Unraveling the Silk Road: Hi from Cambodia

Suosday, Sok sabai chea tay? ( Hello, how are you )

We had the easiest border crossing yet. Wish they were all this easy!!!

a Cambodian with much character that joined us on our boat trip

Our first impressions of Cambodia was wet – wet – wet. Water had flooded everywhere!!! Most of the houses were all on stilts or had been banked up. Even the cows are trying to get out of the water, although the water buffalo were loving it! They are looking super healthy – just like pigs in mud. Although the cows look quite skinny in comparison, something about not being natively born in the country.

The feeling in Phnom Penh (the capital) was very much laid back, hardly any horns blaring plus a lot less motor scooters. The city is built on the river’s edge with a great promenade. They are many visitors and very western appeal. After supper the one night we went for a fish cleansing of the feet. They offered free beer and for $3.00 so we had quite the giggle as it was very ticklish. You place your feet or other body parts you wish to be cleaned in a fish tank with 500 to 1000 hungry small fish. Plus the feet felt very smooth following, so all good.

The first day we went to the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum.

was a high school that Polpot turned into a prison - note all the barbed wire

a Memorial to the many that had died during this time

all the body parts were dug up from the mass graves and were placed

according to age in layers/shelves in the memorial

Here they have devoted the whole museum for the world to see and hopefully will never have the same repeated. Polpot became president in 1975 – taking the country to communism. He had gone to university in France (where he didn’t do well in his studies) but had joined the communism régime. On returning to Cambodia as a teacher he had ample time to teach his beliefs to all the students. The main thing being the difference in pay scales between the farm workers – and how hard they worked for small money and the educated people that just sat at desks and got paid more money. So when he came into power all the doctors, lawyers, teachers, anyone with an education were tortured and killed. They even took people that wore glasses because that meant they were educated or if your hands felt soft as that meant you didn’t work manually. Then he even killed his army generals and right down to the farmer soldiers in the end. They figure he killed between 1 ½ to as high as 3 million people – depending on whose figures you use. They were only 7 million people in Cambodia at that time. Many people in Cambodia didn’t even know what was happening let alone the outside world as he wouldn’t allow visitors in for the four years he was in power. This has left the country very poor and without any leadership. There are only 3 survivors of S21 prison and the trial finally starts this fall after 40 years. This was a very condensed version but you can get the picture – right? Because all the educated people were killed and that whole age group gone Cambodia has had a hard time catching up in the world. Education still doesn’t seem to be a priority as many can’t afford to send their kids to go to school. There are many kids that are begging on the streets. One good thing the country does do free child medical care for those that can’t pay.

We found many mini markets and one very nicely done – that was quite large but very organized in how it was set up with a more western stocking of merchandise.

defried tarantula on offer - a couple did try it said once was enough!!

grasshoppers, larvae, ants, etc. sorry the pic is sideways oops!

We stopped in at Siem Reap to see the ancient Angkor, #8 wonder in the world.

ancient Angkor in the setting sun

Oh course it is very impressive but I think we loved the smaller ones the best. There are 26 kms of different wots, temples and capital cities inside the perimeter. It had a very strategic position in the 6^th century. It bordered the Great Lake, supply of water, fish and fertile soil. It controlled the sea routes to Mekong Delta (which grows 80 meters a year with silt that makes it always look muddy yellow) and the Gulf of Thailand. The temple that appealed to us the most was called Ta Prohm. Here they decided not to remove all the trees as they were reworking the remnants but let all the trees stand as they were growing over all the walls and fences etc. The place just looked really neat, a great crumbly pile of stones.

tree roots taking over the crumblies

our mode of transportation through Angkor

Then four of us hired a tuktuk to drive us 38 kms out to the Tonle Sap lake - it grows 5 times its size in the wet season. Here we went by boat out to the floating village of Kampong – a permanent community of about 3,000 that have their houses on stilts. Some stilts are 10 meters higher than the ground level to accommodate the rise in lake level.

Kampong Khleang the village on stilts

the road being flooded out this time of the year

They sit in water for half the year and the other half one can drive right out to the area with the houses standing up tall. The kids were all jumping in the water or running up the beams under the house or the dog balancing on the beams to get a drink of water. The farmed animals are in pens above the water line. What a life, but our question was where does the sewer go? The pipe goes straight into the water from under the bathroom but does it really go anywhere?? We found it very interesting and had a nice lunch out there.

children using house supports as their playground

kids swimming

adaptibility to a water world by everyone including the animals

even the pigs

where are the lifejackets mom??

note the color of water where the river meets the lake

Tonle Sap Lake- largest lake in southeast Asia

Then we had a quick stop at the landmine museum. Between the fight with Polpot and the Vietnamese there are land mines everywhere. The country was bombed for 10 years during the Vietnam war. This group is still dismantling them but they are getting buried deeper and more rusty now, therefore very dangerous to deactivate. They believe there are still over 6 million mines out there in the woods. Kids are still having them explode while they are playing. In another words don’t step off of the path, even to go wee or you may lose the leg you are standing on. We saw many people and kids with lost body parts.