Cambodia: Daily Detox and Tuk Tuk Paradise!

Ok I'm sorry I took quite a long time to post this blog (It's almost been three weeks since I left Cambodia...). So here it goes:

After saying goodbye to Vietnam, we (I  was together with an other Dutchie) crossed the border to Cambodia. I must say I had very low expectations, probably because I had done very poor research. Like I always do.. I couldn’t have been more wrong! One of the things that hits you first though: the heat. After 3 months Asia, I thought I got used to it by now. Cambodia takes it to a whole other level. According to the Lonely Planet April is the ‘killer month’ when it comes to the weather. It might be hard to understand how uncomfortable this can be when you’re in cold weather and you are longing for sun all the time. But this extreme is no fun either. Sweating is a real struggle and you can not do much activity during the day. AC seems the only savior at that point.

Phnom Penh, the capital, was our first destination. Coming from Ho Chi Minh, this city seemed very quiet to me. Not that much people. Crossing the streets was not a problem at all, because there were less motorbikes. But… tuk tuk’s everywhere! I missed them in Vietnam. It’s a fun way to get around actually and I wish we had this in Holland. The only thing is that there is quite a tuk tuk overpopulation.. In a touristy area you will at least have to reject 20 drivers in 5 minutes. On the markets they even sell shirts saying “No tuk tuk”. So yeah, patience is one the most important things in Asia. As I said before, It’s still surprises me how different all the countries are from each other. In Cambodia the people are much darker and they are poorer. There are much more children begging on the streets. But it’s amazing how well their English is. Especially the younger generation.. I still don’t understand how this is possible. And the people are so friendly! I was very positively surprised. 

On our first night we went to have dinner along the riverside. We immediately saw a lot of Western old men with young local women. That’s very common here in Asia. But I still think it’s kind of weird. The first place we visited in Phnom Penh was the “Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum/ S21 Prison”. It’s a good way to get familiar with the horrible history of Cambodia. At the same time I felt kind of bad that I had so little knowledge of all the indescribable things that happened in this country not more then 40 years ago. Cambodians killing Cambodians. This prison we visited, was previously a secondary school before the Khmer Rouge took over to torture people for confessions who were against the ‘revolution’. Even professors formed a threat against them, so wearing glasses during that time was a bad idea. The contrast couldn’t be bigger. Classrooms were used as prison cells and there were metal beds were people were held for terrible torture methods. The bars in the courtyard were children would have fun were used to hang people with their hands. I think the audio tour was very informative and there were a  lot of pictures of the prisoners because the Khmer Rouge kept good administration apparently. This makes it all very visual to the visitor and you get a good image of how it must have been. As far as that’s possible. The fact that there was a survivor (out of the 12 in total) selling his book helps as well. You almost feel guilty for not buying the book. As if it wasn’t enough, we went to visit the ‘ Killing Fields’ the next day on the outskirts of the city. The previous night we went to have dinner at a restaurant and made a very good deal with the waitress “Sky”. So it was the first time we had a female tuk tuk driver! She was a bit late though because she had a hangover from the night before. The name " Killing Fields" says it all: it’s one of the roughly 20.000 killing fields found in Cambodia where people were brought for execution. At some point, on the end of the ruling period of the Khmer Rouge 300 people were brought here daily. More than 1 million people were killed because of execution (out of a population of 8 million!) throughout Cambodia. This one is particularly famous, because it’s also a memorial site. There is a stupa in the center where you can see a lot of skulls showing evidence of the execution and genocide (bullet holes for example). It’s very important for the Cambodians that people all over the world see this and never forget what happened. On the killing fields you can also do an audio tour and you can walk around all the mass graves. During the rainy season, there are still bones coming to the surface so there are sings saying “don’t step on bone’'. Some of the clothes of the victims are wrapped around roots of the trees where you can walk pass. The killing tree is one of the most horrible things: babies where smashed with their heads against this tree in front of the mother's eyes. Nowadays the tree is decorated with very colorful bracelets to show respect to the victims. It’s very hard to imagine that humans are capable of doing this to other human beings. But I guess history shows the contrary. Unfortunately it’s no history for a lot of Cambodians: they lost family or friends which means they have to live with it every day. 

My next stop was Siem Reap: Angkor Wat! One of the most famous sites in Asia. The biggest temple complex in the world. Just like Bagan in Myanmar, it's pretty crazy to imagine that these 1000 year old temples are still standing. Asians love their temples. And the Cambodians love their Angkor Wat: it’s on their money, their beer.. you can almost smell the pride. The temple complex is so big, that you have to get a tuk tuk for the day to go around. And still you can not see everything because it’s massive. I was with an American girl and we decided to get up at 5 am to see the sunrise. There were lots of tuk tuk drivers waiting and this was the one time I saw a Cambodian get angry. Apparently a driver and a group of Spanish guys had some misunderstanding so when the guys decided to take a different tuk tuk, the other driver took his 5 dollar bill and shredded it in their faces saying: ‘I wish you all the bad luck in the world”. Intense… Our first stop was the ticket office. This is not a regular ticket office, there are so many tourists visiting which means it looks more like an airport hall. We visited 4 temples in total. At the first one, the famous Angkor Wat, we saw the beautiful sunrise. It's quite magical if you imagine it's only you standing there. Unfortunately that's not true, but you have to be a bit creative. One of my favorite ones was the Tomb Raider temple/'Ta Promh'. Over the years all the trees and roots have taken over the temple so it looks pretty cool. As if a zombie can come out at any time. It looks like they haven't done much effort to preserve it, so all the fallen rocks are just laying there. It looks pretty authentic. Awesome. When it got unbearably hot, we decided to go back and chill for the rest of the day. I would definitely like to come back some day to see more of the temple complex. But not in April.

Then I was off to Battambang! It's actually the second biggest city of Cambodia, but it definitely doesn’t feel like that. It was very quiet, maybe because it was almost Khmer New Year so people go out of the city. It's a three day celebration where people throw water and baby powder at each other. For good luck or something. In Thailand it's pretty big as well. Together with some English folks we did a tour. The company was great, but I was a bit disappointed with the tour to be fair. The highlight was the bambootrain: for $5 you hop on a 'bamboo train' (just look it up on google). It goes pretty fast, it can reach up to 50 km/h! Definitely not of the safest thing I've done, but it was cool. On the other end of the railway there was a nice lady who taught us to count in Khmer. So I speak fluent Khmer now! To get back to our starting point, we had to lift up the bamboo train and turn it around, because it's just a one way lane.... So yeah, when there were people coming from the other direction we had to stop and lift it up again haha. My next destination was Sihanoukville, the beach. Because of New Year's all the big buses were booked and I had to take a minivan all the way to the south. Definitely one of the most horrible bus rides I've done. On my first van  I was with a lot of locals. They honestly don't give a shit about personal space. One guy had his massive bag on the chair because there was so much space?? So we were all cramped. At some point I just really had to ask him to put the bag down and he was totally fine with it. So weird. Fortunately my hostel in Sihanoukville was the best and I had a delicious curry for dinner (only $2!) so I was happy again. 

Koh Rong (one of the biggest islands) was very nice. You immediately feel you're on an island because there are less facilities. No roads, no wifi, no aircon, bedbugs (yay! Luckily I was the only one left untouched in the dorm) and the sewer goes directly into the ocean. Nice. For a few days it's totally fine. There was one very nice beach, just a 20 minute walk from the main pier. Just beautiful, with the bluest water I've seen. The boat tour I took was also amazing, but very long. We first went to a village on the other side of the island. This tour is the only one 'allowed' into this village so they really like it when the tourist come. Especially the children. I bought delicious coconut oil and we had a little party with all the youngsters of the village. They were celebrating New Year in their common building so they were all covered in baby powder and water. And they were dancing like crazy! It was very fun to watch. On this side of the island I saw the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen in my life. It's completely isolated, and the sand is so perfectly white it hurts your eyes. These are the moments when I get frustrated I can not get this on camera. So I took a mental picture. After we went snorkeling (I saw very colourful fishes!) we watch the sunset. We also did a night snorkeling to see the plankton illuminate. Unfortunately the moonlight was too bright, so it just looked like bubbles to me. I've heard it's supposed to be magical. Next time..

The island it's actually very big (we went all the way around it in a whole day) but there are just a few hostels and restaurants. 

Koh Rong Samloem is very small, and here there are even less things to do. So you just chill and do nothing. And chill again. I was with too nice Dutch ladies, so at least we had fun. After a few days I was ready to go back to the mainland. From Sihanoukville I took the bus to Bangkok! Unfortunately we had to go back all the way to Phnom Penh first… (my third time in the capital!) and the border crossing took ages. But once I got to Bangkok, I was happy again. It's always nice to come back to a place you already know. 

Just three weeks left now!

Peace out