Cambodia

To arrive in Cambodia, I think it is important to understand their recent history as it still impacts the country today, the history of Pol Pot, his regime and his Khmer Rouge and their revolution, achieved by genocide.  Khmer Rouge was the name given to the followers of the Communist party of Kampuchea in Cambodia.  It was the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot.

The Khmer Rouge believed in 'living from the land' and being an independent sustainable country. Those who lived in the city where forced to relocate to the countryside to grow rice in terrible conditions with very little food, many people starved to death. The Khmer Rouge also disliked educated people, doctors for example were tortured terribly and killed. Those who were considered traitors and against the Khmer Rouge were sent to prisons and either tortured or killed there, or sent to be executed at sites where there were mass graves. People of all ages, including the elderly and children were wrongly accused of being traitors. Overall, during the 4 years Pol Pot was in power, 3 million civilians lost their lives through starvation, torture or murder. 

SIEM REAP

We arrived in Cambodia and we were hit by the beauty! Even the airport terminal and buildings are amazingly beautiful, similar to an old South Asian temple, surrounded by gorgeous gardens with tropical flowers and plants. Our tuk-tuk driver was waiting for us with the name card "Sam Sear" and he transported us to our boutique hotel. His tuk-tuk was a motorbike and attached to the pillion passenger seat, our carriage, complete with luxury seat, mahogany wooden arm rests and a tarpaulin roof; as were all the tuk-tuks in Siem Reap.

Siem Reap was not as we thought, a town famous for the 8th wonder of the world situated just a few kilometres outside; Angkor Wat. We soon realised it is a hub for backpackers that just want to drink and party, as it is so cheap! 50p for a beer and a main course meal for £1.75!! You can see the attraction. 

The first day we relaxed next to the gorgeous infinity pool, which was much needed following our hectic schedule of China. We enrolled on another cookery course which involved visiting a local family with a gift of rice to see their kitchen, it was a great day and we were rewarded with our delicious Amok curry.

The main reason to visit Siem Reap is the 8th wonder of the world - Angkor Wat.  Hearing that the sunrise is spectacular, we set out to visit the temples at 0430 hours, however, the sunrise was disappointing as it was overcast; but the sight was still as breathtaking! Angkor Wat is known as the largest religious structure in the world and is the Khmer's/Cambodian's national symbol, as depicted on their flag. Unlike the majority of the temples, Angkor was never left abandoned and has been in constant use since it was built, around 1000 years ago. Rosie and I were astounded by the perfection and symmetry of the building and how they achieved it all those years ago. For example, there was no mortar used when laying the stones used for the walls, but they are completely level with no gaps. The temple is surrounded by a moat 190 metres wide that forms an exact and perfect rectangle of 1.5km by 1.3km, an engineering feat in today's architecture let alone that many years ago with no technology!

 We visited a number of temples in the area and finished with Ta Prohm, also known as the Tomb Raider temple, as the film was shot there. It was the most eery and magical of them all due to it being 'eaten' by the surrounding jungle.

The next day we visited the land mine museum which was extremely interesting. The founder is a man named Aki Ra, who became a boy soldier for the Khmer rouge after his parents were killed by Khmer soldiers. His job was to plant hundreds of mines during the civil war. He then escaped and joined the Vietnamese army to fight against the Khmer Rouge. When the war was over he started to independently defuse land mines with his wife using a stick and a pair of pliers. Initially he kept all the recovered land mines in his home and showed tourists around but the more he diffused, the more space he needed, so eventually set up the museum. At the rear of the museum is a large orphanage for children that have either lost parents to mines or are amputees etc due to mine detonation. He still today defuses mines but has a team of colleagues that join him and all have now had the recognition and training from the government. 

The Khmer Rouge uniforms and weapons...

Princess Diana visited one of the mine fields in the 90's to raise awareness in the Western world, now Harry has taken on her role with the charity; HALO trust. Over 63,500 land mine and Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) casualties have been recorded in Cambodia since 1979 and with over 25,000 amputees Cambodia has the highest ratio per capita in the world. Between 1991 and May 2010, HALO Cambodia cleared over 6,115 hectares (15,110 acres) of landmine contaminated land whilst destroying over 229,000 landmines, 139,200 items of large calibre ammunition and 1.28 million bullets. This is alongside dozens of other charities and NGO's involved with clearing land mines.  

We used the same tuk-tuk driver (Mr Sororn) for the entire time as he picked us up from the airport and was very friendly, spoke good English and told us loads of local information about the Cambodian culture and history. Currently, he lives in the city, renting a flat but he is building a house in the country and as we were passing it one day, he took us and showed us around, it was an amazing insight into his personal life which opened our eyes to their living standards. 

Mr Sororn proudly showing us his lemon grass plants and vegetables...

Whilst there his neighbour staggered towards us, the elderly man started talking Khmer to me, when I looked confused Mr Sororn explained he was drunk. We visited the gentlemen's house where we discovered he made rice wine...that'll explain it then! He proudly showed us his pigs (which were the biggest we'd ever seen) whilst his family sat around a small TV watching a Cambodian film, powered by a car battery. We later learned that alcoholism is a large problem amongst elders in Cambodia, for many, the cause is having lived through the horrific tortures of life under the Khmer Rouge, we wondered what this gentleman must have seen in his earlier years.  

Making rice wine...

Mr Sororn took us to visit a 'floating village' named Chong Kneas.  The village is situated on the Tonle Sap lake, so large at 190km in length it's considered an inland sea. We paid our entrance fee and a local villager took us on a boat to explore more. It was interesting to see how people lived in houses built on bamboo rafts, depending on the river for food and transport. Floating shops went 'door to door' delivering goods. 

Rosie and I on the Tonle Sap...

Our visit took an upsetting turn when we visited the local orphanage. Our boat driver had explained that we could buy rice for the orphanage as donating money to the teacher often lead to richer teachers but poorer children. We went to buy rice, however the price we were told was extortionate! We could not believe that a country who is known for its expert rice growing charged more than what we'd pay in the UK... smelling a scam we opted to buy the children sweets and jumped back on the boat to the orphanage. When we arrived we handed out the sweets, the children appeared withdrawn and it was a saddening experience but one we could not avoid. It led us to wonder if the children were being used for profit purposes. We later heard that child exploitation (especially in orphanages) is a huge problem in Asia and I suspect that this was the case for Chong Kneas. A sad experience that we would not want to re live again. 

Back in Siem Reap we ate at a 'Cambodian BBQ' restaurant where hot coals are put in the middle of your table and a metal, Mexican Hat shaped pan placed on top. The rim or moat of the 'hat' is filled with chicken soup and we were then given our vegetables, which you add in the soup to cook, whilst you cook your meat and the juices add to the soup. Our meat consisted of; snake, crocodile, shark, kangaroo and then the usual pork, chicken, beef and squid. Snake was rather disappointing as it tasted like, yep, you guessed, chicken; but was like chewing on an old rubber tyre!! 

From here we had decided to leave our comfort zone and the city behind! We booked four nights staying in a traditional Khmer house on a farm, an hour away from Siem Reap. It had no electric, no internet and was in the middle of nowhere; it was great. The owner Pari contacted us advising we brought some 'dried food' from the city as the nearest shop was a long walk away (we bought biscuits and hoped that was ok)! When we were being shown around the house Pari warned us about snakes and scorpions, although apparently their sting only gives you a fever - reassuring! 

The only neighbour for miles around was the farmer Bo and his family, whose wife cooked for us every night. She made some wonderful food including dried fish with rice and a pork with ginger and garlic dish which was gorgeous. The accommodation was primitive as you would imagine but it was brilliant to experience the traditional and true Cambodian way of life. We had gas to cook our breakfast and lunch, candles to see at night and a car battery rigged up to use the fan or the only light available in the bedroom; our shower was a bucket and scoop to pour over ourselves. The first night in our accommodation our bags got attacked by a rat... It had been roaming round the bedroom and found our biscuits, nibbling a large hole in our backpacks in the process! Rosie soon became a true Khmer country woman, sweeping the house everyday, gathering herbs to cook with and sewing the holes up in our backpacks and clothes, she was in her element. At night time we watched the sky light up with fire flies and listened to the frogs, crickets and birds. 

The downstairs living area...

The bathroom...

A very large praying mantis which seemed to like me a lot..

This was where Bo made the charcoal to cook with...

A night by candlelight...

We had booked a minibus through Bo to travel back to Siem Reap for our journey to Phnom Penh. Bo told us it would be at 0900-0915, so at 0740hrs on the morning he arrived at the door to say that it was now at 0800! Rosie, as you can imagine, was completely relaxed about the new time just 18 minutes away now. We raced around to pack and tidy and in the meantime (due to the distance from our farm house to the main road) Bo had brought his tracker to the door with a flat pallet trailer on the back for our bags and us. We jumped on and made our way to the main road where a minibus packed with people waited for us. There was a lot of head scratching and loud discussions about where we were going to sit, the back door of the minibus wouldn't open as a metal pallet had been welded onto the tow bar, today stacked with lemon grass with two boys sitting on top, inhibiting its use. So our bags were thrown through the open window of the boot and we suggested with hand signals as no English was understood, that we would sit in the boot with our bags so no one would have to move. We climbed in trampling over people and saying hello, making our way to the boot where for the one and a half hour journey we sat on a tyre and a 50kg bag of rice; awesome experience. 

During our journey, we stopped several times and were offered crickets and cockroaches on trays through the windows, it was just a shame that we'd had a large breakfast!

PHNOM PENH

The capital city of Cambodia; the main reasons to visit are to explore the infamous S-21 prison and the Killing Fields of Cheung Ek. The genocide that occurred only 30 years ago was atrocious. Over 3 million civilians perished through starvation and poor healthcare or were murdered for wearing glasses, having an education or not agreeing with Pol Pot's regime. 

We visited Tuol Sleng, or Security Prison 21 which was then known as S-21. The prison started its life as a school but during the revolution it was turned into a prison renowned for its torture and murder. At the height of its activity, some 100 victims were killed on a daily basis.  It has been kept and left as it was (apart from clearing the bodies) with blood stains still on the floor, the beds and chains in place and torture 'devices' in situ.  

Every person that was arrested and arrived at the prison had to have their picture taken; these thousands of pictures filled almost every wall, their faces obviously scared and apprehensive of what was to be their fate. 

The ten prison rules...

It was extremely harrowing and left us speechless that this atrocity happened so recently in history. In 1979, when the Vietnamese army liberated Phnom Penh, there were only 7 prisoners alive at S-21.

If the previous day wasn't enough, we thought we would go to the Killing Fields, known as Choeung Ek. When Pol Pot was overturned by the Vietnamese, mass, open graves were found here. To imagine what it was like was very difficult and although distressing, it has been made as a memorial, therefore, a respectful peaceful place to visit. The Khmer Rouge used to line prisoners up and get them to kneel beside the edge of the mass grave and kill them by blows to the head using an axe, hoe, metal bar or shovel; this was to limit the use of bullets due to cost. 

There is a famous tree next to a different grave where children and babies were held by their ankles and their heads smashed against the tree and then thrown into the grave, not even knowing if they are dead yet. 

Most of the 17,000 detainees held at S-21 were executed at Choeung Ek and it is hard to imagine the brutality that occurred there, but a memorial monument brings it home; a tower of glass cabinets housing 8000 skulls of victims and their ragged clothes. 

Each skull has been forensically examined and it has been identified how they died their brutal death.

Still today there is an International trial continuing to try to bring to justice the leaders of the Khmer Rouge for Genocide, Crimes against Humanity and War crimes (grave breaches of the Geneva Convention). However many Cambodians feel that justice is still yet to be served.

On a lighter note, during our last day in the city we visited the beautiful Royal Palace. Built in the 1860's it is a fine example of Khmer architecture, today it's the home of King Sihamoni. It really is a lovely place to visit and we enjoyed wandering around looking at the very impressive buildings. 

KAMPOT

Our next destination was Kampot, in the south of Cambodia before crossing the border into Vietnam. A beautiful riverside town which had a French history and feel to it, as it was once owned by the French. We stayed in an guesthouse approximately 4km out of town where we had a 3 story tower to ourselves. It had a 360 degree panoramic view from the top where we layed in hammocks and watched many a sunset whilst sipping on an alcoholic beverage! The food here was incredible, especially the local Khmer curry; wow!  

Relaxing on our 'outside' bed...

Rosie relaxing by the river... (there was a lot of relaxing in Kampot)!

Our very muddy walk through the local village to our tower...

Kampot is apparently world renowned for its growing and manufacture of peppercorns so of course we had to visit a farm and buy some in preparation for our camper van when we get to New Zealand!

We also visited Kep, renowned locally for their crab markets and restaurants. Obviously we had crab for lunch which was delicious, whilst seated, we watched as local fisherman/women waded out to sea to retrieve their crab cages full of fresh crabs...mmm, mmm. 

Later, we visited the crab market, a busy place which couldn't have gotten closer to the sea!

Our accommodation had a traditional style Cambodian wooden canoe which we took advantage of. We rowed through the mangroves on the backwaters of the main river as the sun, then rain, then sun again beamed down on us. 

As it was a hard wood canoe, perhaps built 10 years ago; the seats were uncomfortable so I suggested we moored up to stretch our legs and backs. When reaching the shore Rosie started to tie the rope to a nearby tree stump, then when she felt satisfied it was tied, she went for it.  I was sat at the back of the canoe, it was like I was watching a 'You've been Framed' video clip, can you guess what happened? As Rosie bravely leapt to the riverbank, her flip flop gave way under her causing her to fall into the river... I didn't laugh or snigger one tiny bit (on the outside)!!!  

On our final day we walked around the area taking in the stunning scenery filled with paddy fields being planted and where groups of local children kept passing by on their bikes, waving and 'high fiving' us.

 

 We sadly bid farewell to Cambodia and embarked on our 10 hour bus journey to Ho Chi Minh City.