EAST TIMOR

Dili’s a city of palm trees and burnt out buildings, or rather building repaired but still looking burnt out. The schools in particular look like they were burnt just yesterday, but through the glassless windows students’ heads are bent over books. Mountains rise vertically up from Dili, and clouds pile apparently from sea level.

Small children abound everywhere, and when they get to secondary school age they seem to gather in groups on street corners or in the river bed to play bare-foot soccer on the tough pebbles. People are everywhere on the street, with limited schooling and 20% unemployment there’s nothing else to be doing, but in no way did it feel sinister as in Cambodia. Rather they were just watching, and were more than happy to engage in a conversation. My colleague and I tried, via mime mostly, to ask which palm leaves were used in the traditional huts. I think the Timorese translated it as “Are these palm-leaf huts made of palm leaves?”, which brought them amusement at least.

On our second day in Timor L’Este we travelled up the main mountain behind the city to Alieu. The mountain completely lived up to its seemingly vertical appearance from the ground by being actually vertical (or nearly) along the edges the road wound around. Looking down we saw green hills, small villages of single-room huts, the massive new presidential palace, Dili covered in a smoke-haze from the wood cooking and waste disposal, the grey waters, nearby islands, and stacks of clouds in many shades of grey.

We visited a number of small villages to ask about their shelter situation, always careful to talk to the chief first (thanks Tim), saw a traditional spirit house, and learnt about the ingenuity that poor people can show to make their lives a little better. The hills around us were so verdant abounded with fertility. Anything could be dropped into the ground and grow, yet there seemed to be little development of anything more than subsistence farming. The Indonesian destruction seems to have had a large hand in that by removing any security in land tenure for now. These people have spent 6 years just trying to get back to where they were before the vindictive bastards destroyed everything as one last fuck you to the Timorese.

In the late afternoon we had a meeting with the national disaster department. We began to explain why we were there, but were met with glazed looks, especially from the ‘UN special advisor’. After a couple of minutes she cut us off “I’m sorry, we’ve just come from a meeting in which we’ve been advised of a pending cyclone. I’ve got to, um…I’ve got to send an email!” We (from a disaster organisation) offered our help, which was studiously ignored. She left with a strong scent of panic trailing her, and the others followed too. Great, a disaster’s coming and those supposed to be dealing with it are in a state of panic.

The rest of our stay was full of meetings and checking out Dili. On our last night we took a drive around the bay to look back at Dili. Clouds seemed to come right down to the ocean, the light coming through was stained blue, bluer than I’ve ever seen. I’ll post some photos which look like they’ve been blue-stained, but that’s how it really was.

I left Dili wanting to come back. It felt like a place so close to coming good, in which a little help applied to the right places could really make a difference.

BALI, BLOODY TERRORISTS

Work’s taking me away to East Timor on an information gathering/report writing task. I’m supposed to investigate the post-emergency housing situation in East Timor – a topic on which I’m obviously an expert, yeh right. Anyway, it’s a trip away and a chance to see East Timor. Due to logistics I had to stop in Indonesia for a night either way – Bali on the way there, Jakarta on the way back.

We arrived in Jakarta first and had to get our visa. I presented my passport to the young looking official with spiked hair and bad facial hair. A Japanese tourist came back, pushed his passport back at the official and said “Why you give me 7 day, I paid for 30 day visa?” in a probably unitentially forceful tone.

The immigration guy flicked through passport, passed many visas. He slammed down the passport on the desk. “Can’t you read that visa Motherfucker!” he yelled. The Japanese guy picked up his passport, a short delay before he realised what he’d been called, and then he glared at the official. The young guy stood up, aggressively left the office ready to fight the Japanese. The other official jumped up, grabbed the young guy and told the Japanese to get going.

The young guy still had my passport on my desk, so I waited, not sure what to do. He came back, finished processing my visa and with hands shaking with anger stuck the visa label in, and I was off so quickly.

Arriving in the early evening my colleagues and I went for a walk around Bali/Denpasar city to get the lie of the land. We talked down the main strip, which is so heavily tourist-ised that it feels like every other tourist place on the planet, complete with the same brand name stores, same brand name knock-offs, and same tourist souveniour crap to buy.

We passed the monument commemorating the bombings where the Sari club used to be. I stopped, was quiet, and then moved on in the rain. I'd spoken to an Australian lady who had been living in Bali for 15 years on a plane the week before. We'd chatted nicely about lots of stuff, work, life in Bali, then touched on how things have changed. "I wish they'd kill all the terrorists" she said with seething vitriol. She'd been in the club when it was bombed. Everything had changed for her, she saw the world differently. I couldn't argue with her, and for her there was no room for mercy. I guess having met her brought the place to me stronger.

My colleague wanted to find a bar, TJ’s, that he’d been to on his last trip so we trudged around trying to locate it. Every few street corners we asked a local, and there were plenty of them sitting around, which way. After a dozen set of instructions, and by now winding through out third back alley, I asked my colleague when he’d been to the bar. “Sixteen years ago”. We eventually found it, and apparently it hadn’t changed a bit.

The waiter told a depressing story of a people still struggling to make ends meet after the bombing in 2002. Tourists hadn’t returned, and what we thought was a quiet night was actually the norm. People were losing their jobs or were having their shifts reduced, but there were no other jobs to move onto. They couldn’t leave, as “this is our home”, and besides no other country would let them move anyway. His wife had just lost her job, and they hoped to be able to keep their kids, aged 7 and 5, in school, but he wasn’t sure they’d be able to.

CLAIRE LEAVING

Claire left tonight. We caught a cab to the airport, got stuck on the highway for a hour getting into the drop off. Queues were outrageous, we spent 2 hours in checking in. Claire had to go quickly though passport control to make the plane. There was no sit, relax, think, talk before it was time to go. Just a big hug, and tears...

…It’s been nearly 2 weeks since she left now. It’s sad coming home to an empty apartment. Funny how the air conditioner now seems to be able to chill off the room, as it couldn’t while she was here. I’m glad of my busy trip away, and generally getting busy at work, to provide distractions. It makes me want to go home. We’ll see. I hope things will settle down again. We’ll see.

TONIC WATER

Bangkok has officially run out of tonic water. I think there’s been a terrorist attack on the processing plant, or something like that. Damn that Bin Laden…

Looks like Gin & Soda from here on in.

PHNOM PENH, POVERTY & DESPERATION

We checked into a hotel recommended by the Lonely Planet and then headed out around the town. The much talked of market turned out to sell nothing but garbage, the heat was oppressive, traffic bad, and moto-taxi drivers worse so we headed back to the hotel. It was then that we noticed that the room was hot, smelly and the bed was revolting. Put off we headed for a drink, it was only 5pm. By 7.30 we decided we couldn’t stay in the hotel that night, and that there wouldn’t be time to go to Sikhanouville as it would have meant 2 days travelling for 1 day on the beach, and we weren’t sure it was going to be a nice beach anyway.

The flights changed easily, and we managed to find a very nice hotel, though it was well outside our budget. We’d decided that we needed a refuge from Phnom Penh.

The town, and indeed all of Cambodia, had a desperate, poor edge to it. As you walk the streets you’re constantly yelled at “you need tuk-tuk”, “you want water” etc, and they don’t just take a ‘no’. They come back with another offer, ask if you’re sure, tell you they’ll come back later. There’s countless young children walking the streets trying to sell junk, all speaking perfect English, telling you they’re too poor to go to school, but buying what they’re selling won’t get them sent to school. After refusing one girl she told Claire “You’re pretty. You look like a doll.” No walk is pleasurable. Everything feels like a scam, and it’s all overpriced.

Hotels and restaurants feel dirty. We went to typical restaurant for lunch, and while waiting for our meal to arrive I spotted a rat eating the bread-offering to Buddha in the little shrine in the corner of the restaurant. Claire said they all had rats and we should just eat, she must have been hungry.

I guess I find it hard to say good things about Cambodia, outside of Angkor Wat. I did learn a lot from the boat ride though in terms of the way people can live, and what they choose to buy to improve their lives (1 – Mosquito Net, 2 – Tin Roof, 3 – TV), and highlighted to me that development planning can’t work, especially if you don’t get out of an office.

The people didn’t come across as nice, rather desperate and exploitive. The cities were OK. Oh, nearly forgot, we got to have nice breads and pastries that Thailand doesn’t have.

I guess it was a learning experience, but not an ‘enjoyable’ trip.

PS The Lonely Planet's advice on Cambodia was total garbage
PPS Phnom Penh never looked as good as it does in the photo above

TUOL SLENG & THE KILLING FIELDS

In Phnom Penh we went to see Tuol Sleng and the killing fields – the torture prison and one of the execution fields of the Khmer Rouge. Apparently 12,000 people went into Tuol Sleng in 4 years, men, women, children, old, young, westerners, less than a dozen of them were able to tell the story.

The secondary school-torture facility-museum tells the story of the program, including relatives stories of those taken, recounts by former guards and stories of their return to life, mugshots of those brought to Tuol Sleng, and many of the torture devices used. The silence of the place is striking, some visitors were in tears. Running the program seems so simple, but also completely at random. It didn’t matter if you were in the Khmer Rouge or not, there was no mandated target. More like the Stalin era killings than the holocaust. Not that it really matters.

The Killing Fields, now just a grassy field with depressions labelled “Mass Grave: 706 people”, though they don’t look big enough to hold the numbers on signs, I guess it all depends on the depth. On sign points to a tree saying “Tree used to kill children”, and my mind remembered a painting at Tuol Sleng of soldiers swinging an infant against a tree.

In amongst the pictures of those executed is one of an Australian victim, he looks about 30, curly brown hair, strong jaw, a confident interrogative look in his eye and a big, polka dotted collar. I can only assume he was a foreign correspondent, he has that look. It’s that picture I connected most with, and can only imagine he thought he’d get out of it alive, without being tortured because he was a westerner, a journalist, an observer, but he didn’t.

TRAVEL TO PHOMN PENH

We decided to take a boat down the Tong Le Sap river rather than the 6 hour bus ride to Phomn Pehn.

The day began at 6am when the brand new Landcruiser stopped at the hostel to pick us up for the trip to the boat, the trip was looking comfortable. The driver took us just around the corner and dropped us off at the first minibus imported into Cambodia, and we boarded with the other tourists for the real, 45min, ride to the boat. The bus travelled, very bumpily, along a pot-holed dirt road in the middle of nowhere to the river. The blood red sun came up over empty, water-logged fields that I assumed must have grown rice as we bounced along.

We passed through a tiny town, no more than a single row of huts, clinging to the roadside and it’s inhabitants to existence. Most of the huts were a single room on stilts made of banana-tree fronds. There were no trees insight so the fronds must have been carried there by the residents. Some houses had corrugated iron for roofs, which would help with the rain but I’m not sure about the lightning in the rainy season. Through a few open doors I was able to glance mosquito nets. They must have eked their existence out of the fields around, but I don’t know how. If the road were paved we would have been through the town in a flash.

Before too long we came upon another town of huts, after a little while all the huts had metal roofs, then they were two deep alongside the road. Further along TV antennas began to stick out of most houses, and large TV’s and DVD players could be seen through the open doors. As we drove along, Cambodians tried to sell us food and water through the windows of the car. Then the small market, and finally the river edge. We left the bus and were mobbed by people wanting to sell us bread, cheese, bananas or water for “only $1”. That’s 1 US Dollar – or about 3 the times the price of the same items in Thailand.

The bus driver directed us to a flat bottomed boat, already loaded with 50 tourists, and no toilet insight. “That’s not what the boat looked like in the photo” by brain reacted, afraid of having to spend 6 hours on the cramped boat. “This one?” I asked. “Go to big boat.” Phew.

We took the small boat 30 mins down a small river towards the Tong Le Sap. Along the edges were villages built out onto the water. The school houses floated, as did the basketball court. School children boated to school in their uniforms all around us, small boats containing 4 or 5 primary-aged children, no adults. Most waved, one cried when his uniform got water splashed on it.

Finally we got to the large speed boat that would take us to Phnom Penh. The bags were loaded onto the main boat by the crew, though I kept a keen eye to ensure they went on. We found seats and settled in. “Hey you give me a tip”, said one of the staff. “What?”. “We loaded your bags, you give us tip”. “But I didn’t ask you to, I’d have done it myself.” He just looked at me, didn’t move. Claire somehow conveyed silently to me to just pay. “Fine, here’s dollar”. “No, 1 bag 1 dollar. 2 bags 2 dollar.” “No way, 1 dollar’s enough.” Again, standing, staring. To get rid of him, and out of fear that my our bags would take a swim I gave him another dollar and the scam artist left.

The ride, 5.5 hours, was smooth and we spent most of our time below deck trying to sleep with the occasional breath of fresh air on the rooftop. The closer we got to Phnom Penh the more developed the view from the river became. It felt like we’d taken a potted tour of Cambodian economic delivery from banana-leaf huts to metropolitan centre.
At Phnom Penh we were mobbed by taxi drivers who wouldn’t take no for an answer, but after grabbing our bags we made a dash for it to a café and managed to shake them.

OTHER ANGKOR TEMPLES

ANGKOR WAT

Claire and I flew to Cambodia today with a plan to see the Angkor temples, get to Phnom Penh and down to Sikhanouville beach in the south.

We arrived in Siem Reap (the town nearest the temples) late into the evening and received our passports checked and visas issued from a cheery immigration official, before they were then inspected at a second counter 5m’s away by a stone-faced immigration official.

We checked into the Shadow of Angkor hotel, run it seemed by a 12 year old straight out of a “The-Devil’s-Possessed-My-Son” movie. On our second day we approached him to ask about the boat trip to Phnom Penh “Please, sit down, sit” he said in a controlling voice. He waved us to a seat and listened to us, his hands joined, pointing up like a temple just under his chin. I was waiting for him to click his fingers and for goons to grab us – it was as if he’d copied his deportment from Brando in the godfather. Anyway…

The temples were spectacular (very original James), and I’m just going to attach photo’s rather than try to describe them. What got me the most was the combination of size and detail – massive complexes of sandstone and on nearly every surface complex carvings.

We visited Angkor Wat twice (and 8 other temples once) over the two days we were there. On our second trip, a Monday afternoon, we got lucky and spent 3 hours with very few people there. There were a few families of Cambodians around – they’d come to pray (Angkor is still an active spiritual site for them), and while the adults played the children mucked around together. There were also a few groups of teenage boys who’d come to the temple to hang out together and watch girls, they had the same attitude as kids hanging out at the shopping mall back home. Their parents probably thought they were so pious. It was great to be amongst them and see that the temples were just a part, and a functional part, of their everyday life.

Claire and I tuk-tuk’d around the temples after hearing horror stories of broken down temples, and on the second day covered about 100kms getting to a few temples (on of which, Banteay Samre was one of my favourites) that a lot of people don’t go to. As we tooled around we took in a few small towns and saw that there was really a lot of nothing out there. If I had my arm around Claire when a car or truck went passed the passengers would stare at us, which is uncomfortable given trucks carry 10-12 workers in the back are common place. When we sat side-by-side we were ignored.

CHANG MAI

Claire & I headed to Chang Mai for three days to take in the sights of Thailand’s second city. Upon arrival I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d arrived in Ballarat. Albeit a Ballarat full of Wats, Monks and Song Taew’s (truck taxis).

On the first day we took a tour around the Thai craft factory/shops that thrive in Chang Mai. It seems that most of the ‘Thai craft’ products are made in Chang Mai and then shipped around Thailand, explaining the constant reoccurring nature of some crap products. Anyway, the factories had some really beautiful stuff, and we got to see the craftsmen making traditional Thai silver products which was great for Claire, and you should have seen the look of enrapture meant as she got to go tappa-tappa on a ‘try yourself’ silver pot. I never thought that tapping shapes into a bit of silver could make someone look so happy. After a long time tapping the silver, in which time a queue of other tourists built, we moved on.

On the second day, after a really long sleep in, we headed out to see a couple of the Wats (temples). We flagged down a song taew in town, sitting next to the driver was an elderly monk. I said “please take us to Wat Umong” in Thai, to which the driver looked blank. The monk lent across to him and said “Wat Umooung”, the driver got it and we were on our way. The driver gave me his number to pick us up from Wat Umong, which was about 20mins out of time.

Wat Umong’s main feature is a series of underground tunnels that were used by/to hide a former monk who was a favourite of the king in his time but who went a bit troppo. To save the embarrassment of ‘retiring’ him, the locals built the tunnels for him to walk/preach/rant about in.

I called the song taew driver to come pick us up, to which he replied “I’ll be there in 30mins”. Shit. We sat down to wait, when out of the blue a song taew turned up and the same elderly monk hopped out of it. Saying thanks for our guardian monk we hopped in the truck and were on the way to the main temple, Wat Doi Su Tep.

Wat Doi Su Tep is located on top of the hill over looking Chang Mai. After ascending the hill, through beautiful forest, there’s a 306 step climb to the temple itself. It’s all gold, Buddha and wall paintings. Thankfully we managed to time our arrival between tour buses so it was relatively uncrowded. Legend has it that the local king placed a Buddha relic on top of a white elephant, which then set of under it’s own will to find the site of the new temple. It walked to the top of the hill, and then expired after fulfilling it’s duty. I can just see the town’s folk following it, quietly hoping that it would stop, but dutifully following the will of the elephant. Thanks to that white elephant there’s now a long trip up the hill to the temple, but a very peaceful and beautiful atmosphere surrounding it.

GUARDIAN MONKS: 1, or
MONKS STALKING US: 1

CHANG MAI PHOTOS

CHATTACHUK

For Christmas I took Claire home a number of dresses, necklaces and other pretty things from Chattachuk market. As mum put it last week, “I thought you’d shopped out Thailand for Claire”, but I’ve since learnt I haven’t. We’ve been twice, and come home with sore, burdened arms on both occasions. I think it’s good of Claire to do her best for the local merchants.

The market has a ring-road running around it, on which many ‘performers’ busk. They’re usually musical acts, but on this occasion we spotted a couple of young boys who one day may be the stars of a Khatoey act.