Recent and ancient history of Cambodia

As I promised, I would write you about my adventures in Cambodia. As always I try to keep it short and as always, I fail to do so. Let’s see if I succeed this time.
I arrived by night bus in Phnom Penh from Saigon. The bus had reel sleeping compartments, but all were small double beds so I shared my bed with a complete stranger. I didn’t get the luck to end up next to a nice young lady but the guy next to me was from Singapore and was also nice.
Phnom Penh has a modern city center with wide streets, more cars than scooters, nice coffee houses and many young people who speak sufficient English. The official currency is the Riel, but all prices are in US$, which makes it easier but also more expensive than most other countries in SO Asia. Same as everywhere else, I got 10 tuktuk drivers around me the moment I got out of the bus, offering me a special price to bring me to a recommended hotel. Fortunately the area where I wanted to look for a hotel wasn’t too far and the weather not too hot, so I just walked and found a nice hotel room with a own bathroom, though I had to get to my balcony to get to the bathroom. As the room was on the backside of the building, this was not too bad, having some fresh air into the room. Right when I wanted to take a shower, the water supply broke down, so I had to go downstairs to fresh up.
Fresh again I made my way to the Tuol Sleng museum. This used to be a high school for many years until in 1975 the Khmer Rouge started to use it as a prison for the people they believed might be against their extreme communistic political ideas. Many people died here, even more people were transported to the killing fields spread over the country, the closest one being only 15 km away. Walking around the area watching photos from dead and tortured people as they were found after the Khmer Rouge regime left was very intense. The regime kept documentary and photos of all people that came in as prisoners and didn’t manage to delete all these when they fled out of the city towards the Vietnam border. It’s unbelievable that 25% of the Cambodian population was killed within these 4 years of auto-genocide. From Tuol Sleng prison, only about 10 people survived from the hundreds of thousands that were sent in. The weirdest thing I learned here was that Pol Pot and the other Khmer Rouge leaders kept being accepted by the UN as an official political party in the country until more or less 1989 and Pol Pot got a big official state funeral. Anyone who can tell me how this is possible??
Leaving the museum I walked back to my hotel to have time to let the depressive emotions calm down a bit. As I wasn’t really wearing good walking shoes, my feed weren’t happy with this decision. Eventually I found a local guy who wanted to give me a ride to my hotel on his motorbike for $1. Getting back to my room I heard a strange sound in the bathroom. That turned out to be the shower running because the water supply was fixed so the whole bathroom and balcony was soaked in water. Fortunately it was still warm outside so next morning everything was dry again.
Next day I rented a mtb and cycled to the killing field that was outside Phnom Penh. Once you get out of the city center you notice that Cambodia still has a lot of poverty and also that people don’t speak much English anymore.
The killing field area was even more depressing than the old high school. The soil in the area was full of pieces of clothes, human bones and holes that used to be mass graves. There was one tree that’s called killing tree. I better don’t write what happened there but it’s something I’ll never forget.
In the middle of the area stands a memorial, filled with all skulls and bones they found when they discovered this place in 1979.
After this very recent terrible piece of history I traveled on to Siem Reap, the village next to the probably most famous temple complex in Asia, Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is actually just one of the many temple complexes in that area. It’s the biggest complex by itself, but next to it there’s another one called Angkor Thom, which is just a whole city only built for the gods. Depending on the era the temples were used as Hindu or Buddhist temples and both influences are still visible, although the Buddhist influence is most recognizable. When you enter the ancient city from one of the four cardinal directions, you’ll pass a big stone gate with big Buddha faces watching you from above and aside. It is incredible how well preserved most of the statues, carvings, inscriptions, murals and the whole buildings are. This place can definitely compete with cities like Rome and Athens for its ancient beauty and importance. As the area is so big I spent 3 days going around the different complexes. Some of them are getting to be taken over by nature as big tree trunks are growing on and over the walls. If you want to know how this looks, you should watch the Tomb Raider movie that was filmed here.
Because Siem Reap is just a small place, but with many tourists coming for the temples, it is full of tourists. There is even a so called ‘pub street’ which looks like the Khao San Road in Bangkok. Too many people on a small street, a lot of loud music and alcohol. Prices are adjusted to the tourists, unless you walk a little bit more away from the centre. In the area of my backpackers hostel, food was half price, while the sphere much more original. Oh, and the hostel even had a free swimming pool. I’ll give you the address if you’re planning to go there.
So far for Cambodia. Next time back to Thailand again and into Malaysia.