What Mosquitoes?

Mosquitos and midges can sometimes be a problem. Shown here around this lamp shade in a fairly rubbish attempt to capture the moment.

Killing Fields

Cambodia is dotted with places like Choeung Ek 14km from Phnom Penh, some no doubt, still undiscovered. This is the site of a huge stupa filled with over 8000 skulls representing a fraction of those killed at this site alone. Walking around, reading the signs identifying long gone buildings and their gruesome functions is a sobering experience.

skulls inside the memorial…

evidence of what happened here is everywhere

clothing litters the ground popping up amid bones and teeth that you can’t help but walk on.

some has been placed in the stupa along with some leg irons here

43 of the 129 mass graves have been excavated.

Spider Place

Nuts! I didn’t get a picture of these, also Nuts because that’s what they taste of apparently.. nutty chicken. The local delicacy of this truck stop (frankly rank place) on the road between Kratie and Siem Reap is deep fried spiders. And a Cambodian favorite in general would appear to be bus karaoke as can almost be seen here in this man’s rather tastefully decorated bus. The story for each karaoke video I think it’s fair to say was was pretty similar; boy meets girl, falls in love, meets family, happily ever after… At the risk of alienating an audience that appears to know what it likes, some do vear right off and branch out into such taboo topics as car mechanics and food preparation. Risky business for sure.

“The local Road Chef had gone down hill in recent times”

S21

If there are ghosts anywhere, then surely it is here in the complex of buildings named S21. April 1975 Pol Pot emptied Phnom Penh and turned the capital of Cambodia into a ghost town. The inhabitants were either sent to the fields or executed. Their fate depended on their usefulness as laborers and their degree of education. Almost all elderly, sick or educated people were killed. Those who conspired or otherwise resisted the regime were sent to S21. An ex school, S21 was the detention and torture capital of Pol Pot’s reign of terror. Maintained as it was found when the regime collapsed, the place is frightening even now.

On the wall of each cell is a black and white photo of what was found when people first came to this place after the terror.

As well as the bigger cells there are smaller holding cells

some with the chains that held the people here

blood spatters are everywhere

Exhibitions show a fraction of the people sent here from children to pensioners

barbed wire to stop people committing suicide, escape wasn’t an option.

 

 

Sticking my camera through a hole in a boarded up door this image emerged. Piles of leg irons and a Buddha with it’s head smashed in.

Cambodia

Penultimate country in our world marathon. We’re meeting friends here who have been setting up a Kayak business for the last few months. We’ll travel around together then end up at their place and hopefully check out the Kayaks ourselves.

Itinary: Phenom Pen (killing fields, S21, city madness, Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda) – Kratie (river dolphins and countryside villages) – Siem Reap (Angkor Wat, Massage, Ed’s Birthday) – Bhatambang (Kayaking) – Thailand

Viet Cong Tunnels

The end of our Vietnam trip in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and we thought we wouldn’t be able fit in a visit to the Viet Cong tunnels at Cu Chi. It was our last day and all the organised tours had gone in the morning. Private tours were stupidly expensive. The site is only 30km from Saigon so we asked a taxi driver. No problem, we hired him to take us there, wait and bring us back for a fraction of the price of a “tour”. We were whisked through the countryside to the banging sounds of Euro Disco which I guess he thought we’d like. I did quite like it even on the second play on the way back.

Parts of the Viet Cong tunnels have been preserved here including a typical entrance hatch here…

and tunnels below… best not to be too (or even slightly) claustrophobic here!

mock ups of some of the improvised traps and weapons are on display too

along with other buildings all studded with eary B52 bomb craters

Then you can fire a gun. It’s not big and it’s not clever, all right! We went for the AK47 of course.

Q. How many air miles to fly to space?

A. 25 Million, which is apparently 10,000 flights accross Austraila or if you rack up points via credit card you’d have to spend 2.2 million pounds. Alternatively you can buy a ticket £141,000 quid.

Amazing what you learn from in-flight magazines.

Ps. It is 61 miles or 100km from sea level to the beginning of space (if you’re talking about Earth anyway).