LLWorldTour

As I’ve traveled around the world over the last several months, I’ve definitely logged quite a few hours transporting myself from one place to another. And of course a lot of this time is spent waiting…at the airport.

Most of these international oases, I’ve been to are fine and give you the ordinary standards—restaurants, duty-free shopping (“I like to stop at the duty-free shop”), and uncomfortable chairs. But Changi Airport in Singapore was, by far, the best airport I’ve ever been to, not only on this world tour, but in my entire life. Now, granted I was there from about 2:30am to 5:30am when my flight to Dubai departed, so, of course, it was nice and quiet. But one of the first things I noticed was most of the airport was up and running like it was the middle of the day. Many times I’ve had odd flight times and get to an airport to find there is no where to eat because everything is closed up. Not here. Nearly all the restaurants and food courts are 24 hours. And there is an amazing selection of food. There are also free internet stations all over the place—they have more than 300 terminals where you can log on and check your email to say that last goodbye to that special someone before you take to the skies. For gamers, there are free Xbox terminals. There are plasma screens scattered everywhere with sports channels, news channels, and movie channels to watch while you wait. But wait, it gets better–each screen is set up like a home theater has with big comfy chairs grouped around it and each chair comes with it’s own set of speakers built in. I would just come to this airport to hang out and relax! Some of the bars have live bands performing. And if you have a longer layover or delay there’s a rooftop pool, a Jacuzzi, a spa, massages, and even ‘nap areas’ where you can doze off and not sleep in metal chairs like I had previously in an airport awhile back in South America. When you wake up, you can work out in the fitness center, take a shower, and be fresh and ready to go for your flight. There is even an actual movie theater where you can sit back and enjoy the latest flick—for free! Besides all this, the airport is clean, modern, and beautifully designed. Leave it to Singapore.

“We are now boarding all rows on the Gulf Air flight to Dubai.”

Oops, final boarding call! Sadly I have to leave this airport. I never thought I’d say that.

Just south across Singapore’s harbor is the beachy-island getaway of Sentosa. Locals come over on weekends to have some fun and sun. You can get across on a ferry, cable car, or I took the new Sentosa Express monorail. In less than five minutes I was out of the city center and on an island paradise. It’s an idyllic resort island with beautiful white sand beaches, resorts, bars, and fun attractions for the whole family. Admission to the island is just $3 and that also gives you free rides on Sentosa’s trams and buses. I actually walked the length of the whole island, but the tram is nice to get you from one end to the other.

For a Sunday and for a big city like Singapore, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the ‘less than crowded’ beaches that I found. After recently being in Thailand where it was packed sweaty butt to butt, this was a nice change of pace. Plus, as expected, everything was squeaky clean and had that perfect landscaped, brick pavers, Disney kind of shine.

Here, Asia’s tallest observatory tower, the sky tower, shoots up 131 meters above sea level to give you amazing 360 degree views of the Singapore skyline and harbor. I walked up a hill just past the tower and decided to take the luge cart ride down. I haven’t done this since the Alpine Slide at Action Park in New Jersey. It was a fun ride down a curvy lane in a plastic sled with wheels.

Once at the bottom, I paid a visit to Underwater World. For $15 you get to walk through a 100 meter long acrylic tunnel that snakes through two large underwater tanks where sharks dart all around you, stingrays laugh at you, and immensely huge tropical fish flit about. It was pretty cool to see, but the smelly tourists crowding through the lukewarm tunnel was another story.

I was amazed at all the man-made beaches here which were originally created all by imported white sand. I ended up hanging out at KM8, one of the few cool outdoor bars here and took in the warm sunset over the South China Sea where, of course, several bridal couples were posing for their ‘perfect’ wedding day photos.

Welcome to Singapore. Now, don’t pee, spit, pick the flowers, feed the birds, smoke, jaywalk, eat on the train, or even think about chewing gum. This is certainly not a good market for Wrigley Chewing Gum. Locals refer to it as “Fine City” thanks to the government’s strict and often debated “soft authoritarianism” policies including definite fines or even death for these and other horrendous “crimes.” The deterrent strategy has definitely worked for this city-state as crime is virtually non-existent, unemployment is very low, and the average person owns a home thanks to the government subsidized housing for everyone married or single and over the age of thirty-five.

The “Lion City” is possibly the most efficient, cleanest city on Earth. Okay, well maybe it’s not as eerily perfect as Main Street, USA in Disney World, but it’s awfully close. The sidewalks gleam, the traffic flows quietly through perfectly planned thoroughfares, and this eerie utopia is strangely not crowded like most other metropolises its size that I’ve visited. But at the same time, it does lack that ‘rough edged,’ old-world personality of other Asian cities. Singapore is also a huge crossroads of cultures. There are nearly four million permanent residents living side by side–Chinese, Malay, Indians, Arabs, live together in what appears to be perfect harmony in this former British Colony. I strolled through the colorful and lively enclaves of Little India, Chinatown, and the Arab Quarter taking in the sights and smells and tasty foods of each. Long before the Europeans arrived, Arab traders plied the coastlines of the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia, bringing with them the teachings of Islam. Indians have been part of Singapore’s development from the beginning. Although Singapore was administered by the East India Company, headquartered in Calcutta, Indian convicts were sent here to serve their time. These convicts left an indelible mark on the city, reclaiming land from swampy marshes and constructing a great deal of the infrastructure and buildings. The enlightened penal program permitted convicts to study a trade of their choice in the evenings. Many, on gaining their freedom, chose to stay in Singapore. Other Indians came freely to seek their fortunes as clerks, traders, teachers, and moneylenders. As I walked along Serangoon Road in Little India, my senses were overwhelmed by the fragrances of curry powders and perfumes, by high-pitched Indian music, by jewelry shops selling gold, and stands selling garlands of flowers.

Back in 1819, Britain’s Sir Stamford Raffles first set up a trading post here and began to develop the city…and today Singapore has the world’s busiest container port (as far as total tons). It’s only been 40 years since Singapore gained full independence from Malaysia and yet this former backwater fishing village has progressed in record time. The British fingerprint is still everywhere. Beautiful Victorian buildings line the streets and English is the norm and is one of the official languages. In fact everything is so “English” that at times I feel like I’m in an American city. There is even a local dialect known as Singlish. It’s mostly English with some rapid Chinese and Malay thrown in for spice. The most noticeable thing in the “Singlish” language is how locals add the suffix, “lah” onto everything.

“Want to eat lah?”

“Let’s go lah!”

“Your feet stink, lah.”

The city grew from nothing to become the ultra efficient, ultra modern metropolis that it is today.
Singapore is the seventeenth smallest country in the world. It’s 42 kilometers wide from east to west and just 23 north to south. But, as we know, good things come in small packages. So it’s no surprise they are currently building the world’s biggest Ferris Wheel (a Chicago original, of course. For you non-Chicagoans—that’s where the first ever Ferris wheel was built, during the Columbian Expo of 1894, but back to Singapore…) and also the world’s first and largest floating stage. Made of lightweight steel that floats on water, the stage will be about the size of a soccer field. A huge building boom is also underway on the city’s harbor front. A Sands Casino, several condominium buildings, large, green parkland, and virtually a whole ‘city within a city’ is being built at Marina Bay as I write this.

Their subway system is super clean with amazingly efficient service. Anytime I took the train, I never waited more than four minutes for it to arrive. The trains are spotless and bright and even have video screens inside. The show I liked the most was a “terrorism awareness” video that looped while I rode to my destination. It was reminding us passengers of the recent train bombings in London, Madrid, and Mumbai and asking us to be vigilant in noticing any odd behavior or odd bags on board. I have to say I quite like the ‘frankness’ of the Singaporean government. They certainly don’t beat around the bush. There are signs posted everywhere telling you how it is. If you Litter? Bam! $1000 fine. If you sell drugs? Bam! Death. They mean business…and ya know what? It works. I’ve never felt safer.

Orchard Road is Singapore’s answer to Fifth Avenue in New York City or Michigan Avenue in Chicago. It is lined with shopping mall after shopping mall with all the names—Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and of course, Starbucks. Here tourists scurry about buying things they can undoubtedly also get at home…all part of the vacation experience, I guess. I can never fit anything extra in my bag…so I just browse.

One of my favorite parts of the city is Clarke Quay. I was lucky enough to meet another local here. My good friend, Joro, from Chicago (who also caught up with me in Melbourne while on a business trip—pretty cool to see your friends on the other side of the world), connected me with his friend and co-worker, Haroon, who is originally from Dubai, but grew up here in Singapore. Haroon took me out to Clarke Quay, the outdoor/indoor entertainment complex on the Singapore River with huge overhead ‘umbrellas’ that protect you from the elements and also keep you cool with outdoor air conditioning as you party the night away. Every place is another cool club or hip bar. And, in Singapore style, there are maps guiding your around this party zone helping you find your drunken way to the next bar. We danced to house music at the “Ministry of Sound” and hip-hop at “Attica.” We met up with two Russian girlfriends of his and ended up dancing and partying until the wee hours when of course we stopped off at the ‘world’s favorite drunk food stop,’ McDonald’s. Well, I haven’t seen any IHOPS here. It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized beers in Singapore cost $10 each. Ouch. I’m not in Vietnam anymore.

The next night I took a “red lantern” tour. The name of the tour is a slight play on words since they took us to the Red Light District. I guess since it’s the “oldest profession” they used to do it by lantern light, right? In this area, known as Geylang, prostitution is legal and the ‘legal’ girls are registered and have cards and belong to reputable brothels…and then all the ‘illegal’ girls are just not. It was quite interesting…gaggles of girls were dressed in their Sunday worst—short skirts, cleavage baring tank tops, and lots of bangles–lined up on the side streets just waiting for an offer. And there was no shortage of clients either—mostly foreign immigrant workers—shopping around for their pick. And, of course in that Singapore efficient-fashion, the girls are organized in sections arranged by their background—Chinese Girls on the first few blocks, then the Indonesian Girls, and then Malay girls…so you can go straight to the area of the ethnicity of your choice…or try a new one each night!

Well, for the third time on my world tour, I’m celebrating a “New Year.” First it was the Roman calendar’s January 1^st in Australia. Then it was the lunar New Year in Hong Kong (Kung Hei Fat Choi!) and Tet (Chuc Mong Na Moi!) inVietnam in mid-February. Now, in Thailand (as well as Cambodia, Laos, and Burma) it’s the solar New Year—Songkran. Traditionally it is celebrated when the sun enters the zodiac sign of Aries, but it is in fact the celebration of the vernal equinox. Up until 1940, this was the official New Years holiday in Thailand. Nowadays it is just tradition, though, as they too celebrate New Years Day on January 1^st.

Traditionally, during the afternoon of the 13th, Buddha statues were bathed as part of the ceremony. Young people pour scented water into the hands of elders and parents as a mark of respect while. But now, it seems everyone takes to the streets in a complete water gun fight and super splash-down.

The Thai people celebrate this festival with water. Everyone gets soaking wet and since it is the hottest season of the year (temperatures can rise to over 100°F or 40°C on some days), the custom is quite refreshing. People roam the streets with bowls of water, water guns or even a garden hose, and drench each other and passersby.

And, of course, in tourist-filled places like Phi Phi it has become quite a wet and wild tradition. On my way back from the port and my tour of the islands, it was a good thing I was wearing a bathing suit because I got soaked. So what did I do? Punched a hole in the top of my water bottle and retaliated, of course!

After a few days in Phuket, I hopped aboard a two hour ferry to the beautiful limestone-cliffed island of Phi Phi (yes, pronounced pee-pee). This area is also just now bouncing back from the 2004 Tsunami that virtually destroyed nearly every standing structure on this island. It’s actually quite beautiful here once you get past all the tourists and ramshackle shops blocking the view. Here jagged cliffs plunge dramatically into the crystal blue waters of the Andaman Sea. The curving bays of white sand beaches are just about the epitome of the ‘perfect beach.’ This of course, was confirmed by the movie, “The Beach,” that was also filmed here.

I took a one day boat tour that took me and about thirty other passengers to Phi Phi Ley, the island right next door. Here was the famous Maya Beach where the Leonardo DiCaprio bore his fine chest in the film (based on Alex Garland’s novel of the same name) and cemented Phi Phi’s road to over tourism. So, as a result the beach wasn’t as secretive and deserted like it was in the movie. Today dozens of boats stopped here so snap happy tourists could have a ‘look see’ and take some photos. It was still a gorgeous cliff-rimmed cove, but the tiny beach was just too crowded. We snorkeled around Maya Bay and several sights around these islands. I have to say that I saw more sea life here than I did at the Great Barrier Reef off of Australia. The waters here are crystal clear and teeming with all kinds of tropical fish, sea cucumbers, coral, sharks, and sea urchins.

We also got to kayak around the bay and stop off at a little cove they call “Monkey Beach.” Why? Crazily enough there are monkeys here! Doing all their monkey things—stealing people’s water bottles, eating bananas (yup), and yes, even having hot monkey-sex right in front of the gawking, voyeuristic tourists. It was a quick but good show. It was like the “Red Light District” of Monkey-town. I think the monkeys like to be watched. Maybe they were hoping for a tip. They may not “see, hear, or speak evil” but the little buggers certainly do some evil.

So, lying around Kata Beach in Phuket, I didn’t really do much of anything, but enjoy my sweet room and lay by the pool and the beach. I also took advantage of the cheap spas and got a little pampering. Well, for any girl out there who’s had a bikini wax…I would say that ‘pampering’ is NOT the first word that really comes to mind…perhaps ‘torturing’ is a better descriptor. I wandered over to the many small local ‘spas’ lining the narrow alleyesque pedestrian streets here. They aren’t exactly how we define ‘spa’ back home. These places are simply storefront rooms with body-length cushions on the floor separated by curtains and if you’re lucky there’s a/c or at least some oscillating fans. The place I popped into actually surprised me. They cranked the A/C for me, turned on some Thai-pop tunes and even lit little candles. And not to get too graphic here, but this $12 wax was way better than any $40 job I’d had back in Chicago. It hurt less and she was way more, ahem, thorough.

Since I really liked the people and the vibe here, I decided to stick around for an hour long $7 Thai massage. My massage therapist was Momo, a big, gay Thai guy with highlighted hair tips and black-framed glasses. He was a blast and we talked about which of my American friends I could fix him up with since he said his body ‘too fat’ (by Asian standards) for Asian guys. It was funny because he was probably about the average size of most American men. He wasn’t into Asian guys anyway, and more wanted a nice, white, pasty westerner.

After the relaxing massage, I stuck around to chat with Momo and the other girls at the spa and helped them hawk other customers on the street.

“Hello. Massage?” “Hello. Pedicure for you today?”

It was fun to be on this side of the ‘hawkfest’ for once.

I shared some of the photos on my laptop from my trip so far, but Momo was only interested in seeing pics of guys. I didn’t have too many, but showed him any guy I’d met along the way. Of course he thought my ex-boyfriend was quite handsome, but I assured him that Andy is not gay. Unless things have changed drastically since I left.

After a hectic and tiring month cycling through Vietnam and then schlepping through the scorching 100+ temps of the Cambodian countryside, it was time for another ‘vacation from my travels.” I mean I hadn’t really had a ‘vacation’ since January when I beached in Australia for a week (sorry, kick me now). So…I jetted down to Phuket Island, one of Thailand’s prime beach destinations and the jump off point to many island getaways.

I stayed at the lovely Kata Poolside Resort near Kata Beach, supposedly a slightly less-crowded beach than the ever popular Pathong area. My room was a fabulous oasis of modern calm with a huge white-linened king size platform bed and balcony overlooking swaying palms and the outdoor lobby’s fountain. Ahhhh, serenity now. Well, maybe not. There was a sound in the air that I found utterly annoying. Besides the fact that the town was overrun by tourists, they all looked and sounded the same. I am surrounded by blond, blue-eyed people. What? Obviously they are not local Thais. They are Scandinavians. It turns out that these island hot spots are very popular tourist destinations of Swedes. I’m usually the only American at many places I’ve visited and often am the only blue-eyed person in a sea of native Asians, but here at the hotel pool, I was practically the only one not here for the “Ikea convention.”

Phuket and more specifically Kata Beach was just gorgeous. Well, it was until 2004 when the famous tsunami ravaged the place. On December 26, 2004, the second largest earthquake in recorded history erupted on the floor of the Indian Ocean. The 9.3 magnitude quake triggered a series of horrific and deadly tsunamis that claimed nearly 300, 000 lives in the countries along the Indian Ocean rim.

In Thailand alone, five thousand people were confirmed dead and 3000 more were reported missing. About half of the victims were Thai citizens and the other half were tourists. It turns out the majority of these tourists were from Sweden. It’s actually pretty cool–the Swedish Governement has encouraged it’s citizens to return and pump some much needed cash back into the place.

After the old, dusty cities of Hanoi, Saigon, and Phnom Penh, driving into Bangkok was not at all what I expected. Modern Glass and steel buildings scraped the sky. There were big roads, big billboards and big cars—Mercedes and booming low rider trucks. It felt more like we were driving into Manhattan from the Bronx.

From the distance and vantage point of our air-conditioned ghetto blaster minivan complete with gold mirrored interior and a DVD player, the city seemed more modern than anything I’d seen since Hong Kong. Bangkok seemed to teeter on the edge of old and new, hip and traditional. Thai teens ran around the new shopping malls on their mobiles with tattoos and piercings wearing the latest trends. We were told to be careful to dress conservatively and not wear tank tops or short shorts. But then you see most of the kids and especially a lot of the gorgeous Thai young ladies (or ‘lady boys’) prancing around in stilettos and micro minis. It seems ‘times are a-changin.’

Of course, since war times, the city was always a stop for GIs on their way home or a place for some R&R. Nowhere is this more evident than the red light district, Patpong. It’s still going strong today, although not as seedy as in days gone by; it’s become a favorite stop on the tourist trail. Go-Go bars and odd sex shows abound, one of the more well-known would be the ping pong ball shows–not very classy…or even sexy really. You can figure it out what these ladies do with a ping pong ball.

Ko Sanh road is the infamous and crazy and crowded pedestrian backpacker strip with tons of bars with scantily clad Asian beauties on the sidewalk enticing thirsty travelers to come inside because they have “very strong drinks.” The block is teeming with scruffy, smelly, dred-locked bohemians looking for a good time. Anything and everything is for sale here: bootleg CDs and DVDs, classy t-shirts with slogans like “iPood”, showing a silhouetted guy on a toilet, grilled meat on a stick (everything is better on a stick), massages (of all kinds), travel packages, fake IDs, and I’m sure ‘other’ things that are not necessarily displayed on the fold-out tables lining the sidewalks. Everything looks cheap and is cheap Our group stopped here for drinks on our last night together at one of the dozens of bars. It’s certainly not an area chock full of tradition or culture, but it’s still a sight to behold. I also returned another day to get my hair cut and highlighted and a little brow wax—all costing me about one fourth of what it would back in Chicago..

Of course, most of the time I walked around the city…this song kept popping into my head. It kinda sums it up. Sing along if you’d like.

One Night In Bangkok
THE AMERICAN:
Bangkok, Oriental setting
And the city don’t know what the city is getting
The creme de la creme of the chess world in a
Show with everything but Yul Brynner

One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can’t be too careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me

Phnomh Penh was a dusty and extremely hot city with the same Southeast Asian mix of tuk tuk and motorbike drivers competing for my rear end. The city has come a long way since Pol Pot and had a lovely riverfront lined with many European alfresco cafes where you could sit under a refreshing fan and sip an iced latte.

But the primary tourist stop on most travelers’ agendas in Cambodia is Siem Reap, home to some of the world’s most amazing and best preserved temples some that are nearly one thousand years old.

The granddaddy of them all is Angkor Wat (‘wat’ means temple). One of the man made wonders of the world (vote now for your 7 wonders!), Angkor Wat was a temple built for King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. It is the only temple here to have remained a significant religious center — first Hindu, then Buddhist — since its foundation. The temple has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country’s prime attraction for visitors.

Although Angkor Wat was breathtaking and obviously grand, my favorite temple was Ta Prohm. The Ta Prohm temple is the only one where the forest and trees are being allowed to grow freely in and around the structure. Snarly roots wind around stone pillars and doorways adding to the beauty and eerie ‘ancient-ness’ of it all.

The site was home to more than 12,500 people (including 18 high priests and 615 dancers), with 80,000 in surrounding villages helping to supply the institution. After the fall of the Khmer empire, the temple fell into neglect for centuries. When the effort to conserve and restore the temples of Angkor began in the early 20th century, Ta Prohm was chosen to be left largely as it was found.

You may recognize the temple by it’s new nickname–the ‘Angelina Jolie Temple’ thanks to her not exactly Oscar-worthy film, “Tomb Raider.” Parts of the movie were shot around this temple in the jungle where nature and man mix together in beautiful harmony. Incidentally, Angelina has since adopted a child (cute and often Mohawk-haired, Maddux) from Siem Reap.

Today, the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, has a population of about two million, but only thirty years ago the city was an empty ghost town. All the people were driven out of the city by the ultra communist Pol Pot (a student of Mao Tse Tung and Hitler) and his evil Khmer Rouge regime in an attempt to form a Communist peasant farming society which eventually resulted in the death of 25 percent of the country’s population from starvation, overwork and executions. After the Vietnam War, on April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge took over the city and the people cheered in the streets thinking that good things were finally to come for them. But just three hours later their cheers turned into tears as they were told they must leave the city at once and literally walk to the countryside to become peasants. The Khmer declared it “Year Zero” and said that society was about to be “purified.” Capitalism, Western culture, city life, religion, and all foreign influences were to be extinguished in favor of an extreme form of peasant Communism.

All foreigners were thus expelled, embassies closed, and any foreign economic or medical assistance was refused. The use of foreign languages was banned. Newspapers and television stations were shut down, radios and bicycles confiscated, and mail and telephone usage curtailed. Money was forbidden. All businesses were shuttered, religion banned, education halted, health care eliminated, and parental authority revoked. Cambodia was sealed off from the outside world. Whole families were split up and many older people and hospital patients who were forced to walk from the city to the country died on the way. During this horrific regime nearly three million people died—two million were killed and another million died from starvation.

The vast majority of those killed were people who were educated. Pol Pot’s regime feared they would band together and start an uprising. He wanted only uneducated peasants that would work the land. Our tour group visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Ironically, this former school was turned into an evil prison in 1975 and became the largest center of detention and torture in the country. Classrooms were converted into prison cells where people were shackled and beaten. Thousands of black and white photos were taken of all prisoners and are now on display here. It is an eerie and disturbing sight and it is utterly hard to comprehend such madness. But sadly, we have seen senseless killing like this before with the Holocaust, the genocide in the former Yugoslavia, the Middle East, and several African nations like Rwanda.

Prisoners were interrogated about their education and line of work. The soldiers had three simple ways of finding out a person’s education:

1. If they wore glasses they must be educated and need them to read.
2. If they had smooth hands, they must be educated because if they worked in the fields, their hands would be rough.
3. If they had light skin, they must be educated because if they worked outdoors, it would be darker.

The Khmer Regime theory was to “destroy weeds from the roots” and they would find and kill all family members of any educated person. As the insanity increased, children at the camp were brainwashed into hating others and even their own families. Soldiers would tell them that they ‘had seen their parents and they didn’t want them back.’ Eventually the children became angry and bitter and blindly became part of the regime. They were turned into prison guards and soldiers, torturing and killing their own.

Our tour guide for the day survived this awful time. His father and five siblings were killed by the Khmer Rouge. He was sent to work in a farm and would work sun up to sun down with only one meal break.

Between 1975 and 1978 more than 17,000 people held at this prison were taken to the extermination camp at Choeung Ek known as the “Killing Fields.” Ironically, it was the Vietnamese who liberated Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge in 1979. Pol Pot retreated into Thailand with the remnants of his Khmer Rouge army and began a guerrilla war against a succession of Cambodian governments lasting over the next 17 years. After a series of internal power struggles in the 1990s, he finally lost control of the Khmer Rouge. In April 1998, 73-year-old Pol Pot died of an apparent heart attack following his arrest, before he could be brought to trial by an international tribunal for the events of 1975-79 leaving the people of Cambodia to never really get the justice they so rightly deserve.

The night after our tour of the Killing Fields we were invited into the home of our local guide. He nobly runs a small school in the first floor of his home tutoring local children in English. He lives above the classroom with his wife’s extended family (of forty-five people) in the customary Cambodian tradition. We sat on mats on the floor and had a wonderfully filling meal of fish, chicken curry, spring rolls and noodles with beef. This sweet and soft-spoken man told us more about the evils of the Khmer Rouge and how most were never really persecuted for their horrible actions. Several former Khmer Rouge leaders astonishingly remain a part of the current Cambodian government today, known as the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). In fact, the current Prime Minister, Hun Sen, was a former Khmer Rouge captain. And so are several members of his cabinet—the Minister of Finance, the Head of the Senate and others. We are told it is undoubtedly one of the most corrupt governments in the world where the number one goal is always self interest rather than the interests of the people. Our guides told us stories of the corruption despite the fact that although they are no longer ‘communist, incidents still happen to those who speak out against the government—mysterious car crashes and deaths. Some examples of the corruption: If a tourist gets robbed and goes to the police to fill out a report they most likely not really help except to ask for money knowing the tourist has insurance and will need to report. Also, we are told that the medicine and drugs at pharmacies in the country is typically not safe and in many cases are fake or expired pills. Nearly all the temples we visited are not supported by or restored by the Cambodian government, but were sold off to other countries instead like Japan, Switzerland, and India. Even the “Killing Fields” were sold off by the Cambodian government to a private Japanese company. The dusty, pot-holed main route from Siem Reap to Bangkok is still not paved. Our guide explained that Bangkok Airways has a “deal” with the Cambodian government. The airline pays Cambodia fifty million dollars a year to not pave the road so tourists continue to buy the airline ticket between the cities instead of driving the bumpy ten hour drive. Our tour, of course, took the road less paved and drove instead of flying. It was the bumpiest, sports-bra requiring, four hour drive I’d encountered since the start of my trip in Costa Rica.

There are many human rights watch groups with their eye on the Cambodian Government, but unfortunately for now, the people’s unofficial slogan is: “Free, but never fair.”