Cambodia and the temples of Angkor Wat

After our short visit to Saigon (in which Andrew and Chris picked up some snazzy tailor made suits!), we continued our journey to Cambodia via an overnight bus.  When we arrived early morning in Phnom Penh, we were pleasantly surprised with the cleanliness and almost French riveriaesque atmosphere.  We walked along the promenade searching for a suitable hotel, before stumbling upon Indochine hotel.  We were glad to avoid more stairs as the last three hotels we had stayed at required as much uphill trekking as in Sapa. After recuperating for most of the day, we had an amazing khmer dinner before setting out to explore the weekend night markets.

Men in Black...

The next morning we accidentally slept in four hours later than intended, partially because of exhaustion and partially because our room was a cave. After breakfast we rented a "tuk tuk," or a motorcycle with a carriage on the back, for the the whole day for $12 through our hotel. We took the tuk tuk 17 km south of the city to visit the Chheung Ek Genocide Memorial, otherwise known as the killing fields. It is a memorial to the tens of thousands of farmers, intellectuals, priests, etc. who died there under the Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia. The site of the killing fields was used as an extermination camp for prisoners who had been interrogated and were not longer of any use to the Khmer Rouge. While not to the same scale as WWII, the genocide was particularly brutal and we found the museum and memorial to be a very emotional experience. The main monument is a beautiful structure built in a traditional Cambodian style, but it is vividly juxtaposed by its contents: layer upon layer of human skulls.

Tuk Tuk!

The memorial building outside...

...and inside.

After the killing fields we headed back into town to visit the Tuol Sleng prison, otherwise known as S-21. S-21 was a high school and elementary school which the Khmer Rouge converted into a detention facility for the thousands of prisoners they arrested in the Phnom Penh region. The prisoners were held there for interrogation and torture. The Khmer Rouge would torture the prisoners until they obtained a confession, or until the prisoner died.

A prison cell for high officials at S-21.

After a very depressing morning, we decided to do some shopping! After Candice bartered some jewelery merchants to 20% of their original price, we headed back to the hotel. There our tuk tuk driver tried to scam us by saying that the trips to the markets would cost an extra six dollars, and when we decided to just walk away after paying the $12, he used every offensive word he knew in the English language.. and it was by no means a limited list.

The promenade in Phnom Penh. (Yes, Chris and Andrew have the same shorts.)

We caught a morning bus to Siem Reap that took about 6 hours. The bus was rather uncomfortable and the air conditioning was barely functioning, making us very pleased to get off and have a swim and shower at our previously booked hotel. After refreshing ourselves, we set out by tuk tuk to the temples of Angkor Wat. After arriving on the site, we climbed up a small hill and an unsafely steep set of 'stairs' that led up one of the temples. Sitting at the top of the temple we watched the sun set as tourists took elephant rides up and down the hill below us, a truly magical experience!

Sunset atop Angkor.

The next day at 7:30 AM we set out once again for the temples. We began our journey at Angkor Thom and then visited many more temples on our route to see Ankgor Wat, the largest religious building in the world. The temples were magnificent, each intricately carved of sandstone that had been carried from a mountain 50 km away by elephants. The stairs to enter each of the temples were extremely steep, with an average rise of about one an a half feet with no more than 4 inches of flat space to rest our feet.

After several hours of visiting temples we came back to our hotel for a 50 cent bowl of rice for lunch, and another dip in the pool.  Once we were feeling refreshed, we ventured out into the old town market.  We walked around for a bit and stopped on "pub street" for dinner.

Pool at our hotel, much nicer than expected, and super warm!

Chris also managed to stub his toe on a rock and cut it up pretty badly.  After Andrew and Candice cleaned it up as much as possible, he headed off to the clinic just to be sure it was alright.

Today we took it easy and spent most of the day by the pool, and again we find ourselves waiting for another night bus off to Bangkok.  Until next time...

Andrew, Candice and Chris.