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Published: January 18th 2009
Killing Fields, Cambodia
Skulls stacked up that were found on the surface and placed in a monument to remember what had happened just outside Phnom Penh.Temples a plenty and Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge legacy can be seen everywhere, most noticeably at the S21 and Killing Fields where it’s hard not to remember that it was only 30 years ago that all this was going on. Pretty chilling and touching stuff, bones can still be seen inching out of the ground at the killing fields and blood can still be seen sprayed across walls at S21 where you can only imagine the horror those people who opposed Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge must have gone through. Prior to the history lesson we decided to rest our heads in the city according to the lonely planet the lakeside and city were much for muchness, WRONG! We found a place, reasonable price but nothing to do or see around us other than the usual shanty houses and street eateries. We decided to risk the move and head over to lakeside, best decision, ever! Nice views and chilled out bars with pool tables and DVD’s to watch, what was the lonely planet on about, god knows! The lakes area, albeit smelly and rat infested is a lot more up our street with a few cheap places to drink and
Phnom Phen Museum
Just look how many arms i have!! chill out over the lake, where on the first sunset we see a boy in a barge rowing away from a pretty big snake swimming in the water, random!
South East Asia certainly is a place of contrast and coming from Vietnam where the living standard is ok by Asian standards to Cambodia where the poverty is all to obvious is a bit of a shock. After a few days in the capital and a bit of a shock to the system we head down to southern Cambodia for some beach action and hopefully to escape the rain!
Sihanoukville, we find a place to stay at the Monkey Republic and are pretty excited about been able to get PG tips cup of tea and a cheese and ham toasty, whoop whoop it’s English run! Time to chill out, we hire out the cinema across the road to watch the new Batman movie with a few beers and lots of bean bags, epic! The next day we head to the beach where there are a few bars, kind of like a poor mans Had Rin and try to cacth some rays, on entering the water I find it’s sea
Killing fields monument
Monument to the dead spirits at the killing fields, this is the place where all the skulls and bones are kept. lice infested and quickly exit whilst been savaged by the little buggers, dam it! No swimming in that water then! Sun time it is, although not been aloud to relax to much as there are hordes of local kids trying to sell you stuff and pinkie promise you for money or something?!
After a few hours of harassment me and Jay buckle and decide to see if they can de-skank us by using string?! Apparently, yes they can and YES it hurt like hell! Remind me never to get shredded again, especially on my neck! Alas, skank be gone though! On the night me, Jay and Jen go for a fish bbq on the beach and consume a few buckets in Jam jars before the night is over.
Quiet enough beach action it’s time for temples, off we head north to Siem Reap and the splendours of Angkor Wat. We take some travel advice from a few guys we met in Laos and a few times since and try to get in at the crocodile farm hotel, can’t remember the name right now?! But, we did get in and suffice to say the hotel has a lot of crocodiles
Phnom Phen lakeside
Sunset at the lakes in it’s garden, random much!
5am and we are up and confused as ever, 30 minutes in a tuk tuk and we are at a toll both paying for entrance to the Angkor temples. Still pitch black and eating my crisps breakfast we are dropped off at large bridge, obviously a very old stone bridge but it’s so dark we can’t really tell?! As the sunlight creeps across the horizon we can see from the walkway the tips of Angkor Wat, the flagship temple among many more ancient temples. Time for some of those token photos and some Indian Jones exploration, I think the Japanese are onto this as well and swarm the best photo points, yet again it’s good to be tall! The sunrise is nothing short of amazing and the temples to follow are equally epic and beautiful, there shire size is hard to capture in a photo but it’s fair to say I can see what all the fuss is about. After 8 hours or so we are pretty templed out and it’s time for a siesta and some much needed food before we return to the temples for sunset.
After a little sleep and
Beach in Sihanoukville
random beach area with kids that will de-scank your with string?! Ouch! some much needed beer and snacks we hop back in our guys tuk tuk to catch the sunset from one of the older temples. Jay and Jen stay at the bottom as they are been lazy and weren’t to bothered about the sunset, off I trek up the rather Aztec looking temples with slippy steps, if you can call them steps! I find you can see Angkor Wat in the distance and it helps to show you the sheer size of these temple complex’s. It must have been quiet something to see back in the day.
Fully templed out we head to a few bars, surprisingly a bar called Angkor what bar, they certainly do like the name Angkor around here! Helen told me in Nha Trang that she left a message for me on one of the walls in Ankor what bar, the place is covered with peoples scribbles, I start to question if she was joking or been serious?! I have a look whilst on route to the bar and give up.. I latter find out she was pulling my leg, how very dare she!
Final few days in Cambodia are spent chilling out, going to the
Angkor Wat
Sunrise at Angkor Wat, awesome! Angkor Museum, should have done this before the temples on retrospect as it gave us a lot of information about the temples and there history. Both me and Jay find two bags for 25 dollars each, which at the time worked out at 12 pounds and 50 pence each, madness! With a new rucksack/day bag and rain cover we decide when getting to Bangkok we will do our Christmas shopping and send the borrowed bags home stuffed with presents.
The long, long, long road to Thailand, on deciding It was time to move on we hear on the news that the Cambodian’s and Thai’s are having some border disputes, lucky for us we saw nothing of any note. Although, the longest and straightest road ever from Cambodia to Thailand, I think it may be one of there first roads!! Our bus gets a flat so we are stuck in no-where-Ville for a good few hours, time to top up the shoulder tan I think! A few hours later and a few too many border checks and we are on route to Thailand, part duex!
Good bye Cambodia, a country of strange contrasts and a chequered history >>>
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