And it begins...

Well, the adventure has begun. My mom and I left Seattle around noon on the 8th for Hong Kong via Tokyo. 18 hours, 4 suspicous looking airplane meals, 3 movies, and one box of pocky sticks later we arrived in Hong Kong and checked in to our space age "sky city" hotel around midnight. This morning we got up for an awesome continental breakfast, which included dim sum (now I remember why I love Hong Kong) and headed to the airport again for a flight to Hanoi, Vietnam, and then another one to Siem Reap, Cambodia. I'm writing now from our plane to Hanoi, as the questionable smells of our 5th airplane meal in two days waft down the aisle (It ended up being spagetti with meatsauce, which they called "beef with noodles". I guess that's actually a better description..). Interestingly enough, at least half the people on the plane are caucasian and I've heard a few people mention that they're "going home." There must be a big expat community there, but I guess I'll have to wait for my next Asia trip to find out. Also, the flight attendants have been trying to speak to me in Vietnamese, which is strange because even in China people usually assume I'm foreign. Unfortunately, Vietnam Air does not have wifi on their planes yet so I'll post this later, but I thought I'd take the time to write a little bit about Cambodia for those of you who don't know much, and also briefly talk about what this blog will cover over the next 7 weeks or so.

So, I'll start off by admitting that the little that I do know about Cambodia is all from my Lonely Planet "Southeast Asia on a Shoestring" travel book. Basically they jammed all of Cambodian History into 4 or 5 pages, and now I'm going to further condense it into one paragraph, but I figure it's better than nothing. For those of you with no interest in history, skip the next paragraph.

From the 1st to 6th centuries AD, Cambodia was part of the Funan kingdom, which prospered due to the trade route between China and India which was part of the famous silk road (you know, Marco Polo and all that). As part of this large cultural exchange network, Cambodia adopted many aspects of Indian culture and tradition, including Hinduism and Buddhism. In 802 AD Cambodia, as well as much of Vietnam and Thailand, were part of the Khmer Empire, which ended up being the largest and most powerful empire in Southeast Asian history, known for its amazing architecture and sculpture. To this day, the Cambodians are known as the Khmer people, and much of their national pride is centered around Angkor, the ancient capital and home of the largest religious structure in the world, Angkor Wat. In 1432 the Thais sacked Angkor and the capital was moved to Phnom Penh, which remains the capital today. The French controlled Cambodia from 1864 to 1953, but were more interested in Vietnam and did not do much in Cambodia. Still, there is apparently some French influence left over, and in fact we're staying in a French style hotel run by a French man and his Cambodian wife who just moved there recently from Seattle (go figure..). King Norodom Sihanouk ruled from 1953 to 1970 when he was overthrown and fled to Beijing, where he was pressured to support a small communist rebel group, the Khmer Rouge. Cambodia was sucked into the Vietnam conflict, bombed by the US and fell to the Khmer Rouge in 1975, ruled by Pol Pot (not a popular character). During this rule, about 2 million people a third of the population) died from famine, warfare, execution.. lots of bad stuff. This included most of the educated people and also people who spoke foreign languages, who were gathered and executed. In 1978 Vietnam invaded, which spurred famine and guerrilla warfare throughout the 1980s, during which China, Thailand and the US (you'd think we'd have learned by now..) funded the khmer rouge. In 1991 a peace accord was signed, and in 1993 UN-facilitated elections were held and Norodom
Sihanouk was installed as king again. Since then, Hun Sen, leader of the Cambodian Peoples' Party (actually he was originally installed as the leader by the Vietnamese) has essentially ruled Cambodia. In 1998 the Khmer Rouge was finally ended officially and some of its leaders are being brought to trial. Unfortunately Pol Pot died already so he escaped any punishment. The Cambodian people suffered a lot over the last few decades, but right now everything seems stable and (fortunately for me, and them) the tourism business is booming.

Today we will fly into Siem Reap, which has gotten kind of a reputation as the hub city for visiting the temples of Angkor. Although Angkor Wat is the biggest temple both there and in the world, there are many others scattered throughout the area that used to make up the city of Angkor, each with its own character and artistic differences. We will spend the next four days touring the temples. I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures and write more as we see them so keep checking in. After that we're heading to Chiang mai, Thailand to meet up with intrepid travel's Trekking Thailand tour (we're trekking up into the hills to stay in a village). Then we'll hit up Bangkok, and then Singapore for a few days. Mommy dear will fly home after that and I'll meet up with the lovely Tara Singh in Bali, where we'll stay in Ubud for a few days and then fly to Yogyakarta (Pronounced Jogjakarta, or just Jogja) for a few. That brings us to early February when we'll fly back to Hong Kong to meet up with homegirl Carly Schlosberg, and then to my favorite Chinese city, Beijing, for a week. Tara will then leave us :( and Carly and I will continue on to Xi'an, and Shanghai, and then fly to Tokyo. After a few days there, we'll train down to Kyoto and Nara, and then take the "Beetle" hydrofoil boat from Hakata to Busan in Korea. We'll then jump on a train and go up to Gyeong ju, and then up to our last city Seoul. Hopefully by that time, my backpack and small bag won't have multiplied into multiple bags of souvenirs and piles of knock off clothes and bags, but you just never know.. better just be prepared for the worst.

Speaking of souvenirs, I just bought my first one in the Hanoi airport. We flew in over the fields and colorful clusters of houses and I'm kind of jealous of the other kids who got to stay there. The airport had a lot of little vendors with Vietnamese junk food (Pringles?) and little trinkets (Jason, I doubt you'll read this but I got you a keychain from the motherland). The airport was small, but pretty modern and the magazines and ads around boast of tall modern office space and condos for rent and sale, and international standard malls. It seems amazing that just a few decades ago Vietnam and Cambodia were being torn apart by war (largely with the US) and there was no way to travel there (unless you were a soldier..). When my mom graduated from college she traveled through Southeast Asia and also in the Middle East. She couldn't visit Vietnam or Cambodia, but she was able to go through Afghanistan and Iran just 6 months before they were closed to the US. Maybe when our generation's kids graduate from college we'll be able to take them on trips through Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. It would be nice to someday explore their rich culture and history, rather than just associate them with war, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Well, I guess the moral of the story is travel all you can, cause you never know who we'll be at war with next.. haha.. sigh. On that cheerful note, I think I'll put away the netbook and enjoy the bright orange sunset as we land in Cambodia. Till next time.

PS (I'll post pictures with this post soon but i'm using the front desk computer at our hotel and its super awkward...) <3