Cambodia was unbelievable. I went with another teacher from the school, Joel. We landed in Phenom Penh on Saturday night and couldn't find the tuk-tuk driver that we had arranged with the hostel. So a random driver approaches us and tells us that he can take us from the airport for $6. this was what our hostel tuk-tuk was going to cost so I figured it was a good deal. We walk with him towards his chariot and it turns out the thing is a moto! But by this point I felt like tiwas too late to back out. Plus, I like motos. So it's me, Joel, the driver and two big backpacks whizzing throught the streets of Phnom Penh at 11 o'clock at night. I thought it was kind of awesome as we whipped by all the textile factories but I think Joel was less than pleased.
We spent the first few days in Phnom Penh, checking out the major sites, like the Silver Pagoda. then we went to Tuol Sleng and the Cheong Ek killing fields. It was unbelievable. I didn't realize how extensive the Cambodian genocide was.
There was a lot of stuff to see but tucked away in the corner under a staircase was this little graffitti conversation. Here's someone saying "Don't let shit like this ever happen again. Please!" and then in the left corner of the picture someone has written a list of all the other genocides and mass killings that have happened since then.
After 2 days we took a 6 hour boat ride north to Siem Reap. I put on sunscreen and wore a long sleeved shirt so I only managed to burn my hand and the part in my hair. I was pretty pleased. Siem Reap was awesome and a nice change of pace from Phnom Penh. I convinced Joel that the best way to get around Angkor Wat was to take bikes or elephants. Since we didn't see any elephants we had to go with bikes. I think the only better way to get around would be via moto but then again you would have had to battle the traffic to get here which would be kind of scary.
Biking was great but I almost bailed on it on the third day because my butt hurt (the seats were awful!). It's funny because it seems like everyone is always trying to get you go to their sister's or their cousin's or their mother's shop or hotel or whatever.
In Angkor I had a really weak bad environmentalist moment. There were these little monkeys and some Cambodians were selling little bananas. I bought some and fed them. In the back of my mind there was a little voice that ket saying "A fed bear is a dead bear". Brent Petty would be so disppointed with me!
There are two other most excellent things that happened in the trip. the first was doctor fish. there is a night market that Joel and I went to because we are obsessed with kramas and felt like we needed to buy more. What do we run into but Dr. Fish!! We had been talking about trying to find Dr. Fish in Seoul for a while and here we just run into them! It was some of the weirdest 15 minutes of my life. So much so that we did it again the next night.
At the same night market we saw some children doing a short apsara dance performance. Joel adn I had been looking for a place to see a show for a few days. We went to one dinner theatre place that wasn't very good. We found out that these kids are orphans and they have a nightly performance at their orphanage. The next night we tried to find a tuk-tuk driver who could take us there but it was difficult, especially because the orphanage wasn't answering their phone. We finally made it and it was awesome! They were so good. Afterwards everyone wanted to be in pictures with Joel and me. they were really fun.
Aaanyway, in sum, Cambodia was amazing.
No comments:
Post a Comment