Angkor, I Barely Know Her!

We arrived in Siem Reap last Friday with one objective: to go see the Temples of Angkor. Scattered around the outskirts of the city are hundreds of stone temples built between the 9th and 13th centuries. The temples fell off the proverbial map until around 1908, when French archaeologists began to clear away the encroaching jungle and rebuild the damaged temples. The most famous temple, Angkor Wat, claims to be the largest religious building in the world. It's a big symbol of national pride for Cambodians, appearing on the money, flag, cigarettes, and even beer. We made it into the park for sunrise and spent the whole morning touring seven of the temples, including Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm, a temple complex being taken over by giant trees whose roots are slowly strangling the stone buildings. It was even used as a set for the movie Tomb Raider.

While in Siem Reap Andrea found a cricket in her dinner. Although Cambodians eat them deep-fried by the bagful, she did not consume it. She also did not complain about it; her dish was veggie, and it was a "bonus"- like complaining about an extra piece of chicken in your dinner. After that we got lured into a bar that was hosting pig racing for charity. That's right, 12 pigs competed to see which one could run a course around the bar the fastest (while being chased), and half of all bets placed went to local charities. It was very squealy.

Cambodia has a dark history that is pretty recent but widely unknown in the world. From 1975 through the 1990s, a group called the Khmer Rouge led a bloody revolution that killed millions of Cambodians. Educated people, monks, doctors, those who could speak foreign languages or who wore glasses, were among the people labeled "parasites" and then forced into labour camps, or imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Only now are leaders of the Khmer Rouge being brought to trial, and unfortunately the main leader, Pol Pot, has already died before being tried for his crimes against humanity.

Now we're back in Phnom Pehn, the capital. We visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a former Khmer Rouge-run prison that, at its gruesome peak, killed 100 people per day. From 1975 to 1979, 20,000 men, women, and children were held and tortured here, before being executed at the Killing Fields 14 km outside of town. Pretty much any Cambodian has a story of personal tragedy due to the Khmer Rouge regime. The museum was shocking, but it felt like a history that should be acknowledged, even if it is a little late.

We are waiting for our Thai visas to be ready in a few days before we head back into Thailand. We have seen everything we wanted to see, so we decided to travel to the southern beaches again. We will be meeting up with Floris and Marlous, our Dutch friends, on Koh Phan-gan for our second full moon party. Killing a few weeks on the beaches before we head home certainly won't be very difficult!

Harry and the Hendersons... I mean, the Swinsons

We've been in Cambodia for the past two weeks, enjoying friendly people, yummy food, and a wide variety of beers. You know your perspective is shot when Cambodia's $0.75 beers are "really expensive" compared to Vietnam's $0.20 beers.

From the capitol Phnom Phen we headed south to Sihanoukville, Cambodia's big beach destination. The beach turned out to be small and dirty, with many many people selling or begging. Unfortunately, many of the sellers are very young children, and tourists still buy things from them, keeping them useful to their "pimps" and out of school, where they belong. The town also had its fair share of old Western men with young Cambodian "girlfriends" - apparently 1/3 of prostitutes here are between the ages of 12 and 17. All this, combined with three full days of rain, pushed us on to the next town.

Sleepy Kampot has been our favourite spot in Cambodia so far, and we spent a week relaxing there. Every single child in town waved, smiled, and shouted "Hi! How are you?" as we walked by (or they biked by). We felt like celebrities.

We rented bikes and visited a local swimming spot on the river, where the 12 year old boys tried to secretly photograph Andrea. Craig laughed. Along the way we visited the zoo, where we were able to feed elephants and shake their trunks. We also met Harry, one of the orangutangs, and the lax safety meant we could scratch his tummy and shake his hand. Don't worry, he didn't bite! He did fall in love with Andrea, though.

In Kampot we found a great little restaurant, Chim's, with incredible food: homemade pumpkin soup with garlic baugette, chicken amok (a sweet Cambodian red curry with coconut milk), and lok lak (beef in a black pepper gravy). We met some friendly travellers here one night, including two fellow Canadians, Josh and Jen, from Ottawa.

We went to Kep for a day, as did Josh and Jen, and we all enjoyed a fresh crab dinner with black cracked pepper at the market. Yes, Craig and I ate crab, and it was delicious! A gian plate full of four meaty crabs cost all of $5. Here we saw a lady boy wearing a wicked Napolean Dynamite "Shocks, Pegs, Lucky!" shirt. Craig complemented him (her?) on it, and won himself a non-English speaking girlfriend for life.

Yesterday we arrived in Battambang, another riverside town. In the past two weeks it has rained 10 days - apparently, this is the rainy season. We have a few more towns to visit in Cambodia before we head back into Thailand to end off our trip.