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Published: November 1st 2012
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Cambodia
People bathing in the flooded fields. (En route to Phnom Penh) We headed to Cambodia overland from Bangkok. We had heard this trip is quite hard and notorious for tourists getting ripped off, but decided to give it our best! Firstly we got a bus from Bangkok to the border town in Thailand..it took about 4hours or so. When we got to the border town we were told to get off the bus...we had no idea where we were meant to go, so we asked the driver to take us to the actual border! He drove us to an empty building that had a map pinned on a wall, and a table and chairs in the centre of the room....he thought we would believe this was the offical border office! There were lots of Thai men outside trying to persuade us to come into their office and they would sort all our visas out for us! Much to their disappointment, we promptly left and headed for the main road!...We followed the traffic to a very busy, official border office!
From there we were stamped out of Thailand, we walked into the Cambodian border town of Poipet, sorted out our visas, had our photographs taken, fingerprints scanned and passports checked. We then
got a free shuttle bus to the main bus station and ended up sharing a taxi with another couple to Siem Reap. Overall, it was hassle free, easy and relatively quick!
We loved our hostel in Siem Reap (Rosy guesthouse)...the staff were really friendly and helpful. The atmosphere was relaxed and the food was delicious! The location was great and despite us booking the cheapest room (no air con and a shared bathroom)..it was good!
Siem Reap itself is lovely; we were within walking distance to the town centre which had markets, bars, restaurants, shops etc. We lost a good few days just wandering around the town!
We bought a three day pass to the temples of Angkor. Day 1 we took a tuk-tuk at 5am to watch the sunrise over an ancient royal bathing pool, we then spent the rest of the morning at some less touristy temples to the north of the Angkor grounds. At some points we had the temple to ourselves! It was so peaceful and beautiful. It was also really interesting to drive through the villages that surround the more isolated temples...even at 6am people were out and about, selling fruit, cycling,
Siem Reap
Jonny-our tuk tuk driver on his break walking to school or work, farming, walking their oxen or cows, eating under their stilt houses...no one batted an eyelid to us driving by. It was just everyday life for them. We must have looked like millionaires to them with our digital cameras, private tuk-tuks rented for the day and western clothing.
Day 2 at Angkor we got a lift to one of the main temple sites, Angkor Thom. We walked around the site...seeing Bayon (the temple with over 200 faces carved into it), the elephant terrace...and several more which were very quiet.
Day 3 at Angkor we cycled...the whole 20mile round trip! It was really fun to cycle alongside the locals, passing elephants, snakes and monkeys on our way to Ta Prohm (the tomb raider temple)...the temple was very popular but still nearly untouched and there were areas you could walk to where you could take photographs with no other tourists nearby. We also cycled through Angkor Thom again and went to visit Angkor Wat.
Angkor Wat is the most famous of all the temples...but we much preferred the isolated, less touristy temples we visited on the first day. The Angkor Wat temple was huge, grand
and in amazing condition. We got some lovely photos despite the huge crowds.
Whilst staying in Siem Reap we visited a community centre called Grace House. It is an amazing project run by an English couple...there is a medical centre, a library, a football pitch, a youth club, a vocational classroom, some academic classrooms and they are in the process of building more! Unfortionately the community centre was closed because it was a Khmer holiday so we didn't get to see it in use....But we got a great feel for it though during our tour and were really happy that we had some money to donate. It only costs them 2,000GBpounds to build a classroom from scratch...inclusive of materials, labour etc! It's amazing how far your money can go out here.
We spent a few days in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital city. Whilst staying there we visited the Tuol Sleng genocide museum (also known as S21 prison). The prison was one of the biggest of it's kind during the Khmer Rouge takeover (1975-1979) accounting for roughly 20,000 deaths. It used to be a high school, and until you entered the building it still looked as though it could
be a functional school.
The building had been divided into torture and execution rooms and tiny cells to hold many prisoners. There were photographs of everyone who entered S21...including children and women who were accused of all sorts of crimes, such as being an American CIA agent or being married to someone who was. Many of the prisoners were highly educated. There were also photographs of bodies after execution and torture. It was horrific to see. It is estimated that 7 people survived the S21 prison...2 of whom were at the museum selling autobiographies of their lives. It must be like a nightmare for them to be back at the prison.
During our stay in Phnom Penh we also visited the 'killing fields'..also known as Choeung Ek. It was a site used by the Khmer rouge to perfom mass executions of prisoners held at S21. The killing fields were surprisingly peaceful and beautiful. It was so hard to imagine what had happened here only 30+ years ago.
We had an audio guide to help us identify places in the site; it also told us stories of individuals who had been Khmer Rouge soldiers as well as those
The memorial stupa
The killing fields-where 9,000 skulls are presented in memory of those who died. who had been prisoners of war. The stories were heartbreaking and some of the sites mentioned were very hard to look at...We saw the 'killing tree' where soldiers executed babies and children by hitting their heads against it, before throwing them into a pit with their mothers. The Khmer Rouge killed whole families so that in the future noone would take revenge on them. When the killing tree was found, it was covered in pieces of flesh, brain, blood, clothes and bones.
Whilst walking through the killing fields we saw lots of mass grave sites..some of which had bones on the surface or pieces of clothing scattered everywhere. Every few months the caretakers have to remove clothes and bones that have surfaced due to the rain. There is a stupa which is a memorial building used to house nearly 9,000 skulls that have been discovered at the site. It is estimated there are thousands more bodies buried in and around the site. There are also many other killing fields in Cambodia, the statistics are unimaginable. Some estimate that half of the Cambodian population were wiped out during the Khmer Rouge takeover and civil war.
I have just finished
S21 Prison
The exterior of the infamous S21 prison where civilians were tortured and executed at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. reading a book by Haing Ngor...who starred in the film 'the killing fields.' He experienced the Khmer Rouge takeover at first hand..he was imprisoned three times, lost nearly all of his family and was very close to death a number of times. The book had really graphic, detailled, horrific memories of his time under the Khmer Rouge regime. It emphasised that the film did not show the true brutality the Khmer Rouge inflicted upon innocent civillians. It was a good book, but understandably extremely upsetting.
Overall our trip to Phnom Penh was very depressing, but we are glad we did it. The museums and mass grave sites are promoted to tourists so that we can all become more educated about Cambodias tragic past, and ultimately so that something like this never happens again.
I found it truely amazing how Cambodia has recovered from such a horrific ordeal. Of course the scars are still very raw, both mentally and physically....but life in Cambodia goes on... It was essential for people need to recover so that the country and it's Khmer people can move on and recreate Cambodia as the beautiful country that it is.
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