Cambodia - Siam Reap, Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville

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We only spent about a week in total in Cambodia and were keen to cram everything in in as little time as possible.

Siam Reap was absoloutely flooded! The water in the roads was up to knee level but it made getting round a fun experience. We spent 3 days in Siam Reap where we were treated like king and queen in a guest house, the staff were so friendly (as were Cambodians in general). However after visiting the local temples Angkor Wat (amongst others), followed by a night or 2 of drinking, partying and watching the Wolves match we decided to head to the capital of Phnom Penh to see the Killing Fields where many educated people like teachers and doctors lost their lives under the communist regime of the 70's.

Phnom Penh was a great capital city, not overly busy for a capital like Bangkok but still with a great buzz. Many bars overlooked the pier so naturally we stayed around the bars a lot! The first night we ended up meeting a Scottish older fella n ended up spending most of the night with him. Unfortunately I decided to join him on the whiskey which resulted in me and Sophie walking round in circles for hours looking for our hotel. As the markets started to open we decided to get a tuk tuk taxi and he lead us straight to a place we had walked straight past a few times!

The day after we decided to witness the tragedy of the Killing Fields, a place where prisoners were taken to be bludgeoned to death by clubs as bullets were too expensive. We were shocked by what we seen, skulls of the deceased and clothes all piled up with some skulls belonging to girls as young as 15 to women as old as 60+. It was sad but an experience worth having and a real eye opener to how lucky some of us have it. On the route home our tuk tuk driver told us an emotional story of how his father had been one of those who had been arrested and killed so his family had to flee to the jungle as did many Cambodians.

After another night at a local bar and playing some pool along with making some more friends, we decided to head down to Sihanoukville for some beaches. Unfortunately the weather was poor as it rained a lot but we still sat by beach side bars and of an evening we'd rent a dvd and watch it at our local guest house which also doubled as a bar which was nice.

However, we'd decided the time had come to visit the infamous country of Vietnam, a beautiful country with a very sad history - much like Cambodia.

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Comments

[Aaron]

laughing