Hello. Seeing as I've been meaning to start a blog for around two years now I thought I'd better get things cranking. As of RIGHT NOW I'm sitting in a internet cafe in Saigon, ('officially' it's Ho Chi Mihn City but everyone here still calls it Saigon) in Southern Vietnam, surrounded by about thirty pre-teen Vietnamese kids all playing some ultra-buzzy game with glittery magical lights and blue Avatar-esque creatures galloping around on horseback. LCD Soundsystem's "North American Scum" is cranking on my ipod and I'm the only white person - slash non-Vietnamese person - in this internet cafe. Some kind of irony yes, but I'm sure that irony would have been lost on THE THOUSANDS OF AMEICANS WHO LOST THEIR LIVES HERE IN THE 1960's. Just jokes bey. This blog isn't - for the most part - about the 'serious' or 'reasonable' side of things. Rather, it's concerned with all things whimsical, joyous and cranking. Yes, upon my return to New Zealand I can invisage this revolving around literature/film/music (hence the ironic title) but for now It's about my travels. Travels in Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. Chur. So lets go.
Oh also, the spell check isn't working and it's like 28 degrees today so I apologise in advance for any spelling errors etc.
We landed in Bangkok and like the naive/innocent/young travellers that we are, headed straight into the thick of things on 'Kao San Road'. It's the backpacking mecca of Southeast Asia. Cuba Street times ten thousand. It's lined with copious amounts of bars, guesthouses and hostels, markets and stores travel agencies. If your in Bangkok and want to get anywhere, Cambodia, Indonesia, Burma, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia or Southern Thailand - you come here. We had no problem booking a bus to Siem Reap in Cambodia, but it was only leaving the next day so we got a room and headed out into the wilderness. We had a few beers and a supple stir-fry and talked to these two British girls about where they're travelling and "what to do with our degrees when we finish university"and then went to bed with a head full of jet-lag.
Arriving in Kao San Road is like listening to the The Hives for the first time. Fot the first 15 minutes they're the coolest thing you've ever heard. Nothing could be better. After that you realise it's all just the same. Even so, you can still rage to "Hate to say I told you so" now and then.
So I Can't say I was disapointed to be leaving Bangkok. It's a filthy, congested, over-touristed and over priced city. The air is thick with pollution from the 15 million inhabitants who leave a constant grey smog over the city. We we're all eager to head out into the unknown and our first leg was exactly that. Cambodia. The one country we all knew nothing about
We crossed the border by bus, just about died several times in a taxi to Siem Reap - no jokes the driving here is RIDICULOUS. Our driver was simultaneously texting, drinking his water and eratically swerving to blindly overtake huge trucks whilst narrowly avoiding motorbikes and cyclists to the point where we started laughing about it... hmmmm. Anyway, we arrived in Siem Riep, booked into a guest house blah blah blah blah. This is Angkor Wat:
See that slim little skux down there in the front. What? Ye. Thats me. But seriously, these temples are truly sublime. They were built from the 8th to the 14th century by various Khmer Kings (Khmer meaning Cambodian) when the Khmer empire dominated Southeast Asia. What you see above is the jewel in the crown, the temple of Angkor Wat. There is over 30 temples in the region, we visited most of them over two days but they were at their best at sunset on the second day.
They were still pretty sweet without the sunset though. 
Quiet often you'll hear the locals singing their little hymns and lullabies as they walk around the temples, which was a pretty sweet addition to the already sublime beauty on show.
Initially me and my companions were thoroughly confused about the imagery on the relief carvings. We consulted our "Ancient Angkor guidebooks" (which Ants purhaed for $10 US from a sly bookselling man and then, 15 minutes later I purchased for $0.50 US from a sweet as little kid. Chur.) It turns out the temples were initially built by Hindus, but somewhere along the line some Bhuddist imperialists came along, killed the Hindus and claimed the temples for themselves. They didn't seem to care about the THOUSANDS of Hindu carvings which cover the temples. Religion huh? I'm definitely an aetheist.
Anyway, they built some more and managed to get some Buddahs in. This one kind of looks like Zanky:
The likely lads:
This kid was hanging around in one of the temples. First he would stare into your eyes with an innocent charm, then he would stroke you, then he would take you to his little shrine and give you a bracelet, then he woud change his expression and ask you for money. Sly tricks yes, but considernig he probably lives off a couple of dollars a week there's no reason not to give him a few dollars... 
We took the 'outer loop' on our second day, exploring some of the less frequented temples. We decided to get spiritual and walk around this temple listening to Boards Of Canada's "Dayvin Cowboy". It was sweet, we all got goosebumbs, had several epiphanies about our lives and the universe etc. Then we bumped into these little kids and decided to spread the indie goodness.
Ahhhh Ye-ya. LOOK how happy this kid is. He's LOVING it so much. SO much. We were too. This picture says several things to me: 1) Listen to Boards Of Canada. 2) Go to Cambodia (with your ipod). It could probably be an ipod add too..After Boards I played him Animal Collective's "My girls" then Daft Punks "One More Time" which they all met with simular enthusiasim.
Whist being completely and utterly amazing, you can only look at so many temples. Two days was definitely enough appreciation time for us... Our middle night in Siem Reap was pretty cranking too. We headed to the 'Angkor WHAT?' bar and revelled with some Candians and New Yorkers. After several beer towers and buckets (literally) of spirit mixers I had an intense conversation about Gossip Girl with this couple from New York. We agreed that Nate is the finest, Chuck is the 'most interesting' and Dan was - despite his clumsiness - a general garry. We couldn't agree about Serena or Blair though, so I think it was at this point that I headed home.
Whist being completely and utterly amazing, you can only look at so many temples. Two days was definitely enough appreciation time for us... Our middle night in Siem Reap was pretty cranking too. We headed to the 'Angkor WHAT?' bar and revelled with some Candians and New Yorkers. After several beer towers and buckets (literally) of spirit mixers I had an intense conversation about Gossip Girl with this couple from New York. We agreed that Nate is the finest, Chuck is the 'most interesting' and Dan was - despite his clumsiness - a general garry. We couldn't agree about Serena or Blair though, so I think it was at this point that I headed home.
Our guest house was literally a three minute walk from the bar, but somehow it took me three HOURS to get home (Ants and Andrew left the bar three hours after me but we arrived back at the same time). I have only vauge memories of riding around on the backs of motorcycles with locals, talking to them about New Zealand (I think I asked one of them to take me to Mighty Mighty as a joke but he just got well confused). Drunkenly riding around the city on the backs of motorcycles just because I could was pretty sweet though. A differet but slick way to see the city, plus motorbikes are sweet as. We plan on hiring them out for day trips and heading out into the rural areas, national parks, isolated beaches etc. Chur.
So after our second day at Angkor we headed to the capital Phnom Penh by night bus. In the 1970's the ENTIRE city was evacuated by the Khmer Rouge (more on that later) and from what we'd heard we were expecting to be descending into pandemonium. We were however, pleasantly suprised at the warm demenour o the people and general lack of chaos, poverty and violence that we were expecting.
We hired some cycles for the day and decided to get amoungst the hectic traffic. Desite the lack of rules, everything still works. The freaky thing is that you don't avoid others, they avoid you.
Reh so my camera has run out battery for now so I can't get anymore photos up. Cycling around Phnom Penh for the day in 30 degree temperatures (crazy considering It's winter at the momemt) was probably the sweetest day for me so far.
On our second day in Phnom Penh we headed out to 'the killing fields', a mass grave where 9000 bodies were dug up. Before we got there however, Ants and Andrew deided they wanted to shoot an AK-47. Knowing the horrors that were waiting for me, I didn't feel like it ws time to go shooting guns. The contradiction was just too intense. Like I mentioned earlier, the Khmer Rouge (a rebel group oposed to government forces and lead by madman Pol Pot) took control of Cambodia in the 1970's with the anti-imperiaist aim of making Cambodia completely self sufficient and independent. They had a strange way of attempting to achieve their goal however. The capital was evacuated, families were seperated and EVERYONE was forced into the life of a peasant. Essentially, the country was thrown back into the dark ages, a classless population of serfs ruled by an insane Oligarchy. All this was the Khmer Rouge's way of squandering any potential uprising...
Our tour guide for the day - a 'tuk tuk' driver named Peter who lived through the horrors of rule under the Khmer Rouge, he himself lost three brothers and his mother - gave us a very personal history of the time.
All in all four million people died from murder, starvation or disease. One third of the population at the time. The people were made to live off poridge for 11 months of the year and rice for one. No jokes. This applied to eveyone. Imagine it. SO many people died of starvation. Anyone who was educated, could speak another language, had glasses, was a foreiger or showed any sign of discontent what-so-ever was killed, specifically, by being bashed over the head with a bamboo rod. Why? To save money by not using bullets. We saw the piles of cracked skulls.
Even babies were killed to eliminate potential revenge kinnigs in the future. We saw the 'killing tree' where babies were held by the legs whilst their skulls were smashed into the tree. They were then hurled into a mass grave.
Perhaps the most shocking thing about all of this however, was that it happened in the 1970's, the time when Bob Dylan started making bad albums, Richard Branson started making his Billions with Virgin records and, most likely, the time when your parents 'grew up'. It's genocide on a grand scale, second only to the hollocaust. I bet most of you have never even heard about it, and to be perfectly honest - whilst I respect that we need to appreciate and learn from the horrors of the past - I wish I didn't know about it in such intimate detail as I do now.
Hmmmmmm so that was and will be easily the most inense day of our entire trip. We soon chilled down to a better mood on arriving back to our guest house however. It cost us two dollars a night each, was bulit above and overlooking a lake and was the sweetest chill out zone ever. Bob Marley plays all day and Daft Punk plays all night as travellers from all over chill out and hang out drinking passionfruit smoothies, bannana milkshakes and Angkor beers. This guy we talked to from Atlanta had been at the guest house for three months and had done nothing but chill in the gust house, that's the kind of place it is. Oh yeah, they sell massive bags of weed over the counter too. Pretty buzzy considering the place is owned by a police officer.
I had a few enlightened conversations with this guy from Finland whilst watching Stanley Kunrick's 2001 Space Odyssey (without sound but we had Daft Punk up real loud so it was all good) , but we were soon pushing on to new things. The next morning we jumped on a boat and headed south-east down the massive Mekong river to Vietnam.
As for now, I'm going to head back to the beach and finish Bob Dylan's autobiography "Chronicles", drink a passionfruit smoothie, have some lunch, do some sunbathing. We're hiring motorbikes and heading out to these MASSIVE sanddunes tomorrow, should be sweet. Talk to you soon. Chur.
