Sihanoukville
After our first day on the beach in Sihanoukville we were all wiped out so after a few beers and some dinner, once again we crashed quite early...! I think the heat had taken it all out of us!
The next day all that was on the agenda was relaxing on our picture postcard beach and thats exactly what we did before heading back to get our gladrags on and head to the Seahorse bar for happy hour.......whcih actually lasts three hours and a beer is $0.50 which quite clearly spelt out trouble! So then we made our way to Utopia bar where we drank more Angkor Beer, im gunna miss this beer, wish we could get it at home! We saw the guys we had met in Siem Riep so had a catch up with them and headed to the beach party. So having set off for dinner at 7pm when we got in at 5am we wondered where the time had gone. What a quality night! Though we had sand everywhere yuk!
The next morning was supposed to be an 8am start.......me and Nat didnt make it on the boat trip ooooooopsy! Apparently the other bashed our door down with no luck. We spent the day with upset stomachs feeling quite sorry for ourselves!
Phnom Penh
After an early start from Sihanoukville we travelled 5 hours to Phnom Penh. At first glance the city is very dirty and full of poverty. We headed out for some lunch only to find prices quite high in amoungst a smelly dirty market.....all a bit strange. Nat and Amy went in search of chocolate and came back 3 hours later with news they had found a huge western type mall and that it had pizza, pasta, burgers, icecream.......you name it they had it!
Without a second thought we all headed here for our dinner, after stuffing our faces with Pizza we were disappointed in ourselves that we had come to Cambodia and ate Pizza and icecream! Ah well we enjoyed it! ha!
On our second day we left at 8am to see the detention centre and the killing fields, the work of Pol Pot. In 1975 Pol Pot started his work of pure torture and killing of those Cambodians who had power and the rest of their families. It didnt matter how old the other members of the family were be it 1 year old or 70 years old the whole family were taken to a former secondary school that had been turned into a sickening prison for those who were arrested but Pol Pots men and tortured for a minimum of 2 months before being walked to thier death, having to dig their own graves before being beheaded and buried alive. This went on for 4 years........it amazed us all that this could happen not so long ago. Some of the killers are still alive and are awaiting trial still, Pol Pot has died already. We were very lucky to meet one of the survivors of this awful time, the man is 78 and he along with only two others survived this terrible regieme. He explained leaving out no details what happend to him and the things we saw, none of us could believe he could even return to this site and asked him why. His answer was that he hopes to attend the trial and visits to remind himself as he is old and doesnt want to forget any details. The local guide expressed his anger to us that he thinks the man will not live to see the trial as this is likely to take a long time and will take a total of 3 years to conclude. A very sad day.
Tomorrow we head to Hoh Chi minh city to begin our tour of Vietnam. Bye for now x
