Holiday in Cambodia!

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oh billy.
i love Cambodia.
this place is the best, like a huge adventure playground but better.way better.
the people are super cool and friendly and the food is wicked and its pretty cheap to live and you can do everything and anything here.this has many negative ramifications but for coolkids like me its just fun. we were expecting it to be all super poor and crap and dirty and dangerous and bad foody.
how wrong we were, its basically paradise, like Laos but less western and more awesome.i could quite happily raise some capital and start a biznaz here, its pretty easy, build something simple (by the water preferably), a shack with straw roofing or whatever, walls arent nreally neccessary, put some fairy lights around it, stock things people like.BOOM!happy living. you dont ever make a serious profit, if any, but you get by happily and rock out every day doing as you please, as long as you dont hurt or annoy anyone.

down to details.

we rocked up to the capitol, Phnom Pehn from Saigon, it was super far and the border was awesome, on the way there we saw very little, eater cambodia is kinda empty.empty fields forever, mountains,a wood hut on stilts then half an hour more until the next one. some places were pretty intense though, tiny corrugated iron shacks packed together as tight as possible as far as the eye can see.no roads or such sillyness and i doubt any sewers or anything.just corrugated iron.privacy was an alien concept.
so.
Phnom Pehn. it pretty big, a proper city.nice really.we stayed the lake in the middle and our guesthouse over looked a field of lilypads and other weird waterplants, it was cool. hired motojobbybikes and rode round the city for a couple days.its much easier driving than in vietnam, no laws still but some space and order and less fun.
cambodia, for those who might not know, has had a bit of a rubbish time recently.the past 30-40 years have been kinda ass. the khmer rouge (KR), it turns out, were not very cool at all and completely ruined the country, killing 1.7 million cambodians in the process.didnt help that vietnam and thailand were baying at the gates for a chance to rush in and grab as much land as possible.in fact thailand occupied parts of cambodia a few years ago.lamers.
no borders no nations no problem.
ill spare a lengthy history rant but the cambodian genocide radically altered the entire makeup and course of cambodia, pol pot wanted to get rid of any and all influence of western civilisation and all previous civilisations that have resided in the area,start again by destroying history.all city dwellers and educated people were either killed or sent to 're-education camps', which were probably a right giggle.peasants only.cambodia is only like 40 years old as a nation-state, made by the french like most other nations but the ancient angkor civilisation was a target too.of course, like most other dictators and murdering bastards,especially those who romanticise the 'peasantry' and the 'working class', pol pot was educated in a rich,white first world country,namely France.
you cant come to cambodia and not witness this aspect of its history, its almost impossible and frankly rude.we visited (one of the dozens if not hundreds of) killing fields, this one just outside of phnom pehn and massive.huge mass graves everywhere.really grim. there was a cool white, somber looking tower, really tall.we looked inside. it was full, from the bottom up, 15 floors at least, of human skulls.
thats alot of skulls.
categorised in gender and age,it was seriously dark looking at many many dozens of 0-15 year old girls skulls, then 15-25 etc.
this was just one of the official killing fields, there are an untold amount, hidden around cambodia, secret underground death, much like the unknown number of landmines left lying around cambodia after the war(s). its best not to dig holes in cambodia, the roots of the flowers clasp high explosives and the grass is still faithfull to the old KR regime in hiding the evidence of pol pots malevolence.

in order to fully grasp the true goings on in the killing fields we took a trip to s-21, a school turned prison where various dissidents, intelectuals and other such scum were kept, tortured and brainwashed (then tortured some more) before being sent to the killing fields. i dont feel like describing what i thought of it, you can take a rough guess but rest assured,it sucked.

phnom pehn was alot of fun and we got up to all sort of mischief which would take ages to describe and was probably not super interesting, i recomend it for its general funness.
one thing to be said about it, the ease and cheapness with which you can buy serious, hard drugs and seriously young girls is a bit really bad.guns too if you want em.if you are already an asshole, stay away from phnom pehn because theres no turning back from the evil you're likely to commit here. all the things people hear about bangkok are doubly true of phnom pehn, if thats what youre looking for. i still cant get used to seeing these people regularly, shameless, smug, disgusting and rich. america, australia, england and germany. these countries have sent many very,very poor ambassadors to south east asia, sort it out.


aanyway, im pumped on cambodia so less dwelling on the foreign filth, its not relevant now.

so after rockin out there for some whiles we decided to move on, when we headed for cambo we just thought itd be phnom pehn, angkor wat then out. silly us. we met some cool people who recomended some more places to hang. down south to a place called Kampot.

oh how i loved Kampot.tiny little town on a river near the sea. the river is tidal so it flows both ways, which is pretty cool. stayed in this awesome guest house called bohdi villa. it had everything and every toy. the dude who owns it has basically set up paradise for himself and his customers, who tend to be cool. there was a speed boat, tubes n skis n other water sports toys, a recording studio with all the instruments, pool, darts, dvd room, bar, good food, great views, floating bungalows with no wall on the side facing the river and huts in the trees for 50 cents a night. it was super fun. we hung there for a day then decided to take a trip up the mountain to this abandoned village area on the top, all in a natuonal park of OUTSTANDING BEAUTY.didnt feel like hiring a tour, its boring so we decided on hiring bikes to ride up.
a word on the mountain 'road', there is none. its a mountain. no road, and a path which is just areas with no trees.instead there was mud, sand, many many large sharp rocks and huge holes. 40 km to the top.just under 2 hour ride.no road. everyone we spoke to said it was hard, dangerous and you need a dirtbike.
so we hired mopeds and did it.
so funny.
so.
fun.
i cant adequately describe how bad the path was, but it doesnt matter, i know. it was steep and raining which also helped.the ride up was pretty scary and required more than all my total concentration.mopeds can do anything, they are seriously tough and versatile machines but this was pushing it.much bouncing around off huge rocks and into massive pools of water and craters and sliding around on mud and sand which is the worst.made it in one piece. at the top we wandered around some abandoned buildings, left alone for 30 years, derelict and spooky. the coolest ones were the church at the summit and the casino on the cliff.massive casino.on a cliff.abandoned.super super misty. ghost town?yeah why not.the view was immense, too good for photography, you could see all the little coastal towns and as the sun set the deltas seemed to pump pure 24 karat liquid gold into the gulf of thailand.nice. stayed in the rangers villa which was funny.soooo misty in the morning and it rained all night and morning. time to ride down.
it was the most mental thing ive ever done and im proud. i survived it fully intact (only a couple very minor scratches). the best tactic is funnily enough just to go really fast all the time, as you grip rocks n mud better when youve got plenty of power, coasting down at a similar speed or driving slow makes you slip and slide and fall off.you need speed to ride/bounce over big rocks and down drops and through pools of water.
i have a serious respect for scooters now, i barely even broke mine when it should have blown up.
after we got back and ran about all stoked and full of vim we decided on riding some more so we rode to another big hill/mountain thing and climbed to the top, which was a mission again, jagged rocks and weird millipede things that rip your skin off apparently.
at the top of the hill/mountain thing was the white witch and her 3 male sex slaves. she was funny.she brought us tea and showed us her home although she spoke no english at all. lived in a cave full of insane buddhas and insence and so on, really trippy. local folklore has it that shes a crazy witch and casts spells on young men which make them stay forever and be her slaves, i was personally warned to watch out for her her insidious ways.she was like 90 or something though and had a stupid little angry white dog thing which i clearly didnt like.both hovered around me for a bit before she wiped a mysterious white balm on a cut on my elbow. thinging this was a potion or poison or something i drew my sword and slew the wicked beast, shouting "return from whence you came, whitey" in a strange foreign tongue which i didnt know i knew.
strange days in cambodia.

after some more mischief we headed for sihanoukville, on the south western coast, its fairly quiet but has the most picturesque beaches and coastline, i could stay here happily, if not for too long. went to the most insane restaurant ever here, just out of town called the Snake House.it was full of snakes.everywhere, all types and sizes and shapes and colours and dangerousness.class cages all round the tables, which were themselves glass tanks set in wood and full of pythons n stuff.big snakes.half the menu was in russian and there were like 4 really spendy cars in the drive, like hummers and stuff.russian mafia?id like to think so. there was a small pond thing in the restaurant which has a livid crocodile chained up in it, a few feet from the tables. there was an aviary full of the most beautiful birds of paridise. amazing and huge and bright. there was this black one with a red bib which looked like an alien.its top beak was inches away from it bottom one all the time, its mouth didnt seem to be able to shut.weird lookin.there were turtles and big mental fish everywhere. all surrounded by palm trees and fairy lights and food.all alone in one 6 foot high cage were the tinniest, cutest saddest looking mammal lemur monkey kinda things.it was dark and raining and they were caged up, the 2, all alone.bigest saddest eyes ive ever seen.really pathetic and cute.dunno what they were but apparently theyre like the smallest monkey in the world or something.

off to siem reap and agkor wat,angkor thom really soon. ill do a separate blog for it, itl take at least 2 days to see it all apparently. its been raining loads, which was nice, its hot again.huff.im sure ive forgotten/left out loads, been super busy in cambodia, its the best.
rock out.

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Comments

[aneika]

woooooo mama
far out, you have seen some seriously freaky stuff, nice one mate... Ive seen a korean horror film with that casino in it a bit bloody scary.. Well looks like you are having a ball thats rad.. hope to see you at some stage, keep living it up..xxxxoooo chao

[Rachel]

oioi! sounds like you're having a blast. im in scotland at the moment, in a magnificent country house next to rivers and mountains, not quite thailand but its beautiful. jon recommends going to the north-east of the country if you have time. a place called ban lung accessible from stung treng ("beautiful crater lake, crystal clear waters, town folk a bit fucked up") ages from where u are, but if you're going to the south of laos, specifically 4000 islands its worth it. stay safe xx

[bro]

dude
even betterblog than the last, was lke, wtf. btw call home cus DAD IS HERE if you wanna say hi :) totally stoked for you, stay safe, and keep us updated. love.