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Published: July 15th 2010
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After landing in the capital of
Phnom Pehn I had an adventurous ride on the back of a motor bike to the area where I was going to stay. The city was flooded with motorbikes and people were driving on both sides of the road in which ever direction they wanted. However, the drivers managed to get wherever they needed to go by blowing their horn.
After checking into the hotel I decided to walk around the city. I noticed that the poverty here was much more present than in Thailand. In the evenings, everyone’s garbage was piled up in the middle of the streets awaiting removal by the garbage trucks. It was sad to watch women and children dig through the mountains of trash in hopes of finding something of value. But despite the poverty, the people in Cambodia possessed a genuine sense of happiness. They were so friendly and possessed beautiful smiles and childlike eyes.
The next day I took a 6 hour bus ride to
Siem Reap. This shed some light on how the people of the country lived. Their lives revolved around their rice fields and simple wooden shacks. Most homes were built a few feet above
the ground to protect them from the flooding of the rainy season. Like the other locals, they had very little but possessed the same happy look in their eyes.
As I stepped off the bus in Siem Reap I saw a beautiful angel waiting for me. She was standing under the hot sun with sparkling eyes and a luminous smile. What a beautiful moment that was to be reunited with Xiomara after nearly 3 weeks of being apart.
We spent the next few days walking and bicycling around Siem Reap. Eating at their great restaurants and taking it all in. Riding bicycles was a bit of a challenge as they drove the same here as they did in the capital. As we cycled off the beaten path we found so many children that instantly lit up when they saw us. With a huge smile they waved and said, “hellooo.” I can see why so many people fall in love with the children here and adopt them.
One evening we went to a hotel that had a movie night. They had a small area on the rooftop that made for a great spot to watch a movie under the stars. The
movie was called Killing Fields and it accurately depicted the lives of an American and Cambodian reporter team during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. The movie takes you through one of the darkest times in Cambodia’s history as more than 2 million lives were lost due to genocide. Watching the film gave us an even higher appreciation for the people of Cambodia. Not only did they have nothing but less than 40 years ago they witnessed such a horrible tragedy. As if that is that were not enough, their country is also littered with landmines so many of the people are amputees. Despite all of this, the people of Cambodia still find happiness.
On my birthday we took a tuk-tuk to visit the ruins of Angkor Wat and the rest of the ancient city. Under the sun’s blazing rays we climbed up and down several temples, stopping periodically to quench our thirst with fresh coconut water.
What incredible city this would have been to visit during the height of the Angkorian Empire. The attention to detail on all of the intricate carvings was astounding. There were so many beautiful stories etched into the stone walls. As we walked down
some of the dark corridors we felt as if we had traveled back in time. This was especially true when we arrived at Ta Prohm. As you can tell by the photos, they left this one as they found it. The giant tree roots wrapping around the structures really add to the experience. Once again I could not help but to hum the tune from Indiana Jones as we walked through the crumbling hallways.
The next day we took a bus to Phnom Pehn where we stayed the night. Then we took another bus to Sianoukville. Upon arrival we took a taxi to the Vietnam Embassy, where it took us longer to fill out the paper work than it took them to issue our visas! After about 5 minutes we were out the door with our visas.
After leaving the Vietnam Embassy we rented two motor bikes and drove to
Otres Beach. It was great to feel sun on your face and the wind blowing through your hair. We drove through some tiny villages before negotiating the steep rocky hill that descended to Otres Beach. We checked out a few of the tiny beachfront hotels before deciding on a room.
After watching the sunset, we walked next door to visit with some of the operators of the hotels. I think there may have been 5-10 guests staying in all of Otres beach at the time, so we pretty much had everything to ourselves. That night we met several of the operators of the small hotels as they all congregated to one place. We learned that most of them had no previous experience in the hotel or restaurant business and that they just were looking for an extended vacation. Most of the hotels only had 3-10 rooms and it was during the low season. So for many of them it was just that, a vacation. We also were told of a family who drove their motor home all the way from Germany and had been staying there for more than a year.
The next day we left at sunrise to drive back to Sianoukville where we caught an early bus to
Kep. Here we found a nice hotel that was close to where our friends Tammy & Peter were staying. That afternoon we rented a motorbike and explored Kep. We drove up to the highest point in the area to catch
a bird’s eye view of the town’s layout. After observing a family of monkeys, we reunited with our friends for dinner. We had an interesting ride back from dinner as we discovered that our headlights we not working! So we just followed our friends (their tail lights were not working) up the steep hills back to our hotel.
The next day we took a bus with our friends to
Vietnam.
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Papa de Estados Unidos
Randy Fuss
Incredible!
Oh, you two will never know how much I enjoyed this entry of yours from Cambodia and Viet Nam! Wonderful! I can only dream of your experiences at the Ankor complexes and various ruins and temples. Fantastic job! Thank you, thank you, thank you. Love and miss you both very, very much. Papa