Cambodia

So, after an unfortunately brief stop at Siem Reap (although we felt we knew it rather well from all our cycling and market going) we made our way across to Phnom Penh. Fortunately, we met this girl on the bus who had been stuck there for 3 weeks and showed us all the best restaurants and an amazing hotel so we did very well here! It is very different to the rest of Cambodia that we've seen, very much like a capital and a lot of traffic.

Unfortunately, due to the type of touristing we did, this was quite a depressing stop. We visited both the 'Killing Fields' and S-21, the prison in Phnom Penh. The first was particularly moving, it was quite tastefully done with a very good audio guide, but it was pretty horrific listening. Without wanting to go into too much detail, bullets were expensive, so people were killed in shockingly violent ways. There was also a great deal of evidence of what had happened before, and it kept surprising me how recent this was. That and the fact that it entailed everybody in a country for three years. Cat and I are now keen to find out more about how Pol Pot's rule managed to come about and what exactly happened from 1979 to 1993 (Cambodian museums/guidebooks etc all very vague about this!). I found S 21 less distressing, although there were still some rooms left pretty much as they had been found, only without the bodies, and then photos that showed exactly how they had been found. All round a bit grim. Fortunately, Wat Phnom (small temple on the hill) and some excellent Khmer food cheered us up, but generally a pretty sober day.

From Phnom Penh we went on to Battambang, the second biggest city. This is a bit different because there are some French colonial bits still around. It also significantly smaller adn less developed than Phnom Penh. We tuk tuked a little out of town to the bamboo train that is about to close in 3 months for a real train, which is such a shame because it's really fun! You sit on a sort of raft of bamboo on top of wheels and with a little engine and whizz through some jungly bits at 20mph, which feels pretty fast when you're about a foot off the ground and there a loud clunks when there's a gap in the rails... Plus you're sat on a raft. When someone comes the other way, you get off, pick up the bamboo, take off the wheels and let them past! At the other end there were a whole bunch of kids playing with grass bracelets and enormous umbrella like leaves in the rain.

Following that, we were persuaded to go to a circus raising money for children in the area, performed by children in the area.  There is a school of 1400 of them and they get educated and trained in music, art or circus performance. The art was pretty cool but the circus was incredible! They did amazing things jumping off each other and standing on each other's shoulders three people high, balanced on four cylinders all at the age of 14-17. Plus they made enough little mistakes that it was really terrifying to watch!

Cambodia has been a bit of a quick loop in order to fit into Cat's plans, which is a bit of a shame as I have really enjoyed it. At one point I considered teaching here a bit, which would have been quite fun because the children are GREAT. I don't know if it's because they have nothing to play with and are therefore imaginative and amusing, or if it's because I can't understand them when they bicker, or if they just look cute, but they really are! There are also rather a lot of them as the mean age here is 22.

Anyway, back to Bangkok and then some Thai beaches...