Blogs from Phnom Penh, South, Cambodia, Asia - page 209

25 August, Friday... I counted up and realised this is day 45. That's about as far as my diary entry went anyway so let's see how much I can remember. We decided to only spend one day here and leave tomorrow morning so the best way to get around the main sites of interest was by tuk-tuk (actually it was by motorbike but we didn't realise that until too late). Up first, the shooting range. Probably not the best place to try firing a gun but seems to be one of the standard tourist offerings. Fired off 15 rounds on an AK-47 which was extremely loud and 5 shots on a handgun. Was left feeling mighty dissapointed and ripped off after that, I don't think I'll be going to the shooting range again. Second, the Killing ... read more

I'm in Cambodia and I like it! It's a pretty cool and interesting place. Looking back though, Savannakhet in Laos turned out to be a nice, non-touristy place to spend a day and included a good, though incredibly small dinosaur museum with an enthusiastic curator which brought me right back to my childhood fascination with these bones that people dig out of the ground. It included a portion of the skeleton of a dinosaur species only so far found in Laos arranged into a life sized model. Otherwise I just strolled around sampling the Laoness/Frenchness of it all. After that I stopped at the rather dull Pakse overnight and then went to Si Phan Don (literally Four Thousand Islands since this is where the Mekong River fans out into lots of small rivers and islands), or ... read more

There are no words. We're a few days late in publishing this blog entry because, frankly, we didn't know what to write. Before I get into it, I'll just warn any readers about the rather disturbing pictures you're about to see and horrifying things you're about to read. If you're not ready for it, don't read any further. From 1975-1975, the Khmer Rouge regime, led by dictator extraordinaire Pol Pot, undertook one of the world's worst mass genocides. It's estimated that 2-3 million people (nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population) were exterminated for reasons that are beyond our comprehension. In a nutshell, all educated and intellectuals (doctors, lawyers, teachers, business people, etc) and their families, including babies, as well as dissidents and anyone else the Khmer Rouge felt like killing were rounded up and systematically murdered ... read more

Ok ok so we all know plans never work out in S.E. Asia. I must have been stupid for thinking I could plan anything a day or two in advance. I really should have known better. Oh well, another lesson learned. So a few days ago I leave Sihanoukville, Warner decides to stay down there for another day when I leave. He mentions that he is just going to follow some other friends that we met, and leave the next day on a bus to Siam Reap. Then I believe he was supposed to continue to Bangkok a day or two later. I went to Phnom Penh as planned and stayed overnight. I was still a bit undecisive about where I was going to go once I flew to Kuala Lumpur. I had been thinking that ... read more

Dawn broke over the Mekong on our final day in Vietnam and our first in Cambodia. We left the comfort of the Victoria Hotel and boarded our own little powerboat for the journey upstream and into Cambodia. The passport office on the shore of the giant brown river was very funny and it felt like we were going to be interrogated, but instead were set upon by a bunch of cheeky local kids who gave us back massages for a dollar a piece. The scenery was excellent but quite foreboding seeing the poor people on the river looking at our nice little boat as it sped past. Anyway, bye bye Vietnam, its been superb. Phnom Penh is a strange town. It has hanging over it the cloud of knowledge that everyone has when they go there ... read more