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In the mid 1990’s I was a construction worker. And a musician. And a teacher. And an erotic male dancer. OK I’m joking about the teacher part. I mean the dancer part. There were a couple of years when I doubt I saw a week that didn’t involve 70-80 hours of work. To be fair, the musician part didn’t feel like work, even though it took an incredible amount of hours and dedication. I was making quite a bit of money for a twenty something with a high school education. But that kind of schedule is a puddle of gas waiting on a match. More and more, I’d wake up unhappy and unmotivated to go out in the cold, or the heat, and listen to hammers and saws all day, bucking piles of lumber and plywood thru the mud. By the time I started dating my wife, I was utterly and completely fed up with life on a framing crew. At the age of 28 and with her support I made the decision to leave my construction job and go to Lincoln Land to begin pursuing a career in computer science. I was starting from ground zero with no experience or knowledge other than checking email on an AOL account. But the opportunities looked good in those days, and I was willing to try. I signed up for a Networking Certificate class and started my classes. Simultaneously, I made a list of every computer store in town. I planned to just walk into each one and ask for a job. The very first place I visited was a tiny shop called Illini Software. They did computer repairs and sold various software. I walked in and introduced myself to the owner and explained that I wanted to get into the computer business, was taking classes at the local college, and wanted to get some basic experience. “I’ll work for free” I said. “You’re hired” she replied. Thus began my career in the IT industry. I spent a couple of months there learning the basics, and learning to hold down the fort when the owner needed to be away. It was on one of those days when she was away when a guy walked in the front door, looked me up and down, squinting over the rim of his glasses and said, “Who are you?” I chuckled and explained who I was and why I was there. He was a friend of the owner. His name was Dave. “I’m starting a new computer store building custom computers and networks and doing repairs. I’ll teach you everything I know and pay you minimum wage”. A smile spread across my face. Deal! I had my first paying job. A year at his shop and after passing a couple of basic certification courses and I was becoming much more knowledgeable, and employable. I had gained enough confidence to take the next step. I began watching the want ads and applied for a part time networking position at a local manufacturing company. The guys at my current job were very cool, very supportive, and very helpful. They let me switch to part time so I could keep moving up the employment ladder. I continued learning, improving my skills, and working hard. About a year into that job I felt I was ready to take it to the next level and I really wanted a job with some benefits. Again, I began watching the want ads and looking around town. Eventually I happened on a likely looking position, network support for a local accounting firm, who happened to be a well known name in my home town. I submitted my resume and was given a chance for an interview. I met with one of the firms partners, who seemed an incredibly friendly and nice guy and the interview went very well. I was told they were looking for someone to assist the current tech, a lady who supported their network and also took on other customers for the firm, helping design and support network solutions for other businesses. It sounded like a good fit for me and a chance to gain knowledge and skills. To my great joy, I was offered the job, with benefits, and an hourly pay rate double what I was making currently. I was one happy camper! I was given the name of the lady who would be my boss and told to show up in a week to begin. It was a little sad for me to leave my current job, the people I worked with were great, including my direct boss and the GM of the operation. But they both understood and were supportive in my decision. On my first day I arrived, over dressed and nervous. I was directed a to a room with a few computers in it and told to wait till the boss lady arrived. An hour and a half passed without a peep from anyone. I was just sitting alone in a room wondering what the heck was happening. Finally, a middle aged women walked in and glanced at me. She set a tool bag down and walked out. A couple minutes later she came back in and started gathering up some equipment. I took the opportunity to introduce myself. Hi, I’m Shane. I’m the new computer tech. Are you Katty? (Not her real name). She looked at me. “Yes”. Great! I was wondering what I can do to get started. Anything I can help with? She stared at me without a hint of a smile, or even neutral politeness. “You can fill out some paper work”. She left the room and came back with the tax forms needed for my employment. She set the papers down and said “I have to go to a job now” and began to walk out. I was flustered after sitting for two hours alone with nothing to do and said “OK, is there anything I can work on while you’re gone?” She looked annoyed. “Hold on”. She walked out of the room and came back a couple minutes later. “You can build a database. That PC has Microsoft Access on it.” She turned to leave. “OK, but what’s it for? The database. What will it be used for?” It seemed a relevant question. “Oh just something to track customers and hardware”. And with that, she turned and left. This had officially turned into the weirdest first day on a job I had ever had. I spent the rest of the day setting up a simple access database with whatever information seemed useful and went home. That night, I told my wife about my day, and expressed my concerns with the weirdness of it all. She agreed it seemed strange, but just encouraged me to give it a chance and said maybe new boss lady was just busy or having a bad day. Day Two. No sign of Katty. It was a small office and there were only the partners and a secretary. I spent an entire day working on a database that I wasn’t really sure had a purpose. Day Three. Katty made an appearance. More unfriendliness and she responded to any question I asked with annoyance and even mild hostility. She made some snide remarks about my database design and left. I was dumbfounded. That night, I made the decision to go to one of the partners the next day and ask about my purpose there. Day Four. I arrived to work, no sign of Katty. I asked the secretary if it would be possible to meet with the partner who’d hired me today. She told me she’d check and let me know. An hour later I was invited in to his office. I sat down and he smiled at me. “How’s it going Shane? Are you getting into the swing of things around here”? I reluctantly began explaining what had happened that week. I was diplomatic in my description of my interactions with Katty, but explained that I really had done about a half an hour of actual work and was left clueless what I was supposed to be doing. I asked what the companies actual plan was for me, because so far I hadn’t been told anything. He seemed confused and began explaining that I was supposed to be working with Katty, taking on more customers and helping in the field and whatever support the office needed. I reiterated that Katty had not assigned me much to do, and had never provided any information about what we would be doing. The one positive that came out of that day was he said he would talk to Katty, and I was given a phone to answer when support calls came in. Day Five. Katty made a short appearance and disappeared. This was getting old. However, a customer called with a problem with their network in Sherman. I told them I would be over to help and got the address. I was tired of this charade. It was time to DO something, even if it was wrong. I drove out to the customers site and solved their problem within an hour. I took my time heading back to the office and when I returned I documented everything I had done in the database I had built. No sign of Katty. Oh well. It was Friday. Time to go home for the weekend. Day Six, Monday. Katty showed up. Shock. She actually seemed to be planning to be in the office today. She even began interacting with me. I had a feeling the partner had talked to her. I told her about Friday and the problem in Sherman. She was not happy. “Who told you to do that? You’re not to go to a customer without permission!” I told her I did not have any way to contact her and basically had nothing else to do and it seemed on task with the mission as I had been told by our boss. Regardless, I had made the customer happy. This seemed to anger her, but she said little. She did spend some time with me discussing the database I had built and was a bit more specific about what it would be used for. She left for lunch and didn’t come back until half an hour before quitting time. When she returned she was carrying a server. I asked her about it and she mentioned that she had been trying to add an extra disc drive to it for a customer but was unable to because of hardware issues. I inquired about the issues and to my surprise she actually talked to me about it. The issue was something I had dealt with many times in my experience in the repair shops and I asked if I could take a look at it. 15 minutes later, I had the drive installed and working as intended. I’m not sure what I expected, but when I told her about having it fixed and installed, she seemed unappreciative and said something along the lines of ‘I guess you’re not completely worthless. Too bad this isn’t something that matters’. I was floored. She had been unable to figure it out, but was a total jerk when I did. I went home angry, hurt, confused and feeling beat down. I told my wife that night about everything that had happened and expressed the feeling I would not be able to keep this job much longer. She tried her best to encourage me to stick it out but I knew deep down inside that if this continued, I was going to walk out, or snap. All these years later I don’t remember exactly what happened over the next few days but suffice to say, it was more of the same. The following week on Monday I showed up for work as usual, and the same routine played out. By Wednesday, I’d had enough. I left on my lunch hour and went back to my former employer and asked to talk to the GM. I gave her a quick rundown of the situation and said, “I know this is unusual, but can I have my job back?” To my endless gratitude, she took me back. I had lasted two and a half weeks. I spent the next couple of months nursing a hatred for Katty, and wondering why no one had stuck up for me. It all just felt so STUPID. I was also ashamed of myself for quitting the best paying job I’d ever had, one that had seemed perfect from the outside. At least I wasn’t unemployed! I think the fact that I made sure and get my old job back before walking out made it less of a blow for my wife. She understood but I know she was as disappointed as I was. A few months later I got an opportunity to take a contractual position with the state police and was eventually hired and spent a year there, which set me up for my eventual long term employment at my final IT job. I have to say, it was a long time before I let go of my anger at Katty, and I definitely played quite a few revenge fantasies in my head over a year or two. (definitely one of my weaknesses…, but age has mellowed me). In retrospect, it was a lesson I needed to learn. Often, the right thing is the hardest thing. Walking away from that job was the right thing to do, but seemed soul crushing at the time. Had I stayed, or even if things had gone well, I may have missed a better opportunity that came later, and the even bigger and better one that followed. My big takeaway? Don’t let failure or bad experiences convince you that nothing better will come along. Don’t accept a crappy situation. Fight back. And for goodness sake, DO NOT stay in a toxic work environment even if it means some temporary discomfort. Talk to your boss or go over their head if necessary. What do you have to lose? If no one will help you, do whatever it takes to get out. Do anything else to get you by. Deliver pizza or work at McDonald’s, drive Uber. ANYTHING AT ALL is better than letting someone try to break your spirit on a daily basis. The world is full of crappy bosses. Give them the middle finger and move on. (Figuratively of course!) You’ll thank yourself later. I’ll never understand why that lady treated me the way she did. My only theory is she felt threatened and didn’t want anyone else on her turf. It’s all I can come up with. I suppose in retrospect I should thank Katty for diverting me to the path I eventually followed to a successful career. But I won’t. Instead, I’ll thank myself for having the guts to walk away from the best job I ever hated.
Got a crappy boss story? Leave a comment, I’d love to hear it!
NOTE: I know we have a bunch of new followers because of Shane’s retirement post, but since the blog started as RandomishTammy, you’re going to be notified of my posts, too. Sorry if you thought you were going to get the Retired Adventuring Musician only. Click on the link to Shane’s posts if you’d like to see what else he has written! Thanks for joining us on our RANDOM journey either way!
Yes, you read that right. I’m an introvert, but I enjoy being social too. Maybe this sounds unheard of to you? Or maybe it sounds all too familiar? The introvert/extrovert scale is not black and white, not one or the other. It is definitely a spectrum, and it is not set in stone. I find myself constantly sliding back and forth along that spectrum.
First, let me explain what introverts are NOT. Introverts are not necessarily anti-social, shy, or weirdos (how did extroversion become the “normal” trait anyways?!). Yes, some may have these traits, but it’s not one-size-fits-all. Introversion and extroversion is measured by whether you gain energy from being around people or expend energy by being around people. I typically get drained from being around people all day, but not always. Sometimes I crave being around people. A meme I recently saw online explained a lot of myself to me.
I think being an introvert and an empath go hand in hand. I’m not talking science-fiction empath who can read minds. Empaths are people who are highly in-tune with and feel the emotions of the people around them. Other people’s energy comes at me all day. I absorb it–the good, the bad, the ugly. It’s tiring. But on top of that all, I try to fix things for people if they are unhappy. I don’t know if all empaths have that need to fix things with people, but they probably do to some degree.
I’ve learned if I’m around people on my terms, I’m good…at peace. These are my “safe” people. I call them my emotional support peeps. These are the people I trust to not drain my energy most of the time. They are authentic people who wear no masks. If people are wearing a mask, I feel it, and my default action is to start analyzing why. That uses up my energy.
High-energy extroverts tend to drain my energy, too. I’m not saying they are fake or bad to be around, but I can only be around them for so long before I’m tired. It’s too much stimulation for my brain to process. If you are my friend and a high-energy extrovert, don’t hate me. I can’t control my brain.
I feel like social introverts are a very misunderstood personality type. It can be confusing to people who don’t know them well. I have had many people after getting to know me (and after getting comfortable enough to say so) say they thought I was a b**** when they first met me. I don’t take offense to this because I’m glad we got over that hump so you can see me for who I really am. I realize how different I can be in different situations. After lots of introspection in life, I completely understand why I can come off that way, but I still can’t “fix” it.
Here’s some things I want you to know about me as a social introvert (may not apply to all social introverts):
If you first met me with my “safe people”, you likely saw a whole different person than the next time you saw me alone. I can seem like the life of the party (not as often anymore–I’m old and tired) when I’m around the people I’m most comfortable with. I can be incredibly outgoing. If we get on the topic of introvert vs. extrovert, and I say I’m an introvert, some people are surprised. How can I be so social? I’m not a shy, quiet wallflower. Well, sometimes I am. But just wait until you get to know me well enough that I feel safe around you. You might think I’ll never shut up. For real. Sometimes I need to shut up!
I have social anxiety. Yes, I want to be social, and yes, it also makes me extremely anxious to be social. Typically, if I’m around my safe people, I do okay. If there were others around that don’t know me well, I’m guaranteed to have a panic attack the next morning. I snap awake at 6 a.m. running all the things I said the previous night through my head to see how dumb I was. This leads to a vicious cycle of hiding from people and wanting to be around people.
Please don’t be offended when I ghost the party. I truly mean no offense when I do this! But when my social tank gets on ‘E’, the thought of going around and saying good-byes seems like the MOST torturous thing I could do. The struggle is real! I typically try to send a message to the host thanking them for inviting me. That allows me to say “good-bye” and “thank you” without the awkward moments that I cause myself.
If you see me alone, and I act like I don’t see you, I SWEAR it is not personal! I’ve heard people say stuff like, “I saw so-and-so at the store today, and they acted like they didn’t see me!” I’m that person, and I’m sorry. There are so many reasons I would do this, and none of them have anything to do with you. I’m seriously crazy in my own head about it: 1) what if you don’t recognize me, then I’m the weirdo saying hi, 2) what if you don’t feel like making small talk because we ran into each other in the store, and now I’m annoying you, 3) I’m so socially drained and it took me a lot of energy just to get out in public, and I can’t even right now. The list can go on and on. It’s REALLY not you, it’s me. So if I’ve done this to you, I’m truly sorry. I don’t mean anything by it.
I am fine with hugs, but the are-we-or-aren’t-we going to hug kills me! My husband and his family are huggers. That’s fine. If I know hugs are coming, I am totally okay with hugs. But my husband hugs friends, too. Then I’m standing there processing at 100 mph about whether I’m expected to hug too, or are they going to hug me because they hugged him? Or if there is no hug for me, why not? Is it because I’m weird? You can’t imagine how much energy I have expended on the hug or not to hug. I have a few friends who broadcast their hugs, and I appreciate it! There is no question that it’s coming, and it’s not awkward at all! PS – I am not asking for more hugs. Just to be clear. 😉
Last but not least, I am NOT making the phone call. This has nothing to do with being a social introvert, I just wanted to remind everyone how much I hate making phone calls. I’ll text you. I’ll email you. You can call me. At least I’ve gotten over making phone calls enough to order pizza… but I love the places where you can order online instead!
So, as a social introvert, I’m asking for you to consider giving me and others like me a little grace and understanding. If you see a person out in public, and they seem like they are ducking out to not talk to you, they might have just had an anxiety moment. If someone ghosts at a party, don’t take it personally–they were likely there way beyond empty and lasted as long as they could because they were having fun. Broadcast your hugs with big open arms (unless you know someone HATES hugs, then don’t hug them at all). It takes out all the stress. And finally, and most important, please don’t ask me, “Why don’t you just call them?” Because, I won’t.
I quit my job of 17 years and my career of over 20 years in the IT business.
In dramatic fashion.
I told my boss I was taking the rest of my life off, deleted 20 gigs of files from the mainframe that I had built over my career, deleted the config files from the firewall and routers, changed all the admin passwords, logged in as admin to the email system and told the entire leadership of my place of employment to stick it via mass email and walked out of the building.
An hour later I was informed via text message by my old boss that charges were being pressed and a police report would be filed. No matter. I would be on a plane to Southeast Asia 3 days later and unreachable for the foreseeable future. The best part was I still had access to the email system via several dummy accounts and was able to read the entire reaction via internal email. The panic was delightful. The cost in time to fix my little bit of mischief would be significant.
The bridge was burned with napalm.
I changed my mailing address to Colorado and spent the entirety of 2019 traveling and free lancing here and there for extra spending money, and to keep a lawyer on retainer, the one item I had not budgeted for…
Sometimes when you’re log jammed in life, the best way to break a log jam is a grenade. I understood that I could get in trouble for my actions, but understand this: Every word of this is true, except for everything I’ve written up to HERE.
Well, the date I left my job is accurate. And the part about the travel and free lance. Truth is, I actually liked my job for the most part. It enabled everything that comes after. I liked many of the people, the problem solving, the camaraderie, and especially having good health insurance! But early retirement was my goal for many years, and it was time. 2019 in many ways was the best year of my life. I did not stay at my job long enough to reach full pension benefits, which I could have gotten by staying 3 more years. But it was not my priority. My priority is to try and squeeze every bit of enjoyment out of life possible for me without bankrupting myself.
I’ve been asked by a few people, why? Why didn’t you stay a paltry three years? And the answer is, it wasn’t absolutely necessary for me to survive and having watched a few people near and far retire and die soon after I was determined not to go that route, God willing.
I wouldn’t trade the experiences of my ‘gap year’ for anything, especially a little extra ‘security’, which is not a real thing honestly.
The story of how I got here financially is not what I wanted to talk about here, though I may discuss that in another post about ‘money’ and ‘early retirement’.
My goal was to find a way to write about my experiences last year and not come off as humble bragging, or attempting to paint a picture of a ‘perfect life’. Some may see it that way anyway, and they are free to interpret as they see fit, or not read any of this. No matter. You’ll be judged regardless so you might as well do you.
The end of 2017 and a lot of 2018 was not necessarily great times for me. I struggled with some things and had to face some hard truths about my future playing music. Many of you may know that music has been the overarching passion in my life since I was a child. In 2017 after a particularly loud gig, I went home with terribly ringing ears and that ringing did not subside for days. I was alarmed and got hearing tested. I’ve known I have hearing loss for a long time, and it runs in the family. My dad is down to maybe 25 or 30% of his hearing, so I knew that day could come.
Testing confirmed some hearing loss and a diagnosis of Tinnitus was handed over. Well… duh.
I took the opportunity to have some custom ear plugs made and purchase in ear monitors, things I should have done a LONG time ago.
It’s a bit of an irony with musicians that doing the thing you love the most, potentially screws up your ability to do the thing you love the most. I really struggled with the tinnitus for the better part of the year, and I know a lot of people near me who didn’t know what I was going thru started calling me ‘grumpy’ during this time. Almost certainly I was dealing with depression. Without going into a long ramble about all of this, suffice to say at some point I accepted the fact of tinnitus and started learning to cope with it as well as possible and above all, protect my hearing at all costs as well as possible.
This means that the guys in my band have to put up with low volume rehearsals and always thinking about volume issues. They have been great for the most part and most of them have tinnitus as well, so it’s in their best interest whether they like it or not!
In fact it was talking to so many fellow musicians who have the same issues that helped me through. Be that as it may, I took the opportunity to pursue other creative passions and think about a life not totally encompassed by performing loud music.
Along with my love for all kinds of creative pursuits, music, art, photography, film etc I’ve also discovered a true enjoyment for writing, and I’m going to try and hone that craft on this blog and who knows, maybe other places. The feedback I received from writing about my travels in Vietnam and other places is truly gratifying, and directly inspired me to start trying to write more seriously.
If you’ve come this far with me and you’re willing, come a little further.
I had to go thru my google calendar for 2019 to remember but here it is:
December 26-Jan 15 Vietnam & Cambodia
March 24 -31 New Orleans
June 9-16 Dinosaur National Monument Utah/Colorado
July 8-13 Canoeing Arkansas Buffalo National River
July 14-21 Colorado Hiking with the B’s
August 4-8 Mexico
Aug 15-18 Canoeing Driftless Wisconsin
Aug 29 – Sept 3 – Denver Wedding
October 9-12 Colorado Home Inspection
Oct 18-27 California – Work trip remodeling my sisters house in Fortuna
Oct 28-30 Colorado – fixes for house
Nov 24 – Chicago Bears game
Nov 26- Dec 4 – Colorado Remodel
Dec 26-Jan 4 Colorado remodel
I also managed a couple large construction projects in Springfield, played a dozen gigs, worked half a dozen studio gigs as well as all the regular family goings on. I suppose it would be unfair to say I am retired. I work almost everyday that I don’t have something else going on.
The irony is I left a decent paying job in the construction industry 22 years ago because I was absolutely miserable, and now the majority of my work is construction / remodeling projects. The difference is, I actually enjoy it now. I like remodeling things, and I get to pick when I’m outdoors or in. And it was that base of knowledge that got me started in the rental business, which has definitely helped us towards our retirement goals. It has in fact become, my job after ‘retirement’.
I have to thank my wife, for letting me run all over like a crazy person last year. She was supposed to leave her job last June and for complicated reasons that have little to do with us, she did not. The upside of this situation is this allowed us to purchase a home in Colorado in our favorite mountain town, Buena Vista. We have both agreed that this year I (we) will tone down the travel a bit. For one, we will not leave the lower 48. The Colorado house we bought is definitely a ‘fixer upper’ and is going to take significant time and resources to get going. But it also means we’ll get to spend a lot of time in one of our favorite places in the world, and the surrounding area.
Life is good, but things can change in a heartbeat. I am just trying to enjoy every minute for the moment, and I hope all who read this are doing the same.
Life is also short. Don’t wait to do the things you want to do, do them sooner rather than later, you never know when the day will come when you can’t.
If you could take a year and do anything you wanted, what would you do? Where would you go? Leave a comment below!
Nostalgia. When I was about 9 years old, our family’s best friends moved to Arkansas. It was hard. We were close and I didn’t have many other friends. We made trips to see them several times over the next few years, and this was essentially our family vacation. Just to visit for a week and stay with our friends. It was all we could afford really. To me, Arkansas was a deep, dark, mysterious place. Endless forests, swamps, rivers, venomous snakes, and the kids there casually called me ‘yankee’. I had zero understanding of what that meant at the time, and was thoroughly confused. Was I supposed to be insulted? I didn’t know! That aside, the people were friendly enough there. We spent all of our time riding motorcycles, 3 wheelers, fishing, hunting, and shooting guns. I guess it was a kind of heaven for a country kid. One of the highlights for me was a stay at ‘the cabin’. That’s what we called it. It was a friend of the friends place, out on the Saline river. It was always an adventure even getting there. You had to ‘winch in’. The road was dirt and ran through the swamps along the river. You had to have a 4WD and a winch and you would get stuck multiple times on the way. You would see multiple snakes as well, and often we would stop and take target practice on them. Copperheads, Cottonmouths, Rattlers. Going in at night added some creepiness to the adventure. Being a kid and having no sense of distance, it just felt like it was FAR out in the woods and I always had an element of nervousness that should I become lost out there… well, that would be the end of me. There were numerous trails that branched out from the cabin, and we would walk around or ride motorcycles. We were told, if you get lost…. it’s 50 miles to the nearest road. That never left my mind. I now know it’s maybe half a mile to the road in any direction. LOL. They just didn’t want us to get lost. My dad and I would stay at the cabin with our friends and hunt deer. The mosquitoes were as big as fireflies, it was dark as a cave at night, and weird sounds would come out of the woods after dark. It was certainly an adventure for a young boy. I caught a huge Northern Pike on the river right behind the cabin and they cleaned it and we ate it for dinner. Usually someone would kill a deer, and I would watch fascinated as they’d hang it from the tree beside the cabin and gut it. We did this regularly for a few years, until ultimately the friends had a falling out with the cabin owner, and we stopped going. The trips to Arkansas became less frequent as well as we got older and eventually we just kind of outgrew it I guess. Life is funny that way. Our friends were far away, and we saw them less and less. Yet our friendship endured, as friendships like that often do. There was never any question that should I darken the doorstep of central Arkansas, I would be welcomed, hugged, fussed over and given a place to stay. I made it a point to stop by there a couple of times over the last twenty years, and see our friends. And then 10 or 15 years ago, I started thinking about ‘the cabin’. I wanted to see it again. I NEEDED to see it again. Was it really that far in the wilderness? A magical place where childhood spun adventures into memories and thoughts of ‘the good old days’ lived. I started reaching out to our friends in Arkansas. I asked about the cabin. Some of them thought it was gone, burned down, others said it may still be there. This just added to the mystery. The owner had died, and ownership had passed on to someone my friends didn’t know. But their cousin still owned another cabin nearby in the woods. I made a trip to Arkansas with my dad about 5 years ago and attempted to see it. Our friend took us down to the river where the road thru the woods started, but there was a gate, and about 100 yards of mud and swamp that there was no way our car would go thru. We could have walked I suppose, but we didn’t have permission to be back there, and people can be funny about trespassing on their deer hunting camps. I left disappointed but vowed to return. And then another opportunity arose. My wife and daughter were leaving town for a week and I had nothing better to do, so I figured it was time to try again. I contacted my friends, and they reached out to their cousin who now owned the property next to the old cabin. She managed to get me permission and arranged for us to get a key to the gate. The day arrived and my friend hauled us out there, with a 4 wheeler and ‘side by side’ in tow. We planned to leave the truck wherever it became necessary and then ride those in. We arrived at the gate, and went thru. Another 100 yards and we came to a second gate… and it was locked. And no key. And it was about 105 degrees with the heat index. I didn’t drive all the way here to be defeated, so we made the decision to walk. I wasn’t sure how far it was but I was able to use google maps and could see it was about a mile to the river. We got busy walking and tried to ignore the heat. It was interesting walking and even though it had been 40 years since I’d been here, it still looked familiar to me. I walked along with a silly grin, sweating and looking out for snakes. Locusts sang loudly in the heat, and the occasional mosquito harassed us. A grunting sound came out of the woods and some faint squealing… Deliverance? Nah. Wild hogs. Arkansas Razorbacks to be precise. If they were close I’d be a little more worried as they are dangerous in groups and aggressive, but we could tell they were a ways off, likely across the river. Finally the river came into view. It was beautiful. Clear water & a gravel bottom made it possible to see into the holes and valleys of the river bottom and I could see fish, and a large turtle swimming under the water. Sunlight shimmered and danced on the surface and a gentle sigh sang in the trees, while the tips of their branches stirred the water. Lovely.
We made a right turn and started walking towards the cabin. About a 1/4 mile in we came to a clearing with a cabin standing in it. This was the cousins cabin. They were redoing the flooring and had almost everything in the cabin sitting outside. I vaguely remembered this place but had never stayed here or spent any time here so I was anxious to go on. I got back on the road and started hiking. The road got muddier and had some big holes and puddles in it, but it seems they had improved the road a lot since the old days of needing a winch to get in. I could see light coming thru the trees ahead and I knew I was close, as the old cabin sat in a clearing in the woods, allowing plenty of grass and sunshine. I picked up my pace and the trees opened up, and there it was. Sitting in the clearing just as it had since I was a boy. It looked exactly as I remembered. The clearing was overgrown and it was clear nobody had been out here in awhile, or mowed. The trails and roads we used to follow were completely overgrown. I walked around, taking it all in, snapping pictures, and letting the memories replay and flow in my mind. It was beautiful. I smiled to myself in the heat, sweating in the sun, absently swatting gnats and mosquitoes away. Mission accomplished. I felt a real sense of satisfaction in making it back out here, of reliving some moments from my childhood, but there was no magic, no wormhole, no time machine. Only the glistening shine of happy memories, dulled by distance but polished by time. I thanked the good lord for giving me the opportunity to get back out here, took one last look and started the long walk back to forever.
“Arkansas are your rivers still flowing Is your cotton growing white as snow Do the young men still piddle with the thought of growing rich And slowly turn the old folks sittin’ whittling on a stick Arkansas Arkansas”
Ahhh, Cambodia. Or Kampuchia, as it was known in ancient times. I first became aware of Cambodia and the temples there as a kid of 8 or 9 years old. Before the days of the internet, we had these things known as ‘Encyclopedias’ and one of my favorite things to do was to leaf thru a set of late 50’s era encyclopedias that we had around the house. I remember seeing pictures of Angkor Wat and being fascinated by them as a kid and thinking “I need to see that someday!”. One of my earliest ‘bucket list’ items, established. When the trip to Vietnam came up, my sister suggested a stop in Cambodia after Vietnam and I thought it was an excellent idea. It made no sense NOT to go as we would be half an hour away, I’d always wanted to see Angkor Wat, and I recently left my day job, making a long trip possible for me.
We flew into Siem Reap from Hanoi and the flight was less than an hour. After the fun of clearing customs in Saigon, we were prepared for anything, but were very pleasantly surprised at how quick and efficiently we procured visas & cleared customs. Probably less than 15 minutes passed before we were standing outside the airport looking for a taxi. Task 1, we threw away our Vietnamese SIM cards & purchased Cambodian SIMs for our phones, spending approximately 6 dollars apiece for unlimited data & calls for 15 days. Next up was a ride to our hotel. We had read that taxi drivers could be aggressive in Cambodian airports but we experienced nothing of the sort at Siem Reap. We actually had to go to the taxi stand and ask for someone. A smiling, smallish, middle aged guy approached and said hello, he’d be taking us to our hotel. He directed us to his vehicle and helped load up our bags. His name was ‘Moni’ (Rhymes with Pony). He immediately launched into a tour guide persona, telling us it would take about 15 minutes to get to the hotel and that he would tell us all about the area on the way. His english was excellent, and I was immediately drawn to his soft spoken demeanor and kind, polite persona. I spent the ride to the hotel listening to Moni, and observing what I could of the Cambodian country side. I was struck by how little traffic there was, and how many cars there were, in comparison to Vietnam. Still, the roadsides were dotted with small stands selling various things, motorbikes were everywhere, and people were still out late enjoying the evening. Still very much in the ‘Southeast Asia’ vibe.
A quick aside about Siem Reap: Siem is another word for Siam, as in “Siamese” and is a reference to the ancient country of Siam, now known as Thailand. Siem Reap translates to ‘victory over the Thai’ as an important battle was won here in the past. I was surprised to learn later that the Cambodian people (Khmer’s technically) are directly related to the Thai and can even understand much of each other’s language and their alphabets are similar.
Within a couple minutes of giving basic info about Siem Reap, Moni pulled out a map of the angkor complex and made his pitch to offer tour guide services. For 80$ a day he would provide a car and guide services to the temples and other interesting sites nearby. This seemed very reasonable to me and after our experience with a Vietnamese guide who barely spoke english, I was excited to run into someone so fluent in English, as well as just enjoying his personality. I was ready to hire him on the spot, but my sister asked for a card and told him we would settle in first, and then contact him if we decided we wanted a guide. As we neared the hotel, Moni let us know, that we could find guides anywhere around town, including the hotel and as a bonus for us, he would knock 10$ a day off his usual price. After checking in the hotel and getting luggage put away, we quickly agreed to call Moni and hire him for the 3 day tour. My sister and I were both a little tired of the tight schedule we’d been on in Vietnam and were ready for a more relaxed week so we agreed to get a nice hotel and go slower over the week and just enjoy ourselves. Lucky for me, my sister Mindy is an expert traveller, and a travel hacker as well, so she’s always researching, gathering credit card points & airline miles to use on her adventures. She happened to have status with an extremely nice hotel chain called Le Meridian and procurred us the entire week on some points she had with the chain. That became our home base for the week. Our room came with an amazing, free breakfast buffet every morning, and free drinks and appetizers / snacks in the bar every night. I was thrilled to have a big pot of regular old western coffee to drink every morning, and there was a great pool and nice bar as well. We contacted Moni to setup a meeting time for the morning, had a couple of free drinks in the bar, and turned in for the night. The next morning we got up and had a nice long breakfast and then prepared for our 1st day. I was surprised at how much hotter and drier it was here compared to North Vietnam. Everything was extremely dry and the temps were in the high 80s even at 8 in the morning. Moni arrived and I was immediately struck by how much older he was than I had thought in the evening. We loaded up and headed to the ticket offices for the temple complexes & purchased our 3 day passes. Passes were $72 for 3 days. Tourism is hugely important in Cambodia, it’s estimated to be 30% of the entire economy, and I was happy to pay the fees. Cambodia is still very poor, and it feels good to spread some dollars around. Finally, we cleared town and started heading towards our 1st temple of the day. Now I could check out the country side for real. We quickly turned off on to dirt roads and encountered a checkpoint. The roads to all of the famous temples are guarded by tourism police. Basically they just check your tickets and make sure you’re legit. It has to be a pain in the butt for locals who use some of these roads though, and in fact I later learned that if you need to get somewhere within the confines of the park boundaries, you have to go around on country roads and take 5 times as long to get where you’re going. Maybe there is a different rule for locals only? But I never found out otherwise. The countryside was brown & dry, hardly any water anywhere. It’s the dry season in winter and it sure is dry. It very much reminded me of parts of eastern New Mexico. One thing I began seeing regularly, little ‘houses’ on stilts, with what appeared to be liquor in them. It turned out to be gasoline, in Johhny Walker bottles. Locals purchase gas somewhere, split it down into liters and sell it for a small markup. These little cambodian gas stations were all over the country side, and my mischevous self couldn’t help thinking how fun it would be to light some of them up with a little bit of tannerite and a 30/30 round… =).
Cambodian Gas Station
Cruising down the road, day dreaming, enjoying the ride when we slow down for some traffic ahead and I glance out the window and my jaw drops, we are at the first temple of our tour, Pre Rup. It looks HUGE from the roadside. I look back at my sister and a big goofy grin spreads over my face. This is what I came for.
We parked the car and I grabbed my camera and practically leapt out of the car and scrambles across the road. I couldn’t WAIT to check this place out. As I stepped across the threshold through the outer gate, a cambodian police officer held up his badge and said ‘Hey, you want a souvenir? You want to buy my badge? 15$’ I just grinned and him and kept walking but in my head I was thinking… WTF? Moni whispered to me “I’ll tell you about that guy in a bit”. Back to the temple – Pre Rup means ‘turn the body’ and it is believed that this site was used for cremating the kings body. Moni pointed out a building that had ventialtion holes in it that may have been used for this purpose. This is a small temple as they go in the Angkor Complex, but my first one and so we spent a bit more time than normal climbing around, taking pictures, and absorbing the vibe of walking around on a 1000 year old holy site. The view was great from on top, and it made me excited about the bigger ones we would be visiting later on. Moni pointed out all of the key features of the temple, particularly interesting bas relief carvings or a statue, and also the coolest photo spots as well.
Our guide Moni, teaching us about the insriptions
He really knew his stuff, and I was impressed with his knowledge of english architecture words. I later learned that all working guides in the Angkor park / complex must go to school for a full year to become a guide. It costs 500$ which is no small feat to raise in Cambodia but obviously, the opportunities are really good once you have that license. They also have to get updated every two years on recent discoveries or changes in thought on certain aspects of the history, etc. Like I said, tourism is vital here and the government has decided that amateurs are not allowed to relay their history, professionals only! We headed down and to the car, and as I passed the front gate, I could see the local cop still trying to pawn his badge to tourists… When we got back in the car I reminded Moni about the cop. Apparently, he sits out there in his spare time and sells badges to tourists when someone wil buy one. He told the guides a long time ago that he access to extra badges at work so… that’s his side hustle. I thought maybe they were fakes, but no. Legitimate Siem Reap PD badges, 15$. I should have made a citizens arrest but… I didn’t know the culture so I let it slide.
Rather than going into detail about all of the temples we visisted, I’ll just give you my impression of the complex overall, and list the names for you as you can find way more complete information on Wikipedia about each individual temple. On Day 1 we visited Pre Rup , Banteay Samre. Banteay Srei, East Mebon, Ta Som, Neak Pean, Preah Khan, and ended the day by stopping at the moat at Angkor for sunset. There were hundreds if not thousands of people in the area and locals were everywhere selling food, toys, or whatever they could make a buck off of. Angkor is surrounded by a giant square moat, and there are ancient steps leading down to the water all around, making for a grand spot to watch the sunset. We picked a likely spot with a view of the 5 towers and relaxed. As the sun and the temperature dropped, the bats came out and began their daily ritual, diving and fluttering about, wreaking havoc on the local insect population. It was a downright wonderful and a bit surreal end to an exciting day.
A Cambodian girl enjoys the sunset at Angkor Wat
My head was filled, and spinning with facts and figures about the temples, and my phone and camera were filled as well. Very satisfying. Moni was doing a great job of educating us on the history of the area, the current culture and politics in the country, and we were getting to know him at the same time. He drove and older model SUV, and told us that due to taxes, the price of cars in Cambodia is roughly three times what they are in the US. So that old $5000 beater? 15K! I wondered how an average Cambodian family could pull it off. He was married with two young children, and lived in a traditional Cambodian home, on stilts. The average family tends to spend most of their time under the house in the shade during the day, and retire upstairs to sleep. Moni is a devout Buddhist as well. He paid his respects to the Buddhas at every temple we visited, and his knowledge of the traditional Buddhist stories and the temples was astounding. So many details… Most of the temples tend to follow a similar design. They are generally square, and there tends to be a moat surrounding the temple, followed by multiple enclosure walls. The temples often sport lotus shaped towers, and the inner space is usually elevated above the rest, as home for the gods. So in a way, they are all the same, but different. My initial impression was one of awe at the size, and scope of the overall area. Dozens of temples, and the detail work… bas reliefs carved into sandstone, often over vast swaths of stone, not a square inch left untouched. The intricacy of relief carving solid rock with ancient tools is really hard to comprehend once you’ve seen it in person.
Stone was quarried miles away at a nearby mountain and the latest research supports the theory that it was gathered 22 miles away, and floated on a series of canals to the individual sites. Some of the rocks weigh over 3000 pounds… Angkor Wat alone has over 3 million pieces of stone assembled. It is believed that nearly 300,000 people were working on these temples. Many of them slave labor. I tried to imagine how much food had to be supplied to feed this workforce… Incredible. Each temple tends to have an inscription in Sanskrit on the main gate entrance through the outer enclosure, which generally tells what year it was finished, whom it was dedicated too, and other vital information.
Sanskrit inscription on the threshold entry to a temple
Each temple also includes two library buildings on site, where all the history of the temple was recorded and stored. Writing and records were kept on animal skins. So, the reason we know so much about the temples construction, names, etc, is because they kept great records! Another interesting factoid, many of the temples were started for, or dedicated to Shiva, but along the way many of the Cambodian kings became Buddhists, so the temples were converted to Buddhist temples, or even changed midstream of construction. So there are statues from both major religions all over the area. Where they have not been stolen, or destroyed that is. The vast majority of the heads from the complex were stolen or destroyed over the years, but eventually many of them ended up in the Museum at Phnom Penn. These days, there are many replica heads at the temples, and security guards live and sleep at the temples 24/7. I saw a few of their dwellings around the premises.
Eventually we drifted back to the car and headed back to the hotel for the evening. We got there just in time to hit the free drinks & barfood “Happy Hour”. My sis and I ended up trying about every drink on the menu and gorging ourselves on the bar food, which was quite good. So good in fact, that we decided it qualified as dinner and went and crashed for the evening.
Day Two: Temples visited today:
Banteay Kdei, Ta Prohm, Ta Keo, Stone bridge – Spean Thma, Angkor Thom, Bayon, Elephant terrace, & Angkor Wat. The first temple of the day proved to be some of the best photography light I’d had so far and I was really happy with some of my phone & camera shots. Next up was Ta Phrom. This is likely the 2nd most famous, due to the giant tree roots left in place, and it’s use in the movie Tomb Raider. When the temples were rediscovered in the early 1800’s, the french deliberately left the trees standing at this temple because of their picturesque appearance. Apparently that was a good move, as the place was so crowded with tourists standing in line to take “THE” picture with the tree rooted door that we were able to roam about some of the other parts of the complex in relative peace. Nowadays the trees are removed as they are a threat to the structures.
Ta Keo was next, and this one was interesting to me just because the foundation was so massive, and also because there were monkees hanging out on the grounds, the first we’d seen in the country.
Spean Thma was next (Stone bridge) and was more of a curiosity than anything. Angkor Thom – This is technically the name of the temple ‘city’. This may be my favorite spot of all I visited. It features “South Gate’ which is a bridge over a moat that features the ‘faces’ of angkor, and a row of beings on each side playing tug of war with a 7 headed snake. It is an extrememly pretty spot, and a great spot for pictures as well.
The central temple is Bayon and has lots of the famous ‘faces’ and there are tons of great photo ops here.
Next up was the elephant terrace, a giant wall overlooking a courtyard featuring massive carvings of elephants and other elements. After the elephant terrace our guide hooked us up with a ‘tuktuk’ a motorbike with a wheeled cart behind it and we took a ride over to a different area, and eventually headed to our final stop for the day, Angkor Wat.
At this point, having seen so many other temples, I was maybe not as impressed as I thought I’d be. Angkor is so famous mostly because of it’s scale, and also how well preserved it is. One neat feature were the ‘elephant gates’ on the outside, with doors big enough to allow elephants to pass thru. The walls are covered in extremely cleanly preserved bas relief carvings, buddhist stories, and stories of the builders, etc. We made our way to the central square and towers, and joined the long line waiting to climb to the top. As we approacged the stairs the lady behind me was denied entry due to her shirt being sleeveless, even though she had a shawl over it. Religious code, but it seemed to be enforced randomly. We climbed to the top and admired the view, and i felt a bit of satisfaction standing at the spot I’d dreamt of for so long. Looooong way from home folks!
Elephant Gate
Angkor Wat
Buddhist Legends in Stone
Angkor Wat
Bakan
Girls in traditional dress
Buddhist monks
We took our time at the Bakan (inner gallery at the top) and then slowly drifted back down the steep stairs and our tour guide waiting with the other guides at the bottom. Moni had a weird thing about his knees. I noticed on the first days if there were steeps stairs, he often told us to go on and he would wait for us. Later on, he told me he was ‘saving’ his knees. I was like… what’s wrong with your knees? ‘oh, they get sore sometimes after a day of climbing stairs’. He mentioned several times about his knees. Finally I was like dude, if you don’t have a family history of bad knees, you’ll be fine! He takes his tour guide job seriously, to the point of planning ahead with his knees… But I digress. After finishing up at Angkor Wat we started slow walking back towards the front of the complex. People were gathering for sunset but honestly I felt like we’d seen enough and let Moni know we could just finish up for the day. On the way back, Moni told us he was taking us someplace before we went back to the hotel. He kind of let us know it was an art gallery, his friend owned and there would be no obligation to buy anything, but he got a free entry into some kind of lottery for bringing us there regardless. It turned out to be an exotic art & goods dealer. Art, Rugs, Statues, etc. The owner was middle eastern but traveled the world collecting things and then sold them from here in Siem Reap. We looked politely but I quickly let the owner know I was a collector of experiences, not things. I told him if I collected all the beautiful things that caught my eye in his store I would never be able to travel again. He smiled and seemed to appreciate my quip, and we quickly and politely extricated ourselves. We headed back to the bar and again hit the free drinks and bar food, and again, crashed early. Walking in the heat all day long does you in.
Day Three After two full days of temples, we were looking forward to a change of pace. Today we’d be visiting Tonle Sap, the largest lake in Cambodia. We headed out of town and stopped to get our tickets for our boatride. $50 dropped and we headed over to the boats in an extremely small, muddy canal. There barely seemed enough room to turn the boat around. The captain of our boat looked to be no more than 12 years old. His first mate, the same. They smiled and welcomed us aboard with a gesture. Kids mature at a completely different rate in Southeast Asia. I’d seen this all over Vietnam as well. 6 or 7 year old kids wander around on their own and no one thinks twice about it. I guess they don’t have cable news telling them they’ll be kidnapped 24/7… Kids often start working in the family business as soon as they are capable as well. These guys seemed happy enough to be doing something though, and the whole operation was clearly old hat to them. THey worked together to get the boat started (one at the engine, one at the helm) and the engine fired up with a cough and a roar. We backed out, and with a bit of maneuvering, headed down the canal. It was interesting passing other boats in the skinny canal, and the breeze felt good on this 90 some degree day. I kicked back and let the scenery roll by. Along the bank, people were fishing, repairing nets, swimming, and just going about life. Soon the canal opened up a bit and we started making some turns. After a couple of turns I could see some homes across the way. As we rounded the corner I was surprised to see the houses were on stilts, and looked to be 25 to 30 feet in the air! The bank had disguised this from me on the river. Now an entire village of homes on stilts came into view, and it was amazing to witness. The entire thing was built out of scavenged wood, with very tall and sketchy looking ladders from the ground to the top. There were different levels where things were stored, such as wood, fishing gear, nets, and then at the top, all of the household goods. There were also boats at ground level that were clearly homes in themselves. Most had a semi-circular roof over the top, and a couple of hatches. Most of the day to day living items were stored under the roof, and things that could take the weather were tied on the outside somewhere. Hard to imagine a family of 5 living in such a small space but again, I had seen this all over Vietnam, and now here as well. It was interesting observing life in the village, watching kids run about, a few adults worked on repairing homes, boats or fishing gear. A young girl bathed her little brother on a floating dock in the muddy water, a mangy mutt lounged nearby, and another young boy stood on the canal edge peeing into the water and watching us go by with a big smile on his face. Party on dude!
We passed the local temple and police headquarters (Labeled Gendarmarie) and that was the edge of the village. Now we entered a mangrove forest and I could see people among the mangroves fishing, or tied up selling things. Ahead I could see the canal open up and sure enough, we arrived at the lake. It was not at all what I expected. I’m not sure what I expected… It was a giant expanse of muddy water. So big that it was like looking at a freshwater ocean, as if the Mississippi had turned into a lake. It was hot, and haze came off the water in the distance. A couple of large buildings floated at the mouth of the river, and we headed there and tied up. This was the equivalent of a welcome center and included a restaurant, a small store selling various fishing equipment, taxidermied animals including the worst example of a crocodile I’d ever seen (you could see the cut and stiching from 10 feet away) and also a pen filled with live, hungry crocodiles. I’ve seen crocs quite a few times in my life, but something about the environment felt really unpleasant to me. The market was selling live or dead chickens for people to buy and pitch into the pen. There were roughly 12-15 crocs of various size present in the muddy water. I stood at the railing checking it out and realizing that it would be incredibly easy for a person to disappear out here. If someone managed to push you over the railing… or you just needed to dispose of a body….
There was an observation deck on top and we went up top and looked around. Nothing but muddy water as far as the eye could see, and the mangrove forest behind us. We lingered a moment and headed down. Moni informed us it was time to move on. We got back on the boat and to our surprise headed back up the canal. Well… that didn’t take long. LOL. Fastest $50 boat ride ever! Whatever. This entire area reeked of poverty, from the canal, to the boats, to the village, to the lake, there was a palpable sense of it in the air. I just hoped our 12 year old boat pilots got a piece of the ticket price. I carrried some hard candy around in my pocket and both of them accepted some with a smile when I offered and I could see the small smiles on their faces as they sucked on their butterscotch, and drove us up the canal. Soon we were back at the boat parking area and I managed to drop my camera lens cover under the floor in the boat. Both these guys gave it their all to retrieve it for me and I believe they would have deconstructed the floor if necessary. Luckily they got it and I handed them each a few bucks. Big smiles. Thumbs up dudes.
We headed back to the van and off we went with Moni. We had no idea what was next but soon enough, we pulled up to a temple. Ah. More temples. LOL. I say this with a twinge of humor, I was fine with seeing some more temples, but I was also perhaps reaching ‘temple burnout’. Temples visited today: Preah Ko, Bakong, Chau Srei Vibol, and Phnom Bok. Preah Ko was a very old, smaller temple built by the Chams and looked exactly like some temples I’d seen in Vietnam (built by the same people) Bakong was more of the same. We moved on and headed out into a more back country area. Eventually we stopped and parked. I couldn’t see anything so apparently we’d be hiking a bit. We headed up a hill towards a modern looking Buddhist temple. We arrived at the temple, which had an interesting painting on it. Moni explained the painting a bit, and we move towards the entry in back. Though this temple was modern, it was one of the most interesting I’d seen. Inside, the entire walls and ceilings were covered with paintings of scenes of various lessons of the faith, and buddhist history. Extremely colorful and I could have spent quite a while lingering here, taking it all in.
Behind this temple, were the ruins of Chau Srei Vibol. Most of this temple has fallen and it’s really just a pile of rubble. A party was going on in the distance and we could hear the usual chanting and music that seems to permeate the cambodian countryside, and it added a cool vibe to where we were. This was an out of the way place. Not a soul around other than ourselves. Moni guided us down a hill and we cam to another set of buildings, which were the libraries and galleries that went with the older temple. In this case it was separated from the temple which was unusual. There was also a dry pool nearby which has water in it in the wet season. On our way back to the car we passed a mom sleeping in the afternoon heat in a hammock while her 6 or 7 month baby played nearby on the ground in the jungle, completely unattended. Again… confidence. LOL. Chau Srei was not impressive in any way compared to the temples we had seen in the last two days, yet I absolutely loved visiting it. It’s location made it nearly unvisited, and it was really nice to get away from the crowds, into the woods, and relax in peace and quiet. It had a bit of a mysterious vibe. I told Moni this and he said almost every tourist he brought here said the same thing. He said he had not visited this area in 8 months. Apparently not many hire him for an entire three days. The afternoon heat was now starting to letup a bit and we headed off thru the countryside again. Moni pointed at a large mountain in the distance and said ‘that’s where we’re going next, last one!’. It was dramatic, as everywhere around us was perfectly flat, so any deviation really stood out. As we spun down the dusty backroads kids started pouring into the road on bicycles. Apparently school was letting out. I rolled the window down and we yelled at some of them. They road their bikes up and laughed at the foreigners with the cameras. We spoke english to them and some of them yelled back in whatever english they knew. It was fun for all of us.
Kids leaving school for the day
We continued on and I could see the mountain ahead. We rolled up and parked, and hit the toilets at the bottom before heading up. This was going to be a heck of a hike. We started up the hill on a gravel trail and soon came to a set of concrete stairs that went up, apparently forever from the looks of it. Several women were cleaning the stairs with brooms and repairing a stair at the bottom. They eyed us curiously as we passed and the climb began. If you ever want to test your cardio, climb some stairs. Nothing will raise your heartrate faster than stair climbing. I quickly found myself pulling away from Mindy & Moni, and Moni yelled for me to go on at my pace. I climbed for a few minutes and stopped to catch my breath. My heart pounded and sweat poured in the heat. I turned to look around and could see the view becoming more amazing by the moment. Being on the only hill for miles really made for a dramatic view. It reminded my of climbing on the front range in Colorado, looking back east towards the plains. Grass as far as the eye can see. My heart rate settled a bit and I continued on. After a few minutes, my breathing and running muscles settled in, and I made steady progress. 634 stairs… 2/3 of the way up, my legs were starting to complain a bit. Ha. Not today. No rest for the wicked! I put my head down and kept going.
The long climb up
I soon reached the top and encountered an interesting cooking shack and cistern. Makes sense. It’s a LONG way up here. Water would be really tough to haul up and down. There was no water in the cistern. I wandered on and came to another modern buddhist temple. Modern design anyway. It was clearly old and in disrepair and I could see that the roof was looking pretty rough. I could see a trail leading around the temple thru the trees so I followed it. I emerged from the trees into another ancient temple complex, surrounded by walls. Phnom Bok. Wow. This place was so cool. The old temple structures were again crumbling or even fallen, but many of them had trees growing from various places and it had that cool vibe with the trees like Ta Phrom. Something about the long hike up and it’s location gave this place a really interesting vibe and again, I could hear a buddhist cereMoni going on somewhere below as the music and chanting drifted up from a PA system somewhere. I was struck with the feeling of discovery I had being alone and sat down and shot a quick video with my phone.
Soon enough, Moni and my sister appeared and we chatted a bit about the place. After a bit we moved to outside the walled enclosure an began strolling back towards the way down. We came upon a hammock with a mosquito net, and a tarp overheard. Some dishes sat nearby. What is this? I asked Moni. “Guard sleep up here every night”. Whoa. That’s a heck of a walk to get up there. Bet it’s interesting in a lightning storm too!
Moni led me over to some trees and started pointing. Almost every tree on the mountain top was some form of fruit tree. At least 5 different varieties of fruit trees. By design obviously. Of course it made sense to have food growing up here, again, it’s a LONG way down. A small buddhist cemetary stood in the edge of the trees near the way down and I went over to check it out and take a couple pics. The names of monks who had lived on this mountain were honored here.
Again, I was struck by the vibe of these last two temples. While having very little left of the details or the actual buildings, they nonetheless had a great vibe for any who would make the journey. There were no other people on the mountain, and again I really enjoyed that sense of mystery, of being alone, and just having the silence and space to wonder about what was before me.
Side Note: There is a great drone video on YouTube HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXK3kpAWLM0 It shows exactly what we climbed, what it was like at the top, and various structures at the top. Awesome! We started making our way down, and I was a little sad, realizing this was our last day with Moni, whom I had come to like and appreciate. My sister and I would make sure he got a little something extra for his troubles. On the way home, we happened to pass Pre Rup, our 1st temple of the trip, and it was maybe 15 minutes before sunset. The moment was there, so we stopped and decided to check out sunset from Pre Rup. I grabbed my camera and rushed inside. Sister moved a bit more slowly. I quickly climbed Pre Rup, and realized I was one, of about 500 people on top for sunset. Excitement quickly turned to ‘Absolutely No Thanks’. I climbed down and drifted over to a corner of the temple that was unoccupied and sat down alone and watched the sun drop for a few minutes. Not wanting to encounter the crowd, I walked out, and ran into my sister on the outside. “The religous police wouldn’t let me in because my sleeves were too short”. But you just climbed Bakan… at Angkor Wat…? Weird. We drove back to the hotel and Moni offered his last bits of advice on some places to visit around town. We paid & tipped Moni, said our goodbyes, and again rushed for the free drinks and food at the bar.
Day 4. Today we had no real plans other than to relax, eat local & check out some local attractions. We decided to hit the Angkor National Museum. It was interesting in that half of the building was a mall, owned by a chinese company, and the other half was the national museum. We avoided the mall. The museum was nice but we had already experience it all in person. We spent less time here than maybe we should have. We’d had our share of temple information! We decided to grab a tuktuk and go visit the war museum. We flagged one down and headed out. It was a couple miles away and we enjoyed cruising in the tuktuk and checking out the traffic. We arrived at the war museum and paid the $5 entry fee. A young man approached and asked if we wanted a guide for a small tip. We said ‘sure’ and I’m glad we did. He appeared to be about 18 years old, but man did he know his stuff. He proceeded to walk us around the grounds and started describing the military hardware arrayed before us, as well as laying out the timeline of their use.
One of the more interesting things he told us, was that he had heard a lot of propaganda in his life, and how important it was for the next generation to learn to recognize and exercise skepticism about the information they are told. The lessons of the Khmer Rouge was not lost on the people here, and I sensed a determination by the people here to never let that happen again. It was pretty cool to hear this message at the war museum. Another topic of interest to me, landmines. I had been told to hit the landmine museum in Siem Reap and even though I’d seen it a few times while touring the temples, I never mentioned it to Moni. I had told him this on the way home yesterday and he’d told me to come here and I’d get all the same info. They had a great landmine display here, that showed the various types of mines that were routinely used here, and which kind were left by the Khmer Rouge. Landmines are a huge problem in Cambodia. There are over 40,000 amputees here, one of the highest rates in the world, and it is estimated that there are potentialy 4-6 million more landmines and pieces of unexploded ordinance out there. The most likely victims are children, who’s curiosity gets them in trouble, and farmers. The govt designed flyers and placed them in schools that help children learn about the mines, what they look like when encountered, and what to do about them. Siem Reap is very safe but there are other areas of the country that are very bad. There are currently demining efforts underway and hopefully they can continue to make progress.
After the war museum we grabbed lunch and then headed back to the hotel. We thought we should go down to pub street for the evening and shop a bit, since we’d basically avoided it while we were there, as it’s a huge tourist area (generally not my thing) We grabbed a tuktuk and went down there after cleaning up. It was chaos, which I’m sure is normal Thousands of people shopping eating and partying it up. I bought a T-shirt, my one purchase other than food on this entire trip. Three dollars. It was gloriously nice out though, and we noticed a couple places offering ‘fish pedicure’, where you stick your feet in a fish tank and the fish eat the dead skin off your feet. I knew my daughter had tried this in Mexico and I thought it would be fun to try. Plus they give you a beer during your ‘pedicure’… So we went for it. OMG. I’m ticklish and it took every bit of my will power not to jerk my feet out and just call it a night. The tickling sensation was very intense but I stuck it out and it became more tolerable after 5 or 10 minutes. Maybe the beer helped… It was fun to sit there and people watch though and we ended up staying for probably 45 minutes. Enough to have a few beers. We flagged down our tuktuk and called it a night. Flying out tomorrow. When I got back to the hotel and took my socks off, I was blown away by how soft my feet felt. That fish thing was totally legit!!! I think some of the nail shops around town should try this…
Fish Pedicure
Day 5 Last day in Cambodia. We had planned to take a bus to Phnom Penh, but changed our mind. A 6 hour bus ride just did not feel appealing on our last day, and we wanted to visit the genocide museum so we were concerned with timing. We did some research and decided to take a flight. A 39 minute flight vs a 6 hour bus ride… no brainer. There are few airlines in country and we either had to use the established airline (Angkor Air) or go with a brand new airline, only operating a few months, Cambodia Airways. Cambodia Airways was significantly cheaper, and Angkor Air has a crappy reputation, service wise. We rolled the dice and booked with Cambodia Airways. Before booking I got online and checked out their fleet and saw they were flying Airbus 319s, average age 10 years old. I was satisfied that we’d be a lot safer flying than riding a bus in Cambodia. We had our concerns given the age of the airline, but our worries were unfounded. The planes were spotless, the service was excellent, and the flight was just fine. Only one issue left to solve… what to do with all of our luggage for the day while we messed around. We could not check in to our flight until a few hours before and it was over 12 hours until then, and there were no lockers or storage at the airport. Damn. We had no choice but to drag our luggage with us. This was going to be a pain in the ass but it would be better than sitting in the airport for 12 hours. So we grabbed a cab and headed for the genocide museum. It was maybe a 15 minute drive, thru the city. We pulled over on an unlikely street in the middle of a residential neighborhood and the driver said, here you are. I looked around and saw nothing that might resemble a museum. There was a wall across the street with barbed wire on top so maybe that was it? Weird. We got our, grabbed our luggage and started walking back to the corner. Sure enough, this was it. The genocide museum is actually an old school, on which the grounds were used to run the infamous TS21, or Tuol Sleng 21. TS21 was a “security prison”, translation, a torture and execution center. There is a dearth of information online about Tuol Sleng, so I won’t go into much detail, but I will tell you this. There are some things that aren’t always easy to unsee, and images of the people, the rooms where they were imprisoned in, and some of the structures used to torture and execute people are burned in my brain, and I doubt that I will ever forget them. I knew before I ever set foot here that this may not be a ‘pleasant’ experience, but I feel that understanding such events is essential to preventing them in the future, however unpleasant it may be to face them.
TS21
The ‘museum’ is a virtual tour, they give you an ipod type device and headphones, and it guides you thru the grounds and explains everything in great detail. It is a very effective way to handle the large crowds of people who come here. We spent a couple hours on the grounds, listening to the stories, and looking everything over. Only 12 people are known to have survived, and at least 20,000 were imprisoned and murdered on the grounds. One of the survivors was actually on the grounds, selling his book. I cannot begin to imagine what he saw and how he has come to live with it. He is mostly deaf due to being beaten about the ears, but he smiled a lot and seems to have figured out how to move on. After getting our fill of negative vibes, we grabbed our luggage and went off to find lunch. There were restaurants all around the block so we just walked down to a likely looking one and sat down. The lady was super nice and looked a bit surprised to see us. She didn’t have half the things on the menu but we still ended up with a tasty lunch, and had some small conversation with her. I asked her if it was strange having her restaurant 50 feet from TS21, which you can clearly see from her restaurant (also their home) and she glanced over at it for a moment and then gave a dismissive wave of the hand. “Ahh.. it’s just a building”. We finished lunch and grabbed a tuktuk, and just asked the driver to take us to an area we could see on the map that appeared to be a nice park next to the mekong river. We were getting sick of dragging our luggage around but were not ready to just sit in the airport. It turned out to be a good move. The park was packed with people out for sunday relaxing, had a view of the river, and presidential palace, and after the horrors of TS21, it was a nice contrast.
Tired of dragging luggage around!
Presidential Palace
We did some googling and figured out there were boats selling cheap cruises just across the way, so again we grabbed a tuktuk and went down to the area where the boats were. Some quick negotiating got us a ‘private cruise’ on a nice boat on the mekong river. It was growing dark at this point and the city was beautiful from the river. We jumped on the boat, grabbed beers, and went up on the top deck to chill. The cruise was uneventful but it was interesting observing the many families living on their fishing boats along the edge of the river. I could see them casting nets and fishing, even in the dark, or cooking in the cramped quarters of their boats. What different lives we lead…
Tour Boats
Phnom Penh from the Mekong
And that basically wrapped our tour of Phnom Penh. We grabbed a ride back to the airport and basically sat around for several hours waiting for our check in to become available. It was long and boring but… what airport wait isn’t? Overall thoughts on Cambodia… The people here are almost painfully polite. I came to appreciate their traditional greeting that you get everywhere you go, they clasp their hands together and bow their heads to you. It it both deferential and uber polite, and you can’t help but feel honored when people greet you in this way. The historical treasures here are worthy of a trip to any world traveler, and cannot be quantified in text, they must be observed, touched, and smelled in person. Cambodia’s economy and foreign investment list is growing very fast right now, and I hope and pray for prosperous times ahead for the Cambodian people. They seemed as a rule friendly, hard working, and overall, happy. It is strange but it seems the overall attitude of people in poorer countries I have visited is more positive and happy than the relative wealthy countries. I got the idea that people here were very aware of what they had survived, and an underlying attitude of determination to move past it, and onward into an ever brighter, and more happy, healthy, and prosperous future. I wish them all the best.
Our thoughts about all randomish things 