Special thanks to my friend Chivy (a native of Cambodia who now lives in San Francisco) who recommended Loung Ung’s book First They Killed My Father. This short read recounts Loung Ung’s experience as a child in Cambodia when Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge army stormed into Phnom Penh in April 1975. Written in simple language but with a powerful storytelling sense, this book not only gave me a glimpse into Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, but gave me a bit of the history and cultural context for my travels there. More than once, as I read her descriptions of the countryside, I’d glance out the window to see a scene reminiscent of what she described in the book. If you have no knowledge of what went on in Cambodia during the 1970’s under Pol Pot, I’d suggest you pick up this book, as its a story the world should not forget. See excerpt below.

First They Killed My Father
Author: Loung Ung
256 Pages
Language: English
ISBN: 0060931388
Available at your local library or for $1.88(USD) from Amazon***

***if you buy via the link above, I will get a small piece of the sale from Amazon.com to put towards my future travels

• Leave a comment in the reply box below.
• Read an excerpt from the book below.
• Purchase First They Killed My Father from Amazon.com, by clicking the image of the book cover above***.
• Read an interview with the book’s author Loung Ung on CNN.com
• Read my story about Window Shopping in Cambodia.
• See photo from my trip in Cambodia
• Read some of my other book recommendations from my travels:
  • Hitching Rides With Buddah by Will Ferguson (on Japan)
  • Vagabonding by Rolf Potts (on independent travel)

Phnom Penh city wakes early to take advantage of the cool morning breeze before the sun breaks through the haze and invades the country with sweltering heat. Already at 6 A.M. people in Phnom Penh are rushing and bumping into each other on dusty, narrow side streets. Waiters and waitresses in black-and-white uniforms swing open shop doors as the aroma of noodle soup greets waiting customers. Street vendors push food carts piled with steamed dumplings, smoked beef teriyaki sticks, and roasted peanuts along the sidewalks and begin to set up for another day of business. Children in colorful T-shirts and shorts kick soccer balls on sidewalks with their bare feet, ignoring the grunts and screams of the food cart owners. The wide boulevards sing with the buzz of motorcycle engines, squeaky bicycles, and, for those wealthy enough to afford them, small cars. By midday, as temperatures climb to over a hundred degrees, the streets grow quiet again. People rush home to seek relief from the heat, have lunch, take cold showers, and nap before returning to work at 2 P.M.

My family lives on a third-floor apartment in the middle of Phnom Penh, so I am used to the traffic and the noise. We don’t have traffic lights on our streets; instead, policemen stand on raised metal boxes, in the middle of the intersections directing traffic. Yet the city always seems to be one big traffic jam. My favorite way to get around with Ma is the cyclo because the driver can maneuver it in the heaviest traffic. A cyclo resembles a big wheelchair attached to the front of a bicycle. You just take a seat and pay the driver to wheel you around wherever you want to go. Even though we own two cars and a truck, when Ma takes me to the market we often go in a cyclo because we get to our destination faster. Sitting on her lap I bounce and laugh as the driver pedals through the congested city streets.

This morning, I am stuck at a noodle shop a block from our apartment in this big chair. I’d much rather be playing hopscotch with my friends. Big chairs always make me want to jump on them. I hate the way my feet just hang in the air and dangle. Today, Ma has already warned me twice not to climb and stand on the chair. I settle for simply swinging my legs back and forth beneath the table.

Ma and Pa enjoy taking us to a noodle shop in the morning before Pa goes off to work. As usual, the place is filled with people having breakfast. The clang and clatter of spoons against the bottom of bowls, the slurping of hot tea and soup, the smell of garlic, cilantro, ginger, and beef broth in the air make my stomach rumble with hunger. Across from us, a man uses chopsticks to shovel noodles into his mouth. Next to him, a girl dips a piece of chicken into a small saucer of hoisin sauce while her mother cleans her teeth with a toothpick. Noodle soup is a traditional breakfast for Cambodians and Chinese. We usually have this, or for a special treat, French bread with iced coffee.

“Sit still,” Ma says as she reaches down to stop my leg midswing, but I end up kicking her hand. Ma gives me a stern look and a swift slap on my leg.

“Don’t you ever sit still? You are five years old. You are the most troublesome child. Why can’t you be like your sisters? How Will you ever grow up to be a proper young lady?” Ma sighs. Of course I have heard all this before.

It must be hard for her to have a daughter who does not act like a girl, to be so beautiful and have a daughter like me. Among her women friends, Ma is admired for her height, slender build, and porcelain white skin. I often overhear them talking about her beautiful face when they think she cannot hear. Because I’m a child, they feel free to say whatever they want in front of me, believing I cannot understand. So while they’re ignoring me, they comment on her perfectly arched eyebrows; almond-shaped eyes; tall, straight Western nose; and oval face. At 5′6″, Ma is an amazon among Cambodian women. Ma says she’s so tall because she’s all Chinese. She says that some day my Chinese side will also make me tall. I hope so, because now when I stand I’m only as tall as Ma’s hips.

“Princess Monineath of Cambodia, now she is famous for being proper,” Ma continues. “It is said that she walks so quietly that no one ever hears her approaching. She smiles without ever showing her teeth. She talks to men without looking directly in their eyes. What a gracious lady she is.” Ma looks at me and shakes her head.

“Hmm …” is my reply, taking a loud swig of Coca-Cola from the small bottle.

Ma says I stomp around like a cow dying of thirst. She’s tried many times to teach me the proper way for a young lady to walk. First, you connect your heel to the ground, then roll the ball of your feet on the earth while your toes curl up painfully. Finally you end up with your toes gently pushing you off the ground. All this is supposed to be done gracefully, naturally, and quietly. It all sounds too complicated and painful to me. Besides, I am happy stomping around.

“The kind of trouble she gets into, while just the other day she-” Ma continues to Pa. but is interrupted when our waitress arrives with our soup.

“Phnom Penh special noodles with chicken for you and a glass of hot water,” says the waitress as she puts the steaming bowl of translucent potato noodles swimming in clear broth before Ma.

©2000 Loung Ung. Excerpt courtesy of HarperCollins publishers.

If you are a fan of Bill Bryson or Douglas Adams, you will love Ferguson’s writing. It is hilarious, sarcastic, observant, and introspective. While its a lot of fun to read the book while whizzing across Japan on a Bullet Train, as I did, it also a great read for anyone who can’t make it to Japan but would like to gain a better understanding of the Japanese culture–especially as a Westerner. This is probably the best book I’ve read so far on my travels. It is a great window into Japan. I’ve included three short excerpts below, that I think have some great insight and humor–and are a nice sampling from the book.
(As a quick aside, if you can’t find any book I recommend at this site at your local library, and you do decide to buy it off the Internet, please link to it through my site, as I get an exceptionally small amount of the sale from the nice people at Amazon, which will help fund my further travels. Thanks.)
Hitching Rides With Buddah
Author: Will Ferguson
432 pages
Language: English
ISBN 10/13: 1841957852/978-1841957852
Available at your local library or for $12(USD) from Amazon

Excerpt from The “The Devil’s Washboard” Section, Chapter 2:

Japan is not a small country, no matter what the Japanese themselves may think. The main island of Honshu alone is larger than Great Britain. Were Japan in Europe, it would dominate the continent. Japan is larger than Italy, larger than Norway, larger than Germany, larger even than New Zealand. Japan covers four distinct climate zones, stretching from the tropics of Okinawa to the snow country of the far north. A journey from Cape Sata in the south to Cape Soya at the north covers three thousand kilometers. In North American this would be a journey from Miami to Montreal–and at roughly the same latitudes.

So why this persistent image that Japan is a tiny place? One reason is due to a cartographical optical illusion. On a map, Japan looks small because it is surrounded by the largest nations on Earth: China, Russia, Canada, the United States and Australia. But there is more involved than this. Japan is small because Japan prefers it that way. It supports the image Japan has of itself: the beleaguered underdog, small but mighty, the little engine that could. If you tell the average Japanese person that their country has a larger populations base and a far bigger land mass than all of Great Britain, they will either resent it or refuse to believe you.

Oddly enough, for all their convictions that they live in a small country, my Japanese friends also thought of northern Japan as being hopelessly remote. For them, the island of Hokkaido was a world away, and when we discussed my travel plans they were not terribly optimistic about my odds. “It is very far,” they warned, “Very far.”

To make matters worse, I decided to go by thumb. Striking a heroic stance, I declared my intention to become the first person ever to hitchhike the length of Japan, end-to-end, cape-to-cape, sea-to-sea. This did not impress my Japanese friends as much as I had hoped.

“Why would you want to do that?” they asked, genuinely puzzled. “There is no reason to hitchhike. That’s why we built the Bullet Train.”

*****

Excerpt from “The Devils Washboard” Section, Chapter 7:

You approach Shinto shrines through torii gates, and the entrances are usually guarded by a pair of stone lion-dogs. Like so many things Japanese, these lion-dogs came to Japan from China through a Korean intermediary. When they define themselves, the Japanese tend to skip Korea, the middle-man, and claim a connection to China that is direct and overemphasized. But here in the shrine grounds of the gods, the Korean connections is acknowledged: the guardians are called koma-inu, “Korean dogs.” That Korean icons should protect the repositories of all that is Japanese in spirit–the Emperor’s Church in a sense–that Koran dogs should be given such a high-ranking position is something rarely commented upon by the Japanese. These stones guardians provide a telling clue about the ancient Korean roots of the Japanese Imperial Family.

The lion-dogs were originally a lion and a dog, and were very different in appearance, but over the years stonecutters found it easier to carve them to the same proportions. The two figures grew more and more alike, until their features blended. One lion-dog has a mouth that is always open, the other has a mouth that is always closed. The open-mounted lion-dog is named “Ah,” the other is named “Un,” or more properly, mm. “Ah” is the first sound you make when you are born, “nn” the exhale of release, the breath that allows life to escape. Between the two lies all of existence, a universe that turns on a single breath. Ah is also the first symbol in the Japanese alphabet, Un the last. And so, between these two lions-dogs, you also have the A and the Z, the Alpha and Omega. In original Sanskrit, ah-un means, “the end and the beginning of the universe; infinity unleashed.”

In Japan, people are in perfect tune with each other, such as a pianist and a violinist playing in a duet, are called ah/un-no-kokyu. Kekyu means “breathing,” and the phrase has the nuance of perfect, exquisite harmony: ah/un-no-kokyu, two or more breathing as one. If self-actualization is the ideal to which the Western world aspires, then common breath is the ideal to which Japan—and indeed, much of Asia–aspires. The word harmony is Japan has all the cachet that the word freedom has in the West. In Japan, the word for freedom, jiyu, carries with it the nuance of selfish or irresponsible behavior. Group harmony is a higher value. This doesn’t make the Japanese a nicer people. There are thieves and cheats and nasty characters in Japan, as there are anywhere. But the values that Japanese society subscribes to are starkly different from those of the West. If you had to embody the ideals of the West it would be the Statue of Liberty, or The Goddess of Jiyu as she is known in Japan, standing defiantly, the torch raised up like a club, a singular powerful, one-of-a-kind presence. This is not the type of thing you would choose if you wished to give form to Japanese ideals. The ideals of Japanese are captured instead in a thousand small stone guardians, in a thousands shrines, big and small, across Japan. A dog and lion so near in spirit that they have blended into one. Ah/un-no-kokyu.

*****

Excerpt from The “Turning Circles” Section, Chapter 18:

When a Japanese bus driver says he is leaving in two minutes, he means he is leaving in two minutes. Not two and a half and not one minute, fifty seconds, he means two minutes. Exactly. And yet, you never see a bus drivers or train conductors getting in a frenzy as they maintain their precise schedules. The atmosphere is always calm and collected—and yet somehow exact. It is a talent I envy.

With a bus departure imminent, I faced a sudden moral dilemma. When I set out from Cape Sata, I was determined to rely solely on the kindness of strangers. Other than the unavoidable ferries, I was adamant that I would take no public transportation whatsoever. I considered this a heroic vow. It sounded good back in my apartment in Minamata City. But here, faced with the seductive ease of hopping on a bus and the difficulty of ever catching a ride after dark, I had three possible courses of actions: I could (a) jump on the bus, feel guilty about it, and then rationalize my actions later, or (b) stoically refuse and strike out on my own, or (c) I cold take the bus–but not tell anyone. After all, there were no witnesses. Later I could claim I was picked up by a pair of beautiful Japanese girls in a red Corvette. Who would say what really happened on a certain night in Tonosho Town on the island of Shodo in the middle of the Inland Sea.

In the end, I decided to act with integrity. I let the bus leave without me and struck off on my own. Fortunately, I was soon picked up by Zen Zen Chigau and Uso Bakkari, a pair of gorgeous Japanese ladies in leather miniskirts who pulled up in their red Corvette and cooed, “Come with us, little travel boy,” and I was on my way to Uchinomi. They dropped me off at the hostel–right in front of a bus stop, coincidentally—and sped off into the night. “Thank you!” I called out, as they disappeared into the dark.

• Leave a comment or your own book recommendation in the comment box below.
• Read another book recommendation from Cambodia: First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung

I have read nearly a dozen books specifically on how-to “travel around the world.” Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Practical Nomad, etc, and they are all good in their own way and each targets a specific audience. But, my first recommendation to those of you wishing to embark on such an adventure is to pick up Rolf Pott’s Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel.

While this book contains good practical advice (like most common “how-to” guidebooks), Potts’ greatest contribution lies much more in his writing on what I’ve discovered to be the most important part of long-term travel: a proper mindset. The book is of value to not only the aspiring traveler, but those who wish to examine the way they see the world. This is a good place to start if you’re scheming to travel because it may help you examine your motivations. I think we are often too quick to answer the “how” questions in life, and often don’t spend enough time on the “why” questions. This book is a good place to start that journey.

It is my favorite of all the how-to travel books I’ve read, and if you skim the how-to sections (save them for later), its a quick read.

Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel
Author: Rolf Potts
224 Pages
Language: English
ISBN: 0812992180/978-0812992182
Available at your local library or for $10(USD) from Amazon

***
Sample excerpt From Chapter 1 (courtesy of Amazon.com)

Declare Your Independence

Of all the outrageous throwaway lines one hears in movies, there is one that stands out for me. It doesn’t come from a madcap comedy, an esoteric science-fiction flick, or a special-effects-laden action thriller. It comes from Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, when the Charlie Sheen character – a promising big shot in the stock market – is telling his girlfriend about his dreams.

“I think if I can make a bundle of cash before I’m thirty and get out of this racket,” he says, “I’ll be able to ride my motorcycle across China.”

When I first saw this scene on video a few years ago, I nearly fell out of my seat in astonishment. After all, Charlie Sheen or anyone else could work for eight months as a toilet cleaner and have enough money to ride a motorcycle across China. Even if they didn’t yet have their own motorcycle, another couple months of scrubbing toilets would earn them enough to buy one when they got to China.

The thing is, most Americans probably wouldn’t find this movie scene odd. For some reason, we see long-term travel to faraway lands as a recurring dream or an exotic temptation, but not something that applies to the here and now. Instead out of our insane duty to fear, fashion, and monthly payments on things we don’t really need – we quarantine our travels to short, frenzied bursts. In this way, as we throw our wealth at an abstract notion called “lifestyle,” travel becomes just another accessory -a smooth-edged, encapsulated experience that we purchase the same way we buy clothing and furniture.

Not long ago, I read that nearly a quarter of a million short-term monastery- and convent-based vacations had been booked and sold by tour agents in the year 2000. Spiritual enclaves from Greece to Tibet were turning into hot tourist draws, and travel pundits attributed this “solace boom” to the fact that “busy overachievers are seeking a simpler life.”

What nobody bothered to point out, of course, is that purchasing a package vacation to find a simpler life is kind of like using a mirror to see what you look like when you aren’t looking into the mirror. All that is really sold is the romantic notion of a simpler life, and – just as no amount of turning your head or flicking your eyes will allow you to unselfconsciously see yourself in the looking glass – no combination of one-week or ten-day vacations will truly take you away from the life you lead at home.

Ultimately, this shotgun wedding of time and money has a way of keeping us in a holding pattern. The more we associate experience with cash value, the more we think that money is what we need to live. And the more we associate money with life, the more we convince ourselves that we’re too poor to buy our freedom. With this kind of mind-set, it’s no wonder so many Americans think extended overseas travel is the exclusive realm of students, counterculture dropouts, and the idle rich.

In reality, long-term travel has nothing to do with demographics – age, ideology, income – and everything to do with personal outlook. Long-term travel isn’t about being a college student; it’s about being a student of daily life. Long-term travel isn’t an act of rebellion against society; it’s an act of common sense within society. Long-term travel doesn’t require a massive “bundle of cash”; it requires only that we walk through the world in a more deliberate way.

This deliberate way of walking through the world has always been intrinsic to the time-honored, quietly available travel tradition known as “vagabonding.”

Vagabonding involves taking an extended time-out from your normal life: six weeks, four months, two years to travel the world on your own terms.

But beyond travel, vagabonding is an outlook on life. Vagabonding is about using the prosperity and possibility of the information age to increase your personal options instead of your personal possessions. Vagabonding is about looking for adventure in normal life, and normal life within adventure. Vagabonding is an attitude, a friendly interest in people, places, and things that makes a person an explorer in the truest, most vivid sense of the word.

Vagabonding is not a lifestyle, nor is it a trend. It’s just an uncommon way of looking at life – a value adjustment from which action naturally follows. And, as much as anything, vagabonding is about time – our only real commodity – and how we choose to use it.

Sierra Club founder John Muir (an ur-vagabonder if there ever was one) used to express amazement at the well-heeled travelers who would visit Yosemite only to rush away after a few hours of sightseeing. Muir called these folks the “time-poor” – people who were so obsessed with tending their material wealth and social standing that they couldn’t spare the time to truly experience the splendor of California’s Sierra wilderness. One of Muir’s Yosemite visitors in the summer of 1871 was Ralph Waldo Emerson, who gushed upon seeing the sequoias, “It’s a wonder that we can see these trees and not wonder more.” When Emerson scurried off a couple hours later, however, Muir speculated wryly about whether the famous transcendentalist had really seen the trees in the first place.

Nearly a century later, naturalist Edwin Way Teale used Muir’s example to lament the frenetic pace of modern society. “Freedom as John Muir knew it,” he wrote in his 1956 book Autumn Across America, “with its wealth of time, its unregimented days, its latitude of choice . . . such freedom seems more rare, more difficult to attain, more remote with each new generation.”

But Teale’s lament for the deterioration of personal freedom was just as hollow a generalization in 1956 as it is now. As John Muir was well aware, vagabonding has never been regulated by the fickle public definition of lifestyle. Rather, it has always been a private choice within a society that is constantly urging us to do otherwise.

This is a book about living that choice.”