Hong Kong

It was a kind of spur of the moment decision to come to Hong Kong. Well, I'd been thinking about it for a while, but spur of the momently bought a plane ticket. I'm very glad I did. Hong Kong is a crazy and exciting place.

The first few days I spent walking around the city attempting to shop and being impressed by the huge buildings everywhere. Space is such a commodity here every building is a high rise: it's the only way to fit eight million people into a space smaller than Ottawa, and if we count usable space I think much smaller than that. Part of what makes Hong Kong so impressive to look at is the fact that it is surrounding by steep jungle clad mountains. They rise up so sharply, yet the buildings seem to be trying to compete with them, it is just so cool to look at. And then you see skyscrapers perched right on the sides of the mountains, it's crazy!

(they even have to put cemetaries on steps!)

This is also, again because of the space issue, and incredibly crowded city. I have never seen sidewalks crowded to this extent, it's like being in a constant human traffic jam. Like Bangkok, this city loves to shop. It has a few street markets but they are literally so crowded on the weekend it is just too annoying to really look for things. I bought a few named brand things that were smuggled in from China at cheap prices yay!

The best place to see the big buildings and fantastic skyline of Hong Kong is on The Peak, which is the peak of the tallest mountain on Hong Kong island. Unfortunately this time of year is quite foggy, so it was fairly hard to see, but I got some nice views nonetheless.

(the picture below is of a path on the peak, i just put it here because I thought it looked cool :)

I had a met a nice girl named Lynn in Chiang Mai who was from Toronto but had been working in Hong Kong for a few years. I sent her an email and she was nice enough to show me some things I wouldn't have seen on my own. Hong Kong has a quiet side in an area called the new territories. We went and ate dim sum at a restaurant with these giant fish in a tank out front. they were as big as me! and I was quite impressed by them, but not hungry enough to eat them. Then we walked along a pier where fishermen sold their daily cathe right out of their boats... all sorts of things: cuddle fish, lobsters, crabs, star fish, seemingly anything that moved under the sea was fair game. We got on a Junk to take a tour of a local island, the area around Honk Kong is loaded with islands, and it was pretty fun. The Junk was less junky than I had expected, but still a bit junky, as junks go...

Then we took these cool double decker buses to the complete other end of Hong Kong, on the far side of Hong Kong island. This seems to be where the rich people and tourists hang out. Ferraris, porches, mercedes everywhere, and upscale tourist shopping. Living on this side of Hong Kong costs a fortune, literally. You'd have to be a millionaire. Ah Hong Kong, if I ever become a millionaire I'll surely buy an apartment in Kowloon, the area I was staying in. Because I'd need to be a multi-millionaire to live on Hong Kong island.

But all over the city there are cool things to see. Right near the hostel I was at there was a place called Kowloon park. I just figured, "ah it's some park, whatever." But then I wandered in and was amazed at all the crap there was to see, it was so well designed and right in the heart of the city. There were flamingoes and peacocks and swans and all sorts of other weird birds I'd never seen before, and pools and ponds and fountains, it was really pretty great. Just walking around alwasy seems to be the best way to find out about cities. And in Hong Kong that is somewhat doable because it is compactly built in comparison with its population.

Angkor Wat - and a gazillion other amazing ruined temples!

I took the bus from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, the town adjacent to the famous ruins around Angkor wat. What I didn't quite realize was that Angkor wat is just one temple... One temple which is absolutely amazing in its grandeur, design and construction. Standing alone it would be well worth a visit. But that's not just what Angkor wat is about. There are TONS of other temples all over the place. Angkor wat is just the biggest and grandest, but some of the other temples rival it in terms of design or attention to detail. I spent three days getting driven around on a moto seeing temples and I never ceased to be impressed. Though the forty degree heat did take its toll on me.

The last of my three days I got up at 4:00 AM to see the sunrise at Angkor wat. The day before I had had a nap in the afternoon and because of that I wasn't able to get to sleep. I finally managed to pass out a little after 3:00 AM... Less than one hour of sleep but was it worth it? I would say yes. I put a few pictures below taken at intervals of the sunning rising.
Of all the temples I visited I spent by far the most time at Angkor wat, which I guess makes sense as it is so huge. The downfall is the amount of tourists, sometimes it is literally swarming with them (I do realize that I am part of that swarm ;) but there were moments where I felt almost on my own there. The sunrise was great because I got thee just before 5 AM. It was pitch black and I had no flashlight but it was worth stumbling my through the first buildings to feel like I was alone in the massive courtyard were I took those sunrise pictures. Though by about the second picture it was already starting to fill up.

I really like this picture of the solitary monk walking towards Angkor wat. What is funny is that just before this scene presented itself that whole road was absolutely packed from start to end with huge groups of Korean tourists(they always seem to travel in groups). I was on the steps of the back gatehouse of Angkor waiting for the sun to get lower and watching the tour groups leave. But eventually everyone just seemed to disappear and then this monk showed up. I suppose it's true what they say that photography is mostly about waiting around.

I have taken so many pictures of temples that aside form Angkor wat their names escape me. Many were a lot more fun to explore because there were less people, or the temple was very steep and high (fun to climb), or covered in jungle etc.

This temple was extremely steep and high. I'm not sure if these pictures capture the height well, but take my assurances: high and steep!!
Two of my favorite temples were fairly covered in jungle and had massive trees growing right on the buildings. These were in relatively rough condition but that just added to the feeling that you were discovering something new.

Some were just fun to sit on for a half an hour and do nothing but stare at the landscape.

The size of all these places sometimes made me look over the small details. Most of these temples are covered in intricate relief carving. There was one nice moment when a sudden rainstorm came along and cut into the stifling heat. I'm not sure where most of the people took refuge but I just hung out in a temple and watched the rain come down. It was nice and relaxing. Afterwards the temple looked like it was steaming, there was mist coming up all over the place. It is mind boggling to think of the time and effort required to build just one of these temples let alone the dozens that dot the landscape or hide in the jungle. I walked through more than twenty different temples, each one of them unique and breathtaking in its own way. Yet there is still so much I didn't explore. Sometimes it was so hot and the driver would be taking me to another temple and we'd pass one that looked really great, but I was just too tired to say stop, or maybe it wasn't quite as nice as the one I had just been through. There may be too much of a good thing here as, I at least, overlooked a lot of the smaller places that I'm sure have their own quirks to offer.

I do remember this temple is called Bayoun temple. It has to be in my top three. It is quite large and has something like 12 towers each one with huge 4 huge faces carved into them. 4+12= I'm not good at math, but a lot of giant faces. It was just also really fun to climb through.This place was cool too. When it was built it was surrounded by water, an artificial island said to have healing waters. There is no water anymore, so I bathed in the dirt presuming it is also healing.

Um, ya this is another picture of a temple...

OK, so I went a little picture crazy here, how can you not! There are literally over a hundred more pics on my camera.

Phnom Penh

Phnom Pehn is the Capital of Cambodia and a pretty sad place to visit. I say that but really I only spent one heavy tourist day there, seeing heavy things. Most of us are aware of the terrible things that went on in Cambodia up until recently; namely, war dictatorship, genocide and more war. In Phnom Pehn the two main tourist sights are the killing fields and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

The killing fields are just that... fields were killing went on. It is a rather small are filled with shallow holes that were mass graves for the people held at Tuol Sleng S21 prison (S21 just means security station 21). Pretty much everyone who went to that prison was executed. Under the Pol Pot regime education, knowledge of a foreign language, race and critical thinking were all grounds for execution. Of the fifteen thousand or so people who went through the prison, something like seventeen survived... Those are not good odds. There is a monument on the killing fields. It is a tower stacked inside with over eight thousand human skulls. A heavy sight to see...The Tuol Sleng Genocide museum was just as heavy, or maybe even worse than the killing fields. It was a high school before Pol Pot took power, but when schools were abolished under the regime it was turned into a brutal prison. All types of people, teachers, government officials, intellectuals, etc were interrogated and tortured here. There are some terrible pictures hanging on the walls in the somberly quiet rooms.

But Phnom Penh is not all gloom and doom. There is a palace too, which was quite nice. I don't think I appreciated it very much at the time as I had just come from two places just mentioned and my mind was racing with questions of: How are human being capable of such terrible things? How did this come to happen in Cambodia? etc. But the palace is quite beautiful and it was nice to be able to reflect on the terrible feelings I as having in a such a serene and majestic place.



I stayed in a backpacker ghetto on a "lake," (well stagnant polluted swamp is more appropriate a description) right in the middle of Phnom Penh. It had nice sunsets and little kids were constantly harrassing people to go for rides in their boats. I was not too sad to leave Phnom Penh, which is too bad in a way because I was not able to get beyond the 'what happened here' to the 'what is happening here.'