Trip-of-the-Day

Cambodia (3-8 July 2008)

3 July
We arrived in the evening in Phnom Penh and checked into Sunday Guesthouse! We headed out for dinner at some "coffee shop". Had hotpot, fried rice and noodles if my memory doesn't fail me. A girl walked in with a platter of fried locusts so I bought some. Spent quite some time scrutinizing the locusts before hurriedly popping it into my mouth (the longer I think, the more I wouldn't want to eat it). Apparently my act "gave courage" to the 2 Graces to try the insects as well. Well, best described as tasting like potato chips! Not bad for a snack! We headed back and bought a bottle of Angkor beer (their best local beer) to try. The liquor there is really cheap! Can be as cheap as US$0.50/can. Small Grace brought the mahjong travel set so we played it at night!

4 July

We signed up for a one day tour with our hostel. We started off with visiting the Killing Fields (Choeung Ek), a place where the Cambodian genocide took place under the Khmer Rouge regime.

A memorial tower filled with skulls.

Mass grave.

Bones.

We then headed to the Tuol Sleng museum which is also known as the S21 Prison. A secret prison at that time. Prisoners were questioned and tortured here and then transported to the Killing Fields. It was transformed from a secondary school to a prison. There were cells made of brick and some made of wood, with space just enough for a person to lie down.

We then headed to a shopping mall for lunch. It looks like on of those old shopping malls found in Singapore. The food court looks similar as well.

Kingdom of Cambodia.

After lunch, we went to the Central Market. At the entrance, I had a shock as I saw a man in a brown uniform carrying a gun. It was an AK-47. I walked right past him but didn't dare to stare. Wah lau. AK-47 lor. Nice.

After spending some time at the market, we visited the Royal Palace. The place was quite big but we couldn't access some parts of it. The silver pagoda is shown below (more golden to me than silver):

Most of the animals looked rather sad. The dogs hardly wagged their tails and some had a full body of sores. The cows were very thin. The happiest animals seemed to be horses/ponies and elephants.

This is their National Museum. It houses many statues of Buddha and displays religious and cultural items. We were really bored there.

Lastly, we visited a temple which was in operation. Met a Spanish guy who gave us free lotus seeds to feed the monkeys! The monkeys seem rather tame. When I fed the monkey, I held it a little out of reach for it just to see what it would do. It reached out with one hand to pull my hand nearer then used the other hand to grab the seed. Smart.

Special egg - has an unhatched duckling in it. Sounded and looked gross but tasted good. Could even see feathers on it. We bought some fruits to try.. The durian was HUGE and DAMN SHIOK. I liked the custard apple too. Hung out at the hostel with 2 other travelers (one from Holland and the other Germany?)

How Cambodians live.

5 July
The next morning, we departed and took a bus to Siem Reap. We checked into The Siem Reap Hostel. This hostel's fantastic!!! Has an indoor pool, a bar, pool table, giant Jenga, TV lounge! Our room had a balcony, air-con and hot water! Had an unpleasant encounter with a tuk tuk driver upon reaching the hostel. Was a little worried as they guy was lingering outside our hostel. We spent some time in the room before leaving the place. Decided to input the tourist police numbers into my phone just in case. Scary sia. Anyway, we spent the day exploring town (Old Market, etc) and ate some deep fried foodstuff which was damn yummylicious! The sauce was super power. The chilli and sauces in Cambodia are to die for! Tried some desserts as well. Quite happy my food science people (Big/Small Grace, Chewy, Amelia) are rather adventurous with food!

In the evening, we headed to the Night Market. I must say, the stalls in Cambodia all seem to sell the same stuff. "SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT". "Lady, $1, $1". The Night Market was really ulu.

6 July

We woke up at 4.30am to watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat! Gosh. Super early. Apart from watching the sunrise, there was this monkey there who was jumping on people. It jumped on a small girl and many tourists rushed to take photos of that. It was quite hilarious. The monkey then targeted a caucasian man who had to run around in circles to get away from the monkey. Side entertainment. LOL. Spent the day visiting temple ruins!

The famous Angkor Wat. Built from stones without cement or iron to stick them together. We concluded that they were the best Jenga players.

We climbed so many flights of stairs for this temple! VERY STEEP and SANDY. The steps are so narrow that you can't fit the length of a foot on it! You can't see the steps even from the edge of the top of the stairs looking down. If you stopped in the middle and looked down, you'd moan and can't decide if you'd climb up or down. When I looked at it, I thought to myself, "I should have bought life insurance".

This temple had trees growing on it. The whole temple seemed to be invaded by trees!

Ate the deep fried foodstuff at Siem Reap again! We finally decided to try eating at the roadside stall for dinner. We were afraid we'd get diarrhea but all was well! The fruity shakes were DAMN GOOD (although they used non-potable water to make the ice). Back the hostel, we chilled out by the pool with an excellent pizza and mugs of Anchor beer.

7 July

Today was tai tai day. We headed for cooking lessons at a restaurant (Le Tigre de Papier - The Paper Tiger)! Some of the restaurants here offer cooking lessons for tourists to learn how to cook Cambodian dishes. We each chose an appetizer and a main dish. We also learned how to make a pumpkin dessert and chilli! The cooking class was DAMN FUN.

We spent some time exploring the other side of town and an operational temple. We ate ice cream at Swensens in the only mall we could find! After that, we headed for foot/neck/shoulder massage. The massage not power one. Haha. Da Jie trash!!! Hung around Center Market and then met up with Big Grace's 2 friends from The Netherlands (one of them has a better command of the Chinese language than me)! Had dinner at another roadside stall then headed for Cambodian BBQ (ate snake, crocodile and ostrich). Wanted to get a soft drink to save $$ but I decided to check out the beer prices too. The beers were EXACTLY the same price so of course I ordered beer. We spent the night with beers and giant Jenga. I think I'm a bad influence. Today, Small Grace asked me 3 times if we were going to drink. Haha. I wasn't the one pushing for drinks anymore! The hostel bar closed at 11pm. At 10.57pm, we rushed down to get beer but it was closed. Small Grace then went to Reception to request to buy beer. I was impressed. Haha.

8 July
We got to walk up the plane! Haha. Rare occurrence (at least for us).

Well, the trip was a bunch of fun. However, the people there are really poor. I didn't mind getting ripped off. There were so many of them so I couldn't buy anything from them lest I get swamped. Back there, I remembered the starfish story: As an old man walked the beach at dawn, he noticed a young man picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Catching up to the youth, he asked why he was doing this. The answer was that the stranded starfish would die if left until the morning sun. "But the beach goes on for miles and there are millions of starfish," countered the other. "How can your effort make any difference?" The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and threw it to safety in the waves. "It makes a difference to this one," he said.

I have heard.
Now, I have seen.
The question is, what do I do?