...arrived Cambodia on 22nd July...6 hours bus ride from Saigon...border crossing was easy ...22US per person...first impression is that Cambodia is like India some 25 years ago ,very poor and rather dirty and filthy but people are real friendly.
Our first stay is on Phnom Pehn(PP)...PP beautiful,chaotic,rather charmless,extreme poverty is in excess but yet city is captivating...we are based in a small hotel overlooking the Tonle Sap River...loads of cafes everyehere for westerners but you get lot of hassle from young kids begging for whatever...it has some great Buddist temple monastaries(wat) with loads of monks in saffron robes wondering around carrying alms bowles...its a beautful sight to see monks in two and threes on back of a motorbike...monks are not suppose to ask for anything so locals just put whatever they can in their alms bowles and as they do people hold their hands together in prayers with eyes shut and the recieving monks says a prayer back to the donor,its wonderful to watch this on every corner in the morning...the belief people have is joy to be hold.. ...sometime monks are in groups with saffron color open umbreallas ...brilliant...
going to visit KILLING FIELDS this afternoon and Tuol Sleng Museum...both a brutal reminder of the pain of Cambodias past...thanks to POL POT and UNCLE SAM again...
CAMBODIA 2
...KILLING FIELDS visit was really traumatic for us and we are sure for all other visitors its the same...the dead bodies were just thrown in piles of 30 high in to a large open graves dug in to rice fields and there are 129 of these large grave here...many were just buried alive...between 1975 and 1978 KHMER ROUGE killed 1.5 millions Cambodian...out of this 17,000 men,women,children and infants(all belonging to former ruling party) were detained and tortured at prison known as S21 in Phnom Penn and then transported to the extermination camp now known as KILLING FIELDS...they were often bludgeoned to death to avoid wasting precious bullets or just buried alive.The remains of 8995 people ,many of whom were bound and blindfolded,were exhumed in 1980 from mass graves in this one time orchard and rice fields,43 of the 129 communal graves have been left untouched.Fragments of human bones and bits of clothes are seen scattered around everywhre even today as we visited.More than 8000 skulls ,arranged by sex and age,are visible behind the clear glass panels of the MEMORIAL STUPA,which was erected in 1988...it is peaceful now but some 34 years ago it was THE KILLING FIELDS of Cambodia.
We also visited SECURITY PRISON 21 known as S21 where POL POTs security forces detained and tortured thousands of people...the visit was a mistake as the prison is left as it was found in 1978 by incoming liberating Vietnamese army...the visit was profoundly depressing experience for 3 of us and we spent less than 10 minutes there and I had no energy to take piuctures of all horrible rusted beds and instrumenmts of torture and so on...and to think that S21 was a High School before they turned it in to a detention and torture centre...S21 shows THE DARKEST side of human spirit...also visit to S21 is not for squeamish and we are just that.
...from Phnom Penh we are taking six hour bus ride to SIEM REAP...the home of ANGKOR TEMPLES and mysterious dark jungle that swollowed the temples!!!
CAMBODIA 3
Pritti is doing a write up on Angkor temples soon as she has got a summer cold and so relaxing by beachside bunglow in KO CHANG and getting her energy levels back...
We arrived in Thialand on 1st August , we travelled by bus 14 hours from Siem Reap Cambodia to KO CHANG (island)Thialand...all overland...Siem Reap to Poipet(border town with Thialand) took 7 hours by bus to cross 150 miles!!!...it was a combination of BUS FROM HELL...DRIVER FROM HELL...ROAD FROM MOTHER OF ALL HELL...and add TORRENTIAL RAIN FROM HELL...and so we had a 7 hours RIDE FROM HELL...Cambodia has no public transport what so ever...its hitch hiking if you want to go anywhere or rip off private scam buses...very very poor...
they call them Highways but what they mean is dirt track with 24 inches deep pot holes every 12 inches...its dangerous and back breaking...some people weer hurt in the bus as it was like riding a untamed bull for 7 hours.
Border crossing in to THIALAND was simple and what a diffence and its like you have entered HEAVEN compare to previous 7 HOURS IN HELL...once in Thialand we took a minibus ...3 hours to TRAT...and then 30 minutes ferry in to KO CHANG(minibus driver told us at Thialand border that we will miss our last ferry for KO CHANG from TRAT...other pessanger started panicking...so yours trully stepped in and offered the driver 500 Bhats if we make the ferry and guess what....we made the ferry just in time...but some pessangers had their hearts in their mouth as the drive was like sitting in a formula one car doing 250km per hour...scary! I was accused by one German pessanger that I had played with his life by offering the driver money!
KO CHANG is beautiful...we have hired a beach bunglow for one week and are going to do some water sport ,hiking and island hopping before going to BANGKOK on 14th to catch a flight to AUSTRALIA...THE LAND OF OZ AND WALTZING MATILDA for 9 weeks...
Our first stay is on Phnom Pehn(PP)...PP beautiful,chaotic,rather charmless,extreme poverty is in excess but yet city is captivating...we are based in a small hotel overlooking the Tonle Sap River...loads of cafes everyehere for westerners but you get lot of hassle from young kids begging for whatever...it has some great Buddist temple monastaries(wat) with loads of monks in saffron robes wondering around carrying alms bowles...its a beautful sight to see monks in two and threes on back of a motorbike...monks are not suppose to ask for anything so locals just put whatever they can in their alms bowles and as they do people hold their hands together in prayers with eyes shut and the recieving monks says a prayer back to the donor,its wonderful to watch this on every corner in the morning...the belief people have is joy to be hold.. ...sometime monks are in groups with saffron color open umbreallas ...brilliant...
going to visit KILLING FIELDS this afternoon and Tuol Sleng Museum...both a brutal reminder of the pain of Cambodias past...thanks to POL POT and UNCLE SAM again...
CAMBODIA 2
...KILLING FIELDS visit was really traumatic for us and we are sure for all other visitors its the same...the dead bodies were just thrown in piles of 30 high in to a large open graves dug in to rice fields and there are 129 of these large grave here...many were just buried alive...between 1975 and 1978 KHMER ROUGE killed 1.5 millions Cambodian...out of this 17,000 men,women,children and infants(all belonging to former ruling party) were detained and tortured at prison known as S21 in Phnom Penn and then transported to the extermination camp now known as KILLING FIELDS...they were often bludgeoned to death to avoid wasting precious bullets or just buried alive.The remains of 8995 people ,many of whom were bound and blindfolded,were exhumed in 1980 from mass graves in this one time orchard and rice fields,43 of the 129 communal graves have been left untouched.Fragments of human bones and bits of clothes are seen scattered around everywhre even today as we visited.More than 8000 skulls ,arranged by sex and age,are visible behind the clear glass panels of the MEMORIAL STUPA,which was erected in 1988...it is peaceful now but some 34 years ago it was THE KILLING FIELDS of Cambodia.
We also visited SECURITY PRISON 21 known as S21 where POL POTs security forces detained and tortured thousands of people...the visit was a mistake as the prison is left as it was found in 1978 by incoming liberating Vietnamese army...the visit was profoundly depressing experience for 3 of us and we spent less than 10 minutes there and I had no energy to take piuctures of all horrible rusted beds and instrumenmts of torture and so on...and to think that S21 was a High School before they turned it in to a detention and torture centre...S21 shows THE DARKEST side of human spirit...also visit to S21 is not for squeamish and we are just that.
...from Phnom Penh we are taking six hour bus ride to SIEM REAP...the home of ANGKOR TEMPLES and mysterious dark jungle that swollowed the temples!!!
CAMBODIA 3
Pritti is doing a write up on Angkor temples soon as she has got a summer cold and so relaxing by beachside bunglow in KO CHANG and getting her energy levels back...
We arrived in Thialand on 1st August , we travelled by bus 14 hours from Siem Reap Cambodia to KO CHANG (island)Thialand...all overland...Siem Reap to Poipet(border town with Thialand) took 7 hours by bus to cross 150 miles!!!...it was a combination of BUS FROM HELL...DRIVER FROM HELL...ROAD FROM MOTHER OF ALL HELL...and add TORRENTIAL RAIN FROM HELL...and so we had a 7 hours RIDE FROM HELL...Cambodia has no public transport what so ever...its hitch hiking if you want to go anywhere or rip off private scam buses...very very poor...
they call them Highways but what they mean is dirt track with 24 inches deep pot holes every 12 inches...its dangerous and back breaking...some people weer hurt in the bus as it was like riding a untamed bull for 7 hours.
Border crossing in to THIALAND was simple and what a diffence and its like you have entered HEAVEN compare to previous 7 HOURS IN HELL...once in Thialand we took a minibus ...3 hours to TRAT...and then 30 minutes ferry in to KO CHANG(minibus driver told us at Thialand border that we will miss our last ferry for KO CHANG from TRAT...other pessanger started panicking...so yours trully stepped in and offered the driver 500 Bhats if we make the ferry and guess what....we made the ferry just in time...but some pessangers had their hearts in their mouth as the drive was like sitting in a formula one car doing 250km per hour...scary! I was accused by one German pessanger that I had played with his life by offering the driver money!
KO CHANG is beautiful...we have hired a beach bunglow for one week and are going to do some water sport ,hiking and island hopping before going to BANGKOK on 14th to catch a flight to AUSTRALIA...THE LAND OF OZ AND WALTZING MATILDA for 9 weeks...
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