Tom and I arrived in Phnom Penh later than expected. As we waited for our visas, we decided it would be best to have a quiet night, despite the fact that it was Friday night. Our plan was to check into the hostel and then grab a beer or two and go to be bed on the earlier side so we could sightsee in the morning. Oh how naive we were! When we got to the hostel bar everyone was several drinks in and I ran into someone I had hung out with in Hoi An, Vietnam. In a series of escalating events, we ended up having shots, beers, moved to a club for dancing, and split a bucket. (Buckets are a thing in SE Asia. It’s just one giant fruity cocktail in a bucket about the size of one of the buckets you played with in the sandbox as a child). The night was fun, but the day after was a bit rough. We slept in and eventually found a swimming pool to lounge around in. Thanks to my lazy day,I was able to find a burrito place, so for dinner I had a mediocre burrito. I reckon I enjoyed it more simply because I hadn’t had one in two months.
Sunrise at Angkor Wat
Our last minute Halloween Costumes
To make up for the wasted day, our last full day in Phnom Penh was spent doing some heavy duty sightseeing. We started at Tuol Sleng Museum, which during the Khmer Rouge was converted from a school into Security Prison 21 (S-21). It became the primary place of torture in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge and at its height an average of 100 people a day were killed. It’s a somber experience. Several of the rooms still contain torture devices and other buildings still have the cells the Khmer Rouge made within the classrooms. From S-21 we took a tuk tuk to the Killing Fields. Most of the 17,000 or so prisoners at S-21 were taken to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. There are several mass graves that were first discovered in the late 80s. Most of the victims were beaten to death as the Khmer Rouge did not believe it was worth wasting bullets on their victims. The killings happened at night, so the way the Khmer Rouge defused this was to play loud propaganda music all day and night so as to drown the screams of the victims. Bone fragments and teeth are still found regularly today, and as you tour the grounds, you find scraps of clothing from the victims tat were buried. In the middle of the killing fields a stupa was erected in honor of the victims and inside the stupa you find the skulls of all of the unearthed victims that were found in the mass graves. The entire visit is horrifying and upsetting, especially when you learn that the no one believed this was happening when it occurred and it took people finding the mass graves for the international community to realize the evils of the Khmer Rouge.
The next morning we took a 5 hour bus ride out to Sihanoukville to catch the ferry to Koh Rong. Koh Rong is made up of two islands: Koh Rong and Koh Rong Samloem. We stayed on the larger of the two, Koh Rong. The town is pretty much just a strip of guesthouses, restaurants, bars, and mini marts along the beach. You can walk from one end of the village to the other in about 10-15 minutes. There is no cell service and the wifi and power can be rather dodgy. It was fantastic. We got there on Monday afternoon and for the week we were barefoot beach bums. We spent Tuesday afternoon on a boat and went snorkeling, fishing, and then BBQ-ed that fish on q desolate beach, Long Beach. That night we hung out with some English guys we met on the boat trip and decided to boogie at Jungle Bar, a bar with a DJ that you access by following a dark, sandy path through what looks like a jungle. The bar is a massive gazebo and because it is so new and it is still low tourist season, you are out numbered by the locals. Once again, buckets were enjoyed, and once again we were a bit sore the next morning, but having a slight hangover on the beach really isn’t the end of the world. I spent a day on the balcony of our guesthouse overlooking the beach and gorgeous ocean as I read.
That same day there was quite a bit of commotion right in front of out guesthouse. Large tents were being built and there were people everywhere. As o enjoyed the balcony, I met two Buddhist monks staying at the guesthouse. They informed me that a Buddhist wedding would be taking place that evening and all day the next day. They invited us to watch part of the ceremony. The monks blessed the couple and preached about the importance of marriage in their faith. It was interesting to watch from afar and the only reason I understood anything was because the monk told me what he would be saying while we sat on the balcony.
Luckily we chose to go to bed early that night, as the next morning wedding festivities began with BLARING music at sunrise. I awoke and immediately said to Tom, “You have got to be kidding right now!” He got up to investigate what was happening. He came back to report that there was hardly anyone out there and people were still setting up the tents. I grabbed my ziplock baggie of ear plugs and we slept a little longer until the child next door decided a tantrum prior to 8am was necessary. All of the guesthouses in Koh Rong are bungalow style, so the walls don’t connect to the ceilings, which means you can hear everything that is happening in the rooms on either side of you. We were blessed and had a family with a child that threw a tantrum every morning.
After attempting to sleep some more, we gave up and decided to go on a walk about and explore the island. A local told us that we could easily walk to Long Bech barefoot from the village. Hmm…. A ripped pair of running shorts, scratched toes, and an hour and a half later we made it to Long Beach. We went for a refreshing swim, took some pictures and then tried to figure out which was was the “easy” way the local said we should go. We thought we found it, but once again we were wrong. It was a path that at times was muddy (up to your ankles in mud) or covered in pebbles that hurt to walk on. (While in Australia, I noticed lots of Australians, especially up north, were barefoot often. They were barefoot in the grocery store, in the street, just about everywhere up north). I was a very unhappy camper and was definitely trying to take my time and found myself trailing far behind Tom for most of the walk back. At one point he asked if I was okay and I annoyingly answered, “No! I’m not Australian and I. Need shoes for this!” At that point, I just kept my distance because I was just plain annoyed with the situation. Later over beers, Tom and I laughed about it all, and I told him that I was just angry with the world. I wasn’t angry with him but I knew I would have easily taken it out on him had I kept up with his pace. That also happened to be our last night on Koh Rong, so we figured we should celebrate our survival of the trek and get in one more boogie at Jungle Bar. The locals were hilarious and all kept asking Tom if they could dance with me. We took ridiculous pictures with them and they pretty much wanted us to drink as much as they were. This was something we did not want. The only way back to the mainland is by ferry and a ferry ride hungover is not what anyone wants to experience. We luckily ran out of cash (there are no ATM machines on Koh Rong) and it gave us a reason to avoid an awful experience the next day.
We woke up that Friday morning a little tired, but overall not in horrible shape. We took our ferry back to Sihanoukville and wandered around for the day before catching the night bus to Siem Reap. This night bus was a hotel bus and had actual beds for two. There was a metal divider in the middle to allow for a cubby like experience in case you were a solo traveler. Both Tom and I were very happy to be traveling together that day.
We arrived in Siem Reap at 7am, checked in, found breakfast, and while eating breakfast met a tuk tuk driver that had 5 star reviews on trip advisor. We hired him for the late morning to take us to a crocodile farm where we were told we would get to toss food over to the crocodiles. That was a lie and all we found was pool after pool of lethargic, sleeping crocodiles. At one point, we didn’t even think they were real. This that point we decided to give up and go enjoy the pool at our hostel. While at the hostel, we found out that there was going to be a Halloween party and bar crawl, so we had to think of what we could find to make as costumes. We decided we would be stereotypical obnoxious tourists and found matching bucket hats and the Cambodian version of a Hawaiian shirt. Someone at our hostel bar even painted our noses white to make it look like we had zinc on our noses. Everyone thought it was pretty funny and we even got a free round of beers from it. The bar crawl was insane. There were people everywhere and it wasn’t just young backpackers. We went to two bars before getting settled at the final bar Angkor What! where we danced on the picnic tables outside and along Pub Street. Pub Street gets shut down at night, so everyone pours out of the bars and drinks and dances in the street. Eventually, we decided to party in the street and then from there found another bar. At around 4:30am Tom decided it was time to go home and somehow convinced a tuk tuk driver to take us for free. We kept walking and Tom just kept repeating, “No, free tuk tuk or we walk!” The driver caved and gave us a free ride. When we got back to the hostel I asked him how much thinking the whole thing was a joke, but he replied with, “Tonight free, tomorrow you pay”. Getting into our room was hilarious; as we were coming home half of our roommates were getting up to see sunrise at Angkor Wat.
We slept about four hours that morning and then got up to spend a half day in Angkor Wat. The temples of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom are phenomenal. You can tell how each of them were at one point a large city and it was so cool to wander through each of them. I will admit that after two weeks of gold temples all over Burma, we were both a bit templed out. The heat and humidity during the day also make it feel much longer than it really is. The next morning we went to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat and then explored some more temple complexes within the region. By about noon we had seen six more temples and had our tuk tuk driver take us to the Land Mine Museum.
The Land Mine Museum was stated by a local Cambodian. He was drafted by the Khmer Rouge as a teenager, he eventually defected and fought with the Vietnamese against the Khmer Rouge. After the war, he used the skills he gained to defuse land mines. He would keep the shells and eventually word got out of his work. People visiting Cambodia started visiting his home to see his work and his home became the first museum. Several years after this began, the government stepped him and asked him to move his museum from rather out from Angkor Wat and they offered to help pay for his work should he 1) move the museum and 2) comply with international standards when diffusing the land mines. The museum has grown and is also now an orphanage. When the orphanage began it was to provide a home for children that’s were victims of land mines, but thanks to their hard work across Cambodia, they currently don’t have any land mine victims.
That night was our last night in Cambodia and I had been wanting to visiting one of the Foreign Correspondents Club’s in Southeast Asia for a while now. I missed it in both Hanoi and Phnom Penh, so this was my last chance. Tom and I walked along the river and found a beautiful white building with open windows all along the second floor. We walked in, were seated at a table at the bar immediately and were given ice cold, rose water towels to refresh ourselves with. We ordered a pitcher of a session cocktail and relaxed. It felt like such a luxury compared to our hostel room bunk beds with dodgy air con. We had one last meal on Pub Street and called it an early night. The next morning we would start the 29 hour journey to the Philippines and we need to get as much rest as possible.
Strange Trails 