andblahandblahblah: August 2011

So before I write about my week, I want to write about this exact moment. I'm currently sitting in a small bar on a secluded beach in Southwest Cambodia watching an amazing sunset with a margarita.

Okay now to my week as a whole. Tom and I started our time in Cambodia up in Siem Reap following the interesting adventure we had crossing the border the day before. Our first full day in Siem Reap we didn't really do too much as we were quite exhausted from the trip so we slept until around noon, had a lazy day and went down to the old market. At the old market we had a really good filling lunch for about a dollar fifty, which is quite amazing for how good it was. That night we went to another good place to eat and I had Khmer Curry for the first time, which is absolutely amazing. The food here is wonderful, there isn't a lot of the sugars and fatty acids that are present in a lot of American/Western foods and every dish is filled with cooked vegetables and a lot of the time cooked pineapple with is extremely yummy. Later that night we went to this nice restaurant and had a drink upstairs. The cool thing about Siem Reap is Cambodia was previously a French colony so a lot of the buildings have colonial French architecture, meaning the upstairs are full of balconies that over look the city. This was the most expensive place we could find to eat in Siem Reap and the average meal was still only around 6-10 dollars.

The next day we went to the Angkor complex and let me tell you, coming from someone who has seen a lot of the ancient Greek and Roman ruins neither of those societies left me nearly as in awe as Angkor did and I absolutely love both the Roman and Greek ruins. The Angkor complex is just something else, this was a city that had a million people at a time when London had a measly 50 thousand, it was the cultural center of SE Asia. Now it is ruins that are still in really good condition hidden in the Cambodian Jungles. It was honestly one of the most awe inspiring days I have had in my life. On top of that we rented a Tuk Tuk driver for the day to show us around the ruins for 12 dollars, so 6 dollars each, and he showed us a lot of secret spots that we would have never thought to look at on our own. For example, outside of Angkor Thom, one of the buildings in the Angkor complex, is a massive wall that surrounds Angkor Thom and minor complexes on all four sides. Up on the walls are carvings of a Khmer god, and you can walk down the walls, which we would have never known if not for our tuk tuk driver. We saw four of the major buildings, Angkor Wat which was amazing, Angor Thom, Ta Prohm which is where Tomb Raider was filmed with the trees growing on top of the walls which was my favorite and we even saw giant centipedes in some of the dark areas, and another building that the name of never stuck with me. Beyond that we saw a bunch of the minor complexes, and were heavily rained on a few times. I remembered telling Tom at one point how crazy it was that at this point we were in the jungles of Cambodia at ancient ruins while being rained on. The thing I had mixed feelings on but to be honest I thought was really cool was the fact you could go anywhere you wanted in the complexes including down dark hallways that I'm sure were full of giant centipedes, spiders, rats, and who knows what else. Walking down them made me feel like Indiana Jones, not knowing what would fall or jump down in front of me. The only reason I had mixed feelings about being allowed to go anywhere we wanted was the degradation this causes to the ruins, as the more people that are randomly walking around the more wear and tear there is on the different complexes. In all reality though it made it that much more exciting as I remember in Rome and Athens it was very strictly enforced as to where you could go in the complexes. Here we walked up steps that were literally almost horizontal. I imagine that as Cambodia opens more to the West, which has only really begun happening in the last 10 or 15 years, you'll see more enforcement as to where you can go in the ruins, and while this is understandable and good for the survival of the ruins, it does take an element out of the adventurer spirit of walking down dark passageways overgrown with plants and wild life. We already began to see this as a rare few outlier areas were off limits or you would have to walk around them, although this didn't seem to be strictly enforced. I can't say how amazing Angkor was though with just a mix of all the things mentioned above, being lost in the jungle, being allowed to roam freely, the greatness of this now lost society it was in short spectacular.

The next day we took it easy as we knew we would be busing down to the capital in a day or two. We bought some Thai pants at the market that day, ate and went down to pub street, which is where you'll find most of the Westerners in the city, as the draft beer there is 50-75 cents for a mug, not a bad deal at all. Our last day in Siem Reap we had a fish foot massage, which is where you stick your feet in a fish tank and they nibble at your feet for 25 minutes cleaning them. At first it tickled and we could barely keep our feet in the water, but after a while it began to feel extremely good. That night we went to a newly opened Cambodian night club which was predominately filled with locals, Tom and I guessing the locals who were a bit better off. It was an interesting experience and later that night, and the next day, Tom was laughing because while we were at the club different Cambodian women were braiding my hair. He was laughing because he never imagined he would be in a club in Cambodia seeing his friends hair being braided by local Cambodians. The other interesting thing I learned that night was why while in Siem Reap people would refer to me as lady, as I was completely perplexed by it. The reason why being, unlike in Thailand where many men have long hair, in Cambodia if a male has long hair he is a ladyboy. So that was pretty funny once I found that out and cleared up my wondering as to why I was being referred to as lady.

The next day we hopped on our 6 hour bus ride from Siem Reap to the capital. The bus ride was really bumpy and a little uncomfortable, but a great experience as we drove through the rice paddies, river plain areas, and the more rural parts of Cambodia. We also saw the most amazing sunset I had ever seen up until that point, while we were on the small dirt road that was as wide as the bus itself, with the Mekong River on one side and either a marsh or an offshoot of the Mekong on the other side, we saw the sun set over the Western mountains and the river, it was absolutely spectacular.

We were only in Phnom Penh for two days, one of which was a depressing day as it was the day we went to S21 and the killing fields. S21 was the prison where the Khmer Rouge questioned prisoners and the killing fields were where they put the people to death. It is very simaliar to the Nazi concentration camps. During this time period of Khmer Rouge rule, which lasted I believe about 3.5 years. The Khmer Rouge wanted to turn their society into a Marxist egalatarian society, where the peasants ruled the country. They forced everyone out of the cities to work in the rice paddies and farms, and if you were deemed an intellectual you were put to death. You could be deemed an intellectual simply by wearing glasses or speaking more than one language. In total it is estimated the Khmer Rouge killed a little under 2 million of their own people during this time period. The killings fields were very humbling and beyond sorrowful. During the rainy season clothes and bones are still washed out from the mass graves and on one tree you can still see blood stains as this is where they smashed young children's heads in. Pol Pot, who was the leader of the Khmer Rouge, reasoned that he must kill the children of those he killed in order to prevent future retaliation against him. He explained it was like killing the root in order to guarantee the death of the plant. At the prison there was still blood stained on the floor of the cells nearly thirty years after. It was a depressing day but also a very important day that I'm glad I was able to partake in. I was and am slightly displeased in myself that I studied politics, and in turn studied history as I am fascinated by it, yet there is so much of the Khmer Rouge time period that I didn't and to a little lesser of an extent still don't know about, while I feel I know quite a bit about the Nazi holocaust. To be completely honest I feel this is because the Nazi's happened in the West, while the Khmer Rouge happened in Southeast Asia, so unfortunately it is not as well known or as spoken about in the states, even though per size of population it was the deadliest regime in the 20th century, including Nazi Germany. Fortunately this is the beauty of traveling, being opened up to wonderful people,cultures, and civilizations but also being able to see the dark hours of foreign socities that have just as much of an influence on the culture of the society as more positive aspects. Hopefully by seeing and understanding these things we can educate ourselves and help prevent them from ever happening again in foreign lands or at home.

Beyond that the rest of my time in Phnom Penh was pretty uneventful. I met a few English guys who played American football at their University and said it was one of the fastest growing sports in England which I found interesting. Beyond that one day while Tom and I was eating lunch there was lightning that struck about a block away and was quite loud, which made me jump. We also met up with Toms friend Sophie who has been travelling for about 5 months now and her, Tom, a girl named Sarah, and myself all headed down to Sihanookville.

Once we arrived in Sihanookville we asked a tuk tuk driver to take us to our hostel which was outside of the main touristy area and on a beach about 6 km or roughly 4 miles down the road. What we didn't know was 3 km or a little less than 2 miles of this was on dirt back roads. We took a tuk tuk on these deserted dirt backroads full of potholes for two miles while it was getting dark, and it looked like we were heading to the wilderness. Once we arrived though it was absolutely amazing as it is a one dirt street town on Otes beach. It has maybe ten bar/bungalows on the beach side of the street and a few hostel/guest houses on the other side. The place we are staying at is absolutely amazing as it's a little bungalow, that I haven't taken any photos of yet but I will before I leave, and it costs FIVE DOLLARS a night, five dollars for beautiful beaches with islands you can see in the distance, it is absolutely amazing. A few nights ago I had a bonfire with a 6 or so English people and a few local Cambodians. That is the great thing about this beach, there are so few people that everyone talks and everyone recognizes each other. There are no hotels only small little bungalows and hostels. Side note all the power just went out in the city and you can see lightning in the horizon off the coast and is absolutely beautiful. Yeah so this beach has been amazing I've spent a lot of time with Tom, Sophie, Sarah, Joe and Hannah who are two other people we met on this trip, and Tee and his friend who are Cambodian. It has been great and knock on wood I haven't got sick once yet. I was attacked quite a bit on my feet one night in Siem Reap by mosquitoes and I had a really itchy case of sand mites up my leg from when we had the bonfire, those little guys gave me the worst itch I've ever had. Tomorrow we will all be kayaking out to the islands and in a few days Tom and I will be headed to Vietnam. I'm going to upload some photos of the week but I'll upload a few pictures of the bungalows we are staying at tomorrow.