Cambodian Carnage
So after three weeks in Thailand with Jen Kate and then my Mum I met up with Liz & Hari ready to tackle the rest of SE Asia. After Thailand Touring we decided to stick with the alliteration theme and dubbed the trip Cambodian Carnage.

Opting out of the 16 hour bus ride we decided to cheat and fly to Phenom Penh, where we met our tour guide Scott who we helped illegal smuggle on to the plane (his ticket wouldn't scan). After talking with Scott it was pretty clear we hadn't really researched much about Cambodia, what to do, where to go, what the currency was so we volunteered him to be our tour guide for the rest of trip. He even offered to lend us 20 American dollars each for our border fee, which i think he regretted once he realised that he didn't actually know our names or details yet, but after a few jokes that this was our game plan all along we just got money out of an ATM and returned his money. Much to the dismay of Scott we also made friends with the border staff, trying to learn and practice our Khmer (Cambodian Language) on them. (He thinks you're supposed to be serious at a border lol.)

Cambodia uses dollars due to the after effects of the Khmer rouge in the 1970s, wiping out their national bank and their currency and the United nation forces injected a large quantity of U.S. dollars into the local economy. [I only Wikipedia'd halff of this]

So with our new guide in tow we squeezed into a Tuk Tuk and made for our hostel. Still seen as a third world country Cambodia is even less developed than China, the roads are uneven and rocky and many wear masks to avoid the dust, which made for an interesting ride.

Arranging to meet up with Scott later We arrived at Homeland Guest House in Phenom Penh, dropped our bags and went to explore. Typically, not really being able to use our map we'd been given, we got lost, gave up on what we were trying to find got a tuk tuk home and started getting ready for the night out. We met up with Scott and John and started off the night at banana bar. the girls dedicated the night out to my Birthday which was 5 days before, and got the whole bar to sing Happy Birthday to me as well as scoring us some free shots and drinks. A pub crawl from one of the surrounding hostels then came into the bar so we decided to jump onto to it and move onto the next bar when they did. I'm not quite sure how we managed it but after hijacking the pub crawl we then ended up leading it, decided which bars to take everyone in. Elizabeth even managed to make everyone leave one of the bars after a member of the staff was slightly rude to her lol. We ended the night in an 80s bar (which only actually played 90s music) having pool competitions (in which i was technically undefeated;) )

During the night we started talking about Cambodia and listening to peoples advice on what things to check out and the main consensus was to check out the Killing fields. People were actually surprised that we had never heard of it so we arranged to meet up with Scott the next day, and check it out.
The Killing fields, as you can probably guess by the title, was heartbreaking. Its a grave site of 2 - 3 million innocent Cambodians who were brutally executed under the leadership of Pol Potts during the Khmer Rouge regime of 1975-1979. The site holds skulls and clothing fragments of its victims, those of which include women & children. There is a tree in the middle of the site where its told the soldiers smashed the heads of babies and children believing that "to kill out the plant you had to also kill the root" Pol Potts did this to his own people because he believed in order to start a new communist revolution he needed to kill those of intelligence. Anyone who could speak a foreign language, teacher, monks even those who wore glasses were brought to these fields to be beaten, tortured or buried alive.
As you can imagine we were majorly depressed coming out of it, and were in major need of some cheering up. So we met back with John and went for dinner at the Riverside before heading to a bar where John kindly gave us a history lesson on Vietnam so we could be better prepared for when we head there. We said goodbye to our Tour guides and the next morning left Phenom Penh and took a 6 hour bus to Siem Reap.

Siem Reap.
We arrived In Siem Reap and made our way to the Okay Villa which was amazing (highly recommend). After our journey we just chilled by our rooftop pool all day until the night and then made our way to Pub street. We are in the low season of Vietnam now so pub street wasn't as busy as I imagine it could be but we decided to do a pub crawl anyway and made our way down through the bars finishing of in Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat is the name of one of Cambodia's most famous tourist attractions, named as one of the man made wonders of the world. We booked a trip to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat and then to visit all the various temples that make up the complex. Despite the early start we made in to the sunrise though it wasn't as good as we'd expected due to it being overcast. It was however hilarious to see two brits that had stayed up from their night out, and come to see the sunrise, equipped with a bottle of whiskey and a spliff, they looked like they had come of the set of Shameless. They did provide us with a lot of entertainment.

After sunrise we started to explore but we didn't actually know alot about the place, and didn't really think to get a tour guide. We found out it was built in the 12th century so it was over 900 years old. The walls are all carved into incredible patterns and are supposed to tell a story. There were so many of these temples and it must have taken years and alot of labor to build that we'd assumed it was for some sort of King. We found out however that they were temples used for praying and celebrations, originally Hindu temples but changed to Buddhism in the late 13th century. After we finished the tour we made our way back to the hostel, and waited for our bus to take us to Vietnam.

Cambodia was a flying visit (5days), which we had only done as it was on the way to Vietnam preferring to spend more of our time there. I am so glad however that i got to visit it as I loved it, and felt it was worthy of a blog as it was a new and different country.

But for now time to head to Vietnam to start our adventure there.
Much love

P.s Missing you Em, blogging isn't as fun without you!
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx