Cambodian Cultural Colisions

The Following Episode is intended for our mature readers: Parental
Discretion is advised...

I'm In SIEM RIEP, jumping off point for the great temples of ANGKOR!
And staying in a SHITHOLE guesthouse. I'm not sure why I agreed to,
tired from the bus ride I think. THere are these funny wallpaper
hangings all the wall though that are quite amusing of various
landscapes and flowers and stuff. Tacky and crappy, but you have to
have a "The worse place I stayed on my trip" place, and this is
likely it. The people are really nice though.

Cambodia is depressing. Of course that's because in less than 24
hours I saw the before mentioned S-21 prison and torture barracks and
today went to the killing fields and saw 8000+ skulls stacked 30-40
feet high in glass cases and found out all the awful ways they killed
people: axe, bamboo stick, hoe (that head was broken in two), they
beat babies against trees and other things. It's really fucking
depressing. There are teeth and bones laying all over the grounds
and tons of mass grave holes which used to be 4-5 meters deep and had
up to 450 (!) bodies in them. No shit. There are even pieces of
clothes and teeth (did I mention fucking TEETH!). Anyway, I've been
in a crappy mood all day and am ready to get to the beach. On top of
that I was reading this book called "The Sorrow Of War" written by a
north viet cong soldier that is, you guessed it, depressing as shit.
So I ended up just sitting on the bus for hours listening to music
loud enough to cover the awful japanese, bawdy, chick military flick
(okay, it was sorta funny), and the endless HONKING of the bus driver
as he passed everyone (the HONKING HELL HIGHWAY I call it).

SO yeah, I'm in a yucky mood. I really didn't think this would mess
me up so much. Like I said, the war stuff was yucky, but within
reason, this is totally fucked up. I've always thought it would be
powerful to goto the concentration camps in Poland, and learn about
that where it happened, but íf I do I'll make sure to have a day
where I can go see something beautiful immediately afterwards. The
world is a pretty place to, it's to bad that Cambodia has been
obliterated with poverty and atrocity.

Anyway...

TOmorrow is Angkor Wat which acording to Liz will be TOTALLY AWESOME!
And the beaches are only days away. (much needed indeed).
I haven't really met anyone since I left my crew in Laos. I've had
people here and there but no one that I've really clicked with or
traveled with. Hopefully in paradise I will find them...

And on a final note, today I also shot and AK-47 MACHINE GUN! Yep,
anything goes in cambodia, and even though it was $30 to shoot a clip
(THIRTY U.S. DOLLARS! Hello!), it was interesting. I'd never want
to shoot it at anything living, but I nailed the target 14 times out
of 25 (I thought I missed a lot), and even got to do it on full auto.
It's pretty amazing, but to bad all this energy is spend on
destroying life. How bout we rebuild new orleans, feed to poor, cure
aids, instead of giving people the option to fire a ROCKET LAUNCHER
(I'm not making this up! An F-ing ROCKET LAUNCHER (200 U.S. Dollars
for 1 glorious mountain blowing shot!) (no, i didn't do it. :). BUt
in cambodia people are so poor, they'll do whatever it takes to
survive... which brings us to the point that people are people and
they will march on even if you have sick fuckers like the Khmer Rouge
in the world.

Keep rocking
Craigo