Happy Traveler: Cambodia

This is entry is SO late.

We entered into Cambodia with no problems and arrived in Phnom Penh and checked into a hotel on the northwestern side of town. It was a great area, a little far from town, but good food nearby and within walking distance to some good spots. In PP, we did the normal touristy stuff, walked around, bought a lot of sunglasses, ate good food, etc. Two things that did stick out was going to the killing fields and going to the S21 museum. The museum was originally a school, that was converted into a prison/ torture chamber during the 1970's Pol Pot regime. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were taken here before they were brought to the killing fields where they were excuted and dumped into mass graves. It was hands down one of the most disgusting and depressing things I have seen. When you walk through the killing fields, there are human bones sticking up through the ground!! You can see teeth and parts of skulls and even clothing! It was awful.

On a lighter note, we sang karaoke that night and had a really good time.

We left Phnom Penh and headed south to Kampot and Kep, which are two coastal towns that don't get a lot of visitors. In Kampot, we rented bikes and cruised around the rice paddies, went to a local disco (where me and Tammy were two of maybe 6 girls out of 100 guys). In Kep we had probably the BEST seafood I have had. I got two crabs, squid, shrimp and fish and everything was caught to order and seasoned so well, ugh, it was amazing.

From the south, we headed back up north to Siem Reap, which was once upon a time a very small, sleepy country town, but is now one of the most touristy and developed areas due to the attraction of Angkor Wat. I did not like Siem Reap at all. The local people were jaded by seeing so many tourists and only saw us as money bags. The children were mean and crawled all over you asking for money, but of course you can't be mad because they are children and you know they are forced to do this! It was terrible, i really, really did not like Siem Reap. Plus, my camera got stolen from a drive by moto, which is why all these pictures were taken by other people (Thanks Tammy, Ben and Tom).

However, Angkor Wat is touristy for a reason. It was spetacular. These old temples were massive and so detailed and just absolutely breathtaking. You can spend days going around to all the temples, but we only did two days. The first day we saw the main sites, but the second day, we drove out of town about an hour to Beng Melea which is completely covered in trees and hasn't been restored, so it looks like it did when it was discovered. You got to climb all over the ruins and explore, it was totally awesome and worth the money and time.

From Siem Reap, we headed Battambang, which is a small town closer to the Thai border. I liked this town a lot, hardly any tourists and lots to see. Some highlights are this bamboo train you can pay to ride on. Its just a platform made from bamboo that runs on the train tracks with a motorcycle motor. When another train comes, you get off the bamboo train, take it off the tracks, wait for the train to pass and then get back on. It was really fun.

We also took a cooking class, which of course was delicious and now I have no excuse not to cook up a storm.

We headed back to Bangkok where were stayed near Patpong area. I loved Bangkok, I'll never get tired of it.

And then I headed back to the states.