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Published: July 13th 2016
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Cambodia was a country we were not planning on visiting but we heard it was another one of Asia's hottest (and hot as hell) destinations even though it is one of the world's poorest countries. One of the first things that we learned is that this is a country that you do not want to go off on your own to explore because there are up to six million landmines. Sadly there are 40,000 amputees and hundreds of accidents still each year. So needless to say we kept it safe and stuck with the most touristy areas.
We landed in the French influenced city of Phnom Penh to do a one day whirlwind tour of the city. Crossing paths again for the third time with our Laos slowboat buddy Cata from Chile, we toured the city all day by tuk tuk and visited all of the major sites. Our first stop was Choeung Ek also known as the killing fields, which is where 8985 bodies were found in 86 mass graves. This was just one of the many killing fields in Cambodia. They were all victims of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge comrades back in 1980. We learned about
how all of these people had been tortured to death in ways you cannot even imagine, too gruesome to describe in this happy blog. Seeing the victims' clothing and bones still sticking out of the ground is a sight that has left an unforgettable impression on us.
Next stop was another very somber and depressing site. The Toul Sleng Genocide Museum, which was where they transformed a quiet neighborhood's high school into a primitive prison and interrogation center. The school also known as security prison 21 or S21. S21 was surrounded by barbed wire and the classrooms were made into prison cells. This is where we saw how an estimated 20,000 people who were suspected of anti revolutionary behavior were brought with their families to be subjected to horrific tortures and eventually killed. The school's walls are lined with pictures of the victims and how they were tortured. After seeing the museum and killing field it was still so hard to believe that this all happened not that long ago. After a very depressing morning we decided to end on a happier note and visit another temple and the Royal Palace which were both incredible and we treated ourselves to
a yummy Mexican dinner. After that experience we were ready to get out of town. The next day was moving day with a five hour bus ride to Siem Riep. We were one of the two million people that travel there each year to see the world-renowned temples of Angkor which was the heart of the Khmer Empire where there are over one hundred temples built between the ninth and fifteenth century. Siem Riep is the base town to explore the temples. This stop was one that we really enjoyed because it had a small town charm to it and it helped that we felt rich because everything was so cheap. So we treated ourselves to a fancy $30 a night hotel including breakfast and a pool. We hired a tuk tuk to chauffeur us around from wat to wat (temple to temple). It is difficult to describe the beauty and the uniqueness of these massive temple ruins and I doubt that the pictures will do it justice. The Angkor ruins consists of over 100 temples with some dating back to the ninth century. It is a destination to add to your list to visit in the near future because
as of now you can climb onto most of the ruins without many restrictions. Unfortunately many are crumbling so who knows how long it will be before all of the ruins are blocked off from tourists. Everyone goes to see the infamous twelth century Angkor Wat which was magnificent. Half way through touring we realized that it would have been worth it to get a guide because after a couple of wats and 100 degree weather with 100 % humidity, it starts looking very similar and you don't know what the hell you are looking at. You start to lose the appreciation of the beauty. There were a few that were definitely unique, one being the wat they used to film the movie Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie. That night we had a hot date at the circus which wasn't like any other circus we have been to. The performers were from a school that takes kids that are living on the street who have nothing and they give them an education and training to become acrobatic performers. It was the Cambodian version of cirque du soleil We did two straight days of the wats which was amazing and a
definite top ten for our trip thus far. You could say we saw our fair share of Buddhas and monks up until now. To top off our Cambodia trip, we woke up early along with a 1,000 other tourists, to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat before flying off back to Thailand where we would spend our last few days in Asia soakingup the warm sun on the beach.
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