Getting a Dose of Reality

I woke up really crabby today. Not exactly sure what it was – maybe the combination of being tired, being hot because the air conditioning in our room wasn’t working, not having a separate shower room, being on a boat for the last few days, being a little homesick or ALL of the above. In any case, after being out in Phnom Penh for an hour I was totally ashamed of my princess behavior....and also felt bad for Darsh who had to deal with it.

We hired a tuk tuk for the day so we could see some of the sights that were out of town. We normally walk everywhere but it was nice being driven around as you could actually see more since you’re not concentrating on crossing the street. The first two sights were museums/burial sights of Cambodian victims of the Khmer Rouge. While I had heard of the movie Killing Fields (about this awful tragedy) I really wasn't that familiar with the Khmer Rouge until now and had no idea what the Khmer people have gone through (I am embarrassed about this). It is completely tragic. From 1975 – 1979 the Khmer Rouge basically forced everyone from Phnom Penh (and I think other cities) into the countryside where they were treated as slaves, beaten, and tortured. All intellectuals, people with high offices, and others who were thought to disobey the Khmer Rouge were tortured and executed. The number of deaths is estimated at 1.7 million....although it really isn't known. It was the Vietnamese army that finally put an end to the Khmer Rouge. The UN hadn’t recognized the Khmer Rouge attacks until much later…..I don’t quite understand this but even after the Vietnamese liberated Phnom Penh there were still influential Khmer Officials carrying out their “work”. The main Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot died in 1998…he got lucky…and some of the others are still on trial (again why are they still on trial - how much proof could they possibly need?)

The Tuol Sleng Museum was a former high school taken over by the Khmer Rouge and transformed as a Security Prison (aka S-21). This is where victims were taken and tortured. Then they were taken to the “Killing Fields” of Choeung Ek to be executed. The Cambodian Government now uses this as a memorial to all those who suffered during the Khmer Rouge. They still uncover bones and clothing of the victims when the rain is washed away. The photographs and the cells that victims were tortured in were really hard to see – there were tons of children that were tortured as well. I just can’t understand how people can become so inhumane. Reading the bios of the Khmer Rouge officials you learn that many of them were teachers at one point. Not like teachers are my vision of “good” but how does a high school teacher end up torturing thousands of innocent people. Ugh – it was just awful seeing all the evidence. There really are no words to explain. All of this was also fairly recent that you couldn’t help but think how many people are still affected by it today. :(

The next stop was just as moving but in a different way. We wanted to give out some cookies our friend Kevin Wong (from San Francisco) gave us when we met up with him in Hong Kong. He had just been in Cambodia and he gave out some cookies to children in a village near the Killing Fields. So we tried to explain to our tuk tuk driver that we wanted to go somewhere with kids – he recommend an orphanage. So we went to the Lighthouse Orphanage. He recommended that we bring food instead of money so we bought a huge bag of rice on the way. The orphanage is run completely by volunteers and currently have 108 orphans ranging from the ages of 4 – 18. The kids were so friendly and happy to see visitors. It was nice to see that they were all in school and even learning English and Japanese. We walked around, chatted with the kids, saw the facilities, and took some pictures. One little boy loved Darsh….it was really cute!

At this point we were pretty wiped out but we decided we should go see the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda which was pretty cool – it was very similar to the Royal Palace in Thailand. Finally, at about 4pm we had a chance to chill and eat. We went to Friends which was a training school for former street kids. The food was outstanding. Darsh had this amazing steak and feta sandwich with a pineapple-chili margarita….which he says was the bomb! I had a fruit smoothie, cucumber and mint salad with yogurt dressing (the best salad ever!) and chicken curry. The meal was so great we even bought a cookbook! We then walked over to the FCC (Foreign Correspondants Club) for happy hour and to meet a friend, Barnabe, who we met on our Mekong Delta tour. He’s a student from Paris. Not sure how, but we always end up hanging with the young ones! :)

We had one really long and emotional day in Phnom Penh. Tomorrow we wake up early to catch the bus to Siem Reap.

The Three Day Journey to Phnom Penh….Via the Mekong Delta

Everyone says you have to see the Mekong Delta, which is the part of Vietnam along the Mekong River where you’ll find floating markets, fishing villages, and rice fields. We also read that taking a boat into Phnom Penh, Cambodia was much more scenic than the bus or flying. So we decided to do a 3 Day, 2 Night Mekong Delta Tour which ended with a boat ride to Phnom Penh. We normally hate tours because we’d rather pick and choose what we want to do and do things at our own pace but we figured this time it was just easier.

I’m going to be honest, while we met some cool people and we did get to Phnom Penh….after 3 LONG days…..we were quickly reminded why we don’t do tours. It was just a lot of the same stuff. I think for us, had we not seen the floating fishing villages in Halong Bay it might have been a better experience. I mean the floating market was cool to see but much of the days were spent going to random workshops/farms – they showed us how the locals make coconut candy, how to make rice paper (kind of cool actually), fruit farms, and a crocodile farm (that smelled like crap). We did also try snake wine (which I didn’t like but Darsh made me try it) and Darsh held a huge snake! But in my opinion, we could have skipped many of the stops we made. The best part was chatting with other travelers - Adrian and Jim from Canada and Barnabe from France. Each night we slept in a different city – the first night, Can Tho and the second night, Chau Doc.

Can Tho was pretty nice surprisingly. We had a great meal there at Sao Hom right on the river. I think I had the best Papaya Salad of the trip! We did also attempt to hang out at one of the bars until the table next to us gave us the stare down. I’m not going into details as I’m trying to keep this PC but know that it was just girls being catty. I so wanted to say something (0r kick some ass) but didn't want to end up in a Vietnamese jail!! So I silently gave them attitude back and we were quickly on our way! :) Chau Doc is a pretty small town on the Vietnam/Cambodia border which we didn’t get a chance to explore much because we got there so late. We did go to Sam Mountain where we could see the Cambodian/Vietnam border which was cool.....and this amazing temple built in caves. We also had some of the best chicken pho of the trip at our hotel….perfect way to end our time in Vietnam.

The last morning, we took the fast boat to Phnom Penh which took about 4 hours. The boat was much smaller than I thought….probably held 20 passengers and “crossing the border” was an interesting process. Basically one of our boat guys did everything for us. He gathered our passports and spoke to the officials. We just gave him money. I suspect there was probably a bit extra for them (since it was higher than first quoted) but it was quick and simple! We got to Phnom Penh by 1pm….after a long three day journey! :)