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Published: February 17th 2009
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Among one of the poorest countries in Asia, Cambodia has only recently been able to open its doors to tourism due to its volatile past. In the 90s it was still dangerous to travel to Camboida as small groups of tourists were abducted and murdered, despite Vietnam pulling out the country in 1989 after ridding of the Khmer Regime of the 70s. Cambodia therefore remains more untouched, wild and less touristy then Thailand. However, everyday we still see harsh reminders of the past. In every city we go many beggars are missing an arm, a leg, and sometimes even every limb on their body. The operation to remove all the landmines from the 70s is ongoing.
So on 1st February we arrived at a smart hotel in Bangkok to meet our tour group for the next 12 days. Just a quick break down of our group. We found ourselves travelling with: Will (another gap year student from Canterbury), Jess and Michelle (2 Aussie girls a couple of years older than us), Amber and Olivia (2 Aussie girls in their late twenties), Adam and Julia (an Aussie couple out of uni), 3 loud Americans on holiday from teaching in South Korea
('That's what she said', 'OMG'), Felicity (a shy and friendly 21 year old Australian/Papu New Guinean), Mitesh (a gay 27 year old Candian/Indian doctor who fancied Matt) and Peter 1, Peter 2 and Judith from New Zealand (Peter 1 is 78 years-old). An interesting mix of people- a few clashes were had over the next 12 days. We also had an amazing Cambodia tour guide named Pheap who, born in 1975, was always willing to share his experiences of growing up near Siem Reap in one of the most bombed areas of Cambodia.
We arrived at the Aranyaprathet/ Poi Pet border of Cambodia from Thailand at about 11am. The border crossing is fairly tricky to negotiate. We were required to leave our bags with a man dragging a cart, though me and Matt opted to carry ours. You then walk to Thai exit, where they stamp your Thai visa, and then just walk across a huge bridge to Cambodia. Here we sort of stood around dazed and confused as to what was required (both of us neglecting to listen properly to Pheap) till we saw other tour group members. We then queued for about an hour at this little
hut to have our Cambodian visas checked that we had been issued before we reached the border. On the other side of the hut the tour group pick up their bags from the cart, and we were whisked off to Siem Reap. Immediately on the journey the difference to Thailand is clear- the infrastructure of Cambodia is very poor. Alongside the road we see little villages, people working the land, pigs, thin cows and lots of 'Cambodian People's Party' signs- supporters of the current government.
We arrived in Siem Reap early evening. The town is effectively just a base for people to visit the Temples of Angkor Wat, which we able to do the next morning. First of all, the complex at Angkor is vast. The temples are spread out over 40 miles. Built between the 8th and 13th centuries, they range from single towers of bricks to huge stone complexes. The supreme masterpiece itself, Angkor Wat was impressive and beautiful. However, our favourite was either The Bayon, a massive temple complex featuring 3, 936 bas-relief carvings of mysterious Buddha faces or Ta Prohm, a large temple complex enclosed by a moat. As it has not been restored, it
is surrounded by jungle with huge trees growing like tentacles, strangling the stonework. After the Temples we also had a boat trip on the Tonle Sap, the biggest natural lake in Asia. Here we saw 'floating villages', as people lived on small cabins on the water.
Our next point of call after Siem Reap was Kampong Cham, a small riverside town surrounded by rubber plantations. We rented some bikes and set off to see some of the local women that weave the famous Cambodian scarfs (Matt later bought one, though for more as a fashion statement than the many things the locals use them for!). We then had a 2 hour bike ride to a small virtually untouched island off the town, accessible only by a long rickety bamboo bridge. Throughout our bike ride reams of children poured out of their small houses shouting 'Hello! Hello!'. The simple nature of the people and the farming fields felt like stepping back over a thousand years in England- aside from the occasional scooter. We then had a unique opportunity to go to an English lesson for kids held by some of the village's monks. The kids practiced some of their English
on us and we donated some money to the monks for new books.
The next day we then had a chance to go to Kampong Speau, a small village a couple of hours from Kampong Cham. We trekked up to a massive waterfall, that Matt managed to climb underneath, and then had dinner at the Woman's Club (not quite as good as it sounds!). This was followed by traditional Cambodian dancing (I'm not sure if Pheap was drunk off his two beers at this point) and a night on a wooden floor in a hut on stilts.
Early next morning we took a bus to Sihanoukville and arrived at our first South-East Asian beach! Sihanoukville is fairly quiet by Thai standards I'm sure, but on the beach front a few of the bars pack a decent number of people and we spent a couple of days chilling by the sea, and dancing to some crap, plastered Scottish DJ at night. Why this man played The Smiths- Bigmouth Strikes Again following Kanye West- American Boy to a bunch of teens craving dance music I will never know. We also had a day lounging on a quieter beach on the
other side of the town to which we were staying, that is run by the Russian Mafia (Soviet Way I think the street was). They have built a bar with a massive aeroplane in it, outside which a Russian was screaming down his mobile and then whizzed off in his Hummer, parked next to another Hummer and a Lexus. Quite an interesting experience!
Our final port of call in Cambodia was Phnom Penh, the Capital. On our first full day we had a very humbling tour to S- 21 and the Killing Fields. S- 21 was the high school that was turned into a Security Prison by Pol- Pot's security forces in 1975. It became the largest detention and torture centre in the country. Of the 17, 000 or so that entered between 1975-1979, just 5 survived as they had jobs (such as painter) in the centre. No-one else survived- the prison claimed an average of 100 lives a day. The prison still stands very much intact, there are rusty, steel beds in class-rooms with pictures of the dead, makeshift cells in others and many of the torture machines still sit where they once inflicted unthinkable pain upon normal
Cambodians. We then had a tuk-tuk ride to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. Rising above the 129 mass graves is a monument to the 20, 000 men, women and children that were killed. It contains 9, 000 skulls, some showing shocking blows. People were beaten to near death (to save bullets) and then buried alive. Many of the bones and clothing as we walk around still pertrude through the soil.
A lot of the cruelty we witnessed today was hard to comprehend, but Pheap believed that Cambodia has moved on from this period of darkness. He says that it has been completely forgotten (which I find hard to 100% believe), and that people are really looking to the future. I honestly think the Cambodians deserve it, from our experience they were friendly, kind and smiling. Pheap was really a brilliant example of their fun-loving nature- he always came out with the 5 youngsters in the group that were at the bars, and taught me some new dance moves! That night we partied at The Heart of Darkness, the top club in Phnom Penh, that bears no resemblance to its name. We partied till the morning with our tour
group, random foreigners and rich Khmer boys wearing identical outfits! That morning we left for Saignon, the biggest city in Vietnam.
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