Being shocked in Phnom Penh....

After our two day jaunt down the mighty Mekong we arrived starving and tired into Phnom Penh and into our hotel room at the strangely named Velkommen Inn. After dumping our bags we were off out again to an Italian restaurant that we had spied earlier in the evening that according to some reviews, was as good, if not better than a restaurant actually in Italy. We ordered a stone baked pizza and a lasagne to share and also had our very first wine of the trip, more than 2 months in! I'd have to say that this was probably one of the best Italian meals we have ever had and made such a change to some of the more traditional meals we have had in our time in Asia so far. I know it was only pizza and lasagne but it was homemade and tasted as fresh as possible, especially on the hot and sticky streets of Phnom Penh! We also had chilled red wine for the first time too, not conventional by any means but tasted delicious! Think I may copy at home.

Anyway, rising the next morning we knew that today would be 1 part interesting to 2 parts depressing as we hopped on the tuk-tuk to take us to three destinations. A giant pagoda that represents the city's spritual past, the infamous high school-turned prison of death and torture, Tuol Sleng (otherwise known as S-21) and the truly horrific killing fields fifteen kms outside of town.

The Pagodas were a nice sight, surrounded by lush and manicured lawns but all around you could see the harsh reality of Cambodian poverty as children seemingly as young as three and four begged on the dirty floors. You see, you have to try to be cynical in these situations because if you let your emotions take over, and they really try hard to do so, you would want to give every bit of money and possession away that you possess. Unfortunately, common sense must prevail. On the one hand if you give to one child, sure enough you would have another fifty swarming around you expecting the same thing, you can also never know if the children are part of a syndicate, led by a boss overseeing his 'employees', which has been suggested by some. On the other, a small amount of money could go an incredibly long way to ensuring this child eats today, which reverbarates around your head as soon as you start to walk away.

From there we headed through the dusty streets to Tuol Sleng, a place I've been interested in seeing for a while due to learning about the Khmer Rouge's barbarity a few years ago. The place, converted from a high school in 1975 is appalling. In fact everything that we would see and experience over the next five hours would be truly horrific. All you can do is shake your head in misbelief at the fact that man has the capability to inflict these atrocities on his fellow man but also the fact that this was all so very recent. Not some medieval form of barbarism that you maybe visited on school trips as part of your history lessons but thirty years ago, about the time when people were mourning the death of Elvis or watching Jaws in the cinema. Unlike the Nazi's or Stalin's Soviet purges the Khmer Rouge perpatrated these murders in a very swift two year span which means, killing just short of two million people, men, women and incredibly thousands upon thousands of children in a matter of months.

I won't go into gory detail but if the prison opened your eyes to the barbarism that unfolded here then the killing fields completely underlined it. No one knows the true figures but these half dead people, some as young as nine, who had been tortured beyond comprehension were then blindfolded and packed into vans which shut on all sides, squeezed in until they couldn't move an inch. Once at the killing fields they would be marched one by one to mass graves where they would be executed in the most brutal way imaginable. In fact as bullets would be too expensive, the Khmer Rouge, much like the SS would find other, cheaper methods to execute in vast numbers. Most executors in fact would use blunt instruments or farming equipment. Imagine all of this whilst Communist propoganda music is blurted out of speakers to cover the screams and you can just imagine, maybe only slightly, what the last few moments would have felt like. This truly is a terrible place but one that has to be witnessed, much like Auschwitz, to both pay your respects and also to acknowledge that this must never happen again.

Once we had navigated the busy and very dusty roads back into town we needed cheering up so decided to make good use of the 1 dollar margherita's at a Mexican place round the corner! Just to add to the confusion and errr, fusion?, we ordered the Cambodian sharing platter and were amazed that the food was incredibly good. We ate chicken Amok, Khmer curry, Morning Glory and an assortment of other tit-bits. What made things even more surreal was that in this Mexican restaurant, eating Cambodian food, surrounded by Americans, Newport County were playing Shrewsbury in the FA cup on the big screen. Once again, you just have to pinch yourself to make sure this is all going on! What we did decide over dinner is that we would like to go to Mexico when we are in the States, so making good use of more free Wifi, we did some research and found some cheapish flights! Awesome!

So, the following day we would be off to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat! That night the noise was unbearable! If it wasn't for the fact that we both have amazing ear plugs I would have gone downstairs and started pointing wobbly fingers. Thing is, the hotel is above a pub, which in itself is on a very loud street full of perverse old Western men with suspiciously young Asian girls, not the nicest place! In fact. let's be honest here, you want to throw hot gravel and wasps at these old bastards....

So there we go, Phnom Penh was supposedly a mellow place full of colonial architecture. Although I think we saw it at it's busiest (they were celebrating a national festival) it wasn't the place I think we thought it was. Saying that, the people seem fantastic, a lot more open than in Vietnam but viciously poor. It is definitely the poorest place we have been to. Still, despite the chequered history, we had two fantastic days here, the tuk-tuks are mental!

I hope that wasn't too depressing, I'm re-reading it but I don't want to leave anything out though! I can only say that my words will never do the history side any justice and if you have some time to check out the websites dedicated to the carnage, you must. That is all.

Muchos love, Tommo xxxxx

Floating along the Mekong River.....

So the day finally arrived when we had to say goodbye to Vietnam. We've both become strangely attached and neither one of us know what to expect when we arrive in Cambodia. Instead of rushing there, we decided to take a 2 day leisurely boat tour along the Mekong River to take in the last of the very South of Vietnam, the Mekong Delta. It's a maze of waterways and floating villages so we were looking forward to checking it out.

Having been picked up by a cheerful tour guide, we climbed aboard the bus and settled down to a lengthy drive before arriving at a place called Cai Be, where we transferred onto a fairly large wooden boat. I'm still forgetting how much smaller the Vietnamese are and whacked my head on the entrance to the boat - a classic way to start! The guide was very concerned but told me, whilst pointing to my head 'your electronics will be fine its (the boat) only made out of bamboo'! That said, my head still hurt.

After popping some painkillers, I was able to take in the views from the boat. There were many houses on stilts lining the sides of the river, some of which looked in a pretty bad way due to the floods they have just had to endure. In the centre of the river, there was a cluster of boats which formed a floating market (much more organised than the 'floating shop' we came across in Halong Bay! It was mostly fruit and fish on sale, with smaller boats darting between the larger to collect their goods. Many people seemed to be taking it easy on the boats, lying in hammocks and watching the world (or rather tourists) float on by!

We carried on down the river until we came to a local factory I suppose, where they made popped rice and coconut candy. I'm still not entirely sure how the popped rice was made but it was quite a technical process of heating the rice with sugar, sieving it, then rolling it out before cutting it and leaving it to cool. We got to try some freshly made whilst it was still hot - it was suprisingly good so we got some from the shop to munch on for the rest of our journey. The coconut candy was pretty tasty too but got stuck in my teeth way to much for liking so I avoided any more! Tom was very adventurous for ten thirty in the morning and gave the 45% proof rice wine a try - it's not a wonder they call it 'happy juice'. Apparently they only serve it in small shot glasses as it would burn the insides of your nose - nice!!

We piled back onto the boat for an hour long journey along the river before stopping for lunch. It was pretty relaxing chugging along through a maze of waterways that at one point felt as though we were in a jungle. The engine did cut out half way through and was promptly dismantled and fixed in a bizarre sort of way. Turns out, the boat had hit the bottom of the river as the tide was changing, so half the people on the boat got shunted up to the front and pretty much had to sit on top of one another so that the boat could continue on its journey - very cozy! At least we managed to make it to lunch though.

Lunch was included in our tour but was a tiny portion of curry and rice. Fine if you weren't particularly hungry but as usual, we were both starving! Strangely, you could BUY plenty of extra food, including a pretty weird looking Elephant Ear fish, which is a delicacy in this part of the country. The women that eat this fish every day live to be a least 90 years old we were told. Sitting with a German couple at our table, we decided to give the elephant fish a try. It came in a special stand and we had our very own Vietnamese lady to create the rice paper rolls for us(see the pictures on flickr). Pretty tasty!

The boat continued along the river to a place called Vinh Long, where we had to change to a bus for the remainder of our journey to our overnight stop at a floating hotel - exciting! We stopped at a crocodile farm as our rest stop, very weird. They farm the crocodiles for both their meat and skin, both of which they sold here. There were hundreds of crocodiles and most of them were HUGE seriously obese if there is such a thing. They were all just lying there barely able to support their own body weight so there was not chance of them moving anywhere fast from what we saw. Not a great place to wander around but it made what was a pretty boring bus journey just a little bit more exciting.

The floating hotel was generally a bit of a let down. There was a mix up with the rooms, shards of plastic in our beef noodles and pretty scary staff to top it all off! We were both relieved to leave the next day and head off to the Cambodian border. Having upgraded ourselves to the fast boat tickets (I know, check us out!) we were looking forward to a fairly speedy 5 hour journey through both borders to Phnom Penh - oh how wrong we were!!

In actually fact, the first boat we travelling on was pretty speedy. Border control was not. Hardly suprising really when one of them is floating in the middle of the Mekong River! After an hour wait to clear the Vietnamese border, we climbed back onto the boat and quickly arrived at the Cambodian border (on dry land!). During the hottest part of the day, we waited for 2 hours whilst our visa applications were stamped and processed. Painful, considering how many border officials there were. There was some excitment though when a snake slithered across the path in front of us, making one of the Cambodian officials yelp and run away! We took that as a sign to get out of the way too!!

We switched boats after this and began a somewhat slower journey along the river but it gave us a good chance to check out the new country that we were in. Many houses lined the sides of the river and the damage caused by recent flooding was clear to see. Yet the people were so excited to see our boat go past and were stood on the sides of the river waving to us with huge smiles on their faces! So we spent the rest of our journey sat on the roof of our boat, soaking in the suns rays and waving - not bad really!

After such a long journey, we were grateful to roll into the passenger port in Phomn Penh. The city was celebrating a water festival so was jam packed with people and bikes everywhere! We seem to manage to find ourselves in the middle of crazy festivals wherever we go but thankfully it finishes tomorrow so we can explore the city properly.

Much love,
Shell xxxx