Cambodia

This is my first attempt to update the blog and give Cardie a break. Let’s hope that the standard will be as good and who knows it may be a while before I let Cardie back on.

When we planned our trip, Cambodia was somewhere that we both overlooked. However, as we travelled through Vietnam virtually every other traveller we spoke to asked “Why aren’t you going to Cambodia?” So we did some research and decided that we had enough time to make a small detour.

Our journey into Cambodia was by bus from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It is a relatively short trip with the border crossing only 2 1/2 hours away. The cost for a Cambodian Visa is $20 per person. We paid an additional $4 ‘admin’ charge to the guy on our bus in order for him to take our passports and organise our visas for us. Obviously this $4 was going directly into his pocket but as it meant we passed through border control hassle free it was absolutely fine by us!

To reach the capital, Phnom Penh, it was another 3 hours or so from the border and included a ferry aross the Mekong River. There were street kids on board the ferry selling everything from water to fruit. I’ve learnt that I’m too soft with kids and cannot even look at them without being parted from my money so I stayed within the safety of the bus.

Along the highway into Phnom Penh we passed a number of villages and traditional stilt houses where the kids would wave at us, full of smiles, as the bus passed. It had been raining and the lots of the children were playing in the huge muddy puddles that had appeared along the roadside.

Arriving into Phnom Penh was chaotic, as soon we got off the bus we were being pulled from one direction to the other and were bombarded with “tuk-tuk Sir?” “I take you to your hotel”. We were both trying to keep an eye on our backpacks and it all felt quite overwhelming. We had no accommodation booked and therefore had no destination in mind. There are no taxis in Phnom Penh so we took a tuk-tuk, or to give it its proper name a remorque moto.

The driver dropped us off at a café on the riverfront and from there Cardie set off in the heat to find us somewhere to stay. We ended up at a small hotel called the Boddhi Tree Aram, located in a little residential street behind the British Consulate.

Phnom Penh

8 May 2007 Cardie’s birthday

The room was the best of our trip so far and we both had a great nights sleep. We woke up as fresh as daisies and as it was Cardie’s birthday I had asked housekeeping if they could arrange a bunch of flowers. The housekeeper went to the flower market that morning and brought to our room a beautiful bunch of lilies.

Being the big spender that I am(!) and Cardie loving to shop, I took her to the Russian Market. We had read that as a lot of clothes are manufactured in Cambodia ‘surplus stock’ often finds it way to the market. There were plenty of 'designer' brands but unfortunately they were really bad copies. We set off for the other main market in Phnom Penh, The Central Market. Again, the clothes were mainly fakes but we did buy Cardie some trousers - this was probably the cheapest birthday I’ve known in our seven years! On the evening we went to The FCC for dinner and splurged on a bottle of wine.

Birthday Girl at The FCC

9 May 2007

Cambodia has suffered from the effects of many wars but one of the most destructive and harrowing periods was when The Khmer Rouge took control of Government. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, The Khmer Rouge systematically rounded up and executed anyone they believed opposed them, over 2 million people in all. The Khmer Rouge took over Tuol Svay Prey High School in 1975 and turned it into the main prison and torture centre in the country, it was known as Security Prison 21. The former prison is now a museum highlighting the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. We spent the morning visiting the museum and it was extremely disturbing to see the place where so many people had been tortured and suffered.

Rules for Prisoners

Within the grounds are the graves of 14 people whose bodies were found when the city of Phnom Penh was liberated by the Vietnamese. The haunting pictures of the many victims fill several rooms and the tools used to torture the people are left as a reminder of the brutality that occurred. All in all a very sad place.

From S21 prison the prisoners were taken to The Killing Fields at Choeung Ek. It was here that the Khmer Rouge executed over 17,000 people, women and children included. Some of the mass graves have been exhumed and the remains of the victims reburied. A memorial to the 2 million people killed by the Khmer Rouge has been built at Choeung Ek and houses the skulls of some 8000 people.

Skulls in the Memorial

The experience of visiting both the museum and The Killing Fields had a very sombre effect on us both and we returned to Phnom Penh reflecting on what we had seen.

As a result of war 4 - 6 million unexploded landmines remain in Cambodia and it now has one of the highest number of amputees in the world. It was very distressing to see people begging in the streets with servere injuries as a result of landmines.

Our tuk-tuk driver also took us to Wat Phnom, the site of the first pagoda in Phnom Penh. It is here that many people still come to pray for good luck and success in all aspects of daily life.

Wat Phnom

That evening we had a wonderful meal at a restaurant called Friends which is an organisation set up to help and train disadvantaged and street kids in the catering and tourism industry. I managed to leave our bag with $300 in it at the restaurant. Luckily, as we were walking down the road one of the kids came running after us with the bag....phew, that could have been an expensive meal!

The architecture of Cambodia is very striking and we were both blown away by the Royal Palace and National Museum which we visited on Thursday 10th May. The National Museum houses the largest collection of Khmer sculpture although it was the building itself that we where most impressed by.

The National Museum

After lunch we made our way to The Royal Palace, unfortunately as soon as we had paid our entrance fee the heavens opened. A huge thunder storm meant we had to spend the next half hour standing in a door way for shelter. When we thought it had eased off we made a dash for it and ran across the courtyard and a massive bolt of lightning came crashing down beside us. Very dramatic and quite scary!

We thought the Palace was amazing and we spent several hours there. The Silver Pagoda, so called because of it's 5000 silver floor tiles, was very impressive. It houses a huge collection of Buddhas made from many precious metals and gemstones. The centrepiece is the lifesize gold Buddha weighing 90kgs and containing 9584 diamonds the biggest being 25 carats. Very bling. Unfortunately, no photos are allowed inside the Palace buildings so you'll have to take my word for it.

Children selling water outside the Royal Palace

Leaving Phnom Penh

After 4 days in Phnom Penh we left to take the 6 hour bus journey to Siem Reap. We had a guide on the bus who pointed out interesting sights along the way and the journey passed quickly.

On arrival at Siem Reap we were met by our tuk-tuk driver for the next 3 days, Mr Sokha.

Mr Sokha

The main tourist attraction when visiting Siem Reap has to be the temple complexes in the area of Angkor. On Friday 11th May we set off for a mammoth day of temple sight-seeing. Mr Sokha took us firstly to Angkor Wat - the ultimate example of Khmer architecture and the largest religious building in the world.

Angkor Wat

At its height the Khmer Empire stretched from Burma to South Vietnam and into parts of Northern Thailand, the hundreds of temples still standing are a small remainder of what once was. The earliest dating form the year 802.

Bayon

Ta Prohm (part of 'Tomb Raider' was filmed here)

Us at Phnom Bakheng

After a whole day of visiting the spectacular temples we headed back to the hotel with Mr Sokha for a chat and a beer (or two). He along with many of the other tuk-tuk drivers has served in the army. He told told us about the hardships he had faced during his time as a government soldier and a great story about fighting off a gang of monkeys in the jungle for 8 hours as they were trying to steal his limited food supply. He also told us it was okay for Cambodian men to have more than one wife and having extra girlfriends was perfectly acceptable. I told him I thought one was more than enough. He explained that with your extra girlfriends "you can make funny, have jokes, dance and touching is allowed but no honeymoon". We got the gist of what he was saying!

Mr Sokha took us to the floating village on Tonle Sap Lake the following day. The floating village is made up of wooden boathouses and shops selling everything from large car type batteries to groceries. We stopped at one shop which doubled up as a crocodile farm...bizarre!

Children selling fruit on Tonle Sap Lake

Mr Sokha explained that the people living on the lake use the water for all aspects of daily life, cooking, washing, as a childrens play area and as the communal toilet. He told us that the water was filthy and there there was a lot of disease as a result. We have since learnt that 1 in 7 children under the age of 5 years old, dies in Cambodia as a result of dirty water.

After our boat trip on the lake we stopped at a nearby village. Some of the children came out of the houses and asked for money. Rather than hand them cash, I took them to the shop and brought them bags of sweets to share. They were delighted and were squealing with excitment as they tore into the bags of sweets.

I'm not sure that I could say that I enjoyed our time in Cambodia as such, as it was hard to see so many people living in such poverty. The attack on our senses was challenging - the barrage of sights, sounds...and smells made Cambodia, at times, quite difficult. However, we met some of the most friendly, genuine people of our trip so far and seeing the temples of Angkor were amazing.

They eat bugs in Cambodia!

Leaving Cambodia