My next stop in Cambodia was the capital, Phnom Penh. On the bus a white baby boy belonging to a French couple was being passed around by Cambodian women who were cooing over him and feeding him snacks - it's clearly not just Caucasians who find Asian babies fascinatingly adorable, it works both ways! I arrived late, headed straight for my hostel and went to sleep in the twenty person dorm I'd booked; I've been in much rowdier dorms but no matter how respectful people are, when you have twenty people sharing a room you get woken up constantly, for example, I was disturbed at 12am, 1am and 3am as people came in from nights out and then 5am, 6am and 7am as other people packed their bags and left for early buses. My main mission in Phnom Penh was to arrange a visa for Thailand at their embassy as this time I plan to stay longer than the free thirty day visa on arrival will allow me to. Once I'd got the ball rolling on this I had a few days to myself; I treated myself to a day at a swanky hotel so I could use their gym and pool - I can't describe how excited I was to work out in a fully equipped gym with air-con as I've been going for runs around the SE Asian countryside and cities in sweltering heat (although I can't complain about the views!). Asia is renowned for it's, shall we say... 'eager', tuk tuk drivers waiting around every corner asking everyone who walks by if they need a ride, oblivious to the fact that they may have just been asked twelve hundred times in the last ten seconds. This seems to be epidemic in Cambodia. These men are just trying to make a living so why is it so excruciatingly annoying?! Perhaps the monotonous repetition of pseudo-polite replies just gets frustrating when it's forty degrees and even your eyeballs are sweating.
A trip to Cambodia isn't complete without properly acknowledging the country's civil turmoil at the hands of communist extremist Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s. Unbelievably, an estimated two million out of the eight million strong population were murdered by the dictator if they didn't fit in to the rigid ideas of his regime: city people, educated people, those who could speak another language and those perceived to be 'traitors' were tortured into confessing imaginary crimes, secretly killed in brutal ways and dumped in mass graves at one of the country's many 'killing fields'. The largest one of these 'killing fields' is in Phnom Penh and I spent the day there learning about the abominable goings on just a few decades ago. Whilst walking around the site the audio guide warned its listeners several times to watch out for tooth and bone fragments on the floor as they tend to drift up to the surface when it rains. Sometimes even victims' babies and children were murdered to prevent them growing up and taking revenge for their parents' deaths. I poignantly noted that I hadn't seen many elderly people in Cambodia.
The next morning I travelled for eight bumpy hours by bus to Siem Reap where I met Lisette, the Swedish girl who I'd spent the first few weeks in Cambodia with. Siem Reap is a big market town with stalls and stands sprawling out on to the streets - mainly at night - and it feels significantly safer and calmer than Phnom Penh. Nestled in the centre is 'Bar Street' where we found ourselves in the middle of a talcum powder fight as the locals were celebrating Khmer New Year (Khmer is the name of the main ethnicity group in Cambodia). Backpackers and Cambodians joined together for the street party, beers in one hand and powder in the other to ensure that everyone resembled drunken ghosts and geishas as they danced in the street.
My solution!
For $8 I was able to use the hotel's facilities for the day.
This is what sharing a room with nineteen other people looks like.
A trip to Cambodia isn't complete without properly acknowledging the country's civil turmoil at the hands of communist extremist Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s. Unbelievably, an estimated two million out of the eight million strong population were murdered by the dictator if they didn't fit in to the rigid ideas of his regime: city people, educated people, those who could speak another language and those perceived to be 'traitors' were tortured into confessing imaginary crimes, secretly killed in brutal ways and dumped in mass graves at one of the country's many 'killing fields'. The largest one of these 'killing fields' is in Phnom Penh and I spent the day there learning about the abominable goings on just a few decades ago. Whilst walking around the site the audio guide warned its listeners several times to watch out for tooth and bone fragments on the floor as they tend to drift up to the surface when it rains. Sometimes even victims' babies and children were murdered to prevent them growing up and taking revenge for their parents' deaths. I poignantly noted that I hadn't seen many elderly people in Cambodia.
The tree which they would smash babies heads against to kill them in order to avoid using expensive ammunition.
"Please don't walk through the mass grave" - you don't have to ask me twice!
The skulls of the murdered Cambodians - it's easy to identify how many of them died by the gaping holes in their heads.
The next morning I travelled for eight bumpy hours by bus to Siem Reap where I met Lisette, the Swedish girl who I'd spent the first few weeks in Cambodia with. Siem Reap is a big market town with stalls and stands sprawling out on to the streets - mainly at night - and it feels significantly safer and calmer than Phnom Penh. Nestled in the centre is 'Bar Street' where we found ourselves in the middle of a talcum powder fight as the locals were celebrating Khmer New Year (Khmer is the name of the main ethnicity group in Cambodia). Backpackers and Cambodians joined together for the street party, beers in one hand and powder in the other to ensure that everyone resembled drunken ghosts and geishas as they danced in the street.
They got us!
Street party.
The Khmer people certainly know how to have fun!
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