The Land of Laughs

If Vietnam is the place of smiles, Cambodia is the land of laughs. Cambodian laughter can be brought on by anything and everything and much of our time here was spent giggling along with the rest of the nation :o) delightful!

Unfortunately our time in Cambodia wasn't all laughter however. Being in Cambodia gave us the

chance to see for ourselves the place whose history has been so powerfully portrayed in the film “The Killing Fields”. As we visited the famous S21 prison in Phnom Penh where the Khmer Rouge imprisoned the people of Cambodia and also the Killing Fields near Phnom Penh and the Killing Cave in Battambang, where the Cambodian people were ruthlessly slaughtered, there was no trace of a smile on our faces.

We could barely take in or comprehend the ruthlessness of the regime which the Khmer Rouge referred to as “Year Zero” and it didn't take long for us to see the pain in the lives of the people who have been left.

We thought about that fact that it was our own generation who lost parents. We met an old man, fluent in French, who described how he as an intellectual was fortunate to survive. As the people were forced into rural labour

this man explained how he kept his head down and followed the lead of the farmers who knew how to work the land, hoping he wouldn't be noticed. He told us that the food they were given was one bowl of rice between 50 people, usually each man, woman or child would have a bowl of water with perhaps 5-7 grains of rice in it. We found it so ironic that at a time when the nation was working the fields that the same people would be simultaneously starved often to to death.

We met Kim in Battambang, a tuk-tuk driver the same age as John, who explained how he spent twelve years of his life in refugee camps across the border in Thailand. His family fled to Thailand in the midst of civil war after the Khmer Rouge fell. He told us of how, during the time of the Khmer Rouge, his two older siblings were separated from his parents and put to work in the fields. He described how his father was allowed to visit them once a year, but not allowed close enough to touch them, and of how his father over a number of years watched them slowly die of starvation, unable to intervene. Kim told us that when his family eventually returned from life in Thailand's refugee camps their home and land had been taken and redistributed and they were entitled to nothing. He now supports his elderly parents and 6 siblings as the only bread winner in the house.

I wish the past was the only thing that broke our hearts in Cambodia, but it wasn't.

Sihanoukville, a naval port and beach resort on the country's southern coast, where our eyes were opened to some of the horrors of the sex trade in South East Asia also caused us to grieve. What we saw...ex prostitutes, no longer wanted, selling pedicures and manicures; all kinds of western men with

young Cambodian women; children walking the beach in tatty clothes selling bracelets; the same children being petted by western men; underage girls scouting for business along the strip of bars on the beach...what we saw affected us so deeply we actually couldn't enjoy the place at all. Of course the facts of the sex industry

worldwide and in particular in Asia are not new to either of us, but to see with our own eyes some of this industry in “action”, as it were, was very different from reading some statistics. I spent quite a lot of time researching online and trying to somehow comprehend what we were seeing. I felt angry, upset, passionate and disgusted as I worked through my thoughts and emotions...to see love, one of the purest and most beautiful gifts we have and are able to give as humans so twisted and defiled.

It really wasn't all bad though and Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor Wat have been one of the highlights of our whole trip so far! Siem Reap was a delight for us, it had a wonderful mix of the modern (wi-fi, cafes, bars, great food, ice cream and milkshakes...)

and the traditional. We loved the food and often ate in the middle of the hubbub of the markets (fresh and fried spring rolls yummy!).

We met up with a friend from uni who is volunteering at an orphanage and had the chance to cycle out to visit the children one morning. And, of course, we saw Angkor Wat.

If you are making a list of things in the world you must see, put Angkor Wat on it. We had so much fun exploring the temples and surrounding area over three days, hiring bicycles for two days and getting a tuk tuk the third.

It seems however that John and bicycles weren't made to be together as on day one John's tyre was slashed in a scam which involved

us being directed to a bike tyre fixing man who was amazingly and totally coincidently just around the corner...of course we stubbornly refused to bow to their attempts to make us part with money and John cycled over 20km with the tyre flat!

Then, on day two, on a different bike, John's pedal fell off leaving him cycling another 20 or so km with the pedal periodically falling off and being shoved back on!

It was actually hilarious! We were glad (and so were our bums) on day three to leave the bikes behind and be driven...

We got up at very early o'clock to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat and were shown a “light

increasing over Angkor” show instead as the sun decided to take a break from showing off that morning. But it didn't matter. We loved every moment we spent in the temples, some very well restored or maintained and others crumbling and overgrown as though no one had stepped foot in them for centuries. We just loved wandering in among the ruins and getting 'lost' in our wee explorations.

At some points we felt like we were in a Indiana Jones movie! It was awesome!

So in the land of laughs we found some of the most wonderfully happy and fun loving people we have ever met and saw one of the most amazing sights we have seen on our trip so far.

It was time to take the seemingly convenient “Cambodia – Laos Express Bus” which in fact turned out to be 4 buses and a boat along with a lot of waiting and a bribe, sorry an overtime fee at the boarder to make our transition from Cambodia to the little known Laos.