ehold-hers...New Items I'm making for gifts.

   New item I've been working on to sell, they've been a big hit so far.  Of course, they started out as gifts for family and friends. I'm calling these "ehold-her's".  They hold iPads or iPhones  any size phones, Kindles or any eReader. Love having my phone sitting up instead of on the counter with lots of germs! 
  Had to make them for the girls at the Annual Cookie bake and they also seemed to love them.  
   Anyone interested in a few for gifts? I have lots of styles of materials. 
   I'm also still making aprons with embroidery on them to make them more individualized. 

Cambodia and Killing Fields

May 4-5, Monday & Tuesday Siem Reap, Cambodia

   Well as bad as the train trip was yesterday, we all slept so well last night!  So glad to get some water in us, a little food and a cool shower.  Breakfast buffet this morning is heaven!!  So many types of fruit, homemade yogurt, more fruit, the best coffee ever and Lin is enjoying all the omelets the make right at the corner of the room.  We go back a few times for more before we are to meet our taxi driver.  His English and knowledge of the area, history of Cambodia is all wonderful and we are blessed to have him take us around today.  We head out to Anchor Wot, the temple that is so well known.   

He takes us to a few other of the temples but by the time we have done a few, I am spent with the heat.  We are learning to dress a bit cooler, but by noon, there is just no release from the humidity.  100 degrees with 98% humidity is just too much!!  We need to head to some A/C for fruit juice with ice, almost too hot to eat anything, just looking for fresh juice.  We did a bit of shopping at the Wot area. You can see that the boys are having a great time with all the female attention!  We head to dinner tonight, found a quilt shop!! Imagine that!!

The city is beautiful and the driver takes us around to see the outlying area and some houses, land around the outer parts of the city.  We also investigate a silk farm, so interesting how these are done. 

Jose, friend traveling with us is very interested in maybe moving to this country instead of the Philippines.  The people are so nice, the weather is similar and he is used to the heat.  This city is very clean and safe, but no one knows how the political climate will be.  We spend another day here just exploring the city in A/C comfort while driving around!!  Lunch out near the temples, the coconut shakes are so good we have to get another.  Our driver goes with us to lunch, he knows a Tuk-Tuk driver in our next city, so we can be assured of someone not out to gouge us when we get there.  He will also pick us up at the bus station, so we can make sure we get to our hotel.  I have done the research on the hotels, so feel pretty good about that, but we still want to check them out before making a decision.  This is not their high season, so we are actually able to bargain down the price when we get to the hotels.  Lots of empty rooms, we were able to get this hotel for only $50/night, down from $60.

May 7, 2015, Thursday,  Phnum Penh, Cambodia- The Killing Fields 

 Today,  Lin had wanted to go see the Killing Fields where Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975 thru 1979. Today we toured the site and listened to those that survived as well as talked to people here that lived thru this time period. I was a teenager just graduating high school that year and to this day had not heard anything of this Genocide. Not sure if any of you have heard of it, but this should be taught to all our children and adults. This person came to power by pulling together the people that had little education, promising them power over those that were more educated and making more money. Promising them, free help from the powers in control. He came in and within 48 hours arrested those in religious powers, teachers, those in any educational and medical fields. In a country of 8 million, over 2.5 were killed and still to this day those that beat, stabbed and militated women, children and men have not been tried except for a handful. I didn't even know that this had occurred, where were we when this was happening?? Can this happen in our country? When you read about how he took over so quickly and how he wanted the country to be uneducated and what he promised the people, it sounds so like what could happen to our children or grandchildren if we don't teach them history, will history repeat itself??

  The Killing Fields are a number of sites in Cambodia where collectively more than a million people were killed and buried by the Communist Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Cambodian Civil War  (1970–1975). The mass killings are widely regarded as part of a broad state sponsored genocide.

Analysis of 20,000 mass grave sites calculate at least 1,386,734 victims of execution.  Estimates of the total number of deaths resulting from Khmer Rouge policies, including disease and starvation, range from 1.7 to 2.5 million out of a 1975 population of roughly 8 million.

  In 1979, Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime.

Cambodian journalist Dith Pran coined the term "killing fields" after his escape from the regime.

  The Khmer Rouge regime arrested and eventually executed almost everyone suspected of connections with the former government or with foreign governments, as well as professionals and intellectuals. Ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Thai, ethnic Chinese, ethnic Cham, Cambodian Christians, and the Buddhist monkhood were the demographic targets of persecution. As a result, Pol Pot is sometimes described as "the Hitler of Cambodia" and "a genocidal tyrant." Martin Shaw described the Cambodian genocide as "the purest genocide of the Cold War era."   

  This information on the Killing Fields, I took from the internet, so I would be accurate in my information. I don’t want to forget this information or gloss over the loss of these people. 

We only saw the one field today, but tomorrow are going back to where the prisoners were taken on arrest, P-21.  It was originally a high school that was used for imprisonment, interrogation and torture.  Now they have turned it into a museum, so no one forgets this time period.

May 8, Friday, Phnum Penh

      Today we went back to the Cambodian Museum of Genocide, They also called this Prison S-21 as a code. The atrocities that were shown to these people, 1 out of 4 were killed either by their own countryman or starvation.  There were only 7 survivors of the prisons here.  We met this gentleman and had our pictures taken, a book signed and our thank you to him

Our Tuk-Tuk driver told us that his father was killed by the Khmur when he was 3.  He was raised by his mother after they had to hide in the jungle for several years until the Khmur was overthrown. He went to pick up his son while we were eating dinner tonight and brought his son back to the restaurant.  So we all had ice cream!!  Coconut ice cream!

   After the Museum, we headed to something a bit more upbeat!  National Palace and it is beautiful, then for a cup of iced coffee as the heat has hit us hard when the sun is high.  We head back to the hotel to rest for a few hours until it cools off as this is our last night here. 

  Our driver picks us back up this afternoon and we head to Central Market for some fresh fruits, rombuton and longon.  We eat this while riding the Tuk-Tuk around the riverroad looking at all the sites, note our masks while driving!!, head to the pick up the driver’s son and then on to dinner on the river and ice cream.  Made great friends with the driver and he and his son eat dinner with us.  We did realize that we are in Communist country when you see police on the corners with machine guns. 

  Up early in the am for breakfast and the bus to pick us up at 7am to Saigon.  We are hoping to get as good a driver in Saigon as we’re had in Cambodia.  So far we have been looked after.

Train vs Bus in Southeast Asia, lessons learned

May 2, Saturday Bangkok

    Heading to airport early this am to pick up Jose, who will be traveling the rest of the trip thru Southeast Asia, with us.  He wants to do a bit of shopping at the MBK, but we make sure we leave there early enough to beat the traffic so we aren’t in that mess for 2-3hours right before we get ready to head out of Bangkok in the morning.  Up early in the morning.  We are getting up at 2:30 so we can be downstairs at 3:15 to check out, have the hotel look at the room (that seems to take them forever!!) call for a taxi and head to the train station.  Train leaves at 5:30, have to get our tickets there and not sure on the traffic, even this early in the am. 

Train vs bus trip in Southeast Asia. What I learned NOT to do!

May 3, 2015, Sunday

Train from Bangkok to Cambodia border then Bus from Siem Reap, Cambodia to Phnum Penh, Cambodia.

Train don'ts : go to bed early and lay there without sleeping, coughing all night. Get up at 2:30 to make sure to catch taxi, wait downstairs for taxi for 30 mins to ride in hot car to hotter train station with lots of homeless people asking for $, sit in hotter area of station for 1 hour before walking with our backpacs and roller bag to haul up the 3 steep steps to the train car. Pick out the least sticky seat with windows that don't go all the way up or down. Then notice the over head fan in the seats prior that family of 8 just sat in. Make sure to breath in the aromas of the fish, and other items cooking, since you didn't eat or drink anything yet because it's only 5:30.

Watch as more people board the train, squeezing a few more people on each seat made for 1 American sized person, or 5 Thai sized people. Try to get luggage above head on the metal rail, with hopes it holds and doesn't fall on your head. Try again to fan self because you are already drenched in sweat at 5:46 am.

Sit backwards as the train lurched forward, hoping for a snatch of a breeze out the slates in the window. Wait the sun is coming up now, so much sun thru the window so everyone gets up to "close the windows!"  More hawkers coming down the aisle around all the people in the aisle, so you get baskets of smells in your face. Not sure of what they are hawking, afraid to ask! Or breathe too deeply.

 Rest head on back of metal seat top so with each lurch of the train you bang your head. Keep turning toward window to catch a slight breeze. Train stops every 5-6 mins to let more people on. The breeze that you thought was almost coming thru  the window stops, and almost starts again when the train stops for the next stop. 2 hours into the ride that all the internet reviews said to take, we stop for 15-20 mins. Not sure if this is a long enough break to get off? No one speaks any English, so we wait and sweat some more. Not sure if I can get any wetter.

 3 hours in, I'm starting to shake and ask to change seats so I can face forward. Lin attempts the W/C (bathroom) while I just wait for the verdict. He says the Asian Squatter while on a moving train takes a steady stance. I decide not.

 Finally find a cold coke to sip, note to self, try to drink more. 2 Tylenol and 1/2 a coke later the stomach is slightly better and headache almost gone. Only 3 1/2 hours left!!  We are moving a bit faster, maybe 25-40 mph? If you're not sick at this point, the reviews say to look out at all the country side as this is true Thailand.  I'm just keeping my head straight and feeling a slight breeze! Counting down the minutes.

Lin and Jose aka if I'm enjoying my first train ride!  Giving them the "stink" eye, I say, " I think I'll cross this off the bucket list"

 Train finally arrives at station, haul bags off the rail and down the thin aisle, down the steep steps to head into immigration. Carry bags up a flight of steps as they don't believe in any ramps here. Line up for Thai stamp of departure, in overheated non-A/C room with plenty of sweaty foreigners. Wait for that great stamp so you can head back down the flight of stairs carrying all your bags, pushing to the line that has no signs to find your way 1 block down  the street in the wrong line for Foreigner Visas. So many street people yelling to come this way, it's the only way into Cambodia. At least on the internet this scam was well documented and we could avoid that $40 scam. Finally find the correct Visa line, another hot room but there's a FAN!!  We stand there for 10 mins catching our breath and filling out the correct forms to pay the $30 US and extra 100 bot for the police to allow us to enter.  Notice whose pocket that $ goes into??  

 Another very long line of foreigners to get Entrance into Cambodia, I do hear English!  Government official asks me " where you from". "Texas". " oh, lots of guns there in Texas??"  At least I don't say Yes!!

 Finally in the other side of the border and find a taxi driver that speaks wonderful English!!  Takes us straight to the hotel, waits for us to check it out, and doesn't scam more $ out of us. We decide to hire him for the next day to drive us around Siem Reap. 15 hours later, we are in our hotel A/C room and I finally sit in an American style BR!!  

 So glad that adventure is over and now I'm not to believe all those reviews on the websites!!  

Train ticket; $1.30 US

Coke on train: $3.00 US

Experience: Priceless, bucket list checked OFF!!

Bus trip, May 6^th, 2015, Wednesday

     Bus do's; plan trip online at A/C hotel, sleep well for 7 hours, great buffet breakfast, 2 bottles water with breakfast, 2 cups coffee, lots of fruit. Plenty of bathroom breaks. A/C bus to bus station. Another BR break. A/C bus with driver carrying bags to bus. Plenty of time to leisurely board the 9:45 bus and find cushioned, extra padded seats with A/C blowing right on us. Large windows with curtains to block the sun. Attendant giving out cool towel, bottled water and sealed, boxed snack and turning on music while we start out. Leaning back in comfort with bar to rest feet on, water in cup holder, while I go snappity, snap with iphone of the landscape. We all have a separate seat with empty seat beside to stretch out. No one touching us! About 1 hour out of Siem Reap, the driver turns on the HD TV with a movie in English. Admire the country side and take more pics as we sit without sweat dripping from every inch of our bodies. 25 min stop with instructions in English for lunch!!  Suggestions on what and where to eat, help with the fruit stalls, (is that fruit or fried bugs?) then back on the bus with instructions again in English on how long the rest of the trip will take.  Into city, help with our bags off the bus and a Tuk-Tuk awaiting us to take us around to Hotels we looked up on the internet.  We hope this hotel will be as nice as the one in Siem Reap. Because even though we loved the transport better, I can see that we liked the city of Siem Reap better than this city.  But tomorrow with sight-seeing will tell us more.

 Wow, should we take the train again when we leave Phenm Penh??