Part Two: Cambodia

Cambodia is one of the poorest countries on Earth. Life expectance is under 60. We got to see a different world during our time here. We experience equal parts beauty/horror in what we saw.

Getting around Cambodia is a lot of fun. They don't have taxis there, everyone rides in a Tuk-Tuk, which is a scooter that pulls a sort of carriage on the back. Once a driver finds you (they are very cutthroat) he wants to be your driver for the entirety of your stay. Here's a view of the pandemonium that you see every time you get in one.

The Killing Fields

In Phnom Penh we learned about an amazing atrocity that is still very recent. Pol Pot tried to exterminate most of the population of Cambodia on the grounds that they were slipping into western ideals. They had to be cleansed. He killed 21% of the Cambodian population from 1976-1979. In 1979 an astonishing amount of mass graves were found, as well as an appropriated school that was used for torture and abuse.

This building was erected in 1998 to house all of the bones and clothing that were found on the site now known as The Killing Fields. Beth and I agreed that it's a very appropriate monument for such a horrific event.

Inside, the bones are arranged by body part. Skulls, legs, arms, etc. are all grouped together.

If you didn't know any better, you'd think the grounds were a sort of wildlife refuge. The grass is green and lush, there are beautiful birds flying around. You can see the indentions in the ground in the picture below. Each one of those were mass graves. One of them was designated only for bodies that had been decapitated.

After The Killing Fields, we went to S1, the compound that Pol Pot used for detaining and torturing prisoners. It was a harrowing example of what a sick mind can create. How someone can justify what we saw there is incomprehensible.

We were in Phnom Penh for a few days before heading to Siem Reap, the major tourist destination for anyone visiting Cambodia. This is because Angkor Watt, one of the wonders of the world, is located. This is an ancient civilization that some Spaniard found just walking around one day. The site is massive and contains dozens of temples. It was quite a spectacle, and I compared it to the Grand Canyon because it's one of those places that you'll see pictures of for your whole life, but seeing it in person blows what you already know away.

Here are a few more pictures that we took along the way. The flooding was sad to see, we were lucky that none of the roads we traveled on were washed out. If we would have arrived 2 weeks earlier our trip would have been very different.

We ate frog legs. I know it's cliche, but they really do taste like chicken.

We did not eat crickets. If Jacob or Jeremy were with us I probably would have.

Part One: Vietnam

Our most recent exploits took us to Vietnam and Cambodia. I'll break this trip into two separate posts since both Countries were unique in their own ways.

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh (formerly, and still know to many as Saigon) to a pretty deserted airport. You can see a picture of HCM above, taken in the post office. Our taxi driver took us to our hostel and upon our arrival presented us with our first task: crossing the street. Scooters are EVERYWHERE, and they stop for no one. Luckily our friend had given us advice before we left...just walk. The tide of bikes will shift with you. Check out all the bikes at this moderately sized intersection:

Seemingly everyone has a scooter, and one of the interesting things was how they all use them to relax. On any given sidewalk you'd see a character like this, propped up on his bike like it's a recliner or something.

Another form of transportation are these bicycle things. A guy sits behind you, pedaling and tooling you around town. We didn't take one because we'd heard they are notorious for scamming you, but we saw them everywhere.

Our main focus of the trip was to see the Cu Chi tunnels that the Vietcong built during the Vietnam war. It was really fascinating to see these small tunnels that the Vietnamese built without shovels or machines. It was also sad to see that war essentially forced these people to live like ants.

We were shown all of the torturous tactics that the Vietnamese used against the Americans (in the propaganda video they called them "angry white devils"), anything from boards with nails in them to elaborate booby traps in the ground. We were able to slide into some of the holes they stayed in waiting to ambush the enemy. Here's one of the guys in our group going into the hole. Once you were in they covered you up completely.

We also crawled through one of the tunnels, which was really unsettling. Once you were down there, you couldn't see any daylight. You just crawled until you found a way out on your hands and knees.

There was also an area where you could shoot a multitude of different guns. You just had to buy a magazine and then you could go blast the side of a mountain. It didn't seem very appropriate to do, but I watched another guy.

Ho Chi Minh was fast paced, crowded, and a little dirty. The food was incredible. The markets were beautiful and the people friendly. One of the best parts though was that everything was cheap!

IAAF

This year has been billed by those in charge as "The year the world comes to Daegu" or something close to that. There have been multiple events that had an international draw for the city, but the biggest one by far was the IAAF. I was pleasantly surprised to see the BBC's homepage talking about what was going on in my city everyday. Athletes from all over the world showed up to compete in Olympic-type fashion.

The stadium was originally built for the World Cup when it came through Korea a few years ago. The thing is gigantic, and really beautiful. Strangely, there was little to no food for sale, and not one single booth for memorabilia. Somebody missed out on some easy won.

I wanted the cheap seats, but they were sold out. The only thing left were the $30 seats, and I really wanted to see the event so I went for it. I didn't realize this would get us seats 2 rows from the field, directly in front of the finish line. We enjoyed shot put, javelin, and various running distances from incredibly close.

After the 800m run, the winner of the event (USA!USA!) came over to us, his family was sitting right behind us. We also got to see Hussein Bolt run, although it was a team effort. I probably won't have a chance to see something like this again, it was nice to come back here and have this a few weeks later.

More Baseball

I realize this is turning into a blog about baseball, not about South Korea. However, baseball is one of our favorite things to do here. This year we have Wednesdays off, and our first free Wednesday we used to take an out of town baseball trip.

We headed west to Busan. It's a coastal city, the second largest in Korea. It is also known as the heart of the KBO (Korean Baseball Organization). The stadium was the best we've been to here thus far, sporting some behind home plate seating, a proper dirt diamond, and actual grass. Most of the fields use turf, and the small area around the bases is the only place you see any dirt. Inside, there were lots of vendors, selling anything from typical Korean food to Turkish kebabs. This is a nice change from our hometown stadium, which has two meals: fried chicken and a kind of hot spagetti-o's called dok bo ki.

The place filled up pretty quick. There aren't any assigned seats, so we've learned that it's best to get to the park a full hour early to get a good seat. We did, and we did. You can read in the outfield seats "Lotte Giants," which have the same colors as the San Francisco Giants. Most of the teams here steal MLB names.

I noticed they were selling newspapers on the way into the stadium, and I thought it was strange. Who would read a newspaper during a game? I saw immediately that they serve a different purpose here, a makeshift pom-pom. Everybody tore their newspaper up and used it to root for their team. The songs are mostly familiar, but have "Lotte Giants" inserted in the chorus (Lotte is pronounced Low Tey). "Glory, Glory Hallelujah" (Lotte, Lotte Lotte Lotte Lotte), "Life Goes On" (Lo-0-tte, Lo-o-tte, Lo-o-tteeyyyye, hey...), "What's Up" (by Four Non-Blondes), and "Cum on Feel the Noise" (this one I'm not sure what the Korean lyrics are, it's been adopted by multiple KBO clubs).

Plenty of vendors walk past, selling beer and squid. You can also go to the convenient store inside the stadium and get a...beer.

Near the end of the game, we started to see this sea of orange below us. We finally realized that everyone was putting a blown up orange plastic bag on their head. Seriously. The bags made their way up to us, and some Koreans helped us get them situated. The girl sitting next to us made a bow for Beth. Sometimes Koreans seem to do a better job at having fun than a lot of Westerners, they can do silly stuff like this and not be self conscious about it. It's really refreshing.

The Giants won, hitting 5 homeruns in the game. It was a great time.

Stop...Drop...Shut Em Down Open Up Shop

You'd think a DMZ post would have appeared on this blog long ago, but Beth and I didn't make it until just a week ago. This was a long overdue tour. We went up early to Seoul to catch the all morning/afternoon tour, one day before our trip back to the States.

The DMZ is 1.5 hours from Seoul by bus. Once we arrived we were shown a brief history of the war between the North and the South, and escorted by US Military to the area where the North and South have talks. South Korean soldiers stand facing North Korea half exposed to be smaller targets. Their stance is a Tae Kwon Do stance, also known as ROK Hard.

Inside the blue buildings is where talks and conferences with dignitaries are held. The gray building behind the blue buildings is North Korea. Technically, I was standing in communist North Korea in this picture.

North Korea doesn't play fair. Their have been 5 tunnels discovered since 1990, tunnels the North has built to try and infiltrate the South. We were able to enter the 3rd tunnel. The North put charcoal dust on the walls of the tunnel so they could explain that the tunnel was a coal mine. The only problem is there's no coal. All of these tunnels have led directly to Seoul.

During the Bush presidency, the Korean president made a lot of headway in unification between the North and the South. The government built a train station that was to be a hub when the two countries unified again. They were shipping humanitarian food and supplies from this train station, and some South Koreans were allowed to tour the North via the train station until the North killed an old woman that was visiting. Now this train station isn't used, and is an eerie reminder of what could be but continues not to be.