It's been a week and a half or so since we updated you so here we go!
It was really sad to say goodbye to Siem Reap and the amazing people we met there, but it was time to move on. We arrived late in the evening to Phom Pehn and could already tell we weren't going to like it there. It reminded us of Buenos Aires- really big, lots of garbage and noisy! We checked into a dingy guesthouse and started counting down the hours until we got to check out
On Tuesday morning we woke up early and took a Tuk Tuk to the Killing Fields just outside the city. It was a lesson in history but on the flip side, really quite depressing. As we walked around the fields there were many mass graves, the biggest one of which had over 450 bodies excavated from it. There were also many different types of mass graves: some with headless bodies, others for infants, children and women. The worst was the "killing tree" where the Kmer Rouge would hold infants by their ankles and swing them against the tree and discard their bodies into a mass grave next to it. In many areas you walk there are still clothes, bones, and teeth from the victims surfacing through the ground that are uncovered by the rain.
The people have created a 17 tier building to house all the skulls, bones and clothing they uncovered in the 1980 excavation.
On our way back into the city our driver asked us if we wanted to stop at an orphanage and see some of the children there so we stopped at a market and bought 50 kg of rice and a volleyball for them. When we pulled in all the kids came running at us smiling and waving. The lady who runs the orphanage gave us a tour of everything. On our tour we acquired a following of all the younger children. They all want to hold your hand and connect with you....we were told they all long for that because they have no one to care for them they way a mother or father would. Their living conditions are very poor. Many of them sleep in one big room with only a small rug to lay on. The kitchen consisted of two big cauldrons, a dirt floor and tin roof. There is no power and their classrooms and library are completely empty with the exception of a few desks and a chalkboard. They're desperate for volunteers which made it harder for us to leave knowing so little of our time could help them so much!
That afternoon we went to the S-21 Museum which was an old high school the Khmer Rouge made into a prison and torcher chambers. It's hard to believe that a genocide could have occurred so recently and no one stepped in to stop it! While it was a depressing day, it was an eye-opening experience and well-worth seeing.
On Wednesday ( Feb 2) we arrived Sihanoukville, a town on the South Coast.. It's gorgeous here although a little over run by tourists. We had a hard time finding somewhere to stay as it was Chinese New Years but finally managed to find a place for the ridiculous price of 29$ (For those that don't know you can usually find a nice place for 8-15$).
After checking in, we met an American traveling on her own, and we went and grabbed some dinner on the beach. The beaches are lined with cheap restaurants and tons of people. Forgetting that it was Chinese New Year we thought we were getting shot at when the first round of fireworks went off right next to us. Yes people, you can set fireworks off anywhere and anytime here....
After an impromptu decision we booked a trip to Koh Rung, a small island two hours off the coast, with our new friend Lo. On the boat ride over we met another Canadian named Josh who also happened to be from the Vancouver area. It seems like every Canadian we've met on our travels is from BC...side note- we ran into Jane Griffel who we went to UBC with on the beach here as well. SMALL WORLD. Anyway back to our island adventure. We checked into our "resort" called Monkey Island. There is no power on the island so our straw and bamboo bungalows consisted of two beds and mosquito nets. There are generators that run from 6pm-1am giving you a little big of power in case you need to charge anything but otherwise life is pretty basic. Turns out you don't need much when you have a bungalow and hammock 20 feet from the ocean.
It was gorgeous there. White sand beaches stretching for many kilometers and almost no people to be found. On our side of the beach there were three "resorts" that had maybe 15 bungalows each and a small fishing village of locals. Many of the children are excited to see Westerners and love to run and play in the sand with you. The first night we were there, we waited until the power went out at midnight, then we all went for an algae swim in the ocean. It was incredible, every time you moved, all the algae lit up!
On the second day we heard you could trek through the jungle and get to the resort and fishing village on the other side of the island in an hour or two, so seven of us set off on what we thought would be a relaxing afternoon. WRONG. Half way through our hike we got lost in the jungle where we were warned about cobras, spiders and other scary creatures. We started to make our own path down and came across many cliff like areas where we had to use the vines and branches of trees to lower us down. It was blistering hot and most of us only had flip flops on so you can imagine how happy we were at this point.
About a half hour later we managed to find the beach on the other side of the island. A man there told us it was 7km of beach to get to the other resort and from there you can hire a local fishing boat back to the other side of the island. When we had walked about 4 km we stopped to swim and cool off. Here we found a few coconuts and empty glass bottles we used for coconut bowling and throwing around like a football. Throughout our whole walk back we had the entire beach to the seven of us. It was amazing and completely made up for getting lost in the jungle.
By our first night there, we found out that paradise can be a little scary at night. As soon as it got dark, there were always huge spiders in our bungalow, which made it a little hard to relax and get to sleep. To give you an idea of their size, they were about as big as the palm of your hand. We named one Charlotte hoping it would make it easier for us to sleep at night....we also used beer and tequila sunrises as sleeping aids. They worked a little better :)
After four fantastic days on the island, it was time to head back to the mainland. It was really windy and choppy that day, so the boat ride took a few hours. Because it was so windy, none of us noticed the hot sun as we layed on the top of the boat, so we all got a little burnt haha. It's sad saying goodbye to our new friends, but we're off to Phu Quoc island (Vietnam) tomorrow for a new leg of our adventure!
We'll post pictures when we have more time! If you want to know what it looks like here, just think of a typical paradise island, and that's pretty much where we are haha.
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| With the children at the Orphanage |
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| 7km of beach and only us on Koh Rong |
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