Advertisement
Phnom Penh
Wonderful Cambodian buses! Another day, another journey, another crappy Cambodian bus! With broken AC, no open windows and of course another breakdown. The bus was so hot and stifling that it was a relief to step off it into the midday heat to wait for it to be fixed.
We spent our first day in Cambodia's capital, wandering round the streets and visiting the National museum and Royal Palace and were relieved to find that it was a couple of degrees cooler here i.e. in the mid 30s rather than nearly 40C. The second day we drove out to the outskirts of the city to visit the Killing Fields, the site of 129 mass graves of over 9000 victims of the Khmer Rouge. This is just one of many similar sites spread throughout Cambodia. The site gave a very frank and vivid description of the harrowing events that took place here, parts of which were extremely difficult to read and brought tears to our eyes, especially as they described the brutal murders of children and babies. As upsetting were the piles of clothes, bones and skulls that have been put on display as a memorial to the victims. The majority of these victims
had been brought here to be killed from S21 a former secondary school which the Khmer Rouge converted into interrogation unit and prison. Between 1975-79 approximately 20,000 people were imprisoned and horrifyingly tortured here. Many of the victims were teachers, government workers, intellectuals, doctors, monks and their entire families, anyone who was felt to be a threat to the regime, including anybody who wore glasses. The prison is now a museum which has been left almost exactly as it was found by the Vietnamese and on seeing the tiny cells, blood stained walls and photographs of how the victims were found, you start to understand just how awful the Regime was and how much the Cambodian people suffered at its hands.
From Pnomh Penh we went to the riverside provincial town of Kampot. Here we explored the market, practised our Khmer to the amusement and delight of the locals, ate in a cafe were we had to sign our order as the staff were deaf and gorged ourselves on BBQ ribs, said to be the best ribs in Cambodia.
Our next stop was Kep famed for its delicious seafood and crab market which serves
Phnom Penh
Monk Watch 1 up extraordinarily tasty crab in fresh green pepper sauce which was definitely worth messing around with all the crab cracking implements for! We wanted to treat ourselves and decided to stay in an Eco Lodge complete with jungle views, a natural pool, table tennis, a wood fired pizza oven and plenty of swaying hammocks. We had expected to be close to nature but were not prepared for the thousands of ants, spiders, frogs and geckos who we would share our room with!
Whilst in Kep we also went on a daytrip to Rabbit Island and visited local pepper plantations and salt fields. On Rabbit Island we thought it would be a good idea to venture away from the main beach and the other tourists in search of a quieter more secluded patch of sand. Unfortunately the next beach we came to and every one after that was strewn with washed up rubbish and the bay taken up with crab pots. We ended up walking around the whole island and returned boiling hot, covered in sweat and desperate for a cooling bathe in the sea. To our dismay the sea water was so warm it felt like stepping into a
Phnom Penh
Outside the National Museum bath and didn't refresh us at all!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.044s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0248s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb