This is Sam.
In cambodia, i have received a very educating history lesson. It has been the most interesting and cultured country i have ever visited.
The people here are so calm and generous, they seem to love westerners but i got the feeling they are still emotionally damaged from their past. The aesthetics of the country has wiped away the past and phom penh looks modern, cambodia has roads, night clubs, shopping malls and luxury resorts and even beer, which apparently is quite a recent change. Although Cambodia's population is very young, its still very common to bump into someone who was alive in the khmer rouge period, but you don't know what role they played. Many peasants from the past, soldiers from the khmer rouge and prison victims are walking about. Most people were just children though. It's difficult to ask the khmer people openly about that time as they find it very emotional and hard to talk about it. Its
actually quite strange, the country shares their story very well, in it's rawest form, they haven't sugar coated their past for us tourists and there is something from the khmer rouge in every place we visited. whether it was a killing field, museum, remembrance place, prison or just the people, it was very openly seen in every place we visited but talking about that past is something nobody did. cambodia actually felt quite eerie and emotional overall.
We started in pnom penh, the evening we arrived we bumped into our dutch friend from vietnam. He asked us to join him on the tour the next day as its cheaper to have a group of 4 people in a tuk tuk. So, without really seeing any of Cambodia yet, our first day was a tour to the palace, the killing fields, S21 prison and then the russian market. Our history lesson started right away.
The killing fields is a really sad place. The mass graves, skulls and the killing tree were horrible to see. But It was visiting the S21 prison that really sent shivers down my spine. I couldnt physically bring myself to walk into and see the prison cells and the torture rooms. It was as if there was a pull of some force that wouldnt allow me to enter. My teeth felt itchy and my stomach actually felt quite sick whilst being in the prison. There was still blood stains everywhere, nail scratch marks on the walls and it was strangely very easy to imagine the helpless prisoners in the very place i was standing. This was probably because you could relate the graphic pictures of the torture to the rooms and areas we could see.
After pnom penh we went south to Silhouville. A small beach town that has a tacky commercial part and a nice quiet part. We decided to stay in a place called mushroom point on the nice beach, it looked nice and had straw bungalows. Instead we ended up at the tacky side called serendipity beach due to our tuk tuk driver conning us $5 and dropping us off at the nearest beach. In the end this wasnt too bad as it rained the whole time so we wanted to keep these few days cheap as we couldnt really get the most out of the beach anyway, so instead we stayed in a dirt cheap hostel and i was the unlucky one who was next to the snorer.
Next was Kampot, i loved it here as we stayed in a hippy hostel called bodhi villa. It was cool straw huts on the river. Full of mozzy's so i got bitten to bits but experiencing accommodation with the wild lofe was cool. We shared Our bathroom with a giant snail (size of a tennins ball). We went to a make shift cinema in the town and watched 'the killing fields' which was interesting. We did a tour to Bokor mountain and sunset river boat. On top of The mountain was creepy ruins of an old casino and a church from the war with Vietnam and a brand new huge casino, it was bazar considering this is a national park.
We then got a 3 hour bus to kampong cham, a more rural place that didnt see many tourists. Our hotel was pretty empty amd the place shuts everywhere by 11pm. This place wasnt that built up as there were no street lamps, bars and the hotels were very basic. It was here where we celebrated our 1 year and rented a moped. We visited the french tower, man an and woman hill temple where there were monkeys everywhere. The moped was fun and Cj did pretty good driving it for his first time.
Siem reap was next. A big city full of backpackers. Our hotel was good value as it was cheap and nice. I really liked Siem reap, it was a fun place. Our hotel was close to pub street so it was a good location. We went to loads of markets and 1 night out which was good. I challenged one of the cambodian locals dancing on pub street with a trick/dance off and i actually won by doing the moon walk and getting my cheer scorp out.
We only managed 1 night out here because the 2 full on days we spent in Angkor wat (UNESCO world heritage site) were knackering. So much walking and climbing and we hired a tuk tuk tour guide for the 2 days, we were thinking to cycle and i am so glad we didn't. The temples are huge and the dotted around the acres of land everywhere. On the first day we got up at 4:30 am to see the sunrise which was actually really amazing. Then the 2nd day we saw the sunset. After Cambodia, i am definitely 'templed out' we must have visited about 10 temples including the one from tomb raider.
Now, i am sitting in our hostel in our new destination Chiang Mai.
No comments:
Post a Comment