The dangers of Cambodia

8.9.2010 | Day 39 | 15 810 km | Siem Reap, Cambodia

Yep, the dangers. That’s what I thought, until the first day walking down the streets of Phnom Penh. Take out the word danger and change it to fascinating, you’ll get a much more accurate description of Cambodia. Even in Phnom Penh, the capital and the biggest city, you can walk freely even at nights without fearing that somebody would put a gun on your face. So for all interested of discovering another interesting Southeast Asian country, welcome to Cambodia!

Our first “sightseeing” tour in Phnom Penh was to see the brutal history this country had to go through in the 70’s. A tuk-tuk driver took us to Choeung Ek, also known as the Killing Fields. We had seen parts of this area from the Finnish TV-show Madventures, but being there yourself is a totally different experience, a heart-stopping one. Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge killed over 20% of the population of Cambodia while trying to send the nation back to the stone age. Choeung Ek was one of the sites they brought people blindfolded in trucks to be killed and buried to mass graves. Men, women and children - nobody was spared. All this happened just a couple of years before we were born, making it even more difficult to understand how the hell is something like this possible. After Killing Fields, we also visited the Genocide Museum downtown, a school that the Khmer Rouge turned into a torture prison. One prison rule tells us the cruel story: “While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all”. Only about 30 years later, this country still has deep wounds to heal.

A memorial stupa at Choeung Ek, containing over 5 000 skulls found from the mass graves 

But, the country has progressed huge leaps and while some other country might still be in a total chaos, Cambodia is definitely on the right track. Still a long, long way to go and lots of corruption and poverty to be dealed with, Once again I’m happy that I could visit this country and help the locals just a little by eating in their small restaurants and using the services of the tuk-tuk drivers.

The steepest ladders ever

After three days in Phnom Penh, it was time to hop into another bus for a six-hour drive to Siem Reap. The small city doesn’t have much to offer itself, but just few kilometers north, Angkor Wat blows your mind. Once again, we damned our schedule as we only had one full day to explore the massive temples Khmer Empire started to built in 12th century. And it’s not only possible to look at them, you can actually wander around pretty much everywhere - Even climb up the steepest and the most dangerous ladders to reach the highest temple rooms. I don’t know if it’s really wise to keep it that way, as some of the structures are in pretty bad shape and about to collapse, but at least for the visitors of today it’s amazing, as you can roam the temples just like the people built them did. Being one of the man-made wonders of the world, Angkor Wat and it’s surroundings is another place you just can’t explain, you need to visit it. So write it down to your “to do” -list and on your next vacation, visit Cambodia :)

Nature has taken over after the temples of Angkor Wat were abandoned

Strange things happened in Cambodia:

• You never really look the ingredients of a shampoo bottle, but from now on we will. We bought “For man” shampoo to use also as a shower gel as we don’t want to carry several bottles. But seriously, this shampoo had citric acid in it! I could only think one particular Jerry Lee Lewis song while trying to take a shower. Jeez…
• We visited The Russian Market in Phnom Penh, a block of small booths and sellers with not-so-genuine clothing and other items. It’s covered with a really badly built roof and just as we got in, it started to rain heavily. And by heavily, I mean multiple a heavy rain you know a couple of times and that’s what happened. Of course, some of the piping gave up and turned the market into Venice. So, shoes off, start walking your feet in the water and continue shopping…
• And by the way, when it’s raining it’s a good idea to go playing some snooker. But, snooker clubs doesn’t work exactly just like in Finland. No, you’ll get a $4/hour table with a girl in hi-heels counting the points and picking the balls up… Snooker balls! After you get used to the idea that you can‘t just play alone in peace, it’s pretty fun.
• There is something going on with selling the names of passengers to arrival station tuk-tuk drivers. But they don't really do it particularly well... So, as we travelled to Siem Reap from Phnom Penh, there was a tuk-tuk man with a sign "HANNW TOUUM" waiting for us. Needless to say, we skipped that!