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Published: November 29th 2008
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Phnom Penh
We decided only to spend the minimal amount of time in Phnom Penh due to the amount of bloody rain and the fact that we were told that the Full Moon Party was actually two days earlier than we had thought or planned for - Opps! We went to see the main 'attractions' of the area which are S21 museum and the Killing Fields. Now my history is appauling and although I had obviously heard about these things before I had never really learnt about them; and as with the war in Vietnam anything you do hear is normally Western biased. I have learnt alot about what went on during these times and have actually spoken to quite a lot of other travellers, who have travelled through this area, about it; but I am not going to try and relate what I have learnt or the opinions I've heard in this blog. It's too messy and quite frankly, I get it wrong! Needless to say there was a guy call Pol Pot and he killed a lot of people and basically got away with it scott free. S21 is now a museum but was at the time a
prison. You can still see the cells and rooms and rooms filled with the photos of the dead. Each of the prisoners were photographed when they entered so there is a fairly clear record of who came through. There were a couple of very interesting exhibits one was the paintings from a man who had seen the torturings and has painted a very vivid collection that depicts them, pretty bloody gruesome. Another was upstairs and was the stories of survivors of the period, mainly people that worked in the prison. It paints a very different picture to the one you would think, some are repentant, some aren't. Most just did it because they had to and now they have to carry on with their lives. I just found it interesting to see another perspective, whether I agreed with it or not. The Killing Fields is actually a little strange because there is nothing there; just sunken sections where the mass graves were. Trees have plaques saying things that conjure horrific pictures in your imagination rather than the more overt horror that the name suggests. Actually one of the things that upset me the most were the children that hung around
the edges behind the fence shouting 'Picture! Picture!' '1,2,3 Smile!' and then without smiling would expect their photo to be taken ... for a price. This was there job; it felt very strange to hear such happy voices and see such sad, apathetic faces.
That bar and Those temples
We arrived in Siem Reap to an onslought of tuktuk drivers all trying to take us to their guesthouse. Luckily we'd booked ahead and we were able to march straight through the crowd toward the little man holding a board with our name - Aaaah luxury! We booked our tuktuk and little sandwich pack through our hotel for 7am the following morning after deciding against getting up in time for the sunrise. Then headed out for a quiet one. The fatal words that are always spoken before carnage! We were in a bar alone wondering if we'd find anyone to talk to because our hostel was pretty dead and ended up with an unlikely couple -girl and gay best mate, who 'dragged' us over to Angkor What?! I'd heard quite alot about it because I'd met people who'd come through here already and it seems to be a bit
"3 flutes, ONE DOLLAR!"
A little salesman takes a rest to play.
Banteay Kdei of an institution. We ended up getting free drinks off an Italian dude who was celebrating his Birthday and bumping into who else but our Canadian duo who we'd left in HCMC! We all got very drunk regardless of our 7am start and the night ended up with me in a very scary situation involving being on my own/having absolutely no idea where our hostel was/being attacked by rabid dogs/ running into a fancy hotels reception at 4 am/crying my eyes out till they opened their internet cafe so we could find my hostel/them phoning my hostel and shouting at the security guard till he came to pick me up on his little moped/then riding through Siem Reap on the back of a moped for my first time in Asia! To be honest I was actually quite scared, it all worked itself out in the end as these things do but, for the first time in my life, I was actually lost with no clue where to go or what to do. I thought I was going to roam the streets until I saw the lights of the hotel and I was fricking scared those bloody dogs would come back.
Imagine if you will; me crying in the middle of cambodian street, waving my arms and growling and barking at these dogs till they retreated. It seemed like a good idea at the time! 😉
To be quite frank I was going to start this sentence with 'Angkor Wat is one of the 7 wonders of the world' but thought that I should just quickly check that is ws true. It's not and bloody honestly I'm appauled! The Wikipedia site lists every type of '7 wonders' you could think of from natural to industrial to underwater but the main 2 are of course the 'ancient wonders' and the 'new wonders'; which was just democractically polled recently. Not anywhere on any of this lists is Angkor Wat mentioned at all. (chitchen itza is on it and I've just been there and it's nowhere near as good!) Sorry about the little rant but I'm just a bit shocked! 😉
So Sam and I arrived at what should be one of the 7 wonders of the world and somewhere that I have been dying to see for a very long time, with stonking hangovers (lets face it we're our mothers children😉 )
I was still very excited but I want to go back cbecause 1 day isn't enough to see everything and due to the hangover (possibly still pissed) state I couldn't really take it all in. Driving around in the tuktuk, it is possible to do it on bikes but we aren't hardcore enough for that, definitely started clearing our heads and we were eventually able to enjoy the day and take lots of piccies, though obviously not nearly enough! It is an amazing sight and definitely not to be missed if you are in Cambodia. I won't take you through all the different types of temples, the movement between Hindu and Buddism or the other things we encountered or were told about by our guide coz you can look it up yourselves if you're actually interested and I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking.
The rest of our time in Siem Reap was taken up with getting music put on our Ipods and just generally chilling and shopping and getting ready of the bus ride that was ahead of us. Some people actually told me to fly to Bangkok from Siem Reap because the trip was
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Angkor Wat so bad, others said it was a right of passage and had to be done. It actually wasn't that bad, maybe because we'd prepared for the worst but even Sam (remember Sam vowed to fly or pay for the best bus after the houyxai to luang prabang bus journey) said she thought it should be advertised as a ride and now loves the Asian bus service! The road from Siem Reap to the Bangkok border is basically made of rubble and red mud, the bus used to transport you is well past it's sell by date and due to the high demand and lack of storage space, your belongings are stored down the central aisle so every toilet stop was defined by the monkey swing down to the door, trying not to completely wreck everyone elses bags! And of course our bus had to break down, so halfway through we are all turfed out onto the side of the road so the tyre can be changed! We arrived at the border, finally, in the pouring rain and got rid of the rest of our Orion Pies to some of the kids hanging out by our bus before getting back into
thailand (and the luxury buses!)
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