Advertisement
Published: February 27th 2009
Well, as most of you have so helpfully pointed out, it has been "a long time since our last blog post", and we are very sorry for that. It's just so hard to take the time out of our adventure to plunk away on the computer when there is so much going on around us! We won't be able to get you up to date on every last detail of the past few weeks, but here are the highlights...
When we last posted, we were on our way back to Bangkok from Phuket. As we had mentioned, we had hoped to meet up with Cassie (Ty's cousin) again, but unfortunately our paths never crossed because she was on a little weekend vacation of her own! This change of plans landed us on the infamous Khao San Road, the backpacking district of Bangkok. We had missed out on it our first time through, but we definitely got our fill of it this time around! Khao San Road itself is extremely overwhelming - relentless vendors, cheap drinks, and countless backpackers from around the world partying all night long - so we ended up checking into the Rambuttri Village Inn just off of
the main road. This place was great, the highlight being the rooftop pool! We had done most of the tourist-y stuff the first time around so we spent most of our second Bangkok visit poolside. One of our afternoons on the pool deck was spent with Devon, a friend of Tyler's family who we had randomly spotted amongst the throngs of people walking by us as we dined on street vendor-pad thai the night before. Tyler was ecstatic to see a friendly face so far away from home, and yet again we were both blown away at how such random meetings have a way of happening to us.
After a few nights in Bangkok, we hopped on a plane to the next country on our list: Cambodia. After our short flight landed in Phnom Penh, the country's capital, we made our way to what we now look back on as our favourite guesthouse of the trip so far- "Me Mate's Place", a great-value guesthouse run by a Canadian-Aussie couple. The staff was so wonderful, the rooms were lovely, but the best part was definitely the "Canadian Breakfast" - eggs, bacon, toast, hashbrowns, and orange juice...a heavenly taste of home!
"Interrogation" room at Tuol Sleng
Notice the chalkboard still on the wall? Proof that this used to be a highschool. The creepy part is that all schools in Phnom Penh are still built to look just like this one. We soon discovered that most of the tourist attractions could be experienced in a day, so we ended up packing all of the sights we wanted to see into just two days. The first day was spent at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, the Choeng Ek Killing Fields, the Royal Palace, and the National Museum. As for the last two sights, both were pretty average and although beautiful, not necessarily exciting. As for the first the two sights...well, neither of us can really think of how to explain them, except to say that they were equal parts chilling and heart-wrenching. The Tuol Sleng Museum is a high-school-turned-prison/torture centre used by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s and the Choeng Ek Killing Fields is the location outside of town where prisoners of the Khmer Rouge were executed and buried in mass graves. Visiting these two places was an overwhelming experience that left us horrified, furious, sad, shocked, exhausted... You really have to see these places in person to feel the full impact, but we did take some pictures because we felt that these were places that everyone should see.
The next day was a little more light-hearted - we shopped at
the Russian Market in the morning (Mom, I got you something pretty!!) and had drinks lake-side in the afternoon.
The degree of poverty and the number of street children in Cambodia, but Phnom Penh especially, is staggering and definitely had an impact on us. To try and rid ourselves of a few shreds of guilt, Tyler and I made a point of eating supper at "Dining For A Cause"-designated restaurants. These restaurants either donate a considerable portion of their profits to women's and children's charities or actually hire and train street kids for the service industry. It made us feel a little better to help out in that way because we just don't have a US dollar for every little one that crosses our path.
We made the mistake of not making sure that our guesthouse had room for us for all of the three nights that we intended to stay in Phnom Penh and ended up getting booted from our room on the last night! Luckily, we had got on so well with the staff that they offered us the option of sleeping on their lobby couch cushions in a back room of the building for (as Tyler called
Tuol Sleng Courtyard
The white coffins contain the remains of the last fourteen prisoners discovered when Tuol Sleng was finally shut down in the late 1970s. The wooden gallows were once used as exercise equipment for highschool students. it) "free-ninety-nine". It wasn't the best set-up we've had so far, but it definitely wasn't the worst, and we still got Canadian Breakfast the next morning, so all was well on our last night in Phnom Penh!
Our next stop was Siem Reap, a city 6 hours away from Phnom Penh that is best know for Angkor Wat, the largest religious building in the world. And wow, was it ever big! The temple itself took the better half of a very long day to explore, but the surrounding 400 square kilometres also contain dozens and dozens of smaller temples that were definitely worth a look. Our tour of the temple lasted three days and was hosted by our charming tuk-tuk driver, Don. On the first day, he took us to Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Promh, the Terrace of the Elephants, Baphuon, and the Bayon. I won't go into details about each of them, but we do have pictures, and if that's not enough...Google 'em! The first day of our tour also just happened to be Valentine's Day...and what a great day it was! Not only did we spend the day at one of the most beautiful, incredible places
Victims of the Khmer Rouge
The interrogations and executions were surprisingly well-documented. on the planet, but my valentine held my hand all day (without protest!) and took me out for a lovely night on the town, which included a charity cello concert at the children's hospital (yes, I got to hear Bach's Cello Suite 1!) and a very romantic supper at a restaurant called "Dead Fish"...did I mention that our table overlooked a pit of very large crocodiles? Yes, live crocodiles. My romantic valentine...
On our second day with our driver, Donny, we woke up before dawn to see Angkor Wat at sunrise. I must admit that although we had heard that this was a must-see, we were a little disappointed with what we saw - it was really hazy that morning so the sunrise wasn't exceptional. The rest of that day was spent visiting a dozen lesser-known temples whose names we had trouble keeping track of...so we tried to re-name them ourselves. When you see the photos of them, don't expect us to know which is which or what was what - they were all really beautiful and impressive, but they were also very similar-looking. Our last day of temple-touring took us 50+ kilometres out of town to a set of
One of many
These stencils marked the locations where the last prisoners' bodies were found. waterfalls, a carved riverbed, two more temples ("Pretty Moat Temple" and "Pink Flower Temple", just in case you were wondering...), and the Cambodia Landmine Museum, a project funded by Canada and run by a man named Aki Ra, a former child soldier for the Khmer Rouge who has dedicated his life to defusing mines and running a school for landmine amputee children.
The temples are Siem Reap's main attraction, so after our three day tour we made our way back to "Me Mate's Place" in Phnom Penh for one night before heading off to Sihanoukville, a beach town on the south coast of Cambodia. As is usually the case with our time spent in beach towns, the days we spent in Sihanoukville were pretty uneventful...with the exception of the "tour" we took of the Angkor Brewery. Led by our fortysomething-year-old Aussie guesthouse owner, Paul, and his mate, "Whiskers", the "tour" was this: us, and a room full of Aussie and Scandanavian men drinking as much free beer as we could for three hours. Quite the event...yes, quite the event! As you can imagine, we solved most of the world's problems in those few hours!
When we finally got tired of
Room after room of prison cells
Many of the school's classrooms had been transformed by the Khmer Rouge into holding cells. These ones, made out of wood, were used to detain female and child prisoners, while the men were locked up in cement cells. being beach bums in Sihanoukville, we zipped back to Phnom Penh for one more night to pick up our tourist visas for Vietnam. There was no room for us at "Me Mate's Place" this time around, but their staff found us a peaceful little place to spend the night - not a guesthouse room, but two massage beds in a neighbouring guesthouse's in-house spa!
We were Vietnam-bound the next day...we had opted to take a speedboat ride down the Mekong River to a town called Chau Doc just on the Vietnamese side of the border. This turned out to be relatively enjoyable - the border crossing was hassle-free and the boat ride was relaxing. Not much to say about Chau Doc because we were only in town for about 12 hours! Just long enough to book boat and bus tickets to Phu Quoc (the Vietnamese Ko Lanta-wannabe island, as Tyler calls it, where we are right now) and catch some "Z's". Vietnam is very different from the countries we have visited before it - we were warned that the locals aren't as friendly as the Thais and the Khmers and this, for the most part, has proved to be
Memorial monument at the Killing Fields
Shelf after shelf, filled with the human skulls dug out of the mass graves at Choeng Ek. This shelf contained the skulls of 15-20 year-old female victims. Below are clothes that had also been unearthed. true. I want to believe that it's because they think we're Americans, but there seems to be more of a language barrier here as well, so I can't even ask if that's the case! Our first full day in Vietnam (the one spent traveling from Chau Doc to the island) was probably the most frustrating one we've had so far. I'm hesitant to even relay the story to you because thinking about it gets me all riled up, but writing can often be quite cathartic...so here goes...
Our hellish day began at 5:15am (for those of you who know me, this wasn't a good start to the day - I'm not a 5:15am-kind of girl! Tyler, on the other hand, having had lots of practice while working construction for so many years, popped out of bed at 4:30!) so that we could catch our 6:45am bus. Or what we thought was going to be a bus...when this "bus" showed up to pick us up, it was ACTUALLY NOT A BUS, but a very sad excuse for a van. "How sad of an excuse", you ask? Well, here's an example: Tyler's door had to be tied (yes, TIED) shut! The trip
"Magic Tree"
The tree was used as a place to hang a loudspeaker which made loud sounds to drown out the moans of the victims being executed. itself was so bad it was almost surreal: Tyler and I crammed into the front bench seat of the van, less than six inches away from a screaming, smoking, spitting, snorting, smelly, nose-picking, toothless driver who honked the horn every other second and would stop every other kilometre to drop off or pick up someone to add to or subtract from the 15+ passengers packed into what should have been a 10 passenger van. Tucked away in every available nook and cranny were the parcels and luggage of each of the Vietnamese passengers (we were the only foreigners on this ride)...and as for our luggage, my bag was in the front seat with us while Tyler's was used as a seat for two people in the back. We were relieved to arrive in Rach Gia (the port town where we would catch our boat to the island) an hour earlier than expected and we thought the worst of our day had passed, but little did we know the worst had yet to come. The tour agent who had booked our tickets in Chau Doc had told us to take motorbike taxis to the port from the bus stop and had
Mass graves at Choeng Ek
Words cannot express the feelings we felt walking along the paths between the mass graves and seeing clothing and human bones poking out of the earth. assured us that this trip would cost only 10,000 (less than one US dollar). We were furious when, after taking a very large, very obvious detour around the town of Rach Gia, our drivers demanded $10 US from each of us! Now, for the most part Tyler and I have been very fortunate in that almost everyone we've dealt with has been helpful and honest, and the few tough situations we've found ourselves in had been smoothed out relatively easily. But keeping our cool after such a disasterous van ride was impossible and we both had a bit of a meltdown. The drivers were persistant and we ended up arguing with them for over a half hour and in the end we gave them about $6 US, told them to split it and refused to discuss the matter further, ignoring them until they disappeared. I must say, and I know Tyler feels the same, that this incident had me heated to the point where this day was ruined for me. I spent a lot of time that evening thinking about Tyler's sister, Brianna, who is also traveling, but in Argentina and all by herself. I don't know if either Tyler
or I would have made it through that alone, and we are happy to have each other. The only consolation to a such a disappointing day was the great guesthouse that we finally arrived at which turned out to be only a two minute walk to a very quiet, very beautiful beach.
...And here we have been, on Long Beach, for the past four days. The beach is located in Duong Dong on Phu Quoc Island...Tyler has to fight back giggles everytime someone mentions either of those names, or the name of the Vietnamese currency, "dong". Tomorrow, we are headed to Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam to meet back up with my friend, Bryan (who we spent time with on Ko Samui), and hopefully my cousin, Aaron, who has also been traveling around South East Asia for the past few weeks. After that we are going to make our way north to a mountain town called Dalat, and another beach destination, Nha Trang, so stay tuned for more adventures!
To everyone who takes the time out of your hectic days to read our blog - thank you. It means so much to Tyler and I to know
that you are interested in hearing about our adventures. We miss you all very much and encourage you to post comments because we love hearing from you!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.106s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 7; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0524s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Mama M
non-member comment
Sounds like it's been wonderful all things said!! Great to talk to you the other night but reading your blog and seeing your pics give us a better idea of what you're doing!!I think the little ''point and shoot"is doing a fine job!!! Hugs and kisses to you both.