In the center of Angkor Thom, capital of King Jayavaraman VII is the Bayon temple. It was the official state temple of the king and was built in the 12th or 13th century. The building's trademark are the hundreds of faces found on several towers. Nobody knows exactly how many there were originally. It is estimated that there were about 50 towers, added at various points in time, and today only 37 survive.
Read MoreDrought: the Cambodian village floating on dry water
Cambodia is experiencing the worst drought in several decades. The water levels are so low that you can stand in the middle of the Siem Reap river with water at your knees.
During my visit, I had the chance to go to Chong Khneas, the closest and more tourist friendly water village in the Siem Reap area. I knew about the drought and didn't know what to expect once I got there.
Chong Khneas is located at the spot where the Siem Reap river merges into the Tonlé Sap lake. The area is known as a floodplain, as its size is reduced during dry season and floods back during rainy season. This place has been an important source of food for people in the area dating all the way back to the Angkorean civilization.
As a tourist destination, this place is packed with tour boats that charge $20 USD per person for a one hour tour of the village. They leave from the river and take around 20 minutes to arrive to the lake, where the village is.
A few thousand people live in Chong Khneas, although many have left because of the drought. Despite of what some may think, the structures actually float on the water and are not on stilts.
The city that floats has schools, shops and even a gas station. I was warned about the boat driver taking us to an orphanage and making us buy overpriced food for the children from their own shop. I still don't know if it's really a scam, as you may read online, but I feel safer donating through NGOs and other similar organizations. With so many children working in the area, my assumption was that these donations don't help keep kids in school and fed and I wouldn't be surprised if the food we buy goes straight back to the shelves to be sold to the next tourist. Here is a list of genuine ways to donate to these people.
The process of actually catching fish is simple, but the aftermath takes much more time and effort. Because of the drop in the water level, the Tonlé sap naturally carries away thousands of fish. The fishermen simply place cone-shaped nets into the water from their floating houses and then lift the net as soon as seconds later. - Wikipedia
Panic at sea: the story of how we hit and sank a fishing boat
HEY! HEY! HEY!
*CRACK*
Our tourist guide puts his hands on the sides of his head and slides his fingers through his hair. He is speechless. In horror he watches as our boat strikes two fishing vessels full of shell fish and squid.
I barely had time to understand what was going on in the middle of all that screaming. Because of my journalistic instinct, my first reaction was to grab my iPhone and start taking pictures.
I was coming back from visiting Koh Rong island off the coast of Sihanoukville, Cambodia, with the "Happy Boat" tour group. It was around 4pm and I was tired from a long day of snorkeling and swimming, just like the other 10 or so other people on the boat. It was that time of day where everyone is so tired they can't even speak.
I remember noticing the captain wasn't at the wheel. It was one of the younger kids that worked on the boat. I looked at the scene and thought to myself "that would be a nice picture. Nah, no camera today, I'm on vacation." So I let it slide. Looking back, I wish I had taken the photo.
We had just left the island ten minutes earlier. I was looking starboard at the island when I hear voices screaming. We were heading straight towards two fishing boats that where anchored and tied together so they wouldn't drift away from their fishing spot.
When the alert came we were less than 20 meters away from them. The captain reverses the engine but there was no time for anything.
I hear the crack. There was no bang. It reminded me of the sound of a tree cracking in half from tornado winds in the midwestern USA.
Panic set in.
The fishing boat starts to take water. We throw them a rope and one guy starts tying it to their boat while the others start transferring stuff quickly to the other ship. I notice there is a fisherman in the water on the opposite side, he must have jumped on impact.
The fishing boat disappears underwater in seconds. I froze. I just stood there looking without knowing what to do trying to understand what just happened.
All that was left were bubbles coming from the boat now lying on the sand beneath us. Little by little pieces of cloth and plastic items come floating back to the surface and are taken by the currents. Soon there was stuff floating everywhere. Then came the oil stains.
One fisherman grabs his radio. "Mayday! Maday!" is all I'm able to understand. They call the help of other fishing boats in the area. I'm sure they alert the Coast Guard too.
The first boat is gone. The panic gives place to a different type of tension. They yell at us. I can only assume these were insults, well deserved I may add. It was our captain's fault no shadow of a doubt. The captain comes up to the front of the boat and talks to them. Within the situation, everything was ok.
I was very surprised at how everything was handled. There was tension, of course, but everything was taken care of in an orderly fashion. No fights, no arguments, just talking.
While all this is going on, we just look. Can't understand a word of Khmer. No one translates anything. We have no idea of what will happen or how long we would stay.
I ask one of the Cambodian tourists to translate what is happening. She says that they tried to negotiate to leave and take us back, but the fishermen didn't want to. Of course they needed the boat to stay to ensure some kind of compensation.
Finally we get the news, through the tourist, that a speed boat would pick us up.
We can only imagine what was going through their mind in that moment. I overheard that insurance only paid 70% of all costs and that the crew would have to pay the rest. I really hope this is not true.
The boy that was behind the wheel when the accident happened sat quietly. He didn't say a word. He just stared blank at the floor with water in his eyes.
After over an hour a speed boat arrives. A woman quickly hops on the Happy Boat and goes check the damage done to her boat. I think she's the owner.
We transfer to the speed boat, crew stays on board waiting for the coast guard.
Not because of the accident itself, but how the second team treated us passengers, I advise agains using this company's services. They already have a terrible score on Trip Advisor and it should be worse.
... and that's the story of my first - and hopefully last - shipwreck.
The ruins of the great city of Angkor
Machu Picchu, Tenochtitlán, Heracleion. The list of lost cities found in jungles, deserts or under the sea by modern archaeologists goes on. Once myths, now part of history. El Dorado, Atlantis, Z and many others still fuel the imagination of dreamers who hope to one day stumble upon ruins.
The city of Angkor was never lost, per se, but so much of it's history has been forgotten that it's almost as it has. The Khmer Empire was the greatest on earth and to this day parts of it are still being unearthed.
Capital of the great Khmer Empire in the 12th century, Angkor must have been a magnificent place to be in it's time. With a population estimated at the time of more than a million people, it's total area was greater than today's Paris and has more stones than all structures in Egypt combined.
In Angkor (word that stands for capital in sanskrit) we find the symbol of Cambodia, pictured in the country's national flag, the Angkor Wat (Temple City or Pagoda City).
The Angkor Wat was the first temple I visited during my stay in large complex. It's the largest religious monument in the world covering 162.6 hectares of land and was built by Suryavarman II in dedication to the Hindu god Vishnu, the guy that unified the empire.
Cambodia is HOT and HUMID. I can't stress more these two words more without waking up the neighbors. Go early and take tons of water. I mean at least 3 liters per person. There will be vendors selling you stuff everywhere. Water is one dollar.
Here is a map so you can better understand the place.
It is truly a breathtaking experience to visit Angkor Wat. So much raw history right in front of your eyes and still so much to be uncovered.
What's next? Machu Picchu, Tenochtitlán, Heracleion? Maybe. If I'm lucky I might stumble upon Atlantis too.
Chinese couples take wedding photos to the next level
Text by Emma González | Photos by Bruno Maestrini
In China wedding photography is a huge business. My impression is that the pre-wedding photos are more important than the actual ceremony with family and friends. Many Chinese couples I know are extremely proud of their pictures and some even have huge prints on their living room wall.
Usually the couples hire a photographer and a small crew of make up artists and fashion stylists to immortalize their romantic moments before they become husband and wife. They spend a whole day, or sometimes even a weekend, posing in different outfits in front of variety of romantic settings. It is not unusual for richer couples to fly a photographer all the way to Europe just for these pictures.
For the shoot, photo companies offer a wide selection of dresses and accessories. Additionally, the make up artist and fashion stylist make sure that they look at their best in every picture.
There are places in China that are particularly appealing to those having their wedding pictures taken. One of those places is the coastal city of Qingdao. It is almost virtually impossible not to come across a wedding photoshoot when walking by the seaside. Another place that attracts the soon-to-be married couples is Suzhou for its beautiful canals. In Beijing, a popular spot is the Temple of Heaven.
Photographer's note: It's interesting to note that all these photos, with the exception of the top one, were taken at the same place during a one hour interval. We went to a Christian (episcopal maybe?) church near the lake and to our surprise dozens of couples were having their photos taken. I guess originality is needed in the Suzhou market. Or maybe the church was the most affordable package.
Emma González is a journalist and connoisseur of fashion and author of the anti-fashion blog El Mundo DeSastre.
The Canals of Suzhou
The canals of Suzhou are a window into the past of what this southern Chinese city was 1500 years ago. The two most famous streets are the 2500-year-old Pingjiang Road and the 1200-year-old Shantang Street. Both of these places have been heavily renewed and adapted for tourism, although there is still one bit of Shantang that is still not tourist-ready, as I showed in my previous post. Rush to see it if you can, as I have heard there are plans for remodeling.
Suzhou is the home of the Wu culture and language, today known as Shanghainese, 60 Km away from its better known neighbor. Shanghai is what it is now because of the fall of Suzhou in a battle in the early 20th century.
The Lingering Gardens of Suzhou
The city of Suzhou is known in China for it's canals and its gardens. The "Venice of the East" has nine gardens that are together a UNESCO World Heritage Site. During my one day visit I had the opportunity to visit only the Lingering Garden 留园.
The gardens are basically big old houses built by rich people with a lot of green and water, to chill out in the humid summer of southern China. I can imagine hundreds of years ago just resting in the shade listening to the birds and the breeze passing through the trees.
Fast forward to 2016. Dozens of tour buses park outside the garden and a guide with a flag comes out with hundreds of tourists following with their little matching hats. Why? Because it's a class AAAAA tourist destination. That means Chinese tour companies will take groups there. Not because it's cool, not because people WANT to see it, but because it was determined it's supposed to be seen. I'm not saying it's not cool, because it is, but there is also a lot of cooler stuff without any A worth checking out. You can see by now that I'm not a big fan of how they decide what gets five As.
It is beautiful, go see for yourself. Ignore the tour buses.
People and blood in the streets of Suzhou
Suzhou, in the Jiangsu province, was once one of the 10 largest cities in the world and has a history of over 2500 years. The financial center of China, Shanghai, only exists because Suzhou was taken in 1860, giving space for the development of the new metropolis.
Full of rivers and canals, Suzhou is known as "The Venice of the East". Its historical architecture is very similar to its neighbor Shanghai, as are its little narrow streets called longtang 弄堂 , the equivalent to the Beijing hutong.
On my one-day visit I went to the famous and touristy Shantang street, known as the "#1 ancient street in China" for its prosperity in the Ming and Qing dynasties. And then I drifted from it to the side longtangs and what I saw was so much more interesting and authentic.
Ruins of the Old Summer Palace
Known as the Gardens of Perfect Brightness 圆明园, the ruins of the old Summer Palace are a memory of one of the most beautiful palaces in China. During the second Opium War, in 1860, European forces plundered and destroyed the place, taking relics that dated back 3500 years. Charles George Gordon, a French captain, wrote "You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burn. It made one's heart sore to burn them; in fact these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully." Many Chinese artifacts in western museums today are the result of plundering and looting of ancient China. Then in 1900 again the eight nations, during the boxers rebellion, came back and tore down whatever had survived.
The ruins are one of the very few remaining "unrestored" ancient sites of Beijing I know of. Most places have been either completely restored to look like they would have in ancient times or simply torn down to give space to modern buildings.
I used quotation marks because although these are ruins, I can't say I'm completely convinced this is all original. While I don't have proof of anything, several facts lead me to believe these aren't simply the ruins of what was once the largest palace in the history of China. Many of the stone pieces and their engravings seemed to me too well conserved for such an old piece, specially when thousands of people are stepping on them and handling them everyday.
Another notable fact is that - and architects or engineers reading, please correct me if I'm wrong - some of the stones were noticeably different. It seemed that several blocks were actually marble, while others were of a simpler material, not cement, but of the likes.
The pictures in this post are from two very different times of the year, winter 2015 and spring 2016.
The Dongyue "Temple of Hell"
Along with the Imperial Palace and Tiananmen Square, one of the most famous landmarks of Beijing is the Temple of Heaven, in the southern part of town. It's in every guidebook and about every tourist that passed through the city since Marco Polo has been there.
What a lot of people don't know is that hidden in what is now the Russian shopping district lies the TEMPLE OF HELL HELl HEll Hell hell *echoes and fades just like in Fraggle Rock*
In reality, it is a Daoist temple called Dongyue, which was named after Mount Tai, one of the Five Sacred Mountains of Daoism.
The place is known informally as the Temple of Hell because of it's scary statues of death and punishment.
Well, that seems like an awesome place to bring the kids, right?