Week 5 (Phnom Penh to Siem Reap)

Week 5
Cambodia - Phnom Penh

07/11/07 - 10/11/07

We travelled from Saigon to Phnom Penh via bus, the journey was a pretty smooth ride and we arrived in Phnom Penh in the late afternoon, when we arrived at the bus station we were literally bombarded with drivers begging us to use their taxi. We found one guy called Paddy who took us to a guesthouse on the lake called "Same same but different." That evening we just sat on the sun deck and took in the beautiful scenery while trying the local dish (Amok Curry) and chatting to other travellers.

Paddy took us all around Phnom Penh, we went to a shooting range where we had a go at shooting an AK47 and a hand gun, it was so loud and was really strange because we laughing around with these lethal weapons straight before we went to the killing fields of Choeung Ek, the place where Pol Pot had over 17,000 people killed. There were 8000 skulls on display in a beautiful Stupa in the middle of the field. We walked around the field where the killings had happened and there were still bones, teeth and clothes scattered all over the fields it was so shocking.

After that Paddy took us to the Tuol Sleug museum (S21) This used to be a secondary school, but Pol Pot had it turned into a prison. It was very different from the killing fields because it has been left exactly how it was found those 25 years ago. It was very easy to picture the pain and torture the people went through here, there was even still blood marks on the ceiling and walls. We saw thousands of photos taken at the time and could read stories from the victim's families still waiting for their loved ones to return home (sad stories considering out of the 14,000 people who were sent to S21 only 7 survived). It was a very emotional place for all.

We also went to the Grand Palace which was amazing, there were so many buildings within the grounds it was incredible, it was a lovely blue day as well so all the photos look fantastic. There has been so much money spent on the estate and so many homeless people just outside, it made us very sad. One room had a pure solid silver floor and one statue of a Buddha had 90 kilos of gold and was encrusted with 2086 diamonds!!

One of the best things we have done so far is visit an orphanage, it was such an eye opener, we decided to go for a walk and stumbled across this orphanage. We were greeted by loads of really happy and very polite children, we decided to go and buy all of them some food and when we asked them what they would like they all said fruit and vegetables!! (you don't get that in the UK). So three of the orphans came with us and we bought 4 bags of food, it was great because they could choose what they liked. We spent the morning with them and they put on a dance show for us, we were treated so well by them, they were hugging and kissing us all the time it was a fantastic experience and we felt really good about giving them a donation that we know will go to good use.

We walked to a Wat that is completely overrun by monkeys, we bought some bananas and fed all these very greedy but very cute monkeys for the afternoon. We did a lot of walking this day and we were shocked at the amount of litter there was and how people were living. We walked down some side alleys and there were metal sheds used for housing that were all flooded with litter floating around and rats running about.

Siem Reap

10/11/07 - 14/11/07

We decided to move on to Siem Reap so we caught a bus and we arrived late afternoon. In the evening we went to a music concert, a Cello performance by Dr. Beat in aid to raise money for the children's hospital, it was really fascinating as there were short films on the children, the war and the diseases as well as some fantastic music.

We got up early the following day and bought a three day pass to the Angkor temples. They were breath taking, to think that they are so old and were built by hand is unbelievable. The only slightly frustrating thing about visiting the temples was at every entrance to a temple there were loads of children begging for money and trying to get to to buy souvenirs, it was really draining as they are so persistent and you can't give to everyone otherwise you turn into a walking ATM.

We spent two days at the temples walking around and taking in the sites, the sunsets were incredible. We climbed to the top of this huge temple and just sat there for over an hour just watching the colours of the sky.

Our favourite temple was called Ta Prom, it is being eaten by the jungle. There are trees growing everywhere, in the temples, through the temples and even on top of the temples. It was so different from the other temples.

We made good friends with the hotel staff in Siem Reap and on Barangs day off he took us to a local village where we went fishing and chilled in the bar's hammocks, it was great. Barang just lay there for about an hour swinging in his hammock, eating 2 plates of shrimps and occasionally checking his bamboo rod to see if he had caught anything.

The night before we left to go back to Thailand the hotel staff bought a BBQ'd snake, frog and crickets for us try (how kind of them). We both tried the frog and liked that, not so keen on the snake and couldn't try the crickets!! They also made a cocktail with Cambodian rice wine. It was a really good night even with the snake. We were both very sad to leave, Cambodia for us has been a fantastic country with so much to see and do. We have learnt a lot about their struggles in life and despite all the hardship they have gone through they were one of the kindest and friendliest people we have met so far!