Cambodia

On the last day of January, during breakfast, my mother arrived. One hour later, Bibi left.

The next day, me and my mom flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia. 

My mom had planned two weeks in Cambodia (I stayed a little longer) so I let her decide our destinations. We ended up going to Siem Reap, Battambang, Koh Rong Samloem, Kampot and Phnom Penh. 

In Siem Reap, we went to Angkor Wat. When you literally translate Angkor Wat, it means City of Temples. It is the world's largest religious monument and it was built in the early 12th century. I really wonder how they built such a huge thing so long ago. It's enormous! 

Since I've been to both Bagan and Angkor Wat within a weeks time, I can easily compare them, and there are a lot of differences.

Bagan is a big area with mostly small temples, while the Angkor Wat area (Angkor Wat is just the main temple, there are more temples around it) has, I think, less temples, but they are way bigger. In my opinion, the tempels themselves were more beautiful in Angkor Wat, but I prefer Bagan when it comes to the surroundings and the total view. 

What I didn't like about Angkor Wat were all the tourists, especially the big groups of Chinese tourists (it was Chinese New Year when we were there). There were just too many tourists. It was annoying. I couldn't take a photo without tourists in it. In Bagan that was an easy task.

So overall, I prefer Bagan. Nevertheless, Angkor Wat is very beautiful and very special as well! Especially the Tomb Raider temple with all the trees and the temple with all the faces!

There is a 'floating village' in Siem Reap which we visited, named Kompong Pluk. The village is actually not floating, but it's very special because all the houses in the village are built on piles. They're about 10 metres above the ground. And the locals are sooo nice to look at! I probably shouldn't say this, but it's like you're in a zoo. You watch them from the boat whilst they're playing in the water, sitting on the boats, fishing, and smiling. Everyone was smiling! It's like you're in some kind of movie from a very long time ago. It was a wonderful view! 

In Battambang, a small city, we went on a tuktuk tour. Our driver and guide, Tintin, was said to be the best in town. He showed us around and had a story to tell about every small thing we saw during our trip. If he wouldn't have told us about these things, I am sure I wouldn't have noticed any of it. The most impressive part was when he showed us the Battambang killing fields. 

The Pol Pot regime (1975 - 1978) hangs over Cambodia like a dark cloud. Pol Pot made an army, called the Khmer Rouge. Khmer is what the Cambodians call themselves. The Khmer Rouge was an army that consisted of Cambodian people, forced to do this work. The people who got offered this job, had to make a choice, join the Khmer Rouge or die, probably from severe torture, and they would probably kill their families as well. 

Cambodian people were forced by the Khmer Rouge to work in the fields. Many people died from starvation because they had to work almost 24/7. The 'educated' people were mostly killed straight away or were first tortured and then killed, or died from the severe injuries the tortures caused. When I say 'educated', I don't really mean educated. You were seen as educated when you, for example, wore glasses, could count to ten, were from a rich family and so on. So what happened is that almost 1/4th of the whole population in Cambodia died. Either they got killed, or they died from starvation. This regime was so incredibly cruel. They separated families by separating men and women, including children from eight years and older. These kids got separated from their parents. The people only got a minimal amount of food every day, by far not enough to survive on. It is very seldom you see a Cambodian person that is older than 40 years old. They all died. It's terrible, and it happened such a short time ago. Also, I have to admit, I really didn't know all of this happened here. I knew the name Pol Pot, but that's all. 

So Tintin took us to the killing fields. Tintin is one of those men who is older than 40. He was there when it happened. He told us he was 8 years old when the Khmer Rouge arrived in his hometown. He had to work on the field. He lost his whole family. 

As we were walking around the monument dedicated to the people who died, he told us intriguing stories. The monument by the way, consists of four walls with big windows in it, and inside it's full of skulls of people they found under the ground at this killing field... Tintin told us his younger sister died from starvation. He was already separated from his family by then, but his sister could stay with his mom because she was so young. When she died, his mother was already so weak she wasn't able to dig a deep hole to bury her, so she buried her very shallow. Not deep enough, because 'the white animals ate her' he said. With the white animals he means maggots. It's so gross and such a terrible way to loose a member of your family! You could really see the pain in his eyes while he told us this. For the rest of his family, he know they were taken away and he has never seen them again. He was so emotional... 

While he was telling us this story at the monument, a whole bunch of people gathered around us to listen to him. It made a huge impression on me to hear these things first-hand.

After Battambang we went on a long trip to Koh Rong Samloem. We had to take a bus to Phnom Penh, then to Sihanoukville and the next morning we went to Koh Rong Samloem. Koh Rong Samloem is one of the most beautiful islands I've ever seen in my life. I've heard - I don't know for sure - that this beach is the number 16 on the world's most beautiful beaches ranking list. I would believe it straight away! It was wonderful! To be honest, I didn't do anything at all during the three days we spent there. I read 4 books, did some sunbathing and ate a lot of food - probably way more than I should have haha - and that's about it. We had a lovely time!

After this lovely little trip we went to Kampot. Kampot is known for their famous Kampot pepper. So we went to the pepper plantation. It was a bit of a disappointment. Yes, there was a pepper plantation. But that's all there was. Just pepper trees and pepper shops haha. Fortunately the drive to the plantation was nice! We went by tuktuk, over all the dusty sandy roads (I joined the facemask club!) and saw all the rice fields, locals, cows and happy children. I think we didn't spend enough time in Kampot, so I just booked a ticket back there for tomorrow. I can't wait!

After Kampot we went to Phnom Penh, the place my mother was departing from the next day to fly home. We went to the killing fields and the S21 genocide museum. I saw things I honestly didn't want to see. For example the killing tree, which stood in the middle of the killing fields. It was used to smash babies and little kids to death in front of their mothers' eyes. So cruel. There was a sign on the tree which said that when the tree was discovered, there were still some parts of brains and skull-fragments on the tree. Next to the tree was a mass-graveyard for all the mothers and their babies. The whole killing area is actually a mass graveyard. People were killed on the spot and thrown into big holes in the ground. About 10.000 people were killed there. In total, counting all the Cambodian killing fields, at least 1.386.734 people were killed.

The S21 museum is a former school which was made into a prison during the Pol Pot regime. Since education was prohibited, there was no use to keep the schools. The S21 museum is one of the many schools that turned into prisons during that time.

The most of the people who got imprisoned in S21 didn't get out alive. They were repeatedly tortured and forced into naming family members and close relatives, who then were arrested, tortured and killed. Most of the victims were former soldiers, government officials, as well as academics, doctors, teachers, students, factory workers, monks, engineers, etc.

Upon arrival a photo of their face was taken, and in the museum you can still see many of these photos. The people look scared, but not scared to death. You can see they were clueless about what was going to happen to them.

They were severely tortured. The goal of this was to make them confess crimes they didn't commit. Prisoners were often beaten and tortured with electric shocks, hot metal instruments and were hung. Some prisoners were cut with knives or suffocated in plastic bags. Other methods for generating confessions included pulling out fingernails while pouring alcohol on the wounds, holding prisoners’ heads under water, and the use of the waterboarding technique. Females were sometimes raped by the interrogators. Although many prisoners died from this kind of abuse, killing them outright was discouraged, since the Khmer Rouge needed their confessions. Medical experiments were performed on certain prisoners. Inmates were sliced open and had organs removed with no anaesthetic. Others were attached to intravenous pumps and every drop of blood was drained from their bodies to see how long they could survive. The most difficult prisoners were skinned alive.

Out of an estimated 17,000 people imprisoned at S21, there were only twelve known survivors.

The whole Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge experience made a deep impact on me. But for now I've seen enough terrible things. I'm still staying in Cambodia for a while and from now on I'm just going to enjoy the lovely people and all the other beautiful things this country has to offer!

My mother and I said goodbye to each other and I'm travelling alone again from now on. After another week (I might stay longer) in Cambodia I'm planning on going to Laos. Sorry for letting you read all these horrible things, but I want people to know about what happened, seeing as most people don't. Thanks for reading again! 

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat

Flooded forest

Koh Rong Samloem

Facemask!

Killing Fields Phnom Penh

Faces of people at S21