A White (Sand) Christmas

It is hard to say no to a legless man. Even after a day of adroitly evading the cutest and most persistent saleschildren, the book peddler confined to his wheeled cart wormed his way through our defenses. With the dubious distinction as the world's most landmined country, Cambodia is teeming with unfortunate victims missing various limbs. Sadly this delayed curse from the disastrous Khmer Rouge regime of the late 1970s is still killing and maiming innocents to this day. Sitting face to face with one of these, a father of five, made it hard to savor the 50-cent tap beers and look the other way. So we did what he asked and bought a book, which taught us more about the devastating reign of Pol Pot and the ruthless genocide that happened during our lifetimes. This was all a bit heavy for "holiday," but necessary context to better grasp what we observed.




Thankfully, there is much more to Cambodia than its turbulent recent past. We were drawn here by the same forces that pull in tourists from around the world, the astounding ruins of the Khmer Empire, most notably the Angkor complex. Covering a vast swath of jungle, over 700 Hindu and Buddhist temples testify to the power and sophistication of this great civilization that peaked in 12th century.


We quickly found that the only way to avoid being accosted by touts hawking tuk-tuks was to be in a tuk-tuk. Luckily, they are used for legitimate transport here, so we hired a driver and English-speaking guide for the day and set off to explore the sprawling Khmer ruins. In pursuit of a postcard-perfect photo (for you, of course), we set out before dawn, hoping to catch sunrise over the famous towers of Angkor Wat. The low ceiling of clouds did not cooperate with this goal, but we still experienced the magic of watching the eerie stone temple slowly emerge from the shadows in the growing light. We spent a full day wat-hopping in the steamy jungle, while our excellent guide enlightened us with historical context and divined the meaning of the elaborate stone carvings and rampant symbolism. Highlights include the towering stone faces of Angkor Thom with their subtle smiles and the spooky remnants of Ta Prohm, which appears to be losing its battle with the encroaching rainforest.

Much like the people we met in Laos, the Khmer (as the Cambodians call themselves) were friendly and genuine. They are also ingeniously efficient with their transportation, to the extent that seeing a family of five on a single moped or a wife gingerly loaded in the trunk of a car became routine. Even the local animals made us feel welcome, especially the hungry fish who gladly gave us pedicures with their mouths. Though it did not make the brochure, our hotel room came equipped with a few friendly geckos, who did their best to keep the malarial mosquitoes under control. Our only regret is that we did not have more time to spend outside of the tourist haven of Siem Reap. However, it is never too early to start adding ideas to the list for our next trip...

After nearly a month of staccato sight-seeing throughout SE Asia, we spent the final week of 2009 plopped securely on the beach. Once more, we braved the baffling she-males and cunning conmen to spend time on the enchanting beaches of Southern Thailand. The Thais were quick to point out that the animosity is mutual, as the omnipotent immigration officer awarded Ben a verbal lashing and a souvenir handwritten note in Thai that says something to the effect of "This one is naughty." Why? The officer did not like the way Ben handed over his passport. Guh.

Thankfully, the beaches delivered on our dreams of sun, sand, and chillaxing. We spent a highly unorthodox Christmas soaking up rays on the island of Koh Samui. Thanks to the Thai-made SPF 20 sun block, which actually seemed to magnify the UV rays, we can easily say we received our deepest Christmas Day sunburn to date. Our first Christmas away from home did not feel strange until we watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and talked to our families via Skype. Seeing the snow-covered yard, the decked out tree, and the anxious kiddies through the PC made us more than a little wistful for home. However, picking out fresh seafood on the beach, while candlelit floating lanterns rose skyward on all sides, made for a memorable dinner that night. It was a potent reminder of how lucky we are to get to try something new this year.

We spent our last few days in Asia on the tiny island of Koh Tao. The visit was punctuated by a two-tank SCUBA dive excursion that ranks as arguably the best dive we have ever done. Dropping into the water and setting aside the jitters of relatively inexperienced divers, we noticed that the visibility was quite poor. Thankfully the plankton responsible for this also makes great fish food. As we descended further, the sunlight -loving plankton receded, affording us views of endless schools of fish. Giant grouper and silver-sided barracuda were in abundance and we spent much of the dive flailing underwater to point things out to each other. At a few points along our circumnavigation of the columnar reef, up to four 6-foot sharks glided silently into view like toothy torpedoes. It was an outstanding way to finish our Asian adventures and a banner year of travel. Stay tuned for our next post, which vaults us into a new year...and onto a new continent!