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Cambodia (Part 1)? What? Why, you ask? Even if you didn’t, I’m pretending you did so I can tell you all about it! After a great time on the 4,000 Islands (Si Phan Don) in Laos, our next stop was Cambodia. We were very excited for a couple of reasons: the main one being an opportunity to see our old friend Lee. We hadn’t seen him in years… basically since he moved there from Calgary, Canada. The other reason was that we heard it was amazing. So we took off from the 4,000 Islands on a boat, then took a bus to the infamous border crossing, which is renowned for its corruption. We were super lucky in that our friend Nok had also decided to leave at the same time, so we all traveled together.
Siem Reap
So really, you go here to get to Angkor Wat. We arrived after a fun, yet harrowing bus ride… the driver fell asleep and had drifted into the oncoming traffic lane. Thankfully, he was woken up before any harm was done, but everyone was wide awake after that! After checking into the Schein Guest House, we arranged to go see Angkor Wat. We booked a tour with a tuk tuk driver Tino, who our friends Pat and Liz had recommended, and set up a 4 am departure for a sunrise start. Early the next morning, we got to the ticket office, waited in line, got our tickets and headed over to explore Angkot Wat.
While beautiful, it was crazy crowded with people: tour buses, hundreds of tuk tuks, bikes and cars. There were kids running around selling trinkets, women harassing you to buy a scarf or t-shirt, and the inevitable street painters… yeah, not quite what we expected. Our tuk tuk driver and guide, Tino, was awesome – he took us on a different route after sunrise to escape the crowds, and we had several temples where it was just us. Overall, it was incredible to see and we were glad that we went.
Paul took a turn at driving – thankfully, Tino stepped in before any harm was done!
If you are ever in Siem Reap, the Phare Circus is a must-do event. We were lucky to get tickets and had a lovely time. The show was amazing and the skill of the performers was crazy – it was an unexpected highlight of our Cambodia travels. One performer painted while acrobats tumbled all around him, the average painting taking only 5 minutes!!
Phnom Penh
Admittedly, Phnom Penh was not our favorite place. We spent two nights here on the way to Chiang Mai/Hong Kong… yep, heading to Hong Kong! More to follow on that event. Anyhoo, we bused it to Phnom Penh on the Cambodia Post VIP passenger van from Siem Reap (highly recommended!). No one fell asleep on this trip. We spent a full day at the Killing Fields and the S-21 (Tuol Sleng) Genocide Museum. While heartbreaking, it is something that you need to do if heading to Cambodia. Listening to the tapes from survivors, seeing photos, videos, and learning about what happened was an emotional rollercoaster, and we both felt physically and emotionally exhausted afterwards. We were glad to get them both done in one day so we could start the emotional recovery. It’s horrific, heartbreaking, and devastating learning about what happened and understanding how this still affects the Cambodian people. You’ll never look at an older Khmer person the same way again. Over a year later, the feelings all came back while we were at the War Remnants Museum in Saigon.
Another aspect of Phnom Penh we didn’t like was the seediness. Cambodia feels like it is still the most wild-west country of Southeast Asia. This attracts an undesirable crowd who use their western money to take advantage of the underprivileged. We saw far too many old, fat Western men with teenage or barely older girls on their arms. Sometimes they were boys. We realize our feelings here could have been impacted by the area that we stayed and what we did while there, but we were glad to leave Phnom Penh and we try to avoid it when possible.
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