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Published: September 5th 2008
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So it has been a while since our last message, and it has been a bit of a ride, largely due to the unorthasox travel options/times on offer in Cambodia. But we are getting there. We ended up staying another day in Siem Reap which we spent just exploring the city, the markets and had a nice chill evening watching some of the hilarities on display. We had a reflexology massage (aka some random man poking your feet with a stick, much to Marks horror) at a massage parlour called 'Madam one'. We dread to think what was on offer in the private rooms... there were a suspicous amount of single males coming in for a massage!!! Walking home that evening we were ambushed by two sorry looking little girls taking our hands. We tought they were dragging us to their mums stall or something. After some pressing on however we worked out they were trying to tell us they were hungry. Being the model citizens that we are and knowing not to give money directly, we took them back over to the stall of their choice. To our suprise of all the food on offer they chose the boiled, partially
formed duck embryo eggs...mmm yummy the perfect snack. But they were over the moon when we bought them 2 each. They must have only been between 4 and 7 so 60p wasnt wasted on them!!! Needless to say we were both a bit sad after this.
The reason we stayed an extra day was the arkward timing of the boat to Battambang. We left early the next morning on a little wooden boat which looked nothing like the speed boat on the picture for the 5 hour picturesque journey through the lake and the river system. It was stunning and interesting to see the villages on the river whose only link to society was this boat once a day. The journey ended up taking more like 7 hours which made worse by the fact there were some of the rudest Europeans on the boat who felt the need to sleep taking a whole double seat up each while all the locals had to squeeze several onto a seat. Mark desperately believes he should have a licence to kill! The boat ride overall was great but we were dissapointed to discover the same could not be said for Battambang. The highlight
was a restaurant we found in the evening where we had a starter, main, dessert and icecream shakes for a grand total of $10 for the both of us. The next morning we were up early to rent a bike to head out of the city (which was made extremely difficult by some people just not wanting to help you...our hotel did not want to give us a bike explaining the road was far too difficult to ride on as they wanted us to hire a member of the moto boys club sat outside our hotel...can you imagine the two of us sat behind a Cambodian man on a moped...Not going to happen!!) We finally got a bike elsewhere and while the road out of the city was interesting to say the least it was managable. Sam learnt why the local wrap their traditional Kramer scarves arund their head on the bike, as when we arrived her face looked brown apart from where her sunglasses had been. We visted the killing caves (after paying the tourist police a $2 'admission fee') in which the Khymer Rouge used as location to execute thousands of people. It was very eery but interesting
none the less. While continueing to stroll across the mountain we aquired 3 kids a guides who took us scrambling through some of the caves and to artillery located near the top of the mountain. Their fee...18p each. We also bumped into a interesting and friendly local who explained his theory on the reason for Cambodia being so hot. He explained that it was due to the two suns which shine on Cambodia, whereas England was cold because we only have one...note to self, do not educate any future children in Cambodia. We tried to explain our knowledge of the situation but he was having none of it...
That afternoon we took a bus to Phnom Penh (with far too many food stops...all these people seem to do is eat) where we setlled in to a nice guesthouse and had dinner by the river. Yesterday was a full on day in which we endured far too many arkward and irritating moments to recall all of them, which involved numerous tuk-tuk drivers trying to play us for stupid. We did achieve all we wanted, we sorted our visas to Vietnam. We went out of the city to the Killing fields, where
there are over 50 mass graves from the Pol Pot regime with hundreds of thousands of remains found there. We were able to view a number of excavated remains, many of which showed evidence of severe head wounds that would have killed the people in order to save their precious bullets. We were dissapointed at how badly kept the site was, you could have stomped all through the graves had you been sick, with nothing to aknowledge each grave apart from an obvious dip in the ground. By leaving the city we also got to drive past all the notorious factories which was pretty fascinating to relate to what we hear on the news. Streams of women were seen pouring out of the gates. Later in the day we hit one of many markets which Phnom Penh hads to offer and Mark came away with a good stash of polos for next to nothing and a good few presents. Next was the S-21 museum, a school turned prison, where ex government, educated or religous people were taken by the Khymer Rouge for imprisonment, torture and eventually death. The saddest part was perhaps seeing the mug shots of some of the
victims who were no older than 10 years old. There was also a section on the leaders of the regime, and it was interesting to learn how little they have had to pay for what they did. That evening we hit a restaurant full of locals to try a Cambodian BBQ which basically comprises of an upside down sieve with hot coals undernear, on which we threw prawn, beef and squid. It was delicious and again cost next to nothing. We had a early night with the plan to get up early and get a bus north to Kratie yet discovered that once packed up that the bus was full. As a result we had an unplanned additional day here. We decided to hire a bike in a bid to avoid the tuk-tuk drivers. We got less than a 100 metres up the road before we were pulled over by the police. Upon presenting Marks driving licence as requested it was stowed in his pocket while he demanded $50 dollars for it back, with no explantion as to why. While argueing we noticed the locals handing over one dollar notes (and even sometimes getting change) and driving off, this must
have been a standard on the spot fine. We got angry but remained persistant. He eventually said 10 dollars would do which still we were unwilling to pay. In the end he took the only money we had on show (hee hee) in the wallet, a grand sum of $2. The rest of our day was struggle free, we cruised around all the markets, drove by the river and Royal palace and even found a gym for Mark. Sam managed to pick up a stash of Abercrombie! This evening we had a great meal in another local family restaurant in which the head waitress was their daughter who was cute at around 9 years old.
Luckily we are all booked on the bus tomorrow so shall be heading north to Kratie from which we plan to find a way into the rural provinces where we have our hearts set on an elephant trek. Fingers crossed.
Love to all xxxx
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