Southeast Asia Again 2006 - Jason Kester

A month later...

Jason Kester — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Been here a whole month now, climbing rocks, working on the tan, and amassing stories. Maybe if I get some time I'll even tell some of them. Until then, know that life remains good.

Angkor

Jason Kester — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Angkor is pretty cool. I'm digging the part where they let you climb over basically anything. The best temples are the broken down ones in the jungle where you can clambor over big piles of stone blocks and drop squeeze into the old Temples that are barely standing.

It was nice that you could hire a guy for $5 to drive you around on a motorbike from Sunrise to sunset and wait outside these temple sites for hours at a time, but still I think my best day was the one where I just rented a bike and pedaled out to the remote spots that nobody visits. Got to meet a couple kids on their way to the fishing hole, and found the back way through the jungle to get from temple to temple.

Too bad they're building giant luxury hotels so fast. In another year or so I bet you'll start seeing ropes and signs and guards all over the place. Better get there now if you still want to sift through the rubble yourself!

Southeast Asian Travel Day

Jason Kester — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Woke up in time for a nice cup of coffee on the lake in Phnom Penh and a few minutes to chill before another long travel day.

So, a half hour on a motorbike across town and an hour on a state of the art Cambodian airliner puts me back in lovely Bangkok in time to pick up the bags and jump on a night train to Surat Thani. Just 20 hours of buses, pickup trucks and longtail boats away from the beach. No worries!

The Killing Fields

Jason Kester — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Today I held a human skull in my hands.

The killing Fields are really something to behold. The site itself is nothing special. Just a small monument in a Field full of holes, but what it lacks in scope it makes up in impact. The monument itself is essentially a giant glass display case. 10 shelves, 20 feet by 20 feet, each stacked three high with piles of skulls that they have been digging up in the immediate vicinity. 8000 in all.

Walking among the mass graves, it took a while to register the scraps of cloth sticking out of the ground. This is Southeast Asia so you get used to trash everywhere. But eventually it sunk in that these were people’s clothes working their way out of the ground after the fall rains. Scratch the surface and you’ll find bones inside them. Visitors collect them in little shrines along with teeth and bits of clothing. The sign says there are 2000 more bodies that they plan to leave buried there. As I said, it’s a pretty powerful experience.

All good thus far

Jason Kester — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT

So I'm back in Bangkok, at the tail end of a one-way ticket. Things are essentially going according to plan, with minor exceptions such as the part where EVA Airlines wouldn't let me on the plane until I shelled out $950 for a return ticket. Tomorrow will be day two of the grand "refund the expensive yet worthless return ticket" adventure.

But hey, I got to watch the sun rising over Mt Fuji this morning, and my favorite curry stall is still where I left it. We'll call it good...