Bamboo Trains, Horrible History and Dehydration...

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Greetings one and all!

Well once again I have been lazy on the blogging front and literally a few people have been crying out for another blog entry so I better give the minority what they want!

I have a lot to write about and I am feeling a bit jittery as I just got an electric shock from the USB port of the computer i'm on but I will try my hardest.

Following on from Siem Riep I decided to head to the Town of Battambang on the other side of Tonle Sap lake from Siem Riep to ride the infamous Bamboo Train. I decided in typical manner to rent a bicycle (surprise surprise!) and ride to into the middle of the countryside to attempt to find the 'station'. I had been given a rather dodgy looking map by the tourist office and told to head out along the main road toward the capital Pnomh Penh until I found a 'road' on the left after a few km's. As you can tell by my use of apostrophe's to emphasise the word road in my last sentence the road was little more than a dirt track, that was hard to find and at least 3 times the distance the tourist office bloke let on. But I am British after all and persistancy and a stiff upper lip is what we are supposed to be best at. Off I trogged then through endless Cambodian countryside passing through small villages on a dirt track surrounded by rice paddies. I had to ask directions a few times using signs as a means of communication but eventually I came across the railway line. I was greeted with the offer of $10 for the train ride which by Cambodian standards is an extortion; luckily my time spent in India had finely tuned my haggling skills and I eventually got him down to $3. The train was brilliant; all it literally was was a bamboo fence panel, two axles and a motor. The track was extremely narrow and about as warped as the millennium falcon's speed setting itself (it felt like we were going that fast too!). There is a video of the train escapade on my facebook if you fancy a gander!

Onward we go and my next stop was to be the capitol city of Phnomh Penh. The most striking thing on arrival in the city was that it actually looked like a big city; much unlike the over sized towns of Siem Riep and Battambang. One of the reasons to get to the city was to obtain my Lao visa but the two times I went to the Embassy it was shut and I still haven't got it to this day!

The actually main point of my visit to the capitol was to learn about and see the remnants of some of the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime. The places to see are the S-21 genocide museum in the city itself and the killing fields on the outskirts of town. I had been warned previously that doing both on the same day can lead to enormous amounts of depression so I decided to split them both over two days. first up was the S-21 museum where Pol Pot turned a primary school in one of the quiet suburbs of the city into a prison/torture facility to interrogate his political prisoners. The place has been left exactly as it was found by the Vietnamese invading forces and it really is a sobering place. All of the prisons some still with the clamps and restraints in place were left in tact and one of the rooms I went into even had two bloody hand prints on the... truly an eyeopening thing to see. In a Holocaust-esque style all of the people that passed through the prison were photographed and said photographs are all on display in the museum; some of them post torture. I actually spent 2 hours in the place just wandering around lost in my own thoughts at how terrible we can really be to one another... and I still had the killing fields to go.

Set up in the countryside outside the killing fields are where 8000+ bodies were exhumed from mass graves. The bodies were those of the people held in the S-21 museum. Truck loads of people were brought from the museum; many of them beaten to death with clubs to save ammunition. Upon arrival at the site you see a large pagoda containing the skulls of all the victims each one tell the story of their death with bullet holes, cracked skulls etc. The mass graves litter the sight in the form of huge depressions in the ground, which I am told, when it rains, bones are often seem floating to the surface of. The thing that really brought it home to me was the killing tree in which babies were beaten against to be executed... once again how can I was thinking 'how can we do this to one another?'.

In a slightly somber mood I left the capital and heading the coastal town of Sihanoukville. Immediately on arrival I disliked the place; it was far to toursity, far to dirty and the beach wasn't anything to shout about so therefore I wont bother writing about it. But i stayed a total of two nights there before moving on.

After the disappointment of Sihanoukville I decided I wanted to head into the jungle and away from the crowds. I had read about a community based eco-tourism project in a village called Chi Pat that offered limited electricity, staying with local families and a whole host of adventure activities... just my cup of tea. In a heart of darkness/apocalypse now style way I had to get on a boat and venture two hours up the river to reach Chi Pat where was greeted by a charming little village of wood houses and smiling faces. I was checked into the NGO (Wildlife Alliance) headquarters and shown to my homestay. Luckily my homestay was close by but an unfortunate Aussie I met had to trek 2 km to his. The accomodation was very basic but the fact I was staying on basically a small holding with chickens, cows, ducks and dogs roaming about delighted me. On the first day I just decided to check out the village and swim on some of the waterfalls close by. If there is one thing I can tell you it's that the humidity in the jungle and the colling effects of my body don't mix; in the nicest way possible I sweated... a lot and the following day i payed the price for this. The place offered guided mountain bike trips into the jungle to various sites and I wanted to do a 40km round trip to a burial site that took in some waterfalls on they way. The first 15km or so were great it was tough going but I was coping it wasn't until the jungle got thicker and the hills steeper that my pores opened up that I started to resemble someone who has just gone for a swim. Things got from bad to worse as I started to run out of water. We reached the burial site which was fairly impressive a load of 600 year old coffins on a ledge in the middle of the jungle but I was exhausted. The ride back was excruciating and I had to stop regularly to rest with pretty bad bouts of dizzyness. I must admit I wasn't feeling to good and by the time we got to the swimming place about 2km from the village I was about ready to keel over; I sat motionless in the water for an hour try to regain some energy and a level of consciousness. When we eventually got back to the village I drank every bottle of water I could get my hands on... I AM NEVER UNDER APPRECIATING WATER EVER AGAIN!

Anyway so there we are i'm in the sleepy riverside town of Kampot at the moment recharging my batteries.

I will try and stay on top of the blogs...

As of tomorrow I have been away for half a year! I honestly can't believe it's been that long!

Hope you are all well,

Stay classy UK,

Jack xx

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Photos

The Prison Cells of the S-21 Genocide Museum...
Bed, shackles and blood stains included.

The Killing Tree...
The tree used to execute children.