Beginning Cambodian

Our tour of Vietnam now complete we hopped the bus to the Capital city of Cambodia, Phnom Penh to meet up with our Spanish friends Lucas and Silvia.  We first met these two in Bolivia when touring the Uyuni Salt Flat. You may also recognize Lucas from our Lima post. He was the gracious host with the incredible mustache.

The first night in the country we reunited with our friends and checked out the night market for some delicious Khmer food and draft Angkor beer.

In the capital city we planned on seeing some of the royal residences and temples. One of the most impressive things in Phnom Penh was the architecture. As we left our hostel and walked down the street, the near skyline was dotted with golden spires growing from temples, government buildings, museums, and shrines. It is all very ornate and grand. The king recently died as well so his picture was everywhere.

The recently passed King Sihanouke

National Museum

One of several impressive buildings at the royal palace.

The ultimate white elephant gift.

In addition to many beautiful historic sites in the area also lie the scars of a very recent massive genocide. The more recent historical sites reflect the period of time when Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge took control of the country to restore an agrarian based, rice producing society and rid it of urbanization and western influence.  When the Khmer Rouge took power the streets of Phnom Penh were emptied within days as his forces re-located everyone from every city to the countryside and labor camps to farm rice.  From April 1975 to 1979, over 2 million people (25% of the population) were tortured and murdered (mostly well educated people from the cities), died of disease or died from starvation.  One of the famous historical sites near Phnom Penh is called the Killing Field (Choeung Ek). This is just one of many that have been discovered around the country and is basically just what it sounds like. An area walled off where prisoners of the regime were taken and killed in horrific fashion, then buried in mass graves. This particular site was very well preserved and an extremely powerful personal audio tour was available to us as we walked from site to site. Mass grave sites dot the landscape and even now during the rainy season bone fragments and pieces of clothing come up through the soil. Some are collected and housed in a massive memorial in the center of the site but other pieces are left where they lie to really drive home how recent and horrible the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge were. The most amazing thing is that most of the leaders have still not even been charged with anything and await trials. There were factions of the party still active up until the late 1990's planting land mines and attempting to usurp power. Pol Pot died free in 1998. The majority of the army that he used was uneducated young men from rural parts of the country who had no jobs or political ideology. He brainwashed thousands to do his bidding. The thing is, that everyone over 35 was a part of what happened. So as we walk around and see older people you can't help but speculate what part they had. Were they tortured? Did they torture? Who knows? How many members of their family did they lose?

Regulations for prisoners at S-21. A notorious prison during the Khmer Rouge rule.

Now, as horrific their past, it is incredible how upbeat and cheerful the Cambodian people are. So quick with a smile and always joking around with one another, the Khmer people are the main attraction to the place.

This is all over the place. Its pizza with an "herbal" addition.

From Phnom Penh we headed toward the coast and a little town called Kep to enjoy a crab feed and some island time. This place is famous for its peppered crab. We simply walked to the seaside market and asked for a kilo of the creepy crawlers and the women would fetch their crab traps from the water and toss a kilo of live crabs into a bag for about 4 bucks. Then for another 50 cents or so they will boil the whole batch up for you and enjoy. We had a beautiful sunset over a heaping pile of tiny little crab.

Welcome to Kep

These ladies have crabs.

Basket of dinner.

Just point and pay a pittance.

Island Paradise at Rabbit Island.

Mangrove growing directly out of the ocean. Very cool.

From Kep we moved 25km down the road to a town called Kampot. This place is renowned world wide for the quality of the pepper grown here. Earlier last century the French thought so highly of the condiment that every restaurant in France worth its salt (or in this case pepper) would have it on the table. I have to admit, the product is really quite good.

Monument to durian in the center of a roundabout.

Free put-put golfing.

After Kampot we traveled to the town of Sihanoukville. This is the beach party town of Cambodia and was a good place to hang out and catch some rays for a couple days. From Sihanoukville we were headed to Siem Reap and the crown jewel of Cambodia, Angkor Wat with a side trip to Battambang....