January_10_2002pagetwo

Cambodia continued:

After seeing the Killing Fields we visited the Tuel Sleng Museum. This facility held and tortured prisoners. It was a school at first and used to harm people later. You can understand how difficult it was for us, as educators, to view this.

In conclusion, Cambodia is the wild, wild west. Motorbikes instead horses and tourist vans instead of stage coaches. As always, it is the beauty of the people that is astounding. They have a recenct history of horror and yet they smile. Compared to the past, their future is what they would prefer to focus on.

Vietnam:

Vietnam was great. It seems to be 10 years ahead of Cambodia. There is more infastructure, and the people do not pull at you as much. Our notion is that they have experienced tourists and understand that more will be coming so they do not desperately need your money right now. However, they have learned how to get the tourists money. As one book it, "double and triple pricing tourists is the national sport". You must always be on your feet. It actually takes a strong person to not get cynical. We are strong. They have set tourism up so they know where you are all the time. They have made travel easy by charging a good price for the tourist bus there by ensuring you go to the destinations they want you to go. Your use of the bus is ensured by charging triple the price for the trains. Every day you check into a hotel, they have to take your passport information to the police station. We did not learn about this until our last week....and it felt a bit creepy to learn it. With this said however, you can create your own experience and go where you want. Our friends bought motorcycles and drove from Saigon to Hanoi. Kudos to them! The south was warmer in both in temperature and hospitality. But ask another traveler and they will tell you the north was their favorite part. There are no copyright laws in Vietnam. Everything western is copied and sold at a cheaper price. That is common thread throught SE Asia, although a little less blatant in some regards in Thailand (but not much).

With the French influence there is a stronghold of Christianity. This was something that we had not expected.

The women of Vietnam are strong. In fact, they seem to work harder than the men. Or at least at different tasks. They work the fields and carry the heavy loads. In contrast we observed the men being far more affectionate with the children.

Speaking of children. Education is lacking. They typically get a half day of school and then work the other half plus. And in these countries they get this much education if they can afford it.

Again, the people are amazing. The stories they told of life after the war are astounding. "Re-education" (prison) for anyone who sided with the south and the stripping of the careers. The fears they have for their childrens future because of their involment with the south gov. and the Americans is tragic. But there hope that the future is bright is strong. They feel that as the younger generations take positions of leadership they will bring about change. And with more tourists coming through, they see more money and different ways of living life. It was astounding to listen to our friend Duc talk of wanting to take a camera class, but he only makes $400US a year and could not afford a camera. And here we have brand new one in our bag that cost more than that. You can not help but be humbled.

In such a short time we have grown so much. We like to think that we have become just deeper versions of ourselves, but not until we return home will we truly understand how much we have grown. We are glad that we focus on our interactions with the people instead of seeing the sights. We are glad we have made the time to travel slowly so we can experience the real life of these people as much as possible. And then you realise that you are a tourist and and experience nothing that is similar to there lives. They do not eat fruit pancakes every morning. They have the choice of eating Italian and Indian food and having an ice cream when ever they fancy. They can not get up and leave their exsistence...even if they wanted to. We have made friends and would like them to visit, but they will never have enough money to make a flight. And if you are Vietnam, you may just plain not be allowed.

We are thankful, humbled, in awe and revere every moment of our life and our experience.

We send our love to everyone,
Brad and Jennifer