Cambodia--Who Knew?

Cambodia is probably the country that I knew the least about, but apparently it is full of all sorts of history and beautiful areas!

Kep's Crab Statue

I started my trip in Kampot, which is a sleepy riverside town in the "mountains."  One day I took a motorbike about 30km to another town called Kep, which I had to check out for its "blue swimmer crab" market alone!  After checking out the town and the beach, I went to the market for lunch.  The lady literally walked out into the ocean and I watched her pick a pot up and take some live crabs out that'd soon be my meal!  They wouldn't have made the legal size in MD, but they were meaty!  This area is also famous for growing pepper, so I had the pepper crab for lunch and was very satisfied!  You can take me away from MD, but it'll always be in my roots...  The next day, I went to Bokor National Park and Bokor Hill Station, which is a beautiful area full of ruined buildings that got abandoned 60 years ago during the war.  The views out over the sea are amazing, as well!  We even found an impressive waterfall. That night the tour included a two hour "sunset and firefly cruise."  It was fairly uneventful, but the sunset was nice and the lightning bugs were shocking to people who hadn't grown up with them!

Sunset on Kampot River

From there, I went directly to an island called Koh Rong.  Unlike most islands around Asia, it hasn't been overrun with tourism, yet. It's not far off as construction is rampant, but for now, there was no road, just one little village, poor wifi, etc.  The beaches were gorgeous and the water was refreshing.  I took a SUP out one day for a bit and trekked across to another beach one day.  Despite being warned, the trek was still harder than imagined and the other beach was actually being heavily constructed!  One day, I took a boat trip including snorkeling (sub-par), fishing (we got skunked), watching the sunset (beautiful) and swimming with bio-luminescence plankton (amazing)!  I spent a fair bit of time just relaxing in the sand on the beach!  While the island wasn't as stunning as Gili T in Indonesia, the lack of infrastructure was refreshing.

Koh Rong

Now, I'm back in Phnom Penh, the capitol city.  This place is full of recent history that much of the rest the world seems to have never heard of!  They had a giant genocide led by the Khmer Rouge.  Essentially, the Khmer Rouge wanted to rebuild society exactly how they wanted it to be, so anyone who wasn't a farmer was executed.  They killed 3 million of the 8 million Cambodians at the time.  Not only did they kill them, but because bullets were too expensive, they used knives, bamboo rods, hoes, axes, and even serrated leaves!  They feared redemption, so killed kids too by swinging them, by their feet, into a tree until their head was smashed.  At the killing fields, you can still see bones on the ground.  We also went to the S-21 Prison were people were held before going to the killing field.  They were tortured horrendously there and the floor is still covered in blood stains.  There were only 7 survivors at the prison, 2 of whom are still alive and one is still there to talk to tourists.  Our tour guide at the prison lost her father, brother, and sister at the time, but she ran through the jungle for 3 days to Vietnam until the Khmer Rouge lost power.  And all of this happened between 1975-1979!

Skulls in the Killing Field

Again, Cambodia was the country I knew very little about, but apparently has remote islands, lush jungle-covered hills, and an unbelievable history.  Tonight, I'm off to my last stop in Cambodia, Siem Reap, to explore the town and Angkor Wat--one of the man made wonders of the world!