What an absolutely incredible country Cambodia is. In fact, the city of Siem Reap has gone right into my top 5 places list, along with Key West (in Florida), Hoi An (in Vietnam), Florence (in Italy) and Galle (in Sri Lanka). The Cambodian people are the friendliest I have ever come across in the many countries i've visited. They are just so happy and lovely, embracing whatever life has thrown at them, and looking forwards to a better future than Cambodia has had in the not too distant past. More on that later.
We left on Saturday evening last week, and flew with Spring Air which is a horrible air line! At least the flight was only 4 hours, so not too bad. We arrived in Phnom Penh in the late evening, and just had dinner and went to bed. The curry here is amazing! Since red coconut curry is my favourite food, I was a very happy girl for the entire trip! We had just one day in the capital city, before flying to Siem Reap for the rest of the week, so we made the most of our day with a private tour to all the main sites.
This is the National Museum, which was bizarre because there are no windows. All of these ancient, beautiful statues are just exposed to the elements, which at this time of year, is heavy thunderstorms most days!
We visited the King's palace...
And there was a tree full of bats there!
We also visited the prison, where many people were held during the Cambodian civil war. It is one of the most difficult experiences i've ever had, and is on a par with how I felt coming out of the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam. The horrors that happened here are so extreme, I can't even describe them. Some of the cells still had blood all over the floor, - if one person in the 11 cell room did anything against the rules, then the entire room was punished. Thousands of people were interrogated here, before being taken to the Killing Fields, which we also visited. In most cases, to save bullets, people were hit with sharp objects, then tossed into pits, which moved for days with those who hadn't been killed straight away. There was a tree that was known for killing babies by hitting them against the tree trunk. There was a speaker attached to another tree where they played music to cover up the screams so that workers in the nearby fields didn't get suspicious. Truly awful. There was a man there who was a survivor of the prison. He had survived because he knew how to fix typewriters, and was considered useful. This was one of those awful experiences that we couldn't come to Cambodia and not see. It really made the attitude of modern Cambodians even more incredible. They really are the most lovely people, who seem content and happy with life and who are excited about bringing Cambodia to the tourists who are interested in seeing it.
In the evening we flew to Siem Reap, home of Angkor - an enormous religious site that started off as Hindu and changed to Buddhist when a new King took over. Most sites have been wonderfully restored, but some have been left to nature and are maybe even more incredible because of it. Angkor Wat is the largest religious site in the world. We did a sunrise tour, along with every Chinese tourist in Cambodia! We were picked up by Tuk Tuk at 4.30am, and then trekked across the site, with just torches, ancient buildings looming out of the dark every so often. The sunrise over Angkor Wat was beautiful!
We then explored the enormous site with our fantastic guide Suy, who was excellent at taking photos for us. The site is just huge, and there are wonderful carvings everywhere.
Next, we went to a temple called Bayon, which is the temple with all the faces. Each tower has 4 faces on it, one on each side. It looks wonderfully crumbling and is becoming taken over by nature.
The site that we were really excited about though was Angkor Thom, the site where Tomb Raider was filmed, where the trees have taken over, and become part of the temple. The trees are so deep rooted, that removing them would actually make the temple crumble! It's such an amazing site.
It was just a wonderful day, and the best bit was that we were out for hours and hours, but were still sitting by the pool by 1pm!
The next day, we had a swimming pool day, and then decided to go up in a hot air balloon with a view of Angkor Wat. Matt was a bit worried about it, but really enjoyed it in the end. The balloon was tethered, so not too scary!
Our evenings were spent eating curry at our fabulous hotel, or in 'pub street', which is a complete tourist trap, but we loved it! Full of pubs, restaurants, and night markets, what's not to love.
We tried a few 'fish spas' too, which is just sticking your feet into a pool of fish, then they eat all the dead skin off your feet. It sounds awful! It tickles so much at first, but then it's just lovely!
We had an awful lot of rain during our week away. Not every day, but when it came it was absolutely torrential. It caused a few power cuts too.
My favourite day of all was Thursday. Matt had secretly booked a day with a Cambodian photographer, and he was fantastic. I learnt so much from him, and now am taking photos in fully Manual mode on my camera. We started at 4.30am again, but went to a much quieter temple for a beautiful sunrise.
We spent the rest of the morning wandering around villages, taking photos of friendly locals at markets, and in their houses. We literally just wandered into peoples houses from the road, and they showed us the hand crafts that they were making (rugs, and weaved baskets, etc), and we took photos of them working, and of the kids, making them giggle when we showed them our photos. Once I got over feeling awkward about wandering into peoples houses, I loved it. The people were so friendly and really happy to chat to our guide, and practice a bit of English with us. Amazing. I took some photos that I absolutely love...
The last thing we did was go to another temple and borrow a 13 year old monk in training to do a photoshoot with us. He happily agreed to do it for £10, which he added to his gigantic wodge of notes that his friends looked after - they were like his manager! A few of them followed us around, and didn't seem phased about anything at all. The temple was deserted, so we got some fantastic photos, with gorgeous lighting, and didn't have to worry at all about tourists getting in the shots. I had such a great time!
On Friday, our flight wasn't until 10pm, so we had the whole day to spend around the pool, and go out for dinner. Ususally, I start feeling sad about the end of the holiday once we are half way through, but I was just too busy enjoying myself to feel that way. I still felt relaxed, even on Friday when we had to leave. One part of that is having our wonderful kitties to come home to. They missed us so much! They have been all over us, purring and cuddling, and following me around all day. Sooty even sat on my lap for a cuddle, and Snowball hasn't been more than 2 feet from me in the last 24 hours! What gorgeous bundles of fluff and love!
