Spirit House

The Spirit House has arrived.

Last July when we were in Chiang Mai, Thailand I bought the most beautiful Spirit House in the world and shipped it home to Manila. It finally arrived this month.

Ever since I started travelling in Southeast Asia I have been intrigued by these little houses. Perhaps because they resemble dollhouses and I'm passionate about miniatures. Or perhaps because they are cared for on a daily basis and obviously mean a great deal to those who do care for them. In any event I was determined to have one in our house and went looking for just the right one in Chiang Mai.

You can see Spirit Houses in every garden (sometimes on balconies) of every house or office building or shop or temple in Thailand, and also in Laos and Cambodia. They represent an old practice rooted in the animistic religion that predates the arrival of Buddhism. Old animistic beliefs and practices co-exist with Buddhism today (even here in the Philippines certain old beliefs exist alongside the widespread Catholicism of the country). Apparently, Spirit Houses are shrines placed to provide an appealing shelter for the spirits that inhabit the property, to make them happy so they won't cause problems for the inhabitants. Daily offerings are made to appease these spirits and if you look closely at the Spirit Houses, you will see all kinds of things placed in front of them - food, flowers, incense, candles, water, little statues, cigarettes, wine.

They can be made of wood, stone or concrete. Some are painted beautiful colors. They can be very modest, or very elaborate. Big or small. I've taken many pictures of them walking down the streets of Thailand, Laos or Cambodia.

The idea of house spirits is not unique to Southeast Asia and can be found in many other cultures as well, including in European mythology and practice. I bought ours as art and while I'm not at all sure that potentially malevolent spirits inhabit our 30th floor apartment, nonetheless it doesn't hurt to provide a constant supply of fresh flowers, along with those given to The Elephants and The Buddha (Welcome to the Elephants).

Just in case.

Silks for Barbara

I was talking to my friends on the other side of the planet this morning on Skype and we got talking about the silk dressing gowns I've been buying in Bangkok. I got inspired to heap them all on my bed to take pictures to show them, along with the silk wraps I've picked up in Cambodia and Laos.

Hmmm. Yum. Would like to sleep on it just the way it is. Here's the visual.





I've also been buying silk wall hangings in Laos, where the very best comes from. Impossible for me to photograph well as wall hangings but here's some closeups of my very favourites:

Duch

A darkness will settle on the people of Cambodia. There will be houses but no people in them, roads but no travellers; the land will be ruled by barbarians with no religion; blood will run so deep as to touch the belly of the elephant. Only the deaf and mute will survive.
Ancient Cambodian prophecy

Finally, at long last, the trial of the first of the Khmer Rouge bad guys has begun in PhnomPenh - Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch (pronounced “Doik”). (See earlier post.) Duch is the only one who has pleaded guilty to the charges. The other four (that's all) who are to stand trial claim innocence, whatever that's supposed to mean.

Duch was the head of the Khmer Rouge’s secret police and in charge of the hell on earth torture chamber that was Tuol Sleng prison, code named S-21, where he personally oversaw the torture and murder of over 14,000 people, keeping meticulous records including photographs of everyone. In only four years of the Khmer Rouge rule, from 1975 to 1979 a third of the population perished from starvation, overwork, disease, torture and execution. By the way, this destruction of the people of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge followed the more than a million Cambodians who earlier had been killed or wounded during the bombings by the Americans between 1969 and 1973 in the “sideshow” to the war against the Vietnamese.

In 1979 the Vietnamese, fed up with Cambodian encroachment on their borders, invaded Cambodia to depose the Khmer Rouge regime. When the Vietnamese army entered Phnom Penh, they discovered a ghost town. The Khmer Rouge, when they had taken over in 1975, had forced the entire population of the city to leave to become forced labour in the countryside. The Vietnamese found also that the leaders of the regime who had been based in Phnom Penh had fled in advance of the invading army. Duch himself disappeared.

A Vietnamese journalist and photographer who accompanied the army into Phnom Penh that day describes what they found. Walking through the deserted streets, they came upon an overwhelming stench. Following the smell, they found the prison which had been a school in former days. Peering in the windows, they saw 20 or 30 bodies chained to iron bedsteads in varying states of decomposition. Maggots popped under their feet as they started to photograph the horrific scene. S-21 was to be revealed to the world.

For 20 years no one knew what had become of Comrade Duch. The story of how he was found is one of luck, serendipity and probably fate.

Nic Dunlop is an Irish photojournalist who has been visiting Cambodia since 1989. By the end of the 1990’s, the civil war in Cambodia finally came to an end and the Khmer Rouge was no longer a fighting force. But former members were everywhere, as they still are. Nic Dunlop, armed with an old photo of Duch which he carried everywhere, decided to go looking for him. His personal quest was to find out what had happened and why.

Several years later, Dunlop was traveling with a mine-clearance team in an area near the Thai border. Refugees were returning from camps in Thailand. While he was waiting for the team that was having a meeting with local leaders to discuss the removal of mines in the area, Dunlop strolled over to a group of people to talk to them. Here’s what he says

A short, wiry man appeared wearing a white T-shirt emblazoned with the initial ARC (American Refugee Committee). Shaking my hand he politely introduced himself in perfect English as Hang Pan. He told me that he had been a schoolteacher specialising in mathematics and that he had originally come from Phnom Penh and had recently worked in a refugee camp on the Thai border. He had worked with American aid organisations since 1997. He took a keen interest in my Leica and, using this opportunity to photograph the people in the group, I caught him in the frame. Large ears, bad teeth, cropped hair – he had aged a little, but the likeness to the photograph tucked in my back pocket was unmistakable. Hang Pan was Comrade Duch.

Eventually Dunlop was to go back to find Duch to interview him. Duch confessed to his real identity and to his actions. Now, 30 years after he fled from S-21 in advance of the Vietnamese army, he stands trial for his crimes of genocide.

Nic Dunlop has written a book about his quest called The Lost Executioner. A compelling read but I have to stop reading it in bed just before sleep.

Cambodian Landmines Revisited

A small Reuters piece in the International Herald Tribune (the international version of the New York Times) caught my eye.

Anti-tank mine kills 5 and wounds 3 in Cambodia

Apparently a truck carrying rice to a mill hit an anti-tank mine and the victims included women and children. It took place in the northwest near the Thai border where the Khmer Rouge had their stronghold in Anlong Veng.

When I first read about this tragedy, a couple of things struck me. First, hundreds of Cambodians die every year from mines, why are we hearing about this? Second, how did this truck hit a mine? Was it driving on a road? Scary, especially since I’m planning my next trip and want to go further afield by road (and boat).

According to the provincial police chief, recent heavy rain could have loosened the soil and shifted the mine onto the road.

In Cambodia over 400 square km (155 square miles) have been de-mined. Another 4000 square km still to go. Angelina Jolie has had her Cambodian property (her eldest son is Cambodian) de-mined but Brad wants to get it checked again.

Last year not far away, an anti-tank mine exploded killing 7 Cambodian de-miners, the worst accident to hit mine clearing agencies since they started operating in 1993. There is, on line, an Australian documentary about the people who are training and working in de-mining in Cambodia. It is really powerful, showing scenes of small children finding unexploded bombs close to their schoolyard. They are in the habit of collecting scrap metal to sell to help their mothers. It sends chills up the spine as you watch them huddled around this weapon, poking it, talking about picking it up, wondering if it might be dangerous. These are very little children.There are tense scenes of the de-miners, also huddling around bombs and mines, figuring out the best way to de-activate them. It’s so gripping and scary, I had to “pause” it several times, and walk away for a few minutes. But it's not all grim. There is lots of laughter as well as the camera follows the Australian military guy, the demining trainer, travels with his crew in the Cambodian countryside. View at Bomb Harvest.

Anlong Veng, where these people were killed, is where the ashes of Pol Pot are buried 980 feet from the Thai border. The burial site, covered with a rusting corrugated metal roof is supposedly where he was cremated on a pile of old tires and trash. All remaining bits of bone from the cremation have been taken away by visitors – a souvenir or perhaps a good luck charm.


Wait a minute. GOOD LUCK???

It seems that people who live nearby are turning to the spirit of Pol Pot to give them winning lottery numbers. One woman had a dream that two snakes slithered out of Pol Pot’s grave and gave her a winning lottery number. Another more recently deceased Khmer Rouge bad guy, Ta Mok, has apparently returned as a ghost to dispense winning numbers. Some viewed him in life as something of a benevolent patron, dispensing rice and cattle, and keeping order in the community. As the chieftain of Anlong Veng he banned theft, drunkenness, prostitution, marriage outside the commune, private enterprise, any contact with outsiders and listening to any radio station other that that of the Khmer Rouge – all of these “crimes” were punishable by death.

Meanwhile, back in the non-spirit world, the U.S. has now agreed to give $1.8 million to the War Crimes Tribunal which is near bankruptcy and has really only just begun the trials of the 5 bad guys/gal that have been arrested. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who was in Cambodia recently, described relations between Cambodia and the United States as being at a “high point” and said both sides were looking for ways to deepen their bilateral ties, including more military cooperation.

Uh, Military cooperation?

The picture of Pol Pot's grave was taken by Elena Leslie, a journalist living in Phnom Penh. She writes about Anlong Veng in this article the online Granta journal.

Landmine tales from my first trip to Cambodia - A Daring Raid on Cambodia.

The CNN Buddha

Statues and paintings of the Buddha typically show him with six or seven common hand gestures, called mudras. The placement of the hands has distinct meanings, arising out of particular events in his life.

When I was in Cambodia recently, I was told by several people that the standing Buddha, with his right hand raised, palm facing outward and fingers pointing upward, meant "Stop Fighting". This is the abhaya mudra representing protection, peace and dispelling fear.

Aha, I thought. The world definitely needs this. So I went in search of a statue, which I found at Artisans D'Angkor (where the elephants came from earlier).

So Buddha is now perched on the coffee table, back to the sofa, facing the television set, hand raised, to remind all those people (Georgia, Russia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, George Bush...) creating all that mayhem as reported on CNN or BBC World News to

S
T
O
P

FIGHTING

Return to Cambodia

I recently went back to Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor along with Number 2 Son who was on his first trip to Asia. The trip reminded me of a time many (!) years ago when I was about his age. I went on a two week trip to Mexico with my own mother. I used to say it was a travelling partnership of perfect symmetry. I saw more temples than I would have and she saw the inside of more bars.

In my travels, I’ve found that the return trip is always the best. Returning to a place that is somewhat familiar, without that “where on earth are we” feeling, is great. Going back to places that warrant a second look and expanding the perimeter, as we always want to do. There’s an exquisite feeling of familiarity and excitement. This time in addition to revisiting some of the temples I saw last time, we explored more of the town and also went on a boat ride on the largest lake in southeast Asia, seeing the water villages where people live, work and play on boats and houseboats.

This time we stayed in a small 7-room hotel on a quiet street in town half a block from the river. $70 a night. I'm becoming a real fan of the small boutique hotels - we've also found another one we like in Bangkok. With all that money we're saving, all the more for shopping! This particular hotel was brand new, very chic, very nice with one particular quirk - this is, after all Cambodia, so expect the unexpected. The whole lobby area and staircase is open air. At night they close and lock the gate but they have 24 hour front desk service. A staffer puts up a pup tent on the floor in the middle of the lobby where he sleeps, getting up to open the gate when you stumble in late at night.

Here’s what I learned on my return trip to the fabulousness that is Angkor Wat.

Off-season is GREAT!!!

We were there in late August, which is rainy season and “low-season” for tourists. Well let’s talk about “rainy season” and why one should indeed go at that time.

First of all, the countryside is beautiful. Green and lush. The rice fields, which are everywhere, are growing and people are out in the fields continuing the process of planting rice. Everything is gorgeous. Last March, it was all brown and dry.

Second, yes it is wetter than last March, this being the so-called rainy season, but of the five days we were there it rained three times. Each time it was a torrential downpour (which was actually way cool) but it only lasted for about 40 minutes or so. Nothing rains on my parade.

Third, it’s low season…meaning, noticeably fewer of us tourists. And in Siem Reap, which in a short period of time has become a major tourist town, this is a real bonus.


Angkor Wat is the largest of all the temples in the area (and there are many many wonderful sites). The Granddaddy of them all. Well, we had the amazing good fortune to visit, at high noon when all the tour groups were no doubt having lunch elsewhere in air conditioned comfort, and we were virtually alone. I couldn’t believe it. Last March, it was all undeniably impressive, but there were scads of other people around, and it was distracting to say the least.

This time it was magic.

Around the perimeter of the Angkor Wat are 600 meters of carved bas reliefs along the outside walls, protected by an open hallway and roof – all built of thick stone which in the heat of mid day is cooling and protecting. In over an hour of walking through these corridors looking at the carvings we saw maybe half a dozen other people.

We did, however see one other tourist, or perhaps resident, of note. We were about to turn the corner to the section of the temple which has a huge carved mural depicting the climax of the Ramayama, the Battle of Lanka. In this battle, Rama along with his allies, Hanuman the monkey king and the monkey troops, defeat the bad guy Ravana who has kidnapped the babe, Sita. Just as I was reading aloud a description of this in my guidebook I looked out through the archway to see a large monkey loping across the grass approaching the temple. He climbed up the steps and actually came right inside, paying us not the slightest bit of attention, right under the carvings of the monkey army. Coincidence? Reincarnation?
This was not the last encounter with a monkey. At 4:00 in the afternoon outside the Bayon in Angkor Thom, a group of monkeys congregate for a close encounter with the tourists. Young boys sell bunches of bananas for a buck (yes we bought some) to feed to the monkeys.


There is an old temple ruin up on top of a hill, Phnom Bakheng, that you can climb up to and see outstanding views of the surrounding countryside and the top of Angkor Wat above the trees. Fantastic place to watch the sunset along with several thousand of your fellow tourists (we left as everyone else started showing up around 5:00). It is quite a hike unless of course you prefer to let someone else do all the work!



The photo at the very top is by John McDermott who has two galleries in Siem Reap and whose work now graces our hallway in Manila. It's a famous shot of the Ta Prohm temple which has been kept in its more or less original state. http://www.asiaphotos.net

War Crimes

An article in the paper over the weekend talked about a looming crisis at the Cambodian Khmer Rouge tribunal. Apparently the UN-backed genocide court, established to prosecute leaders of the regime that was toppled nearly 30 years ago, appears to be going bankrupt putting the whole process in jeopardy just as the first trials are about to begin. This is the latest in a long and very difficult journey to create the tribunal in the first place.

Khmer Rouge Army entering Phnom Penh in 1975

The Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot, held power for three years, eight months and twenty days from 1975 to 1979 and during that time between 2 and 3 million (reports vary) Cambodians died. After the regime was toppled by the Vietnamese, the end of the Khmer Rouge period was followed by a civil war which finally ended in 1998, when the Khmer Rouge political and military structures were dismantled. In the decade since, it has been a long process to establish this tribunal, but it is finally up and running with some of the top former leaders arrested this past fall. #1 bad guy, Pol Pol died in 1998 and Ta Mok, the regime's military commander died in 2006.

Five senior officials have been arrested:

Nuon Chea, 81, (“Brother Number Two”) who was Khmer Rouge supreme leader Pol Pot's closest deputy and the alleged architect of the regime's execution policies during its 1975 to 1979 rule, was arrested in September 2007 and charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

This picture taken in 1980 was one of the first concrete proofs to the outside world that something terrible had happened in 'Democratic' Kampuchea

"Duch", born Kaing Guek Eav, 67 years old. He was the brutal interrogator who headed Phnom Penh's notorious Tuol Sleng torture centre - codenamed S21 - where he oversaw the slaughter of over 10,000 "spies and traitors" and 2,000 children. He was seized on May 10 1999, after confessing and expressing remorse to British photojournalist, Nic Dunlop, who spent years tracking him down. Dunlop has written a book about this called The Lost Executioner.

Witness and weep

Last month he led the judges who will try him for crimes against humanity around the mass graves for some of its victims, reportedly crying and praying and apologizing.

In November 2007, authorities also arrested Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge's ex-foreign minister, and his wife Ieng Thirith, its social affairs minister. Both were charged with crimes against humanity; Ieng Sary was also charged with war crimes. In February Ieng Sary requested the court grant conjugal visits. The English-language Cambodia Daily quoted Ieng Sary's lawyer as saying the 82-year-old "misses his wife," fellow detainee Ieng Thirith (78), the sister-in-law of former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. "He wants to see her, she wants to see him ... why does the tribunal prevent them from seeing each other?" Ironic, given the Khmer Rouge policy of tearing families apart during their reign of terror.

Let's stay together

The former Khmer Rouge head of state was arrested in November 2007, the fifth senior official of the brutal regime to be rounded up ahead of a long-delayed genocide trial. Khieu Samphan, 76, was taken to the tribunal from a Phnom Penh hospital where he had been undergoing treatment after suffering a stroke a day earlier. He’s a real piece of work who claims that he was only a “figurehead” and had no idea what was really going on. "Wat da fukh?"

Only five former leaders have been arrested so far. Other cases will be brought forward but in total, no more than a dozen defendants, the top leaders and "those most responsible" for the genocide, are in the sights of the tribunal, whose estimated cost is $60m and climbing. Most of them are aging and in ill health.

One former Khmer Rouge commander who may be on the short list for upcoming prosecution, who is currently living a comfortable retirement in the countryside, says, “Let bygones be bygones”. He says “It’s such a waste of time to talk about these issues. I’m in my preparation to go to hell”.

A Daring Raid on Cambodia

Last weekend we went to Cambodia to spend four days in Siem Reap, which is the city close to Angkor Wat. Somerset Maugham, on his second visit to Cambodia in 1959 (he’d been there in the 1920’s) said “No one should die before they see Angkor”. I agree – although I hope that doesn’t mean I should go ahead and expire now having seen some of it – still have lots more on my list! The photo above was taken by a photographer named Trey Ratcliff. If you want to see some really neat and unusual travel photography, check out his blog, Stuck in Customs.

There are more than forty temples in Angkor spread over about 320 kilometers – the best known is Angkor Wat. It is the largest religious building the world has ever known covering 200 hectares (whatever that is, being metrically challenged) inside a large surrounding moat. The temple structures are amazing, as well as the carved bas reliefs that stretch around the structure. Angkor Wat was built by a cast of tens of thousands in the 12th century and around the monument there used to be a city of over a million people that was at the heart of an empire stretching into what is now called Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. At the same time, London was a city of less than 35,000.

Of the temples we visited, I think my favorite was the much smaller Ta Prohm. This matched my mental image of what Angkor was – real Indiana Jones stuff. It is deliberately being left as it would have looked when first discovered by western explorers, overgrown and surrounded by jungle, which is a great decision. It is a peaceful place with extraordinary vegetation. Huge roots and vines intertwine with the rocks and bricks of the temple, becoming part of the structure itself. Parts of it look like the creature from Aliens.

On the way to Banteay Srei, another gorgeous, smaller temple exquisitely carved of pink sandstone about 30 km from the city, I noticed a sign in front of a small building, "Land Mine Museum". On our way back we stopped and went inside. There we found the astonishing story of the founder of the Museum.




In 1975 a 5-year old boy who now calls himself Aki Ra saw both his parents killed by the Khmer Rouge when they took over Cambodia, leaving him to fend for himself in the midst of the horror that was taking place throughout the country. Several years later, he was taken into the Khmer Rouge army as a boy soldier conscript, where he was trained to lay mines, make bombs and handle weapons. He has now taken on the role of de-miner and his personal mission is to see the removal of all land mines in Cambodia. He estimates he has personally removed and defused around 50,000 land mines. He goes into the countryside and teaches people how to identify and report mines they may find. The children especially, need to be educated to identify them and not to play with them. There are many NGO organizations in Cambodia working in de-mining.

Some estimates say that there may be something like 10 million mines and unexploded bombs in Cambodia, a legacy of the Vietnam War (or the "American War" as it is called over here), the civil war involving the Khmer Rouge, and the Vietnamese invasion. Land mines are not designed to kill people. They are intentionally designed to maim - to destroy limbs or to blind people. The reasoning is that it is more damaging to the warring armies. Dead soldiers no longer cost money but damaged soldiers need treatment and support and are no longer productive. In civil conflicts land mines become targeted at civilians and unfortunately no mine mapping exists. Today, in Cambodia, someone is killed or maimed by land mines every day resulting in an estimated 40,000 amputees in Cambodia, the highest ratio per capita of any country. After learning about this at the Museum, I started noticing evidence of it around me. As you drive along the roads you see many signs for training facilities for the disabled and some of the art workshops we toured where people are doing stone sculpture or weaving are manned by people with missing limbs. The musical groups playing near the temples are victims of land mines. And, you begin to notice maimed adults and children on the streets of Siem Riep.

Not only people are affected. This little elephant stepped on a land mine over by the Thai border, where literally tons of these mines are. He has been fitted with a prosthetic leg and is being taken care of at the Elephant Training Center near Lampang in northern Thailand.

Cambodia has had a truly tragic recent history. It became independent from the French in 1953 and by 1964, the Khmer Rouge, a Marxist insurgent group, threatened the country's precarious stability. In 1970 a right wing coup overthrew the head of the government, Prince Sihanouk who was supported by the Khmer Rouge. Fighting between factions continued until 1975 when the Khmer Rouge finally occupied Phnom Penh which was shown in the brilliant movie The Killing Fields. Millions of people died of torture, starvation, murder and brutality as the Khmer Rouge implemented a devastating social engineering experiment. In 1978 the Vietnamese invaded and toppled the Khmer Rouge government, but fighting continued for many more years in some parts of the country. In 1989 the Vietnamese withdrew and the United Nations came in to stabilize the country. However, it wasn't until 1998 that the Khmer Rouge was defeated once and for all. Stability is only a few years old.

There are odd legacies of this violent past. Here is a sculpture in front of the Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC), a hotel in Siem Reap - made of old weapons.

In these past few years development is taking off. In Siem Reap there is a banner over the main street celebrating the fact that in 2007 2,000,000 tourists visited the city (and of course Angkor Wat). The road in from the airport is lined with brand new hotels. There's lots of restaurants, bars and shopping. People approach you constantly trying to sell you things, especially around the temples, where the vendors are, shall we say, VERY persistent. "You want buy DVD? Only 10 dollah. Oh you have one? Well you need buy another one." It will be interesting to see how development proceeds over the next 10 years. As a traveler, it is somewhat irritating to be one of 2 million people climbing the steps of the temple. However, I realize that I'm about 150 years too late to be that early western discoverer of Angkor or perhaps even 10 years too late to be one of the tourists who arrived after the recent troubles ended and the doors of Cambodia opened again. I also recognize that the money we bring as tourists is making a big difference in many peoples' lives in this country of extreme poverty, so why complain? I'd definitely like to go back and spend more time there.

The bartender at the Sofitel Hotel used to be a subsistence farmer a few short years ago, as many people are. He says he much prefers to be a bartender at the Sofitel Hotel.