After leaving Koh Rong we took a flight from Sihanoukville to Siem Reap to save ourselves another 12 hour coach journey. Again, the flight was super cheap so we didn’t mind. When I found out it was a turbo propeller plane though, I was a little anxious. Turns out, they’re just as safe as jet engines, so my worry was for nothing! We arrived to a beautiful sunset and a really beautiful airport. The whole building was built in the style of Cambodian temples and they had a model of Angkor Wat, which got us excited.

We went to the famous pub street for dinner that night and ate some delicious Khmer Amok curries and drank some tasty fruit juices (we are definitely going to miss these when we get home). Pub street is a lot like Khao San road in Bangkok. Very touristy, very loud and has a constant theme song of ‘Lady… tuk tuk?’ ‘Sir… where you go?’ ‘Tuk tuk’.

The next day we HAD to see Beauty and the Beast because we’ve been eagerly awaiting its release for months. Sometimes, you just have to do some pretty normal things even though you’re in a foreign and exciting place. The movie was amazing and they sold freshly popped toffee popcorn. Why don’t we have this? The movie was played in English with Khmer subtitles, but often the subtitles switched to English, went very pale or disappeared completely. If I didn’t have good English, I would have been pretty annoyed by this.

Next stop was to Artisans Angkor which is a company dedicated to reviving and preserving ancient Khmer arts and crafts. During the Khmer Rogue regime many educated artists and craftsmen and women were killed, therefore losing their skill and ability to pass on the craft. Artisans Angkor employees 1300 people and gives young people a way to earn money with dignity. It is a truly inspiring organisation and if you’d like to learn more about it please go to their website https://www.artisansdangkor.com/angkor-artisans-1-historical-background.php

We walked around the workshops and saw people making soapstone, wooden and bronze statues, as well as silk paintings, ceramics and jewellery. We had a look around the shop, but on our budget we couldn’t afford anything really. Oh dear.

That evening we found a newly opened Khmer restaurant which was super cheap and tasty. Simon even had his dinner presented in a boat. Afterwards we tried ‘fried’ icecream for the first time. There is no frying involved, but they take different flavours and mush them together on a very cold plate, releasing the flavours. It’s a bit like coldrock in Australia. Yum!

We headed to Battambang next for 3 days 2 nights. https://dowellmegamoon.wordpress.com/2017/03/27/battambang-not-said-phonetically/

We got back to Siem Reap quite late and booked our Angkor trip for the next day. We were picked up the next morning at 5am as we were heading to Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise. Recently, they have moved the ticket office to a new location so we were driven there first and then on to Angkor Wat. Simon was getting a bit antsy as you could see the sun was starting to rear its head as we pulled up to the entrance of Angkor Wat and it was still a 1km walk to where we needed to be. We didn’t pick the best position for the sunrise and actually it wasn’t that impressive until the sun rose behind Angkor Wat about 45 minutes after the ‘official’ rise. I moved around to take pictures and Simon stayed put to get a time lapse. Angkor Wat is a very impressive structure, often referred to as the 8th wonder of the World. The Angkor Archeological Park is the largest religious monument in the World, being visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year. Recently the entrance price for 1 day has risen from $20 per person to $37. That is quite possibly the largest price increase I have ever heard of, but for that price you get access to all of the sites in the archeological park and it really is worth it.

After the sunrise we walked around Angkor Wat itself. Design as a temple mountain and based on Mount Meru, Angkor Wat has 5 peaks with the central peak being the highest and most exclusive. Very steep stairs lead to the top peak. It isn’t meant to be easy to reach this highest tower and yes, they are right. Anyone with vertigo, should not attempt this. We had to wait about 45 minutes to go up as there is a limit of 100 people. We were so glad for this, as it meant when we were up there it was a peaceful sanctuary. The main central tower faces West which is unusual for temples. It was later found out that the tower was designed to be used as a mausoleum, but was never used for this purpose. Facing the west is a common design for death.

We had a lovely time walking around Angkor Wat looking at the detailed carvings on walls and the many reliefs of Apsaras. It is a very peaceful place despite the tourists and we spent about 2.5 hours here in total.

After Angkor Wat we headed to Ta Prohm, the Tomb raider temple. Ta Prohm has been pretty much left to the will of the jungle since its use and only receives careful pruning and manicuring in comparison to the other temples. The trees here making this temple complex. Around every corner there is a tree growing out of the top of a building and a hidden overgrown corridor to explore. It’s so amazing and just like something out of a disney movie. The only issue was the big tour groups, but we were patient and got the photos we wanted in the end.

Our next stop was to the Angkor Thom complex where we spent some time looking at the Terrace of the Elephants, Baphuon and Bayon temples.

Baphuon

Bayon

Entrance to Angkor Thom

After the excitement of the day, we just spent the evening relaxing. It was such an amazing day though and would recommend everyone sees this place at least once.

Our hotel had a pool, so we had to use it the next day. Later in the day we headed out to Hard Rock cafe and this time they had the glass!! Woo!!

Our last stop in Siem Reap was to the Phare Circus. Just like Artisan Angkor, the Phare circus was set up as a way to preserve the arts and to give children suffering from poverty a way of receiving a quality education that would lead to job opportunities. It was amazing! The performance told the story of the co-director and what she had seen and experience during the Khmer Rogue regime. Don’t worry though, there was a happy ending. Throughout the performance there were acrobatic displays, juggling and lots of dancing and fun. It really was a feel good experience and a perfect way to end our time in Cambodia.

After our island living we actually spent 2 nights in Siem Reap, but then went to Battambang for 2 nights and then came back to Siem Reap for 3 nights. I’m going to write a post about Siem Reap, so shall start with Battambang. Most people visit Battambang for one reason, to ride the Bamboo train, but we were hoping to get a little more out of our time there so booked a countryside tour (these are becoming a bit of a tradition). Our bus there was easy and smooth, for a change and we made it to Battambang before lunch. The first task of the day was to get some laundry done something I haven’t really spoken about on these blogs. It’s been very strange to not have to do laundry for a few months now. It’s much cheaper here to have laundry done for you, which is a bit of a win win.

In the afternoon we decided to do a bit of a walking tour around Battambang, as it is known for its french colonial architecture. I have to say we were quite disappointed by the town itself, but it was 36 degrees and 80% humidity so I can’t blame us for getting a little bit fed up whilst walking around. Our first stop was to a cafe called The Lonely Tree cafe. The cafe is linked to a NGO and aims to ‘support cover a wide range of humanitarian aid including education, support for the disabled, healthcare and preservation of Cambodian cultural heritage. At the Lonely Tree Café we give employment to underprivileged and disabled people: the staff consist of vulnerable youth and most of the products sold in the Lonely Tree Store are crafted by people with physical disabilities who are in permanent need.’ We had a lovely meal and felt good for supporting such a great cause.

After lunch we walked around town, looked at some of the French colonial buildings, stopped at Wat Tham Raisaw (elephant pagoda), The old Governors residence and just had a general mooch around. As I said before, to us there was nothing awe inspiring about the city itself, but the countryside really did impress us the next day.

Just a stegosaurus 

That evening we relaxed in the hotel jacuzzi, which was too cool for my liking, but we saw a beautiful sunset and just chilled out, which was great.

The next morning we were picked up by our tuk tuk driver for the day, Bun. Bun and Savet work together to deliver countryside tours that really showcase Battambang at its best. There were 8 of us in total on this day (4 in each tuk tuk) and our first start was the infamous Bamboo train. We feel really lucky that we were able to ride the train as it will be closing in the next couple months to make way for a new trainline opening. The railroad tracks were originally used for this purpose, but after the railway closed down the 7km of track has been used to transport goods and also tourists. Norrys (or bamboo trains) run up and down the line all day, moving tourists at speeds of up to 30mph. The bamboo trains are in fact bamboo platforms driven by a lawn mower engine and some wheels. It’s all very primitive, but excellent fun. At the end of the line, you have about 15 minutes to look at some of the local peoples stalls. With the line closing, these people are losing their entire livelihood. We bought some bracelets and Simon got a tshirt (pretty poor quality, but we didn’t care, we just wanted to give a couple of dollars to the community). As there is only one line, when you meet another norry, the entire set up is dismantled to allow the other train to pass. Pretty funny to watch.

After the bamboo train we headed to Savet’s family village and went for a bike ride. He showed us his family home, his Mum and his Aunt, their orchards, his neighbours and a local pagoda. It was a lovely way to see and hear about ‘real’ life in rural Cambodia. We tried lots of exotic fruits that were growing in their orchards and he showed us a fruit that has a cotton like material inside it. I have googled it for a while and can’t find out what it’s called. Please let us know if you do. Photo down below. His Aunt showed us how she rolled Betel nut. Betel nut is chewed with tobacco by women in Cambodia. It has been found to be linked to oral cancer and loss of teeth, Savet’s Aunt didn’t have any teeth either. She told us, through Savet, that she would choose Betel nut over food any day. Interesting.

Next we visited a few local trades. The first one was to see how they make Battambang sticky bamboo rice. In a little hut on the side of the road, the woman wakes up at 4am and prepares the rice, which is a mix of rice, coconut milk, salt, sugar and black beans. She then stuffs the rice into the bamboo that her husband prepared the day before. This is then cooked for 20 minutes to soak up all the coconut milk. She then flips the bamboo stick and cooks it for another 2 hours. People travel to her to buy the bamboo sticky rice and she sells it for any price between 25c and 75c. The roof of their hut is layered with soot from the fire and her husband was constantly trimming off the burnt pieces of bamboo while we were there. Let’s just say, it’s a lot of work!

Our next stop was to the fish paste market. Wow this smelt bad! There were people on the floor cutting up the fish that had just been delivered. These fish would then be dried and fermented for a few weeks to make the paste. Not the most pleasant looking thing.

Next was rice paper making and weaving. Both we had seen before, but still interesting.

Dried bananas were next on the agenda. We watched the lady slice the bananas really thin and then put them onto bamboo trays to dry for the whole day. The rest was a very delicious crunch banana snack, which is mostly bought locally by the schools to sell to the students. On site we spotted a suspicious looking plant. Apparently, it’s quite normal for people in Cambodia to grow 1 or 2 plants for their own medicinal use.

Our last stop before lunch was to try some rice wine. We have tried this stuff 4 times now and it doesn’t get any better. It burns, and not in a good way. This time though, we tried a few different percentages and also 2 ‘different’ variations. The first one was fruit infused and I could have imagined that being OK mixed with some lemonade and the second was rice wine that had been infused with cobra. This had a very strong kick to it and for the next 15 minutes or so I was worried I was going to go into anaphylactic shock. Luckily, this didn’t happen.

We ate lunch, which was prepared by Savet’s new wife of 3 weeks. It was absolutely delicious and very authentic Cambodian food. We then spent about an hour relaxing in hammocks and chatting to Bun about his life in Cambodia. He made a very good point that even if you achieve well in Cambodia, you still never have enough money put back and live day to day. He said how lucky we all were to have been born in a country that provides healthcare, pensions and benefits, therefore allowing us to save money to travel and have some security. He is absolutely right. We are very very fortunate.

On the way to our next stop, our tuk tuk drivers stopped and bought us a rat to share. It’s quite a common meat to eat here and we hadn’t tried it, so why not? It tasted a lot like duck to be honest. A very gamey chicken. Not awful and we weren’t sick after so WIN!

We headed up Phnom Sampeou for our next couple of stops. This ‘mountain’ has a few places of interest to visit, the first being a temple which used to be a prison during the Khmer Rogue regime. Bun told us that his generation, which is also our generation, knew little about the regime until internet became common in Cambodia about 6 years ago. He said that the people around at that time don’t want to talk about it and therefore he said it felt like a myth. Since then, his generation has done a lot of research through books and online leading to a much deeper understanding of what happened. Savet told us that his Aunt, who we met earlier, was a cook for the Khmer Rogue during this time (not her choice). Her husband used to be a member of the opposing Army. Eventually it was found out about this and he was executed. She knew that he was going to be executed, but couldn’t do anything about it as they threatened to kill her entire family. The whole thing is just heartbreaking. This temple, held prisoners before they were taken to the killing cave to be executed, which was our next stop.

A depiction of hell

The killing cave is a very sombre place. At this cave thousands of people were bludgeoned to death and then thrown through the natural skylight in the top of the cave. Remains are still found here, just like at the Killing Fields, and a lot of them are now stored in a memorial at the base. Even more so than at the Killing Fields, this place had an air of sadness. You could imagine the atrocities that happened here and the suffering of the people who were not killed by the first hit. Joy is the best way to move past tragedy and that is exactly what we feel from the Cambodian people. They are moving forward with their lives, smiling and hopeful for the future.

We viewed the sunset from the top of the mountain before heading down for the main event.

Every night for about 1 hour, millions of bats fly out of a cave at the base of Phnom Sampeou. It was such a beautiful and magical site. Unfortunately, the photos do not do it justice. Please ask to see our videos when we get home.

The countryside tour had absolutely made our time in Battambang and we were so glad we chose to spend our day with Savet and Bun.

Monks collecting Alms at breakfast time. 

We left Kampot on the sketchiest bus yet. By sketchy I mean dodgy and by dodgy I mean overbooked, cramped and hot!! We were in a minibus and rather than save any room for baggage, every single available space had a seat in it to squeeze more people in. So where does our baggage go? Under us, on us, around us… EVERYWHERE!! Let’s just say that we were glad to get to Sihanoukville after the 2.5 hour drive. We had decided not to stay in Sihanoukville as we heard it was disappointing and touristy, so we headed straight over to Koh Rong Samloem on a 45 minute speedboat.

When we arrived we were greeted with the most beautiful water we have ever seen. It was just such a beautiful turquoise colour. We were very fortunate to be spending 2 nights at Sweet Dreams Samloem, which was a great little hotel, which also served great food. The next few days were spent swimming in the gorgeous water, sunbathing, eating and just loving life. This place is truly magical and if you are in Cambodia and don’t come here, you are missing out!!

View from our bungalow

Yes, this is the police station

On our last evening, we walked to the other side of the island through the jungle. It was about a 45 minute walk and it was super hot and humid, but what awaited us on the other side was an absolutely breathtaking sunset. We watched it from the water as we needed to cool off anyway. They don’t call it sunset beach for nothing. Our walk back was… um… interesting. As we watched the sunset, it was pretty dark walking back through the jungle, but we survived!

The next day we had a 12:30pm ferry over to Koh Rong, the more commercialised island and WOW what a difference it was. Luckily, we had booked accommodation away from the main pier/backpacker area of Koh Tuich Village. This is pretty fortunate as I think I would have gone crazy staying in this area. Our accommodation was just a short walk, or swim, from 4k beach. A beautiful stretch of beach that reminded us of Sacrean Bay on Koh Rong Samloem. On our way to our accommodation we met a lovely Cornish couple, Gina and Ben, who were also staying at the same bungalow complex. We quickly made friends and spent the next few days together, eating, chilling, swimming and exploring. We had so much fun, we hardly took any photos.

This pizza is bigger than my head…

4k beach

We had booked to go on an all day island cruise trip, which would take us to some National Parks for snorkelling, back to the other side of Koh Rong Samloem and also to swim with the bioluminescent phytoplankton. After preparing for the trip and walking back into town for the departure time, they cancelled it. We’re 90% sure they cancelled due to hangovers, but claimed it was due to numbers, even though there were 8 of us waiting to go. However, they did give us a refund and booked us on to the phytoplankton part of that tour later in the evening. Swimming with the phytoplankton was great. We jumped into the pitch black abyss and as soon as you started to move your hands around the plankton gave off bioluminescence. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. The problem is, I had gotten it into my head that it would look like Avatar or like it did in the Life of Pi. It didn’t. The light they gave off was far more white, but equally as interesting to see.

After 3 night on Koh Rong, we were ready to leave the islands for a bit. The mozzies had decided to munch on me again despite multiple applications of DEET, drinking tonic water, eating as much garlic as possible and wearing excess amounts of clothes in 80% humidity. Despite this, we still had a great time. Sorry this is quite a short blog, but really we didn’t do a lot except read, swim and relax. The photos can show you what it’s like better than me rambling on!

We arrived in Kampot at about 6pm after a very bumpy 3 hour ride. Whilst in Laos we learnt about Lao time, but it’s becoming clear that Cambodian time is no more clear. Our bus was due to leave at 2.45pm. They picked us up from our hotel at 1.55pm. We then sat in an office for about 45 minutes while we waited for other people. Very odd! Also, whilst keeping an eye on our journey from Phnom Penh to Kampot on maps me, it was clear that we were travelling along a parallel road to the main road. This road was pretty bumpy at times and I can only imagine there must have been a good reason for this. I hope anyway.

We checked into our accommodation, which was lovely, and headed promptly out. We had heard of a boutique 30 seat cinema in town so wanted to get some food and then watch their 7.30pm showing of La La Land. For dinner we found a British/Cambodian restaurant called The Rusty Keyhole. I had my first taste of Kampot pepper, as I had a chicken breast in a pepper and mushroom sauce with, wait for it… mash!!!!! It has been a very long time since I had some mash and it was great. Simon had the best ribs I think I’ve ever tasted and that Kampot pepper was delicious.

We bought our cinema tickets and couldn’t quite believe we were heading into a cinema screen. The building was like an abandoned store/house. It was very very odd, but we made it up to the room and grabbed a double garden chair covered in pillows. Very comfy. For $5 total we can’t complain. We got to see the movie, and it was comfortable. However, there was some noise from a nearby bar that didn’t get drowned out by the movie. As for the movie, we both really enjoyed it. Simon didn’t enjoy the ending, which lead to a good old debate on the way home.  Definitely worth a watch.

The next morning was a lie in kinda morning, sleeping for as long as we could. When we were finally awake we headed over to the top rated breakfast spot in town, Ellie’s. The walk from our hotel took us along the beautiful Kampot river and through the quirky relaxed town. We were aware very quickly that there is a large Expat community here as there are a lot of Westerners walking dogs,  doing food shopping, riding large motorbikes and running cafes and restaurants. It is definitely a relaxing place and with beaches, countryside and the weather, we can see why some people would settle here. We had a lovely brunch, walked along the river, booked some activities for our time here and our bus onto the next stop.

The rest of the afternoon was blog, research and booking time. I don’t think people realise how much time and effort this can take while you’re travelling. Think of all the research you do for a 1 or 2 week holiday and then make it bigger and shrink your budget. It really can be quite a lot of work to make sure you are getting the best deal on your hotel, the cheapest transport option that isn’t going to kill you, that you eat at restaurants that aren’t going to render you incapacitated and use companies that aren’t going to scam you! That evening we had a $5 trip lined up. We were going on a river cruise along the Kampot river. For $5 the boat was going to take us up and down the river for 2.5 hours so we could see the countryside and the sunset and then make a stop on the way back to see some fireflies. The $5 also included a beer or coke. The trip wasn’t luxurious by any means. We were given a beach chair on the deck and that was it. I’m not even sure our skipper spoke English, but we had the BEST time. I’ll let the photos show you why.

The next day we went on an all day countryside tour of Kampot which included a trip up to Bokor National Park. I wish I could tell you that we learnt a lot, but we didn’t. The tour guide told us absolutely nothing so we spent a good 3 hours looking around abandoned buildings. Bokor National Park Hill Station was an old retreat used by the French in the 1920s to escape the heat of Kampot and Phnom Penh. The hill station has been abandoned twice, once during WW2 and again during the Khmer Rogue Regime. What is left is an eerie array of abandoned buildings for tourists to explore. On paper, sounds fun, but it was the first time I was truly bored. Here’s a few photos from where we visited.

King Sihanouk‘s residence

Pagoda

The Old Catholic Church

Le Bokor Palace Hotel and Casino

Looking at the photos, this trip did give me a chance to have a play with the camera. We are still very much learning how to use it, so if anyone has any tips, please send them our way. We stopped at a waterfall to have our lunch of cold vegetable fried rice. To top it off, he told us as it’s dry season that there is no water at the waterfall. How pointless. We weren’t holding out much hope for the afternoon part of our trip and were planning on complaining when we got back to the office. However, we didn’t get taken back to the office, we were taken to a tuk tuk driver. Oh here we go I thought… Luckily we managed to confirm that he was meant to take us and yes, he wasn’t going to ask us for any more money. The problem was, he then told us that normally the countryside tour would take 6 hours and it was already 2.30pm. So why did the company sell us the whole day tour with all of this included when it wasn’t even possible? He asked us to tell us what we would like to see the most and he would try his hardest to make this possible.

Lets just say that this tuk tuk driver, who for the life of me I can’t remember his name, saved the day. He gave us so much amazing information and was really funny to be around. We had a great time from this point on. We just wish we’d had him all day.

Our first stop was to the Kampot salt fields. Here we were able to try the local Kampot salt and learn about how they bring the water in from the estuary and evaporate the water.

Our next stop was to a Kampot pepper farm. Kampot pepper is known World wide for being some of the tastiest pepper. It did not disappoint. We learnt how red, white and black paper was grown and treated and bought 100g to bring home as it was that tasty. Our tuk tuk driver had a good laugh at me when I ate an entire kernel (correct word?) Hot!

We stopped at a pier for a view over to Rabbit island.

Rebel

An old colonial building with gun shot marks from the Khmer Rogue regime

We went for a walk along Kep beach and saw the famous Kep crap and a sexy lady

We went and saw the Kep crab market and had a cheeky cocktail. Why not ehy?

This man started slapping the sea… must have been fishing. 

We really did have a lovely time in Kampot and are glad we made the effort to stop there as a lot of people don’t. We saw some beautiful sights whilst there and continued to see the true loveliness and friendliness of the local people.

Once we transferred onto the speed boat and started to say goodbye to Vietnam and the Mekong Delta, the scenery changed. The countryside appeared flatter nearly immediately after crossing the border. Our time at border control was easy. We filled out forms on the boat, attached our passport photos and the money, handed over our passports to the crew and they did everything for us. We stopped twice. Once to exit Vietnam and another to enter Cambodia. A lot of people had told us horror stories about entering Cambodia from the Thai side, saying the people were unfriendly and rude. This wasn’t the case at all, we had such a lovely crossing full of smiley people. I am so glad we decided to travel through the Mekong and up to Cambodia that way. We avoided a long bus ride and also got to see one of our favourite places in Vietnam.

On arrival in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, we hit the ground running. We were able to negotiate a good price for a tuk tuk from the ferry pier to our hotel after a few drivers and a lot of walking away. In Cambodia they use 2 currencies. US dollar for notes and larger transactions and Riel for small change as they don’t have US coinage. Very confusing. Our hotel was lovely, but we didn’t spend long there before we headed out for some food and to the Tuol Seng Genocide Museum.

We ate lunch at a place called Spider cafe. So… guess what? Eating spiders, particularily tarantulas, is a delicacy here. Yuck! Needless to say, we did not order the tarantula salad and stuck with safer options. We headed off to the Genocide Museum after this with Christina and Annuska to be faced with some horrible history.

I have completed a lot of research and reading into the dark history of the Khmer Rogue regime during 1975 to 1979. Unfortunately, just as the Vietnamese war ended another dark time came for the Cambodian people. Pol Pott was the leader of the Khmer Rogue. His aim was to create a unitarian country whereby everyone was equal. In reality is created a very small minority of ‘elite’ rich people and a mass majority of very poor, malnourished and homeless people. Within 3 days all of the main towns and cities were evacuated. People were told that it was temporary and that they could return to their homes shortly. They didn’t return for nearly 4 years. During this time families were split up and people were sent to villages to work ion the farms. Anyone who was educated was murdered as they were seen to be a threat so most people pretended to be of a farming background. The idea was to have more people working the land so that Cambodia became more self sufficient. People often worked 17 hour days, received hardly any food and were brutally punished and attacked. During this time between 1/4 and 1/3 of the entire population was murdered. It was a very very dark time. Someone told me to look around at the population of Cambodia and when you look, you realise,  most people you see are in their 30s or younger. There is definitely a young population here.
Please read my previous blog about the book ‘At first they killed my father’. https://dowellmegamoon.wordpress.com/2016/03/05/a-dark-history/

The Tuol Seng Museum is the old site of the S21 prison. This prison was originally a school, but when the Khmer Rogue took control in 1975 the regime banned education except towards the revolution and turned the school into a torture and interrogation prison. There were 4 prison blocks that we could walk around. We didn’t get the audio guide as I felt I knew enough already and wanted to just absorb the place. What hit me the most whilst walking around was how many people had died on these grounds. Approximately 20000 people were held at this prison during the regime and initially it was believed that only 7 people left alive. It’s now believed that number is closer to 180 people. The prison held children, women and men. As we walked around we saw some torture devices, the small prison cells and the graves of the last 14 prisoners.  It was very sad to see how these people had been treated for often doing nothing.

After the museum we went and bought a Cambodian SIM card, so we could stay connected, we walked down a boutique street (which wasn’t a lot of anything) and had some dinner at a lovely cafe. After 3 very packed days we were ready to go to bed! Also we saw a car that looked like a jacket potato.

The next morning we got up and ate a bagel at the same cafe that we had dinner at. I won’t say it was a ‘normal’ bagel, but it was good. My coffee had a smiley face, so that made me happy.

Annushka and Christina picked us up in our hired tuk tuk for the day and we headed off to another sad spot, Choeung Ek more commonly known as the Killing fields. Upsettingly Choeung Ek wasn’t the only killing field in Cambodia during the Khmer Rogue regime. There were 300. Prisoners of the S21 prison were brought to the Killing fields and murdered. They were then buried in mass graves. It is believed that 17000 people were murdered at this one site. Of those 17000, there was one grave specifically for women and children and one grave for Khmer Rogue soldiers who had betrayed the regime. These soldiers were buried headless. We hired an audio guide here and spent 2 hours walking around, absorbing the place and listening to the horrific stories.

The branches on this tree are serrated and were used as weapons against the prisoners. 

Some very difficult parts included seeing the Killing Tree, which is where children and babies were beaten to death against the trunk of the tree. Also seeing bone fragments and clothing fragments protruding from the ground was difficult to see. Every few months these fragments are collected and preserved with some dignity. In the middle of the park is a memorial. At this memorial the skulls of some of the victims, along with some other major bones, have been laid to rest in a place where people can pay their respects.

A memorial under the killing tree. See the clothing that has risen from the graves with the monsoons.

Collected bone fragments.

A bone fragment we saw exposed as we walked around. 

Our visit to the killing fields was very sombre and it truly showed us how nasty some of mankind can be towards each other. Unfortunately, the audio guide was right in saying that this is not the only time that mass genocide has happened like this and more than likely, it won’t be the last.

We headed back towards Phnom Penh and stopped for an hour or so to walk around the Russian Market. Why it’s called the Russian Market I have no idea. It was a very large market that sold absolutely everything. There were sections for clothes, food, bike parts, jewellery, homeware, crockery, furniture. The list goes on. We didn’t buy anything haha.

After some lunch with Annushka and Christina we visited an organisation called ‘Daughters of Cambodia’. Directly from their website this is, in their own words, what they do.

‘Daughters of Cambodia exists to empower those trapped in the sex industry in Cambodia to walk free and start a new life, with healing, dignity, and the means to prosper. We offer opportunities to those trapped in sex-exploitation and trafficking to be employed in our attractive and innovative social enterprises and to learn how to sustain their new life-styles in non-institutional settings. We offer employment in our 8 fair-trade non-profit businesses, along with recovery programs including social work, counseling, medical treatment and life-skills education.’

We spent some time in the store and I bought a tshirt to support the work that they are doing. There is also another organisation called ‘Sons of Cambodia’ which are supporting transgender and transexual people who are trapped in the sex industry.

This afternoon we visited the Royal Palace. It was very expensive to visit, $10.50 each and to be honest, we learnt nothing. It was so ridiculously hot and humid there because of all the concrete buildings, there were no signs and no option to have an audio guide. We wandered around for a bit and took pictures of the pretty buildings, but I couldn’t tell you what they were.

That evening we had a lovely dinner at a restaurant called Sugar Palm with the people we had met on the Mekong tour. It was a lovely way to spend our last evening in Phnom Penh.

In the morning we had a couple of hours to kill before our bus to Kampot. We decided to go and see what the National Museum was like. We decided to walk, which was probably the first problem as it was unbearably hot and humid. By the time we made it there I was so hot and not feeling great to be honest. We wandered around for about an hour or so, but all that was there was a lot of ceramics and statues. Not our cup of tea. The building itself was really pretty though.

Next stop… Kampot!