Sihanouk Ville - busman's holiday !

After a few days we had visited most of the places we could within Pnomh Penh and were basically just wandering around, exploring. During one of these wanderings we came across a scuba diving shop, so decided to pop in as we wondered if there would be a day trip somewhere that David could go. The woman inside was very helpful and told us that there wasn't anywhere close by and on hearing that we had already been in the city for a few days she advised us to take a few days out and go to Sihanouk Ville which was about four hours drive away, as they do scuba diving. We priced a bus to get there and it would cost about £6 , travel is cheap over here, so we decided to go for it, this would make  the best use of our time as we were not doing anything productive in Pnomh Penh.

So we found ourselves in Sihanouk Ville which is a port that was made in the 1950's It was made because  the Cambodians wanted to have direct access to the sea as their other access via the Mekong River was at that time increasingly under the control of the Vietnamese. Nowadays, it is very much a touristy place, seaside, bars and restaurants but to be quite honest not much to do. Thankfully we were only booked in for a couple of days so David could get a dive.

When we went to book our bus trip back to Pnomh Penh we remembered  that the staff at One Up Banana hotel, the hotel we had stayed in, in Pnomh Penh, were also in Sihanouk Ville at that time on a staff holiday weekend. We knew this because they had invited us to go with them but we declined , mainly because we didn't want to spoil their weekend away, after all it was a holiday for them so they wouldn't want tourists along.

So we decided to email and ask if we could get a lift back with them as we were staying in their hotel on our return to Pnomh Penh. Well, we got a very excited reply saying that that would be great and to feel free to join them.

So that is how we ended up on a mini bus with a bunch of very happy Cambodians, some tipsy singing Karaoke. They were having a whale of a time and it was lovely to see. David sat beside one of them, who we didn't know, he spoke very good English but was suffering from partying the night before. Turns out he was the owner of the hotel and it was him who had laid the treat on for his staff. Sadly, the karaoke was written  in Cambodian script so me and David couldn't join in but it was funny listening to the others and at times we could clap along or sing Oi at the right time while raising our arms.

The journey took a scenic route via  Kampot, so we could pick up some people. When we got there we stopped at a hotel also owned by the owner and had a lovely meal. It was chucking it down with rain but most of the young lads on the trip still went in the pool, they were making the most of their time off and good for them . Me and David saw the pool rules and decided not to join them, too strict by far -  cheeky but funny!

May need to enlarge to read. 

There was also this sign on the door. 

I don't think we actually picked up any people but we did pick up the owner's dog. 

It was a very eventful journey and was lots of fun, it was really good to socialise with the staff of One  Up Hotel but at times me and David just looked at each other as if to say, " What on earth, are we doing! " 

Last few days in Phnom Penh

After moving from our last hotel where they wanted us to climb a ladder to sleep in a musty cupboard

We ended up in a really nice hotel, the One Up Banana Hotel. The staff were really lovely and so was our room. In our bathroom, was this sign,which makes you think, really did you need to tell me that, but obviously some customers do need to be told. 

In the evening we went exploring again as we were now in a different area of Phnom Penh, I didn't take my  iPad to take photos as it is not very good in the dark but I wish I had. The streets we walked were very pretty with lit up fountains and statues. We also saw people sat at the  side of the road with huge oil cans, from which they were selling smaller amounts to motorbike and tuktuk drivers. Really weird, so anyone can set up a petrol pump at the side of the road. We had previously seen glass bottles full of oil being sold at stalls on the roadside but thought it was cooking oil. Any old bottle is used, coke,wine, whiskey you name it, we saw it. Then we saw one being bought and poured straight into a petrol tank ! Ready made petrol bombs if you ask me, health and safety wouldn't like it! 

On one of the days we visited the National Museum, it was not very interesting to be truthful, lots of lumps of stone from temples around Cambodia but the building was pretty, which you can see below. 

Outside the museum was a geocache which David obviously wanted to go looking for, we set off in the right direction towards what used to be the main gate. After fumbling around for a while and peering into nooks and crannies, David decided he couldn't find it, so I took a photo of him bedside the gate to prove that he had been there, as you can sometimes claim a find that way. So, we were walking away from the gate when this women suddenly came running after us shouting. We ignored her to start off with as you often get people hassling you to buy something, when she said, " Wait, wait I know what you look for." At that David turned around and after we had ascertained that she 

wasn't after money, she led us back to the gate. She wouldn't tell David where it was but it became a bit like that game, Cold, Warm, Hot when somebody hides something and you have to look for it and as you get close to the object they say warmer, warmer, hot etc. Well he still couldn't find it, so she got out her phone , used the mirror app on it and started crawling along the ground pointing the phone   under the gate. At this point I walked away, I wasn't standing too close to them anyway but I distanced myself even more! Eventually it was seen but it was too far up for them to reach, at that she told David that she was going to get the guards to take the gate of the hinges, so they could get it. Now the point of this treasure hunt is to be subtle and not let non geocachers know what you are up to.  Thankfully David told her not to bother and to just leave it, we walked away, goodness knows what she did. 

One of the days we went to Wat Phnom, a Buddhist temple which is on the one and only high point in Phnom Penh and that isn't high. Legend has it that a lady called Penh found four Buddhists in the Mekong river and built the Wat to house them. Phnom means hill and Penh comes from the name of the lady and that is how Phnom Penh got its name. Inside it was very pretty , there were loads of Buddhas in there and the walls had lovely scenes painted on them.

   

Outside the Wat I was approached by a mum with three young children she wanted me to say hello and shake hands with all three, which I did. Then she wanted the youngest to kiss me on the cheek and me to kiss him on the cheek. I don't know who was more scared me or the child. David just thought it was funny. 

Tuol Sleng Prison Phnom Penh

Straight after leaving the Killing Fields we headed to Tuol Sleng Prison which is now the Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh . This used to be a secondary school but when the Khmer Rouge banned education , schools were closed and  they never opened again under their rule. The school/museum is split into four buildings, A,B,C and D. 

The photo below is from block A, this is where important prisoners of high rank were tortured and interrogated. Most of the rooms only had one bed in them but some had two. In some of these rooms dead bodies were found on the beds when the building was liberated. These prisoners were killed quickly by the Khmer Rouge when they knew they had lost their power. 

Each block had three floors. In block B, one of the floors was filled with brick cells which had been hastily made in the classrooms. Each classroom, which were of average size, had about 18 cells in it, so you can imagine how tiny and cramped they were. The photo below shows the width of a cell. 

Another floor in Block B had wooden cells in them and on the last floor each classroom was a communal cell with the prisoners being shackled together. Outside this block the walkways were covered in barbed wire to stop the prisoners from committing suicide by jumping to their death.  The barbed wire is eerily still there to this day. 

The entrance to the museum.

Inside the museum there were rows and rows of photos of people who had been killed, a lot of them very young, sometimes whole families would die together. If prisoners did not die while being interrogated they would be taken to the Killing Fields and killed there. There are also copies of confessions and statements both from prisoners and people who worked there, which are very interesting to read. 

The photo below shows the graves of the  last 14 people who were killed in the prison and whose bodies were found inside. 

The man who was in charge of the prison was called Khaing Khek Lev but he is also known as 

Deuch. He has recently been tried and found guilty of his crimes. While in Cambodia we watched a documentary called Brother Number One which tells the story of Kerry Hammill, a New Zealander who was caught and killed by the Khmer Rouge after being taken to Tuol Sleng prison. This documentary also covers the trial of Deuch, it is very good and worth watching if you get the chance.

This was a very sobering visit as you can imagine but one again that needed to be made, just like the visit to the Killing Fields. These events need to be acknowledged and has helped both me and David to understand the history of Cambodia a lot better. Being the age we are, we were aware of  Pol Pot and his regime when it happened but did not fully grasp the extent of what had gone on.  

The Killing Fields Pnomh Penh

Between  the years of 1975 to 1979 Cambodia was under the rule of the Khmer Rouge , whose leader was Saloth Sar, more commonly known as Pol Pot. Under his rule about a quarter of the population were tortured and executed, or died due to living conditions. During this time whole cities including Pnomh Penh were evacuated, education and religion were banned and many intellectuals were killed just because they were educated.  Which is ironic really because the top circle of power at this time were mainly university graduates, and a lot were teachers including Pol Pot. After the Khmer Rouge were removed from power and people started to return to their homes, areas were found full of dead bodies, these were known as the Killing Fields and are dotted around the whole of Cambodia. Just outside Pnomh Penh one of these fields was  found and is now open to the public. 

When we visited the place was calm and strangely serene, probably due to the fact that visitors were respectful and mindful of what had happened there. Visitors walk around the area with an audio guide which explains what happens at different points around the area. Before 1975 the area was a Chinese cemetery and some remnants of their burial ground can also be seen but it  was greatly damaged. Buildings that had been there such as offices and storage areas used by the Khmer Rouge were pulled down just after the place was discovered but markers showed their spots. 

Several of the mass grave pits were excavated but some have been left and they have decided to leave the bodies in their last resting place.  The stone below shows one of the graves where 450 bodies were found. 

In the photo below, there are bits of cloth in the box and bones lying on the top. Cloth and bones are still being found especially after the rainy season where the soil is washed away exposing more. On the audio guide we were told that if we saw any bones, teeth or material to leave it as it would be gathered by caretakers there. As we walked around we did see a bone with black cloth sticking out of the ground, strangely it wasn't gruesome, but brought home to us how sad, real and recent the events were. 

This tree was used by the Khmer Rouge to kill small children, they would swing them by their feet and hit their heads of the tree. Just beside this tree is another mass grave which was full of women and children. There is also a spirit house by the tree, which is supposed to help the spirits of the people who died there, who were mainly Buddhists. 

The pits that you see in the ground are dips where mass graves have been. In another one of the graves 166 headless corpses were found, all of which were dressed in uniform. Under Pol Pot nobody was safe and 

people were often accused wrongly, tortured and executed.  It is thought that these were soldiers and their heads cut off maybe linking to one of Pol Pot's sayings, "bodies of Khmers but minds of the Vietnamese"

At the side of the area and the end of the tour is this Wat, a Buddhist Temple which has been constructed as a memorial to all that died under the Pol Pot regime. Inside there are around 9000 skulls, other bones, clothes of the victims and weapons used to murder the people. As bullets were 

too expensive, hoes, sticks, clubs, wheel axles , basically anything heavy was used. Even  the sharp edges on the trunks of banana trees were used to cut people's throats. Although photos were allowed in the Wat, I preferred to do a long shot, as it just seemed wrong in there to take photos.

It was a very interesting, moving experience and makes you wonder how these sort of things are allowed to happen. I have started reading more about the history of Cambodia, in particular this time period and it is interesting how the outside influences and actions of other countries enabled Pol Pot  to do what he did. 

The road to Phnom Penh

After our stay at the Cambodian Wildlife Sanctuary we headed back to Siem Reap for a couple of  days it was so nice to have a hot shower and chill out for a couple of days. Then we set off for Cambodian's capital city Pnomh Penh. We were warned that the road going there was awful and they were right, it was a six hour journey and for about  4 hours of that there wasn't a road. It was just a big muddy field with cars, buses, trucks, and motorbikes trying to find the best way through the mire. That meant that people weren't really sticking to their side of the road and we just wove in and out with each other along the way. You are probably thinking that, that is an accident waiting to happen and well it did. A motorbike pulling a trailer cut our minibus off causing it to crash into a boundary fence, our driver stopped to look at the damage, which was minor,  and continued on the way. As our minibus continued we overtook the motorbike and they just waved to each other good humouredly! We have seen no signs of road rage across here even though there is so much traffic on the road, most vehicles are courteous to each other. 

When we reached Pnomh Penh we soon found our hotel which was alright but the staff were a bit weird, not very friendly or helpful . The hotel was very close to the riverside so we headed out to explore. Also close by was the Royal Palace which was lit up like something out of Disney World. 

 

We went to a nearby restaurant and had just finished our meal when suddenly we heard a loud explosion, all the Westerners jumped and looked around wondering what was going on. Turns out that we had timed it for the celebrations of the King's coronation, he has been on the throne for ten years now, and they were setting fireworks off. Sadly on the last day of the firework celebrations 

there was an accident, one woman died and four people were injured. 

We headed back to the hotel and as it was so close to restaurant, shops etc we asked if we could book another night, which they said was fine..The next day we woke up bright and breezy and went down for breakfast, the receptionist then told us that the room we were in was booked for that night so we would have to move to room 9, which we were fine with. She then asked  us what we had planned for that day so we told her that we we were hoping to go to the Killing Fields, so she said she would get us a tuktuk, but we told her not to bother as we were not sure yet what we were definitely doing. We actually prefer to get tuktuks outwith hotels as they are usually cheaper and get less business, so we would rather give money to them. 

Well did she not go and tell the tuktuk driver anyway, and then he proceeded to watch us through the foliage in the courtyard for the whole of our breakfast.  He was like a very bad undercover cop, peering at us expectantly, very off-putting, then as soon as we finished he came out of the bushes saying"tuktuk." We said, " Maybe" and went to our room, luckily when we came out of our room he had left! 

After we returned from our day out we were told that our luggage had been moved to our new room,  a room 12, mmmm not what we had been told. They then took us to the room, honestly we basically had to climb a ladder to get there, it was a bed in a mouldy smelling room, which was more like a cupboard. There was a shower but no hot water, we decided to leave and ended up at a lovely hotel called 1 Up Banana. 

Same same but different. Maybe tomorrow!

When we first arrived in Thailand we saw lots of tshirts with the words, "Same same" printed on the front and "but different" on the back. We weren't really sure what that was all about but we soon found out. When you ask a question, it is a standard reply which doesn't always really answer what you have asked. Sometimes they don't bother with the "but different" just to make things more interesting, so generally you just have to figure out things for yourself. Today we were heading to a museum and a man at the side of the road told us to go one way, the man next to him told us to go another way, so I asked again which way to go, and was told "same, same, but different! Well that cleared that up. The strangest thing about it was that we hadn't asked directions in the first place.

When we were booking a bus to go to Sihanouk Ville, the man reeled of a load of different companies and their prices. The conversation was like this, 

Me - what is the difference between the two, 

Man - nothing, same same but different 

Me - yes, but what is different

Man, - no difference , same, same but different

I gave up and took the cheaper option which was actually very good and did the job. 

When a tuktuk, taxi, or rickshaw shouts to ask you for a fare and you reply "sorry! no" they always say " Maybe tomorrow" and we reply in our Scottish accents, " Mebbes aye, Mebbes naw! " they seem happy with that, but also confused. 

Cambodian Wildlife Sanctuary - there's a mozzie in my ear!

We had a brilliant week at the Sanctuary, we felt like we had done a lot of meaningful work which hopefully will make some difference, even if only small to that area. It is good that Lek, the founder of Elephant Nature Park has taken it upon herself to help animals not only in her own country of Thailand but also of Cambodia. In the future the land will hopefully be managed by the Cambodians under the umbrella of Save the Elephant.

We had many wonderful experiences there and met some amazing people but there was one night that  neither me or David will forget in a hurry, thankfully it was our last night there and not the first. 

Every night we had this military operation to get into the mosquito net over our bed without letting any 

 beasties in, I would get in, then David like a stealth warrior would switch of the light and sidle in,with me clasping as much of the mosquito net together as I could. We would then safety pin it together.  Some nights we were really good, some not. Anyway on the last night we got in and settled down to sleep, I awoke with a tickly feeling at my ear and put my hand up to it. In doing so I think I pushed a mozzie in, if not it was heading in anyway as I could feel it, buzzing and moving about in my lug.  I tried to stay calm and thought it would come out but it just kept squirming, so squealing slightly, I awoke David saying "It's  in my ear, something's in my ear. " he tried to get it out but couldn't , we had to hold a torch beside my ear so it would crawl towards the light, oh my lord, it was awful feeling it wriggling away. It did come out though, gives me the collywobbles thinking about it even now. 

At this David decided he needed to go to the loo, so we had to go through the military operation of him getting out off the net and then back in again. On getting back into bed he said he had a sore armpit, I looked at it and there was a tick firmly latched on. So by torchlight I had to pull it out and then we had to try and kill it , all while in our bed! Lovely, I tell you if it had been the first night I may not have made it to the second. 

Some of the seeds we planted. 

 

 On our last full day we walked through the jungle with orange cloths which had been blessed by 

Buddhist monks, these are tied to trees and it is then a sacrilege to harm that tree in any way. 

                                                  

A couple of mahouts who did the walk with us. 

Saying goodbye to the elephants.

 

Some of the plants we planted and below is the banana trees we weeded.  

In the photo below I was concentrating on the butterfly who was fluttering around for ages. It was only when it moved its head that I realised there was a lizard on the plant in front of the butterfly, if it had stayed still I would have been totally unaware.

We hope to return in the future to see how the Sanctuary is getting on but I will be taking ear plugs with me, keep the beasties out.