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Published: August 7th 2007
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S21
one pic of one of the thousands of prisoners captured, tortured and killed at S21, the former school in Phnom Penh Well, after quite a few months of bugger all input into our 'joint' blog, Ant suggested (ie. bullied me) into writing an entry. I tell you, it's put my stress levels right up, as I'm a much studious scholar than young Ant, so I've been diligently taking notes on our adventures.
So, where to start, well unsurprisingly, our journey into Cambodia wasn't hassle free. Unfortunately it's almost impossible to do the journey from Don Dhet into Cambodia independently, so the 'transporters' have got you by the balls. This means that your journey includes a couple of totally unnecessary 2 hour stops at mate's restaurants and no less than 7 modes of transport. All this is to cover about 200km. The key driver of all this is ensure that you arrive in Phnon Phemn after midnight, so you have to stay at the guest house that they take you too. It's a commission game you see. But we were clever (tee hee!) as we'd bought a ticket direct to Siem Reap.....which meant a stopover at Kampong Cham, then on in the morning. Clever, we thought, but they were cleverer and left us right up the creek by simply not picking us
you wat?
one of the many incredible sights at angkor up the following morning. After much detective work on the part of Ant, we tracked down one of the many scammers in the chain, who arranged for us to hop onto a local bus without having to pay any more. So, fellow travellers be warned...if you're travelling from Don Dhet you need to be prepared for some scamming. Get a telephone number, so that you can harrass them if there are any problems....and if at all possible refuse to stay at their allocated guesthouse.
Anyway, enough of that nonsense, Siem Reap is the entrance to Angkor Wat which is absolutely fab. A perfect place to play out any Indiana Jones fantasies that you may have. The vast number of temples there is totally overwhelming and you could spend weeks venturing round them. We settled on just 2 days, but dragged our lazy arses out of the sack for sunrise each day, which was a good call as the heat even by 11am is pretty intense. Siem Reap was also the venue of a prize scamming of Ant by a 7 year old boy, which saw him lose at noughts & crosses, meaning that he had to buy a set
tree house
some of the temples had massive trees ripping them apart! brill! of postcards (that he didn't want) at 3x the going rate. Cambodia is home to packs of such kids. In general, I refuse to buy anything from them as the more money they make, the more likely they are to be sent out again...but Ant had a moment of weakness, driven by Angkor Beer, methinks.
From Siem Reap we then headed to Phnon Penh. We'd had a tip off of a good place to stay, but got the street co-ordinates wrong (it has one of those grid systems)....so ended up lakeside. For the uninitiated, it's a Khao San Road-esque ghetto, which in the current low season is inhabitated by more touts than tourists. Not pleasant. Although we did land a great tuk tuk driver called Mr Sunny (who was sunny by name and also by nature - boom boom!). One thing I've noticed in all of these places, is the number of tuk tuks versus in the rest of town. I've come to the conclusion that local people don't use them at all.
Actually whilst we're on the topic of observations one of the other things I've noticed is how fantastically co-ordinated the monks are, as they always
killing fields
just a few of the thousands of skulls found at the killing fields outside phnom penh. have orange umbrellas, bags and flip flops to go with their orange robes. Very impressive. But does anyone know where they buy this kit? Been keeping my eyes peeled and as yet I haven't seen any orange shops.
However, I digress. Overall Phnon Phemn is a pretty emotive place, as it took a battering from the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-9. Whilst there we visited a school, which was used as an interrogation centre from which 13,000 were sent to their death. We also went out to the killing fields where many of these people ended up. Poking out of the ground you see shreds of bone, teeth and clothes. Over 2 million cambodians were killed over this period, so most people you meet have been affected by this. Incredibly harrowing. But what shocked me is that after all of that, some tourists want to go off to a shooting range to fire an AK47 (apparently you used to be able to buy a cow to shoot at, but they've now stopped that).....sorry...I really don't get it?!
So right now we're in Shinoukville. Not a lot to say about this place. It has a beach, but it's really
baby in a bucket
a bit like soap on a rope. one of cambodia's delicacies along with grasshoppers and baked spider not as nice as it should be, despite the fact we've managed to bag ourselves a nice little bungalow looking out over the sea. It's been raining continuously for the last 3 days though, so that's probably not helping perceptions. But there's only so much rain a girl can take, so we're heading off tomorrow.
Well that's it from me. Feel I should sign off as 'Arthur Scargill' as that's what Ant's taken to calling me recently. Think it's probably due to the fact that I've been wearing my head torch to bed, which is of practical assistance when I need to find the toilet in the middle of night. All of the strange bedrooms I've been staying in means that I get easily confused.....
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Philippa
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3 days of rain??
Its been raining for the last three months here! Half of Yorkshire is now under water!