Cambodia

Siem Reap

Siem Reap was another party hot spot and probably not the best representation of Cambodia as a whole. Tourists flocked here again for the nightlife, cheap massage parlors, the huge night markets, hotels for every budget and affordable street food including bugs, spiders, snakes and scorpions as snacks. To this day, every time I ask Graham about the egg pouch of the tarantula it awakens his gag reflex. By ten o’clock at night people are literally dancing in the street from the many motorcycle bars that sell $1 very strong long island ice teas and other cocktails. The two biggest things to do beside the glittery raves was to visit the temples of Angkor.  Despite the jump in ticket price, most likely due to the flock of Chinese ants for Chinese New Year, the temples did not disappoint. The detail and size could not help but take your breath away. By tuk tuk we completed the big circuit with 8 stops including Angkor Rhom, Preah Khan, Ta Prohm and Angkor Wat which is as famous and awe inspiring as Machu Picchu. By temple number eight in 35 degree heat we were templed out and ready to get out of the black see of Chinese tourists. While I am not against the Chinese at all, and literally grew up in a Chinese community in Australia I was left in disbelief at how the population acted as a whole. By western standards their manners were horrible. You literally had to hop, skip and jump out of the soaring luggies they would spit on the temple floors. They lay all over the historic ruins for their selfie shot, walked straight in front of your camera shot and pushed in front of you as if it was your nagging little brother. I get it, if you need to get somewhere in a country of 1.4 billion people, I’m sure you have to act like that, but my gosh! At one point I was in the front seat of a mini bus, normally it would unload from front to back, nice and orderly. By the time the bus was stopped the five seats behind me were already squeezing past before I could stand up.

The second thing that is known to do in Siem Reap is visit the floating village. Here the locals live in houseboats that they make themselves, floating on barrels, arranged just like neighborhoods but on water. Their cars are replaced with boats and toilets and showers are outside in the water. The village consisted of schools, floating markets, restaurants, fish farms and floating churches. I am not sure what I expected on this outing but I was very disappointed. Each stop we made our boat tour guide wanted a donation to the school, or to buy a bag of rice for the community or a tip on top of the already hefty price of twenty dollars per person for just the boat ride without food, drink or taxi to the boat station. I really wanted to drive through the village, to get a better idea of how people lived, instead we drove around the outside to see the cloudy sunset and hit an overpriced tourist trap floating restaurant. It was not worth the money in my opinion.

Knowing our trip was coming to an end, I had added one extra day in Siem Reap with no plans for a change. It worked out well, as Graham was nursing a hangover and I am guessing the untreated ice in my own drinks finally gave me the shits too. After sleeping in and enjoying breakfast, we paid a tuk tuk driver to just take us outside the city to the real Cambodia full of rice fields, cows and lotus plantations. Oddly enough the cows were super strange. They had legs as long as horses did. Our tuk tuk driver thought we were absolutely crazy when we stopped to go take pictures with the supermodel cows. We also stopped and asked a field worker to pick us a lotus flower seed pod, as you know one of my favorite things to do is eating everything I have never seen or tried. The nice man walked fully clothed into the water fields that was nipple high and picked us three stalks and showed us what to eat. It was awesome, I actually had no idea people eat lotus seeds. What was even more awesome was his facial expression of complete gratitude, happiness and thankfulness when we gave him a one dollar bill for his efforts. It took him completely by surprise.

Our tuk tuk driver took us to a silk farm. I am so ashamed to say, that I have never even taken the time to think about how silk is made and the effort that goes into it. I now appreciate the material so much more. Our silk tour guide showed us the mulberry farms to feed the silk worms, how they made their silk cocoons, how they lay eggs, how the cocoons are spun into thread, dyed, cleaned and woven into the gorgeous scarves, sarongs and dresses all by hand.

Phnom Penh

We arrived in Phnom Pen after a seven-hour boat ride down the Tonle Sap lake and river. We sat on the roof of the boat for the entire day. I used about half a bottle of sunscreen but was able to tolerate sitting exposed the entire time in 40-degree (104 F) heat with no sunburn. Phnom Penh was once known as the pearl of Asia but like its neighboring countries tarnished from the war and revolution. It was however another city with a huge assault on your senses with whizzing motorbikes, pungent markets, and striking palaces. The silver pagoda was the most impressive, with its floors made of over 5000 pure silver tiles. Impressive yes, but horrible to walk in with your bare feet as they creaked with each step. Inside there were thousands of gold and silver Buddhas, the largest was made of 90kg of solid gold and had a 25ct diamond on its forehead. It was cool to see the locals walk through, stroking the statues and then wiping themselves all over as if to physically take him in.

The most significant stop was the Tuol Sieng Museum and Killing fields of Choeung Ek. I have never forgotten in my early years of high school when I had to pick a dictator and do a school project. It happened to be Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. During this time, anyone with an education got killed including doctors and teachers. Those with glasses or ‘soft hands’ were also imprisoned, tortured and killed. One striking image was of a lady who was being tortured by soldiers putting centipedes in open wounds on her breast and private areas. It has so far been the most graphic and horrific museum I have visited. The blood stains still covered the floor and the skulls were lined up one after the other with holes from crow bars and brutal smashing’s. Graham and I stayed for four hours with our audio head phones in silence with a few glassy glances every so often. In the end I believe 1 in 4 Cambodians were murdered and ended up in mass graves. How can history repeat itself after Adolf Hitler? It was a heavy morning. Worse still everyone knew this was happening in Cambodia, yet nobody did anything about it. I will speak for myself, but I really do admit I have my head in the sand of what happens in the rest of the world. I get so busy and tied up in my own world, but, this day was different. It really snapped me back to reality and opened my eyes. All I could think of was how important it is that we learn from times like these and remember them as we look to the future. That night I spent hours googling current events in the middle east that maintained the sick feeling in my stomach from the museum. I fell asleep with a discussed and nauseating lip turn. What are we doing about it?

I didn’t plan for our last day trip to end on such a heavy note. For me travel is not cocktails and high end resorts, not by a long shot. For me travel is homestays, markets where only locals go and trying food that might not always sit too well. It is also understanding the history of why a country, city and its people are the way that they are. Our month through Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia was jam packed and an incredible journey full of adventure, history, spirituality, cuisine and sight-seeing some of the most famous renowned spots of the world. As a less traveled spot for Americans anyway, I hope I can inspire everyone to visit this area of the world before it changes forever.