Advent 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

We are marking the close a year filled with travel, grandchildren, and lots of activity! Mary continues to be active in retirement, and Mark continues to be just too busy.

We began the year escaping Iowa cold by traveling to Southeast Asia. Because Mark was not scheduled to teach in the "January Term" at Luther College, we took another Overseas Adventure Travel tour to Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. Obviously, there was much more to see in all of these places than could be crammed into three weeks, but we got a good overview. High points were the "temple city" of Bagon, Myanmar and exploring the ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. You can go back through our travel blog, Radio for the Eyes, for details and photos, if you wish.

We traveled to Washington, DC -- at spring break by air and in August by car -- to visit Sarah and her husband, and to spend time with our granddaughter, Harper. Once again this year, Mark's parents accompanied us on the long car trek to DC -- an accomplishment at their ages, but a testament to their good health.

We flew to DC yet again at Mark's mid-semester break in October to meet our new grandson. Corbin Everett Lucas was born on September 23, 8 lbs. 6.6 oz. 21.5 inches long. He was nearly a month old when we got to meet him, but we've gotten to see him again at Thanksgiving (when this photo was taken) and will get another quick look after Christmas. In between visits, we're thankful for Facetime and Skype!

Other excursions included a weekend with friends at Lake Okoboji in June, several days in Door County, Wisconsin in July, and a trip to Mary's family in Omaha early in December. There were also a couple all-too-brief visits to Katherine and her husband in the Twin Cities.

The birth of a new little boy in our family reminds us of the birth of Hope we celebrate in this season. May that Hope fill you with joy throughout the new year.

Mark & Mary Johns

Homeward

After breakfast we packed our suitcases early and brought them down to the desk, then set out walking to the Angkor National Museum. Once again, the map was not helpful due to the total absence of street signs or other markings, but we managed to arrive in 20 minutes, only stopping once to ask directions.

The museum is new, it's a bit pricey at $12 per person, but is very up to date in the way artifacts are displayed. Videos (offered in several languages, including English) were well done and presented background. We didn't watch all those we encountered, but a few. We spent a little over an hour and it was worth the time.

We worked up a sweat walking back, as the temperature had risen considerably. Knowing that we'll be facing temperatures below zero in just a matter of hours, we did not complain in the least about the heat. We had a bit of time to clean up at the hotel before checking out and taking the bus to the airport. Bangkok Airlines offers a "First Class Lounge" to all classes -- no distinction. So we had a newspaper and snacks, along with coffee, tea, or hot chocolate. Also the best internet connection we've had in many days. Even though it was only a 40 minute flight, we got lunch in the air, as well.

The demonstrations are still going on in Bangkok, so our bus from the airport had to take back streets. It's a big bus and the streets are very narrow. In addition, all of the other traffic is also taking back streets to avoid the roadblocks. Thus, the congestion made for some interesting moments. However, all in all, we made good time. We are coming up in the world at the Pantip Hotel: On this, our third stay, we are on the 24th floor. The carpet isn't much better up here either.

Our farewell dinner tonight is a cruise on the river. We will be eating early, because some must leave the hotel as early as 2 a.m. to catch flights home. We get to sleep in -- we don't leave the hotel until 4 a.m.!

Angkor Wat

Today we see Angkor Wat! We spent three hours at the site this morning. I'm at a loss for words to describe it. The engineering was spectacular, the art work superb. There are three cloisters, outer, middle, and inner. Six libraries, also outer, middle, and inner. There is too much to describe and there are too many photos to post.

In the afternoon we went back to visit Angkor Thom, which is the larger, palace complex a bit north of Angkor Wat. We visited Bai-on, the king's temple, with the many carved faces looking in the four cardinal directions. Then we went on to the king's viewing stand for games of "elephant polo," except that in this polo game, a wild animal was substituted for the ball, and temples to the 12 signs of the Zodiac surrounded the playing field. We also visited the "Tomb Raider" temple that has been largely taken over by trees. It had also been largely taken over by a large group of Japanese shutterbugs.

 

We finished the afternoon back at the moat surrounding Angkor Wat. As we gazed at the temple, the sun setting behind us, we drank a toast of "Strong Man" rice wine to the Ancient Kingdoms trip, and also partook of peanuts, sticky rice, cobra jerky, frog legs, and water buffalo jerky. A stray female dog, who'd obviously had had a hard life, came begging. A little boy about 4-5 years old, who'd also obviously had a hard life, also came begging. That was even more pathetic. With the rice wine (which was terrible -- but I had seconds anyway) we toasted the end of the tour.

In the evening, we were invited to a Hindu wedding which involved the cousin of our local guide. The wedding itself was over and done, we were only going to the reception. It had many elements of an American wedding (women dressed to the nines, loud DJ, people giving over-long speeches, etc.) but in the bedlam of nearly 800 guests (!) nobody was much paying attention. Cans of beer were delivered to the table faster than we could drink them. Platters of food came regularly. The bride and groom came to our table and we got photos taken with them, etc.

 

The bride and groom are expected to change clothes and wear seven different outfits over the course of the event -- one color for each day of the week. Also, the greater number of guests the greater the blessing for prosperity to the couple, that's why even tourists were invited. We were passed an envelope and asked to put in $10-$15 per person as a wedding gift. It was worth every bit of that for the food and drink. We could have stayed longer, but our tour director put us aboard a tuk-tuk back to the hotel after about and hour and a half.

Siem Reap

This was supposed to be something of a rest day between yesterday's long ride and tomorrow's climactic day at Angkor Wat. An optional tour was scheduled, but canceled because too few signed up (we were among those who had not, so no disappointment). Thus, we were free until 2 p.m.

On our own, we set out walking to the Old Market after breakfast. We got off to a slow start. The map provided by the hotel showed a street continuing straight, all the way to the river. It didn't. We followed some bends and turns until we came out on the main highway, north of the hotel. We had essentially wasted our time going in a circle. We also discovered that the map's scale north and south was considerably different than the scale east to west. Very odd!

Arriving at the market, we discovered that many stalls were just opening up at 9 on a Saturday morning. However, with the new year approaching, the locals were all over the food area. We wandered the interior aisles, buying a couple little things for our granddaughter, looking for a number of other items, but finding nothing. We decided to go back out to the riverside parkway and find a cafe where we could sit and drink a cup of coffee (and also use the restroom).

After a bit of people-watching in the cafe, we set out along the river once again. We very shortly passed a 14th century Buddhist temple and decided to step in and see the gardens. We found a bench and enjoyed that scene for a bit. Then we found a tuk-tuk and bargained a price back to the hotel where rested by the pool and read for a couple hours.

At 2 p.m. we met the group and boarded our new, smaller bus (the big bus which brought us here returned to Phnom Penh). We drove quite a ways out into the country, including down some rough dirt roads between the rice paddies, to a canal. There we boarded a boat for a fairly long trip down the canal, past a number of people fishing both from shore and from small canoes.

We eventually came to open water where and entire village was floating. There were dozens of houses, a church (the Buddhist temple is on land nearby), a school, shops, everything on floats. It was some of the deepest poverty we've seen anywhere -- these are people who can only fish, who are remote from almost any support services, and who are here because they are too poor to afford a piece of land on which to build. We stopped briefly at a shop that doubled as a pen for captured crocodiles, then continued back to the bus. It was quite an eye-opening tour.

The bus drove us only a short distance, across land so flat it made Nebraska look like a mountain state, to a village where the primary industry appeared to be taking tourists on brief buffalo cart rides. Mary and I were less than enthusiastic, as we've ridden a lot of conveyances and didn't feel the need to certified in ox cart, but we tried to be good sports about it. It was then back to the hotel to shower and to wash out every piece of clothing we had on before dinner.

 

Dinner at the hotel this evening was the worst meal we've had on the trip thus far. The food was mediocre and the service terrible. The staff was very poorly trained, and there seemed to be no adult in charge.

 

Spiders!

Today was another long bus ride from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. We left at 7:30 a.m. and drove until 4 p.m. It would have been a shorter drive, but the highway, for essentially its entire length, is being reconstructed. So we drove through a construction zone for eight hours!

It was a poor village, but note the John Deere tractor in the background!

Village kids are happy to greet the tourists.

To break up the trip, our new local guide, "Rath" (pronounced more like Raht), planned several stops. One was a village, very rural and very poor, where a woman makes her living finding a preparing a food item considered a delicacy here: tarantula -- yes, as in very large spiders!

She showed off a bowl full of live spiders to us upon arrival, and I was sufficiently freaked out just by that. Then we walked with her to the edge of the village where she demonstrated how she catches them. Essentially, after doing this for years, she has developed a good eye for spotting the holes in the ground in which they live. Then, using a small shovel, she digs down until the disturbed spider pops up to defend itself. She then quickly uses a stick to flip it over and hold it on its back while she uses long fingernails to pinch off the ends of the fangs. Defanged, they are rendered harmless. However, she admits to having been bitten many times, if the spider happens to be quicker than she.

Having collected a sufficient number, she returns home, keeping them alive and fresh until she has a customer. Then she takes the necessary number, one at a time, and squeezes them at the sternum, which kills them very quickly, but leaves the body intact. They are washed in a bowl of water (they live underground, after all) and then pops them into a wok of boiling palm oil. It takes only a few minutes of stirring the oil until there are deep-fried spiders, ready for eating. 

Two members of our group popped whole ones into their mouths as the guide demonstrated. Several more, including Mary, tried just a bit of the meat. Since spiders are definitely not my thing, I passed.

We had lunch at a nice little spot along the shore of a lake. The food was good, even if not entirely local (fish and chips was one menu item). However, our table was out on a dock, with a thatched roof overhead and water below. It wasn't terribly stable, and the rocking and swaying was difficult for those affected by motion discomfort!

We stopped briefly at a village where Buddha sculptures are made. It was similar to the neighborhood we visited in Yangon, but more spread out and less populated. We also visited a village where an 800 year old river bridge is still in use. The bus couldn't go over it, but we walked across. Motorbikes used it, too. Loudspeakers were blaring the chants of a funeral ceremony taking place in the village, mournful in any language or tone system.

Our tour director tried to help pass the time by playing a DVD of The Killing Fields on the bus's flat screen TV, but it was a bargain market bootleg copy of the DVD that kept freezing up, so we only got through half of the movie.

800 year old bridge. U.S. engineers take note.

Arriving in Siem Reap, the town appears a bit more prosperous and a bit less dirty than Phnom Penh. There are only about 170,000 residents here, and probably about that many tourists at any given moment. The tourist trade creates the prosperity. The king has a residence here, and we walked a bit in the park near to it, observing a unique temple honoring two revered Buddhist monks, and a flock of very large fruit bats hanging in the upper branches of a tree.

The hotel is quite nice. Dinner was at a nearby restaurant that clearly caters to tour groups. The food was very good, but again, not very Cambodian. By the time we returned to the hotel, it was already 9 p.m., and time to end a long day on the road.

The Killing Fields

After breakfast this morning we drove by bus to a site some 10 miles outside of Phnom Penh which has been identified as one of the more than 300 "killing fields" in this country. On the way, our local guide struggled to explain the complex history that led up to the 1975-79 genocide in Cambodia. She did an admirable job.

On arrival at the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, we again had some background from the local guide before she led us on a path winding between some of the 100+ mass graves located at this site, of which about three quarters have been excavated. At this very sobering site, we still saw large pieces of human bone on the ground. Every rain here, especially in the rainy season, brings new bones to the surface. Recent finds of bone and clothing fragments were being collected in glass boxes. In a large memorial stupa, hundreds of skulls were shelved in neat rows. A small interpretive museum helped explain the killings that had taken place here.

We returned to the city with many questions about why so few trials have taken place, and why so many of the Khmer Rouge responsible are walking free in Cambodian society today. It is strange that those of us who are Christians, embracing a religion with forgiveness at its heart, have so much difficulty grasping the Cambodian eagerness to put the past behind and build a new country. Of course, the corruption and cronyism in the government that keeps Khmer Rouge sympathizers in power is also a factor.

Back in Phnom Penh we visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, formerly known as Security Office 21, or just S-21. This was the central interrogation center for the Pol Pot regime in the city. A former school, it is built in the familiar Chinese style of multi-storied classroom buildings surrounding a central courtyard. Classrooms were subdivided into tiny cells, playground equipment was transformed into instruments of torture, and barbed wire was woven across classroom balcony hallways. It is estimated that more than 20,000 men, women and children were detained here in sub-human conditions. Most were tortured for information and to extract "confessions," and many died on the spot from extreme trauma. Those who "confessed" were systematically sent to the killing fields for summary execution. Patriotic music was blared from loudspeakers so that people living outside the walls would not be able to hear the screaming of those being tortured, and prisoners were only moved and executed under cover of darkness. On exhibit were hundreds of photographs of the condemned, all kept in the regime's meticulous records.

One of the few survivors of S-21, a man now in his 80s, who makes his living selling a book about his experience at a little stand inside is former prison. Periodically he comes to the cell where he was kept to pass out his card, encouraging potential buyers to come to his stand. He happened to make one of these passes while we were there, and he entered the cell to show how he lived. Since we had a local guide with us to translate, a crowd far larger than our group quickly gathered.

It doesn't seem as though we should be thinking about lunch after that experience, but we got onto the bus and headed to a very fancy restaurant clearly geared to Western tourists. The meal was unique and quite excellent. Our local guide wondered why Mary and I ate so little, but we have been so overfed on this trip that we feel like we've gained pounds, even despite a bout of traveler's diarrhea.

After lunch we were taken to the national museum. The building was built by the French around 1917 but in a Cambodian style. It is nick-named "the house of broken statues," since the French carried all of the best pieces back home with them. Amazingly, the museum survived the Pol Pot period -- the museum was locked up and unmolested, but also not maintained. Thus, some items were damaged by water leaks and other decay, but most items weathered the hiatus in care without problem. The collection is almost entirely sculpture of Hindu gods and Buddhas, arranged in bronze, in stone, and more recent pieces in wood. A docent explained the features of pre-Angkor, Angkor, and post-Angkor sculpture. It was moderately interesting, but we're glad we didn't spend any more time there than we did. One item of passing interest for a guy who teaches media studies, the museum had, on continuous video loop, an old, silent Pathe newsreel on the funeral of King Norodom in 1904, beautifully restored.

Those who wished could go on to the "Russian Market." We saw no Russians there, and it was a large indoor market with narrow aisles, full of cheap Chinese merchandise, like so many other markets around the world. The "food court," however, was bustling with locals stocking up for new year, which was interesting to walk through.

We returned to the hotel to relax and drink a beer until about 6 p.m., when eight of us got a couple of tuk-tuks for a buck per person for a ride to the river front. It was a busy place after dark, with the largest crowd jamming themselves into a tiny temple to Vishnu with their offerings of incense and flowers, while a traditional band of drummers and xylophone gongs played outside. Others went to eat, but Mary and I set out walking back to the hotel at our usual brisk pace -- something we don't get to do with the group. It was probably a three mile walk back to the hotel, but we enjoyed it, and saw some interesting things along the way.

Phnom Penh

Another early morning departure after breakfast at the hotel. Between dogs barking, the morning propaganda broadcast over neighborhood loudspeakers from the Communist Party, and the maids shouting in the hallway of the hotel, we hardly needed an alarm clock.

The bus took us to the riverfront where we boarded a motor launch for a short trip up river to the "floating market." This was a bit different from what I had envisioned. Hundreds of floating houses are lashed together along the river banks, and I thought we'd see an extension of that. Instead, the floating market is a cluster of 30-40 medium-sized boats anchored separately but near to one another midstream.

Farmers come out in small canoes with their produce to sell. A couple of the larger boats may be buying pineapples, others mangoes or papaya, still others coconuts or bananas. The farmers shout across the water to bargain a price for whatever they have that morning, then tie up next to the boat that is buying, and begin tossing produce up to the crew. Their sale completed, the farmers return home to work the fields. After buying sufficient quantities from various farmers, the larger boats head off to dock at a city, where they wholesale their cargo to local merchants.

Our launch then docked at one of the floating houses near the bank. As it turned out, this was not merely a residence, but also a fish farm. Under the house is a metal cage, roughly equal to the square footage of the house (possibly 800 square feet or so) and extending 15 or so feet in depth. Inside this metal cage were a number of nylon nets, each holding God-knows how many hundreds of fish. River water flows through, the current constantly refreshing the water inside the cage. Floor panels in the house can be lifted. The fish know that opening their panel usually means they'll be fed, and when the feed actually came, there was a tremendous frenzy. Apparently fish farming is quite lucrative here.

We transferred from our launch into a larger, enclosed boat. It was supposed to be a luxury craft, but the leg room in the seats was set up for people a lot shorter than me. It was a less than comfortable ride, and a long one. After speeding up river for a little over an hour we pulled in and docked at a Vietnamese border station. As we waited in a floating cafe and souvenir shop, our passports were taken ashore and stamped. We then got back on the boat and went about a quarter mile farther upstream, where we docked at a Cambodian border station. On the way between stations, a deck hand took the Vietnamese flag off the bow of the boat and replaced it with a Cambodian flag. We stepped off the boat at the Cambodian station, were handed our passports, and waited in line until our visas were stamped here. Then it was back on the boat for a very long three additional hours until we reached Phnom Penh.

Lunch was at a pretty fancy place on the waterfront, and was much different food than we have had to date. Particularly interesting was the dessert, made from tapioca and coconut milk, but also containing pumpkin, potato, and mushrooms. We went directly from the restaurant to the Royal Palace. Unlike some of the palaces we've seen, this one is occupied. Cambodia, like Thailand, is a constitutional monarchy. The palace layout is somewhat different from that in Myanmar, Thailand, China, or Laos, but quite impressive. Also on the palace grounds is the "Silver Pagoda," named for the silver floor (most of which is covered by carpet). This pagoda is home to the "Emerald Buddha," which looks suspiciously similar to the "Emerald Buddha" in Bangkok, though our local Cambodian guide insists this is the real one. She also insists it's actually made of emerald, though jade is far more likely.

Leaving the palace we were dropped from a bus a quarter mile or so from the hotel so that the local guide could take us on a brief neighborhood orientation. After settling in at the hotel, some went for a tuk-tuk tour of a somewhat wider area of the city, but Mary and I declined, both of us now suffering from unsettled stomachs. There was another huge dinner at the hotel. We are seriously overfed.

Mekong Delta

[Again, catching up, six months late!]

After an early breakfast we boarded the bus for a long ride across southern Vietnam. Slowed first by the intense morning traffic in Ho Chi Minh City (primarily motorbikes -- literally by the thousands), and later by narrow, winding, rutted two-lane roads congested by bicycles and motorbikes, it was an all-day journey. We had only about 30 miles of brand new, modern motorway, just outside of the City.

The countryside in the delta, as one would expect, is flat. The rice paddies are crisscrossed by countless streams, canals, and irrigation ditches. Every farm has a family tomb or tombs containing the bodies of ancestors in above-ground sarcophagi, most brightly painted and freshly washed for the upcoming Tet holiday.

Towns we passed through were decked out with flags and flowers for the holiday, with lots of busy shoppers on the streets buying gifts and food items. We are told that virtually all shops will close during the entire nine-day holiday which will begin next Monday. Thus, everyone needs to stock up in advance. No last-minute trips to the grocery store!

Many towns also featured one or more rice processing facilities -- roughly the equivalent of grain elevators in Iowa towns, but these are more on the order of large, single-story warehouses. Farmers bring their rice, often by boat, to these places where it is milled and polished. The husks are not discarded, but are burned as fuel, used as fertilizer, or as animal feed roughage. The rice itself is bagged. We saw little Asian guys carrying what must have been 100 pound (or more) bags on their backs! The bags are stored until a container arrives, usually by semi tractor, then the container is loaded for export. Vietnam is the world's second-largest exporter of rice, according to our local guide, "Chariya" (who never stops talking). Thailand exports more tonnage, but does so using a considerably larger land area than Vietnam's Mekong Delta. So this truly is the breadbasket of Asia, as it has been for centuries. That's why it's been fought over for centuries, as well.

In addition to rice, a wide variety of fruits are grown here, as well as flowers. Flowers are particularly important now, as gifts for the new year. We fields of red and green, and saw truckloads of flowering plants being loaded and driving back toward Saigon.

We stopped for a coffee break at one little "truck stop." Our tour director bought everyone a dark, sweet Vietnamese coffee, each glass (not a cup) prepared in its own tin drip coffee-maker. Hammocks are available as resting spots for rice truck drivers as they sip their coffee. We sat in chairs, instead, and bought three-dollar hats from the guy wandering through, selling his wares. We also had opportunity to admire the owner's fighting roosters (although cock fighting is officially against the law, it is widely practiced).

Another stop was a quick roadside visit to a lotus pond. An old woman in her hammock was so sound asleep that she did not hear our bus pull up next to her little roadside stand until we had been there quite awhile and were ready to leave. Another was a quick walk-around of a brick factory. The word "factory" is used loosely here, as it seemed to be the project of a few families, or perhaps one extended family. Mekong River clay and the abundance of rice husks to fuel the kilns make this an ideal spot for brick making.

At one point we had to take a ferry across one of the many branches of the Mekong, as there was no bridge. Like everything else in Vietnam, the ferries maintained a frenetic pace, loading or unloading two or three boats simultaneously on each bank, while two or three others were in transit across the water. It was all very efficient, even if the appearance was chaotic.

Lunch was in a hotel restaurant in a small city along the way. The decorations from a wedding the previous weekend were still up in the dining room. The food was a bit different -- a bit more Chinese in style. Unfortunately, my stomach upset continues and I was unable to eat much.

The Chinese style is not accidental. The farther away we travel from HCM City the more we are struck by the similarities to China: The language, the culture, the lifestyle, the architecture, are all very familiar as Chinese -- far more so than what we have experienced in Myanmar, Thailand, or Laos.

One element that certainly was not Chinese or familiar was our brief visit to a Cao Dai temple. Cao Dai is a highly syncretic religion unique to Vietnam. It was an attempt by the founder, in the 1920s, to bridge the barriers among Buddhist, Catholic, Confusion, Taoist and other traditions (Moses and Mohammed did not make the cut, however). There are about 3 million Cao Dai adherents in Vietnam  today, we were told. The architecture of the building, like the theology, was also unique.

Our hotel is also reminiscent of China: Somewhat spartan, with no carpet, basic necessities and a wall-unit air conditioner, but pretty clean. After a couple hours rest, we met the group to walk a bit in the town after dark before dinner. We saw a catfish sculpture on the riverbank that celebrates the fishing industry here, and also saw a large number of "bonsai" trees -- very popular here, particularly as New Year's gifts, and possibly very expensive (up to $12,000 US we were told), though they seem to come in all price ranges. Dinner was in a "home," though the woman doing the cooking cooks for a living, and her home, like so many in the Chinese tradition, opens to the street and doubles as a restaurant by day, becoming a living room only after her guests have left and the wide door closed. Again, the food was very good, very authentic, and unlike anything we've had to date. And again, unfortunately, my stomach allowed me to do little more than taste a bit of everything.