Kurt Johnson

We're all settled in Texas (have been since August, actually).  Susanne and I are both working full time and it looks like our vacation schedules are going to keep us close to home for a while. It's not unexpected at all - in fact it's what drove us to the specific destinations we visited over our long summer break.

Although it's hard to sum up all of the traveling we did I'll offer a few observations.  First, it is amazing how easy it is to get around the world.  The internet, message boards, Skype, and the emergence of English as a lingua franca all make arranging travel pretty straightforward. Currency exchange and power plugs are increasingly simple.  Corruption and personal insecurity are, I think, much less of a threat than newspapers would have you believe - aside from tourist pricing and some crooked cab drivers we did not encounter a bribe solicitation or theft on the entire trip (except possibly a suitcase lost in transit by British Airways/Swiss).  At no point did we get hassled by customs about carrying several thousand dollars worth of electronics.  Electronic communication is ubiquitous - we saw locals on cell phone calls in the middle of the Serengeti and using a BlackBerry in rural Laos.  Every country we visited had Visa ATMs, and only in Laos and Tanzania was there any inconvenience in finding one that took a Mastercard.  We had no food related health problems despite eating plenty of street food, and in the two cases where we needed medical supplies the local pharmacies were easy to deal with.  Renting cars in Germany and South Africa was easy and renting mopeds in Southeast Asia was done for $6 with no paperwork.  The only time we really had travel headaches was in China when we were forced to cut out the Tibet leg of our trip.

A few highlights of the trip - you'll notice there's a lot of food involved:

• In Thailand, visiting temples, eating constantly, and learning to SCUBA
• In Cambodia, visiting villages, seeing the ruins of Angkor, and learning about the years under the Khmer Rouge
• In Laos, cheap seafood restaurants, watching locals on the Mekong river, elephant rides, and fresh baguette sandwiches from the hardworking lady in the Hmong market near our hotel
• In Vietnam, visiting the house where Susanne's dad grew up; eating pho and cha gio from street vendors in Saigon and piles of fresh mangoes near the beach in Nha Trang
• In China, walking the Great Wall and learning to bargain in Beijing
• In Germany, driving a BMW on the Autobahn, walking around German farms, and sunset dinners on a patio with fresh food from the garden
• In South Africa, watching sunrise over Cape Town, seeing whales playing off the coast, and driving through the incredibly scenic area near Hermanus and the wine country
• In Tunisia, traditional meals with old friends at a 300-400 year old family home, hearing the call to prayer throughout the day, and seeing artifacts in situ from at least three ancient powers (Arab, Roman, Punic/Carthaginian)
• In Tanzania, descending into the Ngorongoro Crater, seeing herds of elephants in Tarangire National Park, and spending an afternoon with hunter gatherers in a nearly extinct ethnic community (Hadzabe)
• In Italy, St. Peter's Basilica and our daily Nutella gelato

Obviously traveling light helps when one moves every few days. We each had a daypack and a carry-on suitcase with wheels; as we bought souvenirs or cycled through books it was easy to send them home via mail or with people we met during the trip.  About half of my bag was actually made up of electronics, which could have been done a little better but not much.  I took a 14" laptop, Canon SLR (20d), backup SLR (Rebel XTi), 17-55mm/2.8 lens, 100-400mm lens, extra batteries and cleaning supplies, a pocket sized camera (Canon SD450), and a 60GB iPod to back my photos up to.  I wasn't thrilled with carrying around the 100-400mm zoom as it was longer, heavier, and lower quality than my 70-200mm, but given our time on safari it would have been a real loss to give up the 200mm-400mm range.  By the end of the trip (Italy) I was tired of carrying the SLR and pro-weight lenses and would have happily traded them for a high quality compact.  If I had bought a new laptop for the trip I would have targeted the smallest size (12") that could still fit a large hard drive.  Although it would have been nice to ditch the laptop completely it was enormously useful for using WiFi and processing photos on the fly instead of facing a stack of tens of thousands of images to go through when we got home. 

Finally, Susanne says the trip was the best money we ever spent.  Thank goodness we have a robust financial system that lets people with time but no money borrow against future periods when there will be excess money but no time.

You can see all of our photo albums from the trip here. 

Inside St. Peter's Basilica.  See our entire Rome album 

The Bir'Ruta well in Kairouan.  See our entire Tunisia albums: Kairouan and everything else

We had a fantastic time in Tunisia - so much so that when people make us choose a favorite country from the trip we pick Tunisia. This had a lot to do with being able to spend time with local friends who could show us around and explain all of the cultural things we were seeing.

As an extremely brief primer for those who can't place Tunisia, it's a small country in North Africa between Libya and Algeria and just across the Meditteranean from Italy/Sicily.  It was a thriving Phoenician settlement from the 8th century BC, Roman/Byzantine from the 2nd century BC, Arab from the 7th century AD, and a French colony from 1889 to 1956.  Today it is 98% Arab & Muslim and moderately well off with a per capita GDP (PPP) around $8k, placing it between Colombia and Mexico in the wealth rankings.  Virtually everyone is bilingual in French and Arabic although English is not uncommon.  Its Mediterranean beaches are a common destination for budget European tourists but very few Americans ever get there. We spent a day in the country's main city (Tunis) seeing the ruins of Carthage and the national museum, then proceeded to Kairouan for the remainder of the week.  Kairouan is a smaller city and actually has UNESCO World Heritage status due to its rich Islamic culture going back to the 7th century.  A regular tourist itinerary would have spent only about a day in Kairouan and then moved on to the southern/Sahara desert areas, the coastal resorts, and maybe an island or two in the Meditteranean; however since we were lucky enough to be visiting friends in Kairouan we relaxed a bit and were able to have a great time walking around town, eating home cooked meals, and marveling at North African history.  However the tourist attractions look amazing and we will hopefully get to visit them on our next trip (see Tunisia.com for some good explanations).

Tunisia is extremely well endowed with Roman era ruins, many of which have been reconstituted into Byzantine or Arab structures over the last 1500 years.  The irony  in our trip was that visiting Rome (our final stop) was a bit of a let down because we had to stand in lines and deal with masses of tourists when in Tunisia we saw things nearly as impressive by just walking up to them.  For example, in our photo album you can see the amphitheater at El Jem,  nearly as large as Rome's Colosseum but with better access and 99% fewer tourists.

The coolest aspect of the trip was just enjoying the feel of being at home with friends in Kairouan.  Much of the old city dates back about a thousand years and the architecture remains largely traditional; three story houses that have room for several generations of a single family, all sharing a central courtyard.  Our friend's home was something like 300 or 400 years old and infinitely more functional than any 300 year old European home or, I think, many American homes 150 years old.  Despite being in the middle of the city amongst narrow streets and crowded markets the houses are a sanctuary of cool air and calm.

I will admit to having a few concerns about visiting an Arab/Muslim country as an American tourist in these times; however we had zero incidents of hostility, suspicion, or even anxiety.  Everyone we dealt with was friendly and we are very much looking forward to going back as soon as possible. I realize it's a destination that isn't on most people's radar so if you have any interest in going please drop me a line and I will be happy to tell you more. 

Susanne on a dune, De Hoop Nature Reserve.  See our South Africa album 

South Africa photos are up.  Our itinerary wasn’t too adventurous, remaining solidly on the tourist track, but the landscape is spectacular and even in mid-winter the weather was too warm for anything but a light jacket.  Cape Town earned our admiration for a fantastic poly-ethnic food culture at reasonable prices – like Houston but maybe even better.

From Cape Town we did quick day trips around Simon’s Town, Table Mountain, Cape Point, and the wine country.  After a few days we headed southeast to Hermanus and from there to De Hoop nature reserve.  Although we were only on the cusp of whale season we saw at least a couple dozen whales and a few dolphins and harbor seals as well.

A Topi antelope watches a Hyena trot away with scraps in the Serengeti.  Tanzania photo album #1 (of 2)

Our first stop in Africa was Tanzania, and like most visitors we headed out for safari in the country’s national parks.  Although the country is one of the poorest in the world the safari experience consists of jumping from park to park in a daisy chain of good food, good accommodations, and innumerable wild animals.  Fees for the national parks are fairly high, limiting the number of folks crowding the roads and restricting the demographics of visitors to those willing to pay a for hot water and good food.  Thus we experienced a weird juxtaposition of “luxury” and “roughing it”.  About half of each day was spent getting knocked to pieces driving on rough and dusty roads, insects were always a problem, and amenities like internet service were unavailable.  Conversely the “tents” we stayed in had hot showers, 4 course dinners, and an army of wait staff to handle our bags, serve us coffee, or anything else to generate a tip.

Out in the parks we managed to see some incredible things; swarms of thousands of dragonflies, mating lions, herds of elephants, frolicking troops of baboons, and a bunch of predatory cats sitting around doing absolutely nothing.  Our favorite site was definitely the Ngorongoro Crater – it is just amazing to descend 2,000 feet into the crater of an extinct volcano and see a huge plain of grassland, marshes, and wild animals.  The natural boundaries in and out of the crater make it feel like the most incredible theme park I’ve ever seen.

The most surreal experience of our entire summer consisted of visiting a small band of Hadzabe Bushmen near Lake Eyasi. There are less than 800 Hadzabe people remaining and they all live in small nomadic groups on the barren volcanic highlands around Lake Eyasi.  After picking up a local who spoke their language and knew where to find a current campsite we took the Land Cruiser up to find them.  The hour or so we spent with them felt like something out of National Geographic – a “click” language, bare breasted women, an 11 year old bride, and using two pieces of wood to light the herb for their stone pipe.  The men go out hunting in the morning with poison arrows and, as you can see in our photos, managed to bag a frickin’ leopard with an arrow a few weeks before we got there.  My clunky writing skills make it impossible to convey how cool it was to visit the group but it is definitely something worth detouring to check out.

The new bride, age 11 or 12.  Tanzania photo album #2 (our Hadzabe visit)

See our Germany photo album

[Posted by Susanne]

Germany was a welcome relief of western familiarity after our (at times) very foreign experience in China. After the China/Tibet debacle we only had about a week to book new tickets from Beijing to Frankfurt so despite some lukewarm reviews of Turkish Airways we jumped on their flight from Beijing to Dusseldorf.  We were pleasantly surprised with the new A340(?) and other amenities on the flight. Similar to other airlines that we’ve liked such as Japan Airlines and Korean Air, Turkish Airways had individual TV screens with tons of in-flight entertainment options. Both legs of our flight were on time and we even scored exit row seats despite our last minute booking!

We were greeted in Dusseldorf by Kurt’s sister Adele. She and her husband Uli live 30 km away in a suburb of Mülheim and they took us home to spoil us with home-cooked meals and family hospitality! Mülheim is in a coal mining region and there are several sites to visit which elaborate on the history of this industry. In nearby Essen, we went to Zeche Zollverein. This former colliery was once considered a technical and architectural masterpiece due to its efficiency and aesthetics. Today it is a designated World Heritage Site and houses several museums including the Red Dot Design Museum which was my favorite part of the complex. We also visited Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum (German Mining Museum). One of the main attractions here is a replica mine located 20 meters underground where we explored 2.5 km of drifts containing huge drills, cutters, conveyers and other mining equipment.

Since we were only a 2 hour drive away from the Netherlands we decided to spend a day in Amsterdam. Our first stop was the Van Gogh Museum. This collection is put together very nicely with his works organized chronologically and then separated into the different stages of his career which seem directed by his geographical location at the time. Other than those few hours dedicated to art we spent the majority of the day shopping. Amsterdam is a great shopping city! Like in New York or Tokyo I was content to do that all day long…and I pretty much did.

After a few days of exploring around Mulheim and a day trip to Cologne the four of us decided to go on a road trip. We headed south on the Autobahn and based ourselves at Uli’s family home in Untersulmetingen, a small village about 30 minutes outside of Ulm.  In addition to amazing hospitality from Uli’s parents this gave us a good jumping off point for daytrips to Rothenberg, Nuremberg, Lake Constance and Ludwigsburg.

Hitler apparently identified Rothenberg as “the” ideal German town and when we arrived it was easy to see why – the walled city truly is a model medieval village complete with drawbridge, towers and gates. We headed straight for the clock tower located at the city’s center and were just in time to watch the wooden people figurines pop out at the top of the hour. After a few minutes of watching their mechanized motions we moved onto some window shopping. Trinket shops abound but we found ourselves amused by toy store windows filled with wooden train sets, antique-looking rocking horses and puppets. It only takes a bit of imagination to see a toymaker in the back carving Pinocchio.

After seeing the town of Rothenberg we moved on to the much larger Nuremberg and found it to have a nice balance between contemporary and traditional attractions. While shopping, I was reunited with my favorite clothing stores.  I became a repeat-offender of slipping into kitchen stores carrying cooking accessories injected with fun colors and sleek design and I was also introduced to an array of German Christmas shops featuring the traditional wooden candle carousels that I pored over only to walk away without buying one in the end. To round out our quintessentially German experience we walked around the Nuremberg Castle and then lunched on very tasty sausages, sauerkraut and white asparagus served on simple tin plates at a casual eatery with wooden benches and tables surrounding a big open grill in the middle of the dining room.

In the area around Lake Constance we discovered the demise of our recently acquired calorie conscience diet. It’s called spaghetti ice. Because it rained almost the entire afternoon we were out our day was spent going from one café to the next ordering hot drinks and dessert. Spaghetti ice, as we discovered, is like an ice cream sundae on steroids with the unique twist of the ice cream resembling spaghetti noodles. Wet, cold and uncomfortably full from eating sweets all day we headed back for a lazy evening at home.

For the last destination of our tour of the south we went to Ludwigsburg Castle. This very large and opulent estate was originally a hunting lodge in the 18^th century. It fell into disrepair for a while before later monarchs revived it and used it as their primary residence. We took the official guided tour and thought it was well-worth our time. Unlike other estate tours that we’ve taken this one seemed to cover most of the grounds and left us feeling like we’d seen the majority of this “home.”  

Aside from the very touristy parts of our trip the highlight was spending time with Adele, Uli and the rest of the Woerz family. At their home in Untersulmetingen Adele and I feasted on the blackberries, raspberries and currant berries we picked in the backyard and Kurt can now pour beer like a real German bartender thanks to Uli’s dad’s patient instructions!

After 6 weeks in Southeast Asia and China, spending a week off the tourist track with family in Germany was just the thing we needed.  By the week’s end we had gained back any weight that we had lost while in Asia and we were fully recharged for our next adventure in Tanzania.

Crowds at Tiananmen Square for a flag-lowering ceremony. More Beijing photos

We arrived in Beijing to find clouds, haze, and a breeze cool enough for long sleeves – all very welcome after spending a month melting in Southeast Asia.  Beijing is kind of surreal – intellectually it’s hard to reconcile the ultramodern freeways, malls, and skyscrapers with a country that, on average, is quite poor.  The disparity in wealth and amenities seems kind of like putting New York City in the middle of Bolivia, with all the consequent social tensions between the urbanites and traditionalists.

Although we are getting to like Beijing more and more it has taken some time to warm up to.  We started with the notorious pollution, which gave us two days of depressing gray skies, 300 meter visibility, and obvious respiratory problems.  After being accustomed to walking around freely in the rest of Asia, Beijing's sprawl, construction sites, and ideograph-only signage made exploring a little less fun.  Finally we had the pleasure of trying to change our travel arrangements without speaking the language or encountering anyone especially helpful.

We originally planned to spend a week in Tibet but in April a few Americans held a protest against the Chinese (PRC) occupation of the region. The PRC responded by disallowing all tourist travel to Tibet, later relaxed to allowing travel only when chaperoned every day by an official guide.  Our first reaction was to blame the 4 American protesters who screwed it up for everyone else.  On further reflection it’s pretty obvious that the fault here lies with the PRC’s hamhanded response to any suggestion that the optimal form of government for the people of Tibet might be something other than occupation by PRC troops, systematic transfer of Han emigrants to crowd out traditional ethnic groups, etc.  At any rate we elected to nix that leg of our trip rather than jumping through all of these hoops and paying an egregious day rate to a chaperone.  Removing Tibet from our travel plans cost us a couple dozen hours plus $500 and, combined with things like currency controls and crappy censored internet access (Wikipedia and most blogs are blocked) left us with a general resentment of the PRC which has taken some time to overcome.

The other beef I will mention before moving on to why we are starting to like it here is the language issue.  We have been spoiled with our other destinations by  having either plenty of English speakers around (Europe, Cambodia, India), speaking the language (Vietnam), or being able to fudge with sign language and cognates (Latin America).  China is completely different; the local words are very difficult to learn and pronounce and very few people speak any English.  If someone is speaking English to you, you are mostly likely either in a place catering primarily to foreigners or are in the process of getting scammed.  The first couple of days were tough – I imagine we had an experience about like a Chinese-only speaker would have if they showed up in Dallas with no English or Spanish skills.  For example, taking a taxi requires finding our destination in Chinese characters on the internet and taking a picture of the name so we can show it to the driver on our camera, or alternately a hotel concierge who understands where we are trying to go and will transcribe the directions into Chinese for the cabdriver.  Dealing with airlines, train tickets, and other logistics is a nightmare without a translator since websites are not used much and reaching English speaking staff over the phone is like playing the lottery.  I am only trying to set expectations for other non-Mandarin speaking travelers, not trying to imply that everyone here is “bad” for not learning English.  However it is tough to imagine all of next year’s Olympic visitors getting around without similar headaches.

Once we settled in to Beijing we headed out for the country’s star attraction: counterfeit luxury goods.  The Silk Street market is 7 stories of small booths selling everything from fake North Face jackets to fake Rolex watches to fake silk bedding and fake chicken sandwiches.  I might be making that last one up but I might not.  The vendors are absolutely hysterical – they are aggressive like nobody I’ve ever seen and any one of them could teach a negotiation class at Wharton.  Walking down the aisles I got more female attention than I’ve ever imagined, with about a third of the girls actually grabbing Susanne or me by the arm and physically trying to pull us into the stall.  Once you’re in you may be forced into a chair with a girl basically sitting on your lap to keep you from leaving before you find something you like.  If you do find something you can expect the vendor to offer a ludicrous price loosely in line with what a genuine article from an authorized seller would cost (“I make special deal for you because I want you to tell your friends to come here in 2008!!  No joke – lowest price for Polo shirt is $45”).  We ended up walking away with Polo T-shirts for $3 each, 2 knockoff Hermes watches for $11 together, and assorted Gucci and LV handbags for something like $20 each….but not without a lot of salespeople checking our forehead temperatures because we were “sick” for making such low counteroffers.  The market can be either enormously stressful or kind of a fun game depending on how you calibrate your expectations going in.

Having filled duffel bag with knockoffs for people at home we were free to check out the rest of the city.  All the stories about the frenetic pace of construction here are true.  The sidewalks around our hotel seem to get torn up in the evening, worked on overnight, and be freshly set with marble flagstones by dinner the next day.  Every fourth block is a high rise building in progress, and many of the buildings have 3 or 4 tower cranes installed where the US would use 1 or 2.  Rumors are that as many as a million people in Beijing were relocated for Olympic related construction although the government officially claims that only 6,500 households were moved.  Even the 6,500 number is mind-blowing – can you imagine trying to displace this many families for the London Olympics?

Beijing’s literal and figurative centerpiece is the Forbidden City-Tiananmen Square complex.  The Forbidden City is the 600 year old cloistered quarters for Chinese emperors; they lived and worked amongst 9,999 buildings surrounded by a wall and moat to keep the common folk at bay.  While the size of the complex is massive there isn’t a whole lot of explanation in English, the best buildings are closed for pre-Olympic renovation, and at least half the complex is off limits to visitors.  The whole experience is a visual fugue – endless repetition on the theme of red buildings, yellow roof tiles, right angles, and big open rectangular spaces.  Across the street is Tiananmen Square, the largest public square in the world and most notorious meeting area in China.  Again the size and history are impressive but the square itself is….just a big square, surrounded by a couple of grandiose federal buildings you can’t get into.

The Great Wall at Huanghuacheng.  More Beijing photos

The highlight of the “old stuff” part of Beijing was walking along the Great Wall in the Yellow Flower area, a/k/a Huanghuacheng.  You’ve probably seen the photos or heard about the wall on the history channel but there’s nothing like struggling up the steep mountain sections of the wall to really appreciate the majesty of it.  This was probably the most fun we had at any of the sights in China; this section of the wall was gorgeous, combined both restored and unrestored sections, and remained completely free of hawkers and other tourists while we were there.

Towards the end of our time in the country we spent a couple of days in Xi’an, a city of 5 million people and another well worn spot on the tourist trail.  Xi’an’s primary claim to fame is the Terracotta Army, a collection of 8,000+ life size model soldiers buried to protect an emperor’s tomb in 200 BC.  However we really enjoyed Xi’an itself – it is much more pedestrian friendly than Beijing with a more manageable level of shopping, construction, hawkers, etc.

Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an.  More Xi'an photos

I have mixed feelings about China as a tourist destination; the place is amazing with hundreds of things worth seeing but the logistical headaches of traveling here are substantial.  If you have the chance to visit in the company of someone who speaks the language I would jump on it; alternately I’d consider going with a tour group that provides a translator (the horror!) or at the very least trying to maximize the planning and booking you can do stateside rather than waiting until you get here and struggling with communication.

Mopeds waiting for the light in Saigon 

Saigon has the blessing and the curse of being on the leading edge of change in Vietnam.  The blessing is that in this case “change” means better living conditions and job options.  The bad news, arguably, is that Saigon is starting to look a lot like Bangkok at the expense of traditional Vietnamese culture. 

There’s a lot of construction underway in Saigon.  The pho stall we hit on Monday morning had an ad on the wall for an heavy equipment dealership and excavators were working through the night on Sunday when we arrived.  The central market area in Saigon, Ben Thanh, was clean, well lit, and had “no smoking” signs up everywhere, none of which seem very Vietnamese.  We didn’t see much traditional dress (except uniforms) and  there’s a new Louis Vuitton store a block from city hall.  District One is full of stores selling big ostentatious LCD TVs, Hi-Fi systems, French wines, and other flair of the nouveau riche.  The government has clearly bought into Deng Xioaping’s epiphany that “to be rich is glorious” and has redirected their energy from implementing communist ideology to simply remaining in power (although the state-monitored media still ham up the stories of farmers using their land communally and such). 

Having visited Vietnam last year some of its novelty had gone for us, and gone with it was the desire to spend every moment outdoors fighting off heat exhaustion.  Instead we had a leisurely week with plenty of ca phe sua da (iced Vietnamese coffee with enough condensed milk to rot your teeth on contact), pho, banh xeo, and every other local delicacy that we knew we wouldn’t see again until we were back in the US near a Vietnamese neighborhood.  The one tourist site that we took time to visit was the War Remnants Museum, a slightly anachronistic collection of salvaged US war materials and Vietnamese propaganda set amongst a neighborhood of new western style homes and office buildings.  The museum contains horrible photos and descriptions of US behavior towards civilians, although as far as I can tell the North Vietnamese Army acted just as horribly….so both sides did awful things but only one tells their story in this museum.  Do some fact checking on the exhibits if you go – allegations are often stated as facts and a few statements are outright wrong.

After spending a couple days in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam’s most significant rice growing area, we headed back to Saigon to meet Susanne’s family.  With her folks leading the way we got to see Mom’s old high school, the neighborhoods she used to spend time in, and took a quick trip out to the suburbs where Susanne met a great aunt for the first time.

From Saigon we moved to Nha Trang to see family on Dad’s side.  Nha Trang is gorgeous – sandy beaches, incredibly clear water, and amazing mango orchards everywhere. Unfortunately we had a schedule to keep and could only spend a few days with family before heading on to Hoi An and Hue.

Election day in Saigon; families were required to fly the flag.

I'll post notes on Vietnam shortly but in the meantime some of our photos are up:

• Saigon
• Mekong Delta (Can Tho, Vinh Long, My Tho)
• Hoi An
• Hue
• Nha Trang (private album for family)
• Hanoi

Buddha statue at Bayon in Angor Thom.  See more of our temple photos

The first headline on our Cambodia notes is that, like 80% of tourists who visit the country, we didn’t get much beyond the Angkor temples and Siem Reap. This city in north central Cambodia is home to the airport, hotels, and restaurants that allow over a million people per year to see Angkor Wat, and consequently it gave us about as valid a picture of the rest of the country as if we had just stayed in the airport the whole time.

Obviously the Angkor temples were the start of the show; my head almost collapsed thinking about the workplan required to coordinate the building and maintenance of such massive monuments. Something like 50-60 major temples exist in a radius of only a few miles, each with thousands of enormous stones transported 20-40 miles and engraved with incredible detail. The manpower required is mind boggling, not least because of the supply chain to feed so many workers and elephants living in a dense area. The empire eventually collapsed in part due to the cost of maintaining the monuments – a classic guns-or-butter problem except in this case it was rocks-or-butter.

Beyond visiting temples we managed a few quick detours to local homes and markets. We found an excellent guide, Sam, who speaks great English, knows volumes about every corner of every monument in the area, and thoughtfully answered all of our questions about how Cambodians live and work (email me if you want his contact info). Amongst other things Sam showed us:

Basic living

• People harvest the juice from Sugar Palms and boil it down to make palm sugar cubes (sold wrapped in palm leaf like a candy bar - yum!) and molasses-like syrup to ferment into booze
• Many families can afford a small black and white TV but have no electricity so they power the TV with a car battery, then take the battery into town occasionally for a charge
• On the banks of Ton Le Sap Lake (the “great lake”) families have small, way-overcrowded houses floating on the lake that are broken down, moved up the shores, and reassembled during the rainy season when the lake expands to roughly 10x its size in the dry season
• Mobile phones in Cambodia are everywhere, with a 40 day/500 minute SIM card costing about $10. Satellite TV costs ~$5 per month. Seeing prices like this in countries with bad infrastructure and scarce technical skills always makes me that much more annoyed about how US and European telecoms have managed to keep prices high via a regulatory process that nominally protects consumers; e.g. East Africa and India both have vibrant cell phone economies with average monthly revenue per user of <$10

Homebuilding

• Building a house is an all-prepaid enterprise as interest rates on personal loans are 60%+ APR. Because of the weak financial infrastructure families generally put their savings into gold bullion which is then hidden somewhere until they have enough to build what they want to build
• Most houses are still built on stilts between 6’ and 12’ tall; although the irrigation infrastructure goes back over a thousand years and has solved the problem of floods families still like to have a place to keep their bikes/mopeds/other property under cover and potentially add more indoor space if they eventually decide to finish out the ground level
• Outside the city, even brand new homes generally don’t have conventional electricity or running water; affluent families might have a small generator behind the house. Electricity in town on the grid costs 80 cents per kwh, probably at least 5x what most people in the US pay

International assistance

• I asked about programs where individuals can contribute to building a schoolhouse but Sam said that there is generally enough hard infrastructure for education (buildings); instead the problem is teacher qualifications and performance. Schoolteachers make roughly $40 per month for working 9 months a year, half days (students have one teacher in the morning, another in the afternoon). Construction workers coming in from the farms around Siem Reap make $5-$10 per day
• Sam believes that the most effective international aid programs around Siem Reap have been well and water related – either providing new wells so families have easier access to water or providing household filters to sanitize water.

Tourism

• Most registered tour guides charge $25 per day; there’s a shortage of Spanish and Italian speaking guides so these folks charge double. The huge volumes of tourists from Korea and lack of Khmer guides who speak the language means that 200 Korean expats have been brought to Siem Reap to give tours to their countrymen. 90% of tour guides are men because, according to Sam, Khmer women want to work out of the sun to keep their complexion fair (as in India, Vietnam, etc)
• The government is planning a new, larger airport near Siem Reap once the number of tourists reaches 3 million per year, but the size of the runways combined with the density of temples and sacred sites means it will be difficult to site the airport

Finally, Cambodia’s most notorious bit of history is probably the Khmer Rouge regime that killed between 1-2 million people due to starvation, political purges, and military action. Although most of the country’s current population was not alive during the troubles of the 1970s and 1980s there still seems to be a somberness in Cambodia that is not present in neighboring countries.

Cambodia tends to suffer a bit from comparison with Vietnam or Thailand since the majority of English speaking visitors include it as a side trip from these countries and both are richer in activities. Having said that we’re glad we made the trip and are looking forward to spending more time outside the tourist areas of Angkor and Siem Reap on our next visit.