Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Helloooo!

I've just been told off from the mother for being out of touch for 3 days but don't worry we are still alive! Just a bit too engrossed in Phnom Penh clearly! We made it to Cambodia just fine on Sunday afternoon. The border crossing was fine and now my passport has another cool visa page :-) we arrived at our hostel to find an extremely eccentric owner who is from Leeds! He's called Robert and very nice if a bit odd! His hostel is called nomads and its the first hostel we've been to with a really nice social area down stairs. Robert recommended we ask the other guests if they wanted to hire a tuk tuk with us the next day to visit some of the sights as between four it would be cheaper. So we went and knocked on their door and there was a couple of guys who seemed very nice and were grateful that someone else was organised! So yesterday we headed off in the tuk tuk to the cheong ek killing fields. Wow what a day. (Apologies for next bits being depressing). For those who don't know, in the 70s there was a crazy guy called Pol Pot who was the Cambodian leader. He basically exerted extreme communism on the whole country and didn't like anyone who spoke a foreign language or wore glasses or who showed any type of intelligence. He sent all city people to the countryside to farm many of who having never done manual labour were just worked to death. The killing fields at cheong ek are one of 300 killing fields in Cambodia where prisoners were sent to be executed. There was an audio tour which we did which had some horrific survivor tales. The fields look beautiful and peaceful now so it is very hard to imagine what actually went on. There are still areas where bones and teeth surface during rains. People were brought in trucks and waited over night to be killed. They played to us the music that would have been played to cover screams it was horrendous. A place I'm glad we visited but can hardly say i enjoyed. After killing fields we visited S21 prison museum. This used to be a school but Pol Pot changed it to a prison to house people before they were sent to killing fields. These people has not committed crimes but were just persecuted as they were too skilled or spoke out of turn. There were classrooms full of mug shots of victims and after one classroom I could not take it and had to sit outside with my thoughts. Just before leaving we saw a book stand and selling his story was a survivor of the prison whose wife was killed at cheong ek. I could not help but question why would he want to come back to this place daily when it surely has such horrible memories. I'm sure he has his reasons. So yesterday was tough. Dinner was a little more lighthearted we met a guitar playing traveller. He seemed a bit of a lost soul and wants to be a travel journalist so we tried to convince him to start doing video blogs. He said he would put them on you tube. His name is alex bisby so we are going to check him oit maybe one day he will be the new Attenborough or something!

Today was much more cheerful :-) Phnom Penh isn't all depressing! Chrissie wasn't feeling well so I headed off alone. Once again apprehensive at having to navigate eeeek! I headed to a nearby hill temple which was just beautiful, its called wat Phnom and its said they lady who discovered Phnom Penh built it. Wat means hill and phnom was her surname(I think!) They had a man at the top with a cage full of sparrows saying I could set one free for a dollar to bring me good luck. How could I resist that! I was tempted to buy the whole cage but he had hundreds. Afterwards I thought he probably just catches them each morning but I was feeling better knowing I had set at least one of them free! I then headed to the market in search of a new T-shirt as the only one I have with sleeves is white and getting filthy even when washed. I also got some nice jewellery for some friends at home. I also hit the jackpot and found deep fried tarantulas which was my aim for Phnom Penh! They looked rank and the grumpy lady wouldn't let me take a photos unless I bought them! I'm going to try and find more. I also saw some cool fish stalls which had live eels some sting ray and some bloody looking slimy frogs.

I had read in lonely planet about many restaurants in the city which had social causes. Most of them employ and train disadvantaged young people and things like that. Being warned about the poverty here and seeing many children laid homeless in the park and begging outside the restaurants was so hard. But its also so hard to know what to do. I can't help but be torn between wanting to give them everything I have and thinking that some of them are scammers. Also I am aware that although hand outs may buy them a meal it won't help them long term. So I decided while I was here I would eat at as many of these restaurants with social causes as I can. On returning home I might also look into supporting one of them long term (now I'll be on a proper salary!!!). So I found one of them which was called friends. It was closed today for training but they have a shop next door which was incredible! Most of the things were made from recycled paper but so beautiful and they are all hand made my Cambodian families. It wasn't expensive either. I bought a few gifts here and felt much better now I have contributed to something positive. Coming out of the shop it started to pour as it does most days here in the afternoon. So after a couple of days full of emotion I really like Cambodia. The people here are much friendlier than the Vietnamese. The smiling experiment has continued and many people are waving and shouting hello now too! I had a few chats today with locals and they are much less pushy and quite happy to offer a helping hand the few times I did get lost! We have been told how dangerous Phnom Penh can be but I couldn't have felt safer out alone today and not many westerners around. Another thing which is quite cool is the elections here are approaching so there are lots of political rallies and demonstrations. The locals go mad for it! They seem so excited for the election I just hope which ever party succeeds delivers their promises to these ever hopeful people. Tomorrow hopefully Chrissie will feel better and we can explore the royal palace which looks exquisite.

We've made a few changes to our itinerary so we head to Siem Reap Thursday morning. We are super excited to see the Angkor temples and experience more of Cambodia. We will then head to Thailand to the north to see Chaing Mai. We plan to stay about a week before heading back to Bangkok to meet John. Sorry for a long one today and not always the cheeriest of subjects. Despite all that had happened here it is inspiring to see how happy and hopeful the people are. Hope all at home is good and every one is keeping well. Lots and lots of love with a few fried spiders thrown in ;-) xxxxx