Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh

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Hello again!

Well its been a little while since I last reminded you guys that we
e still alive and traveling around Southeast Asia so I guess I should fill you in on what weve been doing. . .

After our cultural binge in Siem Reap we decided to head south, way south to find some sort of sun and beach. The weather was promising heavy rain showers for the next 3 weeks but we decided to take a chance and head down to Sihanoukville. Sihanoukville is a small beach resort town on the ocean and seems to be one of the three stops most people do when traveling to Cambodia (Phnom Penh and Siem Reap the other two). Now Im sure its a beautiful place, very nice when its sunny and hot; however, we hardly saw the sun when we were down there for those 4 days so Im afraid I don;t have too many fun stories. We swam in the ocean and played in the surf, got haggled by the vendors on the beach and took it easy in our room watching shark week and the national geographic channel.

A couple of fun things we did do though were one; we had our 2nd round of our Southeast Asia Minigolf Championship, and two; we sort of received cooking lessons from one of the restaurants we frequented while there.

The restaurant was called La Pona and was run by a husband and wife and from what we could guess were their two daughters and their nephew. They were very friendly and very happy to have some tourists come and eat at their establishment. (It seemed to be low season for the sun seeking tourists). After a couple of days of eating there and enjoying $5 BBQs with barracuda, prawns, squid, steak, chicken, and pork we asked if we could see and learn how fish a mok is made. We were welcomed in to the small but neatly set up kitchen/bedroom of their restaurant and we got to see how the meal was created. Fish Amok is a barracuda in coconut and fresh vegetable creation that is de-licious!

Our other point of interest that we did was carry on the minigolf as mentioned. The lead was in Kifs hands since Koh Tao but Max made a triumphant comeback in Sihounakville to level the score at 1-1. Just like the first meeting, a refreshingly cold beer to the winner, Angkor smooth in this case.

It wasn for our lack of trying that we didn do anything, we tried to book a snorkeling tour to one of the surrounding islands but it was canceled due to rain and we did go to the ackpacker bar/hangout area one night; however we were greeted with quiet the sight. It was low season for the sun seekers but high season for, um, well, young Cambodian girls and their white sugar daddys? Yeah, so off we went to Phnom Penh in hopes of finding something better.

The bus ride was interesting as usual but this time the bus didn break down (thankfully) but the dvd player on the bus did (also thankfully) since they were belting karaoke dvds to the buses passengers. But we made it to Phnom Penh! A quick decision at the bus station, and 6 tuktuk drivers hovering around us, off we went to our guest house to unload our gear and for a bite to eat. After dinner we walked around our new home found a wonderful place called Nagaworld which had a fountain/laser show outside but no real explanation for what it was so we headed back home to bed.

The next day we did something truly fun and stupid (typical Max and Kif), we rented bicycles and decided to tackle Cambodian traffic! You may now vote on if either one of us got in an accident or caused an accident. But let me describe to you Cambodian traffic. Unlike North America its a little more, how do you say, a free for all? The rules are simple: 1- the bigger you are, the more people get out of your way, 2- No one wants to hit the other so just don . Sounds easy enough, right? Well on a six-laned road our three lanes had trucks, tuktuks, cars, other cyclists (some even going against traffic) and people to dodge, squeeze in between and just plain avoid. So off we went, we saw the outside of the royal palace, we cycled up the Tonle Sap River. Our goal was the Boeng Kak Lake where there is a popular backpackers area, we missed it. But we did find train tracks (old and abandoned by the train traffic) where people have set up their homes and schools and shops so we decided to bike down this road to see the people. It was very interesting and very nice, all the kids waved at us and yelled "HELLO!" when we passed. Eventually we found the backpackers place and had lunch in a restaurant over looking the lake. It was getting late after our naps so we decided to head back home which required us to head down a main road during the start of rush hour (whos feeling lucky with their votes?). Well we didn get hit, cause an accident, or do anything (Kif was the closest but them Cambodians are good at dodging). All we did was miss our turn (over this six-lane road) by, oh, 15-20 blocks. After a little detour and one of the craziest roundabouts we have ever seen! Seriously, this one linked two major roads with two bridges and it was rush hour, so much fun, so much traffic. We road by the Independence Monument and snapped a couple of photos before heading back to the guesthouse for dinner. We wanted to walk around some more and on our way out we met 3 danes who were going out to the pub so we hopped in their tuktuk and went

Next day was a lazy start, Max felt a bit under the weather so like a trooper he slept in till noon, had some breaky, and fought on. After lunch/breakfast and saying goodbye to the three south americans we headed off to the royal palace and silver pagoda. The walk was very nice as it was actually almost sunny! The royal palace itself was very beautiful with really cool and colourful roofs. The royal palace also had the Silver Pagoda (buddhist shrine). Also very beautiful with silver plated floors and multiple buddha statues including a solid gold one decorated with jewels which we weren allowed to take photos of. After the palace and pagoda we walked along the water to a little mexican place and relaxed while the afternoon rainstorm swept through.

The next day was our trip to S-21 and the Killing Fields one of the things you have to see in Phnom Penh. I had already finished the book The Killing fields (which I recommend) and so I thought I was ready for what we were about to experience. I was not. We had ordered a tuktuk through our guesthouse so we could go to both sites and he dropped us off fine at the first site which was Tuol Sleng or S-21 prison as it was known as. It was one of the main torture prisons for the Khmer Rouge (Khmer Rouge or KR was the name of the people who were the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea) with tens of thousands of people being locked up here, many not surviving. Before it was a high school but since the Khmer Rouge wanted every educated person eradicated, they had little use for a school. It was a haunting experience, much like my experience at Auschwitz, it was surreal. It was a sunny, beautiful day and there we were looking at the torture techniques the KR used. The school was four, three-storied buildings which had small 0.8 by 2 meter cells on the top 2 floors for the prisoners and interrogation rooms. There was a room with a wall covered in the names of the burial sites (well over 70) and how many victims were found in each. There was one where they found over 200,000 victims. The KR killed roughly 1.5 million people during their reign (with a Cambodias population peeking at 7 million at the time thats horrifying).

Much like the Nazis, the KR were very thorough, they photographed and numbered their victims. But they were a lot colder and in my opinion more brutal than the Nazis. Now I know thats quiet the claim but Im sticking to it, especially after seeing the Killing fields. After Tuol Sleng we left for our tuktuk which ... had mysteriously disappeared... I mean it was gone, no where to be seen. We walked up and down the street looking for the guy but didn find him. Offers from other drivers rained down but we were sure weld find our guy, but we didn . So we settled on finding a new tuktuk driver after they laughed at us and told us he had found a better fare and carried on.

But we got out to the Killing fields and got a guide to show us around. Apparently the KR would tell their victims that they were being freed and going to a place where they had a brand new house to live in, of course they were lying. Theyld take them out to the fields (which used to be an old Chinese cemetery), put in even smaller cells to wait to be killed. Since the KR wanted to save money and bullets they used sugar palms to slit the throats of their victims, theyld also beat them and cut them with farming tools. It was very brutal. There was also a tree which they used to kill kids with. The KR would grab the children by the ankles and beat their heads into the tree. Those reasons are enough for me to believe the KR were more brutal than the Nazis. It wasn the funnest day of our trip but it was an eye opener. The Killing fields still had clothing and bones coming up through the dirt, it was a truly chilling sight.

After our trip we planned to meet up with Jill and Heather, the two NY lawyers from Laos, for dinner and drinks. They e volunteering in Phnom Penh for a month helping victims of the sex trade through an organization I forgot the name of (apparently its Oprah approved though). So we met up with them, had some wine and a mexican dinner and called it a night. The next day we took it easy cause the rain came back. Max had a skype meeting with his family for Thanksgiving (Happy Thanksgiving by the way!). Our plan was to go to the Russian market and peruse but as said, the rain came back, so we decided to stay in and watch some tv in Jill and Heathers killer apartment, which is a super nice two-bedroom (fully furnished) place with a nice deck overlooking the river (only $900/month). We also had to collect our passports which we handed in to the guesthouse to obtain our Vietnam visas. So our Thanksgiving dinner turned out to be a very enjoyable Lebanese one, which was delicious. Funny enough we watched the Amazing Race that night where the contestants were in Phnom Penh! They even ran around the Russian Market so we did technically see it!

Our chill night in Cambodia concluded with watching a hilarious, but very interesting show called Meet the Natives. Its about a native tribe from Papa New Guinea that visits the western world and reports back to their tribe about us. Very funny, very interesting. They were in France this episode. Our passports arrived, our 7 am bus to Ho Chi Min City booked and our evening flight to Haiphong (in northern Vietnam) also booked we went to bed, malarone dreaming about our trip to a new country! up next northern Vietnam and Halong Bay!

Till next time kids!

PS - For some reason I can post any photos at this internet cafe so youll have to do with the ones you got. Ill hopefully post a photo blog if I can find a co-operating internet cafe.

What we learned in Sihanoukville and Phnom Phen
- how to actually spell Sihanoukville
- You don hit me, I don hit you traffic really works wonderfully
- Low tourist season = High sex tourist season
- Our trip is awesome
- Typhoons and tropical storms lurk in our shadows

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Photos

Independence Monument
On our way home from our bike trip.

Paying our bill
Feels pretty funny paying in two currencies.

Bus station
Tuk tuk, moto, and taxi drivers converging on a newly arrived bus

Railroad tracks
Max riding along the tracks.

Us in traffic
Waiting for the light to change.