A Chance to See Beyond Oneself

The Story

Cambodia, one of the poorest countries in Asia, has been a beautiful and educational place to visit. It was my fourth stop in Asia and has been just as fascinating as my other stops. A good friend who I traveled with in New Zealand and Australia, waited for me, with his girl friend, in the city of Siem Reap. He and his girl friend where also traveling in SE Asia and we had planned for over month to meet somewhere over our mutual travel times here; Cambodia was our country of crossing paths. After spending a night in the Thai border town (forgetting the name at the moment) I took a hired taxi with three japanese guys I met at the border over the worst road I have ever been on. Imagine a dusty dirt road filled with large pot holes, rocks, and far too many cars; each time a car passes going the other direction so much dust is thrown in the air you can't see if there are any cars in front of you for several seconds. The road rules, like most countries in asia, are rather flexible, if defined at all. I must say though that I was thoroughly impressed by our little speeding Toyota Camry and the way it handled such a harsh road (the suspension was raised a little higher than normal).

In Siem Reap my friends and I spent two days exploring the beautiful ancient temples of Angkor Wat, which are best imagined as temples seen in an Indian Jones film. Parts of the movie Tomb Raider were filmed in one of the temples here. One of unforunately aspects of such a beautiful location that is visited by pretty much all tourists to Cambodia, is that you are constantly hassled by street children trying to get you to buy books, bracelets, drinks, postcards, etc. It is a good opportunity to empathize because after being asked by five children in a row (even though they see you say no to the other children, they still follow you and ask if you want to buy), you start to get a little annoyed. It was important for us to remember that the children were either forced to do this by their parents or needed the money for food (and some for drugs, as many of the young street kids start early).

To explain the title of this entry, when at the markets and you compare quality or prices with other vendors, they will often use the term, "same same" to indicate how their product or service is just as cheap or just as good as the others. And if you ask why their is more expensive if the quality is the same, they will say "oh but it is different." In short, like I have stated before, you never really know who to trust but it is the price a tourist pays for getting everything so cheap. Interesting fact as well, in Cambodia, they use the US Dollar for most transactions and instead of US coins, they use their currency, the Riel (it is 4000 Reil to the dollar).

From Siem Reap we traveled to the capital city of Phnom Penh to see the many historical sites related to the brutal Khmer Rouge. It has been a very sobering experience to learn about the many genocidal acts that occurred doing the Pol Pot regime and how so few people around the world are taught about it in school. Another unfortunate fact is that many of the Cambodian schools, by pressure of the government, are no longer teaching the students about the khmer rouge so many children will grow up never knowing of the atrocities that took place in their country. We also learned about how Cambodia still has several million unexploded landmines in the ground and how at one time the amount of landmines exceeded thenumber of their population. While we were in Siem Reap we went to an unofficial landmine museum where landmine victims told us about how their organization is working to teach villiages how to clear landmines as well as the progress their founder has had clearing landmines since he was 15.

After Phnom Penh, we embarked on an exciting trip we had all wanted to do for some time. We had heard there were many uninhabited islands off the coast of Cambodia and after seeing the movie The Beach, we all wanted to go explore our own island. We found a diving company that would be driving right next to a particular island that we decided we wanted to go to. So after negotiating a price and shopping for supplies we headed out to what we thought was Ko Rong. When we arrived, we realized they had misunderstood us and brought us to Ko Rong Salem, the island right next to it. We found that this island actually had a small fishing village where the boat dropped us off at. There was an english speaking Cambodian on our boat who also was stopping off at this village, which turned out to be a great addition. We started walking off down the coast line to find a secluded beach where we hung our hammocks and setup camp. Little did we know though a few locals lived in the jungle several hundred meters off the other end of the beach, so we had plenty of passerbys. Often people would come up and just sit and watch us and we would try to communicate as best as possible using body language. Eventually the english speaking man, Bora, came and began sharing his story and telling us more about Cambodia. We learned so much from him about corruption in the government and military, as well as the many problems of poverty in the country. We spent our days swimming, exploring, reading, napping, and cooking. After several days the boat came back to pick us up, all of us departed sad to leave our beautiful beach and turquoise ocean view as well as the generous locals who were always offering us alcohol and food.

I am back in Phnom Penh getting ready to leave tomorrow for Vietnam and depart from my close travel friends (but I will see them again in Germany).

The Reflection

My mind has been deeply occupied lately. After finishing Robert Pirsig's second book and currently reading The Power of Now, I see endless possibilities of valid perspectives on life. Where do our value systems come from? What type of filters do we use when presented with new knowledge? If the knowledge rejects our perspective because it is not highly valued, then we are presented with a crisis. We either change our belief or maintain it, somewhat of a flight or fight reaction. But how do we justify what is valueable and what is not? Our experiences are so limited and how many times in our life have we been sure of things we later reject?

In our daily activities, we so often are quick to judge those who choose different lifestyles or hold different beliefs. But what makes our belief any better than theirs? Traveling opens your eyes to so many different ways people see the world. I never cease to be surprised by the amount of superstition in Asia. For example, on the island I was staying on in the south of Cambodia, the English speaking man (Bora) was telling us that there were king cobras on the island (highly venomous snakes) but that the villiagers believed that as long as a person acknowledged the spirit of the cobra, that they would not harm any humans. He said the cobras only came into sight once a year and that was to remind the villiages of their spiritual prescence on the island. The villiagers would not understand a scientist coming to them and explaining the the nature of snakes based on observation. Spirituality is part of how they see the world, they wouldn't understand any sort of "objective" science. I can't remember the other stories right now but I have heard so many superstitious beliefs that are stricly held to the same way scientists relentlessly hold to their views.

Right and wrong belief? Perhaps thats a myth. Right and wrong ways of believing? Maybe there is no such thing. Objectivity? That could be a word we created to give priviledged people more power. If more people would allow space for subjectivity in their outlooks and admit their experience has limited them to a very narrow realm of belief, we would have a world where conflict was no longer a method to disprove the other. Perhaps I am wrong though, perhaps there is a right and a wrong. But everything I have learned leads me further to believe that those terms should only be used in considering our own actions or the actions of those who seek our wisdom. If we started to think less of how the other person is wrong and more about how we could be wrong, we would create so much more room for growth and allow ourselves to learn from others. If we wish to prove to others that our experience is worth hearing, we must first live that example by open mindedly hearing out other people and be more concerned with how they came to make those decisions than if those decisions fit our value system.

...Perhaps

what do you think?
Karl