12/21/15
I am not a religious person (well, I do invoke Jesus and Christ’s name a lot daily though), but I do appreciate religion. The world is a confusing place and we all need some comfort. Personally, I actually quite envy those with strong religious conviction: knowing you will be saved probably allow you to sleep much better. I, on the other hand, occasionally act like Charlie Brown and ask stupid questions to the ceiling. It is also interesting than monarchy and religion always seem to combine with one another. The Chinese believe the emperor to be the son of heaven. King Henry started his own religion to obtain a divorce (that is quite the egoistic thing to do…). Both sectors are equally powerful, especially on controling and persuading masses. In Cambodia, it is about the same. The citizens used to treat royalty as deities, which partly led to the eventual mess.
I was trapped by my own plan. When I started, I assumed I would spend more time in Cambodia, and so I applied for a Vietnam tourist visa to start on 1/1/16. This, combined with my ever lessening bank account, made me realized: I can schedule a short visit to Laos before I travel to Vietnam. With this in mind. I booked my ticket today to fly into Vientiane for Chirstmas and Luang Prabang for new year. With the morning spent on planning (a tuktuk driver actually got mad that I refused his service all day, saying that I have been doing nothing everyday…), I decided to take it easy the rest of the afternoon: a short visit to the central market, and a longer visit to the palace.
The central market is actually around a newly developed building designed by the French (I have noticed a lot of joint ventures in Cambodia. My tour yesterday was also a joint venture with China, with the Chinese lady in charge complaining quite a lot about the problem with local labor), and it actually looks really good: except it is also covered around the sides by stores and stands. Nonetheless, it is impressive on the inside (as a nerd, I have to say: that is what counts!) and I spent some time admiring the structure and the layout, much to the confusion of the sellers. I think, like the tuk tuk driver, they were confused on why someone is looking up all the time at the beams and down at the columns, while ignoring the items on display. This is not to say I did not buy anyhong: I did buy a coconut juice while looking at all the fresh seafood. It made me hungry for some good sushi.
In the afternoon. I visited the royal palace very bear by hotel (to the aggravation of the tuk tuk driver once again). The entrance fee was $6.50, abd by now I am more or less used to their use of local currency mixed with US. (This is the irony I noticed a lot: everyone say they do not like US, but adopt the currency for simplicity and stability). The palace of Norodom Sihamoni, King of Cambodia, is impressive and beautiful. It contains a lot of Buddhist statues and relics (which I isually expect from a museum), with auperior architecture and style. There are also quite a few tombs of the past emperors (known as stupa). These towers are a few stories high with immaculate etchings and decorations. I guess being a royalty does allow one to have a nice tombs within a palace, allowing your ghost to sneak a peek at your descendents, while seeing tourists snapping selfies everyday.
I ended the day drinking $0.50 draft beers at the waterfront (again near my hotel. I think that tuk tuk driver must be boiling with rage when I turned down his service once again). As I was typing this up while somewhat inebriated, my mind wanders (yeah, it does that a lot) about religion and monarchy. People like power, and so it makes sense on why people in power always try to consolidate their power (repeat that statement 5 times fast!). I am a big fan of money and luxury, but power is not quite my turn on. After all, one of my superheroes once famously said “with great power comes great responsibility”. Most tend to forget: it is dissociate to grab power, it is even more problematic to hold onto it. After all, it is not something you can carry it to the afterlife (well, you may be able to, I have no idea what happens after death. I do really want to float around and scare my friends though…). Maybe you could gain a nice tomb acting like a monument for tourist. Me, I much prefer to end up in the drinking water supply so everyone can ingest me (ah, old joke. You may need to read early entries to know what I am talking about. I have this weird desire on where to spread my ashes….and several good friends have agreed to try to carry that out. I suggest a good filter for your drinking water once I die). M
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