Cambodia Part III

We had to make the bus for 7am. The bus company included a mini bus pick up at 6:15am. The man was on time and we were his first passangers. Thus far everything was going to plan. We picked up several other people and then arrived at the bus. But this was not our bus yet. We had to take this bus to a bigger bus. Mind you this bus was quite big itself. But once we arrived at the bus station terminal we realized buses do get bigger. We got on and our seats were number 1 and 2. The seats were almost in the very front of the upper section. of the bus. The bus driver was right underneath us. We had a great view of the road and the surrounding areas. There were a couple of make shift seats in front of us that were not numbered. We would find out later that these seats were for locals that we would pick up randomly on the side of the road in the country side. We only sat for about ten minutes or so and then we took off. The bus was giagantic. It's too bad the roads were not. The Cambodian Highway aka, barely paved road was more like a paved road for one way of traffic. The kicker was that it was for two ways of traffic full of multuple types of transportation. On the road were, cars, buses, tractors, huge trucks, motos, bicycles, dogs, cows, and pedestrians. It was an adventure already.

By taking the bus, which was a six hour long journey, we were able to see the Cambodian country side. We were able to see the Cambodian life was really simple. You could tell right away that it is very poor. In fact the average Cambodian lives off of less than a dollar a day. I was told that teachers make $30 a month. Most dwellings along the country side were simple huts on stilts. The were mostly made of wood with some made of concrete. Because it is the dry season there wasn't much water along side the roads. But one could tell that in the wet season there would be. The huts were tiny in size and housed whole families. We passed many schools along the way too. All of the children were dressed in the little white shirts and blue skirt or pants uniforms. They looked so cute. They would either walk to school or ride a bike. It looked liked the older ones would have bikes and younger ones would just walk. The schools were not too big. They mostly consisted of three long structures all facing each other and thus creating a school yard. In each structure there were several rooms to make the classrooms. It was so fascinating to see.

Other highlights of the country side were many cows searching for food. They looked malnourished. I think the dry season had something to do with that. All the fields were mostly yellow and brown, hardly and green apart from the trees. When we entered Phnom Pehn we realized we were in a different area of Cambodia all together. Phnom Pehn was a big city. It's the capital of Cambodia and full of motos, tuk tuks, cars, and buses. We could feel the difference from the countryside right away.

When we arrived at the bus station we were looking for our driver that was supposed to pick us up. However he was nowhere to be found. We ended up grabing an annoying resilient tuk tuk driver and gave him the address of our hotel. He was happy to get the work. Since we were only staying in Phnom Pehn for the night and taking a bus the next day we had to see the sights quite quickly. At this point it was after 2pm and most things closed at 5pm. He dropped us off at the hotel and waited to take us around for a tour. We checked in quickly and hopped back in the tuk tuk. We had to go straight to the Killing Fields, about 30 minutes drive outside the city.

For those of you familar with the histroy of Cambodia will know about the Khmer Rouge and the mass killings that took place in the 1970s. It was a much needed visit for me. I felt almost required to pay respect to the victims of the genocide of Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge. The fields themselves were quite eye opening. I've been to a consentration camp in Germany and this was much of the same feeling. The only difference was that it was much more recent. It's just so hard to take in. Genocide is still happening. But why? What kind of world do we live in? As human race we have yet to evovle. These are the emotions that arise when you see the mass graves that held hundreds of bodies. The worst part were the torturous tactics used to kill the people. If interested in the history of the Khmer Rouge and what actually happened please don't hesitate to do a little further reading. It's an interesting tale. It can be quite graphic and depressing, but knowing everything.

So after an emotional walk through the fields we were taken back in to the city and shown the rest of the city. We saw the palace and a few statues. We went to the river bank and then finally back to our hotel for dinner. It was a quick few hours of events. We felt we had a good overview of Phnom Pehn and were preppered to take our next bus ride the next day to Ho Chi Min, Vietnam.