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hmm where to start with Cambodia...? I dont want to write a list of things that i disliked about Cambodia because it wouldnt be fair but im afraid that most of my stay in Cambodia was far from fun. I was warned about what to expect and I had read about the country's history so i expected to find an incredibly poor country that you cant help but feel sorry for but i left feeling more frustrated than anything.
Firstly, when you visit Cambodia you cant help but pity the children of all ages who are made by their parents to sell books and bracelets to tourists. The children are only doing what they are told to do but we were warned that alot of or all the money they make is taken off of them at the end of the day so you feel quite reluctant to give them any money at all. Their innocence is completely stolen from them, children as young as 5 years old can speak english really well but only so they can sell you stuff and they are so aggressive when you dont want to buy something off of them and its quite sad to see a child in that situation. Overall, ben and i bought 5 books, 2 bracelets and ten postcards, most of which we didnt really need but felt that we had to buy them. We gave money to most the people that were begging, most of the time it could only be a small amount as we dont have alot of money ourselves, and often this would be met with some hostility from children who would then crowd you and beg for more. This angered me as there have been plenty of times at home in england when i have only had 25 pence left in my purse (oh the days of being a uni student)and someone has asked for money and when i gave this small amount to them they would greet me with a smile and say thankyou. However, you'd give the equivalent of 25 pence to a child in cambodia and they would say it wasnt enough?! at the end of the day however much you gave it was never enough because there would always be someone else wanting your money, it was never ending the whole time we were there and im sad to say i wanted to leave as soon as possible.
I couldnt help but notice how the attitude towards westerners is pretty hostile. For a country that we are told is so heavily relying on tourism you would think that a smile or a nod would be a simple step in encouraging foreginers to return to your country. Instead, i was regularly, infact all the time, stared at in a very blatent and unfriendly way by teenagers and middle-aged men, women and families. On many an occassion I had a women and men look at me and laugh or simply stare and talk about me in cambodian!? You probably think 'oh you should just ignore it', but imagine walking around a town and wherever you walk 70% of people are staring, and even in a shop the shop assisants will stop what they're doing and talk about you and this will happen all day everyday. And i wont even get started on tuk tuk drivers and how bloody annoying they are!
anyways so apart from all the above there were some good times shared in Cambodia, well except for the bus ride to Cambodia from Laos which was incredibly scary! The bus driver was a maniac and after 3 hours of putting up with his driving ben and i had to ask him to slow down! the rest of the bus thanked us for it later! Our bus trip took us to Siem Reap- its a nice, fairly clean town which i was suprised at but im assuming that most of the town has only been built in the last 30 years since the civil war so everything is still pretty new. The main attraction here is Angkor Wat, where you can visit temples built thousands of years ago. They are pretty impressive and we were suprised to find - as we werent prewarned- that it is like a jungle gym for adults. you literally have to climb up the temple steps and they are so steep and fairly dangerous when u have to climb down the other side! I cant really do the temples any justice in describing them so ill leave that to my photographs instead! (not all of them are up yet!) Other than Angkor Wat we spent our days wandering around the old market, visitng the war museum and taking a boat ride to the floating village. The floating village was soo big! its quite strange to see how some cultures live and the fishing market in the centre of the village was fun as we got to see loads of crocodiles!argh! yet again though we were accosted by loads of kids and families trying to sell us drinks, food, bracelets, etc all for well over what they cost. 'one coca-cola for 2 dollars'... oh please, yes we're tourists but we're not stupid!
We went out for drinks one night in Siem Reap which was quite nice but after a while a little boy joined us and told us he was cold (he wasnt wearing a top) so we bought him a t-shirt and asked the bar man to get him a drink... so what does he order? a red bull! so we leave the bar and an hour later we bump into the same boy at the same spot without his t-shirt on. apparently he was too hot- whatever! more like he cons every tourist into buying him drinks etc on the premise that he is cold and has no clothes! i was not impressed.
Our next stop was the capital city Phnom Penh. The city is fairly big and a typical asian city- quite dirty with some very posh new buildings next to incredibly old, poor flats. In all honesty we didnt feel very safe here and after dark we would only venture out to the river front for dinner and then head home again. We visited toul sleng museum and the killings fields, reminders of the civil war and the slaughter of millions of people by the Khumer rouge in the 1970s. These are incredibly moving and although it is important for people to see it is also quite sad that they are the 'major attractions' in cambodia still. The museum is acually a school that was conveted into a prison during the Khumer Rouge rule between 1975-1979. The prison held over 20000 people during the four years it was open and all but 7 were murdered. The aim of the prison was to hold the most 'important' prisoners, those who were considered political enemies, so that they could be interrogated and sent to their death after confession. They were all innocent but after regular beatings, torture of all sorts and no food many would confess to whatever they were accused of. In groups of 30 or so they would then be taken to what is now known as the 'killing fields' to be butchered to death. Women, children and many babies were among the 20000 killed. The Khumer Rouge took pictures of every prisoner before his death and these have now been put on display at the museum, it is so sad to see the faces of the men women and children, some are in complete states of distress while others look fearless as if they have come to accept their destiny. The rooms where people were held and interrogation (torture) rooms are all on display and what looks to be blood still stains the walls of the corridors.
The killing fields, situated just outside of town, have a white memorial monument in the centre, seventeen stories high, it holds thousands of skulls that were discovered in the 400 or so mass graves near by. As you walk around the fields you see the clothes of the victims and bones still buried in the ground that you have to walk over. The mass graves look barely big enough to fit 20 bodies but we were told by the guide that over 400 bodies were thrown into them and then chemicals poured into them to stop any smell drifitng to the city. Our guide was a young boy during the war and he told us how all his family except for his older sister were killed during the 4 years of Khumer rule, when he spoke about those years you could still hear the anger he felt towards the Khumer leader Pol Pot. It was a very moving day.
The next day we spent playing with children at an orphange. We took 50kg of rice, some fruit and books and pens for the children who total 60. We met the owner of the orphanage who explained how he gets no government funding for the running costs and has to rely on donations such as ours to keep going. A year or so ago two norweigan women raised the money to built concrete housing for the kids as they had been sleeping in one small wooden house prior to this. He makes most of the children go to school which they all seem to love! Some spoke english which made us feel incredibly stupid when we cant speak a word of Cambodian. Most of all they just wanted some attention and we spent 4 exhausting hours playing all sorts of ball games!phew.
We left Cambodia the next day to go to Vietnam and I have to say i was quite relieved. I wouldnt say i would never go back but it is a very frustrating country as you cant do enough to help and at the same time you wish you could.
xx
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