Raided the Tombs, but no Angelina!

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Finally taking a break from my jet-set lifestyle to sit down and start catching up on the blog! Very Overdue, so with almost 2 months of Blogging to do, i will break it down into Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos...

first up, Cambodia!

( a little pre-cam info; i left Cape Town, (FINALLY) on the 22nd April, flying with a very nice Singapore Airlines (where they give you Singapore Slings on request!!!!!) to Singapore, landed 6:30ish am, with a lay over of about 4 hours till i caught a flight upto Bangkok. luckily, Singapore Airport is prety impressive, with free internet, cinema and swimming pool! landed in Bangkok, got to Kosan Road (backpacker central), found a hotel with a rooftop pool, and got my head down. First big diff from Africa, you don't really get any hostels in SE Asia, all pretty much hotels or Guest Houses, BUT, for the same price as a dorm room in Africa, you can get a private room, cable TV, Bathroom and Air-con. Didn't gt much accomplished in Bangkok, was pretty eager to get going to Cambodia, so priorities in order, we (few Ozzies and what not i met at Hotel) took in a ping pong show (if you don't know what that is, then its probably best you don't ask), and then left the next day for the border...)

Transport in SE Asia is pretty damn cheap (buses cost about $6-7 a time), so the mini-bus woke me up at 7, yes WOKE me, and we started towards the border. journey time i cannot really remember. The borders are a bit of a hassle, plenty of people sitting around doing nothing but hinder your attempts to leave! So you get stamped out of the country, carry your bag to the Cambodian entry, get stamped in, then spend about 30 mins waiting for a bus to take you to a bus station! even though there was a group of us, all going to the same place, we were split onto diff busses, plenty of room on both, and all met again at the next bus station!

Siem Reap

Its a very touristy town, capitalising on its proximity to Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat (or Angkor Vat), is a temple complex at Angkor, Cambodia, built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation—first Hindu, dedicated to Vishnu, then Buddhist. The temple is the epitome of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors. Angkor Wat is just one of the temples, and the whole complex is HUGE. you def need a few days to see the whole lot, so the first two days we took a tuk tuk tour round the primary ones. i could spend hours talking about the place, the little crooks and crannies that you can find, the quiet places, the most incredible places and all of the inbetween places, but just look at the pictures and they almost do the place justice. on the 3rd day though, we decided to hire some bicycles, and pedal our way to the temples for sunrise, a nice quiet time of peacful reflection and meditation. 1. after two days of travelling there in a tuk tuk on the same road, you'd think we knew the direction... wrong. 2. when we FINALLY got there, with seconds to spare, we had to fight our way past every Japanese Photographer in SE Asia to get to a place with an unubstructed view of the temple. seriously, they are there talking to each other on walky talkies about the best places to be!!!!! even so, the view was beautiful and well worth the ride. Siem Reap is a nice enough town, night market was a great place to relax with a beer in one hand while getting a foot massage, all for the princely sum of 2 pounds!!! but it is pretty much set up for tourists, and lacks some local atmosphere.

Phnom Penh

i was up in time for this bus ride. it was my first exprience though of the constant "honking" by the drivers. they sound their horn at everything and anything in their way on or close to the road. for 5 hours this can really torment you, and even my ipod could not block the sound out entirely! Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, is a busy busy place. not as developed as Bangkok, but busier and crazier, it lacked any real charm for me. you get in a tuk tuk at the bus station, tell them where you want to go, and they take you somewhere else! you tell them again, and eventually we made it to our hotel. By now, i have hooked up with the Dutchie's ( a Dutch couple that will crop up a lot form now on (Brenda en Auke). We join a few others having a beer outside the hotel. just a quiet night as we are off to do the touristy things for the whole of the next day. few hours later, some BBQ chicken legs and a bottle of Jagermeister gone, and we are on our way to The Heart Of Darkness... Apparently i had a great night, all i remember is saving an Englich guy (Gary) from a prostitute, and getting a moto, with a rider on the front and a Scandanavian guy on the back behind me, back to the hotel. Auke wakes me up the next day, a recurring theme for the next week or so, and we head out to S21 and the Killing Fields.
Formerly the Chao Ponhea Yat High School, named after a Royal ancestor of King Norodom Sihanouk, the five buildings of the complex were converted in August 1975, four months after the Khmer Rouge won the civil war, into a prison and interrogation center. The Khmer Rouge renamed the complex "Security Prison 21" (S-21) and construction began to adapt the prison to the inmates: the buildings were enclosed in electrified barbed wire, the classrooms converted into tiny prison and torture chambers, and all windows were covered with iron bars and barbed wire to prevent escapes.
From 1975 to 1979, an estimated 17,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng (some estimates suggest a number as high as 20,000, though the real number is unknown). At any one time, the prison held between 1,000-1,500 prisoners. They were repeatedly tortured and coerced into naming family members and close associates, who were in turn arrested, tortured and killed. In the early months of S-21's existence, most of the victims were from the previous Lon Nol regime and included soldiers, government officials, as well as academics, doctors, teachers, students, factory workers, monks, engineers, etc. Later, the party leadership's paranoia turned on its own ranks and purges throughout the country saw thousands of party activists and their families brought to Tuol Sleng and murdered. Those arrested included some of the highest ranking communist politicians such as Khoy Thoun, Vorn Vet and Hu Nim. Although the official reason for their arrest was "espionage," these men may have been viewed by Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot as potential leaders of a coup against him. Prisoners' families were often brought en masse to be interrogated and later murdered at the Choeung Ek extermination center.
Not sure what i was expecting but whatever it was, what you see is nothing like it!. the place is just an ordinary school, down an ordinary street, except its surounded by high walls and Barbed wire. Much as it was when the Cambodians were liberated from the Khmer Rouge, little has been done to the prison. Some of the rooms have pictures in them of what was found inside; the remains of malnourished, tortured individuals. these bodies were buried in the grounds of the school, but the bare wire bed frames with shackles remain in the rooms for you to see. There are some out of bounds areas that we wondered into, and here you can find piles of old clothes from ex-prisoners and even a box containing some skulls and other human remains. the whole experience is very disturbing as the prison feels so untouched since its last use. We were also very fortunate to meet one of the 3 remaining survivors from S21, and he relayed his experiences to us from within the cell he occupied.

From here, we travelled out of town to the Killing Fields; a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the totalitarian communist Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately following the end of the Vietnam War. The executed were buried in mass graves. In order to save ammunition, the executions were often carried out using hammers, axe handles, spades or sharpened bamboo sticks. Some victims were required to dig their own graves; their weakness often meant that they were unable to dig very deep. The soldiers who carried out the executions were mostly young men or women from peasant families. At least 200,000 people were executed by the Khmer Rouge (while estimates of the total number of deaths resulting from Khmer Rouge policies, including disease and starvation, range from 1.4 to 2.2 million out of a population of around 7 million). If i though S21 was shocking, this place was beyond words. A memorial now stands at the site we visited, which holds the remains of approx 9000 murdered people, exumed from the site. as you walk around, the pits still remain, although the rain has washed some mud back into them filling them slightly. as well as filling things in, it has also exposed other things, so even inbetween the pits, in the very ground you walk on, there are the visible remains of clothes, teeth and bones, still in the earth. i found the place very sombre, and it didn't seem right to be taking pictures here, so sorry but there are none. some things need to be experienced.
Rather strangley enough, after seeing so much of the death and war that occured in this country, the tuk tuk driver asks you if you want to go and fire some guns! think we'll give that one a miss! we took ourselves off to the Royal Palace back in town. By now it was blazing hot, so my will to read info about the place was lost! the pictures came out nice though! One of the big attractions of the place is the temple with a floor covered in Silver plating. unfortunately though, no pics are allowed, so you'll have to make do with the outside and use your imagination!

Sihanouk Ville

So time for a chill out after the hectic city. another bus ride down to the party town on the coast (apparently). First experience of a beach in SE Asia is rather diappointing, maybe becuase it wasnt that sunny! the water was very warm though, and i took the opportunity to go diving! Auke woke me up again the next morning (thanks!!!), and i went to the dive centre to catch my lift. once on the boat, Red Sea this is not, we motored out towards an island at a walking pace, so the short trip took over 2 hours! the island was beautiful though from what i saw, White sand, tropical tress overhanging and crystal clear waters. we picked up some more divers who had stayed on the island for the night, and went out to a dive site which is meant to be popular for Sea Horses. I have to say, it was great to be back in the water, but it was disappointing. the Vis was awful, and the sea life was pretty non-existant. no big corals, no big fish. some nice nudibranchs and a couple of tiny sea horses, but apart from that, an average dive. it seems a shame, the water around the port where the boat left from is very heavily polluted by the local people, who don't seem to quite understand the fact that the sea is not a giant bin. i hope they realise soon and wake up to it before its too late. the second dive is slightly better, with some more coral life, but the Vis ruined the dive experience here. The best thing about the dives was how quiet it was. Its catch 22 though! not many boats in the area means that the best dive sites have probably not been discovered yet as the boats are too old and slow to travel far away. its only a matter of time though! while i wa there i learned that every single island has been sold for development, and along much of the coastline its the same story; beaches have been cleared and closed off for the building of new resorts.

After spending a few days doing not a lot, we had a couple of nights out, and it was here that i was to meet some of the people i was still travelling Vietnam with a month later! the cheapest drinks in travelling history i also found here, with US37c beers!!! and in a club on the beach, its free drink after 11pm! not sure how this makes business sense, or quite how it works out, but what the hey!
Gary, the guy i met in the club in Phnom Penh also dropped me an e-mail, and it was with him and the Dutchies that we embarked on our 14 hour bus ride to Vietnam. Incidently, this quiet unassuming seaside town, is the place where ALL Vietnam Visa's get stamped within Cambodia, a fact missed out by EVERY guide book!

And so Cambodia is done. a fleeting visit i guess, but i may come back with my own Angelina...

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