Ethan Dylan Siegel's Website

July 26. We have finally found a few minutes to post our Cambodia photos. Cambodia was a life-altering experience for us. We only had 4 days there, but it really made an impression on us. We spent our entire time in and near Siem Reap, home of the Angkor Wat temple complex, which is one of the Seven Wonders of the World. For the first three days, we mostly viewed the temples and ancient cities, most of which were built between 800 AD and 1200 AD. One of the walled cities, Angkor Thom, had over one million residents in 1200 AD. The temples and cities were a tribute to the ingenuity of the Khmer society, which was the dominant society in the area for quite some time during the period all of these buildings were constructed. Some of the temples and cities were absolutely gigantic, and it is astonishing that the people were able to bring so much sandstone over 40 kilometers to build all of these things. The architecture on the buildings was certainly a highlight, as was the exquisite bas-relief carving in the stone. Some of the temples had every square inch covered in fine carving, depicting ancient wars, cultural history and religious themes. The story of Angkor is really interesting -- the western world completely forgot about the temples for over 400 years, until the late 1800s when they were "re-discovered" by the French. Of course, the people in Siem Reap never forgot about Angkor, but they had no contact with the outside world and these wonders were completely forgotten by most of the world. Until relatively recently, all of the various complexes were overgrown by thick Cambodian jungle. Most of them have been cleared of jungle (and land mines from the 20 years of civil war), but they have left a few temples in their natural state to show the struggle of nature versus these gigantic man-made monuments.

It's a shame, but in many ways the country was much better off 1000 years ago than then it is today. The average Cambodian makes about $10 per month and lives in extreme poverty. For the most part, the people live in very small handmade houses with palm leaf roofs. Typically, up to ten kids and two parents sleep on the floor of the single room house. Most of the people that we saw in the countryside literally had no personal possessions at all. A few had shoes, and most had some clothing. But very few had anything more than that. On our second day, we drove 20 miles from Siem Reap to Banteay Srei, which is a temple made of red limestone that has amazing carvings. The red limestone turned out to hold the carving a little better than the regular limestone did over the years. On the way to Banteay Srei, we passed through a few villages and saw the way people were living. It was truly unbelievable. One of the most noticeable things, though, was how friendly and happy everyone was. We stopped a few times and met local families. The kids had not seen many westerners and were frightened of us at first, but they slowly approached us and eventually were interacting with us as well. On the way back to Siem Reap, we learned more about our driver's history and the current state of affairs in the country.

Our driver is an example of the pain that this country has been through (you can't rent a car in Cambodia without a driver). His parents were killed in the mid-1970s by the Pol Pot regime and the Khmer Rouge at a "re-education" camp. As they did with all families, the Khmer Rouge sent each sibling to a different village so that they would not be able to stay in touch and there would be little resistence to the regime. At the time, there were 8 million Cambodians, and it is estimated that 2 million died during Pol Pot's reign from 1975 to 1979. Pol Pot took special care to kill the educated Cambodians because they were the people most likely to cause him trouble. If you've seen the movie "The Killing Fields", you know what I'm talking about. After Pol Pot was ousted in 1979, the Khmer Rouge fled to the jungles and terrorized the country until the late 1990s, killing many Cambodians and engaging in terrorism, making Cambodia an awful place to live. Our driver was raised by a monk, but had nothing for most of his childhood years. He finished middle school, and began to support himself. He has such a strong will to make a good life for himself and his family, it is incredible. He has always refused to give in to the hard conditions that have confronted him, and he has not let his spirit be broken, always finding a way to make opportunity in a place where very little exists. As a teenager, he could not afford to learn English, so he looked through the holes in the bamboo walls of an English school and watched as they learned English by reading the newspaper. Today, even though he literally has almost no personal possessions, he has a whiteboard and marker and is teaching his 7 year old daughter and 3 year old son English. In fact, his house is pretty much empty other than that whiteboard.

As a driver, he is doing pretty well by Cambodian standards, making $10 to $50 per month. Unfortunately, everything is stacked against the people of this country. We were told that the government is corrupt and does nothing for the people. It does not build roads, provide schooling or any health care. Even the new road in Siem Reap was built by Japan, not the Cambodian government. We are led to believe that Cambodia has no money, and this is not entirely true. It has some money, it is just taken by the people in power, who then rely on the rest of the world to support the country. As I said, the government doesn't provide schools, and our driver pays 50 cents per day to send his daughter to school. This is a fortune and almost his entire income in some months. Worse, the SCHOOLTEACHERS demand a bribe from his daughter every day, and also require her to buy candy and other things that they sell. If she doesn't bring them money, she is told to go home. It gets even worse, though, once you realize there are 95 children in her class, that there are 2 classes per day (1/2 the kids in the morning, the other 1/2 in the afternoon), and that the teacher usually spends only 1 or 2 of the 4 hours per class teaching, and lets the kids run around outside and play games the rest of the time. But, this is what education is available in Cambodia, so our driver sends his daughter and spends most of his income on her education. It really gave us some perspective on how fortunate we are.

As an example of corruption, we were told that the present prime minister owed a company a favor, so he gave them the right to charge and collect the entrance fee at Angkor Wat. So, this company now charges $20 for a day pass (more than the average Cambodian makes in 6 weeks), and not a penny of it goes to the people of the country, or even to preserving or restoring Angkor Wat. Some of the buildings have been painstakingly restored by various charitable organizations from many countries, but there are many that are still in need of a great deal of work, and there will always be continuing maintenance needs. Yet, neither the admission fees nor the government provide any of this. This is truly horrible, since Angkor Wat is this country's ticket out of the poor house. Angkor Wat is truly a spectacular sight, and with the violence in the country subsiding over the last few years, tourism has begun to return, at least to Angkor Wat. It's a shame that the country has essentially been robbed of this treasure.

As you can probably tell, we were truly touched by the people of Cambodia in the few short days we were there. Their friendliness and happiness is not dampened by the difficult conditions in which they live. We felt like there was obviously little we could do to make a difference in a day or two, but we tried to reach out a little and promised to do more in the future. We spent our last afternoon making some purchases in the local market. Our driver told us that most kids cannot afford notebooks or pencils for school, so we started with that, and added a few other things. He drove us to his village, and we gave notebooks and pencils to the first few kids that we saw. Soon, we were surrounded by about 50 very well behaved kids, from age 3 to 15, and we distributed notebooks and soccer balls to the older kids, and toy cars, balloons and candy to the younger ones. It was really heartwarming to see how eager the kids were to get notebooks and pencils. Of all the goodies we brought, notebooks were by far the most popular and we could see that the kids of the country, or at least this village, had the same drive to learn and better themselves that we saw in our driver. Lane almost cried when our driver's daughter said "Thank you lady, dream of me."

It really is impossible to describe some of the feelings that we felt as we were surrounded in the countryside by these barefoot children, as we watched them put their notebooks safely away and get back to playing just like any other kids. We also kind of decided to sponsor our driver's family and assist him with tuition at the end of the year so that he can become a licensed guide at Angkor Wat and earn enough money to send both of his kids to school when his son starts next year. The tuition and "fees" that must be paid are far, far out of the reach of the average Cambodian. It's a very long story, but this man has ceaselessly been trying to better himself, and totally deserves a break. We hope to stay in contact with him and watch his success in the future.

So, there you have it. Our stop in Cambodia was incredibly emotional in many ways, and it was also incredibly breathtaking to see Angkor Wat and the surrounding complexes. It is no surprise that it is considered one of the Wonders of the World, because it is just amazing. Parts of it were right out of Raiders of the Lost Ark. We have seen a lot of great things on this trip, but Angkor Wat was most definitely a major highlight. And the people we met in Cambodia were equally amazing, engaged in a daily struggle to meet their most basic needs, yet happy, friendly and quite interested in connecting with the westerners that have begun to return to the country after 25 years of genocide and civil war have kept the rest of the world outside of its borders. We plan on staying in touch with our driver's family in the future and providing whatever assistance we can to a family that truly deserves it.

This update is a big one, and it is broken into three pages so that it will load easier. The photos barely scratch the surface of the experience. We can't believe it's almost August. We'll see everyone in about 6 weeks, so get ready to start losing your poker money to me again. We send our best wishes to everyone, and hope that all is well with each of you.