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It has been a long time since our last update, three weeks in fact and a whole new country to waffle about, and what a country Cambodia is.
We started and ended our time in Cambodia in Phnom Penh (PP), the Capitol City. We arrived by boat from Vietnam (the land of broken promises) after our Mekong Delta slow boat, turned out to be a slow bus with occasional boating interludes. During the journey we heard of a guest house in the center of town with reasonable rooms and a roof bar. We checked strait in and made the most of the bar and the fastest internet connection we've found so far in south-east Asia, and particularly Cambodia (Hence the long internet silence - We are also back in Phnom Penh at said hostel, writing this blog!). We had been forewarned that there is not a great deal to to in the Capital beyond visiting the historical sites and war remnants. We found this to be quite the opposite with plenty of bars and restaurants to keep us occupied as well as the good company of Ben, Danni (the usual suspects) and Ash (token Essex Laad!).
On our second day in Phnom Penh, we finally gave in to Peter, the colorful tuk tuk driver permanently stationed outside the Hostel, and took him up on his offer of a tour of the City. Accepting the offer was difficult as similar situations in other country's often results in visits to tailors, jem shops and other unwanted destinations. As we now know, Peter and Khmer people on the whole are trustworthy, genuine and a lot of fun (fantastic at limbo too). After rising and two hours late to meet our guide we herded the cats and crammed in the Tuk tuk. After driving through the streets of Phnom Penh we made for the city outskirts to the shooting range. Here we given a menu of weapons from which to choose; everything from hand pistols to machine guns and RPG's. settling for some smaller arms, we fired some shots at coconuts (rumors of live targets are unfounded, at least at this establishment) and posed with the more impressive ones for visual effect.
Next stop on our tour was the Killing Fields outside of town, this was an execution site used by the Khmer Rouge during their rule between '75- '79. The site has now been made into a memorial commemorating the dead and houses a museum devoted to the genocide. The Power of the memorial was further compounded by out drivers personal account of the war and the atrocity's that followed. From here we headed to the Tuol Sleng Museum which was another site of cruelty during the genocide. The original building, a school, was transformed to a prison for the purposes of the Khmer Rouge campaign. It contains hundreds of chilling images of the prisoners held there, mug shot style, as they where recorded on entry to the prison.
The next stop on our great Cambodian tour was Siam Reap and the temples of Angkor.
we headed there direct from PP on the morning bus and arrived six hours later with a Tuk Tuk waiting (Mr Ben name board and all) to take us to our hostel. It remains a mystery how they got Ben's name, the fact there where four of us or that we even needed a hostel but we chose to just accept the fact and get on. The next day we headed straight to the temples, first and most impressive was Angkor Wat. Many people had already spoke of its shear scale compared with other similar relics (particularly from My Son Cham Temple, although I was too preoccupied with my shoes to listen - see adventures in Nha Trang, Vietnam) but it is truely astonishing how massive and well preserved it is. we also saw monkeys here.. We visited five or so more temples (god knows how many we didn't see, there are loads) including the ruins at Bayon; which have Buddhist carvings on the spires, and Ankor Thom; where Tomb raider was filmed, here the forest has taken over the ruins and is reclaiming it over the centuries despite a huge conservation effort, its a fascinating and eery place - rumor has it, if you listen on a quiet day, you can still hear Angelina Jolie complaining about the heat.
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