Angkor Wat

According to our guide, Siem Riep used to be a small town on the north west end of Cambodia. Nowadays, it’s a bustling city that’s built around servicing the 2M visitors a year. They all come to see the jewel in Cambodia's crown, the ancient temple ruins of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. Most of the well known temples are absolutely mobbed, but that doesn't take anything away from the decaying splendour of these 1000 year old ruins.

25/09 Last Day in Phnom Penh

After the distressing but utterly essential experience of the first day in Phnom Penh, we had a rather more upbeat second day, exploring the various palaces, markets and museums down town. Still there were many reminders of Cambodia’s past and present struggles through the day, and at Sam’s request, we finished at an orphanage where we had the chance to talk to talk to the kids and provide some food supplies.

We all agreed that we loved Phnom Penh and the Cambodian people. The guidebook quotes “These people have been to hell and back but their optimism and unbreakable spirit is infectious” and I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Tomorrow we head to Siem Riep which is Cambodia’s second city and a stones throw away from Angkor Wat, considered to be the eight wonder of the world.

 

Cambodia's Killing Fields

While escaping the ruck of Tuk-Tuk drivers upon arrival at Phnom Penh, we managed to hook up with a driver named Sam who’s perfect English rang out like a beacon among the frantic touting for our dollars and we arranged for him to show us around the next day.

We started the day at a firing range, where we handled various light machine guns. Truth be told, we regretted being taken there as soon as soon the first round was fired. This is a country which suffered unspeakable horrors under the Khmer Rouge in the 70s and the act of playing with guns under this backdrop left us feeling a little uncomfortable.

That afternoon, we learnt more about the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge as Sam took us to the killing fields of Choeung Ek, 15km outside of Phnom Penh, where some 17,000 political prisoners were executed and buried in mass graves and the infamous Prison S-21, a former school ground where people were detained and tortured prior to being taken to the killing fields for execution.

It is estimated that somewhere between 1.5 and 3 million Cambodians perished under the regime from 1975 until 1979 when they were deposed by the Vietnamese Army, a quite staggering number for a population estimated at less than 10 million at the time. Approximately half of those were murdered by the Khmer Rouge and the rest died through starvation and disease. The people from the cities suffered particularly, as they were considered corrupted in the eyes of the extremist Marxist leaders and condemned to hard labour and execution. Sam had lost his own father and told of how virtually every household in Phnom Penh had a similar story to tell.

The Khmer Rouge photographed and recorded each prisoner. The rooms, once used for torture and incarceration now display the photo’s of the men, women and children who passed through S-21. Looking at their faces, it was pitiful to think that each one of them would have met their death within days, their memory and all that they could have been lost forever save for these black and white photo’s of them staring back from the past.

23/09 - Arrival in Phnom Penh

Today we jumped on a coach to take us out of South Vietnam and headed west across the border in to Cambodia and Phnom Penh.

Si Phong and Cong Soi had an attempt at flirting for a discount off the ticket agent, but only managed a paltry 5000 VND (15 pence) off the price. Draw your own conclusions!

With a distance of 220km, we had the luxury of travelling by coach and were able to watch the lands change around us as we moved out of Ho Chi Minh and across Cambodia. Ho Chi Minh had felt poor compared to the highly developed Kuala Lumpur, but Cambodia felt even more so. The view from the coach offered a hint of the country which we were entering as we saw farmers working their rice paddies with water buffalo rather than machinery. The guidebook spoke of the significance of religion in the lives of the Cambodian people, and temples were everywhere, even in the most humble looking townships.

Despite our asian palettes, we’re taking a little time getting accustomed to the food in Cambodia. I bought two wraps of what I thought were Lo Mei Fan (gelatinous rice wrapped in leaf) during a rest stop, only to discover that inside was a solid block of spam and chile! When we touched down in Phnom Penh and had escaped the frenzy of tuk-tuk drivers mobbing the coach for a fare, we had dreams of tucking in to the local food (whatever it was!) but given our late arrival, all that was available was old and rotten smelling fare from the street stalls. Ironically, we ended up in yet another Vietnamese restaurant as the safest option (I never thought I’d ever get sick of eating Pho, but after 4 nights in Ho Chi Minh….).

22/09 - Ho Chi Minh

We spent 4 nights in Ho Chi Minh and were joined by Si Phong’s sister, Cong Soi who’ll be travelling with us for a fortnight before she returns to UK.

Anyone who’s visited Ho Chi Minh will have been left with a lasting impression of the traffic. I’ve read of some European countries that conducted experiments in removing the traffic controls around junctions, entrusting motorists to negotiate right of way with each other. Ho Chi Minh is the proof on a massive scale! The city centre is built in a grid and apart from the rush hour, where traffic police are present, the mopeds come at each other from all directions yet miraculously, avoid colliding with each other. Crossing the road involves taking slow predictable steps in to the oncoming traffic and trusting the mopeds to swarm around you.

We probably overdid it a bit in Ho Chi Minh as I think you could get most of the sites done in 2 days. We’ll be heading off in to Cambodia shortly…

Selamat Datang!

We had an easy start to our travels, touching down in Kuala Lumpur after a painful 17 hour flight to spend a few days with the family. However, it would be fair to say that by UK standards the Chew family is no ordinary family. My grandfather was a part of the last generation of polygamous Chinese and all told, he took three wives and fathered 21 children. This presented something of a challenge to Si-Phong, who met whole firm and associated offspring for the first time at a family wedding on the third night!

On the 19^th we fly out to Ho Chi Minh city, aka Saigon.