Photographer’s Notebook: Laos and Cambodia (2025)

After my visit to Vietnam, I made brief stops in Laos and Cambodia.

Our mighty country still does not have a bullet train — but Laos does, despite being one of the poorest nations in the world. The route makes stops in nine cities or towns in the northern half of the country, and one train per day continues to China. Does this sleek modernization come at a cost? One fears in the future for the country’s new indebtedness to China.

A couple of photos here are of monks, who are omnipresent in both these predominantly Buddhist countries. In every town and city, the monks, clad in bright orange robes, leave their temples at dawn and form lines to be given small portions of rice and food by the local populace. If the local people didn’t hand over some food to the monks each morning, they would starve.

No one minds these food donations — it is an honor and devoted payment for the religious role the monks play. If a monk has enough food in his bowl, there are larger bowls for extra donations for those who are less fortunate, much like food pantries in the U.S. Monks take their bowls to their temples and eat some of the donated food for breakfast and later for lunch. There is no dinner: As a part of their devotion, they fast until morning.

There are no Social Security benefits in these countries; families take care of one another and their elderly. When there is no family, a widow will often become a nun, because the Buddhist temples will look after her. No widow is turned away.

Laos

At one Cambodian temple I visited, there was a long alley filled with elderly nuns, all wearing white robes, and all with their heads shaved. They each live in a small hut, the size of car, assembled from wood and metal sheeting and whatever else was at hand. The bathrooms and showers are communal because there is no running water in any of the huts. I spoke broken English with a couple of them. They did not understand when I said I was from the U.S., but they did understand and were pleased when I finally said, “America.”

Suddenly one of the Cambodian nuns spoke perfectly fluid English and exclaimed she hailed from “Newport Beach!” (California). In that setting, I was astounded. She had lived (and still lived) in Newport Beach for most of her adulthood, making an American life for many decades there with her late husband. She showed me photos of herself in Newport Beach where she looked quintessentially Californian. After her husband’s death, she began to visit this temple in rural Cambodia each year for a few months to meditate and reflect on her life.

Although its heyday was in the 12th and 13th centuries, Angkor Wat (“Temple City”) in Cambodia remains the largest religious site in the world and much of it still stands. Back then, its size and population was about nine times the size of London. Angkor Wat consists of 250 miles of temples within temples — 1,000 buildings, endless statues, stone carvings and many reflecting pools: the 8th wonder of the world.

On the other side of the coin, I also visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, commemorating the Khmer Rouge period of the mid-to-late 1970s in Cambodia, when a third of the population was murdered by its own insane government. Money of any kind was abolished, civil rights and property rights were eliminated and anyone who was a professional or had any schooling was executed, including anyone who wore glasses. Everyone else was marched to the countryside to become farmers. Year Zero — starting over from nothing.

Like the Nazis during World War II, the Khmer Rouge documented everything. At the museum there are rooms and rooms of photos of the many condemned. Tuol Sleng was one death site out of nearly 200 around the country. It was formally a school. At this particular prison in the capital, Phnom Penh, some 12,000 people were murdered. Only 12 souls made it out alive, four of them children.

Many people fled Cambodia during this terrible time, including a couple that have long made a home here in Philipstown.

I lived in Laos during part of my childhood, and I’m sure anyone of my generation can relate — no matter where they grew up — I was always out and about for hours, all on my own, no parental supervision, no play dates, no endless hours on a phone, but out in true wilderness among the rice paddies and tropical knolls, exploring the world beyond school and my house on my beloved bike.

I was 6- to 8-years-old in Laos, far longer than I lived anywhere else until college. Despite that stability, I endured an armed coup, rabies and a major flood of the Mekong River, which swamped the capital city we lived in. The first floor of our house was suddenly and rapidly underwater, and we had to evacuate. After the flood waters receded, 11 poisonous snakes were killed on our modest property before we could move back in. I particularly remember seeing one high up on a wall, slithering towards a second-floor window.

A few times during the flood I would return to our home with my father, to check up on things, and sleep overnight on the second floor. It was quite the journey: first by truck with enormous tires, then by long boat. The city streets were muddy rivers. The long boat would saddle up next to our high perimeter wall and then we would gingerly walk on top of the wall to the back to pull ourselves into the second-floor kitchen window. There was no electricity nor running water, but we managed to have an evening picnic by lamplight. The journey back to dry land took too long to accomplish the same day.

Cambodia

Because of the flood waters, more than a few times, I commuted to school in a small helicopter. Most Americans lived in an area close to the International School, but because my father was in the diplomatic corps, we lived much more in town, where the flooding was worst. Fortunately the playground was quite large and could accommodate a helicopter. When it would land, I’d be the talk of the school, as one can imagine when you’re in the third grade and step out of a Huey!

The armed coup was between factions of the Lao government (this was during the Vietnam War). For a few days, when the fighting was fiercest, we huddled in a confined hallway on our lower floor, quite attentive to the clatter of gunfire and machine guns. Explosions flashed like fireworks. In my memory, the coup only lasted a few days, but afterward we found bullet holes in our home’s exterior from random gunfire.

I also had to get a rabies shot in the stomach daily for 16 days, but that’s another story. That was fun.

It was with such memories I fondly and briefly returned to Laos and Cambodia, which are populated by some of the most gracious and cheerful people I know. My best friend in the second grade was Lao.

On my last day in Cambodia, I arouse before dawn, heading to a park with pigeons I had stopped at on my first morning in Phnom Penh. I saw the same grandmother and small toddler at the same spot, selling bird seed. They were soon joined by a few other sellers, one of whom looked no older than 6. I stayed about an hour, waiting for the right moment for a photograph. Of course, I missed the best moment. The 6-year-old, unlike the toddler with her grandmother, was by herself: no parent, no stool, no shoes. Unlike children in the west, she had no endless leisurely hours lost on screens nor an abundance of toys or playdates. At one point, she stood and, surrounded by eager pigeons, flung some of her seeds high into the air. It seemed the one moment all day she enjoyed a few seconds of play.

To pay her for another birdseed packet, I gave her one of my last remaining bills, which equalled about $2. When she started giving me change, I gestured for her to keep all of it. This was just $2 or so — yet she seemed overwhelmed with gratitude and she bowed and pressed her hands together in deep thanks. To me it showed such graciousness on her part, far beyond her years.