Cambodia

We had to get a 6:00 am flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia, which meant checking in at 04:00 in the morning. We don't know how we managed to do so much on our first day. Everybody goes to Siem Reap to see the temples of Angkor and you can get a one, three or a week pass. We went for the three day pass and got a tuk tuk as soon as we arrived in Siem Reap.

Our first stop was to see Ta Prohm which used to be an ancient palace over 1000 years ago. It is the set of the Lara Croft Tomb Raider film. This was one of our favourite stops. The ruins were amazing and the trees were now growing through the cracks in the wall so it was completely consumed by trees and vegetation. It looked amazing. We spent around an hour here.

Next we went to see the famous Angkor Wat. This was a temple back in Khmur history. It was huge with five massive towers. There are certain parts of the temple where only the king could go and worship. The temple is huge and the delicate drawings carved onto the stone wall took four years to complete!!

Finally we went to Phnom Bakheng to see the Sunset. We had to climb up the hill and there were some smaller ruins up there. We watched the sunset and come back a little sooner as there were too many people and we had just climbed up these small steep steps on our hands and knees so we definately wanted to avoid the masses on the way down.

The next day we went to Angkor Thom to see some other temples. First was Bayon. Bayon was the kings state temple. It was quite a big ruin and there were faces carved in the towers. It was really very skillful for people to do 1000 odd years ago.

We saw the Terrace of Elephants & Terrace of the Leper King. The first is a 350m wall with carvings of elephants all the way along it. The terrace of the Leper king was the palace where the King lived. After this we went to see Preah Khan which was an old housing complex where over 1000 Buddhist teachers lived so it ws massive! Tony got pestered by little girls trying to make him buy off them because he is so nice he kept saying 'but they're only little kids maybe we should buy something'. Emily was ruthless as she hated the hard sell so therefore didn't want to buy anything.

Our final day was spent at Kbal Spean where they was meant to be thousands of phalic symbols representing fertility in the river. So we went expecting to see thousands of penis's and there was not even one!!! Emily was most disappointed. We climbed up rocks for thirty minutes to get there as well and all there was were carvings of women etc. Rubbish. We walked back and went to the Banteay Srei which is a small temple but with the most intricate carvings. It was so beautiful. Our driver than took us to the Landmine mueseum and it was devastating. The USA are responsible for leaving landmines through the whole of Cambodia as they believed that Vietnam was using them as a route into the South. Even today people walk down the street and suddenly they go up!! A lot of people even kids in Cambodia have died and lost limbs and they are innocent so congratulations to the USA for another prize cock up! An agreement has been signed not to use them. As we could have predicted the USA have refused to sign it. Russia is the only country in Europe that hasn't. Other countries include Isreal, China, North Korea - need we say more.

The next day we travelled to Phnom Pehn. We went to the mueseum on our first day but there wasn't anything that we hadn't already seen. We started talking to a Monk and he was so troubled. He told us how he wanted to carry on his education but that would mean leaving his 150 plus kids to go off and do it. He was clearly concerned for their welfare. He said there was only three teachers including him to look after them. He explained that they range from the age of 7 to 14 and how the 7 year olds are bouncing off the walls and the 14 year olds have settled. He said it is such a pity as he gets some of the 14 year olds telling him that they must leave and earn money. He said he always thinks but you are too young and how can you survive. He knows that they will end up begging and that will mean going against all the things he has taught them in their desperation for money. There was nothing we could say to this monk to settle his thoughts. We asked him about the orpanage as we would like to go and it turns out he runs one. We asked how we could help.

The next day we went to the shooting range. We shot AK47's. Tony was so excited and kept looking around to tell people how great it was. Emily was unfazed, it was too similar to weapons she had used before. After the shooting the guy that instructed us went on to say how Emily was the better shot and so she bloody should be. Tony hadn't had any training!

We went onto the S21 prison. Back after America had devasted Cambodia during the Vietnam war it lead to a revolution and Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia. He wanted to introduce Utopia and wanted everyone to start at zero. He drove everyone out of the city and killed everyone that was educated, people that spoke languages even people that looked intelligent and wore glasses! He had political opposition taken away and abolished reglion, music, currency and freedom. The S21 prison was where everyone started off. The Khmer Rouge would take them there to torture them. We stepped inside the prison and there was a metal bed and a picture on the wall of someone tied to it. The vietnamese invaded Cambodia in the late 70's and smelt such a bad stench. They came into the prison and found these 14 dead tortured bodies and took photos - just as they had found them. There was one woman along the other 13 dead. The photos were horrific. The beds were metal so they could run electric through them to torture victims. They whipped them, pulled their finger nails out and poured alcohol over their wounds. They had an instrument outside where they would tie them up by the legs until they fell unconscious and then get a bucket of cold dirty water to dip their head in to bring them back around. This was interrogation to make them admit the crimes they were supposed to have committed. Of course most of them had crimes made up against them. How can being clever be a crime!

The Khmer rouge were sick. They did this to over 20,000 children as well. If you look at the picture of the children above. The little tot in the bottom centre couldn't be more than three years old. The poor little one probably didn't understand what was happening to him. Kids were held for 2 to 4 months as they died quicker than adults. We walked into another room and they were photos with the prisoner's mugshots and photos of them being beaten. One guy had half his face smashed in. You could see his skull. This prison used to be only open to foreigners when it was first turned into a mueseum but sometime later they let Cambodians in. Thousands of Cambodians came in and were seen desperately searching the photos for their missing loved ones. How sad and if they did see a photo of their loved one, would they wish they hadn't?

Once they were dead or the prison was getting too full they were taken to the killing fields. If they were still alive then they would be placed in the mass grave next to all the other dead bodies and have a sword put through their head or if they were lucky they would be shot. They had chemicals held at the killing fields. This was cover up the smell of dead bodies so nobody would know what was going on. Also it would kill a person if they were not quite dead. Occassionally people would be buried alive. We went to the killing fields after the prison and saw all the mass graves. It was sick. This is worse than the holocaust. Its very bad that the Jews got gassed but having a sword through the head is worse. We were shown a tree where a loud speaker used to be hung. This was so nobody outside could hear the sound of the victims screams. We walked pass a tree where their clothes were still there and a pile of bones. It was so gross. They hadn't even moved their clothes. A board on the tree informed us that this was the place where the executioners would beat the children before or to their deaths. In one of the mass graves they found all women and childen. Women's skulls with little babies skulls next to them. It was truly awful. We went into a stupa where they had stacked all the skulls up that they had found. There was loads. All stacked up. We couldn't see to the top. Over 2 million Cambodians were murdered. The thing that pissed us off the most was that Pol Pot was never brought to justice. He is dead now and the current Prime minister was a friend of Pol Pot!! A Cambodian man said that everyone tries to vote the current prime minister out but for some reason he is still here. (corruption) There is no hope for these people and it could happen again.

Next we travelled to Sihanoukville where we just relaxed on the beach. There were loads of Cambodians on holiday here.

We went back to Phnom Pehn after and went to an orphanage. We were armed with bouncy balls, colouring books, pens, pencils etc. They were so excited!! It was their day off today so there wasn't so many kids there. They were so beautiful. A lot were sleeping but Tony managed to play football with some. They were mega hyper and whenever they scored they would jump into Tony's arms. This orphanage is only running by donations. There are 17 children that need to be fed and clothed. They only have volunteer teachers otherwise there is only three staff! Hopefully when we get home we will be able to help.