Phnom Penh
We originally didn’t plan on going to Phnom Penh – we had wanted to go directly to Siem Reap to check out Angkor Wat, directly from Saigon. But flights were very expensive, so we decided to bus it from Saigon. It was supposed to be a 6hr ride to Phnom Penh....for us, it was 12! It turned out we were travelling on the last day of the Cambodian New Year, so we hit a point where we moved about 4 km in about 4 hours (and we complain about Calgary rush hour??!). The reason for the backup was a ferry that crosses the Mekong River. It is about a 2 minute ferry ride, but only about 6 cars can fit at once and there’s only 5 ferries going back and forth. So, the trip was painful...
When we finally made it to Phnom Penh, we only had half a day to see some sites. We went to the Choeung Ek Killing Fields. This was a very disturbing place. We had known very little about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia before coming here, but now understand how difficult of a past Cambodians have had. Essentially, a group called the Khmer Rouge (led by Pol Pot)took over the country and planned a massive genocide of anyone who refused to follow their regime to create an agrarian society (ie. If you were a doctor, teacher, or any intellectual). Well, 2 million people fit this mould, and were all killed between 1975-1978, which ended up being ¼ of the Cambodian population. A lot of people were forced to kill others, just to stay alive themselves. We also learned that people that killed during the Regime of the Khmer Rouge are still living amongst all other Cambodians today (could even be our tuk tuk driver).
After the Killing Fields we went to Tuong Sel Museum. This was also a disturbing place where the Khmer Rouge kept and tortured people before being sent off to the Killing Fields to be executed, if they didn’t die from torture here.
Overall, we were glad we made the trip to Phnom Penh – made us understand a lot about Cambodia’s history, and again, makes us appreciate our lives.
Siem Reap & Temples of Angkor
Took a 6 hour bus ride to Siem Reap (actually was 6 hours this time!) We were amazed at the amount of littering and garbage we saw along the way. You’ll see in our pictures...We also happened to find entertainment along the way. Found some local kids at a bus stop restaraunt with a pet goat....the pictures will explain the rest...Kyle’s work, not mine.
We got in to Siem Reap in the evening, so didn’t do too much, just checked into hotel and crashed. We got up early the next morning (5AM) to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Was quite the view and worth the early morning wake up. After went to our favourite one the temples of Bayon, which is about 57 faces built all over the temple looking every which way...was pretty cool. We spent the rest of the morning touring around about 10 different temples, all of which are from the 10th – 12th century. Really impressive and so unbelievable to see in person...can’t even capture how cool they were on camera. The only thing was it was REALLY hot out. I think it was 37 above, with no cloud, no breeze. Just HOT. So we were burnt out by about noon and went back to hotel to cool off and nap, then went back out for sunset. The next day, we pretty much did the same thing, but mentioned to the tuk tuk driver something about a cooler full of cold beer for the days journey, and he came through for us. That night we ended up meeting up with a couple we met in Halong Bay in Vietnam. Was good to catch up with them and share stories about where we’d been over some beers.
Next, we were off to Laos....
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