Saizou's Playground: Cambodia and Back!

Cambodia's really something else! I'm not really much of a writer so I'd upload lots of pictures instead. =)

Cambodia -Siam Reap
The SUN was scorching!!! I think my skin cells died en masse the first day there. Singapore sunblock was no match against Cambodian sun. T_T But it's really a beautiful country. Simple yet beautiful.

Hotel looked nice but wasn't too good in my opinion. Well, we can't expect much from a 3* hotel... and I'm a brat.... *shrugs*

After an extremely hot and sweaty walk, bout 30 mins or so (instigated by miss backpacker of the year -loser tan), we reached the central mkt in Siam Reap. Usual tourist stuff, nothing much to buy there because I didn't want to spend my money on the first day.

The two crazy but adorable girls with me! The Bhai girl and Loser Tan.

Angkor Wat and other assorted temples....

Alrighty... we visited so many temples that day it made my head spin. Honest. I loved it.... to an extent. It was certainly impressive to say the least. But the restoration of the place wasn't done too well... the tourists were the hazards! Hmm... I'm certainly guilty of it too.

Beautiful isn't it?

Absolutely love these carvings... impressive for 12th century craftsmen.

The three of us... note the difference in height.... *sigh*

We went up the center of Bayon Temple. And because I suggested going up, when the time came for us to get down, I was the first one down. It sure was a long way down... =_=

But the highlight was this one! Much higher then the previous one...this one was in the middle of Angkor Wat itself and Loser Tan risked her life to take our picture! Haha...

Me and Loser Tan

The view from above was fantastic....well worth the climb...

The climb down was no joke. The tourists were soooooooo afraid... but the locals are experts I tell you. The old uncles and aunties seemed to "run" down those steps! Mothers carrying little kids can go down faster than us.... haha... Bhai girl had to ask the extremely old uncle after her to slow down quite a few times. hahaha...

Phnom Penh-Took a domestic flight to Phnom Penh

Visited the Genocide Museum Tuol Sleng, formerly known as the Khmer Rouge S21 Prison, in Phnom Penh. Extremely depressing place.

It was formerly a high school. Under the K.R, many schools, hospitals, even temples were converted into prisons.

Regulations at the prison... translated into english... it's fucking insane lah!

Picture of guy being tortured, chained to the bed.

Blk C -The only block with the barbed wire still intact. To prevent prisoners from committing suicide. Truly sickening.

5-6 men will fit into one of these tiny cells....

Women's cells were on the second floor, made of wood instead.

Pictures of the victims

Some of them merely children.

The Khmer Rouge. I simply don't understand how they can do this to their own people. It's truely abhorrent.

The prisoners in S21 were tortured and when they "confessed", they were sent to the killing field. It's a classic case of damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you confess, you'll be taken to the killing fields. If you don't, they'll torture you to death. Bloody hell!

The Khmer Rouge, like the Japanese soldiers, would fling the children against the tree to kill them before flinging them into the mass grave at the side. argh...

The sugar palm tree. The Khmer Rouge used the sharp edges of the tree to cut the throats of the victims. *shivers*

The skulls of the victims...

This is actually quite disturbing. Our guide told us that we're actually walking on some of the bones of the victims. Everytime it rains, more clothes and bones of the victims will be discovered. All these will be collected in a pile next to a tree. Every month, people will take this pile of clothes and bones and cremate them. We were real careful about where we stepped after we heard this.

After that. lunch was a depressing affair. The sheer amount of beggers on the street was astonishing and sad. It'd been said that on the average, 2 Cambodians stepped on mines everyday and when you see someone without arms, legs or fingers because of these mines, one can't help but feel that the impact of the Khmer Rouge is truly far-reaching. if only that old bitch Pol Pot never existed all these suffering might not have occurred.

A place of fond memories... spent the bulk of my money there.=_=
It was here that we returned to after miss "backpacker of the year"'s backpack was snatched away while we were on the tuktuk. The tuktuk driver tried to give chase. To his credit, he really tried.... but the combined weight of the tuktuk and 3 not so small women inside didn't really help. Oh well, nothing important was lost and it was a cheap backpack from central market anyways. Not much loss... the important thing was we were all right. =)