July 27 – Angkor Wat

What can I really say about this place? It’s astonishing. The city of Angkor is about as large as the island of Manhattan and contains over 2000 temples most of which have not been restored.  

We started our day at 4:30 am to see the sunrise over the main temple, Angkor Wat ("City Temple") which was built in the early 12^th century for a king as his estate. Built using large stone blocks, it took 300 years to construct and was meant to represent Mount Meru (the home of the gods). Although it was originally a Hindu temple, it is now Buddhist and the largest religious building in the world.

We hired a driver to bring us through the various temples and structures scattered throughout the jungle. The architecture, details and size of the temples are incredible and they each contain various rooms, paths and passageways so it’s easy to get disoriented while wandering through them.

I can’t possibly begin to describe it all so here are some pictures.  

 

 

 

 

 

July 25 – Duck or Dog?

Now this will sound weird given what we did yesterday, but it’s something I really wanted to do. I heard that it’s possible to shoot a rocket launcher here so I found a military shooting range where you can choose from an arsenal of weapons to try out. Unfortunately the rocket launcher didn’t work out so we decided to test our aim with some automatic weapons. I went with an AK-47 and Lungi unloaded on a coconut with an M-16. 

 

 

 

Later that night we went for dinner at a local place with a guy we met who’s originally from Montreal but now lives in Vietnam. There was a section on the menu with the heading “duck” and seeing as I haven’t had duck in a while I decided to order some. When my meal arrived, I dug in but quickly noticed that what I was eating definitely wasn’t duck. It was some sort of meat that I have never tasted but it was pretty good so I ate a little more – I figured that the waiter just mixed up my order. When the waiter came back, I asked him what it was and he said that it was duck. Lungi said, “duck, as in quak quak?” and the waiter started laughing. He replied, “nooooo duck as in woof woof”. It was fucking dog, not a duck – talk about a misleading menu. At least I can now say that I’ve eaten dog.  

The restaurant

The dog

Some random pics:

 

 

 

 

July 24 – Cambodia

We left Saigon at 12:30 am for Phnom Penh in Cambodia and at about 5 am we arrived at the border. The bus driver told us we could either buy our visas from the bus company directly (at an inflated price of course) or get them from the Cambodian border officials however the bus would leave if we took more than 15 minutes getting through customs. We decided to take our chances at the border and when we arrived at the visa counter, the officer told us it cost $22 each. I pointed to the very large sign which read “tourist visa: $20” and asked why he was trying to charge me more. He claimed that the extra 2$ was the fee for an “express” visa which is obviously bullshit – it’s actually just a form of bribery to avoid a 45 minute hassle and having our bags searched. Regardless, we decided to just pay the extra money to avoid the headache but some of the other passengers didn’t and after 15 minutes the bus just left. It took a lot of yelling by one of the passengers friends for the bus to stop and wait while those left behind came running down the highway to get back on the bus.

In Phnom Penh we visited the notorious S-21 detention facility (now a museum) which was used by the Khmer Rouge to interrogate, torture and execute during the genocide which took place here from 1975 – 1979. Thousands of people passed through its doors including women and children all of whom were brutally tortured and murdered except for about 7 survivors. Similar to the Nazi’s, the Khmer Rouge kept detailed records of everyone they executed including photographs. These photographs now line the walls and rooms along with some very graphic pictures of what took place here. It’s quite an eerie feeling to stand in one of the rooms knowing that you are in the exact spot where thousands of people had been tortured and to imagine what must have been going through their heads as this was happening.  

 

 

 

Afterwards we visited what are known as the Killing Fields which is where the majority of the executions took place. Today the area is very quiet and peaceful but it is very obvious what existed before. The craters created by mass graves, the pieces of bone stuck in the mud and the mountain of skulls that are housed in a Pagoda. What happened here was barbaric; people being decapitated and thrown into a pit with hundreds of others, babies being held by their feet and having their skulls smashed against into a tree which is now called the “killing tree”. It’s hard to believe that this all took place only 30 years ago.