1st time around the world! by Laura_Foster

Well since my last blog I've been up to a lot. We have stayed in Phnom Penh three times now...we can't get enough!

In Phnom Penh I visited the S-21 Museum, the Killing Fields and the National Museum. I don't think I'll ever forget S-21 as long as I live, it will always haunt me. Prior to the Khmer Rouge regime the building was a high school. It was turned into Security Prison 21 (S-21) where thousands of people were detained and tortured under the regime. Tiny single cells were built from wood and brick in the classrooms, which were not much bigger than a toilet. It was all pretty horrific to see.  There were grisly black and white photos on the walls of mutilated corpses and the beds which the bodies were found on are displayed in the same room. There were also tools used in torture on display. But what really got me was the countless photos stuck on boards of all the prisoners, the fear in their eyes was palpable and in some women held young children in their arms. The extermination of so many people was well documented by the security forces who would take a mug shot style photo and write a biography of the prisoner's life before they were killed. Many prisoners were executed at the Killing Fields which lie outside of the city. The stupa there was monument to around 17,000 who had died there and was filled with row upon row of skulls. Around the site you could see bones protruding from the ground and piled around the base of trees. I saw a glass full of teeth too.

We headed south to Kampot while our Laos visas were being processed. While we were there we visited Bokor National Park. There is an abandoned community up on the mountain, which was built by the French. There is an abandonded hill station and at the top of the mountain is Bokor Palace, a popular colonial hotel. That place was really eerie to walk around, especially as our guide told us that the Khmer Rouge had detained people there and then pushed their bodies off the cliff. The view from the back of the hotel was stunning, a steep cliff and rain forest nearly as far as the eye could see which  then turned into coast and Phu Quoc Island could be seen in the distance.  We visited some pretty waterfalls too, didn't want to get too close to the edge as it was really slippy!

We visited some river rapids near Kampot and as it was the weekend they were full of locals bathing. Sat with a family and tried to have a chat although the language barrier on both sides was a bit of an issue!

We then headed north to Kratie to try and spot the endangered Irrawaddy river dolphin. We were in luck and we saw lots of dolphins around our long boat. They have a round bulbous nose and one splashed and rolled around in the water for a while! The next day we cycled around a small island called Koh Trong which is in the middle of the Mekong. It was good to see real rural life, I got the impression not a lot of tourists normally go there as even the adults were saying hello to us!

We got caught in a storm and had to leg it across the rice fields and went to shelter under a stilted house. An old lady started to shout at us, and we thought she was shoo-ing us away, but she was actually inviting us up to her house. We sat with a group of people and they gave us tea and we tried some crazy looking fruit! There was an older lady there with a shaved head and brown teeth. I think this might have been from what she had been munching on, which looked like tabacco and red paste. I watched her with interest as she took a palm sized leaf and spread it with a light pink paste, then folded up the leaf and ate it. We sat with them for over an hour and although no one spoke English and my Khmer is very limited they were so kind and put us completely at ease!

I've found the people in Cambodia so friendly and kind. I've loved my time here and am really sad to be leaving. But we are off to Vietnam tomorrow, which is sure to be an adventure!