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Published: December 7th 2007
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We travelled up to Phonm Penh the best way possible....on a boat up the Mekong River. The boat was actually a bit smaller, and therefore faster, than we were expecting, so before we knew it we had arrived at border control to leave Vietnam before making the short trip further up river to get another stamp in our passport to enter Cambodia. In between the 2 borders (about 500 meters) it was weird to see people living and working. We never really got an explanation as to why these people live between the border and whether they are Cambodian or Vietnamese. The further we got to Phnom Penh the faster the driver went, so it got very bumpy and noisy, but along the way it was good to see some of the life on the Mekong River in both countries. We arrived slightly ahead of schedule in Phnom Penh, and our large bus which we were suppose to have turned into a small mini van, with Simon left to jump on a motorbike taxi to get to the hotel.
Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia, so we were expecting another busy city, but we were still surprised by what
we saw! One of Cambodia's biggest festivals was happening while we were there, so the normal population of about 1 million apparently swelled to almost 3 million, and it certainly felt like it sometimes! The festival is called the Water Festival, and mainly consisted of large dragon boats, with about 40 people rowing, racing down the river with crews from all over Cambodia and around Asia. As our hotel was right on the river, the road in front was completely packed with thousands of people from early morning till late at night, enjoying the street stalls and party atmosphere. We seemed to be the spectacle as we walked along the road as we didn't see many other western tourists. The people would turn around in surprise to see that they were walking along side western people, but they were so friendly once they got past the surprise they would all smile and say HELLO. It said in our guide book that 50% of all people in Cambodia were under the age of 18 which is a scary fact, but walking down the road it appears that the guide book did not lie, almost everyone was very young.
People come
from all over the region to watch the boat races, which maybe account for why they were not used to western tourists. We walked through a shopping centre in the middle of town which was very modern and completely unexpected, as you could have been anywhere in the world, and it was unusual to see escalator guides showing people how to get on and off escalators. It was strange to see many people not having a clue how to use them, unfortunately the guides were not that helpful to these people as they ended up just pushing the people on!
When the races were on, we thought we'd join in with the locals and stop to watch the boats race down the river. In similar style to the London Boat race, 2 teams would compete against each other, however, every minute another set of boats racing would reach the end. Even though we watched the races we couldn't quite work out what was going on most of the time, maybe the winner went on to the next round and so on, but who knows! The river that they were racing down was extremely fast flowing and at one stage
5 people from one boat fell in the water and started to float down the river. A speed boat was quickly in to rescue them, however, the day before we got there 3 people were missing from the Singapore boat when they went in the water and no one got to them in time. Even with this happening it did not deter people from the crowd going for a quick dip in the water!
Whilst we were there we met up with 2 people, Anders and Emelia, from our China trip. They had been travelling through Vietnam and Laos so it was good to meet up with them again to reminisce about our journey through China and hear about their travels.
The Royal Palace was closed during the celebrations, as the king was there for the festival, so we didn't get a chance to visit and see the incredible Silver Pagoda. We did go round the National Museum which has a large collection of Khmer artifacts including 1000s from the Angkor region. This just made us look forward to visiting Angkor Wat in a couple of days even more!
Everywhere we have been we have tried to
eat some local specialities (being a fussy eater at home this is hard sometimes for me). In the markets in Cambodia you can find all sorts of delicacies, and in a scene not too dissimilar to I'm a Celebrity our tour guide, Chenda, decided to treat us with tarantula, cockroach, cricket and silk worm, thankfully these were cooked already. Everyone passed on the tarantula, cockroach and cricket so they were left for Chenda to eat, with most people looking away at the point he mentioned that the tarantula had eggs! (Apparently they taste like caviar) We both managed to eat a silk worm, the smallest thing on the menu......they didn't taste too bad actually, not much different to salted peanuts!
It was only 30 years ago since Cambodia was under the Khmer Rouge, where in some reports 3 million people were either killed or died of malnutrition, so while we were here in Phnom Penh we had to visit the Tuol Sleng genocide museum and the Killing Fields. Tuol Sleng use to be a school prior to the Khmer Rouge but they turned it into a prison where the prisoners were tortured before being taken to the killing fields
Boat crews
If only we knew who they were! and killed. Each prisoner had their photo taken and these photos are now on display. The prison is now a museum, so the world can remember what happened here and hopefully not make the same mistakes again. It was incredible to see in such graphic detail what had happened during the Khmer Rouge years, and while we have seen both on TV before, it just doesn't prepare you to actually go there yourself. It was very emotional visiting these places, however, it was especially good to see the joy in peoples faces during the Water Festival after going through something like that no so long ago....
From here we take a plane to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat!!
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