Vietnam to Cambodia

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Well i know its been a while, and with the 50 cent beer and more Asian cities then i can count in the past month i hope this entry does it justice...

After spending only one night in Hue we took off for Hoi An. its a small town right on the coast of Vietnam about half way down to Saigon. Its a old town that is lined with hundreds of tailors. When traveling around South East Asia you seem to see the same people over and over again, and all of the sudden the same travelers that you saw in the last town in unwashed tops and ripped pants are wearing suits.. and for a custom suit for 50 dollars i dont blame them. I opted to get a pair of custom sandals made, they turned out great for a fraction of what i would pay for a similar pair at home.. none the less this place is dangerous for anyone who likes to shop..

One night we went out to a bar that we had been hearing about for days, it was packed but at 12:00 it closed and a van pulled up out front. we packed 32 people into a 8 passenger van and it took us to a bar at the beach with a pool that stayed open until the morning.. the trip down there and back was by far the most amusing part of my evening.

After Hoi An we headed to Nha Trang another beach city. We spent most of our time on the beach and took off after just 2 days there for Saigon. By this time the over night bus trips have become normal to endure.. but i cant even begin to convey how it feels to be on one. picture 3 rows of bunk beds, barely wide enough to lie on your back, not long enough to stretch your legs out and not flat enough for your neck not to hurt.. add that to being up high which makes the trip extremely bumpy and after 12 hours on there wanting to scream or even cry is expected... but like i said, after 3 most likely at least 5 more you grin, bare it, and joke about it the next day with the other travelers.

Saigon is an absolutely massive city. almost 8 million people, 4 million motorbikes and less then 200,000 cars... the traffic accidents are plentiful and crossing the street is beyond scary...

We spent the day at the Cu Chi tunnels which was truly eye opening. crawling through only 40 meters of them about 10 feet underground was more then enough for me. I could not comprehend the soldiers that lived 20 feet under carrying heavy artillery around...

Next it was on to Phnom Pehn. The capital of Cambodia.
Cambodia is so heart-renching. i don't know a better word to describe how it feels here.
In the late 70s (as i'm sure you both know) the Khmer Rouge took over most of Cambodia as the new government. they eliminated all money, human rights... pretty much everything that is not absolutely detrimental to human survival... toothbrushes, long hair, any colour but black to wear... it was all abolished. they shut down all the schools, all the hospitals and took everyone who seemed to be even just a little bit educated and stuck them in prison. there idea was to have a dumb country full of laborers that were not smart enough to rebel... they stuck thousands of the city dwellers in places called "security"offices which were later ambushed and found to resemble more of a prison...
yesterday we went to one of those buildings... its called S-21. it used to be a school and then it housed some of the most brutal prison cells and chambers i'm sure the world has ever seen...

over 100 000 people were killed there... it was so creepy. they left the rooms as was, blood still dried on the floors, staining the tiles orange. the make-shift brick walls stacked almost to the ceilings in the old classrooms, chalkboards still on the walls, to section of 3 foot cells, dark...damp....and still reeking of human waste...

its not a museum. it is a reminder of the horrible 70s where they killed a third of their countries population..

then we were taken to the killing fields, were citizens were taking by the truck load , told to kneel blindfolded on the edge of a massive grave, killed and pushed in... 500, 600 bodies pilled up on top of each other.... now, at the killing fields you can still see the massive graves, and clothes of the dead still stuck in the mud....

They dug up most of the graves a couple years ago and erected a temple or tomb and filled it with all the skulls found in the graves.... over 15000 skulls, you can see them up close, touch them if you like... it was unreal...

how come we dont learn about this in school? about how Vietnam had to step in and put an end to the Khmer rough ruling... and the USA wouldn't because they had just been defeated in Vietnam....

i had nightmares about it last night... and it definitely will stay with me forever.. the feeling of sadness... of desperation... heartbreak...
im learning so much about Cambodia... its so sad..
you can still see the turmoil, as everyone over the age of 30 experienced what i was just talking about.
it left the population completely out of whack...
70% female...
47% under the age of 15.... ya... its insane. you rarely see an older man here...

to be continued......

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