Today was our last day in Cambodia, and I started the day off with the free breakfast at the hotel. I had toast, an equivalent of scalloped potatoes, French fries, fruit, and cereal. Then I headed back to the room and slept until we needed to check out.
After checking out of the hotel we got on our tour bus to head to a local village, where the guide explained a lot about the houses there. The houses are on stilts to keep spirits away, and all of their stairs are odd numbers as an extra precaution to keep them away. We went inside an older gentlemen's house, and he let us pray at his altar. Even though he lives by himself, he has two beds, one of which is set aside for the spirits that he prays to. This man also has an alligator farm at the back of his house, which we were allowed to check out. Turns out that the Khmer Rouge implemented crocodile farming as a way to kill prisoners faster during the genocide. At the village, though, we also got to see some temples and try some street food, which was a flower and banana pancake.
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| Some Khmer street food. The flat, round things at the top right of the picture are what we ate. |
Our next stop for the day was Tonle Sap lake, which is the biggest freshwater lake in Indochina. During the dry season it covers 3,000m but during the rainy season it covers 12,000m. We didn't spend much time there, and it actually wasn't really that great. We got on a boat and these two kids that were on came around trying to give us all massages for $1 USD. We all told them no, so they would move on to the next person and just keep trying to get money out of you. The locals in some of the villages we passed also would come up to our boat on their boats and try to sell us things. It was very uncomfortable, simply because it was obvious how poverty stricken they were. Not only that, but I saw a child in one house peeing into the lake and person next door taking a bath with the same water. The only thing that sparked my interest was the fact that everything in the village was built on stilts so it wouldn't flood, including the school and church.
Our last stop for the day was a silk farm, where we got to see how silk is produced. First, they grow mulberry trees to feed the silk worms. Once the silk worms start to form cocoons, they move them to another building. After the moths have hatched, they take the cocoons and put them in warm water and start to unwrap the silk. Then it gets bleached, dyed, and weaved in order to make table cloths, bags, scarfs, and clothing. One cocoon has 400m of silk in it!
Finally we headed to the airport to come back to HCMC. I ate in the airport at the Blue Pumpkin, which makes this about the third time of had the restaurant in Cambodia. I had a tuna sandwich and got a mango melba ice cream, which was mango and green lemon ice creams. After about a 40 minute flight, we were back in HCMC airport. We got in a taxi and came back to the dorm to unpack, finish some homework, and prepare for the rest of the week. After using USD for the past week, it's very weird to adjust back to using the VND.
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| The Khmer language. Makes me glad to be learning a language that uses the same alphabet we do! |
Other trip highlights from the Kingdom of Cambodia:
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| A cell that prisoners were kept in at the genocide museum. The prisoners went though horrible tortures, such as electric shocks, hanging upside down until losing consciousness, and having their fingernails ripped off. |
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| The genocide occurred rather recently (1970s) and so articles of clothing and bone fragments from those that were murdered are still surfacing. Once a month, workers go around and collect new pieces that have come up. It was very weird to be walking around and seeing teeth in the ground from the victims that were murdered here. |
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| The area where the mass grave was. All of the indentations in the ground are areas that have been excavated. |
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| "The Killing Tree," otherwise known as the tree that babies were beaten against until they died. When they found this tree after the genocide, there was blood and brain matter on it. Soldiers killed entire families so that there could be no one left to seek revenge. |
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| Skulls of some of those who were murdered. |
- Trying tarantula (which is actually pretty good!)
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| Just me and a friendly tarantula. |
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| Our tarantula appetizers. Tastes kind of like chicken and kind of like popcorn. |
- Having beef with stir-fried tree ants
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| Beef with stir fried ants! |
- Taking my first tuk tuk ride
- Getting all kinds of ice cream from the Blue Pumpkin: vanilla brownie, caramel cashewnut, Khmer fruit, and pineapple
- Having traditional Khmer foods such as chicken and pumpkin and chicken and pineapple curry
- Being absolutely amazed by the temples at Angkor Archaeological Park, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We got to see the sunrise and sunset from some amazing temples!
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| We left the hotel at 5am in order to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. |
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| There were a ton of tourists around, but our guide showed us a pretty good spot where we would be able to see all 5 towers of Angkor Wat. |
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| Still waiting for the sun to fully rise. |
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| Such an amazing sight! |
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| Even though it was kind of hazy, it was worth getting up so early for. We toured temples from 5:30am to 10am and then again from 3:30pm to 5:30. There are over 300 temples in the park and we only saw four! |
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| The inside of Angkor Wat. |
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| A pool area for people to bathe before worshiping their god. |
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| View from the highest point of Angkor Wat. |
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| The entrance/guest house of Angkor Wat. |
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| This statue was at Baylon, which has over 500 towers. Each tower has four faces on it that each face the cardinal directions. |
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| The third temple we visited is known as Jungle Temple. When the French found the site, they decided not to clear cut the jungle around it. Today, there are 400-600 year old trees growing on this temple, which was built in the 12th century. |
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| A broader shot of the Jungle Temple. |
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| An area where Tomb Raiders, a move starring Angelina Jolie, was shot. |
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