Part 3: Cambodia.

Clearly my love for Cambodia was big, but that didn't mean we didn't have our moments when we all just looked at each other and thought "What the....errrr?' Cambodia is a bustling place. It is extraordinarily underdeveloped, lacking paved roads, sidewalks or traffic lights. Being a foreigner makes you a HUGE target for scams, so vendors, "taxi drivers" and tuk-tuks hassled us every step we took. I am fairly used to this from Thailand, so it didn't really bother me, but it still made for some interesting experiences. 


Not so highlights:


*Crossing the border. We made it! But we were immediately swept up by men 'helping' us with the immigration process. They took our passports, sweet talked us and used some really futuristic thermometer that the US has yet to discover (a device that involved pointing a gun looking thing at our heads that somehow read our temperatures...and oddly enough, we all had the exact same temp!). By the time our stamps were in and we had paid the visa fee, the men were all asking us for tips. '100 baht. 100 baht. Tip. Tip." Ohhhhh ok...that's what this was. So within 5 steps of being in Cambodia we had already fallen for scam #1, but we didn't pay the 'tip.
*Getting from the border to our hostel. We got SURROUNDED by handfuls of sketchy looking taxi drivers, wanting to drive us to anywhere and everywhere. It is pretty overwhelming to fight off the swarms and just demand to be taken to your hostel for a reasonable price. But we kind of did it, got into a beat up looking car and made our way to our hostel. Minutes later, it started down-pouring and guess what? My window was broken so it was stuck open. So while we were hoping we made it safely to the hostel without another scam, I was getting rained on. I mean, it was pretty funny, but really Cambodia? Not a good start. 
*Our hostel. Thank goodness we were only there for a night. I don't particularly enjoy sleeping with dead cockroaches, dead mosquitoes and a questionable bathroom. It's never good when you decide that you'll stay cleaner by not showering in the room's bathroom. Yikes.
*Richie's Guesthouse/Commune. We walked to a bordering beach while in Snooky and were once again struck by rain. We scurried over to a restaurant to seek cover and get some shakes. We weren't really prepared for the naked baby being handed to us, stoners and weird family dynamics surrounding us.  
*Street children. Cambodia has a lot of street children. These adorable kids will come over to you and try to sell goods to you. They all have decent English and they bat their beautiful eyes at you, but we've been warned to refuse to support their cause. It's really heartbreaking to see children living their lives like this, but luckily, there are a lot of organizations, like Friends, that take kids off of the street and provide an education and other programs to prevent them from going back. Starfish and Rajana were two other organizations we visited and supported. (Brownies and jewelry for a good cause? Yes, please!)
*Work hours. In Snooky we chatted up a lot of the employees at the hostels. Really, really amazing people, but we learned that their work hours are out of control. One of them told us that everyone only gets 1 Sunday a month off, and another worker pointed to his bed behind the desk because he lives there. To make matters worse, their MONTHLY income was only $90. 
*Thinking we got scammed on our bus to Ho Chi Minh City. We had bought bus tickets to Vietnam the previous night and as we waited for our bus to arrive in the morning, it didn't look good. Even the locals walking by us seemed concerned. We asked one of the neighboring agencies to call the agent we booked with and moments later, she unlocked the door, stood there in her shower cap and robe and assured us the bus was coming....and it did! 

While these experiences were met with a little anxiety, they did not take away from our overall experience. For the most part, we could laugh off the little bumps and just go with it. But, in the bigger picture, Cambodia has a lot of history that leaves you chilled to the bone. The Cambodian Genocide by the Khmer Rouge did not happen long ago and I felt a little ashamed to admit that I did not know much about it. Luckily, Sarah had picked up a memoir on our previous travels, First They Killed My Father, which provided a very detailed account into a woman's personal experience during the Pol Pot regime. We both read the book and I am so happy I did because it made the S21 Museum and the Killing Fields much more real, and brought about a bigger sense of the massive damage that was done to the country. Touring the museum, a former school turned security prison, was completely eery and chilling. There are four buildings, some housing the cells, others filled with torture devices, and the rest filled with pictures and personal accounts. I found myself having to walk out of the buildings a couple of times to reflect and regroup because it is absolutely heartbreaking and definitely not for the weaker of stomachs. We followed up our visit by going to the Killing Fields, where thousands and thousands of Cambodian people were tortured, killed and buried in mass graves. The dug-up graves once contained men, women and babies, tortured and killed. All that remains are their bones and some remnants of their clothes, all of which have been organized and put on display in a 17 floor memorial in the middle of the Fields. The first few rows contain all of the abused skulls of those that died. It was obviously a morbid and utterly tragic place to visit, but such an important piece of history. Millions of people died, and before coming here,  I knew so little about it. The fact that is happened so recently- in the 70s- put a whole new element of tragedy to it. I couldn't help but wonder the stories of anyone over 30. It definitely took a lot to shake off everything we saw that day, but I am happy I got to experience it. 

It was sad to leave Cambodia. I left with a lot of questions unanswered and a huge surge of  eagerness to get back and explore some more. I plan on going back at the end of the next semester to visit Angkor Wat and see some of the Northeast. Cambodia left a big impression on me and I can't wait to get back. But first... it was back on a bus and into a new country. Vietnam here I come. 

S21. Looking out from the balcony.

Some artwork displayed at the Museum.

The Killing Fields.