Cambodia (Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Angkor Wat)

Like Vietnam, I was not afraid to admit that I did not know that much about Cambodia. I had heard a little bit about their unfortunate past, but I was interested to learn firsthand what had actually happened. It is weird that we do not learn much about Asian history, even though the United States played a part in a lot of what was going on in that part of the world during the 1970's and 1980's. I understand that the Vietnam War is still a sore subject to discuss, but should it really just be omitted from our history books or brushed over quickly?


We had not allocated many days to Cambodia, so we had only a few stops planned - Phnom Penh and Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat. We arrived first in Phnom Penh after a mostly sleepless night on the overnight bus from HCM. We arrived at the Cambodian border just after 4AM, but since it did not open until 6AM, we just sat there and waited. I am not sure why they do not plan the bus times better to avoid these kinds of things! When the border opened, we had to walk across with our bags after being checked by security on the Vietnam side. We had already all given our passports to someone who worked for the bus company, along with the $25 he said it cost to get a visa to Cambodia. But when we were walking across, there were clearly marked signs everywhere that said the visa was only $20! We asked, and no one gave us a clear answer to where the other $5 went - that's Asia for you! We had a few more hours on the bus from the border to Phnom Penh, but right when we got off of the bus, we met our tuk tuk driver for the next few days, Kasul.

One of my friends who had travelled in SEA a few months ago had recommended lots of places to see and do, as well as places to stay that she had enjoyed. She had spent a lot more time than we would be able to in Cambodia (and SEA actually), but we were still trying to hit as many things as we possibly could. We checked into a hostel that she had recommended (Okay Guesthouse), and after dropping off our laundry and showering, we had Kasul come pick us up to take us around town. Sidenote - laundry in SEA is one of the little luxuries that is easy to get accustomed to. For only a couple of dollars, all of your laundry is washed, pressed, and ready to go the next day! They do such a good job, I do not think my clothes have ever been washed that well haha.

Being driven around by tuk tuk is another one of those luxuries that became our favorite mode of transportation in SEA. Especially because I was not able to walk very easily (it was killing me since I love walking!) and tuk tuks are so cheap, it was perfect for us. We did feel like such tourists though, because it was typically only the tourists you would see being carted around all day, but we did not even care. We felt like royalty, and we were able to get around and see more in our limited time.

Trying Cambodian food for the first time was a pleasant surprise, as we both really enjoyed it! Surprisingly, Cambodia was a little bit more expensive than Vietnam, and we had to use American dollars to pay for everything. (Even when you took money out of the ATM, they gave you US$). For lunch, we split spring rolls (still prefer Vietnamese rice paper rolls!), a Cambodian curry and banana leaf soup, and we bought a drink for our tuk tuk driver (he refused our offer to buy him food) and spent about $4 each.

It was good that lunch was tasty, because we needed something to lift our spirits after visiting the Cheung Ek killing fields outside of Phnom Penh. We had Kasul drive us there, and on the way, we got a view into how many Cambodians live. Even though Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia, it has not returned to its pre-Khmer Rouge status as a thriving city. Most people still live in houses built on stilts that balance precariously and look like they could fall at any moment. Most people get around by piling into the back of a pickup truck with many others or they ride around on rusty bicycles. It was a view for both Nashy and I into how the other side of the world lives, and we both watched with open eyes as we zoomed outside of town. Even though the people were living in such poverty and many did not even have proper clothes/shoes, they would smile and wave as we passed. And we had enjoyed a few delicious aromas as we passed houses where people were preparing lunch.

I could not believe that the same people who had experienced the sad, awful history of Cambodia were now smiling and waving at us as we drove past. The killing fields gave us a brief insight into how terrible things were after Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge Army took over Phnom Penh in the 1970's. Sadly, many of the people living in Phnom Penh at the time actually cheered when the Khmer Rouge soldiers marched into the city, because they believed they were there to help the people. Little did they know, that the Khmer Rouge regime would become (still today!) the 4th deadliest instance of genocide the world has ever seen.

After the Phnom Penh takeover by Khmer Rouge, all of the city residents were forced to leave behind their houses and move to small towns and villages. The idea was to convince the people that Khmer Rouge were actually protecting them from attackers (Vietnam, USA, etc) while actually attacking them themselves. The lucky people got to go to labor camps and the children were trained as soldiers or worked alongside their parents. The unlucky people were taken away and never seen or heard from again. Even while the killing fields were being used, many people were not aware of their capacity or that they even existed. And it was the strategy of the Khmer Rouge to kill the smart, professional people like doctors, lawyers, professors, etc. so that the Cambodian population would not be smart enough to figure out what they were doing and could focus on growing rice on farms.

The killing field that we visited had not been completely excavated even to this day, but there were already thousands of skulls and bones discovered - many of them women and children. When it rains even still, there are more bones and clothing found as the soil is washed away. We saw some of the torture methods used to kill people, but I think the worst was a tree where they had just bashed babies until their heads caved in, so sad!

I think the worst part of the killing fields was discovering that after everything he had done, Pol Pot had escaped from the Vietnamese Army (they eventually came in and helped the Cambodian people) into the jungle where he lived until he died. He never served any time or received any justice for the unspeakable things he did to Cambodia. And even to this day, many of the highest officials of the Khmer Rouge are still on trial and many have not served jail time before 2005. In fact, only one official has even acknowledged the crimes that he committed - everyone else is still pretending that nothing happened! The difficult thing about charging Khmer Rouge soldiers for their crimes is that many of them only joined the army to escape being killed themselves. And during the Khmer Rouge reign, many of them switched sides and may have fought for the Cambodian Army, the Vietnamese Army, and even the Khmer Rouge at some point. It is a moral puzzle as to what the world courts should do, but hopefully the Cambodian people can receive justice for the horrors that they survived through! Somehow I just don't see that happening...

We had originally planned to also visit S-21, the prison in Phnom Penh where "criminals" were held until they were most likely sent to the killing fields, but we had seen enough depressing things for the day. We went back to our hostel and decided to give Cambodian beer a chance (Angkor beer is bad but Anchor beer is okay). While we were drinking away, we met an American girl named Megan who had been living in the Philippines for the last 3 years working at an NGO. We chatted with her about possibly sharing a ride to Siem Reap the next day, but we never decided on anything before we left to go find some dinner.

Down by the river in Phnom Penh, there are a lot of touristy restaurants, and we had Kasul drive us down there in search of some "happy pizza." A tourist tradition in Cambodia, "happy pizza" is basically any normal pizza but with marijuana included. We decided Ôwhen in CambodiaÕ, and gave it a try but it really just tasted like normal pizza to us. It was kind of a nice change (and a surprise to our stomachs) to be eating Western food! While we were eating dinner, many children came by to offer us things to buy such as postcards, bracelets, books, etc. We were becoming accustomed to this from Vietnam, however these kids were really quite pushy (and young!). I ended up buying one of the kids food and a Coke, but this ended up being a mistake, because then every kid in town also wanted something. We heard that we should not encourage this bad behavior and buy anything from the children, because if they are good salespeople, their parents do not let them go to school. However, it is really difficult to say no to children, especially when they are pestering you like crazy!

After dinner, we wanted to get a feel for the nightlife in Phnom Penh, but it was really quite disappointing. We did not find many other backpackers, but instead ended up playing a game with some girl bartenders at one of the locals' hangouts. If Nashy or I won the game, they gave us shots for free, but if either of them won, we had to buy shots ourselves. Unsurprisingly, the bartenders made this dice game look easy and always won. Neither Nashy nor I even came close! We were happy when it was time to meet Kasul for our ride home, because we were starting to feel a little bit duped.

The next morning, we booked a bus for Siem Reap for 5PM (the trip would take 6 hours), so we had most of the day to explore the rest of Phnom Penh. We had arranged for Kasul to pick us up in the morning, but we had slept through our alarm and were later than our agreed time. He was still sitting there waiting though when we made it outside, and he did not even say anything about us being late. When we asked him where he lived, he told us "in his tuk tuk." At first, we were not sure that he understood the question, but then he explained that a lot of tuk tuk drivers park in the bus station at night, pull down the curtains on either side, and the tuk tuk seats become his bed. We felt a little weird then knowing that our ride was actually Kasul's home!

We started the day off by trying some amok, or Cambodian curry, and then we set off for S-21 prison. We figured we would go to the prison in the morning so that we would have the rest of the day to sightsee and maybe even forget what we saw there. The prison was not as depressing as the killing fields, but we saw photographs of nearly every person who spent time there. When they entered the prison, they had their photograph taken and were given a number (much like a Nazi concentration camp). You could tell by looking at the pictures that not many of them knew what they were getting into, because many of them were smiling in their pictures. There were three different types of holding cells, and we got to go into each of them. The first was for cadres of the Khmer Rouge Army. These cells were actually quite large, and they were used to keep the Khmer Rouge soldiers unsure. The holding cells for individual prisoners were tiny, and I could hardly imagine anyone sleeping or living comfortably in these brick enclosures. The final type of cells were group holding cells, where many people were chained around the edges of the room, and they sat facing inward towards each other. As I said before, not many of these prisoners (or really anyone in Cambodia) was aware what exactly was happening at these prisons or killing fields, but there was definite evidence of torture and sometimes even death.

To erase the images of all of the prisoners' faces that had been burned into our memories, we had Kasul take us to the central market, which was a mad house! Selling everything from handicrafts to gold jewelry to cheap electronics, we were overwhelmed and felt caught in a maze! Everywhere you turned, there was someone else giving you a bargain, and we allowed ourselves to buy a few souvenirs.

Before we left Phnom Penh, we wanted to take a quick look at the royal palace, and then we wanted Kasul to take us to see the bridge where only a little over a month before, thousands of people were killed when a peaceful festival turned deadly. The festival was to celebrate the changing direction of the river, and many people were killed in a stampede over a bridge or were electrocuted by the cables of the bridge. We tried to explain to Kasul that we wanted to see this place, but he did not understand, so we had to use one of his friends as a translator before he took us to see the bridge from that fateful day. As of yet, there was no memorial or anything special on the bridge signifying all of the lost lives, but it was interesting to see all the same.

Even though we had seen Phnom Penh quickly, both of us were ready to move on to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat. It was difficult keeping track of the day of the week, let alone the date, so we were both quite surprised when we realized that it was actually Christmas Eve! Normally on this night, I would be eating 13 different things (no meat though!) and exchanging gifts with family, but this holiday, I would be taking a long bus ride in Cambodia. Both Nashy and I had already decided that Christmas was just not happening for either of us this year, since we were without our family, friends and traditions.

Before we left Phnom Penh, Kasul recommended one of his friends in Siem Reap (who was also a tuk tuk driver) to meet us upon our arrival. We were glad that we had planned this ahead of time, because we arrived in Siem Reap after midnight (officially Christmas!) and we were exhausted. We had booked into a hostel that Nashy had heard about that was only $1/night and is famous for its $0.50 beers and rooftop bar. However, apparently they were full the night that we arrived - even though we had a reservation! - so they had us sleep at a place down the road. We did not mind because we were so tired, but we made sure to move to the main hostel for the rest of our stay in Siem Reap.

Neither of us really knew much about Siem Reap, but we knew that we wanted to spend at least 2 full days exploring the temples of Angkor Wat. We decided to explore Siem Reap first though, and we let Tiki (our new tuk tuk driver) show us around. He drove us to a river village, and on the way, we got another insight into Cambodian life. I have never seen so many stray dogs and people just lazing about everywhere. It is sad, but I feel like the philosophy of a lot of people in countries like Cambodia is that they cannot make their situation any better, so they choose to just do nothing. I would go crazy from boredom!

At the river village, we hired our own private boat (and even paid for Tiki to come along), and we floated past houses built on boats, a floating school, and many locals in their own boats. We went all the way through the river until it emptied out into a large lake, and then we started to float back the way we came. We were a little bit hungry, so we stopped at a floating restaurant for lunch. While we were eating, my parents called me to wish me a Merry Christmas and also to clarify what had happened to my leg during my motorbike accident. One of my friends (Caitlin) had told my mom that I had broken my leg based on my Facebook status, so my parents thought I was much more hurt than I actually was, and they were really worried, sorry!

While on the river, we saw many other children being exploited by their parents for a couple of tourist dollars. One boat pulled up next to ours, and when we looked closely, we noticed that the little girl had a large snake around her neck. Her dad asked us to give them a couple of dollars. In Cambodia, it pays to have cute children!

Next, we decided to visit the museum in Siem Reap to gain a little bit of cultural knowledge as a preview to visiting Angkor Wat the next day. It was very interesting, and we spent a few hours looking through all of the exhibits. We learned about the great kings of Cambodia's past that had built Angkor Wat, and their religion changed from Buddhism to Hinduism, so many of the temples included symbols from each.

One particular story that interested me was about Ganesha, who is represented with the head of an elephant. Apparently, when Ganesha was just a young boy, he protected his mother from males who wanted to court her. He was doing fine, until one man came and cut off Ganesha's head, killing him. His mom was so upset, that she ordered the man to bring Ganesha back to life and to bring her the head of the first animal he came across facing north. That animal happened to be an elephant, which is why Ganesha now has an elephant head, and his symbolism is seen in temples, on tourist shirts, etc.

At the museum, there was a special visiting exhibit featuring batik painting by a French artist who was in Cambodia selling his artwork. Batik painting actually originates from Indonesia, and it involves a process of dying fabrics to form designs and pictures. I fell in love with one painting in particular, and I ended up buying it from Pascal, the French artist (after much negotiation). He explained to me that the two women in the painting were dancing, and the title of the work actually meant "joyful" in Sanskrit.

Since it was Christmas day after all, our hostel was having a buffet for dinner on the rooftop bar, so Nashy and I decided to join in on the festivities. I can say that we did not eat traditional Christmas food, but the spring rolls, curry, fried rice, and chicken wings were quite delicious. After dinner, an Asian Santa came out and handed out candy to everyone, and we played some games with the other backpackers. Our friend from the day before in Phnom Penh (Megan) had also shown up at our hostel, and we were all celebrating together. We planned with a big group to meet on "Pub Street" which is pretty much the main street in Siem Reap where all of the bars and restaurants are located.

Before everyone else met up with us, Nashy and I were talked into trying a fish massage by some other backpackers. For a fish massage, you stick your legs into a fish tank, and the fish come and nibble the dead skin off of your feet! We started in the tank with the smaller fish, and when we were brave enough, we moved over to a tank that had larger fish. The larger fish definitely had teeth, and it tickled (and even hurt a bit!) as they nibbled on our toes. I think we must have stayed at the fish massage place for almost an hour, and when we pulled our feet out, they were actually smooth! What a weird experience!

We ended up meeting up with the other backpackers from our hostel at a bar called Angkor What? and we danced for a few hours. I started dancing with one of the guys staying at our hostel, and I looked up in time to see Nashy walk out the door to the bar. I thought that maybe he would come back, but he didn't. Instead, I walked back to the hostel with the other guy and Nashy was already in his bed when I got home.

The next morning, we had planned to meet Megan at 9:30AM - she was going to share our tuk tuk ride to Angkor Wat - but when I woke up, it was already 9:30 and Nashy was not in his bed. In fact, his bags were also gone and there was no evidence that he had even been there at all. I went into the lobby of the hostel, and Megan was waiting there for us, but there was still no sign of Nashy. Megan said that she had not seen him, and neither had anyone else at the hostel, including the people that worked there, strange! I did not want to leave and go see Angkor Wat without him, so I decided to send him an email, a Facebook message, a text, and I even called him but there was no answer and I left a note at reception.

Megan and I spent our day with Tiki, exploring the furthest temples until sunset then we headed back to Siem Reap. When we got back, I had still not heard anything from Nashy, and I was starting to get worried. I was just so confused about why he would just leave and not say anything to me! Megan and I had heard that there was actually a Mexican restaurant on Pub Street that was supposed to be good, so we decided to go there for dinner.

While we were eating, I saw Nashy walk by with some other backpackers. I ran outside and had to run down the street to catch up with him. When I caught him, he seemed surprised to see me and told the others to go ahead without him. He was acting really strangely and told me that he had already booked a bus for Bangkok for the next morning. I was so confused why he would do this, and he was not really explaining himself. I could not remember getting in a fight with him the night before, but he was about to walk away from me again. Finally, I got him to just explain to me why he was upset, and he told me that he had become jealous when he saw me dancing with the other guy at the bar. I was completely shocked, because I had always just seen him as a friend, but apparently he had started to see me as something more. Maybe it would be a good idea for us to spend a few days apart - we had been spending literally every second together the entire trip so far!

I kept my plans with Megan to wake up to see Angkor Wat at sunrise - we woke up at 4:30AM! - and Nashy went on to Thailand without me. Our second day at Angkor Wat was amazing (minus how many other tourists were there and how annoying the vendors were), and we had a great full day of exploring some more temples. We particularly enjoyed Angkor Wat and Bayon, and seeing the sunrise was definitely worth the lack of sleep.

That night, I would also be taking an overnight bus to Bangkok, Thailand that would leave at midnight. Originally, Nashy and I had planned to be in Thailand by December 28th, so that we could go to the Full Moon Party for New Year's Eve on Koh Phangan. I was not sure if we would be meeting up again or not, but I decided to stick with the original plan anyway since I wanted to see this party that I had heard so much about.

When the bus arrived (after midnight!) to take us to Bangkok, it was completely full and even some people were worried there would not be enough seats for everyone. Luckily, I was still getting the sympathy card because of my leg brace and I ended up sitting next to a Brazilian guy who had also gotten hurt in a motorbike accident. We would not get a lot of sleep that night, and we ended up having to switch to a smaller van at the Thai border but more about that in my next entry about Thailand...