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Published: October 2nd 2006
My favorite photo
This was heading to the gate of Angkor Thom. The bridge is lined with the giant statues and they just make for great pics.I'm writing this blog sitting on the bus from Guangzhou, China to Hong Kong. Been in transit for over 24 hours since leaving Hanoi, Vietnam yesterday. Today is also our 10 month anniversary of leaving New York City. Pretty crazy where life has taken me over the past 10 months. But this installment of the blog will be about Cambodia.
Left Cambodia over three weeks ago, enjoyed my time there, would go back one day, just not tomorrow. The country had a very sad, depressing feel to it, which is expected considering the things the country has gone through during the last twenty or so years. I really had a hard time smiling while being faced with hungry children standing behind our table during meals. They begged for food and would eat anything you passed there way, which as it turned out was every last scrap of food we had left on the table after our meals. Even had to buy some bread for a little girl because we ran out of left overs and she was standing there hungry. I was also overwhelmed by the amount of people missing limbs, I heard one out five people in Cambodia is
Just very cool!
These statues date back from around 1218. Pretty crazy! an amputee, that stat just blew me away. As for our route through Cambodia it went like this...
Laos...Kampong Cham...Siem Reap...Phnom Penh... With Cambodian visa's in hand we woke up in Laos one day and made the decision to head to Cambodia. So the three of us, that's right our favorite English girl Kate was still bouncing around SE Asia with us, lucky for us because she is awesome! A small side note, a special thanks goes out to Kate for some of the pictures contained in this blog...Thanks Kate! Catching a boat to Don Det from Muang Khong and then hopping in a mini van for the short ride to the border. This was the least developed border crossing we've encountered, basically two huts and a gate across a road. Once on the Cambodian side we jumped in a Camry, or should I say squeezed because five of us plus a driver fit into the car for the two hour drive on what amounted to a dirt path. Well paved roads are almost non-existent in Cambodia and so are rules of the road. Driving here means every man for himself, while keeping your hand on the horn
Memorial at the Killing Fields
This image sums it all up...How people could do this to one another is unbeleivable, yet it happens everyday. our guide informed us that everyone was killed by blunt force trauma, the Khmer Rouge didn't want to waste the bullets...FUCKING CRAZY!!! to avoid hitting Cows, Water Buffalo, moto bikes, bicycles and pedestrians. After the car it was onto a boat to cross a river then another six or so hours in a mini bus before we got to Kampong Cham. Took another fiver hour bus ride the following day before reaching our intended destination, Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat. For those of you who don't know Angkor Wat is the Cambodian equivalent of the Pyramids. Stepping off the bus into a sea of Tuk-Tuk madness, we were attacked on all sides by Tuk-Tuk drivers. Luckily we had arranged for a guest house already, so we got the rock star welcome, people waiting for us, a sign with all three of our names printed on it beckoning us. Spent the rest of the day drinking coffee, beers, doing Internet and just chatting with two English guys, Silas and Matt, we met the day before during the mini bus ride.
That's when I met Sarat, one of the nicest people I've met on the road so far. He drives a Tuk-Tuk and we just chatted so he could practice his English. After a great conversation and me listening to the soft
Speechless
This is probably the most powerfull picture I've ever taken. you can't begin to understand how blown away i was during my visit to this place...everyone on the planet needs to visit places like this, then maybe, just maybe the world will begin to change... sell about his taxi services, I decided we should hire him to drive us around Angkor Wat the next day. This decision led to us being given a glimpse of just how cheap life really is in Cambodia. Sarat drove us back to our guesthouse and we arranged for him to pick us up at 1pm the following day, now I need to preface this by saying Sarat was a happy, smiling, good guy. He takes us back to our guesthouse, at which point we are met outside by one of the guesthouses' own Tuk-Tuk drivers, they have a pretty one-sided conversation in Cambodian and suddenly Sarat's facial expression instantly changes from happy go lucky to scared shitless. I was a bit confused, but being from a big city, and seeing the change in facial expression I could tell something was wrong. The following morning while eating breakfast at the guesthouse, the guesthouses' Tuk-Tuk driver bombards us with questions about what are plans for the day are. Why are we not going with him? How dangerous it is to go with random Tuk-Tuk drivers. Just the basic nonsense that you get used to during travel. But when Sarat hasn't shown
Sunrise over Angkor Wat
got up at 4:30 to make sure we got there before the sun rose and as you can see it was well worth it! up by 1:30 I already know that something in the previous nights exchange had scared the crap out of him. At this point I was getting angry, I don't like other people getting involved in my business, let alone making decisions for me. Luckily Sarat hadn't been completely scared off and he was waiting 100 meters down the street. Basically what scared him the night before was the insinuation by our guesthouses' Tuk-Tuk driver that if Sarat came back for us, there were five guys ready to beat him senseless with sticks. I just couldn't believe it. The shocking thing was he didn't seem at all surprised by this. He said he wasn't thinking when he dropped us off in front of the guesthouse the night before, he forgot how dangerous for him that was. We ended up hiring Sarat for the following three days, he took us to both sunset and sunrise at Angkor, he showed us the locals favorite spot for dinner, he helped us buy bus tickets. It was like having our own personal chauffeur. Hiring him was the best move we could have made, he spoke English well, had been studying the history of Angkor Wat,
Welcome...
"Dr Galakawitz, Is there a Dr. Galakawitz here?" so he explained many things to us. The touts at Angkor inflate prices of water, food, beer and everything else for sale around the temples. So we would just give Sarat money and he would go buy anything we wanted and get the locals price. Even when he bought us beer for sunset he got a large block of ice to keep them cold, what a guy!
During our sunset discussion with him we found out just how hard his life is. We were his first customers in over 3 weeks. He gets up everyday at 4am and heads to the bus station trying to find customers off the overnight buses that arrive early in the morning. We ended up helping him make a sign in English that he could hold up when tourist get off the bus. I've met many people on the trip that blow me away, but something about Sarat just put a smile on my face. By the way, here are his contact details if you're ever in Siem Reap and need a Tuk-Tuk driver call Sarat, he'll treat you well and I guarantee you won't be disappointed...
Sarat Kim (855) 012 77 84 How Flat is Cambodia...
Take a look at the scenery on the way to Siem Reap. 53
email: saratkimmoto@yahoo.com So this blog is turning out to be a lot longer than I intended, so i will try and wrap it up. Visiting Angkor Wat and the entire rest of the Angkor complex was amazing. To think that all of the buildings were built over 700 years ago is just mind blowing. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking and since I'm no expert I'll let anyone that wants more info on Angkor to just look on Google.
We left Siem Reap and headed to Phnom Phen the capital of Cambodia. It is a vibrant city, with a lot of French influence, wide boulevards, classic French Architecture, great baguettes all mixed in with Khmer culture, impressive Wats, it even has a small Arch de Triumph. The food in town was amazing, the nightlife was good as well. We have visited enough Wats so our main tourist activities in Phnom Phen where visiting Killing Fields and going to fire guns.
So our first stop was firing guns, ended up firing an AK47, M16, Colt 45 and a Tommy Gun (that's right "Say hello to my little friend"). None of us had ever
Hey Kate can I borrow a few bucks?
This is the most US currency our favorite English girl has ever held. shot a gun, it was an enlightening experience. It was amazing how loud and scary it was. Hopefully it will be my first and last time firing a gun, I did hit the target more often than not though and I was a pretty good shot. But the whole experience just reinforced what I always suspected...I'm a lover not a fighter, I would be just terrible in the army! I can't say I didn't enjoy the whole thing and I wouldn't change a thing, but I don't plan on joining a shooting club.
From there we headed to the Killing Fields. A little background for you, in the 1970's after the Vietnam War the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia, they marched into Phnom Phen to the cheers of the people, those cheers quickly ended. The Khmer Rouge proceeded to try and create a perfect agrarian society, the plan was that no one should do anything else but farm rice and live off the land. They took Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers, people who wore glasses and anyone else considered an intellectual and killed them and sometimes their entire families. Then took all the people that lived in the city and
Lao - Cambodia Border
The Border was a really sleepy spot, very quiet basically just the people from our mini-bus. sent them to work as farmers. In the end between 1 million and 3 million people where murdered in one of the worst examples of ethnic cleansing the world has ever seen. The people where taken to killing fields all over the countryside and killed hundreds a night by any means necessary, stick to the head, farm tool to the skull, children where held by their feet and swung head first into trees. One of the most sickening things I've ever come face to face with. Over 27,000 people where believed to have been killed at the killing field we visited. I walked away almost speechless, even now sitting here in front of a computer I can feel the tears welling up just writing about it. Not sure an author could imagine something so sick and this actually happened. And this wasn't hundred of years ago, it was just over 20 years ago. More people need to read about these events, that's the only hope we have that it will never happen again. I suggest that anyone who has a chance to visit a sight similar to this one jump at the opportunity, it won't be a fun filled day
Lao Border Town
This is just what I expect from a border, it is within 20km of the Cambodian border. but I guarantee you will be blown away and maybe, just maybe we can all prevent something like that from ever happening again.
Sarat picked us up and drove us to the bus station, we saw the finished sign we helped him make, shook hands and we boarded our bus...destination, Ho Chi Mihn City, Vietnam, I'll pick that up in the next blog.
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Kate
non-member comment
Missing you already!
Thanks for my awesome shout out Alan! The use of some of my pics show my great photography skills- with your helpful hints of course. Oh and the hairdressing skills too...maybe i'll consider it my new career...it'll take me round the world too, won't it?! Enjoy China.xx