Sunday 28 October 2012

Heading back to Thailand and onwards to China


So, what did I think of Cambodia.
This is a tough one to explain as I was not sure if I was going to go to Cambodia at one point.
I have to say that it was the most interesting place out of all the 5 countries that I have visited so far as the people definately look quite different to all the other peoples from all the other countries. They are only half the size of the people rom the other countries. {Philippinos tend to be a small bit heavier than the others but Cambodians look emaciated.}
When I entered Cambodia, I never thought I would ever empathise with people who scam you for money or people who charge 2 - 6 times the price of a local for food/clothes/goods but in this case, this is ok as these people REALLY have nothing. When I write that, let me emphasize that some people have everything and the vast majority have nothing. There are plenty of huge 4*4s on the road so some people are making money. It appears that a lot of people are left to fend for themselves and if they can't do that , tough look. Do what you need to do to earn a living. That's why morals go out the window. At the same time, If the government lets Siem Reap develop like it is developing, then it will be a real cowboy town in 10 years .
I am not sure if orphanages are sustainable in  certain parts of Cambodia. There are 52 orphanages in Siem Reap alone and it's not a big area. I am not slaggin the orphanages. They are doing the best they can but maybe a birth control policy might work. In saying that, I am not sure if I would listen to a government after the history of the previous governments here.
As for my views on all the areas that I visited...

     Siem Reap:
      During my time here, I saw the temples at Angkor Wat and then I had the 2 week stint at the orphanage. The temples are reall cool and they are a nice link to the past. The selling of trinkets and nick nacks by kids are a link to the present and a reminder that obody has anything and these kids should be in school but the reality is that they can't afford to be in school or their parents need the money.
      In Siem Reap itself, the tuk tuk scene there is crazy, there are far too many of them and don't forget that there are other modes of transport like motorbikes so there is always a shouting game with the tourist. Sometimes, some drivers when they recognise me (and know that I will never take a tuktuk!) just chat away as they are bored senseless while waiting for business. These guys were cool. The guys that offered everything under the sun so that they could earn a buck got really annoying but at the end of the day , I should ot complain as I am not he one who is struggling here. It just annoyed me that nothing seemed to be sacred here (e.g: walking down the street without harassment.)
       Also, I learned that it is better to take a mode of transport than to walk 4 minutes in the rain. If you walk in the rain or after the rain, your clothes will be destroyed especially if you wear sandles andthe water rides up your legs afterwards...dang!



        Battambang:
The entrance into Battanbang was an experiance in itself. The tuk tuk driver that saw me sitting on the bus must have jogged a good .05 km alongside the bus to grab my attention (and at the same time piss me off. I have to say that he was the coolest driver that I met so far though. The tour that he gave to the scarf making house (and the farms) was pretty original and I have the scarf to show for that! As for the place itsel, It is the second city in Cambodia but you woould never guess this when you are walking around the area. The people seem to be friendly enough. Most people (not just in Battambang or indded Cambodia But s.e. Asia in general) seem to come out around dusk time for a couple of hours so the streets come alive (speciically, the places where they sell food at night.) There weren't too many chancers here and the Tomato inn was a really friendly place to stay. All the guys that owned the place tried to help us out and it was interesting to see the phenomenon of 'betting on the weather' using walkie talkies by standing on the rooftops/verandahs of your abode and looking at the clouds. It brings a whole new dimension to 'Weather Forecasting'. Maybe RTE need to adopt this policy!
As for the actual monuments, I will never forget the ones that I saw in this place (Or indeed Phnom Penh) It's good to see that they are very open with their history. It's very gruesome and It has occured in many of the locals lifetimes but they are willing to pass on everything to the next generation such that this stuff doesn't happen again.
      It was cool to have a quick cycle around the area. When I went for the cycle, I realised a few things...
1. I am not fit.
2. I still sweat too much.
3. I need to stop or water ALL THE TIME. I think I might turn into a 2 litre bottle of water soon enough.
4. If there is any spare piece o land around an area where there is a tourist attraction, call it a car park ( a place to    park cars and all types of bikes) and charge money. Well, that's a good way to get money and after I have just cycled 15    km in the midday heat, I would pay any money not to see a bike for a few hours!
5. Those family shops that are dotted along the roadside are really handy. They seem to be the rage in Cambodia and lots of places will sell local cakes and sweet foods.
   The local restaurant that some of the guys that were staying at the hostel and I went to was interesting although I didn't really like the way a couple of people just joined the table. To be hinest, If I was that pissed off , I really should have said something then ,so I guess that's a lesson learned as  I am sure that that will happen again.

       Phnom Penh:
This place seemed to be fairly seedy in areas. The local tuktuk drivers intimidated you more than the ones in Siem Reap and that is saying something. In saying that , some locals had a cool sense of humour (like the women who was shouting at people to come into her bar. As I was passing she mentioned going into her place and there is a barbers upstairs. I had to ask her to repeat what she had just said!) To be hinest, the Cambodians do have a real dark sense of humour (well, the ones that can speak English. My Khmer is ... how do you say....crap ) They have all the time in the world to talk to you ad they will do their best to have a laugh with you.
As for the place itself, I am sick of seeing royal palaces so I did not go into the one here. The kiling fields and s21 were horrible and I will definately never forget those places.
I will definately never forget the card guys trying to set me up or the lady of the night propositioning me to proposition here her at 11.30 in the morning either. That was such a weird day. At least I know a couple of ways of cheating if I ever want to play poker!!! I think I'd better stop accepting tea\drinks from strangers though!

       Kratie:
Kratie was a real backwater. I thought it was going to be a well built town with plenty of modern builldings. It turned out to be a town that seemed to have 9,000,000 hostels and only 3 streets. If you ever go here , rent out a push bike ($1)   or a scooter ($7) and find the Dolphins and the 100 pillar temple {this temple is too far for a push bike if you are coming from Kratie though.} The Dolphins tend to swim quite a distance from the boat so don't expect to get good photographs! There are some nice local food shops near the temple though .If you have the time, have a walk through the local town. Expect people to stare at you though (If you look different to them!). The scooter journey is cool but don't be too put off if there are policemen by the roadside. They are there just to make sure that you are wearing your helmet and that there are sidemirrors on the bikes. If they had seen all the things that were wrong witht the scooter that I was driving , I think they wouldn't  have deemed it roadworthy.! Again, Kratie is well worth a visit and if you can find some guys that are traveling, it's a cool place to hang out when the evening time comes around (although, remember - most hostels do shut their doors, so if you are not back in bed by closing time, tough luck - Enjoy the fresh air!!!!)

In general, I think Cambodia was by far the most eye opening country that I have visited.  The people are doing their best to  get by and (with the exception of Poipet and the grifters) they seem to be a friendly bunch. I am not sure how people would react back home if their place was completely flooded and they got no help from anyone (To be fair, that's a crap comparison as Cambodia and Ireland are 2 very different countries) There is a similar sense of dark humour between the residents of the 2 countries though.(Much more than Thailand.) This country is well worth a visit but just be careful as there are scams around every corner but never let that cloud your judgement of the people as a whole.I never got the chance to go to Sinoukeville (It's a real touristy destination so I am not really too bothere that I missed out anyway.) but I am really glad that I visited this place.


Anyway....I guess  should wind up this section by talking about the few days that I spent back in Thailand before heading to China.




Oh Yeah, Before I forget, a big shout out to Clare and Tom.
It's a boy!! Congrats. I will send on a card at some stage once I can find a post office and once I have not lost the letter that I had already wrote (and was partially destroyed by the rains\leftover biscuits at the bottom of the bag\trampled on by a cockroach)

        Anyway, I heard that I needed a 3 month holiday visa to get to China. I am going to fly there on the 16th of October and I had to get out of Cambodia by the 5th so that gives me 10 days to get the visa somewhere. I reckon it wasn't enough time to get to Laos and go to a Chinese embassy there and fly from there. Also, most flights through Asis tend to fly from either Bangkok or K.L and I have already been to K.L 4 times this summer so I decided to head back to Bangkok and hang out there.
     The journey back through Poipet and over the border was pretty uneventful. The minibus actually stopped at that pozy restaurant again (It took us the guts of 3 hours to get through the border crossing in the stifling heat so the atmosphere was ... let's just say that it wasn't a happy atmosphere.) and everybody except one couple stood there , really pissed off at the drivers. It was so bad at one point that the drivers actually wanted to leave the restaurant also but a couple had bought food so everyone was forced to wait while they ate. In fairness to them, they saw this and took their time eating!!!


piccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc of the restaurant.
I was just happy to leave the border but there is no way that I would buy anything in that place! The rest of the journey (around 200km) passed pretty slowly At least, I had the seat beside the driver (as we were all crammed in the minibus!) so I had a good view of what mainly consisted of a main road :-(
      Anyway, I was on a mission as I had a visa to order!

A few days before I headed back to Thailand, I was looking at the internet and I noticed that there was a race occuring in Bangkok and I had not tried a 10km this year so I joined! It was cool to attempt a race while traveling! At the same time, I hadn't a clue as regards finding the park where the race was located so I had to get a taxi to and from the event itself. I had heard that they actually run meters in the taxis in Bangkok. I had not seen this when I had been here ebfore but I decided that I would try that out when the time came!
     I decided to stay in the Korean run garden hostel  (which is on Rambuttri road). The place was quiet and I could have a rest there without been eaten alive by various creepy crawlies so that was a bonus.
As for the jog itslef, I woke up at 4 a.m on the morning of the jog. I had to get to the park at an early stage as the race itself started at 6. So, I grabbed the first available taxi at the taxi rank and showed him the location of the race. Little did I know that hhe would lose his way twice while trying to find the location. I moaned consistently at him as ...
1. It was 4,20 (approx.) in the morning....
and
2. I didn't know he he was actually taking the piss.

As it turned out, he was a cool guy, every time he made a mistake ,he turned back the taxi meter to the start again. We eventually got to the place and I wish I knew the Thai for 'I am really grateful that you got me here' but I didn't have the time so I did the necessaries and jogged to the starting line.
     I never saw so many people of a certain age jogging at the same time!! I know it was called the seniors 10km but there were thousands of over 60's here. I don't think such an event exists back home but it dooes seem like a cool idea. Everybody was given a sort of blue sweater before we started and I made the mistake of wearing it during the race (Which I found out after 6km when the sweat accumulated on the sweater and the weight of the sweater quadrupled!) The race itself was fairly tame. I could actually see the first maybe 100 competitors for a couple of kms before reality kicked in and I started the process of dissolving into a pool of water again. I started jogging beside one guy who seemed to know what he was doing so I tried to stay up with him for a few kms.To be honest, It was nice to see the finishing line after (what I guess was) 46 - 47 minutes [The endomondo app. on my phone stopped after a few kms, dang!] We were well looked after at the end of the race as there was plenty of coconut ice cream, coconut milk juices and water to go around. I wanted to warm down and as it was only 8 am , I was able to have a quick look at another market before jumping in a taxi back to Bangkok.
The journey back into the center of Bangkok was interesting to say the least as the taxi driver told me (about 6 times) that a taximetered taxi is much better that a txi where you barter the price. This is normally the case unless you tend to bring the passenger on a round the country tour of Bangkok (which this guy decided to do.) At least I know that Bangkok consists of an awful lot of interconnected highways!
      I decided to hang out with a couple of local people while I was in the area... Thanks for meeting up with me Suree [Thanks for the chat] and B. I am sorry if I was a bit quiet though as I had my mind on different matters like getting that visa!  I was nice to see an authentic local market where you could buy some threads and design your own garments (if you wanted to)
       I had to get that visa and to do this, I had to find out the location of the Chinese embassy in Bangkok. There are a few local kiosks around the Siam malls and the girls in the kiosks were more than happy to give me directions to get to the embassy. From what I could see, I had to get a local bus then , a MRT train followed by a local train to get to the  place. I wished I was ready for all the questions afterwards though. The first time I went to the embassy (I went there at 9.30 in the morning and there was a queue around the block. There had just been a 7 day festival taking place in China so there was a bit of a backup.), they looked for photocopies of everything followed by a letter from somebody in China. So, After I gathered these together,
       I went back the following day and they looked for a return flight or an onward journey. I didn't realise it at the time but there was a rule if you flew from Thailand that you had to have an onward journey. This applied specifically to Thailand. So, I had to buy a ticket to Hong Kong at some stage in the future. Ah well.....Third time lucky!!!
On the third day, I went back into the office and they collected all my paperwork and told me to come back in 4 days (I had 4 days left before the flight anyway....if I had 3 they would charge for express delivery and there is an express,espress delivery if you want the visa on the day of the flight,Anyway- they took my details and I was free to go somewhere for a few days. While queuing up on the second day, I started talking to a girl who was looking for a working visa for China [She was looking for the express express visa] . She mentioned that she was from Pattaya and that it's a cool place to visit. I thought to myself, if I hae the time, I might as well go here as it's only 2-3 hours from Bangkok anyway. I had heard of the place before but I couldn't pinpoint where I had heard of this place. )  I decided to head off down there and see what it was like anyway...
         The journey to Pattaya took 3 hours. When we arrived, I got a motorbike as the  hotel was very difficult to find. The guy on the scooter got lost (This is a common occurance,I never realised that many people do not recognise their own cities! To be honest, I would include myself in that as anybody who has asked me about directions could attest to.)
         Anyway, I found the hotel and there was a swimming pool there! yay!. I had a go at swimming and I bumped into a girl from Liverpool (Louisa) who was here as she had to bail her brother out of a Thai prison ...ouch...the brother nicked some champagne and cheese and got checked into the local clink. Louisa was told that beating occur pretty frequently in those places.Note to self: never get too drunk and take some food/drink. That's one place I NEVER want to visit!
    I went for a foot massage just to see how different it is to the course that I took. I must have been a bit annoying to the lady giving the message  when I started telling her that it was better to put all her her fingers through all my toes at one point as it is much better.. Anyway, it was VERY different to the course that I took....She gave a bit of  a head massage and for some reason a hair massage!!!
      I had a quick look at the T'V (something that I have avoided for the most art over the last few months) and happened to see the 'Pattaya' channel. Then, I realised where I had seen this before. This place is like (or what I imagine as I have never been there) Ibiza. I started wondering what that girl at the Chinese embassy was talking about!
      Later that evening, i headed out for a walk and got lost ....again...after finding my bearings, I went to a bar and chatted away to a girl called Nim and her friends who were all working in the bar. She was saying that she worked in a factory for 5 years but it closed (but not permanently) last year due to floods so they give her money to keep her on a retainer I guess until the job is there again.Nim seemed like a cool girl as she understood most of what I said but to be honest, her job was getting people into the bar and spending money so it was kind of difficult to have any kind of conversation with her without realising that she is only talking to you (and by you , I mean me) as I was drinking at the bar.!! The only thing was, I wasn't really in the mood for drinking so I only had a couple of beers. Wen Nim saw that I was never going to drink much, she started a normal conversation and I became an agony uncle....I can't believe I became an agony uncle ton a gogo girl.... I need to get to China and fast!!
       I went on to another bar . These places are even tackier as the girls are there pretty much to entice you into the places but they are all over you when you walk by the bars...I have never seen so many older men (When I say older, I mean guys in their late 50's to late 60's age range) looking for younger women here.It does look a bit odd. I went back to the other bar where Nim had actually kept some pad Thai (I thought it  was supposed to be the other way around where I give food/drink to the girls but it was fine by me as I needed a bit of grub!) It was interesting to listen to her though. Apparently, her dad died 6 years ago and her husband died 2 years later ,2 months after she gave birth to their child (Garfield) . I haven't a clue if this was true but to be honest, she did seem fairly cut up when she was recounting stories and it seemed like she genuinely wanted to chat. (Unlike some of the other people in the bar who seemed to be throwing faces!)
        Anyway, the next morning, I went for a thai massage (I had always gone for a foot one before this time) and I heard the neck cracking.I think the woman who was giving the massage got a bit of a shock when I jumped up as it freaked me out (even if it did not hurt!). The message itself was very tough in comparison the the foot massage. The woman must be exhausted afterwards as there is a lot of stretching and putting knees to the back and stretching but it was a good massage to try and I was not paralysed by the crack in the neck (which was a bonus.)

Monday 15 October 2012

Kratie (where the dolphins reside)


             As I got on the main bus from Phnom Penh to Kratie, I started chatting to Danielle ....she taught in Korea and has traveled all over the world including London and japan/china...She was about to head on to Laos and then at some point hit Myanmar. She mentioned that it can cost up to 25 dollars a night to stay there.It was 5 dollars 3 years ago but since then the government there have a rule whereby foreigners have to stay at specific hotels and the hotels have copped on to this and have started really jacking up the prices. Ouch!!
              At the same time, Myanmar will change entirely within the next 10 years as it opens up to the public. I was told that 12-13 years ago, it was very hard to get into Cambodia and Laos but now it's quite easy to enter these countries. As a complete aside to this train of thought, it's a pity that most travelers skip the Philippines as it's easily as nice as the other countries (baring in mind I only BARELY saw a part of Luzon.) If they could extend the tourist visas from 21 days to something like 3 months (similar to Malaysia) they would increase tourism in a HUGE exponential manner....
             Anyway, On our journey, we stopped in 2 places for some grub...This stopping and starting
on buses is very familiar at this stage in time!

So, this was why I came to Cambodia...
nice tractor but in case you don't like this one




Here is a Jinma



        We arrived in kratie near 4 so it was a bit late to do anything.I ended up just walking around and waving to have the town. The town itself is a bit of a wild western town. Lots of people sitting outside shops staring at you. I had my checked shirt on and I heard one of the locals shout 'yee, haw' as I walked by him.
          I have never seen so many women wear pyjamas in the middle of the day. To be honest, it doesn't really look too tacky as the weather can  get quite hot and they are loose fitting clothes.
      I bumped into Danny later on and discussed U.S football college with her over a beer at the 'sun setting' restaurant. The owner of the bar was an american dude who came to Cambodia originally in the year 2000.     He was telling us that there were no tuktuks there at that point and there was only one (bad) main road in the whole country. He would travel everywhere by boat. It's amazing to think that there was no such things as tuktuks in places like Siem Reap as there is not much else there apart from Angkor Wat 6km down the road...So , that whole place basically exploded in the last 12 years. ( If the government continue to not do anything as regards regulation, that place WILL be dodge city within the next 5 years.)
          So, in 12 years, they have created a lot of new infrastructure. Nobody really had any decent cars either.The retauranteur was a bit of an entrepreneur also as he was trying to flog the....ahem....'guys of Kratie ' - 2012 calendar. To be honest,I wasn't interested in that one too much. (sorry, Mary Claire - I should have
bought you a calendar!!!)
           Anyway,I bumped into Ben also, He mentioned playing a few songs  in one of the pubs.It sounded really good and i had every intention of going but then i got into a blog and forgot the time...dang (Actually, I was on my way out around 10pm but they had the gates locked. This really is the countryside. The place shuts down at a certain time and i you're not back, tough luck!!!)
         The next day,I rented a motorbike off the guy that works here. The speedometer doesn't work, the

left indicator is broken and the wing mirrors aren't hectic but apart from that ,it was fine. I headed off in the direction of  Wat sarsar mouy roy. I took a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately,I was in no rush to see anything so I took it easy and went to a local shop where I bought a lot of sugar based cakes ,bananas and water. It was hard to talk to the woman as I do not know any khmer words (well, I do know 'chung moi' -cheers! but that is no real help here) but the sign language was fine! She was more than happy to sell me some stuff at the local prices which was nice. To be honest, I don't mind paying the unofficial tourist prices here as the locals are strugging for anything , all the time.

Bananas are the food that keeps me going!!




       I headed back in the opposite direction and at one point there was a fork in the road.
I know the Dolphins can be seen at Kampi.
Now, to find them I might need some help



Maybe they don't swim under the bridge?


I wanted to see the Iriraddy dolphins at Kampi but I also wanted to see the temple so the temple was the place to go! I headed off in that general direction and I reached the temple a half hour later (after stopping to put some petrol in the tank and avoiding some obstacles along the way.

I better stop or I will be knocked off the bike by the buffalo



Warning people off illegal fishing activities



Some local boats parked and ready for some (presumably) illegal fishing!


A volleyball court here (seems like a massive sport in this country)




            They have homemade petrol tanks here . Nearly every third house has got one and they're REALLY handy!).
These 'Petrol stations' are everywhere along the road.
They're really cool though (I think I paid for a dollars worth of petrol at one point.)
I doubt if I will EVER do that back home!



        I had a quick walk around the village of Sambour. Apart from the usual shouts of 'hello!', one of the local guys was trying out his English. He was pretty good as I ended up buying toothpaste off his stall.Another woman was selling cakes so i grabbed one off her. It looks like quite a few people double up their stalls as their houses (This happened a fair bit in Indonesia also.)
                  The temple itself was ok. I think I have been lucky enough to see so many temples and this one has a sad history as Pol Pot demolished it 30 years ago after it had stood for 350 years. They rebuilt it and here are some pics of the place.
View from the ground of the temple.
Note the statues under the roof




The temple in all its glory




The roof of the temple




Inside the temple itself



You can always find animals roaming about everywhere!



Odd looking shrine here




Who are you looking at?




Swampland behind the 100 pillar temple


            I drove back to Kampi and met two guys that I had a brief conversation with on the bus yesterday. One of them mentioned that it would be cheaper if I could find someone to go on the boat with me.... As it happened, a scouse couple cycled onto the premises and a deal was cut!! This is the first time on any of my travels that I have met anyone from the Liverpool area. They have class accents!!!
           As for the actual trip to see the dolphins, we weren't too lucky. The boat man drove us out for around 45 minutes and we saw plenty of dolphins but they were a good distance from the boat and they didn't spend too much time above water.
More warning signs around Kampi
These seem to be everywhere , even off the beaten track



We hired a boat like this one and the driver drover out for about 1 hour while we observed the dolphins jump around the boat (maybe a distance of 9 metres from us.) It was pretty cool but very quiet.
Nice though



This was as close as I got to catching a dolphin on camera.
They were impossible to picture as they were too quick (and my camera phone would not be the best quality either)!!


            At the same time, it was nice to sit there, enjoying nature and listen to the couple talk of their experiences in China,Nepal, Vietnam and all the other countries they had visited. The dolphins were too tricky for us as we never really got a good picture :-(
            I headed back to the hotel and  i was cutting the petrol tight...the indicator was almost down to 'E'. The indicator was definately working but I guessed I would have been ok as there are so many homemade petrol stations dotted everywhere throughout Kratie. The police were out in force with their whistles to direct traffic (They remind me of those cr*ppy teenage discos of yore where you would always have someone with a whistle blowing constantly in your ear.aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!)
            Fortunately, I was wearing a helmet and the side mirrors looked safe enough so they waved\whistled me on. I resisted the urge to high five them!
            Later that evening, I decided to head to the hostel where Ben and Rhianna were staying (I have forgotten the name but I did look for the place when I arrived initially. The thing was, The woman who showed me around couldn't really speak English and I really wanted some help as regards renting a bike so I moved to a different hotel. As a side note, if you come here, the place is FULL of hotels. You can ignore the tuktuk drivers at the bus stop and just walk anywhere. there are only 3 streets here so it's tiny and people will help you out as you stand out like  sore thumb here. But , as per usual, the hostel doesn't really make the plce but the people you meet in the hostel!! ) I found the guys jamming with another guy (James) outside the hostel and they were having a bit of a session. Both James and Ben are singers (both from close to Bristol) and they kept going and going until their voices \fingers started to crack! [They played outside as the rains has subsided for  the evening and once it doesn't rain, there's nothing better than sitting outside in the evening time!] The owner of the hostel  (who went by the name of King Mao) even joined in and a few other tourists heard the music and hung around also! (One of those guys was the guy that told me about that card scam in Phnom Penh)  So, it was a pretty good night (some of the locals kept driving up and down the road as I am not sure if they were familiar with some of the songs! There was another guy who just hung around but Mao told us to keep our distance from him as he was a bit of a dealer.) Anyway, there was a footie match on later that evening and my hostel had already shut for the night so I ended up going back to the guys hostel and sleeping there for a couple of hours!!! (Thanks for not letting me sleep on the floor Mao, I would have been crippled by the mosquito bites!)
           Anyway, it was time to move on..... back to Siem Reap and Poipet and into Bangkok again to sort out my Chinese visa!!!! I heard that there was a 10km race there also and I haven't ran one of those this year so I signed up for that one...
Anyway,  Onwards and upwards!!

Wednesday 3 October 2012

Phnom Penh : warning : some pics could be disturbing....also, a betting scam sidestepped...just

          The journey to Phnom Penh wasn't too bad as I got chatting to a dutch girl during the bus breaks so that broke the monotony of the journey. She had contacted some kind of virus in Battambang so spent 5 of her 7 days there stuck in bed.She was just going to Phnom Penh for one day before carrying on with her travels...cool!
          Anyway, I Went to a cheap hotel but didn't see any people there.I decided to stay for one night just to have a rest . In the morning after the tours,  i could  move on to another hotel.(The stay ok hotel )
          The next morning,I visited the killing fields (Choeung Ek)and then the genocide museum [Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum] . It was some experience that the locals really want to learn from. I never knew there was an overthrow of the king in 1970 and civil war ensued until '75. Soldiers marched on the streets one day (April 17th 1975) ad the locals cheered them on ,not knowing what was about to happen for the next 3.5 years. The Genocide museum shows pics of many of the inmates who were murdered.

                                               The Killing Fields (Choeung Ek)

Site of the killing fields of Choeung Ek.
If you do come here, Listen to the audio if you can.
It's REALLY sad though


Skulls of the slaughtered
The clothes that they wore can be seen on the bottom section here






This was used to damage\ inflict injury on peoples skin due to its sharp edge


A  lot of the rooms were torn down soon after 1979



At the back of the fields, there are tranquil chairs where you can relax for a couple of minutes and enjoy the view (if that's possible)

More views



The killing tree



The magic tree


                           
                                                         The Genocide museum (S21) :

      After seeing the killing fields, the tuktuk driver drove me to S21. This place contains documented evidence of all the prisoners that ended up here. It's fairly gruesome as they show some pics of the deceased people also. You can see the various torture methods on display here along with many prison cells.
Here are just a few pics..

 Nothing has changed in this room since it was used all those years ago

Sounds like there was no room for individuality here


Introduction to the torture method that was used below


People would swing from the rafters until almost passing out.
then they would be lowered into the urn full of water



The courtyard
The prison cells are dotted around the courtyard





A view from inside one of the cells (you can touch both sides of the cells at the same time)





Looking down the corridor



This place was very tough to observe. The soldiers must have been warned a few times about running away and the consequences of that but it was very tough to see all those faces (prisoners) staring t the camera and there was no descrimination with age. I was relieved to leave this place as so much horrible stuff happened there. The Cambodians keep places like these open such that stuff like this will never happen again.
       
              On a completely different note, The tuktuk driver got bored while I was looking around the area so when I came out of S21, he was nowhere to be seen.At least, I recognised his vehicle...as the rains were back in force. 20 minutes later, up he popped wondering where I was!

This was 45 minutes rainfall




I reckon I needed to clean my head so I went for a jog around the area. While going for the jog, I took a few snaps of the local monuments.

The market is that way!



Independance monument



The lights close to the independance monument at nighttime



And they change colour!


The old mixing with the new
Note the TV screen beside the wat



I just went to a local foodshop where I was able to buy tonnes of stuff with some iced tea thrown in
The omelettes over here go well with chilli sauce!


Guys playing keepy uppy with a small ball
looks a bit like hacky sack
Very common pasttime here


This is the seafront where everything happens in Phnom Penh
(especially being accosted by 4,000,000 tuktuk drivers\drug dealers\pimps\etc)


nice pic by the riverside



keeping Phnom Penh safe from something (I guess)



Dance party (Phnom Penh style)


Look, the best thing about Asia is the street markets!


Quail anyone?
Actually, tasted good


This is what the street looks like to e when I do not wear my glasses



Harry Potters dinosaur made an appearance here

          After I changed hostels, I went for a walk down by the lakeside. At one point, I encountered 6 tuktuk drivers within 100 meters  (not an exageration) and the amount of things they were offering me compsred to the guys in Siem Reap was stunning. I didn't know you could buy opium anywhere!  It's really annoying when they see someone harrassing you but then, they will come over to you STRAGHT after the last guy had harassed you and try to sell anything to you. It got really annoying but you have to remember, these people do have nothing....EVERYTHING seems to be for sale here. I can't remember it being this bad in any country . Getting off ther bus, they would shout at you to get you a good deal for a hotel or to get you a cheap tuktuk journey to a hotel. During a jog , when I appear to be on the verge of feinting while i am jogging, I would get 3 or 4 people coming up to me looking for money.During a tuktuk tour, the driver would ask if i wanted to go to a shooting range (to be honest, that would be my least favourite place in the world to visit) so I wsould firmly say no before he would still drive in that direction. Some tuktuk drivers would shout at you as soon as you left the hostel and this would happen the whole way up the street....aaarrrrggghhhh!!! at least some of thr tuktuk drivers seemed genuinely friendly. One guy started chatting to me about my lakeside t-shirt wondering if i had bought it here. I had picked up on the cheap back in Ireland but he told me that there was a lakeside place a few years ago before the ''assholes' of a government decided to demolish it infavour of an apartment complex. progress, how are you!!
            Some people have a good way to get my attention though,   A woman who was trying to get me to come to her restaurant said to 'to go to her bar' and then said, 'theres a hairdressing place upstairs also'...I had to ask her again to repeat the last part as I didn't expect someone to say that!!

            I went for a walk this morning. i was looking for an all you can eat buffet but I did not see any around :-(
          At one stage , I sat by a park bench and a Cambodian girl (maybe 20 years old) shouted over at me... I  went over to her and she told me about her lifestory. She was living destitute on the streets. She finished school when she was 11 but she had a good grasp of the English language as well as Khmer and Vietnamese and she had a really dark sense of humour.... She had to work as 'a lady' when she was finished with school and she had a fierce sore throat...I didn't really know what to say to her
but she seemed like a nice girl who was unlucky in life. She said she was able to make money out of the barang (foreigners) and that's how she made her income. She actually looked in a bad way.Apart frm being malnorished, she had a chipped tooth. I hate taking pity on people as  pity is a cr*p emotion. I gave her some money and went on my way (That sounds terrible but I didn't know what to say) to her as I guess she was trying to drum up some business at one point.)
          A really weird thing happened to me today, I went to visit the Russian market and when I  got there, I browsed around the area for about 20 minutes before I sat down at the food counter and ordered some noodles. The woman beside me started chatting away to me how she was on holidays with her brother and her friends. She said she was from Kuaka Lumpur but I told
her that she had a strong Filipina accent.She said she was originally from Sabah.(Eastern Malaysia) We were chatting away for a good 1/2 hour while I finished the noodles. She was telling me she had a daughter with a guy who did a runnuer with his family to the states.She proceeded to show me pics of her daughter and asked if I would be interested in coming over to her place so her daughter could chat   to a European. As I had nothing better  to do, I said 'ok' and herself,her friend and I headed back to her place. When I arrived there, her brother started chatting to me about the usual stuff, 'what are you doing here?' 'what sport do you like?' 'why do you walk in the rain and refuse to use a tuktuk (That one is specific to me!)?'. Then he told me his trade was working on a cruise ship and would I like to see a few tricks (but not to tell anyone) At this point, I recall one guy I met back in Indonesia (Sam) told me about a friend of his who was invited back to a house to play some friendly games of cards and ended up being scammed out of A LOT of money. I started to become suspicious. The guy brought me into his bedroom and his friend sat down beside me. He started showing me some tricks like predicting the next card in the deck. This was cool. Then, he got the chips out on the table.At this point, I REALLY started smelling a rat. I told him that I am not playing for money but he insisted on showing me the tricks anyway (poker tricks).After showing me the tricks he mentioned that a guy 'Assiss' had won a lot of money the day before and he wanted to make money back off him and we can easily make money off this guy.(Oh yeah, before he started talking about assiss, he mentioned that I could pay a visit on his ship and we could work in tandem to win big on the poker. He would put in 5000 , i would put in 5000 and we could make 200,000 no problem.
            Now, I used to mess about on paddypower.com betting site at one time and I played the 'hi-lo' game.I put 100 euro in the account and at one point , my account was worth 650 euro. Then, I decided to try to win more by betting higher. I lost the 650 euro in less than 2 hours. I had never felt so crap in my life .At that point, I decided not to bet again if possible (I never want to go to Vegas!!!))
             Anyway, back to the guy, I told him about my hi-lo story after he mentioned the $5000 -$5000 money scenario. He then told me , 'no problem' , he will put all the money in and we can work together to make a fortune .I would take 30% ,he would take 70%. I smelled a pile of rats at this stage. All I wanted to do was get out of the house. In fact, I was wondering if they had put something in the tea. Actually, I wondered that for a second but then i drank the tea because I was thirsty! Anyway, once he saw my reaction to his 70-30 idea, he wanted to show me how easy it was to make money. So he turned to the friend who was sitting beside me and she got really excited. I think she had done this before. He got two 100 dollar bills out of his pockets and gave 1 to me and 1 to her. He mentioned Assiss would be over today and when he comes over ,pretend that the woman sitting beside me is my tour guide...At this point, I threw the 100 dollars back to him and stood up. He continued talking like Paul Mckenna (the hypnotist guy) in a relaxed manner. He ushered me out of the room and we had a brief 2 minute chat about football before the motorbike came to pick me up and drop me back to the hostel. That was the weirdest couple of hours that I have experienced on my travels AND I never got to see the original womans daughter (assuming she existed!!)
        I almost forgot, during the intial part of our conversation, I told him about the scams that were pulled at the turn of the century as regards premier league football - e.g: bet that a match finishes 2 - 0. After 60 minutes, if the score was 2-0, somebody would break the floodlights. The game would be abandoned but the result would still stand as long as the game lasted over 60 minutes...Another one was...who would be the first person to kick the ball into touch.Lots of footballers deliberately kicked
into touch on kickoff. I guess these bets no longer exist but the guys eyes really lit up when I told him about this. I was kind of surprised he didn't know the floodlight failure one as it originated from Malaysian crooks and he claimed he was Malaysian. To be honest, once I saw him throw 200 dollars on the table,nothing could keep me at that house for longer than 5 minutes! Baring in mind I kept telling him about scam stories, I guess he knew he was wasting his time with me...I hope someone else doesn't fall for it.
            Addendum:
        A few days after this happened , I was staying at a place called Kratir and I mentioned what happened to a guy who has been living in Phnom Penh for the last 7 months. He was telling me that this is a common scam in Phnom Penh (instigated by Filipino gangs) where someone hangs hangs around a market and then they get you back to their place where you get fed some kind of drug which makes you relax and they manipulate the money out of you. It is quite common for them to pocket $5,000 at a time.  They get their money by frogmarching you to an atm where you hand over the money and you are too drowsey from the drugs to know what you are doing. While I was telling the guy my story, i mentioned to him about the cups f tea and he said, yeah - they were probably putting something in the tea....dang, i guessed that myself - but I was thirsty at the time!! I said to him that I was in control most of the time, then he said that the guy could have been concealing a weapon ....i replied .....hhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm
Let's just say I got lucky with that one.(In case you are wondering ,the tricks that he showed were pretty run of the mill tricks anyway but I was happy to be driven as far away from that house as possible by the motorcycle driver!! Even when I was on the back of the bike, I wasn't really convinced the guy was taking me back to the hotel but alls well that ends well!!)
Phnom Penh is some place but I think it's best to move on. The palace seems to take over half the cty and the other half is a combination of pollution/floodwater/pimps/prostitutes/market stalls and tuktuk cars (which apprently only arrived in this country after the year 2000.)
      Onwards to a town called Kratie where I hear they have dolphins and other bits and pieces..
p.s: I have started seeing a few people more than once again so I am back on the well worn trail! I bumped into Ben and Rhianna here and I hae no doubt ill bump into them again once I reach Kratie.