Kep, Crabs and other things - Cambodia blog entry #9

 

Along the Gulf of Thailand and less than twenty miles to the Vietnam border is the quaint town of Kep, Cambodia. It is the capital of Kep Province in southern Cambodia, has a population of 35,990, and is 107 miles south of Phnom Pehn. 

Before the time of the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s, Kep was a mansion-lined beach resort town that the French from Phnom Penh would escape to on the weekends. During the war, the mansions were pillaged or destroyed. There are still many that remain today, a ghostly reminder of the past. 

After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Kep became a seafood hot spot, mostly known for their crabs. 

Also available to buy in the seafood market is durian, known as “the king of fruit.” Durian has a spiny, thick husk ranging in color from dull green to yellow-brown. Its edible interior is a soft, custard-like pulp that can be white or yellow. But it is best known for its nasty odor, described as smelling like sulfide, blue cheese, or even sweaty gym socks. 

Our guide K bought one and cut it open. I didn’t think it smelled that bad - just kinda funky - but I still wasn’t willing to try it after all the horror stories I had heard. The other woman with us, Helen, tentatively took a bite. The look on her face was precious. She totally kept it together but handed the rest of it off to him, saying in a reserved tone, “that's was enough. I'm done”.  Then she scrambled for a mint in her bag. 

K next bought some tiny squids and waited for the vendor to fry them. He chowed down on them with glee. I would've tried a bite, claiming earlier that I would eat anything that was cooked done, except I couldn't picture biting a leg off the baby. If someone had a scissors, maybe I would have snipped off a leg - would only be like a baby green bean - but no, not chewing off an appendage. 

We wandered down to the end of the pier and the pounding waves reminded me so much of Lake Superior, even though it was warmer than Michigan’s UP. I was so content. 

From there it was a short drive to Kep Beach. We walked in the sand and got our feet wet in the waves. I was still content, even though my feet were damp and sandy the rest of the day, and I was as unphotogenic as ever.

The White Lady statue sits at the end of a pier waiting for her husband – a fisherman – to return from the sea. She is a symbol of unconditional love and patience. 

The Kep Crab statue is not a random crab – he is a blue swimmer crab. Surely, any crab aficionado would see that right away.

Last along the beach was the Lady and Fish statue, of which I could find no information online. Which is a shame as she is beautiful. 

All in all, a very good afternoon. 

Know that God has it under control

God says, “Be still and know that I am God. I will be praised in all the nations. I will be praised throughout the earth.” (Psalm 46:10, International Children’s Bible)

I’ve been trying to share as much of my trip to Cambodia as I can, including here on my Sunday morning post. But I had a really stressful week. Besides the support from my dear husband, I kept hearing God’s voice, “Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I have this under control, turn your troubles over to Me and relax.”

I looked up Psalm 46:10 in lots of different versions of the Bible and they all used the exact same words. Except the Message version, which gave us other words of hope.

Attention, all! See the marvels of God! He plants flowers and trees all over the earth, bans war from pole to pole, breaks all the weapons across his knee. “Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.” (Psalm 46:8-10, The Message Bible)

Hope you had a good week and that this coming week is even better for you.

Laughter at La Plantation - Cambodia blog entry #8

 After the last few very heavy posts, I thought I should add some levity to your Friday. 

Our first Wednesday in Cambodia, back on September 18 (how was that over a month ago!), we hopped in a van for the ride to Kampot and Kep. I’ll share more on those two cute little towns later, but I thought I’d start off that area of the country with our tour of La Plantation Pepper Farm.  

Built by a French couple in 2013, La Plantation employs over a hundred locals year-round and an additional 150 during harvest. They provide their employees with three meals a day, medical coverage, and a pension, as well as schooling for the children of the workers. 

And a beautiful place to work.

Our guide told us lots of other details but I was zoning out by then. Pepper growth and production sounds fascinating, but it had already been a long day and I really wanted to take a nap.  

But after hearing all about the Kampot pepper, we walked to the next pepper field – black pepper, I think it was. 

You had to jump or take a long stride across a ditch to get to it so I think only four or so from our group of 16 went across. D was one of them. One of the guys on that side suddenly slipped in the mud by the plants and fell down. Most of us giggled but the woman next to me knew him. And really started to guffaw. Which of course fed my inappropriate chuckles. 

Then out of nowhere, D sneezed. Enough heads turned her way that she had to respond with “it's just the pepper”. Which just about put me - and everyone else - on the ground in peals of laughter. 

We finished the tour and headed in for the pepper tasting. D and I really weren't interested but K talked us into. Naturally, the silliness continued. At one point, D took a peppercorn she didn't want and started to throw it out the window behind her, then realized that the window wasn't open. We lost it and poor K had to walk away, shaking his head, probably thinking, crazy American WOMEN!

It felt so good to just laugh and be silly after the couple of taxing days we’d had. There would be more silliness in the coming days.

S-21 Prison - Cambodia blog entry #7

After our visit to Choeung Ek Killing Fields, we went to S-21 prison museum, also called Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

I have no words. I feel I should just leave a long empty page here. No pictures, no words. Because there is nothing I can share which will convey the somber, horror of this former school.

I can share the faces of those imprisoned, tortured, dehumanized, and ultimately killed there. You can look into their eyes and feel the breath catch in your throat. You can swallow hard and divert your head. Try to erase those haunting faces from your vision. But you can’t.

Their lives deserve to be remembered. But as it is, I could only look at one wall of them. I had to skip a lot of the rooms altogether, as well as the audio clips the museum supplied.

Instead, I sat in the previous school yard and imagined the laughing voices of the children who attended it prior to April 1975. Carefree, happy kids thinking their whole lives were ahead of them.

Instead, politics snuffed out all of their dreams. The Khmer Rouge, or mostly the child soldiers they indoctrinated, committed unspeakable atrocities, while the world was led to believe it was still the Civil War that the country had been struggling through and of course there was still Vietnam.

So much was involved. So much crap.

We’ve been hearing for our entire lives about the unrest in the Middle East, and they are at it again. But all over the world, millions of innocent men, women, and children have suffered and ultimately died for reasons no rational person can grasp.

Thank you for bearing with me. Next post, on Friday, I promise to present more pleasant places we visited in Cambodia.

Just Do Good

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21, New International Version)

Friday’s blog post was pretty dark and the next one I post will be even darker. But these are the words of the LORD which we must remember. Somehow when we are surrounded by evil, when the world is falling apart, when we don’t understand the sinful nature of wicked people - we need to do the best we can. Be kind and caring, show love to others, live as Jesus did. Don’t let hatred pull us down, instead do good.

Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good. (Romans 12:21, The Message)

Killing Fields - Cambodia blog entry #6

Tuesday, September 17, was our trip to hell. The thing is we came back out into the blazing Cambodian heat and rain to live another day. Unlike 2 million Cambodians who didn’t live through the Khmer Rouge reign of terror from 1975 to 1979. 

Again, I cannot believe that at the time, my 12-year-old brain only knew of the Vietnam War and that when the US pulled out, we gave up on the country and let the communists have their way. I didn't know that Cambodia had been an innocent victim of war just because of its location. And there I was, 50 years ago thinking only of some 12^th century temple in the jungle. 

So, that Tuesday when I was in Cambodia last month, our first stop of the day was the Choeung Ek Killing Fields, where 8,895 bodies were discovered after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. It is believed that many more were buried there as fragments of human bone continue to surface. It is only one of 300 such mass grave locations throughout Cambodia. 

The tour of the grounds was chilling, and it wasn’t from the rain showers which fell on us most of the morning. 

As I left the main grounds to walk around the pond on the east side of the grounds, I listened through my headset to stories of survivors and witnesses of these atrocities. The rain fell steadily on the borrowed umbrella I held over my head. It all felt so very surreal.

How was any of this possible? How did Hitler’s Holocaust happen? Or Rwanda or Darfur? How can any human being subject another human being to such absolute and utter cruelty and dehumanization? And how – why is it still going on right now, in this year, in places around the world? 

Two last thoughts.

Believe it or not, after sharing all of this, I skipped one thing on the grounds of Choeung Ek. It was even more horrific than any of this. If your curiosity gets the better of you, click this link.

And lastly, we weren’t done for the day. My blog post next week is even more sobering.

Palace Grounds - Cambodia blog entry #5

 Monday afternoon, after wandering the Central Market and touring Wat Phnom, we stopped for a tour of the extensive grounds of the Royal Palace. It wasn't on our most recent schedule, but K said we had time. However, it did take way longer than we had imagined; our tour guide was very knowledgeable but sometimes went into too much detail. 

The Royal Palace is the residence of the reigning monarch – King Norodom Sihamoni. Since 1993, the king of Cambodia has been an elected monarch, making Cambodia one of the few elective monarchies in the world. The king is elected for life by the Royal Council of the Throne, which consists of several senior political and religious figures. Candidates are chosen from male descendants of King Ang Duong, who are at least 30 years old, and are from the two royal houses of Cambodia (the House of Norodom and the House of Sisowath). The current king’s father and predecessor was Norodom Sihanouk.

Following are the notes I took, with some supplementation from the internet. 

There was a beautiful Banyan tree next to the Victory Gate and the dancing hall. 

Also called Preah Tineang Chan Chhaya, the dancing hall or Moonlight Pavilion was built in 1913. 

 The Throne Hall or coronation hall hosts the coronation and other special occasions and was built in 1919. We couldn't go inside or even take pictures of the inside. There are three different thrones inside used at different times by different people. It got me very confused. 

I loved all the details. 

The grey building is the Pavilion of Napoleon which was being redone when we were there so we couldn’t go inside.  

This unique palm tree comes from Madagascar and is called Ravenala or the traveler’s palm. Not a true palm tree, its fronds grow in the pattern of a fan. 

The royal treasury room displayed costumes for royalty and even commoners when they got married. The clothes were very fancy and would be rented, not owned, by the bride and groom. There were a lot of other items crammed in the small building, but this is where I started to lose it. I was getting so hot and weak. There was a fan in the building so I focused on staying in front of it, while everything our guide said sounded like an adult talking in the Peanuts cartoon. 

When we came out of there, we crossed a small sunlit courtyard and then went under the roof over the Ramayana Frescoes. That’s when I started seeing black spots. “Can I seat down here,” I asked, pointing to the floor. Not that it mattered coz I would either sit right then or pass out full blown.   

 I sat down and immediately just laid back on my side on the cool tile. The others kept walking, but I asked K if he'd wait there until I gathered myself, drinking water and dribbling some on my face.

 Typical guy, he said, “it will be even hotter at Angor Wat”. How helpful is that! 

Anyway, I felt better after a few minutes and tentatively sat up. Soon I was able to continue the tour with our little group. 

The last building we went in was the Silver Palace, aka temple of the Emerald Buddha. The Silver Pagoda is a highlight and is named for the silver inlaid floor. There was only a section of it exposed, the rest being covered with carpet, but you could hear the tiles crinkling as you walked across the floor. Along with cases full of artifacts along the walls, there were several large, ornate Buddhas in the center of the room. I assume that the largest one was the Emerald Buddha. (And maybe I was still out of it, coz I remember taking pictures inside, but I have none on my camera! Or maybe we weren't allowed to take pictures inside and I was really still spaced out. As it is, I stole the picture of it below from Denise.)

Just beyond that and a replica of the Angkor Wat was a small refreshment stand, where I bought a cold water and drank it in the shade. Thankfully, I was back to my usual self.