Tea for two? Pah, pass me the Daquiries!!

It has been a few days since last I blogged. To be honest with you I have been so busy lying on the beach in Koh Lanta and getting pampered that I just haven't had the time or energy to write. It's a hard life I know!

Anyway, before I fill you in on my time on this lovey little island off the mainland of Thailand, I need to take you back just over a week to continue from whence I left off ...

We had stayed the night at The Home-stay, where everyone made us feel very welcome, especially the Mosquitos! Our guide's brother in law had told us a little bit about his childhood during the war; how he had never gone to school because he had to spend nearly every day hiding in holes in the ground with his family in case the Khmer Rouge should find them and then they would surely have been killed. He told us how that there was no food left, they were all being starved out and so they had to learn how to eat insects and to be careful about which unknown fruits to pick as many were poisonous. He said his stomach was so swollen from malnutrition and worms that it hurt every day.

We all went to bed that night feeling very humbled.

After a night of practically no sleep, due to the hard floor, the intense heat, Sergio snoring and the TV blaring downstairs, (electricity runs off a car battery for a few hours in the night), we gathered all our belongings and had breakfast together around the big table outside. The grandma came and sat with us and our guide translated any questions we wanted to ask her. When it was her turn to ask us questions, she only had one: "When Westerners come to visit us, why are they always so white? And what long noses you all have!"

Interesting?! Well I am sure there are a few plastic surgeons specialising in Rhinoplasty that will be benefiting from her observations!

We bade our farewells and piled onto the coach to set off for our final leg of the tour to Siem Reap, within minutes everyone was fast asleep!

Siem Reap is the home of Angkor and its many ancient temples. And not forgetting Pub Street and the three vast night markets!!

We arrived at our destination formerly known as The Angkor Way but now it's name has been changed to something to do with a Chinese airline, however no one refers to it as anything but The Angkor Way!? After dropping our ages into our respective rooms, Karen and I along with Nicola went for a walk to try and suss out the local shops and buy an ice cream. There didn't seem to be much in the way of mini marts, there was however a cute little shop that sold some charming nick-backs, clothes and bags. For once I managed to refrain from diving into my purse, however Karen bought a rather fetching bag made from Cambodian silk.

Later on that afternoon, when I was lounging around the pool with Nicola and Andrea, my iPad started to ring; it was Karen 'Face-timing' me from the balcony just above. Apparently, she didn't want to alarm me by screaming across the pool area, but she wanted to let me know that she had been given an added extra in her new bag! On reaching in to it to take out the newspaper stuffing, she noticed some movement and stepped back just as a lizard leapt out from within. I told her not to worry, that it was quite harmless. Then she informed me it was heading towards my back pack!!

Within seconds I had sent Nicola (our resident vet) up to our room to deal with the situation!

That night, all Lizard free - thanks to Nicola - four of us decided to go and check out Siem Reap's FCC (Foreign Correspondence Centre), then Sam and the rest of the group were going to pick us up on route to dinner.

Caroline, Nicola, Karen and myself piled into the waiting Tuk Tuk and a couple of minutes later stepped out in front of a stunning French Colonial building, beautifully lit up by lanterns and a tiny footpath over a little pond. And to top it all, it was Happy Hour until 7! Two cocktails for the price of one! That was two cocktails each! Generally not a good idea for me as I rarely drink.

By the time the group came to fetch us, I was two Daiquiries down and had started to lose sensation in my knees and tongue!? (Yes I know, it's pathetic! But I hadn't eaten either!!)

We got to the restaurant Sam had booked for us. I think it was lovely, I don't really remember?! But I do vaguely remember ordering my dinner and just playing with it when it arrived. I think I may have had what I thought was an in depth conversation with Sergio (74 year old University lecturer on Engineering from Chile), about leg waxing and eyelash tinting?!

Dinner was almost finished when the stage dancing started. And no, thank goodness, that wasn't me - though I was tempted. We sat and watched a group of dancers performing traditional Cambodian Dancing, known as Apsara Dancing.

The costumes were beautiful as was the dancing, tho it has to be said, the dancers were quite young and not too professional. You see their faces are supposed to look unemotional and still so as not to distract the audience allowing them to concentrate on the dance. However, a couple kept 'corpsing' (those of you not in the know with us 'luvvies' that means laughing or grinning) and unfortunately that's where most of our attention went. (Mind you my attention span was pretty short that night due to the cocktail consumption earlier).

And that was the end of our first evening in Siem Reap. The others went off to the night market and I crawled into bed and slept really well ... Had to prepare for two days worth of Temple watching!!

Would you like some black pepper or Parmesan with your tarantula?

And so we were all up early and sat on the private bus on our way to The Homestay in Kampong Thom. It was a five hour drive down through the countryside, but we did manage to stop off for our 'Happy Toilet Stop' at a little lay by, packed with traders selling fruit, souvenirs and other snacks. Primarily having the choice of either deep fried tarantulas, deep fried crickets, deep fried water beetles or deep fried WHOLE sparrows!

My gag reflex started to kick in as I stared with morbid fascination at the trader while he showed us how to peel and eat the insects. And even then I can assure you they didn't look appetising!

Sam walked over and smiled, he told us they were ok to eat, nothing special, except that the water beetles were kind of creamy when you bite into their bodies ... That was just a little too much information for me and I stepped back and wretched quite loudly! Luckily we were in Asia where a little bit of public flatulence is quite common, so no one even batted an eyelid at me!!

(Apparently eating insects dates back to the war when food was very rare to find, so the people had to resort to eating insects.)

We all piled back onto the bus and travelled along for another couple of hours before stopping off at a market and restaurant area for lunch. I wasn't hungry, I still had insects flying through my mind, so I settled for a bag full of Rambutan, (tropical fruit that looks similar to Lychee) and slowly picked at them for the rest of the journey.

A few hours later we stopped off at Sambor Prei Kuk, to take a look at a few of the 100 ancient brick temples scattered around the forest. These temples and monuments were built approximately five centuries before those down in Angkor. Looking around at them, stood amongst the trees in the forest, they looked like something out of an Indiana Jones film.

Our guide met us as we disembarked from the bus and within a few minutes we were surrounded by the most gorgeous, cute looking children aged between five and eleven. All grinning up at us and chatting away as they held out various bright coloured scarves to sell for $1 each. (The currency in Cambodia are Reils and/or American dollars!) They impressed us with their grasp of basic English, as well as French and German!

They followed us around as we were taken to see a few of the larger temples; Prasat Sambor - a group of temples dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. Then there was Prasat Yeay Poeun, whose Eastern Gate is supported by a strangling fig tree, it's roots having wound their way through and around the brickwork.

The children pointed out bomb craters that were quite close to some of the temples. The craters yet another permanent reminder of the war against the Khmer Rouge.

I smiled down at one of the little girls as she held out her scarves, suddenly there was another standing on my other side. Her little face looking up at me with puppy dog eyes. To quote from The Lonely Planet: " Some travellers find them (the children) a distraction. But others, after warming to their smiles, have been known to leave with a pile of cheap textiles". Guess which category I fell in to?!

The days Temple Tour reached its end and the ten of us - and our scarves - climbed on board the waiting bus and we were taken off to the Home-stay in a nearby village.

This particular home stay belonged to our guides mother in law and her seven children! It was a large wooden building built on stilts and when the temperatures got too high, the family would sleep in their hammocks underneath. In fact both the kitchen and living areas were all under the house too.

Chickens ran around freely, cows were grazing in the yard nearby and one of the locals was climbing up a palm tree to collect the sweet syrupy juice from its flowers.

I climbed the outside stairs and went up to inspect where we were going to be sleeping for the night. There was a set of double doors on the side of the building, I opened the, and entered.

Inside was one extremely large room. There were thin mattresses with a pillow lying on the floor, running either side of the room, sectioned off by curtains made from sheets. It probably sounds quite ghastly, but actually looked quite fun - particularly the ones with the pink mosquito nets!

Downstairs in the main courtyard was a brick building divided into two rooms, in one room was the toilet, (luckily a western style one) and the other was the shower room, which basically consisted of a large trough filled with water and a plastic pan to scoop the water with. THIS probably sounds quite ghastly, but it looked quite interesting! (I was quite pleased I had washed my hair at the hotel the night before, cause there was no way I would be able to shampoo and condition my frizz with a plastic saucepan!!

Sam was cooking dinner that night, the choice was chicken and beef or vegetarian curries. Like most men, he made a big deal about the fact that he was the chef for the night and that we should watch him at work and admire his culinary talents. (I know I am being sexist, but lets face it, it's bloody true!). But first, our guide walked us through a large field of grazing cows, so that we could watch the sunset over the lake. It was absolutely stunning to see.

By the time we got back to the Home stay, the cooking was well under way and Sam was hard at work on his chicken curry, bubbling away in a pot over the fire. I nervously asked the guide if the chicken was one of the ones running around the Home-stay. He smiled at me and said "Yes". My face dropped and I responded "You could have said no!" He smiled at me and said "No".

I turned to Nicola (the vet brought up on a farm) stood next to me and said in a shocked tone, "They've just killed one of these chickens!" she smiled and nodded "I know, I think that's why we were taken for a walk just before".

I had the vegetarian meal that night.

The 1970's, known for flares, hippies, bad hair dos and GENOCIDE!

Today was an extremely harrowing day! First stop was The Tuol Sieng Genocide Museum followed by The Killing Fields.

And so on a serious note, I would like to point out that some of you may not want to read today's blog, as it contains some upsetting material, but also know that what I have been able to write about, only touches the surface of what went on during Pol Pot's reign in Cambodia ...

The Museum is housed at what used to be Security Prison-21 (S-21), which prior to Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime, was in fact Tuol Svay Prey high School!

S-21 became the largest of the detention centres in Cambodia, where millions of 'Political' prisoners were brutally tortured and once they finally gave in and made their enforced confessions of spying and betrayal, (even though these were untrue!!!), they were taken to The Killing Fields and executed. And that was if they were not fortunate to have died or managed to commit suicide before! (Eventually barbed wire was nailed across the front of some of the buildings to prevent prisoners jumping to their deaths over the balconies).

We walked through the old school rooms, disgusted and sickened at the photographic evidence on display, shocked at the tiny bricked cells built into each classroom, each cell just big enough to hold one inmate shackled in solitary confinement with nothing but an old metal first aid box for a toilet! There was no bed, no mattress, no window and in some cases no door! Each prisoner lived on a bowl of rice porridge a day, in which they were lucky to find more than two grains of rice! And when I say Prisoners I mean, men, women AND children of ALL ages!!

The Khmer Rouge kept records of everything, photographs of every prisoner, both before and after torture and even had artists paint scenes of some of the brutalities that took place.

As Pol Pot's terror continued to reign, so did his paranoia and it wasn't long before many Khmer Rouge members started to find themselves joining the other prisoners in being tortured and murdered.

By 1977 it was said that an average of 100 people a day were being killed at S-21 alone!

In 1979, the Vietnamese finally liberated Phenom Penh, they stormed S-21 and found only 7 prisoners still alive; the group consisted of photographers and artists. Another 14 prisoners were found dead in different torture rooms. Each one still bound to their respective beds, nothing about them recognisable apart from the fact that they were all adults; thirteen male and one female. I couldn't look at the photos hanging in each room, the images my mind was creating was enough to make my stomach churn.

We walked through a room filled with torture equipment on display, again more photographs and again more parallels with The Holocaust!

The final room contained a small altar on which sat a little gold stupor. Incense sticks were smouldering around it as people lit them in respect of the millions murdered. High on the wall hung a large framed photograph of the map of Cambodia, but this was no ordinary map. It was made up from hundreds of human skulls, skulls of Pol Pot's victims!

The gruesome map had been devised by the Vietnamese in memory of the dead, however The Cambodians understandably found it offensive and after much discussion it was dismantled!

To the left of the stupor stood a large glass cabinet that housed the hundreds of skulls originally used to make the map along with other human bones. I stared at them in disbelief and turned to our guide for the day. My Western way of thinking kicked in and I asked him why they hadn't been buried, it seemed like an incredibly macabre thing to have them on display. He explained to me that the majority of Cambodians are Buddhists and therefore would have been cremated on a funeral pyre. However, because there were millions of bodies, many of the Cambodian people were in conflict as to what to do, seeing as there was no way to tell who each bone belonged to. And so it was agreed that this was in act, the most respectful thing to do.

I turned away feeling deeply distraught that these people had suffered so much and in my Western eyes had not been properly laid to rest. I lit an incense stick and prayed for all of them and the victims of other Genocides that had taken place before, since and probably in the future. And then I cried ... I sobbed ...

I stepped out into the sunshine and as I cried I looked around at this ordinary looking place, a place built to educate and protect children, a place where children would play together and forge new friendships. An ordinary looking place that was turned into a hell hole. And I continued to cry.

Bob walked over to me and held me as I sobbed and begged the question: "Why?" All he could do was shake his head. "I don't understand, I don't understand!" Was all I could manage to stutter. He looked at me and said: "I know, this is the kind of thing that makes you question your faith in god". "No", I said, "This is the kind of thing that makes me question my faith in mankind!"

I had to question whether or not to join the others as they left to go and visit The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and decided it was important to go. Just as I believe it is important for people to go visit The Concentration Camps from the Second World War and remember the millions murdered then.

From 1975 to 1978 approx 17,000 men, women and children, all torture victims from S-21 were executed at Choeung Ek. The majority of them bludgeoned to death with whatever could be found, the children picked up and their heads smashed against "The Killing Tree" and all because it was thought to be a waste of money to use bullets! (Again reminiscent of the Nazis). The bodies were left in mass graves where DDT was poured over them to speed up decomposition, poison anyone still barely alive and to cover up the smell!

In 1980, 129 mass graves were found, as were the remains of 8985 people. Every year during monsoon season, the rain draws more bones, teeth and ragged clothing to the surface.

In 1988 a memorial stupor was erected near the exit of what was once the beautiful orchard of Choeung Ek. Behind the glass panels, than 8000 skulls, separated by age and sex can be seen carefully and respectfully arranged.

It was almost just gone lunchtime by the time we left, but I was in no mood for eating and so I went back to the hotel and slept for an hour. After which I met up with Caroline for a nice peaceful walk around The Royal Palace.

The Royal Palace was closed due to the preparations for the Kings funeral next week. Only Cambodians were allowed through to pay their respects and so we went off to see The Silver Pagoda - so named because of the floor covered in over 5000 silver tiles.

Preserved by the Khmer Rouge to "demonstrate its concern for the conservation of Cambodia's riches to the rest of the world". The main thing that stood out for me in The Silver Pagoda was that it was the only place during the whole of our tour where the Buddha statues had not had the gems stolen from their eye sockets. They were quite beautiful and it was a perfect serene place to visit after the horrors of the morning.

Particularly entertaining was the family of monkeys playing around outside, looking very cute and cuddly. That is until a French tourist got a bit too close to one of the baby monkeys and offered it a flower to eat. The mother monkey barred her teeth and hissed at the poor French Man as she ran towards him. He turned on his heel and tried to hurry away in a casual and cool type manner. Boy did we laugh!

That evening Karen, Liz, Jamilla, Caroline and myself took a Tuk Tuk over to The Foreign Correspondence Club - or FCC as it is known - for a cocktail. This was where the foreign journalists used to 'hang out' during the war. We climbed the steps to the roof bar and looked out over the city of Phenom Pen as we supped on our Mojitos, daiquiris and margaritas. Unable to fathom what had happened in this lovely country, not even forty years ago ...

An apt way to spend a morning on a day that was coincidentally enough, World Holocaust Memorial Day!

It was early to bed that night, after all it had been a full on day and we had to be up early the following day to head off to a home stay in Kampong Thom, but not before stopping off at a little cafe, where the speciality was ... Deep fried tarantulas!