**These were just from our point and shoot. Most of the photos we took were medium format film, so they are being developed right now. They will come later!
Okay, so maybe not a month vacation. It sure did feel like more than a week.
I'm not quite sure how we ended up going to Cambodia. A lot of my friends here travel to Thailand, Vitenam and Cambodia. Not many go JUST to Cambodia. For some reason, we did. We thought it would be easier to just pick one country and go there and back. It's probably a good thing we did.
With focusing only on one country, we were able to fly into Phnom Penh and stay three nights and then take a bus to Siem Reap and stay there for three nights.
I was lucky to get this leave as we are down to 4 ICU and 3 med/surg nurses soon with one part time civilian nurse. That leaves us with not even enough to make 4 separate teams of 2 nurses each. This means, no days off, no holidays and no leave. It is like this throughout our hospital. The shortage this summer is going to be rough. I was able to fit it in to work with staffing, so I wanted to make the most of it. I won't be getting time off for a while.
Sunday, the 3rd we caught the base shuttle to Narita airport (sooo nice they have that!) and flew to Shanghai, China with a few hours layover and then on to Phnom Penh. We felt silly in the Chinese airport going up to restaurants and asking if they spoke english. They seemed offended by this, but it's a legitimate question for those in Japan! Not that many people speak english, er, they do, but say they don't, or they just only know a few words.
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| Shanghai Airport - China |
The Chinese are very different than the Japanese. That's lesson 1 I learned on this trip. Many people from Asia and Europe travel to Cambodia and that is the first thing I noticed.
Lesson 2 is that I really think Tuk Tuks would make it big in Japan! :) Tuk Tuks are scooters with a covered carriage in the back and used as a taxi in some of the more poor countries. Very efficient, but man, is the driving TERRIFYING!
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| THAT is a guy on the back of a scooter with a LADDER around his neck!!! |
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| The roof of one of our tuk tuks |
So, we finally landed in Phnom Penh and the communication for custom forms, etc was a mess. It is nice though, there, if you show your US passport, they generally wave you on. No concern there. ;)
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| I could never ride a scooter there!!! |
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We checked into our first hotel close to midnight. It was a plain room, the toilet, sink and shower head were all in one big room, but it had a ceiling fan and a nice TV. Plus, as we found out the next morning, they had a killer pool and tiki bar where they would serve breakfast. We ended up loving this hotel. I really am kicking myself for not dipping in the pool there. At night, we were able to watch bats fly all around the pool! I just couldn't get out of my head the image from The Great Outdoors when they were trying to catch the bat in the cabin and it stuck to his face!
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| That pool was beautiful |
We visited the killing fields (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Fields) first. Now, I knew nothing about the history of Cambodia before this trip. I know quite a bit now. Basically, in the 1970's, a regime took over called the Khmer Rouge with a horrible leader. They rounded up millions of Cambodian people and locked them in a prison and tortured them for being intellectual and possibly against the plan for Cambodia. They were then taken to fields and mass executed.
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| The memorial at the killing fields. Holds floor to ceiling shelves of skulls found. |
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| Killing fields pond area - such a beautiful place for such a horrible history |
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| Where they had dug up some of the bones |
Estimates are between 1 and 3 million men, women and children that were murdered. It is hard to grasp your head around. The killing fields now have a memorial for those that perished there, and they are floor to ceiling shelves of skulls found. There are still more bones out in the fields that eventually turn up after rains, etc.
The killing fields memorial and area are put together by a man that survived the whole ordeal and they have headsets you can listen to as you walk around telling why, how and where everything happened. It's a quiet area, where, when you sat in the shade and felt the wind blow, you could soak it all in and just think about how horrible it must have been to have lived here at that time.
It's hard to understand how we can do such heinous things to each other.
Phnom Pehn also though had some beautiful buildings and architecture. We saw the Royal Palace (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Palace_of_Cambodia) for the King of Cambodia, which was just absolutely beautiful.
We also saw Wat Phnom (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat_Phnom), which is a buddhist temple built on a hill near down town. It was built in the 1300's. Again, it's a nice area and park in the city where you can look around.
For $25 you could get a tuk tuk driver for the day, and we had a great one, Judon, who even once picked us up in the middle of a busy intersection as we were trying to cross! It felt like a get away!
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| The school turned prison and torture chambers for most Cambodians before they were taken to the killing fields |
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| Royal Palace - Phnom Penh |
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| Royal Palace - Phnom Penh |
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| Royal Palace - Phnom Penh |
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| Royal Palace - Phnom Penh |
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| Royal Palace - Phnom Penh |
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| National Museum - Phnom Penh |
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| Wat Phnom - Phnom Penh |
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| Wat Phnom - Phnom Penh |
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| Wat Phnom - Phnom Penh |
Eventually, it was time to leave Phnom Pehn. Overall, the city was
interesting. A mix of so many different things. As the capitol, it was a
mix of homeless (including one man we saw catching sparrows with his
bare hand to eat), prostitutes (including VERY young girls dressed in
prom dresses), expatriates that went to Cambodia and never left,
tourists from all over, monks, yoga instructors trying to get their
"zen" on, etc.
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| Bus ride! Let's do this! |
The bus ride was super cheap and we got
the "top of the line" bus with wifi...which really didn't work most of
the trip, but whatev. They showed movies and it had air conditioning. I
was good.
I felt like we were in the movie, Speed,
though! It wasn't like riding a bus on a freeway, but speeding down half
paved roads honking and swerving for 6 hours! Hey, it got us
there...but man, it wasn't a super relaxing trip.
Siem Reap had a totally different feel. The buildings were newer, nicer and a bit more modern, but because of Angkor Wat (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat) , the tourism was pushed more. Everything was more pushy to get your money. They see so many tourists it is just the norm.
The first full day there, we got up (almost missed alarm) and headed to Angkor Wat at sunrise (0530)!
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| Angkor Wat at sunrise - Siem Reap |
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| Angkor Wat |
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| Angkor Wat |
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| Angkor Wat |
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| Angkor Wat |
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| Angkor Wat |
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| Angkor Wat |
Angkor Thom came next (
http://www.canbypublications.com/siemreap/temples/temp-angthom.htm)
Map of Angkor Thom (
http://www.canbypublications.com/maps/TempleMapaap2at.htm)
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| Bayon within Angkor Thom |
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| Cameron being frustrated with the people standing in his shot that wouldn't move! |
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| See those two? They kept taking the same photo over and over....and were in Cam's way. Like he said, they needed 30 minutes to take 300 of the same shot...and he needed 1 min to take 1 film photo. haha |
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| They still wouldn't move! :P |
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| Bayon inside Angkor Thom |
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| Bayon |
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| Bayon |
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| Preah Palilay |
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| Terrace of the Elephants |
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| Terrace of the elephants |
Video of Chau Say - Not sure what Cameron was taking a photo of. :D
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| Ta Prohm |
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| Ta Prohm |
There were so many temples and things we didn't see, but we spent 7 hours looking around the ones we did and our feet were tired and it was beginning to get HOT!
So amazing. These structures were built around the 1100's. Absolutely amazing. The reconstruction of them are amazing as well. It's hard to imagine what they have seen through a thousand years.
Man, I wish I could go back frequently and visit it all. Maybe some day we will..... It's something I wish everyone could see. GO early in the morning.
The rest of the time, we walked around Siem Reap and ate wonderfully! They have so many restaurants popping up from all the tourism. We were able to find some great vegetarian places.
We went to the markets a lot, but it's all the same "made in china" stuff and pushy people trying to see you crap. What was neat, was to find some stores that were things hand made by people in Cambodia and it was fair trade and went back to a good cause. One store we bought something in, had the proceeds going to help kids get off the street. It's so good to help those stores out instead of buying junk at the market that really won't help anyone.
I wouldn't eat meat in Cambodia after seeing the market....even if I wasn't a vegetarian! It was hot and meat was just laid out everywhere with flies all over it and everything. Whole pig heads were all laid out in a row and legs of animals with the skin and hoof still attached. Disgusting.
Siem Reap also took us to the land mine museum. (http://www.cambodialandminemuseum.org/)
It was opened by a child soldier of the Khmer Rouge that grew up and started de-mining. It gave so much information about how land mines and unexploded ordinances ended up in Cambodia. They expect that at the rate they are going they will have all the land mines cleared in 150 years! There are still land mines and unexploded ordinances from 40-60 years ago that still get dug up and injure and kill farmers.
That site had a school for children whose parents couldn't take care of them. They all received and education and a scholarship when graduating. It really reinforced my desire to do Public Health nursing on a global scale and maybe help countries like this down the road.
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| Bridge in Siem Reap |
Eventually, it was time to leave Siem Reap. It was a tuk tuk ride, to a bus for a 7+ hr bus ride back to Phnom Penh, to a tuk tuk to the airport, where we sat for a few hours until our flight, to our layover in China, to wait for a few hours, to another flight, which ended up circling Narita for a few hours because of a dust storm, to a 2 hr bus ride back to base, to a train ride and a mile walk home......
We finally made it back home! :D
Film was sent off the next day. Those photos should be back in a couple weeks. Yay! I hope they turn out okay! So excited!
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