Sunday, March 27, 2011

Cambodia

ALLO!
we are in Sihanoukville right now (south cambodia, on the Gulf of Thailand). We came here from Phnom Penh yesterday. Unfortunately the weather is still a bit crummy, its been pretty cloudy most of the time we have been in Cambodia (almost a week now) but still hot and still nice.
I guess from the last post we were in Southern Laos...we visited a couple of the islands there which were nice. The first was remote (i think i wrote about it) and very authentic...the second was called Don Det and was definitely a tiny little tourist hub. we only stayed there for one night though because it turned out that there was no ATM or banks anywhere on the islands because of their remoteness, so we had to use our cash to get to Siem Reap while we still had some.
Siem Reap was sweet, we stayed a couple nights there and visited Angkor Wat for sunset (hardly a sunset cause it was cloudy) but then the next morning we woke up at 5am (mad and i slept through our alarm, which we always do, but luckily our friends found us and woke us up). we made it just in time for sunrise, which was pretty amazing, even though we were absolutely exhausted. We hired a tuktuk for the day to drive us to all the different temples at Angkor Wat (they are all very spread out and in different areas). They were unreal though, it would take about 30-45 minutes to go through each one. We would upload some pictures of it but unforutnately our cameras are out of commission (ill elaborate on that in a second). Cambodia gives a very different vibe than Laos considering how close they are to eachtoher, i think the poverty level is around the same, but the people here are much different, and the begging is much more intensee than what we found in laos. Laos was much more laid back. Oh and the prostitution here is pretty wild, soooo many very old men walking around with very young cambodian girls, its really sickening. You see it everywhere, its hard to get over....Anwayys, After visiting Angkor Wat and puttering around Siem Reap for a couple days we left for Phnom Penh.
Phnom Penh even gave a different vibe than Siem Reap...probably to do with all of its history, but again there is a ton of begging and it is a very bustling city. we were forwarned about being cautious with bags and scams etc as it is very common there. In PP we met up with Mad's dad's friend's fiance (haha long explanation there)...but she is Cambodian and she invited us for dinner at her house one night. She picked us up on her motorbike and then drove us to her house which was about 30 minutes from our guesthouse. Her whole familywas there for dinner (3 sisters, 3 kids, her borther, and her inlaws), where we ate a Khmer meal on the floor of their wooden house built on stilts over the river. WE really enjoyed it, she was so sweet and her family was so welcoming, and it was awesome to have a very Cambodian experience. we visited Tuol Sleng Museum (which is S-21 prison) where they kept and tortured thousands of people during PolPots Regime (Khmer Rouge). It was incredibly creepy and heartbreaking. THe next day on our way to the Killing Fields (where they killed all the people that were kept in Tuol Sleng), we were riding in a tuktuk and a guy on a motorbike drove up beside us and literally snatched Mad's purse off of her body. It was a shoulder bag and wrapped around her body and under her shoulder, and somehow this guy managed to get it over her head within a second and then drive off on his bike. We tried to follow him but the tuk tuks go sooo slow and there is always sooo much traffic. SOooo unfortunately Mad lost her camera (all her memory cards), her ipod touch (which is what we have been using for skype), and some cash. Luckily our passports were int he process of getting the vietnam Visas back at the guesthouse but its still a huge bummer considering that my camera half- broke when we were in laos so I havent been using it that much.
Now we are in Sihanoukville which is nice, lots of tourists (cause the beaches bring everyone here) but the weather isnt that great which kind of sucks. Today was decent weather. The people tyring to sell you stuf here is a bit aggressive on the beaches...its all young girls and boys (around 15 years old or so) trying to sell fruit/bracelets/sunglasses etc). One girl got really hostile with Mad today cause she claimed that Mad made a promise with her to buy some fruit from her even though she didnt...but the girl wasnt happy, she was cursing at us and stuff.
okkkiiiii time to go! will try and get some photos up soon if we can find some relatively decent ones on my broken camera (the lens broke so i cant see what i am taking pictures of and i cant use any of the settings so the pics dont turn out that well). Porbably gonna both be buying new ones whenw e get to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam within a week.
xoxo

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