So we got the night bus upto Bangkok which wasn't too bad until we got of the coach and there were taxi drivers swarmed around the door of the coach asking where we were going. They remained in a swarm around us while we got our bags and even when we were reading in the lonely planet about where we were going to go they were looking over our shoulder. This was pretty traumatic after 12 hours trying to sleep on a coach! In the end we got a taxi across Bangkok to the Airport Hotel we decided to stay in before our flight to Phnom Penh. We had a pretty boring day of reading and a cheap dinner of pot noodles in our room. A highlight was watching Thai MTV, they love Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga! lol.
The following day it was 'Songkran' day, Thai New Year so there was supposed to be water fights all aroudn Bangkok but they had been cancelled because of the political unrest. However, we did see a few people with water guns on the way to the Airport. We arrived in Phnom Penh in the afternoon and got a taxi to our hotel, Top Banana Guesthouse. There were two flights of really steep stairs which were a challenge with our increasingly heavy bags! lol. We then spent a few days in Phnom Penh seeing the sights. First we saw the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, then we went to S-21, this school that the Khmer Rouge converted into a prison. It has pretty much been left as it was, we saw the bedframes they chained prisoners to, the old school PE equipment they used to torture people and a set of old classrooms filled with photographs of the prisoners. They imprisoned Intellectuals and their families, tortured confessions out of them, then sent them to the Killing Fields to be executed and buried in mass graves. We also visited the Killing Fields, you can walk around the edge of the graves they've excavated but all around the outside there are mass graves that haven't been excavated. Also, the stuff that has been found (clothes, skulls and bones) have been displayed in a Stupor, a buddhist grave type thing.
We were in Phnom Penh over Khmer New Year so alot of stuff was shut but we did find an amazing cafe which had an AMAZING range of sandwich filling, which I have been missing! lol. We left Phnom Penh by bus and travelled to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat, the 8th wonder of the world! Siem Reap is one of the most touristy places in Cambodia and because of how recent the Khmer Rouge was and how many landmines remain throughout the Cambodia there are loads of beggars with missing limbs. Also, because Cambodia is still so poor parents force their children on to the streets to sell things and to beg. On the plus side, there is initiatives which you can give money to in the knowledge it's going to the right places, for example, in the town we're in at the moment you can but paintings the children do and they get given money without begging or selling things on the streets.
We planned to see Angkor Wat for sunrise 'the done thing' and so woke up at about 4.30 and met our driver for the day. Angkor wat was pretty incredible but my favourite was either Angkor Thom, these ancient ruins of a city, or Ta Prohm, where trees grew through all the ruins. We came back to meet our driver after Ta Prohm and couldn't see him anywhere, eventually we recognised our tuk-tuk and he was asleep in it! All the other drivers were laughing and he woke up pretty sheepish! lol. The last stop of the day was this temple where we were to watch the sun go down (except that it was overcast so there was no sun to watch go down! lol) and we rode an elephant up the hill to the temple, it was AMAZING!
After Siem Reap we decided to take a boat journey from Siem Reap to Battambang where you are supposed to be able to see floating villages and endangered birdlife. We saw all these things in the first hour, which was really cool! However, more and more people got onto the boat each time we went through a village and we were all so cramped! I've never had such a numb bum in all my life! lol Whats more, we were told the journey would take 6/7 hours but it ended up taking ELEVEN because it is just before the rainy season and the river is really low. So low that the boast kept getting stuck and some people got off and walked four about half an hour. We were pretty weary of this because the worst place for landmines is on flood plains! NO THANKS lol. When we finally arrived in Battambang I lugged my bag onto my back and trudged up this hill to the road where we met a tuk-tuk driver called Mr.Tim who took us to our hotel. We were pretty traumatised by the journey and spent a day recovering (our hotel had a pool, YAY! lol) The following day we planned for Mr.Tim to pick us up. He showed us round this temple which had been used as a prison under the Khmer Rouge and described how when they took over everyone was forced to live in the countryside and to farm rice which they weren't allowed to eat. He also told us how girls were made to be nurses and were the only people who could provide any sort of healthcare. The converted temples into hospitals and used pepsi bottles to administer what they were told was medicine through a drip. Mr. Tim then told us that that is how his mother died and that he had lived through the Khmer Rouge, he was an incredible man to have met!
We arrived in Sihanoukville the day before yesterday by coach (ten way more comfortable hours! lol) and have been staying in a really cool place called Monkey Republic, they support all the good causes around the town (we have a picture from the above mentioned charity in our room! lol) It is run by four guys from Cambridgeshire and there is 2 free TV rooms where you can borrow and watch DVDs for free. Today we watched Marion and Geoff, it was really funny!
I am fully aware I have not done justice to Cambodia in this blog, its been incredible and there is too much to write in one sitting!
xxxxx
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