Cambodia

Sosidei (hello in Khmer)

So once again i haven't written for a long time! :/
We have now been in Cambodia for almost two weeks and the last time i updated was in ho chi Mihn.. but oh well! There is not much i can do.. So I'll update it now and write about our adventures in Cambodia!

In Cambodia we have been travelling with Katharina (a German girl who met in Halong bay) and it has been fun! We met up with her in Ho Chi Mihn city.

The three of us crossed the border by bus and arrived in Phnom Pehn. With our backpacks on our backs (quite full now and therefore a bit heavier than the starting weight) we decided to walk to the guesthouse that we wanted to stay at. It was warm, we were tired but we got to the guesthouse of our choice and found a room (2 dollars each per night!) The room was basic and completely fine but we just need a bed, mosquito net and a bathroom! The guesthouse had a great location! It was right by a lake and had a deck where one could relax during the day or watch the sunset. We lived in the backpacker area which was a road with restaurants, some bars and if you walked very far down the road where one would think the was nothing to see, we found some yummy cake!
Apart from eating we also did some sightseeing..
We went to the royal palace and to a pagoda within this palace called the SILVER PAGODA. It sounds really nice right? The description in my lonely planet book made it sound amazing (it was nice) but not as great compared to some of the other things I have seen.. but oh well.
We also went to the Psar Thmei (central market) and haggled a little off everything. bought a watch there since i have none and i keep asking Maya for the time :P the unlucky thing is that now i have lost it again!
But the day that shook me the most was our day when we went to the killing fields and the s21 (also known as the tuol sleng) I was shocked when i heard about the Khmer rouge who for about less than 40 years ago killed around 2 million people. They had set their mind to killing all the intelligent people (doctors, teachers etc.) even if you used glasses you were killed! This was a terrible mass murder that i have never heard about! neither had Maya and she had a lot more history in high school than me! The killing fields is where they (well you understand..) and s21 was a school which had been transformed into a prison. It was a shocking day for us but now i know about it! scary to think that it only happened 40 (or a bit less) years or so...

After all the sightseeing we relaxed one afternoon at the deck of our guesthouse. We saw a local putting out his fishing net in the water. A few minutes later i saw another rowing boat coming towards our deck and i knew at once that it wasn't locals... there were 2 guys in the boat and they both had a strange looking oar. One had a long stick with a part of the fan attached to the end and the other guy used a dust pan as an oar. they stopped at our deck to get some water out of the boat ( it was quite full of water) and we found it quite funny! they had borrowed a boat from their guesthouse and had rowed around using their strange utensils! We ended up watching the sunset with those guys over a few beers and they were nice guys but the boat was so comical to see all of a sudden on the lake!

We spent a couple of days in Phnom Pehn and we continued our trip down to Sihanoukville (famous for its beaches..) Initially we hadn't really thought of going there but we were recommended to go there by the 2 danish girls we met in Nha Trang.
We stayed at Victory Beach in a cheap guesthouse (here in Cambodia one can find really cheap accommodation so why not exploit that?) The beach in itself was okay but the place we stayed was quite interesting and quite gross. The room in itself was nice it was just the people were... old. there were many old people there and when sitting at the Internet (too slow in sihanoukville..) at night one could see men (plural) bringing taxi girls (prostitutes) to their hotel rooms! and there wasn't only one or two... But other than that it was a cheap place to stay where we based our trips from...
We did of course go to the beach a couple of days to work on our tan :P One day we went to Otres (or close to Otres not sure) where it was nice! But on the way back to our hotel we had a scary experience.. We lived quite far away from Otres and had to take a tuktuk back... We found a tuktuk and agreed on a price. After having driven maybe 1 or 2 minutes the tuktuk stops and the driver starts checking something. We see that there is some type of liquid pouring down on the ground and we thought it was gasoline so we jumped out of the tuktuk and said that we didn't want to take it because it was unsafe... We didn't want to pay for that short distance and the driver became so mad and when we started walking he followed us yelling at us.. We ended up going into a store and asking for help because we found it uncomfortable and i didn't know what to do.. We ended up paying him a little and he left.. I guess you have to pay even though you are only driven part of your way to your destination...

One night we ended up playing pool for a couple of hours. it was fun! first the 3 of us played against each other but then a drunk old danish guy (completely harmful) wanted to play with us.. he was teamed up with katharina and it was funny because he was drunk! Later i was teamed up with a Swedish carpenter and he ended up shooting the black ball into one of the holes really early in the game (so we lost :( ) It was a fun night!

The beach that we all thought was the nicest in sihanoukville was the one we went on during a boat trip (with bad snorkeling once more). The island was called BAMBOO ISLAND and the beach was PERFECT! Whote sand, clear water! It was great! GO THERE!

Now we are in siem riep and staying in a dorm for 1 dollar (consists of a mattress, pillow etc and a mosquito net) it is totally fine and very comfy!

We have now spent two days exploring ANGKOR WAT and it is so B-E-A-utiful! There are so many temples to see and it is amazing! I especially enjoyed Ta Phrom (might be the wrong name) where part of tomb raider was filmed and BAYON (the highlight for me) Ta Phrom has been left as it was found with many trees growing into the temple! Bayon is famous for the 216 faces and they are so great!
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND TO GO TO SIEM RIEP!

We are going to stay here for 1 more day before we head to Thailand (Bangkok). We will stay in Bangkok for 1 or 2 nights before we head towards the islands.. It is quite possible that i will take my diving license!

Hope all is well where ever you are!