Serious Business

Warning: Graphic content

Yesterday I got my camera back from the repair shop. 85 dollars, who cares if the part is not original. At least it's working again. So today was the first part of touristy stuff on my trip. A visit to the Killing Fields and S-21. That was some rough shit.

First off the Killing Fields. When walking through there listening to the audio tour of the place you start to realize the volume of things happened there. 300 Cambodians killed every night with machetes, bull axels and farm tools because bullets were too expensive. And to cover all the screams some loudspeakers blaring out propaganda music. Add to that a constant thud of diesel engine for power, confined to a windowless wooden room and knowing u had only a few days to live. Good night, sleep tight.
Now all the buildings are long gone, stripped away by people needing the material after Khmer Rouge had fallen. But the holes of the mass graves are still there. And they are everywhere. And then there is this 17 storey pagoda full of skulls and bones exhumed from the site.

The pagoda 

And its inhabitants. This section is only the skulls of young women, age 15-25

One of the many. A grave for 450 victims. The colourfull stuff on the poles are bracelets apparently to honour the memory of the victims.

Even his own men were not safe from Pol Pot's wrath. This one is only for his soldiers, all without a head and in full Khmer Rouge outfit

Even one of the regimes main men, "Dutch" broke down when visiting this site after the regime had fallen. On the front: mass grave of 100+ victims, all women and children, most women naked and raped. And in the background: The Killing Tree, which the soldiers used to kill small kids by swinging them by their legs and smashing their heads against the trunk. 

Clothes box feat. Rachel in audiotour gear

More disturbing stuff along the route. Bones washed up during seasonal flooding over the years after the 1980 big exhume of the mass graves

To save the "best" for last. This is the stem of a leaf from the sugar palm tree. Its edge is hard and sharp enough that it can cut flesh... Yes! You guessed it. In  Choeung Ek they used it to cut the throats of the captives if there was nothing else at hand.

As if this wasn't depressing enough. Next off is Security Prison 21. 

This is where it really hits you in the face. In the killing fields you only see bones and info boards and holes in the ground. A factory basically. Here is room after room full of pictures of the captives. During the time of operations the jail took in 17000 person in total, 1000-1500 at a time. And all of 7 survivors. 

If its not that, then its a bed with few bits and pieces on them. And on the wall a shaded picture of its last inhabitant, usually lying on the bed with a pool of blood under it.

The posessings of a prisoner. One of them is a leg iron to chain yourself safely to the wall to prevent sleep walking. Or moving. Because in general jails u were chained to the wall most of the time. Lot of the time you were not chained to the wall you were interrogated for serious crimes against the regime (read: tortured for false confessions).

Few simple rules on how to conduct your daily life in the prison

It is amazingly horrible what people can do to other people.

To end this post on a lighter note, Cambodia is treating me really good. The people are nice, the food is good and beer is cheap. Speaking of which, I seem to have run out. Better go get a new one before I start to suffer from dehydration. :)

This week in Top Banana doing nothing has done wonders to me. But being lazy all day is a full time job! One day I was going to take a short nap after breakfast and woke up 7 pm. That was the day Jetlag got me. After that things started rolling more smooth not feeling so tired all the time. If I had rushed off after few days I would prolly still be tired. Tomorrow I'm thinking of going to Siem Reap and get ready to do the other backpacker must in Cambodia: Angkor Wat. After that I can focus on the main thing, Looking for the real culture beyond the beaten path and see what delicious stuff this country has to offer. I haven't yet found the fried tarantula stand... But for tonight I think I will chill out and enjoy my beer.

Dead Weight

It has been just over a week since my travels started and quite a bit has already happened.
Times in Berlin were great. I did a bunch of tourist stuff like the East Side Gallery which is a piece of the Berlin wall covered in street art. On the other side of the wall was a really interesting photo exhibition about walls around the world separating people.

Mariko also took me to a sightseeing tour to the centre of the town including Potsdamer platz, Brandenburger gate and the Holocaust memorial. And along the way I got to taste some real Bavarian white sausage with sweet mustard which was delicious! Mmm.... Meat in tube form.

The area I actually lived in Berlin is called Neukölln and it is the best part of Berlin. Lots of Turkish and middle eastern immigrants so the shwarma and other restaurants are plentiful. Also a lot of Shisha bars wich only the old immigrant men go to puff the pipe and drink some coffee.
But back to the food. Along the way I got to taste other common Berlin foods such as Currywurst, Turkish pizza and Leverkäse (made by Chris) and all was good. Finland and Germany eat alike. :) I returned favor by making some brown sauce with minced meat (jauhelihakastiketta) and potatoes. Granny style.

I totally missed out the club life while there so I will go back there. Apparently the party starts thursday/friday and ends monday/tuesday. And I mean the bar is open all the way thru! Good luck trying to do that in Finland!

Anyway lets move on. Byebye Berlin and hello 7 hours in a bus towards Frankfurt. Nothing much to tell there. Nice clean and packed hostel called Five Elements in the middle of the ass and titties part of downtown Frankfurt. Spicy shwarma.

16.9. Monday 14:40
 Destination: Shanghai. 11 hours later and no sleep at all I'm there. And boy was I in for a ride.
25 fucking million people! 5 times Finland in one city! As soon as I get from the airport to the town it's around 9 am and its already 26 degrees celsius and rising. I need a drink. Drink vending machine. All I understand from it are the numbers below the products and the word cold. Good enough for me. Put the money in and press a button. Nothing happens. Frantically smashing every button on the machine until something pops out. I take out the can. "Cafe Latte" Motherf....! Right when I leave the machine in search of breakfast I bump into a local student named James. He says he can show me a nice place to get some food. Really nice guy and happy to meet me because now he can practice his english. Apparently I happened to come to Shanghai during a tea festival and James wants to take me to experience the chinese tea ritual. Into a tiny shop we enter and sit down in to a even tinier booth. A lady enters and starts preparing the first cup all the time talking in chinese about the history of tea in China and about the teas she is about to have us taste. How to hold the small cup and how to smell and drink the tea. All the time James translating what is happening. All very interesting and the tea is probably the best I ever had. Then I happen to check on the prices. POOF! My daily budget is blown on 3 different flavours of tea! Oh well, while in Shanghai... Next off to some soup dumplings. Really tasty stuff and way more cheaper.
Then before I know it I'm already on my way to the subway to see Bund area, the iconic business center. With James happily waving me off I climb on to the fully packed subway and start thinking: "was it 2 or 3 stops when I need to get out?" And Berlin subway is nothing compared to Shanghai subway. This area is all about Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Ferrari. I make most of it and use the toilet in Shanghai World Financial Center. Hi tech with washing modes and all.
If you are not willing to spend a lot of money there is not lot to do in Shanghai. Peoples Park is really nice and free, but almost everything else costs. Except food. You can eat a meal with few dollars.
Some say Chinese hospitality. I say Chinese I smile while taking your money.

Well that was only for a one day so it was manageable. Now I'm in a better place. Sitting in Top Banana guesthouse and its rooftop bar drinking green tea in Phnom Pehn. Yesterday was massive jetlag so I slept well into the afternoon. And poker evening. I think I'm gonna spend few days here just relaxing and getting my bearings.

On to the headline of this post. My camera broke down. Apparently  "MB MIRROR BOX SUB UNIT" is something that tends to break down on Sony alpha series. I will need to head into town to go see a repair guy. I just hope It doesn't take a month as the guy in Frankfurt feared. If so I need to think of other options, because there is no sense for me to travel and carry all that camera gear with me if I don't have a working body. 

On the road again...

...And it feels good!

The process of getting here has been surprisingly long but I'm finally here. It is funny how I didn't realize anything when I was selling all my stuff away and giving away the apartment I lived in. And not even when leaving Porvoo, but when I said goodbyes to my dear friends in Tampere it finally hit me: "I'm really not coming back here for quite a while!"

Last days in Finland flew by and looking at my mother from a moving bus made me a bit wistful. Leaving back so much yet having so little connections to the country I was born in.

But now I'm in Berlin meeting up with some of the friends I met on my last trip. I'm staying in an apartment with one of them and 3 of her flatmates. Last night we took a quick stab at the local bars and I felt the first hit of cultural shock. The local hole-in-the-wall -shop (open 24/7) had bottle openers hanging from the fridge they sold the beer out from, u can smoke inside bars and take your shop bought bottles in to a night eatery. And food and beer is WAY cheaper than in Finland. And tastes better. But that might just be that not being at home -taste. 

Now I think it's time for me to go hunt some breakfast and have a look around the town.