The Mystery Tour and the War Museum

Around 11am, my Mystery Tour guide arrived to pick me up at my hostel on his motorbike. BT is in his late 30s and is a super jovial guy with pretty strong English skills. He told me I could drive the motorbike if I wanted. Drive a motorbike through the pot-holey dirt roads of Cambodia with no hospital in sight? Thanks but no thanks. The agenda for the Mystery Tour is that there is no agenda. Which at first can seem like a total scam, but it actually works out really well. The day's activities basically follow whichever way the wind blows.

That's not how you're supposed to eat it

Please don't kick my fish,
please don't kick my fish

It might look like a McDonald's hashbrown,
but I can assure your it's not. Actually, this
is Cambodia so I guess anything is possible.

The first thing we did was drive out to a market for some breakfast. This wasn't the typical touristy market though; this was where the locals go to shop and eat. It was pretty much what you would expect from a 3rd-world market: lots of fresh(ish?) meats / fish, some goods, some food. BT took me to a place to eat this... I'm not sure what it is called, but it's sort of like a thin pancake, closer to a crepe but not quite a crepe, and on top it's got some... vegetable-type things and you dip it into a sauce. It was surprisingly good, and dirt cheap, as I assume everything in this market is. For "dessert" he got me this palm fruit / rice thing wrapped in a banana leaf that was mildly sweet and really, really good.

Me trying to harvest some rice... probably the most
entertaining thing these people saw all day

With a full stomachs, we headed toward the next stop. Along the way, we passed by some rice fields. Before I left San Francisco, one the doctors who loaded me up with some vaccines told me very explicitly "don't visit any rice paddies while you're in Asia" for fear of contracting a rare but really awful disease called Japanese Encephalitis. Well... here we were so we decided to stop and check things out (sorry, Mom!). We saw some people harvesting the rice, so we went over to go talk to them. An interesting facet of this culture is the level of familiarity people exhibit toward one another. When BT approached these farm workers, he talked to them like he would old friends. He joked around with them. He asked them if I could try cutting some of the rice. They handed over their extremely sharp cutting tool and BT showed me how to do it (apparently, the way I was doing it almost certainly would have resulted in me chopping off a body part). I was so struck by their conversation that I asked BT if he knew them and he said no, he had never met them before. The people in Cambodia, overall, have been much friendlier than I experienced in Bangladesh and India.

Moooooove out of my way

We kept on making our way down the road. Much like in India, large mammals roam the streets here too.

Omnomnom trans-fatsssss

Out next stop was a Buddhist monastery. Monasteries are incredibly interesting from a cultural perspective. One of the first things we did when we got there was go to this fish pond. Monks believe that feeding these fish is good for your karma. BT had a couple of bags of chips that we tossed out one-by-one into the pond. I guess no one ever told these people that this type of food probably actually serves to kill these fish rather than help them.

Next we went to the cemetery on the grounds. It was incredibly ornate. And this wasn't even the most ornate monastic cemetery I'd seen.

Cemetery at the monastery

We continued to walk around the grounds of the monastery and BT told me a little bit about his history. It turns out that he himself has spent some time in a monastery growing up. He had some lofty dreams though. He left the monastery and went to go work somewhere. And then he started his own tour company. He also taught himself English and how to make a website and he used that to drive people to his business. His real goal is to make sure that all of the children from his village have the opportunity to be educated, in a way that he never really had for himself. Inspiring.

The buildings at the monastery are beautiful, both inside and out. I couldn't begin to tell you the significant of the designs or paintings, but I'm sure they all of their stories to tell.

There are huge murals on the inside of many of the buildings

...and the outsides of the buildings as well

Monks wear their traditional garb and sit on a elevated platform.
These kids obviously don't know what's up

Obligatory meditation pose photo

Watch out, pedestrians, cars, and small animals!

We probably spent around 30 minutes at the monastery. Over the course of the day I changed my mind about wanting to drive. I figured... I'm only here once, so make the most of it (sorry, Mom!). So I told BT that I wanted to try driving and he got really excited. I sat down in front, he hopped on behind, he showed me how to use the controls, and we were off! Driving the motorbike was AWESOME. The dirt roads definitely made for a pretty bumpy ride. Also... there were definitely times when I mixed up the gas and the brake (whoops!) and instead of slowing down into a pothole, I ended up speeding up into it. Yikes! But BT didn't care at all. In fact, he was totally excited about the whole thing. I'm pretty sure he didn't know the actual reason we were speeding up into potholes... I think he just thought I was being adventurous. I'll take it. We started off in an area with no cars, but quickly made our way back onto more populated roads. After about 10 minutes of driving, I was all set, so we switched back and BT drove us the rest of the way back to my hostel to drop me off.

Pina colada: it might not be authentic,
but it was still really good

Back at the hostel, I met up with IR and our other hostel friend JC and we headed out to lunch near Pub Street. We sat up on the second floor, overlooking the street below. It was a great view until it started pouring rain and the wind was blowing sideways so hard that our table was getting wet, so we had to move away from the open air area.

Afterward, we decided to grab a tuk tuk out to the War Museum. I had heard from some other people at the hostel that this place was a must-see, so I was glad to have a chance to see it. When we walked through the entrance to the open-air museum, we were greeted by a field of war tanks. Whoa.

Trees and cannons and tanks, oh my!

There is no fee for the tour guides at the War Museum, it's all tip-based. We got ourselves a tour guide and we were on our way. He seemed like a really interesting guy. There was something about him. He was soft-spoken, but there seemed to be this... pain inside of him. We soon found out why. It turns out that all of the tour guides here are war veterans.

The first place we went to was an enclosure that housed a shelf of huge, huge guns. I held an AK-47 for the first time. It was a lot heavier than I was expecting. But... I probably should have seen that coming. I also held a rocket launcher. Surprise: also heavy! Kind of crazy to be holding a real one. I'll refrain from putting a photo of me holding a large firearm on the web, thank you very much.

[Start aside] Before I go on with the rest of this description, I'd be remiss if I didn't share my thoughts on this place as a tourist attraction vs. the reality that lies underneath the attraction (a la my elephant ride in India). I certainly felt conflicted throughout this visit because, well, tanks and big guns are awesome! ...until you remember that these were all used to kill people. Lots and lots and lots and lots of people. Like... real people. Not in the movies. Real people with lives and jobs and families. The 10-year-old inside of me definitely wanted to be like "tanks go boom!" but the 20-something me definitely had to put a muzzle on that little guy for now. [End aside]

His helmet doesn't even fit him, I assume
because they don't make helmets in size
"too young to hold a gun"

Our tour guide told us bits of his story at each station. Even after so many years, the pain in his stories still felt fresh. I guess that kind of pain never really goes away. The same station had some war photos. One of the photos that struck me the most was one of a child soldier. I had heard about child soldiers before, but usually in the context of African wars and I never really internalized exactly what the concept of a "child soldier" really meant. But being here and being a little bit older gave these photos a sense of realness that I never saw before. I mean... children. Literally children. Carrying guns larger than they are. It's hard to imagine, even with the photo staring you in the face.

The next station housed grenades and landmines. The extend of my experience with grenades is:
1. Playing with grenade-shaped water balloons as a child
2. Throwing grenades in various Play Station games
3. Occasionally thinking that the country Grenada sounds like "grenade"

Exploded grenade

It turns out that grenades are filled with tons of little ball bearings that get fired out in every direction when a grenade explodes, kind of like if you had a gun that shot bullets in every direction at the same time.

Our tour guide showing us the wide range of landmines
used in the way by both sides

My experience with landmines was pretty similar to that with grenades, minus there being a country that sounds like the word "landmine." Unfortunately, our tour guide actually had some pretty intimate experience with land mines. One of his jobs in the war was to defuse landmines. One day a landmine that has been mistakenly thought of as dead exploded in his hand. I hadn't noticed until that moment when he showed us, but he was missing a few fingers. It turns out he also had a bunch of shrapnel blown into his body that he's slowly been saving up money to have removed little by little. He showed us a bump on his skin underneath which is the last piece he has left to remove. He says he only feels it sometimes, but that it still hurts. The cost to remove it is paltry by western standards (either in the tens or low hundreds of dollars) but it can take years to save up that much here. Fun not-so-fun fact: Exact information is hard to come by, but as of 2008, Cambodia still had an estimated 4-10 million active landmines; estimates vary from 10-100 years for when they'll be all be completely defused. Here, he also pointed out a photo on the wall of a friend of his that he lost during the war. I can only imagine how hard it must be to point out that photo for every tour group every day. He also shared with us that another one of his friends during the war had lost several of his limbs and that now he takes care of him because there's no one else that will. These stories, these photos, these artifacts, in one sense they make everything feel so real. So much more real compared to watching something on tv or learning about it in school. But in another sense, they're so extreme, so ridiculous, so far beyond what we (I) think of as within the realm of possibility, so real that they ironically start to feel... like just another story. Like none of this actually happened because it's impossible to imagine something so horrible actually happening to real people. This is the stuff that only happens in movies and then after two hours you get up and realize you're in a theater and the floors are sticky and careful, don't kick that cup on the ground because there might still be soda in it and I really need to pee and did I grab my jacket from the seat? Just like that.

You definitely don't want to
mess with these things

Up next were the rockets and bombs. There were a lot of them. In various bomb shapes and bomb sizes. It's always been difficult for me to comprehend the destructive power of something that look so small. One time in college my class too a field trip to the naval base in San Diego. While we were there, we got a tour of a nuclear submarine and I got to touch an actual could-be-used-to-start-world-war-3 nuclear warhead! The thing was the length of a pretty big room and about as wide as a horse. But still... when you think about the fact that a nuclear warhead can literally level an entire city, it's hard to believe that all of that power comes from something so... [relatively] small.

After the small arms, we got to go check out the tanks. And when I say check out the tanks I mean literally do whatever we wanted with them. No fences. No class. No ropes. Nothing. Did I climb inside of a tank? Yes. Did I climb on top for the tank and ride the main gun? You bet I did.

This is how you use this thing, right?

Hanging out with our tour guide

At the end of our tour, we posed for one last photo with our tour guide. As we were standing there saying our goodbyes to our tour guide, he noticed the shirt I was wearing. So... here's the thing: a few days ago when I was at one of the night markets in Phnom Penh, I wanted to buy a shirt, half out of necessity and half out of the want for a souvenir from Cambodia. So I found this awesome shirt that I really liked with a big map of Cambodia on the back and a funny backpacker-y tagline on the front that reads "I survived Cambodia". Fast forward to this morning: I have basically one clean shirt and it's this one so I put it on, not knowing that today I would end up going to a place called the War Museum and not knowing I would have a tour guide who fought in a war... in Cambodia. Fast forward to right now with our tour guide and he notices the tagline on my shirt and he very genuinely remarks "I like your shirt". The other woman working at the museum standing next to him, however, gives me the worst look of disgust I've ever seen. Cue the wave of shame that washes over me. I very sheepishly say thank you and goodbye, and the three of us head out.

On our way out, I realized that there was a helicopter and a fighter jet here too! Can we climb on those too?! Pshh, this is CAMBODIA, rules don't exist here. And sure enough, there was absolutely nothing and nobody to stop us from climbing all over them, safety risks aside (...sorry, Mom!).

I think she still flies. Wait, no there, just a giant hole where the cockpit should be.

This one however, definitely fl... wait, also a giant hole in place of the cockpit.

Of course I got the chocolatey-est thing on
the menu. Of course it was amazing.

Tonight was my last night in Siem Reap, so JC, IR, and I went out one more time. JC wanted something a little more Western, so we sat down at a pizza place. It was pretty good. Fairly standard pizza fare. But here's the crazy thing: there was ANOTHER Swensen's Ice Cream Shop next door! Apparently, Swensen's is actually pretty popular in the big cities here. So... obviously we had to have ice cream there. The funny thing is the menu is full of San Francisco references (e.g. one of the menu items is called the Coit Tower), but... clearly 0.1% of the population here actually understands what they mean.

Wanted: Fish masseuse.
Piranhas need not apply

After dinner we walked around for a while and decided to try out one of these "fish massages" that we've seen everywhere. You may have seen these occasionally in a mall in the U.S., but basically it's a tank of pretty small fish and you put your feet inside and the fish (warning: this sounds / is kind of gross) start nibbling at your feet. I've never done anything like this and I'm pretty ticklish but I figure I'm here so I might as well give it a shot. It's a pretty odd sensation. It doesn't hurt per say, it's just... weird. It turns out I'm definitely way too ticklish for it, so I didn't really get to enjoy it, but I stuck it out for the 20 or so minutes we were there.

Pub Street in all it's glory!

We had to make our way back to the hostel so I could catch my bus. The vast, vast majority of planes/trains/buses/taxis I've booked on this trip have been at most one or two days in advance. However, I knew what date I wanted to be in Thailand and I figured I'd only be in one city in Cambodia, so I booked my flight a week in advance. Turns out that was a mistake, because I only spent two days in Phnom Penh. So in coming to Siem Reap, I knew I'd have to make my way back down to Phnom Penh to catch my flight. So I'm taking a night bus to get down there. My taxi came and grabbed me from the hostel and took me down to the bus company.

A little while later, I boarded the bus. It's a sleeper bus so there aren't seats, just spaces where you lie down. It turns out... you don't have a private space to lie down. When I got to my compartment there was already a man lying down there. I'm literally spending the night on a bus sleeping about one inch away from a Cambodian stranger. Luckily, the man wasn't enormous, didn't smell, and seemed like a nice guy. We didn't really talk. I climbed into my side of the compartment, and almost immediately closed my eyes so I could get to sleep. It actually wasn't that bad, honestly. The bus was air conditioned. I had a window. And what do I care, it's only a few hours and then I'll be on my way. Goodnight and goodbye, Siem Reap!

CONTINUE ON to Siem Reap Part 4: Goodbye, Cambodia!