Just to make you jealous shots of fantastic food!

Some great food, some cheap beer and fantastic company so far!

Khmer Nights & Monkey Bites...

We have loved Siem Reip...our first day we went to an amazing floating village and have been with our same tuk tuk driver since we arrived. His name is Chaay Chou, 28 years old, married for 6 years, 2 beautiful children and a very very hard life. It has been such a delight becoming friends with im. We have been to his families home a couple of times, his wife Srey Mom cooked us beautful food and I played with all the local kids...we have eaten like kings, had lots of cold beer and are sad to be leaving! We went and did sunrise at Angkor Wat, we have covered miles by tuk tuk and we have made good friends...the monkey bite was funny as I was taken on by a very protective Mamma Monkey...its healed well and was fortunately a female so her teeth werent too big!

Angkor What?

Holy Moly...this place was huge, overwhelming and busy busy busy! We were suprised about how many people were there...Angkor is one of the most important archaeological sites in South-East Asia. Stretching over some 400 km2, including forested area, Angkor contains the magnificent remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century. They include the famous Temple of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the Bayon Temple with its countless sculptural decorations.
The history of these temples is a little hard to comprehend, some as far back as 800....basically Angkor Wat was the last and biggest temple built in this city of temples. The name seems to now encompass the whole city of temples although each one has its own name. Angkor Wat was built in the 1100's and was dedicated to the buddhist deity Vishnu. The city of temples was preceeded by the last king who built Angkor Wat by 3 others who built their temples to not rival each other but in their own styles and sizes relative to their own empires at the time. We have spent 2 and a half days here. Again one of those places to get lost and imagine being here a thousand years ago, imagine building these amazing structures, imagine this being a city of 1,000,000 people as it once was. With more than 2 million people visiting and making pilgramiges here each year it does make you wonder how much longer it will last? Aside from unsafe areas, we were free to walk around and explore freely...amazing!

The Killing Fields and S21 Prison

This is hard to write about. I dont want to say too much cause I believe maybe its something people should see for themselves. It was stressful, heatbreaking and pretty overwhelming...So much was kept from us, so much was taken from these people. The ways in which people suffered and died is almost too much to bear. We are talking mass genocide only 40 years ago, this is our generation. Can you imagine after suffering from bombs dropped by the USA and while trying to recover some lunatic decides that people must be peasents and work for nothing, become communists, join the army, lose their family, their homes, their freedom...Pol Pot hid behind people who were under his complete control. He promised young uneducated farmers the world and turned them into killing machines. His own family was not safe. Such extremism for me is incomprehendible and unforgivable. Any educated person, doctors, teachers, professers were forced to confess to crimes or to confess to a fabricated story...families were prisoned together and killed together. If you didnt confess you were kept alive and tortured. When you confessed for something you didnt do you were sent to the killing fields. Closer to the end of all this horror Pol Pots paranoia was so intense that the one or two trucks a week that took people to the killing fields became several per day....millions of people died. Steve and I had an emotional day, it was difficult but it was a day I will never forget, like Cambodias beautiful people it is something that will take a long time to heal from.

Cambodia

We have spent a couple of days in Pnomh Penh...very different to Vietnam, heaps more expensive but still not NZ expensive....found a cool place to stay, with a pool. Went for a walk around the city and ran into a guy from Waiheke Island, used to own the Earth Sea cafe....Ken Walker says Hi Mum and Dad! Too funny...beautiful food here, yummy Khmer curries so once again Im in heaven...

Mekong Delta...

So we decided that we wanted to visit the Mekong Delta and enter Cambodia this way. We decided to join a small group on a tour that was a 2 day trip andborder crossing! What better way to visit the Mekong River than to be on it! We spent the first day looking a rice paper, coconut candy and floating markets! Was good fun and lots of fresh air intermingled with bus trips! Amazing again the filth, the rubbish, the chaos...so different for us at home...incredible to see how some beautiful people struggle everyday, fishing when theres no fish etc but a great thing to see, the Mekong is the rice bowl of Vietnam....also the most densly populated area...heres some photos!