Cambodia

So we arrived to the border and show our passport. Sadly, our visa for Thailand was definitely two months, and for this we had to pay a fine of 400 Bath (8eu) per day per person. We had 5 days to much, so 2000 Bath (40eu) per person in total! We were really pissed off!! After crossing the border, we were supposed to have a bus, which we paid already. To our surprise, we had to wait three hours for this. Since there is only dirt road in this part off the country, the trip was going to take 5 to 6 hours, or more with the rain… Then they offered us to take a taxi for just 3 hours, at that moment -so no waiting- for 1000Bt (21eu) extra! We talked that down to 500Bt in total, and off we went, for the most bumpy road ever! And yes, with a heavy rain, which slowed us down to 50 km/h! The rainy season started…

We did a week in Siem Reap; the town close by Angkor Wat. We took a tree day ticket, and we still didn’t see everything! We did one normal day, one morning with sunrise (which wasn’t good, because cloudy-, and one afternoon with sunset. It was impressive to see all this temples ruins, and to learn history about an important site in this country!! We did two day’s with a tuk-tuk, and –as real dutchy’s- one day on the bike.

The other 4 day’s we looked around in town, biked, visited a nature/wildlife protection site, and ate new food.

The next destination was Kratie, a little town in the country site along the Mekong river. It took us an 8 hours bus trip to get there, towards the east, 300km north of Phnom Penh. We stayed just two nights. One day we took a bicycle and watched the Irrawaddy dolphins in the river! It was nice to see a non touristic town in the countryside (not aggressed each second by beggars, tuk-tuk  drivers and other merchandise…)

After this nature part, we went to the capital, Phnom Penh, where we stayed 4 nights. Over there we learned our history-lesson Cambodia. We started with the movie “The killing fields’; about the Khmer-rouge war 1975-1979. Than we visited an old prison (which was a school before) where the Cambodians where tortured and kept just a short time, to go from there to the killing fields (execution site), to be killed in a ruth way. The next day we visited the killing fields, which was horrible, and displays a lot off skulls and bones and massacre graves… Beside we read the book; ‘First they killed my father’. All this gave a good overview about the war, which looks a bit like WO II, but than just within one country.

The rest of the time in the capital we spent nicely to walk around, visit markets and the Royal Palace.

The country is really poor, and looks like there are no rules in it… The traffic is crazy, they drive on the right, but there are motorbikes everywhere, every site and in every direction; really dangerous… The country was a French colony, so there are still a lot off French buildings, and the old generation still speaks a bit of French; nice for Chris!

There are a lot of victims form landmines through the country, cause the cleaning of the mines started just 10 years later than the war stopped, and is still not finished yet! There is no social security here, so in Cambodia we do give money to poor and disabled people.

The last town we visited in this country is Battambang, the 2^nd biggest city. It took us 6 to 7 hours to get here, it’s towards the Tai border. The town is pretty similar to other city’s; dusty, crowdie and stinky! Big city means here big in amount of people. Since they are still building there country after the war, there are not a lot of big buildings/ big markets or busy roads. It actually looks like countryside within a city…

The first day we arrived , Joske met an  Cambodian English teacher who invited us to visit his project later. He teach English to poor kids and orphans, after their regular school (if they can afford a regular school) for free. He’s not sponsored, and although it’s not a lot he has costs.

So we went there 2 day’s later, and talked basis English with them in school. It felt weird to stand in front of a class, instead of sitting in it. We did different groups, different levels, but they were all shy. It’s a very good project, because without English they will never urn money, since tourists are nr 1 income here…

We gave him the biggest donation from all the month; it was a very nice experience!!