everywhere in India you usually have to go to the rural areas. The two countries are very similar to each other, I would actually call Cambodia a more quiet and rural version of Vietnam. I really loved my time in both of the countries and they are both places that I would absolutely want to explore further in the future if I ever get the chance.
I hope everyone is doing well back at home. I know everyone in my family has a heavy heart right now because of the death of our beloved dog Pip. He was a great pup and we will all miss his presence around the house. I will be in Hong Kong tomorrow, and then the next four days I will spend in Beijing on a trip with some of my best friends on the ship, which I know will be a great time. And until my next post, good night and good luck…

Conor