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Today, I checked out one of the architectural tours run by KA Tours in Phnom Penh.  They do a nice job of it– interesting sites, informative guide.  I hope to catch another one of their tours. 

We made a couple of stops today: out at a villa (now a clinic) and an interesting, Modern-style house out in the Toul Kork neighborhood, as well as the 100 Houses development out on the way out to the airport.  The general theme of this tour, as their other tours, is the New Khmer Architecture of the 1950s and 1960s.  This time period, following Cambodia’s independence in 1953, was a particularly rich period for the arts in Cambodia.  Musicians, architects and others looked abroad for new ideas, while at the same time looking within in order to find new ways of expressing Khmer ideas and aesthetics.  This led to a new, uniquely Khmer artistic vision.  Probably the best known architect of the period was Vann Molyvann.  The unstability and civil wars of the 1970s put an end to this period, and many of the artists of the time were lost in the genocide.  

Of the three stops we made today, I only came up with decent pictures from the 100 Houses complex.  This is a block of 104 nearly identical houses was built between 1965 and 1967.  The houses themselves were designed by Vann Molyvann, who took the traditional Khmer house as a starting point.  He made changes in construction material (bricks rather than wood), roof design (like a policeman’s hat) and other details such as the size of windows and doors (larger, for better air circulation).  The houses were originally privately owned.  They have been put to a range of uses since then, including use by the Khmer Rouge (headquarters for Ieng Sary, Minister of Foreign Affairs), Vietnamese military (after they toppled the KR in 1979) and later the Cambodian Air Force.  Now, they are private homes again.  Many were damaged in the war.  Some have retained the original shape, others have been modified to some extent.

This is a screen-shot of a satellite image from Google Earth.  Notice the alternating placement of the houses.  This was to allow for increased air circulation, as well as allowing each house to look out onto garden space rather than another house.  Click on the image for a larger version which is easier to interpret. 

Pictured here is an example of one of the houses, currently used as a Christian church. 

Of course, what really caught my eye was the food production which was going on.  One family had their dooryard filled with tall planters made from old motorbike tires, as well as a few trees (and a flat tire repair business, which is not in this picture– could this be a method to re-use all those bad tires they must have collected over the years?).

My favorite for today was the novel trellis system pictured here… 

 They were growing some sort of squash in the razor wire which topped their front wall.  It was a luffa/chinese okra-looking sort of guy– there are lots of different ones, and I am not on top of them all yet.  The home owner was not around for me to ask.  Great use of use of space, just be careful at squash picking time!

Update 28 March 2007: The International Herald Tribune just posted an interesting article about New Khmer Architecture and Vann Molyvann in their travel section.  It is worth checking out for more background information.

This morning, Michelle Simon’s blog, Appetite for Profit, pointed me in the direction of an article by Christopher Cook over at Common Ground Magazine.  He put together a nice little reminder that changing our food system takes more than “voting with your fork”…

That consumers carry some sway over the food they are sold is undeniable. Food corporations’ newfound passion for organics is nothing if not a scramble after consumers’ greenbacks. At least partly due to consumer (and activist groups’) pressure, Nabisco reduced transfats in their Oreo cookies, and Kentucky Fried Chicken will soon be deep-frying its millions of chicken parts in non-hydrogenated cooking oils. Progress, to be sure, but it’s just nibbling at the fringes. Meanwhile, the companies get free PR, a fat-gorging nation’s health concerns are quieted — and the underlying corporate-run food system that creates so many serious health and environmental problems goes unchallenged. Witness the Wal-Mart-led corporate takeover of organics, which is already leading to less-than-sustainable industrial organic farms and a steady diluting of federal standards.

Voting with our forks, while a useful first step, falls distressingly short of the needs and possibilities of this historical moment. From contaminated industrial food, to intensely polluting factory farms, to the millions of pounds of toxic pesticides still showered on our produce and ever-proliferating genetically manipulated crops, our food system is in desperate need of fundamental change. We can’t simply shop our way out of this mess. We need a compelling, coherent alternative that channels today’s excitement about good food far beyond the grocery checkout line, to cast votes for public policies and investments that restructure how food is made, marketed and consumed.

As someone who occasionally toots his own horn about the percentage of his household income squandered at farmers’ markets, this article is a nice reminder that changes still need to be made on the policy side of things– refocusing national agricultural priorites, tweaking the coming Farm Bill and such.  I like some of his suggestions.  They demand a little more than just changing buying habits.  They demand engagement.

Mamamandevu was over here for an all too short 10-day visit.  She’s back home now.  But, it was a real treat to see her.  This half-a-world-away thing is for the birds.  While she was here, we hit the major tourist attractions, including Angkor Wat and a mess of the other temples up near there.  It was a lot of fun.  It also gave me a little reminder about just how much heights do not suit me.

I have never been keen on heights.  I always get a little woozy and shaky atop ladders and near edges.  I’m pretty sure that the base of the Paul Bunyan statue up in Bangor, Maine still has claw marks from my struggle to slowly lower myself into my father’s arms as a little kid (everybody thought that spot would make for a great picture– maybe so, but clearly not without lifelong trauma).  However, I never totally froze up.  Until now.  It was early in the first day of our three days of temple touring.  Our second stop, pictured here, was not particularly high.  It might have had a sandstone veneer in earlier times, I’m not sure, but now all that is left is laterite– a porous stone that reminds me a lot of lava, even though has its origins are in mud rather than melted rock. 

I was about halfway up, mid-conversation, when I realized that I was in imminent danger of falling backwards off of the building and that the stone seemed to be giving way beneath whatever part of me was in contact with the stairs (there was a lot, because as my panic grew, a crouched lower to make as much contact as I could– hands, feet, knees, whatever I could find).  My pace slowed, totally opposite to my breathing and heart rate.  MamaM later noted that I just sort of stopped speaking around that time.  Each step up took a whole lot of thinking, both to stem the rising panic (as in, to shout down the crowd of monkeys) and to make darn sure that I fit each of my fingers into every crag and hole possible.  Each foot I placed very carefully, checking before shifting my weight, to make sure I wasn’t stepping on a pebble or a sandy patch or anything would compromise my traction.  I wanted to not be up there, but if I stopped I would have had to spend the night on the stairs.  Not an attractive prospect.  Once I reached the tier just below the top, I gave up and sat down, trying to catch my breath and rein in my brain.  The others scampered on up, without problems.  I just held really still, and spread myself out so as to make as much contact with the stone as possible (I did not want to not blow off the building or tip over by mistake).  I tried to enjoy the view (we were in the back, so it was forest).  I did a lot of calculating of what my options were– as in, how I could get off the temple.  Of course, much to my dismay, helicopters and firemen with tall ladders or a bucket truck were out of the question.  I rationalized about how people have been climbing up and down these things for over 1000 years.  At the time, that particular fact mattered less than it seemed like it should have.  So, I just sat for a while and tried to get quiet.  Results were mixed.  MamaM and our friend finished exploring the top and made their descent, waiting patiently at the base discussing temple construction.  A few minutes later, I followed.  Very, very slowly.

It was pretty distressing to have had such an episode.  Over the next couple of days, it became sort of a project– to not be beaten by the stairs.  And, I did pretty good.  It never got easy though.  Mamamandevu took this other picture while I was making my way up the stairs to one of the towers of Angkor Wat (at a 70 degree angle, I might add).  I almost didn’t go up, but couldn’t just leave without a visit to the highest level of the temple.  The other picture is of the one stairwell which has a railing installed (a tiny, flimsy railing).  That makes it easier to get down, but not much easier.

Mamamandevu snapped this image of a sign posted in one of the public restrooms at the archaeological sites near Angkor Wat.  The wording follows the images, and basically says, “It is prohibited to stand on [the toilet].”  I like it because it is straight-forward in its message.  Sit-down type toilets are in the minority here, as far as toilet technologies go.  They are common enough in the cities, or in establishments frequented by foreigners.  But in my experience, squatting reigns supreme everywhere else.  I am very curious if Apsara (the authority which governs the whole complex) had these signs installed as a courtesy when the restrooms were built, or only after having to deal with user errors, like falls and broken toilet seats.  Interestingly, around the Angkor monuments these signs seem only to have turned up in the women’s restrooms, and seemed to be absent from the men’s rooms.  Our sample size was pretty limited, though (n=3, if I recall correctly).   

I can appreciate changing toilet technologies.  Not being particularly agile, my first encounters with the squat toilet took a bit of adjusting (with no shortage of user errors of my own!).  I probably could have used some signs, too. 

On February 2, a crop of 30 Peace Corps volunteers arrived in Phnom Penh and inaugurated the new PC program in Cambodia.  This lot will be working as English teachers at the post-secondary level in seven provinces.  I am not yet sure where.  I have been watching the development of this program for a year or so, since the announcement was made that Peace Corps was moving ahead with a program over here.  When the news initially broke, they had mentioned that they were going to be recruiting both English teachers and public health educators.  However there have been no reports of the health folks yet– maybe they are staggering the groups.  They had also mentioned that they might be expanding into other thematic areas in the future.  I can only hope that this might include agriculture, and maybe a job opening! 

I tried to track down some newspapers to check the local media coverage of this event (there was a little paragraph in the local English language daily).  But I think I started hunting too late in the day, so there were none to be found.  Since I read well below grade level, it probably would have taken me a month to get through the article anyway.