A Brit in The Orient.

This is a nice view as well typical of the area landscape in general.





I'll leave you with these for this evening.


Hope you are enjoying the same.

Certainly seems like it, Mathos old chum.

It was a rough old trip that one Mac, some are worse than others, much worse.

Staying somewhere like Tara after many days or even weeks high in the mountains is a real bonus.

The suite I showed on the previous page at Tara cost Baht 3000. per night including breakfast for the two of us.

That (February this year) equated to approx £45..00 per night for us both.


I received a really nice e-mail from an A2K member asking if I knew anything about Three Pagoda Pass the POW's and the Thai Burmese Railway from
World War Two

I do and intend doing a decent write up on the same on these pages in the near future.

I have some amazing photographs from the regions around Kanchanaburi, Hellfire Pass and The Bridge Over The River Kwai.

This is one which I promised to put up from Three Pagoda Pass.








Dutchy, thanks for your e-mail too. It was excellent. :wink:

The town Mae Hong Son itself has a few nice bars and restaurants, prices are very reasonable and of course there are several street stalls here and there selling the usual take-a-way goodies.


There's a nice lake virtually in the middle of town, really nice it is too.

This is a photograph taken of an evening. The Temple looks beautiful.







I must say though the food at Tara is probably as good as you would get anywhere.

They do an amazing buffet most evenings, absolutely top notch, you could stick it alongside The Ritz in London for comparison (I jest not) and it would hold its own. Everything you want on the same, European steaks, (sirloin) cooked while you load your plate with all the other attractions and there are some, roast chicken, fish, salmon, soups, salads, three or four different rice dishes amazing selection of sweets. At Baht 300 a session you cannot beat that.

I don't usually go over the top regarding food in many places, but this place deserves more than a mention.

Scouts Honour.

They have an evening market in town too. Its located around one of the roads by the lake, very pleasant.

The whole town has a nice atmosphere.

Flobo buying key rings.



Then she says its not my fault when I have to buy extra luggage and pay excess baggage charges on the way home.



This is the lake and some of the embankment buildings during the daylight hours.





There's a Temple high on a hill just outside the town too. Well worth the walk to the top, but it is a hard slog.





This snap represents the steps applicable to the first quarter or so, then they veer to the right and up you go again.




You can actually see the lake down below in the town centre and also the airport runway to the left of the pictures.












This snap represents the last few steps.




All in all it has some great view points on the way up and from the actual top.



A bit of information on the Temple here for the erudites among these Holy Pages.













Once you reach the top and by pass the Temple sights and sounds, there is a great little snack bar, with a brilliant view point precariously balanced over the edge of thin air. You just happen to be so knackered though you don't give a damn and collapse in a heap with a nice cup of tea or whatever.









The couple behind Flobo (without a sweat on) were either very fit and didn't sweat at all or they drove up in a Honda Saloon via the road which runs up the back side of the mountain.

I didn't think that was very fair at all. In fact I consider them to deserve a

I thought I would close this entry with a couple of scenic photographs.







It's amazing how the landscape changes so much in this area of our planet.

The beauty in the mountains is spectacular. It can also be harsh when you travel along the Burmese borders and take the opportunity to look at some of the refugee camps.

The photograph below shows refugees washing and laundering in the river.





The photograph below shows a section of a refugee camp.







I will be doing a full section later on with regard to the refugee camps.

I have some older photographs to enter first though and a full section on Cambodia to write on plus some quite amazing photographs from that corner of the planet.

I thought I would leave you with a photograph of a home on Tonle Sap Lake.

Thousands of people live on this lake in the most horrendous conditions you could imagine.





We are extremely fortunate in the occidental world I rather think.

Trying to keep up, but getting a bit wheezy from some of the elevations.


Thanks again, Mathos.

Thanks from me too. Always following along.

I related the tale some time back about Flobo being attacked by monkeys just after she had had her hair braided.

I came across this photograph and thought I would let you have sight of the same.

I do have the full encounter on a video tape somewhere.

Anyhow, I managed to get the terrors off her, but I got my hand quite badly bitten, Flobo was badly scratched (along with one of my daughters) that was a fair old worry at the time too.





We were both ok though. She will play hell with me for sticking that photograph on here, so I'll countermand it with a better one from when we were trekking up around Mae Sai.

Thought I would finish off tonight with a couple more I had from Vietnam.

They are quite interesting.


The one below presents a major underground war room well down in the bowels of mother earth.



Quite an experience going down there it was too.




The photograph below shows one of the underground kitchens. As you can imagine the cooking was done mainly at night so that smoke would not give the location away to the American forces.

There were full blown armies, men and women to feed down here and keep fit to fight.

The NVA slept through the day, leaving the tunnels mainly at night to wreak havoc and mayhem amongst the American troops.

Personally I think war a terrible part of our existence.

When Will They Ever Learn? (The Zimmerman Guy)

Below is a photograph of one of the actual man traps used by the NVA against the American soldiers. The spikes would be coated with human excrement to ensure infection of any cuts or wounds which didn't automatically kill the victim straight off.

The traps were set and camoflaged in the jungle and in the tunnels.

There were some terrible barbaric type methods used to cause death and injury.

There always is in war, by all sides.






Unless I say different every single photograph shown has been taken by either myself or Flobo.


This photograph is the entrance to a well probably also used as a means of escape or simple exit, via a 'U' bend, like you would find on a common every day toilet. Only this bend would lead out into a river allowing soldiers to exit and enter undetected, weapons etc were taken along protected in secure plastic bags I was advised.

In the wilder parts you do come across numerous 'Shaman' {Medicine man/Witchdoctor type} and they can be very peculiar indeed.

It is nothing to see them gibbering over really bad open wounds and covering the cuts in buffalo **** and such like for instance.

They also make up herbs and other additives from animals into medicines and the people actually buy or 'trade' for the same.

Here is sight of a typical 'Mountain Pharmacy'





This particular one was at Three Pagoda Pass. The locals and visitors, were buying all he recommended.







He was mixing stuff up in bowls and pouring the same into any old bottle that was to hand.

Mind blowing.

I once had a foreign body in my foot {It was a splinter I managed to get jammed in deeply in a water hole swim} At the time we were in a remote area, I couldn't get it all out and it was becoming infected, I had some bleach/whiskey and cicatrin which I used to clean the same, but the infection was getting quite bad and it was becoming far more painful as the night passed along. Eventually using international sign language and showing him the wound I asked the Shaman at the village if he could dig it out for me. He looked at the same and called a woman over with red stained betel teeth and lips. He obviously told her to suck on the wound which she did and I felt it ease. She had a splinter in her mouth and showed me. I was much happier and gave them Bt100 each. Like you do. He then cut the head off a live chicken and doing a load of mumbo jumbo he drained the blood into a dish. He wanted to rub the same and some other stuff on the wound. I wouldn't let him.

The next day it was a sore as ever and we did a fast exit, I made my way with Flobo on a motorcycle to a clinic about a hundred miles towards civilisation. I did put the photograph up a few pages back of the Doctor treating me, there was a lot more of the foreign body in the foot which she had to cut to extract the same. She treated it well and gave me some very strong anti-biotics to kill the infection.

That was in January last year.






The lady Doctor was a beauty. :wink:

I thought I would take the thread into Cambodia.

I have quite a bit of information and some rather unique photographs we have taken, from that country.

There is a great deal to cover and there should be several very interesting posts for your perusal.



On November 9th 1953 Cambodia gained independence from the French.

In 1955 King Sihanouk of Cambodia abdicated as king and became active
politically as Head of State.

The ordinary Cambodians continued to revere him as The Father of The Nation, The god king. He took the title of Prince Sihanouk. He turned a blind eye to the Viet Cong soldiers establishing themselves sanctuaries in his country or indeed he may well have been under threat or pressure from the Vietnamese or China.

President Nixon acting on a information and policies issued by his security adviser HENRY KISSINGER made a decision to bomb Cambodia, a neutral country and certainly not at war with America. Five hundred and forty thousand tons of bombs were dropped on Cambodia by American planes. This was double the amount dropped on Japan during the whole of World War Two. These bombardments actually took the names of - 'Breakfast - Lunch- Snack- Dinner - Dessert and Supper! The B52's could fly at heights and of an altitude so high they could not even be bloody seen, neither could they distinguish between Viet Cong or innocent, defenceless, men, women, children of a third world country living in flimsy wooden huts, mainly built on stilts.


As these murderous American bombs rained down on Cambodia the revolutionaries in Cambodia grew in strength. This previous ragamuffin band of also rans was fast becoming a powerful insurgency, Cambodia's poor and this was the majority of the countries population was looking for a Saviour to extract them from warfare, poverty, starvation and end this ,meagre existence. The support commenced in small villages and spread, it spread to towns, to cities and eventually Phnom Penh itself.

The world would soon come to know the name Prince Sihanouk had derisively bestowed upon these ragamuffins; The Khmers Rouges or Red Cambodians and time would show Pol Pot as their leader..

The young men who suddenly appeared on the streets of the capital did what one might well associate with conquering heroes. Driving about in jeeps with an unknown flag, a white cross on a blue and red field waved to the cheers of the crowds as they passed by. They took control of the key instillations, fraternised with government soldiers and police, who threw away their weapons and waved white flags to show their position of surrender.

I suppose the people at that stage felt happy, no more civil war, no rockets raining down on them or their homes, an end to conscription, the finalisation of a rotten and deeply hated regime. They took control of the radio station, made appeals for calm, requested all government troops lay down their arms. They Broadcast that negotiations were peacefully taking place with representatives of the 'other side' to ensure a smooth take over by the Khmer Rouges. As things settled a harsh statement was broadcast:-

"We are not here to negotiate, we are entering the capital by force of arms."

The Charade was over.

Existing government officials of the old regime in Phnom Penh considered they would be required by the Khmers Rouges, so much so they declined to leave. After all, these were fellow Cambodians, not a real enemy, patriots first, our friends not really communists!

Lon Non government intelligence one of the best informed men in the country considered it appropriate to stay on. The Prime Minister Long Boret declined to leave likewise his predecessor Hung Thun Hak who had known Pol Pot in his student days, when he was called Saloth Sar, they had no idea of what was to come. A carnival attitude was held by the Capital, then the main force arrived:-


These soldiers were covered in filthy grime, all wearing black pyjama uniforms with coloured headbands or peaked caps of the Mao type.
These were from the dirt poor villages, illiterate, destitute peasants, never educated, unaware of mechanical devices of any kind, they had never seen money, up to becoming part of Pol Pot's army they had never seen a bicycle, let alone a car. The Khmers Rouges had built their strongholds around and from these people, they were to become ?'The Primal Gene-Pool' from which the revolution would be formed. The poorest of the poor the town dwellers would see how primitive this conquering force was. They thought toilets were city peoples wells and drank from them, they could not understand eating or drinking from a bottle or a can. They drank cans of oil, ate toothpaste. Many were no more than twelve or thirteen years of age, only a little taller than the AK47's they toted. They took cars and motorcycles, having no idea how to drive them, they crashed into buildings, walls, trees, and then looked for another.


They cut of the tyres to make sandals from the rubber treads. They had a fascination for biro's with click tops, they had four or five wristwatches on each arm, although they had no idea how to tell the time. They smashed up televisions, and furnishings. They had been conditioned by the elite of Pol Pot to hate the city dwellers, they held their bourgeois life style in contempt.

Women and children were raped, abused in countless fashions and manners, murdered, men too.

They had a learned hatred for anything occidental, especially American. In Battambang they tore apart two T28 bombers with their bare hands.


A Phnom Penh Doctor would later write:- "There was something excessive about their anger, something has happened to these people during their years in the jungle. They have been transformed"


The next phase began:-

Soldiers (if you could refer to them as soldiers) went from house to house telling the city dwellers they had to leave for a few days, on the pretext that the American bombers were coming to bomb Phnom Penh. Obviously being told to evacuate, thinking they would be returning after the 'air raid' meant they would not be too serious about the removal of too many possessions from their homes. Considering a population of two and a half million in Phnom Penh some one million, nine hundred thousand were from the poor slum areas their possessions were virtually zilch. The authentic city dwellers numbering some six hundred thousand did not wish to leave behind everything they had or possessed, we all hold certain things very dear to us.

It was a bloody mess, troops from four different zones of The Khmers Rouges met up in Phnom Penh all giving contradictory orders and receiving them. Buildings and homes were being re-looted, the rapes escalated with the newly arriving 'soldiers', more abuse, more rape, more murder, pillaging, you name it, they did it, it all happened.

The large doors of The Russian Embassy were blown away with a B-40 rocket. Diplomats were driven out at gunpoint,. People were fleeing in sheer terror at what they witnessed and heard of, within minutes a seething mass of refugees urged on by bullets from these child soldiers firing in all directions were heading out of the Capital.

April is the hottest month in Cambodia, and it is hot, I know this personally.

One of the refugees would later write;--

Sick people were left dying by their own families at the roadside. Others simply killed by soldiers because they could not walk any further. Children who had lost their parents cried and screamed out in sheer terror and fear, parents who had lost their children in this mad lunatic of an exodus were crying and pleading for help, for sanity, for anything! Women were giving birth on the roads, in the field's, besides the dead.

Patients were evicted from hospitals. Thousands of sick and wounded were abandoned in the city. The strong pulled or dragged themselves along, families pushed relations in wheeled beds, plasma and IV bottles besides them. One cripple with neither hands or feet was slithering along the road like a severed worm. One man, his foot dangling at the end of a leg, attached by nothing but skin, hopped along the road.

When Phnom Penh fell there were 20,000 patients evicted from hospitals.

I spent a few days in The Himawari, Phnom Penh earlier last year. We had quite a nice suite there a few nights. I had been doing some writing and getting some inofrmation first hand, from an odd survivor of this little lot, and their descendants. It's hard to believe what went on there. I walked through the town with two people who could speak reasonable English and had witnessed a lot of this. They do not like to talk about it, and I can understand that.


They had no chance at all.

Altogether some 20,000 people lost their lives during the evacuation of Phnom Penh. An alarming figure indeed, but as a comparison it is noted that some 100,000 people died in revenge killings, murders and balancing up grievances in France purely during the German retreat of 1945!

In Phnom Penh the different army groups of Pol Pot's forces being totally unaware of who was who, clashed and killed one another quite randomly in the streets of the city, it took a few days for the levels of insanity to settle down. The National Bank was blown up with dynamite, this was not an act allocated to Pol Pot's forces, the Khmer Rouge leaders had every intention of establishing a monetary system of it's own. In the markets the stall holders were instructed to cut the costs of their goods by as much as 100% to the delight of the population but obvious despair of the mainly Chinese stallholders. NCOs' from the original government army were supposedly taken to Siem Reap for new government training and were loaded onto trucks in their hundreds, twenty miles outside of Phnom Penh they were instructed to get off the trucks. Their arms were bound and they were badly abused before being bludgeoned to death.
Prince Sihanouk who had fled to Beijing prior to the invasion of the capital was due to return having agreed to accept The Khmer Rouge as the new government. Several highly ranked officers from his army were told to report wearing full dress uniform to welcome him back at the airport. Several prominent wealthy businessmen were instructed to join them. The convoy of vehicles was stopped near to Mount Thippadey, they were all killed by K.R. executioners waiting in ditches by the roadside. Similar massacres occurred throughout the North West, in general any official of any town was certain to be killed, his family were not spared the brutality of rape, torture, humiliation, and eventual death. Orders had been given to not to waste any bullets on those poor wretches, they were beaten to death with farming implements, rifle butts, rocks, kicking, the lucky, if there is such a thing or word for those poor victims, may have had their throats cut. Children were swung by their ankles into trees, smashing their heads in.

I have actually seen some of the graves of the killing fields, the thousands of skulls which are on show as a constant reminder to the world of what this regime committed against it's own people. Even now as you walk through those fields (I was there earlier this year) it is possible to see many human bones barely covered by the earth, among the dirt and foliage.

Some left Phnom Penh in cars, with consumer goods loaded inside and on the roofs, how they intended using fridges, fans, TV's in the jungle is antibody's guess, I reckon they had the right to take whatever they could though. When orders were given for private cars and trucks or any vehicle to be abandoned the contents ended up being strewn all over the roadside. A grand piano was sighted some years later, marooned in the middle of a rice field, lacquer peeling! For many it became too much, one witness later wrote:-

A shiny new Peugeot was being driven down the river bank, it went into the water with a splash and floated forward, until the river turned it round and it floated slowly backwards down-stream.

There were people inside. A man in the drivers seat, a woman besides him and children looking out of the rear windows their hands pressed against the glass. All the doors and windows remained shut.

Nobody got out!

We all stared as the car settled lower and the waters went over the roof.

A wealthy family committing suicide.

Approximately one thousand Cambodians living in France at the time of this ?'revolution' exiles from the Sihanouk government, considered they should return to Cambodia and offer their personal worth for the new order.
The Khmer Rouge issued a statement via their Foreign Minister Leng Sary, and via his official at the Parisian Cambodian Embassy, that all interested Cambodians with children could return, but they must pledge to work as farmers. The manner of application was carried out with a strangeness by The Khmers Rouges, a peculiar manner indeed. Application forms had to be completed and approved by the Foreign Office etc... Little did they know.


The plane loads of returnees on the only flight schedule available, Paris Beijing to Cambodia (Pochentong Airport)were greeted at the airport by youthful Khmer men and women. The returnees who had had to wait in Beijing for the next available flight were clapping with happiness at returning to their homeland. Once inside they were divested of all money, clothing, presents and luggage in general. Women were raped, abused and some killed along with many of the men. They were split into various groups. Each group would have to live and work together, they were totally forbidden to communicate or inter-react with any Khmers Rouges or Khmers. All of them were treated like aliens. It was suspected by the Khmers Rouges that traitors would be amongst the numbers. By the end of the Khmers Rouges control of the country only two hundred remained alive. The other 80% had been murdered by the Khmers Rouges.

I have often thought of the plight of these poor people having been in a civilised country like France for many years and returning to this and the thoughts of it being a better place to live!

Pol Pot implemented an eight point programme throughout the land:-
1. Evacuate all of the people from all of the towns.
2. Abolish all markets.
3. Abolish the old currency (To be replaced with the revolution's currency)
4. Defrock all Buddhist Monks and put them to work growing rice.
5. Execute all leaders of Lon Nol regime beginning with the top leaders.
6. Establish high level co-operatives throughout the country.
7. Expel the entire Vietnamese minority population.
8. Dispatch troops to all borders, especially the border with Vietnam.

I have it on record that Pol Pot loved mankind. It was individual man that he could not stand. He claims to have taken up arms on behalf of the suffering masses, the victims of superior war machines.
He destroyed those who irked him;

The educated

The wealthy

Foreigners

Foreigner admirers.

City dwellers.

The challengers

The religious.

His aim was to return the country to year zero.


I visited the prison museum in Phnom Penh.

All prisoners were photographed, they were all tortured and a so called biography of their hitherto existence was recorded. Prisoners were all stripped down to their basic underclothes and shackled to iron bars. All prisoners were woken at 4.30 every morning, they were instructed to drop down their under clothes to the ankles. They then had the opportunity to defecate and or urinate into small buckets. Those who failed to follow orders received between twenty and forty strokes from a whip.

On blackboards in each cell was the following.

You must answer all questions.

Do not try to hide facts, you are prohibited to contest.

Do not be a fool, for you are a person who has dared to thwart the revolution.

Answer all questions immediately, do not waste time trying to reflect.

Do not tell me about your immoralities or the revolution.

Whilst receiving lashes or electric shocks you must not cry out.

Do nothing, sit still until told to do something.

Do not make pretexts about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your traitorous jaw.

Failure to follow the above rules will earn you many lashes of electric wire.

If you show any disobedience you will receive either ten lashes or five shocks of electric charge.

The Tuol Sleng is now a genocide museum.

On one day alone ;- May 17th 1978

FIVE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY TWO DEATH WARRANTS WERE ISSUED

It has been said that the USA used Cambodia as a testing ground for the development of bombs.

Recording tape units were placed into the bomb housings to record their destructive capabilities.

Donald Dawson, was the pilot who was eventually court martialled for his refusal to go on any further raids involving dropping bombs on the civilian population of Cambodia.


Many a time I give thought to how America was obsessed with Communism, the fear of Communism and their involvement with bringing the spreading communism to a full stop. I wonder strongly if the untimely death of Jack Kennedy thrust too much power into the wrong hands. Kissinger, L B Johnson and Nixon. I would like to think Kennedy would have been more visual in his position and would not have allowed the Americans to become involved in such lunacy as they did.

We will never know of course.

I booked two return flights, Bangkok to Phnom Penh and the return Siem Reap to Chiang Mai via BKK, it's the only way to do it apparently. This was just over a year back about March 2007. The return tickets with Thai Airways cost about £120..00 each which wasn't too bad a price to pay at all.

It had been many years since we had been to Cambodia.

Last time we were there it was extremely dangerous, we were divested of a great deal of personal possessions too by the army and security forces in general. The country was in a terrible state.

There were some up sides to it, marijuana on every other market stall, even in big bowls in most of the old hotels which were up and running, (more like home-stays actually), I seem to recall we stayed in Le Royal in those days.

There wasn't much doing at the time either, it was pretty grim.

There was a fad going round the capital for robbery with violence and a lot of funny mushrooms being served up which didn't help in assessing the situation in the true light of day.

It's OK experimenting a little on the streets and avenues of life. Providing the responsibilities are covered in a safe and sensible manner, and the location is safe and manageable.

Phnom Penh in those days was anything but that and as you get older, there is a tendency to leave that kind of action in the windows of your mind, nicely filed but memorable and some of your escapades can bring a smile to your face.

Thats why I like to see real old folk sat in the rocking chair with a silly grin on their faces.. I'd not object to being like that if I was ninety plus and could remember some of the things I have done.. It would make us both have silly smiles on our faces.

Strange, on the flight over we were on a three bank seat and the guy next too me was called Tith Peou, a Cambodian who happened to be the manager for 'Ground Handling' at Phnom Penh International Airport.

It made me feel glad I had picked Thai to fly to Cambodia and not any of the Cambodian airlines, if there were any doing the route.

Anyhow, he suggested we take a room at The Himawari Hotel which he assured us was good value and that if we showed his card and gave his name we would get a decent deal. No doubt he would call round for his commission at a later date too.

We swapped business cards accordingly.

The Himawari was a really good hotel too. Brilliantly situated right on the banks of The Mekong and we were well looked after with a large suite and priced up at some Baht 3500 per night. Breakfast included.

It was very open in all of its dealings too and there was a really nice guy representing Blackwater in the bar on the first evening who appeared to be offering employment to some very likely looking lads indeed.

We were in Phnom Penh for a few nights and I had a decent conversation with him on our third night there.

He knew of a superb shooting range out there and we fired up a few rounds one afternoon for a bit of fun, so to speak.

The photograph below shows Phnom Penh from one of our rooms at The Himawari.




The rooms at the Hotel were brilliant, very spacious and immaculate. Large entrance, reasonable sized living room with a three piece suite, table etc. Large bedroom, dressing room, decent sized bathroom with bath and shower, topped off with a large fully fitted kitchen. The kitchen wasn't going to be any use to us as the points of sale for food in town at the time were rather basic to put it mildly.





As you can see the room was superb.

This shot was taken from the other side of the apartment.

Looking to the right of the picture you can see the Tuk Tuk type vehicles parked up waiting for customers. To the rear of them and across the secondary roads were some new shops. The busiest of them was a form of stationary shop.

I wanted to do some travelling around town and the local countryside and walked across to the Tuk Tuk drivers.

One of them in particular spoke reasonable English, he seemed an amicable sort of young lad and certainly appeared to know the area really well with regard to what I wanted to see.

He proved to be a good choice overall.





His name (nick-name) was Joe and we got along well. Had some good days out with him and also went to a few good bars etc of the night-time.
I did end up calling him Danny.

We took in quite a bit of sight seeing with Joe, the local markets which are always interesting and the improvement in goodies for sale in all aspects was much improved since our last visit.






Haircuts in the busy looking street has to be a good sign.






These guys looked well involved too.



The streets are quite busy in general.

The architecture is very interesting as well, you can see the 'French Connection'

The very first time we visited Cambodia we thought how difficult it was to assemble atrocities occurring in the real world with what you might see for instance on television or in the newspapers, especially when the distance between regions stretches into several thousand miles.

Of course we had heard of the 'Killing Fields of Cambodia' they even made films about the same didn't they!


There is a tendency not to give a great deal of thought to the reality of the situation, it tends not to hit home for various reasons, until you see the proof for yourself that is.

It is difficult to believe that man can do this to fellow human beings, for no reason what-so-ever, especially,




I saw thousands of the photographs taken and still on show at Tuol Sleng {once a high school} used as the main prison and now a Genocide Museum.




It is absolutely crazy to know this lot really happened just a few years since.





Horrendous.