Cambodia

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Loretta is taking a break from her blogging duties tonight as she's responsible for ducking to the bakery across the road to pick up breakfast for tomorrow (1/2 price after 8!).

For me, Phnom Penh was right up the top of the must do's for our trip. This is a city of beautiful people with an ugly past. Our first vist was to Tuol Sleng, a school turned security prison turned museum. From 1975-79 the school was used to detain, torture and slaughter those who opposed or associated with opposers of Pol Pots murderous regime (around 2 million people died as a consequence of the Khmer Rouge). The museum was heart-breaking and sobering. I think what had the most impact on me wasn't the pictures of murdered and tortured bodies, or the torture instruments but the photo's of the faces of the thousands of people killed here. The children, the grandmothers and the fathers - some of those faces are burned into my memory. What drives not only one person, but thousands of people to become so past feeling that they could be so savage to violate innocent people in such a disgusting manner? As we sat in the back of the tuk-tuk on our way to the Choeung Ek killing fields, we watched poverty and pollution pass us by. The place stunk so bad, and clearly after all these years Cambodia is still recovering (apparently a lot of corruption still exists in government). All that aside, for whatever reason I still loved that city, and even found it beautiful. The people are so opitmistic and hopeful.

At one point of the Khmer Rouge's rule, up to 300 people a day were executed at the Killing Fields for being too educated, not submitting to Pol Pots social engineering ideas or having links with any form of capitalism (it's ironic how Cambodia has now taken capitalism to new heights now, you can't even pee here without forking over 2000 riel). It was a hard task keeping the executions hidden from neighbours so music was played over loud speakers to drown out the moaning and incense burned to cover the smell. In the centre of the peaceful, lush and green fields stands a tower enclosing 9000 skulls of victims, stacked shelf upon shelf. We felt very reverenced walking those fields, paying our respects.

We're currently in Siem Reap, and just spent the day at the temples of Angkor. We hired a tuk-tuk driver for the day to take us the the temples we wanted. We watched the sun rise over Angkor Wat (largest man made religious structure in the world). It was great exploring the ancient ruins of dozens of temples - you could spend a week here and not get through all of the temples. To think this place is so spectacular now, it must've been an amazing civilisation to behold when it ruled the region.

Tomorrow we head back to Bangkok for the night - we plan on attending some political demonstrations there after a hot tip from the department of immigrations website, JOKING! We're then on the last leg of our trip, kicking back on the beautiful islands of Thailand.

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Photos

Boy at fence
Scenario: Kid befriends tourist by asking them where they're from then saying "Straaalia, capital Canberra, g'day mate! You take photo of me?" Once you've taken that snap, there's no turning back "you now give me money, i go to school, need pen and paper".

Tarantula (or Tri-antula for Suzanne's benefit)
We were looking for the live ones but had to settle with eating a cooked one at a bus stop on the way to Siem Reap. They have a bitter after taste but are still sweet because the hair on their legs caramelises when they're cooked.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat
just another 4 am start to the day.

Our new friends
Kids here are great, so cute (although one is 18 yrs old - they look so young). We sat talking with them and singing songs for about 1/2 an hour. Here they're singing us a local song. We tried to teach them Waltzing Matilda, but it never caught on.

Ta Phrom
Loretta going Tomb Raider on us.