Although the Chinese Spring Festival would seem to be a fantastic time to be in the Middle Kingdom, I had decided to flee the country for the time being. The month long celebration that kicks off with the Chinese New Year, is essentially a time for families to gather together and exchange gifts and money, rather like our Christmas. During this time China is expensive, it is difficult to get train tickets (would you want to do a 60 hour journey on a Chinese bus?), and is general chaos with millions of people jostling to go home to see loved ones. So off I went to the destination more compatible with my small VSO wage - the warmer climes of Thailand
My journey got off to a somewhat ominous start when I was tested for SARS in Xian airport after there had been a spate of outbreaks in the South-East of China. Thankfully I was given the all clear, and proceeded to Bangkok, possibly the most humid city in the world.
I headed North immediately to Chang Mai, a beautiful city
resplendent with temples and surrounded by a moat and cherry blossom trees. Time being precious, I, along with two Canadians and two Italians, opted to participate in a day trip around the area which included an elephant trek, bamboo rafting and a visit to some hill tribes in the surrounding jungle. After a sojourn in the jungle on elephants, I donned my Huckleberry Finn guise and stood on a narrow raft constructed from bamboo poles, with another large pole to punt along the river. My training for this consisted of “Put your feet here”, as we swished over a gauntlet of small rapids and waterfalls. Needless to say I fell in. To my relief I noted that everyone else we encountered was in a similarly sodden state.
We then visited a Keren tribe that lived an hour outside of Chang Mai, groping through the jungle and absorbing the sounds of exotic birds and monkeys in the canopy above us. When we reached the village I felt like I was an intruder, a voyeur in some sort of human zoo. Much of their rituals and working methods were paraded before us while we took pictures. I wondered how they felt about it, recollecting that being constantly scrutinized in China because I was white sometimes irritated me. It was interesting to see though, and I admired them for their tenacity. It would be very easy to leave and head for bigger things in the city.
I decided that I couldn’t leave Thailand without having a Thai massage, so I ventured into a parlour, where a nice old woman was to be my masseuse. Well, appearances are certainly deceiving. With super human strength, she contorted my body into ways no body should be contorted into, the cracking and clicking of my bones making me feel like a human maraca. When she finished after an hour, I thanked her and hurpled on my way south to Kanchanburi – home to the infamous Death Railway and the ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’. It was a very poignant sight, particularly the appropriately named ‘Hellfire Pass’, a mountain that the Japanese has made POWs dig through using rudimentary tools in order to complete the railway line to further the speedy Japanese invasion of Asia during World War Two. There was a small museum detailing the horrors and the brutality of the Japanese. An estimated 16,000 POWs died – a life for every sleeper on the railway.
Subsequently I met up with a fellow VSO colleague, Alice, in Bangkok and we headed for the Cambodian border. On entering Cambodia we were jolted along to Battambong in a pick up truck with 31 people, including 2 balanced precariously on the cab roof. The roads in Cambodia are notoriously bad because of heavy US bombing during the Vietnam War - an effort designed to cut supplies to the North Vietnamese (the Vietcong). Due to extreme poverty and the tyranny of the Khmer Rouge, the roads have never been fully repaired, though work has been undertaken to remedy this. Alice had previously visited Cambodia in 1999, and was amazed at how much the roads had improved.
Cambodia is heartbreakingly poor, with landmine victims on almost every street corner, and children as young as four begging with their younger sibling strapped to their back. Often the only English they spoke was “postcard”, ”water”, and “dollar”, as they tried to sell tourists nicnacs, or more commonly, as Cambodia used to be a French colony, a pitiful “madame, madame, madame”, while pointing to their mouth.
Battambong has a substantial Chinese population, so we celebrated Chinese New Year there with the traditional arsenal of fireworks. Battambong is a pretty town, and we took a motorbike along the dusty trails around the surrounding villages en route to a monastery, where a young monk, eager to practice his fledgling English, showed us around. Small triangular pieces of material from the clothing from each person who died in the area during the regime of Pol Pot were hung like bunting around the monastery. It was very moving, as bunting is something one associates with joy, not with the devastation that these ‘flags’ represented.
We ventured on to the capital of Phnom Penh to see S21 – the notorious Khmer Rouge prison camp where so-called dissidents of the state were tortured and interrogated. It was a former school, and it is thought 10,499 people were interred here, though this does not include children (the number thought to be 2000). Following on from this we went out to the infamous “Killing Fields” - mass graves where victims were buried. In the center of the field was a large monument filled with the skulls of the men, women and children whose remains had been found in the pits, stacked in a 30ft high tower. All in all it made for a harrowing experience, and served as a reminder of the horrors that humanity is capable of.
Avoiding the spine shattering roads we took a boat up to Siem Reap to see the magnificent Angkor Wat, a temple complex built by the riches and vanity of the former Khmer rulers. It had been left to ruin in the 1500s, it is thought, and rediscovered in the late 19th century. This meant there were some spectacular sights where tree and temple had become as one. The two days there ended with watching the beautiful sunset over the complex atop a hill temple. The ancient site was spoiled however, by the availability of a helicopter or hot air balloon ride over the temples. Not only was this an appalling example of intrusive capitalism, but they cause physical damage to the temples - important symbols of Cambodian history.
In fact during our time in Cambodia, Alice commented that she was surprised and sad to see how much it had changed since she had been there, but she was pleased to see people prospering.
Bidding farewell to an amazing country, we headed back to China - our destination Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in the South of China. Stopping briefly in Kunming, we paid a visit to the bird and flower market where one can buy anything and everything; and the conditions fauna are kept in would be enough to send an RSPCA inspector apoplectic.
Continuing North to Lijiang, easily the most beautiful place I have seen in China, we basked in the beauty of the goldfish-filled rivers and the strong Tibetan culture. We were fortunate to be able to witness part of the Spring Festival, a dragon parade, where a large dragon is paraded through the streets chasing a red ball (red is lucky in China), bringing luck to all the buildings it passes.
Feeling a little adventurous, a trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest gorges in the world, was called for. Legend has it that a gigantic tiger leapt from one side of the gorge to another, hence the name. It was a very rewarding two-day affair through stunning mountains and encounters with local goatherds who still roam there.
Back in Lijiang, having just finished the trek, dusty and bedraggled, I decided to eat before I went back my accommodation and cleaned myself up. I was eating in a café, when the former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien walked in with a Chinese entourage. He spoke to me briefly, asking me where I was from and why I was in China, during which I was filmed by cameras. For my moment of Chinese fame I really was a bona fide ‘Dirty Weeker’.
After an action packed few weeks it was time to take the 42 hour journey back to Xifeng and to teaching 300 students, giving me time to mull over my travels. It is all too easy to criticize the homogeneity that unfettered capitalism promotes, after seeing parts of the world where it has touched them profoundly in the last few years. English is widely spoken in Thailand, and many parts of that country are lifted directly from the West, including areas specifically catering to the British party culture that ,until recently, was unheard of in Asia. The American dollar is as acceptable in Cambodia as the Riel, as it is in Vietnam. Traditions that were once sacred, although still respected, now pander to the tourism industry, and seem lacking in the potency they once held for indigenous people. My journey in South-East Asia has opened my eyes to globalisation - it truly is a double-edged sword. China itself is slowly opening up to the free market, doing so in a controlled manner, but it has the economic and political clout to be able to withstand the pressure from actors such as the American Government, the G7, the IMF and the World Bank to implement capitalism quickly under rigid conditions. Weaker countries such as Cambodia do not have this power to say “No”, and this may prove devastating. However globalisation has lifted many of these people out of abject poverty, and though poverty is relative, things have definitely improved. Though this provides us with more user-friendly, exciting holiday destinations, the question is: is it worth the cost to the indigenous people of these countries and their lives?
My journey got off to a somewhat ominous start when I was tested for SARS in Xian airport after there had been a spate of outbreaks in the South-East of China. Thankfully I was given the all clear, and proceeded to Bangkok, possibly the most humid city in the world.
I headed North immediately to Chang Mai, a beautiful city
resplendent with temples and surrounded by a moat and cherry blossom trees. Time being precious, I, along with two Canadians and two Italians, opted to participate in a day trip around the area which included an elephant trek, bamboo rafting and a visit to some hill tribes in the surrounding jungle. After a sojourn in the jungle on elephants, I donned my Huckleberry Finn guise and stood on a narrow raft constructed from bamboo poles, with another large pole to punt along the river. My training for this consisted of “Put your feet here”, as we swished over a gauntlet of small rapids and waterfalls. Needless to say I fell in. To my relief I noted that everyone else we encountered was in a similarly sodden state.We then visited a Keren tribe that lived an hour outside of Chang Mai, groping through the jungle and absorbing the sounds of exotic birds and monkeys in the canopy above us. When we reached the village I felt like I was an intruder, a voyeur in some sort of human zoo. Much of their rituals and working methods were paraded before us while we took pictures. I wondered how they felt about it, recollecting that being constantly scrutinized in China because I was white sometimes irritated me. It was interesting to see though, and I admired them for their tenacity. It would be very easy to leave and head for bigger things in the city.
I decided that I couldn’t leave Thailand without having a Thai massage, so I ventured into a parlour, where a nice old woman was to be my masseuse. Well, appearances are certainly deceiving. With super human strength, she contorted my body into ways no body should be contorted into, the cracking and clicking of my bones making me feel like a human maraca. When she finished after an hour, I thanked her and hurpled on my way south to Kanchanburi – home to the infamous Death Railway and the ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’. It was a very poignant sight, particularly the appropriately named ‘Hellfire Pass’, a mountain that the Japanese has made POWs dig through using rudimentary tools in order to complete the railway line to further the speedy Japanese invasion of Asia during World War Two. There was a small museum detailing the horrors and the brutality of the Japanese. An estimated 16,000 POWs died – a life for every sleeper on the railway.
Subsequently I met up with a fellow VSO colleague, Alice, in Bangkok and we headed for the Cambodian border. On entering Cambodia we were jolted along to Battambong in a pick up truck with 31 people, including 2 balanced precariously on the cab roof. The roads in Cambodia are notoriously bad because of heavy US bombing during the Vietnam War - an effort designed to cut supplies to the North Vietnamese (the Vietcong). Due to extreme poverty and the tyranny of the Khmer Rouge, the roads have never been fully repaired, though work has been undertaken to remedy this. Alice had previously visited Cambodia in 1999, and was amazed at how much the roads had improved.
Cambodia is heartbreakingly poor, with landmine victims on almost every street corner, and children as young as four begging with their younger sibling strapped to their back. Often the only English they spoke was “postcard”, ”water”, and “dollar”, as they tried to sell tourists nicnacs, or more commonly, as Cambodia used to be a French colony, a pitiful “madame, madame, madame”, while pointing to their mouth.
Battambong has a substantial Chinese population, so we celebrated Chinese New Year there with the traditional arsenal of fireworks. Battambong is a pretty town, and we took a motorbike along the dusty trails around the surrounding villages en route to a monastery, where a young monk, eager to practice his fledgling English, showed us around. Small triangular pieces of material from the clothing from each person who died in the area during the regime of Pol Pot were hung like bunting around the monastery. It was very moving, as bunting is something one associates with joy, not with the devastation that these ‘flags’ represented.
We ventured on to the capital of Phnom Penh to see S21 – the notorious Khmer Rouge prison camp where so-called dissidents of the state were tortured and interrogated. It was a former school, and it is thought 10,499 people were interred here, though this does not include children (the number thought to be 2000). Following on from this we went out to the infamous “Killing Fields” - mass graves where victims were buried. In the center of the field was a large monument filled with the skulls of the men, women and children whose remains had been found in the pits, stacked in a 30ft high tower. All in all it made for a harrowing experience, and served as a reminder of the horrors that humanity is capable of.
Avoiding the spine shattering roads we took a boat up to Siem Reap to see the magnificent Angkor Wat, a temple complex built by the riches and vanity of the former Khmer rulers. It had been left to ruin in the 1500s, it is thought, and rediscovered in the late 19th century. This meant there were some spectacular sights where tree and temple had become as one. The two days there ended with watching the beautiful sunset over the complex atop a hill temple. The ancient site was spoiled however, by the availability of a helicopter or hot air balloon ride over the temples. Not only was this an appalling example of intrusive capitalism, but they cause physical damage to the temples - important symbols of Cambodian history.
In fact during our time in Cambodia, Alice commented that she was surprised and sad to see how much it had changed since she had been there, but she was pleased to see people prospering.
Bidding farewell to an amazing country, we headed back to China - our destination Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in the South of China. Stopping briefly in Kunming, we paid a visit to the bird and flower market where one can buy anything and everything; and the conditions fauna are kept in would be enough to send an RSPCA inspector apoplectic.
Continuing North to Lijiang, easily the most beautiful place I have seen in China, we basked in the beauty of the goldfish-filled rivers and the strong Tibetan culture. We were fortunate to be able to witness part of the Spring Festival, a dragon parade, where a large dragon is paraded through the streets chasing a red ball (red is lucky in China), bringing luck to all the buildings it passes.
Feeling a little adventurous, a trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest gorges in the world, was called for. Legend has it that a gigantic tiger leapt from one side of the gorge to another, hence the name. It was a very rewarding two-day affair through stunning mountains and encounters with local goatherds who still roam there.
Back in Lijiang, having just finished the trek, dusty and bedraggled, I decided to eat before I went back my accommodation and cleaned myself up. I was eating in a café, when the former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien walked in with a Chinese entourage. He spoke to me briefly, asking me where I was from and why I was in China, during which I was filmed by cameras. For my moment of Chinese fame I really was a bona fide ‘Dirty Weeker’.
After an action packed few weeks it was time to take the 42 hour journey back to Xifeng and to teaching 300 students, giving me time to mull over my travels. It is all too easy to criticize the homogeneity that unfettered capitalism promotes, after seeing parts of the world where it has touched them profoundly in the last few years. English is widely spoken in Thailand, and many parts of that country are lifted directly from the West, including areas specifically catering to the British party culture that ,until recently, was unheard of in Asia. The American dollar is as acceptable in Cambodia as the Riel, as it is in Vietnam. Traditions that were once sacred, although still respected, now pander to the tourism industry, and seem lacking in the potency they once held for indigenous people. My journey in South-East Asia has opened my eyes to globalisation - it truly is a double-edged sword. China itself is slowly opening up to the free market, doing so in a controlled manner, but it has the economic and political clout to be able to withstand the pressure from actors such as the American Government, the G7, the IMF and the World Bank to implement capitalism quickly under rigid conditions. Weaker countries such as Cambodia do not have this power to say “No”, and this may prove devastating. However globalisation has lifted many of these people out of abject poverty, and though poverty is relative, things have definitely improved. Though this provides us with more user-friendly, exciting holiday destinations, the question is: is it worth the cost to the indigenous people of these countries and their lives?
No comments:
Post a Comment