Thailand- Cambodia (Phnom Penh)

wow, I have so much to blog! I don't know how to get it all down. This computer is quite slow so I don't know how many photos I'll be able to put with this post.

I guess I'll just start where I left off.

The last morning in Thailand was very nice. Jim Thompson's house was really beautiful. He was an American architect who moved to Thailand and got the silk industry going there. He took five houses and made one big house. We were not allowed to take photos inside of the house as some tourist knocked over a priceless vase while trying to take a photo. Things in the house are just left on tables, etc. Surprising they are not under glass. There was an old wooden Buddha that I'm sure is rotting more and more with the humidity but it is just sitting in an open room. It did give the whole thing more of a feel of being in a home and not a museum. I'm glad we had this on our itinerary.

Our flight was delayed two hours. The airport was crazy. Huge, and no place to get food or water after going through security. So it was a long afternoon. Then when we got to Cambodia it was totally unorganized getting through customs, etc. But we made it okay. We sat by a young pregnant girl from Alabama. She and her husband are Christian missionaries moving to Cambodia with their family (they have a 2 year old and the baby is due in 8 weeks) for the next 10 years. She had a lot of information about Cambodia. She explained to us the huge problem Cambodia has with child prostitution and slavery. She says she does not trust many white people in the country because most have ugly motives for being here. It was very interesting talking with her.

We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel. The roads in Cambodia are hard to describe. There are a lot of motorbikes in Thailand, but nothing like Cambodia! Hundreds of motorbikes crammed with people are weaving in and out of traffic and going down the wrong side of the street. We saw families of five on one small bike that two people would ride in the U.S. Toddlers were standing between parents, women ride sidesaddle with one arm around an infant. As we got closer to town there was more and more traffic and more and more people lining the streets. People were cooking outside their homes, selling things in little booths or just hanging out. I think Janet was completely freaking out.

I loved it. It was all very energizing to me. We got to our hotel and Janet just wanted to get ready for bed, but I needed to get out and experience what was going on. We compromised and had dinner in the hotel restaurant and then I went for a walk by the river.

First, let me tell you about our hotel. It is lovely. The smaller room we booked was full so we got a free upgrade to a suite and it is so nice. Rich, wood floors, an amazing view of the river and large Buddhist temple just outside of our window. It is incredible.

View of temples from our hotel balcony. River is just to the left.

Walking outside was much different than I expected. It was heart wrenching. All kinds of people begging, mixed in with tourists eating on sidewalk cafes and vendors selling things. Total mayhem. There were many women with 2-4 children sleeping (many of them naked) on mats next to them, people deformed and/or missing limbs and lots of little kids. All asking for money or water. I saw one dad with a baby in his arms tell his toddler next to him to just pull down her pants and go to the bathroom on the sidewalk. He took his bare foot and swished it around to make it look like something had just spilled.

After about 10 minutes, I had to go back to the hotel room. I don't really know how to deal with seeing that then going up to our nice hotel room just a few feet away.

Today was one of the best days of the trip so far. We got up and went to church. We found a very nice tuk tuk driver who spoke English quite well. We hired him for the day. He drove us to all of our destinations and then waited to take us to the next place. I'm sure we could have negotiated a lower price but by the end of the day we kicked in a few extra bucks from what we agreed and gave him $20.

Church was interesting. We went to the International Branch which was about 25 people, mostly youth. They have a huge church building which houses CES offices and I'm guessing a lot more. The Branch Pres was from New Zealand. He had asked two young girls from one of the local branches to come and speak. They did a good job. We walked in with one of the girls and she told us how nervous she was to give a talk not in her native language. She was very cute and recently finished her mission (in Cambodia). It's always surprising to me how church is the same everywhere. It was fun to connect on this level with people here.

After church we went out to the Killing Fields. It was a little ways out of town and very interesting riding out in the little tuk tuk. We didn't take many photos as our driver told us people on motorcycles will drive by and grab your camera or anything else that isn't secure. We had him stop a couple of times to take a photos and we snapped one or two along the way.

Ok this isn't the best photo- they are hard to see on the thumbnail when I'm trying to decide what to add. It's taking so long to upload this is the one you're getting. :) It's a photo of a house that I snapped riding in the tuk tuk. This is quite a ways outside Phenom Penh.

Downtown Phenom Penh.

There is no way to describe the horror of the killings fields. This was only one of many places the Khmer Rouge brought people to be executed. Sometimes as many as 300 per day. In 1980, they found huge mass graves at this site and are still uncovering bodies. As you walk around you see pieces of clothing and some bones half buried along the path. It was hard not to just cry the whole time there. There is a monument where you take off your shoes and see hundreds of skulls that they found.

There were about 10 shelves of skulls piled inside of the monument. Some of them you could see where they were killed with a blow to the head.

It was very hot, but with only one day here, we decided to keep seeing the sites. Our driver "Jonathan"(he laughed when I kept trying to say his Khmer name and told us his American name is Jonathan), took us to the hugeRussian Market-named after the Russian merchant's wives who used to like to shop there. Of course, we found more must-haves. We didn't stay long as it was really hot in the stalls and we had more to see before the day ended.

Next we went to a former high school that the Khmer Rouge turned into a torture prision. They went to great lengths to make sure nobody could commit suicide and escape the torture. Most lasted about one month before dying form torture if they weren't first taken to one of the Killing Fields to be executed. Seven people survived when the Vietnamese came in to overthrow Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Surprisingly, many of the prisions there were officers of the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot was very paranoid and anyone who he thought knew too much would be killed along with their families, friends and friend's families. Many people did not know why they were arrested, just taken there and tortured or killed because they knew someone who may have been a threat to Pol Pot.

We hired a woman to be our guide there. She was 10 years old when the Khmer Rouge came into Phnom Pehn and told everyone to leave the city. She was separated from her family and worked in child labor camp from when she was 11 until she was 15. Her father and 3 siblings died either from over work or starvation. She said as a child she worked from sun up to sun down and sometimes would continue if the moon was bright. They were given three spoonfuls of rice per day. After the war, she eventully found her suriving family but still struggled with hunger and poverty for many years. It's hard to believe people have strength to survive such things.

The prison still had blood stains from people being tortured. Each prisionor had a photo taken when they arrived and they were displayed throughout the rooms. Our guide showed us one photo of a young boy in a Khmer Rouge uniform. His family came through in 1997 and saw his picture. He was taken at a young age and forced to join the Khmer Rouge army and his family never knew what happened to him until they saw his picture just a few years ago in the prision museum. Our guide said it was likely he was assigned under a general who Pol Pot decided was getting too powerful so he had the General and everyone under him tortured and killed.

It was hard to believe your eyes actually were seeing all of these things today. We were both glad we went to these sites today though. Incredible that such atrocities happened as I was happily oblivious in my grade school life. Our guide today was just a few years older than me.

Janet and I went back to the hotel for about an hour and half for a little down time in the late afternoon. Then our driver picked us up to take us to dinner at a local restaurant. I really loved the spring rolls and banana-pineapple drink. The rest of the food was just okay.

More craziness driving back this evening. Janet said it felt like we were in a parade in our little tuk tuk with motorcycles driving every which way all around us.

Even with all of this, I really enjoy Cambodia. I feel much more comfortable here. In Thailand I felt stressed a lot, but the energy here is different and I feel calmer. It seems it should be opposite. Maybe I'm just finally used to the time difference. I did sleep all night for the first time last night.