Christmas in Cambodia!

The beginning of our tales of spending the Holidays in SE Asia

Friday (Christmas Day):

Our adventures start in Cambodia's capital city, Phnom Penh. We arrived pretty late to our hostel but we decided it best to get up bright and early to maximize our day (we only had one full day here), so rise and shine was at about 7:30am! One of our first challenges was dealing with the currency. In Cambodia they use riel (about 4,000 = $1), but they also widely accept $USD as well. We struggled at first with the huge stacks of cash in riel we got, along side US dollars, while trying to convert the prices to won for a reference (because our spending money had originally been in won). Also, some people (like the tuk tuk drivers) really only accepted dollars, and at restaurants many prices were listed in dollars but they also accepted riel. Haha, anywho, it was quite confusing but we eventually got a hold of it.

Since it was Christmas day, both Rach and I decided to take advantage of the hostel computers and call our families on skype!

Next on the list was to visit the Killing Fields (Merry Christmas, right?). On our way though we saw a tuk tuk totally decked out with Christmas decorations - including a couple Cambodian santas! Although it was sunny and warm, this really made me smile and remember that it really WAS Christmas, contrary to what the rest of my senses were telling me.

The Killing Fields were a place where more than 17,000 civilians (men, women, children, even babies) were tortured, killed and buried in mass graves during the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime (1975-1979). We were both chilled as we realized how relatively recent these events were. In the middle of area there is a 17 story stupa where skulls and excavated from the mass graves are housed and visible through glass. Although not a lot to physically see, it is a site where many lives were lost, and hopefully there to remind people of what happened so history does not repeat itself.

After we went over to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Its located in the building that was used as the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21). It was especially moving because it has portraits of prisoners and prisoners families who had somehow managed to live to tell their story of the awful things that happened there. The fields along with the museum was a very somber experience.

To help perk ourselves up we decided to check out a little shopping. We had a private tuk tuk (small carriages pulled by a moto) driver and he brought us over to the Russian market. It pretty much had everything - power tools, souvenirs, name-brand clothing, food, you name it! It had very narrow pathways and it felt like we were always kind of bumping into things, but it was fun to buy a few small things before we made our way over to the Royal Palace.

The Royal Palace was built in 1866 and the kings of Cambodia have occupied it ever since then (with the exception of 1974-1979 during the Khmer Rouge Regime). The palace closed to the public around 5pm, so we were unable to go inside but instead walked around the complex near the river which had a few parks and people meandering about. We reached it early evening and so we were able to get some great pictures of the sun setting behind the main entrance of the palace!


For dinner we strolled down a street full of restaurants and bars and settled on a nice place where we could people watch as traffic rolled by. We'd had an interesting experience crossing the streets because there were not any walk signs...so basically you were completely on your own winding your way stop and go avoiding oncoming motorbikes like some sort of video game. At one point we saw a van pass by with what had to have been 20 people in and on top of it! Anyway, we sat down at the restaurant and for Christmas dinner, dined on deep fried frogs and a mug of beer. The frog was actually pretty good, kind of like chicken but only a bit chewier. All in all, it was a great day in Phnom Penh. We made our way back to our hostel, where we booked a 6-hour bus leaving at to another large city in northern Cambodia, Siem Reap.

Saturday:

We got up bright and early (again - funny, we always seem to wake up earlier while on vacation, than when we are going to work...) and got on our bus cross-country up to Siem Reap. It was really nice to see the country side. Its quite a poor country, especially in the rural areas. Most of their houses are built on stilts to accommodate variations in water levels or to provide shelter for livestock. The landscape is quite beautiful and we saw very flat areas and also areas with small mountains and cliffs.

We stopped at one rest stop on the way and were greeted with people selling fresh fruit, pastries, and other varieties of snacks...including what looked like fried locust and beetles. Then, after a long ride, we finally made it to Siem Reap, got a tuk tuk to our hostel and checked in. We decided since we had a half day (in the evening time) to go check out the big market in town which was known for its shopping, restaurants/bars and general atmosphere. This area is called Psar Chaa (pronounced "saa chaa") and we basically spend the entire night wandering around looking all everything! Amidst our shopping, our stomachs started grumbling, angry with us that we didn't really have any lunch, so we decided to appease them and get some great Cambodian food for dinner! It was cheap and it was delicious.

We'd read about traditional Khmer (Cambodian) dancing, and so we found a restaurant and ordered a fruit shake and waited for the show to start. There were drums and other traditional instruments playing the ancient music while Khmer women came out dressed in beautiful garments. A lot of the dancing was slow and very precise movements - particularly with hand position and shape. It was great to sit back and relax and watch the show, but eventually we were so exhausted we had to get back to our hostel....mostly because we were planning on seeing Angkor Wat (considered to be the 8th wonder of the world!) at, yep, SUNRISE.

Rach will be updating you about that soon, but for now you can check out pictures from the trip HERE