Cambodia

While I was in Vietnam I took a trip to Cambodia and it was a lot of fun although it was very intense. First all I was there for three days and everyday we had a flight. I saw the national museum and we played soccer with the local kids. Then we checked into our very nice hotel that had excellent food.

Then the next day I went to the genocide museum which was a highschool that the Kmer Rouge used to torture the intellectuals. It was very sad you could see the graves of the last 13 victims in the front and then there were rooms with a bed, then they would show a huge graphic photograph of the aftermatho of the victims in the beds. Then we went to the killing fields were the majority of the victims died. There was a shrine that had a ton of skulls and it wasn't even a fraction of the victims, then near the back were the mass graves were you could still fragments of bones on the surface of the ground we even found a tooth. It was very intense and then they showed the tree where children were beaten. Since it was their mission to eradicate the intellectuals they killed all of the children as well and they would throw babies in the air and spear them on their bayonets. Our tour guide was 4 years old when this was happening and his father was a professor, so they had to migrate to the country and his little sister died of fever as well as his grandparents and aunt and uncle. Then he was forced to live in camp of only children and he said they were treated like animals. I am glad that I went to the Killing Fields even if it was hard we have to learn how to face our past.

Then we went to the royal palace which was pretty it was just like the Grand Palace in Bangkok. But it was soooooooooo hot in Cambodia it was dreadfull. Then we flew to Angkor Wat and watched the sunset. It was very cool, we had to have a temple pass which they regularly checked. But the temple was so intricate and it must have been crazy when it was first made. Then we went back and I made sure I went to bed early cause we had to leave by 5 to go the sunrise at Angkor Wat. But first we went to a very good dinner where we watched Cambodian Dancing and it was very cute we even took pictures with dancers, after the Japanese tourists swarmed the dancers.

I managed to drag myself out of bed and we went over there. It was dark when we got there and there was a suprising number of tourists but the sunrise was very nice and relaxing we even saw the water lillies open as well. Then for the rest of the day we went to see the rest of the temples. But let me tell you it was over a 100 degrees and humid and I have never sweated so much in my life. I drank a ton of water but never went to the bathroom. We saw all of the buddah face statues and all of the temples with the tree roots wrapped around them. It was very neat and it was fun to pretend that you discovered them and we kept singing the Indiana Jones theme song. Overall I really liked Cambodia and I thought it was a lot of fun and I hope that they will be able to recover again.