SO last week was China’s Golden Week (basically a glorious week-long national holiday). I planned a backpacking trip with my three friends Emily, Caitlin, and Austria and we cut out of school a bit early to make the most of it. Over the next few posts I will tell you about each place we went to (in great detail to make up for my lack of posting throughout, I promise!)
DESTINATION #1: Cambodia
To preface Cambodia I have to mention that I am obsessed with this country and have been ever since studying Khmer modern history this spring. So needless to say I have been psyched to visit for quite a while.. And Cambodia more than lived up to my expectations. The people are so interesting, welcoming, and resiliant, the landscape is gorgeous, and the long history (which is widely unknown around the world) is so fascinating.
Wednesday afternoon (9/29) we left for our flight which connected in Seoul (unreal airport by the way..) and arrived in Phnom Penh around 10:30pm then went right to our hotel by the river. The rooms were actually really nice despite the mere $12/night price. The next morning we woke up bright and early to find Fizz restaurant where we had a Khmer cooking class! Since it is low season, all of the locals who live off of tourist business seemed quite desperate to attract us to their stores/restaurants/tuk tuks. Tuk tuk drivers are actually the craziest people I’ve ever met – they bargain, drive, and live like complete mad men.
Anyways, cooking class was awesome. We first visited the Candle market and watched locals buy their food etc. for the day – and we saw some pretty unique vegetables/fruits/organs for sale.
During class, we learned to make fresh spring rolls and Amok (probably Cambodia’s most famous dish – white fish in delicious curry sauce and cooked in banana leaf bowl).
After, we went to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Tuol Sleng was actually a high school before the Khmer Rouge took it over in 1975 and converted it to a prison/torture chamber. Our tour guide explained the history and told us, in great detail, the many creative techniques Khmer Rouge cadres used on innocent prisoners (pulling off people’s fingernails then pouring alcohol on them, hanging people by their arms for hours and dunking them in a huge barrel of feces when they wimpered, pulling off women’s nipples then electrically shocking them etc.) the tortueres would force confessions and if the prisoners didn’t confess (confessions would be like: to being a capitalist, to having connections with the CIA, to being educated…..) the prisoners’ families would be brought it and tortured or killed too.
We were then able to meet the two living survivors of Tuol Sleng who return to their nightmare past every day in hopes that more people will actually learn about and care about what happened to Cambodia. It makes me sick to think that the horrific crimes and acts committed during the Khmer Rouge’s reign rival the holocaust, yet it seems like no one knows anything about it.
Afterwards, we made a tuk tuk friend named Markara who took us the 40 minute drive to the Killing Fields (because we really were not depressed enough yet..) The Killing Fields were the large marshy area outside of Phnom Penh where many prisoners were brought to be killed.
There are many huge pits of mass graves, and we also stopped by the tree dubbed the Baby Killing Tree. In order to save bullets (which cost $) guards would take babies and young children and smash their skulls against this tree to kill them. People’s teeth are still scattered on the ground and bones stick out from the grass that has grown over the massive pits. The mass graves are also sunken in the ground and the craters reminded me a bit of Normandy. Our tour guide actually lived through these atrocities and it was shocking how he talked about his experiences of watching his parents get decapitated, literally running for his life, hiding in the jungle, and not having anything, as if he was talking about his morning routine. So much of the older generation seems like they are caught in a weird limbo of trying so hard to forget and just move forward, but also stuck in terrifying memories of the past. Just being there had such a profound effect on us – I don’t know if I could go back but I was glad I could go and pay respects.
That evening, our tuk tuk friend tried to cheer us up by taking us to see Wat Phnom, a gorgeous Buddhist temple built in the 1600s. It was build up on a hill and the architecture was quite beautiful.
After, we went to a restaurant on the water and ate yummy spring rolls, curry, and coconut shrimp. Walking along the river, we stopped in for $4 Khmer Massages (heaven!) and then went to Local 2 (which turned out to be a hilarious gay bar) for trivia night! It was very funny and we obviously won. After, we went to lane 278 and found a really cool backpackers bar/hostel type thing called the Top Banana. It was fun meeting other backpackers (if you could call us that), but a bit bizarre – we could clearly tell that these people have been drinking the KoolAid (one guy went to Laos for a week-long trip and stayed for 3 months; another graduated from law school then sold all of his possessions and is moving steadily across SE Asia until he gets to Bali, where he plans to live for the next few months).
The next day we left Phnom Penh and took a 6 hour bus to Siem Reap. The bus ride was HORRIBLE. Literally we were in a school bus with vents blowing hot air. So sketchy….. And the flooding along the way was kind of nuts.
But Siem Reap is an amazing little place – I really fell in love with it. When we arrived we found the Blue Pumpkin, an organic ice cream and salad place that was our haven throughout our Cambodia trip (had eggplant Panini, fresh pineapple smoothies, delicious tiramisu ice cream). After, we walked around the Siem Reap night market and stopped into cute boutiques (Wanderlust Cambodia which is sold at Madewell has boutiques here). After, we got fish massages!
Basically you put your feet into a huge tank of little fish and they eat off your dead skin – gross if you think about it but it really worked! Our feet were so smooth and clean it was amazing. But so ticklish during the “massage”.
We went to an Indian restaurant for dinner, and then went to a real spa, called Lemongrass (aka heaven!) and got 30 minute foot massages and 1 hour khmer massages for a total of $12! Went to a few bars after (with hilarious names like Angkor What?! And The Haunted Temple) Siem Reap is definitely supported by tourism, but the recent floods have taken a toll and there were fewer visitors than usual.
The next morning we woke up at 4am and went to Angkor Wat to watch the sun rise! It was truly breathtaking.
Our guide, Nura, had good intentions but literally could not stop word-vomiting for the entire day! Ah so annoying. After sunrise, we went back to our hotel for breakfast/to change into temple-appropriate clothing (you can’t have shoulders or legs exposed to enter fwi). Unfortunately it was literally the hottest day of the century so we died in our long black leggings and jeans.
We returned to Angkor Wat for about 3 hours and our guide told us bizarre stories in broken English. The ancient Khmer King began building Angkor Wat in 1113AD and it took a mere 37 years to build (compare to Notre Dame in Paris which took like 400 years..) It was first Hindu, then Buddhist, then Hindu, then briefly occupied by the Khmer Rouge, and now is just history to visitors (though people still come and pray/give sacrifices). We also saw lots of cute little monkeys hanging around which was funny...
We then went to Ta Phronm – which is quite frankly in disrepair but still SO incredible. There are these crazy trees that have grown around and on the ruins which are so beautiful.
It got hotter and we got more tired, so by the time we reached Angkor Thom we were exhausted. We visited Bayon first (famous for its stone carvings with a total of 54 faces to represent the King keeping an eye on all 54 of the ancient provinces… talk about Big Brother!) We also met and befriended a Buddhist monk who was visiting with his mother. When I told him I was studying in China, his response struck me – “don’t you miss your parents?” This guy hadn’t seen his mom in over a year because of rigorous schooling and distance, but this is what he asked me (I’ve been away for what, a month?)
We then walked through what seemed like a nature preserve then headed back. The last area was where they honored elephants and it was so cool to see the elephant reliefs carved into stone. Had fish amok for lunch then went hostel shopping for the night (as was necessary as our first hostel was literally hell).
After switching hostels, showering etc. we decided to go visit the famous floating villages on the Tonle Sap river. However the flooding was quite terrible so we spent about 45 minutes driving through miniature lakes with the most determined tuk tuk driver ever leading the way.
Arriving at Tonle Sap, we hired a boat to take us out. The villages were cool I guess but I had a weird feeling the whole time like I was at a circus – paying to intrude on these people’s lives. We stopped at the floating restaurant and our guide showed us a huge pit of alligators, which he explained upon being asked, were literally just for the tourists to gawk at.
Heading back, it was getting dark and when we arrived on shore our tuk tuk driver was no where to be found! We walked probably half a mile in the pitch black with out sketchy boat tour guide to find him (at a bar, no less!) and the whole time I couldn’t help but think “human trafficking trap!!!” EEK! Thankfully our driver was discovered eventually and he took us back. After another Cambodian dinner, we headed back to the hotel totally exhausted. The next morning, after a glorious Blue Pumpkin breakfast (fresh fruit, fresh OJ, coffee, croissants), we took another bus ride from hell to get to the Thai border.
The bus was the dirtiest, oldest, most horrible thing ever! Clearly it made no difference that we paid for the VIP a/c bus….. hmm
Lesson of the trip? I need to just let go. I am so out of my element here, and it is simply impossible to control everything! Even though I can control what I choose to buy or do, I cannot even try to control the behavior/service/promises of others. Like it or not, I am a tourist in a country with a language I cannot understand and customs I do not know about. The trip has also made me realize how much I adore traveling, and need travel always! Never want to go back to America!
Thailand adventures next……
