11-14-19 - Fun Sauce Tour Day
/Day 151. Kyle & Leanne joint blog. Siam Reap, Cambodia.
Ouch! Leanne wakes up with a splitting headache. It’s not the first time that dehydration plagued her but nothing like the breakfast noodle soup, ubiquitous in Southeast Asia, and tea can’t remedy. It’s been two days of walking and climbing Khmer temples from the 10th to 12th centuries. For our final day of Cambodia, it will be Teen Choice planned by “Fun” Sauce John.
Today we sojourn on a lighter fun day, deciding that the Landmine Museum might be too shocking for us all.
Cambodia has a major problem with landmines, especially in rural areas. This is the legacy of three decades of war which has taken a severe toll on the Cambodians; it has some 40,000 amputees, which is one of the highest rates in the world. The Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) estimates that there may be as many as four to six million mines and other pieces of unexploded ordnance in Cambodia. Some estimates however run as high as ten million mines.
The Chinese made landmines in Cambodia were placed by the Cambodian factions (including the Lon Nol, Khmer Rouge, the Heng Samrin and Hun Sen regimes, as well as the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea who, with international support retained the UN seat throughout much of the 1980s) which clashed during the Civil War in Cambodia in the 1970s and 1980s. They were placed in the whole territory of the country. A common problem Cambodians faced with the anti-personnel mines is that often even the people who placed the mines do not remember where a couple of years later.
Over the last three days here in Cambodia, we have witnessed many of the amputee landmine victims. The landmine victims have formed musical bands that play for the tourist’s entertainment all over Siam Reap / Angkor in an effort to utilize their talents to earn a living and avoid having to beg for survival. It is a very easy cause to support and happily donate to the different groups we come across.
So we embark on our day of fun. First, it’s to the mall for some necessities — toiletries, socks, and art supplies. The latter being a lifeblood fit our budding artist Ashley. Then it’s a Boba and Starbucks stop — yes it’s teen choice! Starbucks is decorated for the holidays and Christmas carols are playing. We start daydreaming about our upcoming holiday season visiting Leanne’s family farm in NJ and Kyle’s sister and family in Virginia in their new place. Is it really holiday season already? We are still cheating summer as shorts are our normal everyday wear and we regularly look for airconditioned venues to escape the daily heat and humidity.
Next we watch the new movie Terminator Dark Ages for $2 per ticket and a whopping $9 for ALL our popcorns and sodas. While it was no Bollywood action film, the crew enjoyed it. Notice of spoiler alert – stop reading if you really want to see Terminator and not know the ending. Kyle notes that it was a little bit of a stretch when they wheeled out grandpa Arnold out as the long lost terminator who somehow grew a conscious over the past 20 years and is in the running for Dad-of-the-Year award. At least we didn’t pay $20 per ticket and $15 per popcorn like we would have if we had been in the US.
Afterwards, we take taxis out to the country for Angkor Wat Putt, a miniature golf course with the holes containing all the local temples in miniature replica forms. They have a promotion – free beer for a hole-in-one. Corey scores the first hole-in-one and graciously donates his beer to Kyle. Leanne scores the other hole-in-one of the day. Corey & Justin have the low scores of the day.
From mini-gold, we race back to town in tuk-tuks to Hard Rock Café in Siam Reap. Although quite the tourist restaurant that we generally try to avoid, the kids love Hard Rock. This is our third one (with Sydney & Munich being the first two). We plays games trying to find paraphernalia on the wall meeting certain criteria. After dinner, the teens head home while Kyle and Leanne opt to stay as live music is just starting in the outdoor area.
As the band starts, one of the vocalists is a dead ringer for Bruno Mars. Well, if Bruno Mars was Indonesian that is as the band is from Indonesia. While there is a fairly large crowd, no one is even remotely making a move to get up and dance on the spacious dance floor in front of the stage. The band is extraordinary with three talented lead singers that switch off every song. We sing along to “Don’t Stop Believing” and “Total Eclipse to the Heart” with every other non-Cambodian in Siam Reap Hard Rock tonight.
When it’s Bruno Mars turn, he goes down from the stage into the crowd with his microphone trying to get the crowd to liven up. That is pretty much all the prompting Kyle & Leanne need so Kyle pops up to dance with Bruno and Leanne performs the most enthusiastic chair dance that the Hard Rock Cafe Angkor has ever experienced. We are talking full on arm pumping so we stood out like a sore arm. But we are thinking Bruno appreciated our efforts.
Sure enough, at the band’s first break, Bruno Mars (whose actual name is Dan) came over to chat with us and we buy him a beer. He digs our world travels and we tell him Indonesia is next our list of stops. Dan lives in a house provided by Hard Rock Café for the band members as they will be performing there for the next six months. The band is all Indonesian and were identified by a talent search and put together by Hard Rock resulting in the band name Talent ID. He has had the opportunity to travel to other sites for similar stints abroad. He’s a happy go lucky guy thrilled with meeting someone from California. Then the whole band swings our table to introduce themselves and say hi before starting the next set.
Dan asks Kyle what song can he sing for him. Kyle jokingly asks for a song by Taylor Swift but given the band’s primary repertoire are 80’s rock songs, that is isn’t going to work. Dan says he specializes in Guns-N-Roses so Kyle chooses November Rain. When the song comes on, we get up and dance and even though we are the only one’s dancing, we are super pumped to just be there. Dan even friends Kyle on Facebook. We have officially done something new in the trip — become rock-band groupies!
“You just can’t make this stuff up,” Kyle says (which is becoming our new refrain) as we bid farewell to our new Facebook friend Dan. “I’m having the time of my life! I love Cambodia! No, I don’t want to leave.” As we head into our room, Kyle drops a revelation. “I could see myself living in Southeast Asia someday.” Leanne nearly fell over when he said the same thing about Europe. I guess after five months, Los Angeles has become somewhat of a distant memory.
