Cambodia

I arrived in Cambodia after a very long journey from Dalat, Vietnam. I had taken a bus to get to Ho Chi Minh City, then met with Royce, and bought a ticket to continue onto a night bus to get to Siem Reap. For the first time, the bus attendant requested he hold everyone's passport for the journey so it would make everything easier at the border. I was absolutely terrified, also had to pay cash for the visa cost. In my guide books it advises to never give your passport to be held or pay cash because the bus company will keep them, and then you have to pay the border control again.. Well, I asked around, everyone else waiting for the bus had done this.. Soo I unwillingly gave them my passport. This sleeping bus was much better than the Laos Vietnam journey because I had a double section to myself. Some friendly german guys were across from me, and we ended up becoming quite close during the journey. There were random noises and I just couldn't sleep for whatever reason. It was a similar situation where we parked at the border and in the morning as soon as it opened the bus attendant woke everyone up and informed them to go into the building and retrieve our passports after filling out a paper. The locals were shoving and cutting all us Caucasians who had no idea what was going on. They were trying to get their bus of passports stamped before others, etc ,etc. Luckily nothing happened with our passports and after only maybe an hour after we entered the chaos of border crossing the bus was through. We then stopped and got some breakfast at a bus restaurant. The bus restaurants are crazy, they are in cahoots with the bus companies and the drivers get to eat and lounge for free. The food isn't good, and the prices are ridiculous compared to eating elsewhere. And by ridiculous I mean, 3 dollars instead of 1 dollar. For tourist, maybe it's not that much of a difference but for the locals on the bus, that's pretty unfair. The bus continued onto Phnom Penh where we had another stopover to grab some lunch and then board yet another bus. I ate some lunch with the German guys then we boarded the final bus.. Unfortunately unlike what we were told this was like an old charter bus, very hot and sweaty with sticky old leather seats. Not the sleeping bus we were told, or wifi, or a toilet. Haha typical bus journeys. We finally arrive in Siem Reap pretty late, I want to say close to 8pm. Many of the hostels were already booked so the German guys and I decided to split a triple room together and visit the Angkor Wat together the next day. For 4 dollars each I believe we got a tuk tuk (three wheeled motorcycle pulling a trailer to sit in) to drive us around all day to all of the Temples. We did Angkor Wat for sunrise and it was absolutely incredible. There are tons of children selling post cards, wraps, tshirts, painting, photo copied books, and soo much more at the park. These definitely take away from the experience a lot as they don't leave you alone. We explored the most famous temples. To think that these were built soo soo many years ago and they are so complex! We snuck up to the sunset spot (had to sneak because we weren't wearing appropriate clothes) then headed back since we were tired after a long day of temple sighting!

We enjoyed a night out in Siem Reaps Night Market and the next day did a little more exploring of Siem Reap and rented bicycles after we slept in a bit. The Germans left that night and then I moved into an open hostel and met up with my friend Kwyengwang who was there doing temple restoration and representing Korea. He had restored many temples in Korea and was now assigned to work with some Korean colleagues in Siem Reap. It was a crazy coincidence that he was there at the same time as me. I met with some of them for lunch and then explored the temple they are renovating which had no other visitors and the tuk tuk drivers weren't even sure where it was. It was dilapidated indeed. The next morning I took off for Phnom Penh to meet up with Andrew and Franklin.

In PP we rented motobikes and braved Cambodian traffic (very similar, sometimes worse than Vietnam) and headed to visit “The Killing Fields”. I was the only girl with a big group of guys but the atmosphere was extremely somber and sad. The listening tour was incredibly intense. If you're not sure what the Khmer Rouge is, I urge you to educate yourself and see what tragedy happened in Cambodia only 30 years ago! It was genocide and to think that I didn't learn about it at ALL during my high school AP world history class is sickening. It made me really embarassed but I wasn't the only person who wasn't taught anything about it. It really helped to understand Cambodia after visiting the Killing fields and S21 prison, the hurt and the pain the country had been through. Everyone who was anyone, was killed. They brought trucks with thousands of people each night to be killed and buried in pits in the ground. There was a tree they showed where they would grab baby by the feet and crack their heads off and toss them in the pit. Because of the erosion and the body decomposition remanants are still floating to the surface, you can still see clothing, jaw bones, or other items on the ground walking around. It's extremely intense. The condition that the prisoners had to live in as well was inhumane.

I had another crazy meet up with my friend Jill who taught in Korea with and we played Ultimate Frisbee together. She had just started volunteering for a month at an orphanage in Phnom Penh. She had arranged to go play frisbee so I met up with her, and one of the sweetest hosts came to pick us up on her motobike. Yup, three grown women on a motobike :) It was a bit of a squeeze to say the least, but we made it in one piece. The frisbee crew was made up mostly of expats. Spoon or SoSo was one of the few Cambodians. After frisbee we went to grab some food and beer at a restaurant. After that Spoon took Jill and I on our own little mini PP tour. We visited an awesome restaurant and shared delicious Cambodian dishes.

Cambodian food seemed to be a fusion among mostly Thai and some Vietnamese. There was a dish called Lakha I believe that was very similar to Thai curry. We had a soup, similar to Tom Yum, and some chicken that SoSo decided to help cook. They also catered a lot to the French influence with baguette Sandwiches all over the place, lots of omlettes, and noodle dishes.

It was really sad to leave SoSo and Jill since I only got to hang out with them for a night, but I had already booked a bus for the beach! I was headed to Sihanoukville and Koh Rong. I had heard amazing things about this place and was so excited. After another long journey on a minibus with a group of extremely loud Australians that I had met before in Hoi An, Vietnam. We booked into a hostel together and then the only girl with the guys, Tiffany a girl from California and I went to the beach. The hostel was pretty much disgusting but only cost 1 dollar a night, but was the WORST of my trip. The beds were literally gym mats, rolled across wood planks. Everyone's backpacks were in the middle of the rooms and smelled terrible. The toilets were all over flowing and bathrooms flooded. It was located just up the street from the beach though so Tiff and I escaped ASAP. We found some chairs on the beach to relax in. Ended up meeting two guys and played card games all night on the beach and enjoyed the sunset. However we did not enjoy... the children of all ages selling things and irritating us. We finally talked to the restaurant owner because we couldn't get them to leave us alone, nothing worked. Ignoring them, commenting back to what they said, giving them something to do. As soon as the owner walked over they ran quickly! The beach is full of these super comfy lounge chairs and tables and they serve you everything on the beach. It is fantastic. The next morning Tiffany and I bought tickets to head to Koh Rong. Koh Rong was probably my favorite beach portion of the trip. It compared very closely with Koh Phi Phi in Thailand.. The water was soo beautiful. The perfect blue, and teal color with perfectly white sand. We hiked to the other side of the island to where the boat dropped us off and then enjoyed another perfect white beach. The water temperature was perfect. I brought my book, enjoyed the sun, water and meeting new friends. At night time there is florescent Pytoplankton which illuminates as you swim in the water. Such an incredible thing to experience the plankton all around you. The restaurants and bars were so relaxed and fun. Sunsets turned into Sunrises and 2 days turned into 7.. Koh Rong will always have an incredibly special place in my heart.

These children on the beach came up to me and started playing. I had a blast, even though they only spoke a few words of English, they were hilarious. I thought they were absolute cuties. A long while later, it turns out they were only playing to beg for money. They were alone at first, then later an older brother i'm assuming came over to check on them, as they asked for the money. 

I spent two more nights in Sihanoukville with Charles. We had another extremely fun night out and met two Italian guys, then decided to do a house boat island hopping tour the next morning. There was an adorable Chinese couple, Pearl the womans name didn't know how to swim to I taught her how to swim and got her to jump off the boat from the first level into the water :) They had music playing at the top and we were all just enjoying ourselves and dancing. Then there was an old Chinese lady probably in her 80's or 90's dancing and doing yoga on the top deck with us. The spots they took us to was incredible. Clearest water I'd ever seen in my life. Jumping off the boat into the water was soo much fun. I wish I had taken more pictures of this day, another favorite of the trip. I couldn't stop smiling. Unfortunately our last stop, we had a long time to hang out. Charles and I found an amazing spot in the sand a little ways from where the boat was, and we missed our trip home! I woke up and saw the boat in the distance... We were pretty far from the mainland. This happened to another couple, we convinced an island boatman with some money to take us back. Charles and I had not brought enough money with us. Luckily the other couple said it would be okay if we could go to an ATM when we returned to the mainland. Otherwise we would have been sleeping on the beach hungry until when the party boat returned the next afternoon! A little bump in the adventure but one to remember! From Sihanouville I had to get back to Vietnam for my flight home and to explore HCMC and visit with Royce! I got my passport back with another visa for Vietnam in there and was on my way.

I really enjoyed Cambodia. As always it's hard to see the way people live and how impoverished they are. But despite their lack of many luxuries we have here in America, they are so happy. They don't know any different life, so they cherish the one they have. I always try and remember this lesson when I have a problem so small and smitten here. Next week, next year, it won't matter at all. Slowly they are moving on from the past and I really hope they continue to move forward strongly. They have a lot of help from Japan and Korea bringing in new businesses, hopefully enough to keep that going without problems!