Hi everyone this is my last post : *( but if you want to keep reading about my life I occasionally post to my personal website minghorn.yolasite.com and I'll try to be better at posting there. So I got back on Friday night in Berkeley and the total plane hours was 14 even though we left the airport in Cambodia at 7 pm and arrived 9 pm. On the second flight, the 12 hour one from Hong Kong to San Francisco there was some horrible turbulence and my mom and brother we barfing all over the place. Luckily I was asleep and in a different row XD! I was pretty sick that day and slept for seven hours on the plane which made it seem a lot shorter. Also we had a row with only two people so I got to lay down which was really nice except that my knees were hanging off the edge so much that when I sat up I couldn't move my hips because I had been in that position for so long. Then finally we arrived home and because the time difference is 15 hours we were awake all night and then yesterday I slept all day. I woke up at six AM and then went back to sleep and didn't wake up until 5 PM haha I was tired. Today is my brother's day of all day sleeping he still hasn't gotten up and it's 4 now. Well our adventure is over for now maybe in 2 years I'll return and continue posting to this blog as my continuous Cambodia blog. I'll post the rest of the Cambodia pictures later so look for that!
Bye! and Bon Voyage go have your own adventures now!
Ming :)
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
Traveling, Museum, and Shopping
Sorry I've been so bad about blogging but it's pretty hard now because my mom's computer died. But yesterday we basically spent the whole day shopping for souvenirs and at the Khmer Art Museum. We went to the museum first thing and it was interesting even though we come every time we go to Cambodia. The museum is like a timeline, you start at the earliest artifacts then make your way up to the most recent ones. But since there was a tour there we started at the end and worked our way to the beginning. Mostly it was sculptures and paintings but there was also a lot of really beautiful iron and bronze work. Most of the statues were of religious figures but most were missing arms, heads, and various other body parts. There were whole rooms filled with just statues of the Buddha. There were a lot of pieces of temples which had been taken apart to be catalogued when the Khmer Rouge came and destroyed the records so there aren't any records of where each piece goes. So basically there are whole temples in pieces and are literally giant puzzles. Some parts of sculptures have been constructed again and are displayed in the museum. After we went to the museum we went shopping for more souvenirs at the museum we bought a sculpture of a head which was on a temple in Siem Reap. Then we went to he street with all the "expensive" boutiques which aren't actually expensive by American standards but in Cambodia they were expensive. We bought a little more silk, I have no idea what we're going to do with all the silk! Afterwards we went back to our hotel room and at 5 we went to Wat Phnom. The Wats in Cambodia are the temples, they're usually really elaborately painted with a lot of the type of curbed roofs typical to Cambodia. We visited our friend the elephant Sambhor who we rode all our other trips but the cost to ride has gone up a lot and we decided just to feed her bananas instead. We also went into the art gallery here. It said that it was an art Museum but it's not really it's filled with dioramas of different legends and upstairs it's all dioramas of the Khmer Rouge. Then we went to the bat tree which is filled with huge fruit bats. We wanted to see them all fly off but it got too late so we went to dinner at Chao Jome. It's a Thai restaurant and we're sort of friends with the owner and we go there every trip. The food was pretty good my brother and I both got their legendary shakes Which I remember being really good but they were only ok. That night we had to pack and I packed but then I started feeling really sick so I went to bed bu my parent and brother were being EXTREMELY loud so I couldn't really sleep. This morning I still felt really sick, it's terrible I always get sick right before I go on long flying trips and it only makes me hate flying more. I'm in Hong Kong now and we bought a crossbow in the jungle but we don't have arrows or anything but they took it anyways. We're leaving in about a half hour but one gate is closed and we have to go through this whole securty thing and we aren't even at our gate yet.
Write more later!
Ming :)
Write more later!
Ming :)
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Traveling Back To Phnom Penh
Hey everybody sorry I haven't posted for awhile! I was traveling back from Ratanakiri and didn't have access to a computer with Internet because my mom's laptop crapped out and now I'm blogging on my mom's iPhone... But two days ago we drove from Ratanakiri to Kratie on our own private minivan. Once we got to the hotel at the reception the receptionist booked us a trip on a boat to see the Irawaddy Dolphins. They only live in Southeast Asia and are the only freshwater dolphins in the world. There are only a couple hundred left but when we got on the boat before our helmsman turned on the motor we saw at least 5. When we were finished we took a tuk-tuk back to the hotel. That night we ate at one of the little curbside restaurants across the street. The food was really good and they made it just on a grill by their tiny cart. The next day we hopped on another minivan but this time it was with a bunch of other people. We had to side four to a row and my whole family squeezed into a row made for three people. At the peak number of people in the car it was probably about fourteen including a baby. There were also two brand new motorcycles in the minivan which the workers were very worried about damaging, to say the least it was just a bit cramped. On the minivan we met a Belgian lady named Monique who was traveling to Laos and Cambodia on her six week trip. My parents talked to her the whole four hour trip and when it was over we all went to our hotel The York. After we settled into our room we went toe the beauty salon the New World where we had gone to all the times we've come to Phnom Penh ands my brothe and mom got haircuts and I got a manicure. Which is a pretty turquoise color. Today we went shopping at the Russian
marke which is one of the three markets in Phnom Penh. It is really claustrophobic in there because the ceiling is really low and the stalls are really close together but I got all my presents for my friends. As a heads up to all wishing for stuff from me I only got stuff for everyone that sits at my lunch table because it would be too much to get it for everyone sorry. Oh and Alice and Margaret Honig because they're my BFFS. Sorry... But it would be hard. After the market we went to Tuol Sleng the genocide museum. It was really haunting because during the Khmer Rouge which was a lot like Hitler's regime they took pictures of everyone that went into Tuol Sleng which was a interrogation prison. 17,000 people we brought into it and only 7 survived. People only stayed there for an average of three months befor e they were either tortured and killed or taken to the killing fields to be killed and put into the mass graves. Many of the people who were leaders and soldiers for the Khmer Rouge we teenagers and it was during the time that the US was bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam war so Pol Pot the leader of the Khmer Rouge convinced many people that if they wanted to live and not get killed when the US was supposedly going to bomb Phnom Penh they would follow him and evacuate the area. That's when they took over Phnom Penh on April,17 1975 but they had already taken over other areas of Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge wanted to turn back the clock to year zero and abolished any form of moving forward and closed all schools, hospitals and got rid of money nobody earned anything; it was a radical type of communism. At Tuol Sleng they photographed everyone that went into the prison and many when they died. Many people look like they don't know why they're there in the photos, for many it was the first time they've ever had their picture taken. Upstairs above where they displayed all the photographs there was exhibits of pictures of the young Khmer Rouge soldiers and leaders some as young as 14 and pictures of them now. They interview them with the question why did you join and what do you ant to say about it now. Most said they were terribly sorry and that some never wanted to join but it was either kill or be killed and that they were just following orders. One of the seven survivors was a painter who was commanded to paint pictures of many of the Khmer Rouge leaders and after the Vietnamese helped Cambodia regain it's freedom front the Pol Pot regime he painted many gruesome and haunting pictures depicting what he remembered from all the tortures the prisoners were put through and he was forced to watch and hear. There was a guide there who survived the Khmer Rouge by escaping to Vietnam who fought with them to over throw Pol
Pot. Many who were lucky escaped to Vietnam where they amassed an army with the Vietnamese army backing them. After we left Tuol Sleng we went back to the hotel where we watched a weird breakdancing movie then went to the Central market where my mom and I looked for jewelry. I got a sapphire ring which cost a ridiculously low price of thirteen dollars. Then later for dinner we met up with Pali and his family for dinner at Sarika where whe had had dinner with Jerker and Vathiny when we first arrived. It was really fun my brother and I swam in the pool there then had some food and Pali's two sons and Chamren and I played pool by his older son Sok hok didn't really understand and kept hitting th eight ball in. Then we retruned to our hotel where I began blogging this.
Aujourd'hui je vais aller a Tuol Sleng c'est tres catastrophe. Je ponce le cadre sont tres fou! Je suis contente ce nous n'allons pas a le Killing Fields. Le skulls sont tres creepy! Mais les faire du courses a ete amusante. J'achete beaucoup les cadeaus! J'aime les silks ici c'est tres beau! Et J'achete les CDs Et les DVDs pour moi et mes amis. Mais Je ne contente pas ce nous rentrons a Berkeley! J'aime Cambodia beaucoup! Mai notre visas will expire Mais Chamren a deux citizenship.
Happy December! Only on full day left in Cambodia :(
Ming ;)
marke which is one of the three markets in Phnom Penh. It is really claustrophobic in there because the ceiling is really low and the stalls are really close together but I got all my presents for my friends. As a heads up to all wishing for stuff from me I only got stuff for everyone that sits at my lunch table because it would be too much to get it for everyone sorry. Oh and Alice and Margaret Honig because they're my BFFS. Sorry... But it would be hard. After the market we went to Tuol Sleng the genocide museum. It was really haunting because during the Khmer Rouge which was a lot like Hitler's regime they took pictures of everyone that went into Tuol Sleng which was a interrogation prison. 17,000 people we brought into it and only 7 survived. People only stayed there for an average of three months befor e they were either tortured and killed or taken to the killing fields to be killed and put into the mass graves. Many of the people who were leaders and soldiers for the Khmer Rouge we teenagers and it was during the time that the US was bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam war so Pol Pot the leader of the Khmer Rouge convinced many people that if they wanted to live and not get killed when the US was supposedly going to bomb Phnom Penh they would follow him and evacuate the area. That's when they took over Phnom Penh on April,17 1975 but they had already taken over other areas of Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge wanted to turn back the clock to year zero and abolished any form of moving forward and closed all schools, hospitals and got rid of money nobody earned anything; it was a radical type of communism. At Tuol Sleng they photographed everyone that went into the prison and many when they died. Many people look like they don't know why they're there in the photos, for many it was the first time they've ever had their picture taken. Upstairs above where they displayed all the photographs there was exhibits of pictures of the young Khmer Rouge soldiers and leaders some as young as 14 and pictures of them now. They interview them with the question why did you join and what do you ant to say about it now. Most said they were terribly sorry and that some never wanted to join but it was either kill or be killed and that they were just following orders. One of the seven survivors was a painter who was commanded to paint pictures of many of the Khmer Rouge leaders and after the Vietnamese helped Cambodia regain it's freedom front the Pol Pot regime he painted many gruesome and haunting pictures depicting what he remembered from all the tortures the prisoners were put through and he was forced to watch and hear. There was a guide there who survived the Khmer Rouge by escaping to Vietnam who fought with them to over throw Pol
Pot. Many who were lucky escaped to Vietnam where they amassed an army with the Vietnamese army backing them. After we left Tuol Sleng we went back to the hotel where we watched a weird breakdancing movie then went to the Central market where my mom and I looked for jewelry. I got a sapphire ring which cost a ridiculously low price of thirteen dollars. Then later for dinner we met up with Pali and his family for dinner at Sarika where whe had had dinner with Jerker and Vathiny when we first arrived. It was really fun my brother and I swam in the pool there then had some food and Pali's two sons and Chamren and I played pool by his older son Sok hok didn't really understand and kept hitting th eight ball in. Then we retruned to our hotel where I began blogging this.
Aujourd'hui je vais aller a Tuol Sleng c'est tres catastrophe. Je ponce le cadre sont tres fou! Je suis contente ce nous n'allons pas a le Killing Fields. Le skulls sont tres creepy! Mais les faire du courses a ete amusante. J'achete beaucoup les cadeaus! J'aime les silks ici c'est tres beau! Et J'achete les CDs Et les DVDs pour moi et mes amis. Mais Je ne contente pas ce nous rentrons a Berkeley! J'aime Cambodia beaucoup! Mai notre visas will expire Mais Chamren a deux citizenship.
Happy December! Only on full day left in Cambodia :(
Ming ;)
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