Cambodia

Cambodia was very different to Thailand considering they share a border. There is a lot more poverty here, one of the first things we were welcomed with were children begging and trying anything to get hold of our money. Our skin now made us stick out like a sore thumb.

Our first stop was Siem Reap which is a small town used purely as a base to see the grand temples of Angkor Wat - one of the wonders of the world. We set off for the temples at 5am, wanting to catch the sunrise though the weather was not on our side and we watched daylight appear behind a grey cloud. The temple though was very grand and absolutely massive. Built in the 8th Century, the stone holding it all together was falling apart and there was scaffolding on many parts of it to keep it all together.

We all explored it in our own time, meeting back outside to travel to the next temple called The Bayan Temple which is famous for it's smiling Buddha statues. The sun came out for us here, and the locals had let this temple age a bit more. Moss was covering most of the stone and many parts were just a crumbled pile. There were also these women dressed in traditional Cambodian wear in the temple, and myself an Holly got several pictures with them - being instructed on how to properly display our hands, twisting them in to strange positions.

Me and William climbed to the top of the Unfinished Temple, which was achieved by climbing up several hundred steps that were tiny and eroded and barely able to house your foot on. Each step had to be very carefully planned unless you wanted to fall very far to the bottom.

The last temple we saw was Ta Phrom. A huge complex that has been completely taken over by these huge bayan trees. Most of the walls and towers being eaten away by a tree, but again we liked that the locals had just let the elements take over the temple. It felt far more real and much prettier.

After a few days in Siem Reap we travelled to the capital of Phnom Penh, which again was not very dissimilar to every other South East Asian city we had been to. Our main reason for coming to the capital was to see the S21 Prison and the Killing Fields.

The S21 Prison was once a school that was taken over by the Khmer Rouge and turned in to a torture house. Anyone who showed any sign of intelligence was arrested and tortured in the prison until their death day where they were transported to the Killing Fields to be killed. The prison was truly horrifying, there was blood still from 40 years ago over the floors and walls and pictures of the state of the bodies the Japanese Army found when they discovered the prison. Out of 20,000 prisoners, only 7 survived and they did not spare women or children either, and the worst part about it all is that the people responsible are still living in Cambodia awaiting trial - no justice at all.

 
The Killing Fields house over 10,000 graves, men, women and children. What was most disturbing is that the rain reveals more of the graves each time, and we stumbled across several bones and pieces of clothing sticking out of the ground not yet retrieved by those in charge. It was a still place, one where you could absorb the horrors inflicted upon these people and one that made you realise how disgusting the entire thing is.

Cambodia will not be leaving our memories anytime soon. It's poverty and horrific history shaping the country, but also it's beauty and wonder easily distracting you from that. It's certainly been an experience, and has been very different from the rest of our time in South East Asia.