Cambodia

We jumped in a bus, got brought to another bus, jumped in that bus and got brought to another bus, then jumped in that bus and were on our way. What a ride.
It was possibly the worst bus ride ever. We were stuck right down the back with no room and the air con yokey was pulled out of the wall so we couldn’t direct it properly. I was roasting and the smell of bus fumes was a bit bleugh.
Anywho we made it to PP and booked into the Woolly Rhino – I thought it was a bit of a disappointment (for the price) as it had no window. (I have a thing against rooms without windows – sometimes you have no choice but we decided to move the next day).
But we didn’t, he he, it didn’t really matter and we got comfy.

The next day we wandered down to see the Royal Palace & Silver Pagoda, but the second we got there, Jim’s flip flop broke.
LOl. A friendly tuk tuk driver called Sarim stopped to 'help' and took us to the Central Market where Jim bought some black flops. (I could tell he wasn’t completely happy with the colour! ) Sarim offered to bring us to the Killing Fields and the Tsul Sleong Museum the next day.
So after the market we rambled back home. It was a bit late to head back to the palace so we decided to get the beers in instead.
Beer after beer he he. Ah sure we’re on holidays.

Sarim never turned up. Instead this young fellow who annoyed the shite out of us all through breakfast brought us. Chancer.
We hopped in the tuk tuk for the wild dusty ride of our lives to the Killing fields of Choeung Ek.
The Fields themselves were pretty grim. There was an area where the trucks would drop all the people taken from the S21 prison during Pol Pot’s Regime. Then some of them were tortured, while others were just brought straight out into the fields and executed.
The fields were made up of a large space with huge holes dug into it everywhere. Everywhere we walked there were pieces of bone and pieces of old clothes sticking out of the ground. At the entrance to the fields, there was a stone memorial monument with glass cases inside. The glass cases housed tons and tons of skulls and bones. It all seemed a little surreal.

After the fields we went to the Tung Sleung genocide museum aka s21. S21 was a high school that the Khmer Rouge turned into a prison during Pol Pot’s regime from 1975 to 1979. Cambodians and foreigners were taken prisoner if they were seen to oppose Angkar. Many Cambodians were offered a place working for the revolution, but even those people were not safe. Many were watched closely and killed if they were seen or heard to do anything out of line. The guards in the prison themselves were young boys who were trained to kill and be cruel. Subsequent interviews with the guards tell how they either had to kill or be killed.

Victims in the prison were taken from all walks of life, farmers, engineers, professors, teachers, students, diplomats & politicians AND all their families.

The classrooms in the school were used as detention rooms and torture rooms. Some of the rooms were divided up into individual cells about 2 feet by 3 feet. Other rooms were not divided and used as mass detention rooms. The prisoners were chained to a long bar in the room and had to sleep on the floor. There was a long line of rules they had to obey. Basically do what they were told, don’t question any order and ask permission before they did anything - even move. They were inspected 4 times a day, if their shackles were loose, they had to be replaced. Any disobedience was rewarded with lashes from a whip or electrical shocks.
Outside the classrooms, in the playground, there was a gallows used for torture. Prisoners were hoisted up, questioned and whipped until they were unconscious and then dunked in buckets of dirty smelly water to rouse them, so they could be questioned again.
There were some horrible stories and pictures in a place that used to be a place of fun for kids.

Later that evening we saw some couple chasing two guys on a moped down the street. A security guard was running after the moped too. As the moped went by, the guard whacked yer man on the front of the bike, but they didn’t stop. The tall foreigner guy kept running, but I don’t reckon he got him. We reckoned they’d robbed the girl's bag or something. :/

When we went to see if our Vietnam Visas were ready, we were told we would have to wait until Monday evening to collect them. DOH!

The next day we missed our early morning boat to Vietnam! Doh! Our alarm was set for 6pm in the evening. Ejits.
So we were doomed to ANOTHER feckin day in rainy Phnomh Penh. Sigh
We went back to sleep for the afternoon and then had some whopper sandwiches, worked on a track for the rest of the daytime and went out for some delicious Thai food.
We managed to dodge all the tuk tuk drivers & motobike madsers (a great feat in itself – not one person asked us did we want something all the way down the road) to get to the food joint. I had some delicious spicy red veg curry. Jim had some spicy chicken. His eyes were watering and I was wondering why?? Can’t take your spices Tall Boy?? He he
The challenge was on, and I ate a full one. Wehehhehhelll I should’ve kept me mouth shut. The chilli was burnier than the burniest thing I’ve ever eaten. It was like the chilli episode of the Simpsons..Sheesh.
Well we needed some more beer to knock the chilli out of us. So we headed to the fanciest internet shop in the country and Jim attempted to ring home, but to no avail.

Off to Nam tomorrow!! (we hope!)

We were picked up at 8 by our smiley tuk tuk driver, Gram, and off we went. He didn’t speak very much, just stopped at certain temples and told us where to meet him afterwards.

We stopped at quite a few impressive temples on the way to the main event. We bougth a book from some dude to explain whereabouts we were.
The stonework was very impressive and there were stone carvings and engravings of celestial nymphs and various gods (see pics).

We saw the centre town of the city of Angkor which was very cool, a long walkway covered in fantastic stonecarvings of elephants, apsaras and warriors called 'The Terrace of Elephants'.
We also saw the Terrace of Lepers and a place called Bayon. Bayon had huge big carved statues of heads. There is apparently 37 big statues and 216 pairs of eyes that look down at you from this structure.

After a delicious lunch – Jim had coconut juice straight from the coconut, finally we were brought to Angkor Wat, saving the best for last I reckon. It was very cool. It had lots of very steep steps all the way up to the top of the building that we clambered up for a brilliant view. It was amazing.

The day was roasting hot. We must have bought about 5 litres of water. It was an expensive enough day out as the passes themselves were 20 bucks a piece. We had decided not to get the three day passes as we didn’t really think we’d be up for three days of temple viewing. We were right. One full day is enough unless you’re a big temple buff.

We went for a few well-deserved deliciously cold beers afterwards.

The next day was pretty uneventful - Lazed aboot in bed til lunchtime. Had a spiffing tuna sandwich for lunch, then hotfooted it to the Nokia store to price some phones. They were all too dear so we roastingfooted it back to base camp to do some internetting.

Packed our bags ready for the off tomorrow to Phnom Penh. Woohoo

(Woohoo??? - what was I thinking) (< added later)

We got to our guest house soon enough and bid adieu to our jolly taxidriver. When we got to reception though they didn’t have any cheapo rooms (so they said – I was dubious – they usually want u to pay for the more expensive rooms) but we got the dear one for the first night anywho. (if u can call 15 bucks dear).

We had some lizard residents in our room. We bought some postcards off a cute young fellow called ‘Tom’ (lol) who knew the capital of Ireland was Dublin and how to say ‘Conas a ta tu’. (Sheesh - who doesn't?)
We went to a restaurant called The Red Piano for some Khmer Curry. It was an old colonial French building that was ‘tastefully redecorated’ (according to Jim).

Cambodia is very hot and dusty. There are no roads as we know them and there are lots and lots of poor kids and limbless people begging for money and selling postcards. You’re not supposed to give money (for nothing) as it encourages begging, so we bought some books and postcards and gave some small money to some mine victims but it really is both heartbreaking and tiring at the same time.

The next day we decided to just relax, we moved to a cheaper room and do a bit of work on a track and some blog work. We chose to get a one day pass to the Temples of Angkor Wat & Thom etc and arranged for a tuk tuk guy to collect us in the morning and bring us around for the day.

That evening we decided to indulge in a ‘Happy Pizza’. This place was recommended by the Lonely Planet so we decided to head in and have a happy Hawaiian. We didn’t think it was going to be anything at all but a few hours later and we were laughing our socks off. We went for a few drinks aboot town and fun times were had by all.

We got up redinkulously early at 6am to go grab a taxi to the bus station. We made the 7.30am bus to Aranthya to cross the border into Poipet in Cambodia. There was only one other gringo couple on the bus sitting in front of us. The bus journey wasn’t too bad and was only about 5 hours.

Upon arriving at Aran, we could see the Tuk Tuk drivers lining up for business. We jumped out and the other gringo couple asked us if we would like to share a taxi from after the border to Siam Reap – the town in Cambodia nearest to Angkor Wat etc.

We thought the other couple were a bit odd, the guy seemed kind of grumpy or shy (I dunno) and the girl was worried about the mud on her shoes (she was wearing Crocs with socks!!) (and worrying about mud .. in Cambodia.. Haw HawHaw HAW)
But the more the merrier in border crossing and avoiding scams, so off the four of us went. We went through Thailand’s exit point, entered Cambodia’s visa-entry point and made it through to Cambodia immigration all accompanied by Cambodians giving us free advice. (hee hee hee)

Then on the other side we agreed on a price for the taxi to Siam Reap ($50 bucks for 3.5 hours on the worst road in the world – no messing). The guy of the couple, called Kyle, refused to pay until they got to their destination, so we agreed with our taxi driver to pay half now, half later. (this was in case he decided to drive us around the corner and dump us out the door). But I couldn’t see that happening, our taxi driver was a jovial fellow who called the road (the definitive WORST road in history) “the dancing road” and offered to get us massages for our weary arse bones afterwards.

All was going well in the cab for a while. After conversing with our two new ‘buddies’ – Stacey & Kyle from Texas & Oklahoma respectively, I noticed a few weird things dropped into conversation. Stacey was blathering on in a loud voice (choosing to talk even louder whenever our taxi driver was on the phone – which I thought was a bit rude) about Dallas & Fortworth and their rivalry etc etc.
She went on to tell us all the places she had been. We noticed she said that when she was in high school, she had gone to Honduras to do mission work.

Fair enough, I thought, she must have been forced into that.

Then she mentioned she went to Mexico to do mission work. Hmmm, I thought, she must have gone to a Holy Joe school.

After that she then went onto say that her husband hadn’t been to too many places and that she’d like to bring him somewhere. I thought this was weird on a few levels.
A – she looked about 16
B - we got the impression they were a couple, so if she had a husband then surely that would mean he was the guy in the car with us (especially as she put her hand on his knee while she said “my husband”), so then why refer to him as “my husband” if he is Kyle – the guy sitting next to her…

So that was enough for me to think they were slightly odd. Then
C- they mentioned that they had met in a Christian school. (uh oh). They had studied together, then married as soon as they left college and travelled together to China, where they now taught English. (in a Texas styleeE)

Stacey was yaparama and talked about China for nearly the whole journey. She asked me (accusingly I thought) if we were Christian, I said I was a lapsed one and avoided her glare. :/

She went on to say that they were Christians (really?). Stacey was hoping to bring the Christian Faith to the Chinese students they were teaching. She told us that she had told her students they had no human rights or freedom of religion there and it was up to them to seek the truth. (ahahahaha) At this stage we could tell Kyle was squirming in his seat a bit and we reckoned he just married her to get his end away and was probably regretting it right now.

When she said that her “heart was breaking at the sight of seeing the Chinese worship little statues (AKA BUDDHA to you and me), I was thinking ‘what a loony’.
What makes her think that her religion is the correct one??
What about EVOLUTION for one thing.. lol.

I know myself and Jim have some blessed Buddha beads, but we both have some holy Jesus stuff with us aswell, just in case (we've been worshipping the wrong one all along)

But I continued to look out the window, and as her stories went on, I interjected with “Jesus that’s crazy” and “Holy Moly” and that sort of thing. Not really on purpose, everytime I said something slightly blasphemous, I was thinking ‘Shit!’ lol

Anyway it cheered up the three hour journey (on the worst road ever) no end. I nearly said “Keep the Faith” as they got out of the car, but decided to shut up.