Siem reap, Angkor wats, cambodia
Cambodia has had a really rich history of wars and genocide. The early Khmer (the native people, the language today is still called khmer) empire of cambodia at some stage around the 1st century ruled most of south-east asia and as such had the resources to build massive fuck-off temples (angkor wats) in honour of the hindu gods (and later on, buddha)
Then things turned bad, some kings decided that they were gods, similar to egyptian kings I guess *remembers stargate* and there were many wars with surrounding countries (siem reap actually translates to 'thailand defeated' from when cambodia re-took the angkor wat area - a big fuck-you to them!), then the french rocked up and did their indo-china frenchy thing of enslaving the people, then the vietnam war happened and the US decided cambodia was involved because theyre commies too (same thing happened with laos),then a US-backed ruler was in change which caused a massive rebellion made up of large numbers of common folk with the support of the previous king, the group was known as the "Khmer rouge" and the military leader was pol pot. When he was in charge, they decided to create an "agrarian society" by killing off all the educated wealth by forms of torture and the likes - pretty much large scale genocide with the outcome of controlling easily-manageable people. Now the goverment is a bit of a mess and there is heaps of poverty.
UNESCO have helped out the country quite a lot, but i heard from a local that certain countries offered to help maintain/repair temples (in some cases it means fitting the remaining pile of stone bricks into their correct jigsaw location, and creating replica brings/statues that were missing) and when doing so they claim the gold buried under each temple for themselves (it us customary to lay gold in the foundation of each building for good luck, even today)
Ah, probably writing a bit too much, but its interesting stuff!
The Angkor wats themselves (theres like 20 or so of them!) are amazing! you feel like you're indiana jones climbing a temple covered in moss spider webs and vines; with one temple there were trees growing through it, supporting the actual walls.
The food here is fantastic, last night I tried the local Amok, which is a fish omelette with chillis and other stuff that was unknown; you eat it with a bowl of rice.
Malaysia soon and then singapore, both I hear are pretty much standard western countries these days - I'll see what I can blog about in the limited 2 days of travels there.
Then things turned bad, some kings decided that they were gods, similar to egyptian kings I guess *remembers stargate* and there were many wars with surrounding countries (siem reap actually translates to 'thailand defeated' from when cambodia re-took the angkor wat area - a big fuck-you to them!), then the french rocked up and did their indo-china frenchy thing of enslaving the people, then the vietnam war happened and the US decided cambodia was involved because theyre commies too (same thing happened with laos),then a US-backed ruler was in change which caused a massive rebellion made up of large numbers of common folk with the support of the previous king, the group was known as the "Khmer rouge" and the military leader was pol pot. When he was in charge, they decided to create an "agrarian society" by killing off all the educated wealth by forms of torture and the likes - pretty much large scale genocide with the outcome of controlling easily-manageable people. Now the goverment is a bit of a mess and there is heaps of poverty.
UNESCO have helped out the country quite a lot, but i heard from a local that certain countries offered to help maintain/repair temples (in some cases it means fitting the remaining pile of stone bricks into their correct jigsaw location, and creating replica brings/statues that were missing) and when doing so they claim the gold buried under each temple for themselves (it us customary to lay gold in the foundation of each building for good luck, even today)
Ah, probably writing a bit too much, but its interesting stuff!
The Angkor wats themselves (theres like 20 or so of them!) are amazing! you feel like you're indiana jones climbing a temple covered in moss spider webs and vines; with one temple there were trees growing through it, supporting the actual walls.
The food here is fantastic, last night I tried the local Amok, which is a fish omelette with chillis and other stuff that was unknown; you eat it with a bowl of rice.
Malaysia soon and then singapore, both I hear are pretty much standard western countries these days - I'll see what I can blog about in the limited 2 days of travels there.