CONTRAST is what I think of when I reflect on Cambodia. Rich and Poor, Brillant and Bloody, amazing and tragic, history and current, old and new… It’s really the biggest eye opener that hamish and I have ever had. The poverty in Cambodia broke my heart, children shamelessly begging, landmine victims without legs, woman with a child in her arms filthy and begging for money on the street. It was too shocking to believe, and gave hamish and I the biggest wakeup call as to how lucky we are to come from little old NZ. Our hearts raced at the sights of the famous Angkor temples in Siem Reap, unforgettable sandcastle like creations, but we were shocked at how black humankind can be, as we learnt about the Khmur Rouges genocidal rule ( 1975-1979) under Pol Pots direction whereby almost 2 millon innocent Cambodians were killed under the regieme. It was bloody and awful and seeing the killing fields, and S-21 (the prison where people where torturted and kept before being taken to be killed) was airy and made me feel sick. Despite their bloody history, the Cambodian people are very warm, and we found them to be the loveliest we had encounted so far.
We flew into Siem Reap and spent the first few days there marvelling at the temples, and absorbing all the Grandness of the Khmer Empire… truly heart stopping, and we got up super early and watched the sun rise over Angkor Wat. The temples, are all different and each has so many orate carvings and statues, and things to marvel at… Ones we think worth checking out are Angkor Wat – you wont believe you eyes!!
Angkor Thom(bayon is amazing!), - there are hundreds of faces carved into the stone, quite strange!
Ta Prohm – the place were Indian Jones and Tomb raider was filmed, has crumbling stone work, tombs and looks enchanted as the jungle is devouring the temple.
From Siem Reap we decided to go to Battambang a smallish town, a days boat trip from the city. It was well worth it. The boat trip was extreamly senic as we passed floating village, after floating village, and got to see the ‘real’ Cambodia. Once in Battambang we meet up with a couple of guys from the UK and hired motobikes to checkout the area. Hamish was a wee bit rubish to begin with on the motorbike, and its not that great when you stall going through a BUSY intersection!! But by the end of the day he had mastered it. We hired a guide to take us through the Killing Caves, where over 100000 people were slaughted, killed then pushed down a 20m cave, was awful, there were all their bones still there and had an Eeiry feeling…
From Battengbang we then went onto Cambodia’a Capital – Phnom Pehn. We hired a cab for the day and he took us round the sights. We spent our time going to the S-21 prision. The prison used to be a school but was turned into a place of torture and death. When prisoners where brought to S-21 they got their photo taken, and there are rooms and rooms fill of photos from all the men, woman and children who had been there. The most chilling thing is that, all those people where killed, out of the hundreds of thousands that went there taken there, only 6 survived. What I cannot fathom is that this happened less than 30years ago!! One awful regime, stuffing up the future of Cambodia, so much so they are still trying to make up for it today. There is a heaviness of Heart in Cambodia.
From the Prison we then went on to the killing fields. Very distirbing. There are still bones on the ground and lose bits of fabric from the victims. The whole day made me feel sick!
Phnom Pehn was a big busy city, and we found some great places to eat, and checked out loads of markets and the grandpalace, and little nooks and crannies to enjoy while we were there…
It was nice to move on though, I love and loathe Cambodia at the same time…
We flew into Siem Reap and spent the first few days there marvelling at the temples, and absorbing all the Grandness of the Khmer Empire… truly heart stopping, and we got up super early and watched the sun rise over Angkor Wat. The temples, are all different and each has so many orate carvings and statues, and things to marvel at… Ones we think worth checking out are Angkor Wat – you wont believe you eyes!!
Angkor Thom(bayon is amazing!), - there are hundreds of faces carved into the stone, quite strange!
Ta Prohm – the place were Indian Jones and Tomb raider was filmed, has crumbling stone work, tombs and looks enchanted as the jungle is devouring the temple.
From Siem Reap we decided to go to Battambang a smallish town, a days boat trip from the city. It was well worth it. The boat trip was extreamly senic as we passed floating village, after floating village, and got to see the ‘real’ Cambodia. Once in Battambang we meet up with a couple of guys from the UK and hired motobikes to checkout the area. Hamish was a wee bit rubish to begin with on the motorbike, and its not that great when you stall going through a BUSY intersection!! But by the end of the day he had mastered it. We hired a guide to take us through the Killing Caves, where over 100000 people were slaughted, killed then pushed down a 20m cave, was awful, there were all their bones still there and had an Eeiry feeling…
From Battengbang we then went onto Cambodia’a Capital – Phnom Pehn. We hired a cab for the day and he took us round the sights. We spent our time going to the S-21 prision. The prison used to be a school but was turned into a place of torture and death. When prisoners where brought to S-21 they got their photo taken, and there are rooms and rooms fill of photos from all the men, woman and children who had been there. The most chilling thing is that, all those people where killed, out of the hundreds of thousands that went there taken there, only 6 survived. What I cannot fathom is that this happened less than 30years ago!! One awful regime, stuffing up the future of Cambodia, so much so they are still trying to make up for it today. There is a heaviness of Heart in Cambodia.
From the Prison we then went on to the killing fields. Very distirbing. There are still bones on the ground and lose bits of fabric from the victims. The whole day made me feel sick!
Phnom Pehn was a big busy city, and we found some great places to eat, and checked out loads of markets and the grandpalace, and little nooks and crannies to enjoy while we were there…
It was nice to move on though, I love and loathe Cambodia at the same time…
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