Days 19 and 20, 3–4 Oct Phnom Penh

 Day 19, 3 Oct Phnom Penh (pronounced ‘Pa-nom Pen’)

Up at 7am this morning for breakfast as we have a morning excursion. Could feel fluid up my legs last night, to about my shins and I swear the 7 trips to the bathroom through the night got rid of all that fluid! Was up every hour so obviously my body is self regulating ha ha. Graeme only fared a little better 😊. 

We got on the bus with our new Cambodian tour guide Leng, and he took us to the sobering killing fields in Choeung Ek first. It was out of town about 45 mins away and not what I had expected. I had seen the movie the Killing Fields, when I was about 11 or 12 – The same year I met two Cambodian refugees when I was on holiday with my friend at the Mount. They were teenagers and they had very broken English but had been boat people, and it was shocking the lives they had led compared to ours. 

I remember how shocking it was in the movie, when they showed people being forced to kneel down in the fields, and blue plastic bags being put on their heads to suffocate them. The reality was, it was not that big an area at all, but you could see what look like trenches where they later dug up mass graves. 

It was actually quite peaceful there now but it was the site of pretty awful atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot. I didn’t know that it actually stood for ‘political potential’ and was the name he gave himself.

It had been originally a fruit orchard so there were lots of lovely trees there but the genocide was evident everywhere – it occurred in the late 1970s and it wasn’t until 1988 that the memorial was erected. Of the 120 communal graves, 49 have been left intact. There were pretty woven bracelets that people have left in memory of those fallen and there was a memorial behind glass which had many skulls. You could buy two beautiful huge water lilies for 1usd and people were taking off their shoes and placing the flowers at the memorial along with incense. 

One of the ladies in our group hasn’t been feeling well and has had a stronger version of Graeme‘s cold with a continual cough and she got overheated while we were there, and started to fade so they checked her out and then we wamdered back to the bus after a look around. Went to the little shops on the way back and was going to get a can of drink but Graeme remembered about how in these asian countries many of the soft drink packs are left in sheds and mice and rats are a real issue running over them, so you don’t buy any cans and drink out of them – you have to pour them into a glass, so if you can’t do that you don’t drink it .

So I bought a little tub of vanilla ice cream from a lady there, she was on the phone and crying while she was talking to someone – she had tears falling down her face and I asked her if she was alright and she just nodded, but kept crying. Hope she is okay

After that visit we went to Tuol Sleng detention Centre. Originally it was a school and is also known as S – 21, it was turned into the Kymer Rouge‘s largest detention and torture headquarters. More than 17,000 men, woman and children moved through S 21 on their way to the killing fields. Only 7 survived at the end of the regime - and today we met the one, now remaining survivor who is in his 90s. He was there with his book and signing and selling it outside what has now, become the museum. The torture inflicted there was incredible, beds with metal racks on them that held their feet and there were a couple of Australians and a Kiwi who was sailing and accidentally came into an area controlled by the Khmer Rouge and he was arrested. 

Talking to our tour guide who grew up with his parents being affected in this era - he remembers some of it, he said they were all rounded up and tortured to get information out of them – being forced to admit they worked for the CIA or the KGB which was ridiculous. They were mostly after educated people who would stand up I guess, doctors, teachers that sort of profession and the Kiwi, Kerry Hamill apparently said when he was interrogated, that his CIA superior was Colonel Sanders of KFC and gave his phone number as the CIA number.

 As Graeme said – if you are tortured long enough you will admit to anything. Then they were all shipped out to the killing fields and executed anyway. Amazingly, Pol Pot was never prosecuted and died in 1998 I think it was, still a free man. The tour guide said people remarked he was not an intimidating man and seemed quite calm and hard to believe he had done what he had. He died not feeling any guilt and apparently said he would not waste bullets on killing the people under his regime, hence either bludgeoning them or suffocating them. Think he then also cleaned out his soldiers as he didn’t trust them. So very confronting, but glad we went. 

We travelled back to the ship for a lovely lunch, it’s hard not to eat something that resembles a dinner as they put on so much lovely food! Then we were taken by bus to the central markets. It’s very similar to Istanbul‘s grand bizarre and forks off into so many different directions. The central part is a great gold dome and boy is it hot in there! They were just thousands of small aisles with all sorts - from hairdressers to watches to clothing and the food market was outside. We wandered around for awhile but it was pretty airless in there – no scratch that, it was completely airless! So we decided to head off before the bus came back for us.

We followed what the tour guide had said to walk in a straight line and then turn left, but something went wrong somewhere and we ended up kilometres away, so the 15 minute walk took us almost an hour and I was seriously hot and over it by the time we got back to the port. You walk along the roads edge but it’s not bad as people all seem to merge, even though it’s very congested.

Before dinner, they had beautiful traditional Cambodian musicians and dancers come in for us. The dancers study for something like 4 years and the women can bend their fingers back into most incredibly far positions, that look impossible. The dancing was beautiful and they also did some dances with coconuts and also huge bamboo poles, which you didn’t want to get your feet caught in!

At 9 pm, those of us who had opted in for the extra excursion into town, all met just outside the ship and were allocated our tuk tuk drivers. We got Mr Sam – number 28! He was funny and gave us bits of information as we zoomed around the city as a group. They even closed off the little road for us when we were all getting in – must be dangerous white westerners ha ha!It was a pretty fast ride and he took us through all the major streets – so many people come out and apparently they just ride around for fun. There is an area which is like the arc de triumph with a big roundabout, lights and flags and noise and hustle and bustle everywhere – was fun to be a part of. 

Then they took us to a Skytop bar which looked out over all the city on level 26, where they also gave us a lovely cocktail. I had a piña colada! It was very warm up there surprisingly given that the bar was all open side, so it must be true that heat rises. After about an hour, they zoomed us back to the ship and into bed.

So a pretty full on day today but really enjoyed it – the heat is something else though and we both had 3 showers yesterday – you are that soaked in sweat! Even the locals find it too hot they said,  as since the rain has stopped, the temperature has gone up unusually high.

Day 20, 4 Oct Phnom Pen & North

Up at 7 am as per usual– By the time we got to bed last night only had about six hours sleep but felt fine. Breakfast at 7:30 am and at the door at 8:30 am. We were taken by tuk tuk – same driver we had last night – Mr Sam, driver 28! We had to have covered shoulders and knees today and closed shoes. They took us to the Royal Palace where we looked around the different beautiful pavilions. They were saying that there is even a crematorium for the king when they die and after it has been used once, they build a new one at 1-$2 million usd, so no two kings are cremated in there 😬.

The architecture is absolutely beautiful and the buildings are usually white and yellow with the terracotta tile roof and lovely statues adorning the buildings. It was incredibly, incredibly humid &  hot today. Even our driver said it was too hot for the locals and it’s unusual to have this much, he after the rainy season. We had another lady very overheated so we had to wait around quite a bit until they could get her out and into the tuk tuk back to the ship. Everybody was so hot is the humidity was about 90% today and all of our clothes were soaked! Sweating in places we didn’t know you could sweat 🥵🥵ha ha.

Nobody opted in our group, for the afternoon tour as everyone was so overheated, so back into our little limousines! And back to the ship into the cool lovely rooms :-) .  We mooched around for the rest of the day after showers – had lunch, ate way too much! And then reading and catching up. It is Danni’s 30th birthday today so we rang her on a video call and had a chat then later there was a group call with the family, so we all jumped on to sing happy birthday to her and it was good to catch up with everyone. Looks like she was having a good birthday, although has been crook with a Ggastro bug the last couple of days.

We had a lay down then got ready and went out to the information presentation, where they talk about the next days activities. We have been anchored for two days in Phenom Pen, but are moving on to Siam Reap, So we were off, sailed until about 8 pm and then anchored in the river for the night. The cruise director said they have to be careful as there are lots of fishing nets the local fishermen put out and they sometimes get caught on the ship so they go very slowly. Going to Angkor Wat is going to be amazing – just hope the heat is bearable! There are a lot of  older and not particularly mobile passengers on board and the heat saps everyone’s strength, but you just pace yourself.