Week 3 in Cambodia

Hello again,

time is flying now... we are more than 3/4 through our adventure now. Work is going really well for the entire team. The Cambodians are really open to any suggestions and usually implement any proposals before the we are able to even finish the sentence.

This week we visited the CMAC (Cambodian Mine Action Center). This is an organization with more than 2,000 employees who have made it their task to clean Cambodia from land mines and UXO's (unexploded ordnance). The presentation was given by Mr. Oum Sang Onn, CMAC's Director of Planning and Operations - and also a war veteran and guerrilla fighter against the Khmer Rouge (the guy on the left). He has spent most of his live laying mines... and now he has dedicated the rest of it to cleaning up again.

The numbers we were presented were absolutely astounding... here are a few:

• Exact numbers are not known, but it is estimated that roughly 4-6 million landmines were laid during all the recent wars (don't forget that Cambodia was pretty much in some kind of guerrilla war with either themselves or a neighbor for the last 50 years)
• still now, 46% of the villages in Cambodia are considered "contaminated" with explosives
• since 1979, over 63,000 people were either killed or maimed by mines or UXO's
• during the US-Vietnam war, US planes dropped ~2.7 million tons of bombs (this is not a typo) over Cambodia - to cut of Vietnamese supply chains.

And then they showed us a bit of their work...

On Friday we were really lucky to be able to experience a Cambodian wedding. Weddings over here are a really big deal, and it is absolutely normal to invite 500 people to a wedding. The staff of our factory was invited to a wedding... and we were able to tag along for a little while. Work had to end at 4pm so that the women had time to get their hair done and whatever else women do before going out. The result was really amazing... the transformation from inconspicuous fruit cutting/office staff to eye-catching beauties was much more than could be expected. Here are a couple of pictures that are only a few hours apart:

Let's get back to one of my favorite topics over here... traffic and vehicles. On our return from the office, Patricia and I decided to count car manufacturers for a few minutes. It was pretty funny... "Toyota, Toyota, Toyota, Toyota" is clearly dominating this corner of the planet.

By the way - we do get driven to the office in a Lexus as well... and our average speed on that commute is 6.1 mph (pretty slow jogging speed). So the engine is not all that important... but a comfortable leather seats and a working AC are good arguments for a Lexus.

We did get pulled over once at the beginning of the trip, and our driver was informed by the policeman that the windows were tinted too dark. Nobody knows if such a law really exists... but the way things get settled here is that you give the policeman $1-2 in cash and then you drive on. 100% reliable system.

And here is another Trivial Pursuit question.... How many people fit into a Tuk-Tuk? (These little moped-powered couches)
Answer: 13 Cambodians (or 5 Caucasians)

Unfortunately I was too slow to get a picture of the family moped today that carried 6 (!) people... but I did manage to catch this family's return from the hospital.... the kid in between the parents is still hooked up to an IV.

And one quick comment about the extensive mosquito warnings we had received before coming here. Today I saw the second mosquito in the 3.5 weeks since we arrived.

Temples of Angkor

The long weekend plan (Friday through Monday)
Our host organization ABV sponsored a long weekend trip that is just coming to an end. We left Friday morning to go to the city Siem Reap, roughly 300km northwest of Phnom Penh. In Siem Reap are the temples of Angkor - a really impressive accumulation of Buddhist and Hindu temples.
But first to the trip down there. We again found ourselves in a similar "Mercedes" van...

The interesting part about all these "Mercedes" is that they have Mitsubishi engines and the car itself is built by a company called "SsangYong" in Korea... not much Mercedes there at all....

Anyway... our first stop was at a silk farm and weaving business, run by "Bud" - an old Vietnam war veteran who decided to return back to this region to make up for some of the damages the US has caused here. He now hires underprivileged women to learn to weave and to generate their own income - and mostly to develop a sense of pride in themselves and their work. Bud doesn't actually produce the silk from the silk worms himself any more, but he does keep around a population of them for show and tell.
It all starts with a gigantic fleet of silk worms... very hungry little worms that eat a ton of mulberry bush leaves...

After a few days of good dining, these worms spin themselves into a cocoon made of - exactly.... a tiny silk fiber. It is a single fiber, that is roughly 600 meters long.

The next step is then to soak these cocoons in warm water, find the end of the fiber - and then somewhere around 15 or so fibers get spun together to make a thread of silk.

This place is off course not the cheapest place to buy silk scarves - but the amazing colors, and the authenticity of the work more than make up for it... so I did buy a "surprise" gift for my wife. When I brought the scarve through the weaving facility - it took the employees roughly 0.5 seconds to identify the creator of the scarve - the girl in the picture below.

The next short stop was a stretch along the main road where the stone masons work... creating hundreds of small, medium and large masterpieces... here is one of the larger ones they are working on... (I am not bringing that one home)

In Siem Reap
ok - now we are now down in Siem Reap - staying in the hotel of the cousin of the wive of... you get the story. The city is fairly small, but hosts roughly 2 million tourists a year - so it is rather busy. In order to understand the temples of Angkor - I can't spare you a little bit of history.
From roughly 900-1200 AD, the Khmer Empire dominated Indochina (Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos), as well as Thailand and a few other countries down here. It was a highly developed society, with both Buddhist and Hindu roots. Interestingly the religion swapped back and forth as kings came and went, such that one portion of the temples are dominated by Buddha figures, and the others by the Hindu gods. Today Cambodia is >90% Buddhist.
The 2 most famous temples are Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm (the "Jungle Temple"). Angkor Wat was constructed as a Hindu temple and dedicated to the god Wishnu. It is the biggest religious building in the world, and this temple is what every tourist would recognize as the symbol of Cambodia. The walls on all levels feature endless stories carved into the rocks in amazing detail.

After the Khmer empire fell apart, almost all of the temples here had been abandoned and swallowed by the jungles - they were then re-discovered around 1860, and de-jungled not till fairly recently. There is just one temple that was left in the wild state that it was found in and made accessible to tourists... some really impressive trees towering over the "Jungle Temple". (This is our IBM team in the foreground.)

On Sunday our host (the cousin of the wive of....) brought us to a flooding village and a floating village. Unfortunately I'll have to bore you again with some background knowledge to get the concept of these villages.
Cambodia has a rainy season and a dry season. Right now is the early part of the rainy season. There are 2 major rivers that merge here in Phnom Penh. One is the Mekong river, and the other one is the Tonle Sap - which is a lake as well as a river. During the dry season, both rivers join up and flow south to Vietnam. During the rainy season, the water level from the Mekong river increases so dramatically, that the smaller Tonle Sap river just gets pushed back - and the river reverses direction. Near Siem Reap is the Tonle Sap lake. During that rainy season (when all the water from the Mekong river gets pushed up the Tonle Sap river), the water level in the lake rises by up to 8 meters, and the lake grows to 6 times its "normal" size.
Since the water level rises so much - the houses in the fishing village (the flooding village) have to be built for it. During the peak of the flood, all roads, trees, etc disappear under water.
Road Side:

River Side

From here we took a little boat down the river to the edge of the Tonle Sap lake, where a floating village is anchored. It is truly amazing how an entire village with schools, grocery stores, and everything else can exist on the water... and travel up and down the river depending on the flood level.

Here is one of my favorite pictures from this trip... People here - especially kids - are amazingly beautiful and have such an innocent and un-consumed smile.

Lastly... just a short mention of the culinary highlights of the week... The menu featured a few new items:

• silk worms after the silk is spun off from the cocoon - taste like nuts
• frog legs - tastes exactly like chicken
• crickets (Heuschrecken) - also kind'a tastes like chicken

Enjoy the week... more at the end of the week...

Second Part of Week 2 in Cambodia

We are back in Phnom Penh - actually really looking forward to 1.) seeing my friends at the Cambodian Harvest Fruit Company again and 2.) to put a dent into the long (and growing) list of tasks.

The morning started with a little run again, and I decided to bring my iPhone so that I can share some of the 6am impressions from the riverfront. Here is a little footage from one of the many the gymnastics groups that gather on the shore of the Mekong and Tonle Sap river. (They are actually just finishing their 5am class (!!!)

The most impressive group however is the soccer-volleyball group that plays here every morning. Skills are really quite impressive for a country that has never won any medal at any Olympics...

After a productive morning we had lunch together with the management team (Marion, and then 2 really nice guys, both named Bunthoeun.... what are those odds?) from the Cambodian Dried Fruit Company. We talked a little about the mine problems in Cambodia and Bunthoeun #1 told us a story from growing up in a farming village. When he was a little boy, one of his friends had found an interesting piece of metal somewhere in the fields. He dragged it out on the street, gathered 4 additional friends around (including Bunthoeun #1) and they proceeded to disassemble this curious object. Luckily Bunthoeun and 2 others had to run home for lunch... so when they heard the loud bang from a distance... there were at least 3 of the 5 that survived.
Off course there are a lot more of these stories at Cambodian Harvest Dried Fruits as almost all employees are survivors of landmine accidents. So are the 2 Bunthoeuns - and they tell their accident stories with a smile on their face - a smile of thankfulness that they are alive and that they have made their lives into success stories.

Back to the lighter side. Monday and Tuesday were actually really productive days at work. and after a tiring workday on Tuesday, and dinner at a beautiful roof terrace close to where we are staying, we decided to go for a good-night beer at "Rubies" right around the corner from our hotel. Patricia and I were  the last volunteers, and we casually had the last beer as we ran into 4 international lawyers who work for the UN on the UN trials of the Khmer Rouge coordinators. As lawyers are really good in making their case - we were dragged into the heart of the party district - an area we were completely unaware off until now... 99% of Cambodia shuts down at 9pm. Anyway... these terrible UN lawyers dragged us through all these bars and discos that were on the ABV-list (can't say IBM here) of places not to go to... and we just had a blast... an entirely new aspect of this city. "Heart of Darkness" and "Pantoon Lounge" if anybody care to google. The picture below is actually in focus I think... we were just not...

Our new friend Jeanne (second from left) then drove us home in her 1973 Jeep... quite a car... and it even runs!!!

I won't say much about Wednesday.

So we arrive at today... I was determined to finish a particular work assignment... and it got done... which felt quite good. And since the general manager of IBM Vietnam was in town and wanted to meet us - we did agree to let him buy us a very nice dinner and drinks...  After dinner, we decided to share our new cultural knowledge (the party zone) with Renata - one of our Brazilian IBM members... and she did give us a few good dance lessons at the places we are not supposed to go to....

Tomorrow we will head up to Siem Riep, where all of the famous temples are. It will be a long drive........

Good night...

Week 2 in Cambodia

ok - post 2... as I skip over last Thursday in my hotel bathroom (and lots of sleep - not in the same room), we already arrive at Friday, 7/15.
Back at work... a really good day as we were able to string together a lot of the energy problems in the building. Not sure how to solve them yet... but for sure - the visitors in the guest apartments of the building won't be allowed to shower (with the electrical water heaters) all at the same time any more. We also had to take some pictures of our work day with the customers for possible media publication... so I may as well stick one in here.

What I have not yet mentioned is that Marion is not only the CEO of this company, but also the christian priest of this little work community. Want to guess how many of the employees have chosen to take up Christianity? 100%. So a day at work here also always starts with the morning bible class and the daily prayers. (They were so kind to prey for me a few times already... not sure if it is to improve my performance or any other reasons...)

The way home from work today included a little obstacle... a big party tent in the middle of the road... As it turns out, it is Cambodian customs that weddings are celebrated in a big tent in the middle of the road... and last for several days. As our obstacle was still under construction, we were able to pass... well... right through the tent... it is a road after all.

Speaking about driving however...  that is the most amazing proof that some problems have an infinite number of solutions. The right of way belongs to the person who first sees an unoccupied square centimeter of pavement in an intersection, but only if his vehicle can claim it with a loud horn. It does not matter from which direction he comes or in which direction he travels. And the weirdest thing is... that system (or lack thereof) actually works! I think the only way to compare this to something we know would be to imagine 2 ant-colonies crossing paths. Check out the movie... (don't need to watch all... you get the concept after a little while...)

One follow-up from last week... remember I said I was glad that we did not live exactly like a lot of the locals? Here is the same scene morning and night (quite different angles - but you can recognize the blue "Tiger" umbrella/tent) - under each of these mosquito nets sleeps either a person or a family...:

Saturday, Sunday 7/16-17
Our group decided to rent a little van (Mercedes van - which is considered a lower class than Toyota here) to travel to Kep - a beach town roughly 3 hours south west of Phnom Penh. In the 1960's, this small city was a gem and was developing into a luxury resort area. In the 1970's, the Khmer Rouge destroyed the nice buildings as they did not fit with their concept of an agrarian state. There are also many buildings where development and construction re-started more recently, and then stopped again - I would guestimate about 5 years ago... must have been people who wanted a nice beach house and ran out of money. Today there are still the nice beaches and the beautiful ocean and close-by islands... but there is little left of the glory. Development seems to be starting again and I would think it to be highly likely that this is the next Thailand-type vacation destination.
The road trip down there already provided a lot of interesting images... In particular the "public taxi" - which made us appreciate our private van - even if it was just a Mercedes.

Transportation of goods in general is no problem in Cambodia... while there aren't many trucks to be seen... they have an incredible capability to load up their mopeds...

 
Arriving in Kep - it is really not much more than one street... along a 1km long sandy beach, with plenty of restaurants and fresh seafood right on the water.

While our little bungalows weren't om the beach... we really couldn't complain about the amenities for 20$/night, including breakfast.... (still not quite living like most of the Cambodians I guess...)

On Sunday we took boats from Kep to Rabbit Island - about 4km off shore. A beautiful spot with sandy beaches, and beach bars just like Itaunas used to be (for those who know). Not too many tourists make it over there, and for sure no locals... so you have plenty of peace and quiet (and also the beach bars). I also dared to have my first massage ever - just seemed like the right place - on the beach and the little Cambodian girls didn't look like they would hurt you too much. After 2 minutes of small elbow bones painfully trying to crush my back, I was about to get up and walk away... but did stay to endure the whole hour of massaging... which actually was a lot better than the first 2 minutes made me think. I haven't quite decided yet if I liked it or not...
We entertained ourselves during the day by playing Bacci-ball with coconuts and fruits that fell off trees, and a cement-pipe race...

Getting closer to the end of the day - we did have to face the reality that we would not be able to continue our projects from Rabbit Island, but did have to say Good-Bye to this beautiful spot.

Arriving in Phnom Penh

Hello Friends and Family,

while I have been able to keep living in the dark ages up to now and have never created a blog in my life so far... these days are over. Here is my first-ever blog.
This year has been exceptional in many ways - one of which for sure is traveling. I spent 6 weeks in April/May in Munich with my parents. Christoph and Lena joined me for 3 of the 6 weeks and attended my old elementary school. After a week in Florida and 4 weeks in Vermont, I am now spending one month in Cambodia with IBM's Corporate Service Corps. The IBM Corporate Service Corps is a program within IBM, where participants travel as a team of roughly 10 people to a developing nation and try to help small businesses improve - well - whatever they need improved.

I arrived in Phnom Penh last Friday, July 8th after what seemed like endless flights through New York and Seoul. Quite amazing is the way visas are issued. You apply upon arrival... basically somebody in a uniform takes your passport away from you and motions you to move on. At the end of a fairly long counter you just wait a little while... and then the guy in uniform at that end starts holding up passports with visas. So you just wait until a passport comes up that you like and take that one. (I decided to stick with my original one.)

The small hotel where we are staying is actually very nice and located downtown, next to the royal palace.... it is called Bhoddi Tree Aram and caters mostly to tourists, but has a very local feel to it. It is also one the many socially responsible enterprises that pop up everywhere here. We had been warned originally that IBM's objective is to have us live "like locals"... which fortunately did not happen as the vast majority of people are still very poor and especially street vendors just lie down on their little sales cart, put up a mosquito net over them and get their rest right at their "work place".

Saturday, 7/9
I woke up early and went or a 6am run. Climate in Cambodia is pretty steady... 80% relative humidity and 30-35 degrees C. All day. Every day. So it does not really matter when you run... but mornings just works out better as there is less traffic. While there is less traffic in the morning, and despite the early hour, there was already a ton of activity in the park around the corner... with dance gymnastics (very popular), badminton, soccer-volleyball, karate, etc... all being played by tons of young and old people.

During the breakfast at the hotel, I got to meet a couple of the IBM team members. Particia from Spain was one of them, and as noone else was ready, we started exploring the city together. We soon discovered a local street market that seemed directly taken from a picture book... buzzing with activity, millions of colors and smells, and every cut of meat imaginable along with live fish hanging out in the open sun...

Mixed with the beauty of the colors, the friendliness of the people, and all the positive impressions, you can't but notice the complete lack of basic infrastructure in this part of the world. No garbage bins - so trash simply goes on the floor, no organized power or telephone system (why would you invest in a landline system, when every person in the country has a 3G mobile phone..). Here is a good example of what the electric system in this country looks like (more about that later):

oh... yes... and they are definitely learning that tourists have money... (at a small temple hill where there was really nothing to see...)

Later during the Saturday I got to meet all my IBM colleagues from around the world. Our team has members from Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Holland (but really French), USA (but really German), Germany (real), Austria and India. Our team at the welcome reception at our hotel:

Sunday, 7/10
Our local contact here (Bruce) organized a van for a morning city tour - to give us some basic directions. One of the places we visited was also the "Killing Fileds of Cheung Ek" - a sad memorial of the times during the Khmer Rouge regime in the 70's. Roughly 20,000 (out of a couple of million) Cambodians have been killed at this particular field - beaten to death with wooden sticks. The feeling there is very much the same as visiting a Nazi concentration camp.

The afternoon program was a little lighter with a visit to the royal palace.. which is really impressive and beautiful.

Dinner this evening provided a typical Cambodian appetizer delicacy... fried Tarantula spiders... they bring you a live one to the table first - which created a lot entertainment from the reaction of some of the female IBMers. If you add enough pepper sauce you kind of get over the spider thing....

The night ended (again) with a few extra beers with my new local best friends Patricia (Spain) and Sarah (Australia, working for the organization that coordinates our Teams activity and trip.)

Monday, 7/11 - Wednesday, 7/13
Well... I guess we did come here for a purpose... so we did have to take a break from sightseeing on Monday morning and start our work assignments. I got placed at a small 27-employee) fruit processing company called "Cambodian Harvest Dried Fruits Co.". They grow mango, and process the mango, we well as several other fruits into dried fruits and marmelade/jam. I have never been a dried fruit or marmelade fan... but have to say that their products are really excellent.... so now I am a fan. The founder of the company is Marion Fromm, an Australian lady, who started the business in order to help landmine victims find jobs and become part of society again. From what I can see - it is a tremendously successful project and I really have to bow my head to Marion's efforts and success.

I was able to accomplish my first work task already on the first day at the job... as the light bulb went out and noone else was tall enough to reach it.

Since then the work has been an exciting trip with surprises and changes at every corner. As one of the goals was to look at energy efficiency and reliability of the drying process, I had to start looking at the electrical system in the building... which was somewhere between shocking and completely insane. The picture below shows a burnt and exposed cable running 16 Amps at 220 Volts - which means only half of the equipment was running at that point in time.... All the things you can do if you just use higher current fuses is quite amazing...

Thursday 7/14
So we finally arrived at today... and I had to stay in the hotel as I am not able to get too far from a toilet bowl... but it is already getting a lot better...
Sorry - no pictures today - in your own interest...