Travel Tales of 2

Well back in Phenom Phen again so decided to see some of its sites this time. We went for a walk round the town found ourselves in the national museum even though we were looking for the S21 museum (still it was a museum!!!). Nice building had loads of stone art which had been rescued from the ankor temples. Went to go to the royal palace but weren’t allowed in - our shoulders weren’t covered (our fault really). The next day we took a trip to a shooting range where we shot an AK47, has a harsh kickback and is really loud. Garrett threw a granade for 30dollars, although he wasn’t happy with the video I shot I missed the ground shaking boom by seconds (I thought it was all over!!). Afterwards we went to the killing fields a reminder of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot regime. It’s scary when you think it all took place only twenty years ago. My moto driver said his family was rich (his dad was a teacher) before the Khmer Rouge took over. They killed his father (had a thing where they hated educated people) and now he and his family are back at the bottom of the social structure. The killing fields were pretty horrific mass graves were uncovered after the Khmer Rouge were overrun, they’ve a hall full of skulls of victims as a reminder of the tragedy.

On a nicer note met some really cool English people at the hostel and ended up going to the olympic stadium were we spent the day diving off the olympic dive boards. The boys all jumped off the highest one think it was 10 meters(32feet.We had great fun throwing the kids in. Went to a friendly soccer match the next day between Cambodia and Vietnam, the Cambodians are really animated they even cheer and shout as their own players run up to the ball as they’re about to take a free - it was great craic. As was expected there were loads of people in Phenom Phen over the weekend for the boat races. We headed down towards the river, there were people going in every direction the boats were zooming down the river and slowly making their way back up to the start at the side of the river pulling in now and again for something to eat (or drink as it was in most cases). It was pretty hard to follow you never knew who was racing who. We sat on the river bank and got some sweets from a really friendly woman with loads of kids. The day ended with a few fireworks not very synchronized but fireworks all the same. They had boats all lit up with symbols that represented the country like the symbol for the king and
ankor. We only stayed for one day of the festival and then it was off to Sinoukville. The beach wasn’t as nice as Ko chang but a beach all the same and it had the extra ingredient (Cattle walking past kicking sand in your face – lovely!! and definitely different). We made a trip to a bunch of waterfalls not far from the town. It was full of Khmer people (cambodians) picnicking. The waterfalls were powerful like getting a really strong massage sitting under some of the smaller ones. The bigger ones felt like you were getting a good kicking. After that our friends from Phenom Phen joined us in Sinoukville, ended up going swimming at twelve o’clock at night. Great craic - found a platform out in the sea not far from the beach which Garrett broke with his pole dancing. On our last day in Sinoukville we went fishing on a local fishing boat. No rods just plastic bottles with line rolled round it. If you catch anything (I caught two fish - pretty impressed with myself) you had to reel it in by hand. After a couple of hours we anchored close to an island lit a fire and cooked what we caught. We had to be careful the rocks were pretty slippery - meself and Garrett both fell!! Wanda caught some crabs so we ate them too. The guy who was with us found some shellfish on the rocks and he cooked them up. All in all a great feast and a great day out. We headed back to the mainland just as the sun was going down and were really impressed already with our day out but more was to come. When we got back to the owners house there was a bit of a session going on which we joined, the beer was good but the coconut rice wine (flavored with sea horses- yes sea horses!!!) was pretty strong stuff. They showed us some Khmer dances and I in turn showed them some irish dancing (well what i could remember - wasn’t much). Really going to miss this country the Khmer people are a lively bunch they even get Garrett’s humor. Well said goodbye to our new friends and headed off to Vietnam. First stop was Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City as it’s also called. The first day we spent recovering from our bus journey (had to go back to Phenom Phen first then to border). The following day we braved the local city buses and made our way to a waterpark (Garretts idea) good fun though.