Photos:
3/27/2012 Tuesday. Henry
H gave us a ride to the airport. Flight
UA117 (old CO99) was packed. There was a
problem with the plane, and it took off 45 minutes late. I worked on slides for EFF meeting during
part of the flight. Flight path deviated
quite a bit from “usual” polar route: flight attendant explained it was due to
risk of solar flare; thus the flight itself took a bit longer than usual. Ruth & Stephen arrived at around 6
pm. They and Tim waited for Anne &
me; it was past 8 pm when we walked out of customs. Had a late snack at Tai Hing at MTR Tai Po. Stayed at Taipo house.
3/29/2012 Thursday.
Lunch with David L at Mongkok East (Szechuan, Hunan and Shanghai). Dinner at Taipo house. Stayed at Taipo house.
3/30/2012 Friday. Tea
with Elaine and Larry in the afternoon.
Afterwards we strolled by City Hall and got tickets for tonight’s
concert. Anne and I then went to Mongkok
East MTR to have dinner with Ruth and Stephen.
Afterwards we all went back to City Hall for the concert (see separate
blog.) Stayed at Taipo house.
3/31/2012 Saturday. David,
Anne and I had coffee with Kashi, Franklin to talk about a charity organization
we are supporting. Whitney and Tim went
on a hike starting from the Taipo house.
When we all assembled at Tai Po MTR, we discovered most restaurants were
fully booked. So we had a simple dinner
at Tai Hing, again. Stayed at Taipo
house.
4/1/2012 Sunday. Ride
on Tim’s boat first to Stanley for lunch.
Then to Tai Tam. I tried to get
some sleep while others were watching TV.
Visited Anne’s mother. HK Club
for dinner with Elaine and Larry. Stayed
at Taipo house.
4/2/2012 Monday.
Packed for the short side trip to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Taxi pickup at 10:45 am, drive to airport
uneventful. Circuitous routing on Asiana
Airlines. Trip to Seoul in business
class pleasant enough, but A320 from Seoul to Siem Reap was packed, and plane
was a bit late taking off; we will be 1 hour late getting into Siem Reap Process through immigration and customs not
particularly difficult, although somehow I didn’t fill out the right forms, at
least that was their claim. And I am
quite sure an official kept saying the word “tip” to me quietly, which I
pretended not to understand. The hotel
bus picked us up. The city is quite
quiet, although there was still the odd passerby during the 15 minute bus
ride. It was past midnight when we
checked into the hotel. Hotel: Borei
Angkor Resort.
4/3/2012 Tuesday. We
woke up a bit before 8 am and enjoyed a sumptuous buffet at the hotel
Café. At around 9 am met up with Guide
and driver for sightseeing. Visited
Angkor Thom and the temple Bayon, Banteay Kdei, Ta Prohm (famous for Tombraider
scenes), Prasat Kravan and other temples.
Some temples date back to the 10th century. Lunch at local Cambodian restaurant. Ended day with visit to Angkor Museum. Conclusion: this area is full of history
dating back from first century, both in regard to ethnicity and religion. In some sense it is much more complicated
than Incan or Mayan history, and a three-day visit is not going to do it much
justice. Dinner at hotel café, also a
buffet. Hotel: Borei Resort.
View from our hotel room at Borei Angkor Resert, Siem Reap.
South Gate of Angkor Thom, Gods on one side, Demons on the other.
Bayon Temple, at the Center of Angkor Thom.
Nose-to-Nose with One of the Many Buddhas.
West Wall of Baphoun Temple. Can you make out the reclining Buddha?
Ta Prohm, of Tom Raider Fame.
Another Tree overgrowing the Temple.
Lunch in Siem Reap.
4/4/2012 Wednesday.
After breakfast, met up with guide and driver at 8:30 am. We first stopped by Banteay Srei,
sometimes referred to as “the woman’s temple” as tradition has women being the
artisans that worked on the carvings. We
then drove about 30 miles out to Kbal Spean, the term “head of bridge”
referring to the large rock at the site.
There we hiked for 1.5 km to reach the “stream of 1000 lingas,” although
the guide said there are more, and not every symbol was a linga. While the construction of the art may be
impressive, there isn’t all that much to see, and one can certainly debate if
it is worth the long trek out and back.
After lunch at a local restaurant (Kbal Spean), we visited several
additional temples. Dinner at hotel
café, but no buffet tonight. Hotel:
Borei Resort.
Intricate Artwork at Banteay Srei. Many think women worked on the temple.
Kbal Spean Path, one of the rough patches we had to navigate.
On the way to the River of 1000 Lingas.
Reclining Vishnu and Lingas on Riverbed.
Outside Borey Sovann Kbal Spean Restaurant (outdoors).
Palm Products (mostly candy) for sale at roadside.
Preah Khan Temple.
These long corridors (this in Preah Khan) are quite typical in temple designs.
4/5/2012 Thursday.
Morning trip was to Tonle Sap Lake.
In theory this should be an interesting place to visit, the lake is
supposed to flood during the rainy season (doubling in size). We had a small boat all to ourselves, which
isn’t necessarily an advantage as sprays tend to get to us rather easily –
there is a reason why the boat driver wore a mask. The ride “out” to the floating village took
about 30 minutes, and we stopped by a “nature center” to have a short look
around. While the channel out to the
lake looked clean enough, there was a lot of algae in the lake due to the
organic matter deposited by the inhabitants on the boats. I can’t even begin to imagine how polluted
the lake and the fish in it are. It is
amazing how something that looks romantic at a distance can be quite different
up close.
Lotus Pond on way to Tonle Sap Lake.
"Cruise Ships" waiting to pick up passengers for a trip on the Lake.
A floating house on the Lake. This one is a church. Many of the people on the lake are Vietnamese Christians.
Three kids in tubs in Tonle Sap Lake. I have seen TV programs depicting this as a bucolic scene. In reality the lake is polluted, with algae bloom fed by organic effluent from the houseboats.
Fishing, Tonle Sap style.
Ammunition in War Museum. There were only a few visitors, most tourists opt to see the ruins rather than reminders of the war.
Restaurant outside Angkor Wat. Food was awful.
In front of Angkor Wat.
Apsaras. There are thousands of them.
Inside Angkor Wat.
Steep stairs to get to higher levels.
Bas-Relief along wall.
Angkor Wat at sunset, as seen from Bakheng Hill.
We stopped by the War Museum before having lunch. The War Museum is a lightly attended venue,
but is nonetheless a stark reminder of how cruel and destructive man can be. This was a substitute for the Land Mine
Museum which we had wanted to visit; but the guide dissuaded us from doing so,
claiming the profit making venture benefits the owner.
Afternoon was the highlight of the trip: Angkor Wat. We toured it for about 2 ½ hours, examining
in some detail the bas-reliefs along the wall, and climbing up to the second
and third levels. Given all I had heard
about the condition of the place, I was surprised at how “run down” it
looked. This, like other temples, are a
restorer’s dream. Problem is there is so
little restoration going on that I am sure the destruction will outpace
it. While many historical sites are now
off-limits to the casual tourist (notable examples being Stonehenge and much of
Uluru), for all practical purposes one can roam at will around these temples
except for dangerous sections and the occasional “do not touch carvings” sign
that is by-and-large ignored.
We were too tired – and it was a very hot day – so we
decided to take a break and had coffee at Angkor Café. Afterwards we drove to Bekhang Hill and took
a 15 or so minute walk to – what else – another temple. Our purpose was to watch the sunset. We started at about 4:30 pm, found a shaded
place and sat for about an hour, all the time sweating. At about 5:45 pm we decided the sunset (which
was yet to come) would just be like any other sunset we have seen, and that the
clouds would probably dim the light so much that we won’t experience this glow
from Angkor Wat (to be honest, we weren’t sure what we should expect,
anyway.) So we started our walk back,
had dinner at the hotel, rested for a bit, and went to the airport for the red
eye flight to Seoul. We booked one extra
night at the hotel, hoping we would get some rest before getting on the plane,
but alas, it wasn’t to be.
It is inevitable to compare Angkor Wat with Machu
Picchu. They were ranked Numbers 2 and 1
by some travel magazine last year, after all.
Objectively Angkor Wat and the surrounding area should be much more impressive:
they are older, the number of buildings overwhelms Machu Picchu, the towers at
Angkor are much taller. Yet Angkor
didn’t hit me with the same sense of awe as Machu Picchu, I wonder why.
I did learn a few things about the complicated religions of
Buddhism and Hinduism. The simple things
are (i) the three gods of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; (ii) the two major schools
of Buddhism. But beyond that things get
complicated. The two religions seem
awfully tolerant of one another, most of the temples started Hindu but ended up
Buddhist, yet there was very little destruction of the Hindu elements. The pantheon of gods in Hinduism is simply
overwhelming, and many gods seem to take on multiple – and very long – names. Our guide tells us Cambodia is 95% Buddhist,
yet other than the occasional shrine at the street corner, there is little
overt practice of religion, at least not in Siem Reap.
Yet another realization is the tension between Cambodians
(Khmers) and other ethnic groups. I don’t
want to go into specifics, but – at least from our guide – there appears to be
a lot of distrust among them.
Of course there is this horrific incidence with the Khmer
Rouge being in power for several years in the 1970s and caused an unimaginable
amount of destruction in the country.
Our guide was surprisingly reluctant to talk about it. We did find out both his father and his uncle
were victims of the regime, and that he thinks 3 million people were killed
(out of total population of around 10 million.)
4/6/2012 Friday.
Arrival at HKG a little after 1 pm.
Took Bus E41 then taxi back to Taipo.
Dinner at Taipo house: Ling cooked, and we supplemented the meal with
Ginseng Chicken Soup purchased at ICN.
Stayed at Taipo House.
4/7/2012 Saturday. Met
up at Queen’s Café (Festival Walk) with Rev. Ken Chan of Evangelical Free
Church of China. Dinner at Golden Bull
Vietnamese Restaurant at Ocean Terminal.
Then we went to see a concert at the Hong Kong Cultural Center. There were eight of us: Wally & Ling,
Stephen and Ruth, Tim & Whitney, and Anne and me. Stayed at Taipo house.
4/8/2012 Sunday. Took
MTR and then taxi to Aberdeen Boat Club.
Then it was a 45- or so minute ride out to Mui Wo. Taxi to Pak Kung Au where we started our hike
up Lantau Peak. The trip was 4.5 km in
length, but entailed an elevation change of more than 600 meters. The hikers are Wally & Ling, Tim &
Whitney, and me. We all made it,
although Ling took an extra hour or so due in part to her bad knee. We showered and changed on board before
heading back to have dinner at ABC. We
decided to go two different ways (bus and bus + MTR) but ended up at Tai Po at
around the same time. Stayed at Taipo
House.
Start of Hike to Lantau Peak.
Most of the ascent is done on steps like these, just that there are many many of them.
A more precarious section of the trail.
Nothing wrong with the camera. It was very foggy. Sign says 934 meters elevation.
End of Hike.
4/9/2012 Monday.
Another ride on Tim’s boat. We
first stopped by Stanley to have lunch at Classified: we ordered mostly
breakfast items. They serve reasonably
good food for reasonable prices (for that part of town, that is.) We then went to Po Toi Island. I ran for a bit but there were too many steps
to make the run smooth. The others went
on a rather long hike to explore the different rock formations on the
island. After the ride Anne and I went
to visit her mother. Elaine then picked
us up for dinner at Suzhou-Zhejiang Club.
It was after 10 pm that we got home.
Stayed at Taipo House.
4/10/2012 Tuesday.
Dinner at traditional Hakka restaurant “Chuen Cheung” House with Alyson
who is in the middle of her exams.
Dessert at Moon Kee. Stayed at
Taipo House.
4/11/2012 Wednesday.
Lunch with George and Manna Leung.
Dinner at China Club with Anne’s siblings. It was close to midnight when we got back to
Taipo, and about 2 am that I went to bed.
Stayed at Taipo House.
4/12/2012 Thursday.
Travel day. Got up at about 6:30
am to prepare for return flight. Taxi
ride to airport was okay, except driver perhaps told us a bit more about his
personal life than we wanted to know.
Check in was extremely easy, but plane was packed. Lately all non-stop Newark to Hong Kong
flights seemed to be at capacity, while flights to Hong Kong from San Francisco
and Chicago seemed to have more empty seats, perhaps it is time to reevaluate
how best to travel. I just completed a
draft of the EFF slide show, so at least I managed something useful.
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