New Year Part 3

"That belongs in a museum!"

- Indiana Jones

Happy Thai New Year ya’ll! Sorry this has been a little delayed but I got wacked with food poisoning right after I got back. My motivation for anything outside of Mad Men re-runs hasn’t been high.

Last Friday night, Jon flew in from America. This was my first visitor from the US, so I was pretty stoked to show him around Thailand.  That Saturday Songkran began, the Thai New Year that lasts 4 days. Songkran is a Buddhist holiday. Thais will go to the temple to sprinkle water on the Buddha for good luck and to pay homage.

Airport welcome sign. Google won't let me rotate it

Flash forward to 2014. People are running down the street shooting complete strangers with water guns. Pickup trucks have their beds full of people dumping buckets of water on those walking by. Traffic is in a complete gridlock as music blasts among this giant water fight. Motorbikes/cars that are driving are no safer and are getting pelted as well. It was complete madness. If you made eye contact with anyone, you could expect to be soaked within seconds. 

That being said, this only really happens in the downtown area. We were able to see Songkran in a few different locations around Bangkok.

1.      My apartment: This was very mellow. Since I live right off a highway, there wasn’t much activity going on. That being said, we ended up walking by the woman who runs a nearby shoe stand. She saw us and sprinkled some water from a bucket, saying, “Happy Songkran, happy happy water.” We laughed and walked by her. She then paused to think for a second, grinned, and then chased after us and poured the whole bucket on me. It’s the holidays.

2.      Khao San Road: The backpacker haven area was out of control. There were so many people you could hardly walk. The music, water guns, and hoses were all in full force. There was almost a foot of water in the street. We didn’t stay long.

3.      RCA: This is the young Thai nightlife area I had never been to before. This was totally packed as well. We ended up finding this one street that was completely blocked off, with a dance party filling the road. It may as well been raining.

The next day we took an overnight bus up to Chiang Mai. This is where the "best" Songkran celebration was going to be. We got in at about 9 AM and killed time until we picked up our other friend from home, Sean. He's been doing relief work in the Philippines, so it was a few hours flight to get to Chiang Mai. Really blessed that two of my best friends were able to come visit.

Midday we went to the airport to pick up Sean. With festivities already in full swing, getting his luggage to the hotel posed a problem. After getting dropped off at our hostel, we had a Call of Duty like run to his hotel down the street. He covered his important goods in a poncho and we acted as security detail to get him to the extraction point (the hotel) safely (dry). We ended up making it but made the wise decision to leave valuables at home or put our phones in ziploc bags.

This is the most disappointed I’ve been for not having my camera with me in Thailand. But if I brought it out, it would be destroyed immediately. This video is a very accurate representation of what those days were link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYo3T4jzZpA

Yeah. That awesome.

But by late afternoon, the sun starts to go down and the water starts to seem a little colder. The water fight starts dwindling around dinner time and by 8 PM the action has all but stopped. If you did get hit by water after 8, the guy who hit you is just a terrible person.

It’s a lot of fun but living in constant fear of getting drenched did seem to drag after a while. We spent the last day lounging by the pool in the hotel. Oh yeah, the hotel.

We initially booked a hostel for Jon and I. Sean tried booking a bed but it was already full, since his decision to come was last-minute. He settled for a hotel down the road. This place was sick. Private pool, buffet breakfast (first time I had toast with jelly in 6 months), sauna, jacuzzi, the 9’s. When checking in, they asked if he wanted a double or two twins. The lightbulbs went off and Sean got the two twins. There's a bed for one of us.

The next day, the bathroom ceiling started leaking. They had to move us to a new room. During this transfer, Sean’s classic good looks and charm was able to get us a third bed for free. So by the end of our stay, our bags were sleeping in the hostel, and us in the hotel. Yeah buddy!

Something crazy happened on our last day. We were walking to get lunch and ran into one of our friends from high school, Meg. I saw her when she first got Thailand to begin her Southeast Asia backpacking swing but had no idea she was back. It was a wild coincidence and it was great for all of us to catch up.

And we had to make one quick stop by the tiger temple before we left. They did do some more explanation for how they’re not drugged but I’m still skeptical.

The final leg of the trip was to see Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Since Jon had limited time here, we decided to fly. Angkor Wat is a massive temple complex located in the city of Siem Reap. At the airport, I went to purchase a re-entry permit. This lets me leave Thailand without voiding my work visa. A sign at the counter says the whole process should take 15 minutes. Something seemed to be wrong with my passport because the attendant kept calling people over to look at it. When I asked what the issue was they said, “Oh. No problem.”

After an hour and fifteen minutes of “no problem,” I got my passport and re-entry permit. But hey, I didn't miss the flight. No problem.

Arriving at the Siem Reap airport was interesting. We got in a long line to get our tourist visas, which cost $20 and a passport photo. One of my friends realized that he forgot his photo at home. When he inquired at the desk about what to do, the attendant said it would cost $1 since he didn't have it. He waited for them to take his picture but they just stamped his passport and told him he was good. For customs, there was a big bin to drop off your declaration form. I’m giving you two big thumbs up Cambodia. This has got to be the quickest way to enter a country.

I had to remind myself to stop comparing Cambodia to Thailand, which I realized after leaving the country, now feels like home. Whoo hoo! Take that culture shock! Here are some observations about Siem Reap:

1.      Siem Reap is extremely touristy. You can’t walk five minutes without being approached by a tuk-tuk driver (Tuk-tuks are like small taxis on three wheels). These conversations tend to go like this:

“Hello Mister? Where are you going? Tuk-Tuk?

“No thank you, I’m just walking.”

“You want a tuk-tuk?

“No thank you.”

“You want lady?”

“No.”

“You want lady? Boom-boom?”

“People actually say that? No.”

This happened constantly. I frankly got pretty irritated since I never needed of a cab ride or a prostitute. But again, this happens in Thailand too. I think I'm just used to it.

2.      I thought Thai traffic was crazy. This is actually a free-for-all. I saw one traffic light the entire time I was there. Stop signs? Not a chance. At one point, cars switched from driving on the right side of the road to the left. It's one of those "Let go and let God" situations.

3.      Markets dominate the town. Knock-off backpacks, watches, headphones; everything is everywhere. My bartering abilities still worked though- I was able to knock at $37 watch down to $16. Still got it.

4.      Cambodia operates with three different types of currency. The American dollar, the Thai Baht (about 32 baht to a dollar), and the Cambodian Riel (4,000 riel to a dollar). Naturally, this got fairly confusing when my wallet looked like I had just won Monopoly.

We arranged for taxi driver to take us to Angkor Wat for the sunrise at 5:00 AM. The temples look very beautiful as the sun comes up. I woke up in the middle of the night and freaked out thinking I saw a ghost. It turns out it was just a hanging white towel. I rolled over to check the time- 5:15! My alarm didn’t go off! We quickly mobilized and thankfully the taxi driver was still waiting outside.

It was slightly after sunrise when we got there but it was still incredible regardless. He also took us around to other temples in the Angkor Wat complex as well.

This is where they filmed part of the first Tomb Raider movie

It was 2:00 PM when we got back and we were exhausted. No one at our hotel decided to take advantage of the pool, so it was ours for the day.

The last day we went to Siem Reap war museum. This museum had remnants from the Cambodian Civil War. I had heard of the Killing Fields but didn’t really know the whole story.

Wikipedia is a much better source (seriously) but here’s a very brief recap of Cambodian history for the last 40 years. A civil war broke out in 1970 between supporters of the Prime Minister and supporters of the King (who would later be called the Khmer Rouge). The Khmer Rouge eventually gained power and began a mass genocide. An estimated 1-3 million people were killed; a majority of them political figures and those who were educated. The U.S. and Soviet Union fueled the fight by providing military equipment to the opposing sides. The Khmer Rouge won the war in 1975 but conflict continued up until the early 90’s. Peace finally came in 1998 when both sides agreed that enough was enough.

Walking through the museum was incredibly informative and depressing. Seeing photos of children roaming the streets with guns, soldiers losing limbs from landmines, and the destruction of the country was very sobering. As sad as it is, it put the country in perspective for me. It was only 15 years ago that the country was really able to move on from this tragedy. It lost its best minds and most of its industry. It unfortunately makes the aggressive tourist tactics and prostitution viable options for its people. 

Easter Sunday rolled around on our last day. I tried finding a church but all the services were in Khmer. Makes sense, this is Cambodia. We were able to find a three course meal for $12- including stuffing, chicken wrapped in bacon, and cheesecake. A great end to the trip.

Well, sort of. Our bus the next day left at 5:30 AM. While draining, it was quite an adventure to get to the Thai- Cambodian border, physically cross, go through immigration, and get back to Nakhon Pathom. It was a 10-hour ordeal, but it only cost $10.

Thai-Cambodian border. Cool.

A week from now I’m off to the Philippines! I’ll get to see Sean do his work documenting relief for Typhoon Yolanda and our family friends, the Chuas. And then school starts a few days after I get back. Fast times baby.

Mark