Cambodia is the best - Phnom Penh & Siem Reap

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Phnom Penh

On the 18^th Jan the bus picked us up from the travel agent in Saigon that we had booked our ticket with ($9pp) and we set off to Phnom Penh. Nice journey as the bus was not full and had air con. The driver’s assistant came around asking for every foreigner’s passport plus $25 for the visa. This was $5 more expensive then getting the visa ourselves at the border. Terry asked why the extra $5 and said we will go through customs ourselves but the assistant was not having any of it, he was either pretending to not understand as every time he spoke back to Terry he just said ‘give me passport, give me passport’. In the end I buckled and gave him our passports as all the foreigners had handed them over with no arguments. So yes we were conned for an extra $5 which I am sure goes straight into his and the drivers pocket. The journey took around 6 hrs including the border crossing. Guess it makes the process more seamless but could not see this myself.



We were dropped off near to the central area of town in Phnom Penh and began our search for a budget guest house. There were a few hotels in and around this area and we settled with a nice clean guest house called ‘Smiley’ that also had a balcony for $10/night. We did not really see any particular backpacker’s district. There is meant to be another budget area down near the waterfront but rooms were of similar prices to ours but nowhere near as nice.



Terry found recommendations for a restaurant on the internet so we walked to where he ‘thought’ it was, needless to say it wasn’t there and our short walk to dinner turned into a half marathon around Phnom Phen. To be fair we got our bearings that night, and as it always ends up, we found quite a nice restaurant around the corner from our hotel. I had a simple meat and veg fried rice with an egg cracked over the top and Terry had an awesome Chicken Satay dish...gutted...normally mine is always better than his!



The next day we went to the S21 prison museum also known as Tuol Sleng. In 1975 Pol Potts leader of the communist party turned this once school into security prison S21. It was the largest centre of detention and torture centre in the country. Almost everyone that was held here was later executed at the Choeung Ek (Killing fields). At the beginning of this horrible 4 year reign of Poll Potts party an average of 100 people died here a day during torture and were buried in mass graves on site. You can take a look around the cells where people were held and tortured most containing an old rusty bed and some instrument of torture such as steel pole. You can even see the traces of blood that have permanently stained the floors and walls in some places. There are rows and rows of pictures of the victims hanging in some of the rooms, old and young. Even now 30 years on relatives make the journey here to see whether they can find any news on what happened to their family.



We watched a short video that told a story about a mother whose son was meant to marry his cousin, they were only in their early 20’s, but were taken away to work in the countryside. They wrote numerous letters to each other which the mother still had and were read out. It was heart breaking to hear their suffering and especially at the end where the mother was crying saying how they were both killed within months of each other at the S21 prison.



When Poll Potts and his Khmer Rouge party came into power in 1975 he implemented one of the bloodiest revolutions the world has ever seen. It was ‘Year Zero’, money was abolished, cities abandoned and Cambodia turned into a Maoist, peasant dominated, agrarian cooperative. During the 4 years that followed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians including the vast majority of the country’s educated people, were relocated to the countryside to work on the fields or tortured / executed to death. The Khmer Rouge paranoia of ‘intelligent people’ meant that thousands of people that spoke foreign languages, or were teachers, lecturers managers or people who even wore glasses were branded as ‘parasites’ and killed. Around 3 million people died during his 4 year reign.



If that was not depressing enough the next day we decided to go visit the Killing Fields of Choueng Ek where approximately 17,000 men, women and children were executed here by the Khmer Rouge.

The soldiers at the S21 prison interrogated their captives, paranoid they were in league with the US or other foreign allies plotting to overthrow their regime; however the majority of the prisoners had no idea about any espionage and were just normal working people. They tortured people until they signed false confessions and some were tortured so badly and for so long that they would even named loved ones and friends in their confessions for the torturing to stop. Once confessions were signed these people, and nearly always their whole families, so to avoid any acts of revenge, were taken a few miles down the road to the Killings fields.



It cost $5 to enter which included an audio tour plus we chartered a tuk tuk there and back plus waiting time for $8. There were many mass graves here and even now during flooding, bits of bones and teeth still rise to the surface, this was evident in one of the graves. Every few months the maintenance staff collects the bones and puts them in the white Stupa (religious monument) that serves as a memorial for everyone that died here. You can go inside the Stupa where there are hundreds of skulls found during the excavations in 1980. You can even see the skulls damaged as people were often bludgeoned to death to save wasting bullets. Think the hardest thing to see was a tree where guards would kill little children by swinging them by their legs so their head would crack against the tree, often in front of parents, before being chucked into the mass grave opposite. So disgusting to hear and see, we felt sick.



We never visited the Royal Palace as in our opinion it seemed a bit too expensive and some people had mentioned it was good but probably not worth it for the cost. I mean we are travelling and seeing many beautiful places but if you visited every tourist must see we would be running out of money much sooner than we would like.



Next stop is north to Siem Reap and the famous Temples of Angkor.



21^st Jan 2012

Siem Reap

We booked our $5 bus tickets to Siem Reap from the hotel opposite as it was the cheapest price we were quoted and included pickup from the hotel. Our hotel had tried to add a few dollars on to the bus ticket price stating that it was nearly the Chinese New Year which meant the buses were hiking up the prices...hmmm they told us small fibs as the hotel opposite never mentioned this or charged us more.



We arrived a few hours later in Siem Reap’s bus station which is a couple miles out of town which meant many tuk tuk drivers waiting to take us into town. One young tuk tuk driver said he would take us for $1 (the going rate), introduced himself as Roy and did appear to speak good English. Half way there he stopped at the petrol station and began his spiel of how he would have to charge us $2 if we do not use him the next day as a guide for visiting the Angkor Watts. I said we do not know what we want to do yet, and was getting a bit annoyed with him as he was saying how much I earn a month and how much he earns etc etc and we must charter him so he can live, but all I could think of was he would be the worse driver to have tomorrow, I just wanted to get into town. Unfortunately I never heard him say it would cost an extra dollar if we never used him so grudgingly gave it to him so he would leave us alone once at our guest house. Cannot believe I let my guard down especially after being in India where everyone wants to take you for a ride... I won’t let this happen again, well not knowingly!!



We stayed at Smiley hotel again which is the sister hotel of the one we stayed in at Phnom Penh. Was cheap at only $6 but much more basic than its sister hotel.



We only wanted to spend one day visiting the temples of Angkor and there is a recommended loop you can drive or cycle around which in total is 32KM but you do take in the most popular temples. We were planning on cycling around them but the sun was so hot and these temples are pretty big to walk around so probably would be grateful of the speed and shade of a tuk tuk between the temples so we decided to charter one for the day. We found a non hassling English speaking Tuk Tuk driver that evening in town and liked him instantly as he had a nice smiley face ( I know such a girl thing to say!). He agreed to take us for the whole day for $15. We agreed and arranged for him to pick us up the next morning at 9am.



The first temple is around 8km from town and was packed full of tourists. This temple was the Angkor Watt. Took us 2 hours to walk around and what a place. Most of the temples were built in the 13^th centuries and had trees, vegetation growing in between them and through them. Walking around the tunnels, walkways and rooms it felt like we were in some kind of Indiana Jones movie. The entrance fee for the day was very steep at $20 but totally worth it in the end as we had such a great day looking around them all. We spent nearly 9 hours in total there so got our days worth out the Tuk Tuk driver too and even tipped him at the end which he really appreciated. Petrol in Cambodia is the most expensive we have seen on our travels!



We both really enjoyed Cambodia and would love to return to really travel around one day. We were going to head to the beaches here but read that Thailand beaches are a lot nicer and as we are spending a few weeks island hopping, we decided to give this is a miss. The Cambodian people are probably the happiest and friendliest people we have met so far and it was a real pity we could not stay any longer then the week we were here.



We booked a coach for $10 to leave the next day, 23^rd, to Bangkok.

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Photos

Phnom Penh
Snails for sale

Fish for sale
On one of the river crossings enoute to Phnom Penh, people selling to the waiting cars.

Traffic in Phnom Penh
The roads are congested so they take to the pavement, after this photo was taken even more mopeds race towards us even though we are on the pavements!!

in the Stupa
Hundreds of victims skulls

Phnom Penh
Another smaller cell

Killing fields
Stupa

Killing fields
Victims clothing