Monday, December 26, 2005

Jingle Bells, Cambodia Smells!

Not had a chance to update the blog over Christmas. Lack of facilities and a power-cut put paid to that. We left Phonm Phem on the 22nd, and headed to Sohheskneville, or whatever it's called and spelt. (Cambodian still confuses me, specially when they all speak good English so as not to give us a chance to learn the lingo.)

Huw had emailed us with teh guest house they were staying in, so we grabbed a Moto down there. It was only 30 seconds walk from the beach. We saw Huw, and after hugs all round we discovered the guest house was full! Our Moto drivers took us round the corner for the night, with the promise of a room in Markara Guest House for the next day.

Bags dumped we went back to find Huw, and all of us hit the beach to find Brendon. He was laid-out in a deck-chair watching the sun go down. We spent that night on the beach chatting and catching up with news from home and abroad. It was a strange one for us all to be sat of a beach in Cambodia, and so easy to do!

The next day we spent on the beach. Everyone else apart from myself had some hair removed by a lady using dental floss and a cracking technique. I ended up with 2 little girls making braclets for me, so a grabbed a quick lesson in Khmer off them. Unfortuntaey I've had no chance to practice the few words they taugh me, so they are lost again. So a day chilling and swimming, not bad if you can get it.

Christmas Eve, we hired bicycles and biked down to the Ortes Beach. This is a undeveloped and quite beach around a headland from where we were staying. We spent the day there not hassled by beach vendors, and as the sun came down we made our way back to the hire place. Cycling along the beach just on the edge of the surf is good fun, if a bit of a cliche. As Huw pointed out though, a full cliche would have been a riding a horse at sunset along the beach.

Sam, Huw and I stayed up quite late on Christmas Eve night, and probably didn't get to bed until 4-ish in the morning. So Christmas Day was a lazy day. I did try and do some emails, but as soon a I sat in front of the computer, we had a power-cut. This lasted all day, and as we left the guest house today, that area of town was still out. So Christmas on the beach was a quite nigh of bonfires and candles, all quite nice really. Who needs electricity when you have candles, a bonfire, a beer in your hand and the beach underneath your feet?!

Cambodia is very different to the other South East Asian countries I've visted so far. I can't quite put my finger on it, apart from it is a lot dirtier than I've seen before. A national pride that I've come across before, does not seem to exist here, or not in the same way. There is a lot of bad history in Cambodia, that is still resinating throughtout the people and the country. One of the places I want to visit, apart fom Ankgor, is the Killing Fields. I've seen the shocking imagary of piles of skulls, I think most people have, but to see the place for yourself is important for vistors here. You cannot come to this country as a tourist and not acknowledge what happened here only a few years ago, so as to understand what these people have been through. Horrors that we can only begin to imagine through visiting such a place.

Anyway we are in Kampot now, 2 hours south of Sihhoueeorcnkville, or whatever the hell it was called. From here we will do a bit of trekking in the National Park, and spend a day on the beach not far from here. Then it's a mad trip back to Phonm Phem, via the Killing Fields and onto Siem Reap for the full Angkor experience. That will leave us 2 weeks to get through Thailand, via Bangkok, down Mayanmar and to Singapore for the 16th of January.

There is more to tell about our past few days, but this has been a bit of a massive blog to write that I'm pouring with sweat and need a drink. It's odd traveling with other people when you know them of old, but not in this new place where things are a bit alien.

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