Cambodia Recap 4/5/13 - 4/14/13

Recap of Cambodia:

Time in country:  10 days
Money spent: approximately $360 USD each
Currency:  Riel (Only used for small change as coins as they operate on USD).  USD is main currency.
Conversion Rate:  4000 Riel to 1 USD

Food:
Food is called Khmer and we truthfully didn't get true, traditional Khmer foods.  We actually ate a lot of Mexican food and sandwiches.

Places Visited (in order):  Kompong Cham, Siem Reap, Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville (Otres Beach)

Random Thoughts:
We found Cambodia to be kind of dirty.  There was literally lots of trash on the side of the roads and throughout the country, not to mention that because of the time of year we were there, it was quite dusty and hot.

The people were friendly and nice.  Surprisingly, and luckily since we had been warned, we were not overwhelmed by too many child beggars.

The videos shown on buses were HORRIBLE!  It was Khmer music videos which included the same music played over and over with "dancers" making a few steps and doing some sort of hand waving thing.

Sihanoukville (Otres Beach) 4/11/13 - 4/14/13

We left Phnom Penh on a mini-bus journey to Sihanoukville town center where we hung around, ate lunch, and waited for the Vietnamese Consulate office to open up.  We had researched that it only took 15 minutes to get a Vietnam visa here, and sure enough, 15 minutes and $60 later we had a visa!  From the Consulate, we flagged down a tuck-tuck in the rain to pick up our bags and headed out to Otres Beach, a quieter beach farther away from town, to enjoy our last rays of sunshine by the sea.

Our days at the beach weren't perfectly sunny and lovely as much as they were rainy and stormy.  Oh well, we had plenty of time for hanging out, walking the beach, working out, and hiding from the rain in the common area of the hostel where watching movies (they had hundreds to choose from) from the couches was a guest favorite.  We stayed at a place called Footprints hostel, but we had our own bungalow which was pretty cool.

 

We had planned it out to be there to meet up with our friends, Chris and Annie, other American travelers that we originally met in Brazil, saw once again in Thailand, and they were on their way into Cambodia from Vietnam.  They got in late that evening after a full day of bus travel, but we all stayed up "late" for us old folks to catch up over some Angkor Beers. 

Chris and Annie stayed and our next few days were pretty identical.  After breakfast each morning, we headed to the water for some fun in the sun, after that we would head in for lunch, get out of the sun, play cards, and watch a movie or two...or three.  Then dinner, maybe some beer and more cards, but for sure another movie :-).  It rained almost every afternoon and most nights, so there wasn't much else to do.

 

 

 

We were so excited to get to meet up with Chris and Annie and had a great time catching up, sharing stories, and relaxing together.  We had 2 weeks of our trip left and they had another 2 months, so it was fun looking back on our trips and talking about home as well.  

 

We finally had to leave out one night for an over-night bus into Vietnam. 

Phnom Penh 4/9/13 - 4/10/13

Disclaimer: Subject matter and pictures may not be suitable for everyone.

On our way to the guesthouse in Phnom Penh, we noticed the Viva Phnom Penh location, and dually noted the location.  That's correct, once we did a little exploring of our surroundings and went through one of the local markets, we headed to Viva for more Mexican food.  We weren't that keen on what Cambodia had to offer us for food.

Many people skip over the capital city Phnom Penh because there's not too much to do there, but, there is a historical main attraction, for lack of a better word in this case.  At the end of the Cambodian Civil War in 1975 the Khmer Rouge regime (read: Commies), lead by a Cambodian named Pol Pot, ruled over Cambodia from 1975 - 1979. During this time they committed a mass genocide of the Cambodian people resulting in millions of deaths.  Cambodia lost between 1/4 to 1/3 of their population during those 5 years. 

We went out to one of the main killing fields Choeung Ek,15 km away from Phnom Penh, where the regime forceably transported prisoners to be killed.  We were given headphones to take an audio tour of the grounds.  Here's a little of what we learned from this day. 

It was discovered that there were over 20,000 mass grave sites around the country, known as killing fields, where over 1.3 million people were executed.  Prisoners included doctors, lawyers, teachers, intellectuals, suspected capitalists, professionals, non-nationals, monks, and citizens with glasses and/or anyone else who remotely had an intelligent idea of what an actual functional and healthy society should be.

 

 

Holes in the ground from the mass graves (these were excavated in the '80s)

 

There was no money for bullets, so executioners used hoes, axes, and other farm tools, and in this instance swung children against trees.

 

Inside the memorial marked by a Buddhist stupa

 

Pol Pot wanted to do whatever it took to dwindle his people down to an agrarian society like hundreds of years ago.  That time is now referred to as "Year 0".  The monetary system was abandoned, people were forced to work in the fields in slave like conditions, and many more died from starvation and disease due to "the near destruction of Cambodian society under the regime of Pol Pot". Cambodia would eventually overcome this horrible situation, in 1979, with the help of international aid and a Vietnamese invasion.

Another part of the somber day was a visit to the S-21 Genocide Museum which was a high school turned prison where men, women, and children were held to be interrogated, tortured, forced into confessions, and later taken to the killing field to be executed. 

 

 

The Khmer Rouge kept detailed records of  names/ pictures of every prisoner

It was a tough day seeing and learning about the tragedy that happened here just less than 40 years ago!  We were embarrassed that we really didn't know anything about the genocide in Cambodia before that day.  As a banner at the killing fields stated, "Knowledge of past genocide is to prevent it from re-happening on Earth".

That evening Matt went along a street to get a $2 Cambodian haircut.  Although a little skeptical given the price and the location (open-air room on the side of a busy street), it turned out quite well ;-). 

 

Before

After

The next morning we took a mini-bus 3 hours south to the beach to relax.