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Swiss Army Knife
Tuesday, July 29, 2008, 15:04
I'm a little embarrassed about how excited I got. 
Cypi is Swiss which means he is in possession of a Swiss Army Knife issued by the Swiss Army when he was conscripted. The genuine article is longer than a standard knife and only has four attachments. It is silver rather than the classic red and instead of the Victorinox logo there is a Swiss flag shield logo. My Victorinox CyberTool is one of my most prized possessions, so seeing and holding a real Swiss Army Knife was pretty cool.If you care as much as I did there is a picture of a real Swiss Army Knife here.
Add comment Phnom Penh: Choeng Ek and Toul Seng
Thursday, July 24, 2008, 19:21
Me, Richie and Cypi arrived in Phnom Penh about 6pm after a six hour journey. We fought off the tuk-tuk drivers that swooped as we got off the bus and found a bit of space to talk. We settled on Sunday Guesthouse - recommended in someone's guidebook and attractive because it was away from the main backpacker area, so we could choose whether to get involved.Phnom Penh is a strange mix of rich and poor. You see children begging at petrol stations where black Humvees and Land Rovers with shiny chrome alloys fill up. The towering hotels, with gigantic cascading fountains, contrast with roads that are littered with the debris of a city with no rubbish collection program.
Everything and everyone in Cambodia is still recovering from Pol Pot and his lunacy in the 1970s. Visiting the 'Killing Fields' is a strange experience - there is not a great deal to see and without a guide there is a fairly small amount of information on display. The mass graves are now little more than craters in the ground. Despite the sparse presentation the area obviously invokes certain emotions and the main focus of the site, a 10 metre tall 'stupa' filled with skulls and clothing of the victims, certainly puts a lump in your throat. Because of a lack of ammunition, the victims were beaten to death with hoes, axe handles, metal bars and other blunt instruments and some of the skulls show the damage. It was tough, but I managed to hold back actual tears until later in the day...
Across town is Toul Seng, the prison used to interrogate many of the victims destroyed at Choeng Ek (the Killing Fields). It used to be a high school and under the regime was referred to as S21. When the Vietnamese liberated the city in 1979, photos were taken of each interrogation room exactly as found. Now blow-ups of these photos are hung in each room above the bed and torture instruments depicted in each picture. The only difference is the beaten and bloody Cambodian corpses shackled to the beds in every image and seeing the real instruments of torture and detainment really brings it home just how unbelievably horrific life in these cells must have been. After three or four rooms I could bear it no more and I went out into the school yard for a quick cry. In the next section of the museum there are pictures of the prisoners taken when they first arrived. There are just rows and rows of faces, some smiling, some with shawls covering wounds already inflicted at the time of arrest. I felt like I should look at every single one. The people are from all sorts of backgrounds, including some foreigners, but a large proportion were Cambodian intellectuals - teachers, doctors, journalists, etc. Pol Pot's stated aim was to create a classless society, but in practice there were two classes: 'new people' who were very young at the time of the 'revolution' or born after it and 'old people' who were regarded with suspicion because they had knowledge of the previous regimes. Children were taught to kill and torture and many of the guards at Tuol Seng were teenagers with little or no training, this included the medical staff. Coupled with the banning of conventional medicine, many of the prisoners died because of a lack of basic medical knowledge.
All in all it was a pretty heavy day.
Angkor Wat
Sunday, July 20, 2008, 05:55 -
Angkor Wat is amazing. After a 15 minute tuk-tuk ride at five in the morning we watched the sun rise over the gigantic temple and if we had not been surrounded by two hundred other tired tourists it would have been pretty special! I have a new tactic at tourist spots - basically I get to the end as quickly as I can, as soon as it opens, and then walk back looking at everything. This means I get at least a few minutes alone. This strategy worked a treat at Angkor Wat, at least for the first temple.I can't really describe how lush the temples were. I'll post the photos as soon as I get back to Thailand - the internet is a bit slow in Cambodia.
Stephanie Edwards, BA (Hons)
Friday, July 18, 2008, 10:32 -
Well done Foggy! Brilliant news. Have fun celebrating and I'll give you a call when I get back to Thailand. Lots of love from Michael xxxxHoliday In Cambodia
Friday, July 18, 2008, 09:37 -
The difference between Thailand and Cambodia is obvious as soon as you cross the border. The road between the border town Poi Phet and Siem Riep is a 160km dirt track. There are intermittent sections of Tarmac, but never more than a few kilometres, and the six hour journey was pretty uncomfortable. The small bus was full of pretty friendly travellers and included two Scottish vets, some Koreans, a Mongolian, a Swiss guy and a Geordie. When we stopped for a break I got chatting to Richard (the Geordie) and Cypi (the Swiss bloke).We reached Siem Riep, which literally means "Thailand Defeated", and the bus did the usual trick of pulling in to a guest house car park. The bus driver and guesthouse make an agreement and so the decision to stop there has nothing to do with the quality of the place. Me, Rich and Cypi had decided to have a beer and decide where to stay as by this time we had pretty much decided wherever we went it was going to be together... no one wanted to brave the chaos alone! We fought through an army of tuk-tuk drivers, scooters and 4x4s on the chaotic, puddled side road. When we emerged onto the main street it was just a picture of madness. We sat at a street cafe and bought ice cold "Angkor" beers for $1 each. The Cambodians use two currencies, the U.S. Dollar and the Cambodian Riel. A dollar gets you 4000 riel and you may get change that contains both, for example: change of $2.50 might be given as two dollar bills and 2000 riel. This is totally confusing at first and it took us a little while to pay for that first beer.
When we finally made a move we found a guesthouse at the bottom of town. The guesthouse itself was really nice (Popular GH), but the rooms were a little dirty. It was $5 dollars a night which seemed reasonable, even with the dirt. Monday was supposed to be Angkor Wat day, but we all got up too late and after breakfast we decided to go the next day. The rest of the day was spent looking around Siem Riep. First impressions were not particulary good. It is obviously a tourist town, but after the bus journey past kilometre upon kilometre of traditional Cambodian houses, the Western shops, bars, giant hotels and restaurants were a bit of a shock. The centre of Siem Riep looks not unlike the Brighton Laines.
Siem Riep is home to around 5000 tuk-tuk drivers and walking down a street will involve saying "no thank-you" to each one hanging around at the side of the road. Three guys in a row would ask you if you needed a tuk-tuk, even though they had seen you say no to the last ten drivers on the street. I have also never seen so many people with amputated limbs. The street children, beggars and landmine victims are constantly asking for money or trying to sell something and unlike Thailand, a "no thank-you" only seems to harden their resolve. Sitting in a small juice bar we were hassled by street children until the owner chased them away, but when an older man with one leg approached on crutches and explained he was a landmine victim I gave him a dollar. Within seconds more street kids appeared. It gets very tiring, but unfortunately I can't give a dollar to everyone no matter how heartbreaking it is - you want to help everyone, but you just can't. I restricted my charity to people who were clearly injured in some way.
All in all a very mixed reaction. It is nice to be travelling again and meeting people, but it is very tiring and it takes a few days to work out if you are being ripped off. I'm writing this from Phnom Phen after having seen Angkor Wat, the killing fields, S21 prison and the National Museum. Stay tuned for more information!
