Blogs from South, Cambodia, Asia - page 339

So, almost two months in Cambodia so far. The 14th to the 17th of April Khmer New Year was celebrated throughout the country. And the Khmer know how to celebrate. On the last two days a water-fight broke lose. Everyone against everyone else. The road would be lined with, in the beginning, kids, and then as the war carried on, everyone else as well, throwing water-balloons on passers-by. Not much time went by before big buckets of water came out, as well as water-hoses. Not a soul was dry. Young boys and girls would load up on water-balloons, and then get on a motorbike, and drive around throwing water on everyone else. Even trucks were loaded up with screaming youths and water buckets. It was highly entertaining, although not so safe. The reports were that all ... read more

It’s been some busy days here after I arrived. Today I have the day off, and I have spent the most of the day catching up on my sleep - which has been brilliant. Went to the market today in order to buy shoes and some clothes, but the shoes were not so good, and apparently I am too big to buy clothes here. It can really do harm to one’s self-image to try to buy clothes in a country where everyone is the size of a ten year old back home. I have been invited to a wedding in a couple of days, which have caused me a bit of a headache. I didn’t bring any nice clothes with me, or at least not in the “attending-a-wedding-party” category, and since I am too big to ... read more

The Killing Fields Disturbing images seen Really makes you think. Pretty heavy and full on morning today. We went to Toul Sleng Genocide Museum (formerly a school that served as the Khmer Rouge torture centre). This is where many were tortured and killed by Pol Pot's army (who btw many of whom were as young as 10 to 12 years old!) because they were suspected of being against Angkor. We walked through some of the interrogation rooms where some of the torture devices and very graphic pictures were on display. We also saw some of the individual isolation cells that were really small...can't remember the dimensions but would guess about 3 feet by 6 feet?? Then to top it off, they were chained at the feet to this little cell and would have to ask for ... read more

SO, finally in Cambodia, Sihanoukville. After a rather bothersome trip from Australia I am finally here. First I managed to be refused to get on my plane from Cairns to Brisbane. These very cheap airlines are such a pain in the bum. Then, at the international airport in Brisbane I managed to confuse everyone there by claiming that 'yes, I do want to go to Cambodia', and 'no, I do not have a visa yet', and the killer sentence were of course 'no, I do not have a return ticket, or any ticket as such out of the country'. Many phonecalls later, many airport officials later, I finally got them to agree that maybe, but just maybe, there was a slight chance that the Khmer custom would let me in. Pointing out to them that there ... read more

We were off early the next morning to Sihanoukville, the beach town on the coast of Cambodia named after the King. This was a great change of scenery after days of war history. Reading, relaxing, eating seafood and swimming took up most of our time. A highlight was a day trip to a small island a few kilometres off shore. It was a perfect day for more swimming and relaxing and the scenic boat ride out there almost made us forget we were still in a developing country. It didn’t take us long to remember after the propeller fell off on the ride back. Cambodia's coast is beautiful without a doubt but the huge number of overweight, pasty European men turned us of it a little. So we decided to make for the border a little ... read more