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Bonjour!
I must say I was half-dreading Cambodia! I had head mostly unnice things about Cambodia-children begging, lots of people missing limbs and a lot of filth. During our "mere"week there, we did witness all of the above but so many positive things too. I must admit that we did find ourselves handing over a lot of our "dollars" in the form of hefty tips and buying things that we don't need for inflated prices. The Cambodian people, very friendly, polite and smiling, have a way, sometimes unintentionally, of tugging at your heart strings. They have been through so much and it is all still so "raw".
Our bus trip from Ho Chi Minh City(HCMC) to Phnom Penh was relatively hassle free. We didn't get our first choice of comfy bus but it was ok. The bus assistant took care of getting our visas stamped in customs etc and we were not asked for any "additional money" which is sometimes the case! We were glad we had got our visas already in the embassy in HCMC-they cost us $20 each but the assistant on the bus asked the foreigners who needed visas for $25 (a nice little earner!).
In our minds Phnom Penh was just an average big busy city with lots of traffic and very little to see. A couple of days was plenty there. The main "attraction" is "The Killing Fields" and the S21 prison. We visited both of these and found them heart wrenching. For anyone that does not know about the killing fields-A crazy Communist Cambodian, Pol Pot and his followers took control of Cambodia back in the 70s and slaughtered a quarter of the population, about 2million innocent people. They slaughtered anyone that might not agree with their regime or sometimes it didn't matter-starting with the educated-teachers, monks, doctors, former Government officials and going onto include children, the elderly, anyone. Whole families were wiped out. They counted mainly on the poorer rice farmers for support and trained up child soldiers to be involved in the terrible acts. People, if they survived the torture at S21 prison, were beaten to death in order to save the "precious bullets". Our guide (very intense-making us photograph everything so that we can "tell the World") lost his parents, brother, uncles, aunts. He escaped by fleeing to the countryside. The mass graves have been dug up and the
skulls are on display in a huge cabinet. Pieces of bone and clothing can be seen protruding from the soil. How a country can recover from something so terrible, I don't know. It really is shocking!
While in Phnom Penh, we also took a walk beside the river and visited the main market-not a bad way to spend an afternoon.
Next, we took the bus to Siem Reap to see the spectacular Temples of Angkor. The bus journey was a bit of an adventure to say the least. This terrible Karaoke, which is not our kind but the kind where all the songs sound the same to a really annoying beat, was blaring at full volume for the entire 7 hour journey-tried ear plugs, ipod -nothing could block it out. Siem reap was very enjoyable. Parts of it, such as Pub Street, are straight out of a Western tourist area-as many restaurants and bars as you want, serving International and Asian food and drinks at inflated prices, I must add. Siem Reap is very expensive in comparison to other places we have visited. It is really set up for tourists and for taking your dollars. The prices are
all quoted in dollars.
We bought a 3 day pass to see the temples and arranged a tuk tuk to take us there and a guide for the day.The guide was $25 and although he was really good and a very nice fellow-it is impossible to concentrate for an entire day. It gets far too hot and uncomfortable and there is so much to take in -we visited the 3 main ones with him-Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm and Angkor Wat-just too much! There are kids selling books written about the temples outside of the temples and if I was doing it again, I would just buy the book as a guide and go around at my own pace over the 3 days. I wouldn't get a guide again. Saying all that, the temples are truly amazing and almost 1000 yrs old. They really are all that is said. The second day, we got up at 4 30am in the dark, hired some bikes form the hotel and cycled 5km out to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise over the temple. It was truly worth it-fabulous. We stayed a couple of hours and explored again in the much cooler morning.
We also played around with some of the kids selling postcards, scarves etc-they are so adorable. We had great fun with this little 5 yr old selling postcards. We cycled back to the hotel before it got too hot. The following day we got up again to see the sun rise at Angkor Thom, about 7km away. Unfortunately, we had forgotton that Angkor Thom is surrounded by trees so we didnt see the sun until it way well up in the sky but anyway we just stayed and had another look around at all the faces on the temple again before cycling back. The Cambodians get up so early-the place was actually busy as 5am-their working day starts at 7am-makes me feel very lazy!
The following day we flew to Bangkok from Siem Reap. Although expensive, it was well worth it as seemingly the bus journey is an absolute nightmare. The airport is very swish altogether-very new! From Bangkok we flew to Phuket in South Thailand, where we will spend the next 10 days sunning ouselves before we head home.
As we intend to do, see and visit absolutely nothing in Phuket, only intending to relax, swim, read
and eat, there is no point in me boring you with such a blog. Hence, this is our final blog. We've had the most wonderful 6 months-packed with memories that will last a lifetime and more.
Thanks so much for reading!
Estella & Pearse
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