Kingdom of Cambodia

A Beautiful Country with a lot of History

I went with a SAS field program because that is the only way we can visit a country out of the itinerary, and everything started at 5:30am on February 14^th. We went to the international airport and took a flight to the capital of The Kingdom of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. On arrival, we paid $30USD, gave our photos, and got our visas very easily. There was a bus waiting for us and our first stop was Palm Tree Orphanage. We played games and volleyball with the kids. All of them spoke English and gave us a tour of the place. The kids are very humble, go to school in the mornings and learn English in the afternoons. Some of them have the desire to go to Universities in the US or Australia. Cambodia is the country with the most NGO’s and they are a big support for the kids all around the country.

River Cruise

We went by the river and had lunch there. I ordered Fish Amok, a typical dish of fish with mild curry and coconut, and steamed rice. Then, we visited the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. To go in the temples everyone had to wear pants and shirts with sleeves, and we also had to take our shoes off. Afterwards we went to the Mekong River, where it meets with the Tonlé Sap River, and took a ferry to watch the sunset. The water is dark, does not look too clean. There are some floating houses with fishing nets underneath. There were a lot of boats but it made me mad that some of them had only two or three passengers each, instead of putting all tourists in only one boat. In the evening we went to a restaurant called Khmer Surin for dinner. They brought lots of dishes and we shared the food. The neighborhood we were at was very nice, with a lot of restaurants and night life.

Dinner: Rolls, rice cakes

Sunset on the river cruise

Phonm Penh is the capital city since the French colonization and is the largest too. There were lots of cars, motorcycles and tuc-tucs (bike cabs). Cambodia has its own dialect, the Khmer. And their writing is also Khmer script and is very hard. There remain some French colonial buildings, but it also has modern buildings, for it is the wealthiest and most populous city in Cambodia. Their currency is the Cambodian Riel and the conversion rate is $1USD= 4,000Riels. However, US Dollars are widely accepted.

Royal Palace

      The second day we went to the Killing Fields. In the 1970’s Cambodia wanted to get independency and a communist group coming from Northern Vietnam called Khmer Rouge (Red Khmers) came to help expulse the French, so Cambodians thought they were good. The Khmer Rouge started kidnapping educated people and foreigners, including professionals, such as doctors and teachers, and killing them. Kids were separated from their parents and because they were too young they did not remember their parents’ names and later on, if possible, it was very hard to find their relatives. They had changed their own names as well. This massive killing is known as the “Cambodian genocide.” The Khmer Rouge was dissolved in the 1990’s and finally surrendered in 1999. Between 1975 and 1979 they killed two million people, nearly one fourth of Cambodian population at that time. Cambodians wanted either peace or justice, and because justice was harder to achieve, they forgave the Khmer Rouge people and gave them amnesty. The killing field was a sad place to visit. Somehow like the concentration camps; hundreds of people were brought to this place to be exterminated. The fields now have signs and a big building full of bones, so that we all remember things like this must never happen again.

Commemorative Stupa Filled With Skulls

We also went to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. It was a school that was turned into a Khmer Rouge former prison. Foreigners were tortured because the Khmer Rouge thought they were part of the CIA. Some of them were sent to the killing fields afterwards. We met the last survivor, Chum Mey, who wrote a book about his stay at the prison. “The triumph of an ordinary man in the Khmer Rouge genocide.” Overall, the prison was a horrible and sad place.

Some people, like our tour guide, were able to find their relatives after they got freedom. But this was not very common. Kids were taught Russian for a while, and no one was allowed to speak English. Nowadays, almost everyone knows or wants to learn to speak English.

Russian Market

After learning a lot about Cambodian history, we went to the Russian Market. It was full of tents with narrow halls, where we could easily get lost; I bought some nice paintings. We also went to the National Museum, where statues from the Hinduism and Buddhism religions are combined. It is very interesting how Cambodians combined the two religions and are in harmony with one another. Temples are usually a combination of both, with Buddha’s, elephants, snakes, and all that characterize both religions.

National Museum 

We took a flight to Siem Reap. On arrival, we went straight to a nice restaurant where they had some fancy appetizers and the food was buffet style. There was also a cultural dance show, very beautiful.

On our last day, we went to Angkor Wat at 5:30am to watch the sunrise. I thought there was going to be barely anybody, but when we got to the entrance there were a lot of bikes and tuc tucs already. By the time we got to the pond, there were nearly a thousand people there, with big cameras, all ready to enjoy the sunrise. I was not expecting that many tourists in Cambodia, but it is true that if a place is good there will always be people on it.

After breakfast we went to Angkor Tom (“Great City”), which was amazing. It was the last and most enduring capital city of the Khmer Empire, built in the 12^th century with an area of 9km². In the center of the city there is the Jayavarman state temple, the Bayon, which is the temple made with face-towers and Naga (snakes) figures. The towers are 23 meters high. We saw the Terrace of the Elephants, monkeys and elephants. And we entered some of the temples, beautiful sculpted huge rocks all around the place. The other temple was built using some the roots of enormous trees as the base. Then we went back to Angkor Wat, UNESCO World Heritage Site, and went inside this time. Angkor Wat was first a Hindu, later a Buddhist temple, and it is the largest religious monument in the world. It was built in the 12^th century, with a classical style of the Khmer architecture and dedicated to Vishnu. It is also the best-preserved temple, Cambodian’s main tourist attraction and the symbol of the national flag. The name Angkor Wat means “Temple City.” Cambodians still go there to worship. Although we did not see it, the aerial view of the city is breathtaking.

I loved Cambodia; I wish we had spent more time there. It has a lot of history and culture, completely different from Colombia and the US. Kids are beautiful too. Even though, unfortunately, there is a lot of corruption, Cambodians are very hopeful about their future the country is moving on and developing. We all want to see Cambodia succeed.

Finally, we went to the international airport in Siem Reap to catch a flight to Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. There we were transferred home, to the MV Explorer.