Cambodia

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My first stop in Cambodia was Siem Reap, to visit the ruins of Angkor, the most famous of them beeing Angkor Wat. The are hundreds of other temples scattered around, many of them distinctive in their own way, so visiting many temples doesn't get too boring. I hired a guy on a moto to take me around the temples for a day, as doing it all on foot would be impossible, especially in the heat!

Some of the temples are pretty well preserved, while others are nearly completly destroyed, with many in between. One of my favourites was Ta Prohm, the temple that is fairly overgrown by trees, and featured in the Tomb Raider movie. In some cases there are massive trees growing on top of temples, whilst in other parts giant roots wrap themselves around walls. I found myself whistling the Indiana Jones theme tune wuite a few times..

I've seem quite a few temples & ruins on this trip so far, and Angkor Wat is truly spectacular, deserving to be one of the new 7 wonders of the world!

After visiting Angkor Wat, I headed to the capital Phnom Penh, for a distinctly different side of Cambodia. The main points of interest in the city where the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Prison (S-21), which played notorious roles during the Khmer Rouge rule of Pol Pot. Tuol Sleng Prison, previously a school, was used to interrogate & torture Cambodians deemed a threat to the regime. It operated between 1975-1979, during which an estimated 20.000 people where detained there. Of those 20.000 people, only 7 survived. Now a museum, Tuol Sleng documents the torture of the prisoners, and particularly chilling, all the victims where photographed when entering the prison. Now walls are covered with thousands of portrait photo's of the victims.

After the prisoners spent a couple of months in Tuol Sleng, they where taken to the Killing Fields just ouside the city, where they where executed. To conserve bullets, most where just hit over the head with a shovel, and then buried. The mass graves have been mostly exhumed, and as a memorial there is a tower of about 8000 skulls of the victims.

Cambodia is a country of contrasts. One the one side it boasts the glorious past of Angkor Wat, then more recently the genocide during the Khmer Rouge era. The people are very friendly, ready to smile, but also after the american dollar, trying to sell you anything you want, sometimes beeing a little to agressive about it. There are also many street kids, constantly trying to sell you books or postcards, even roking late into the night.

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