A Long Weekend in Cambodia!

Mom was barely here long enough to get over her jet lag before we were back on the plane…this time to Cambodia. We flew from Bangkok into Phnom Penh, a 45 minute trip southeast.

We hopped a local bus in the capital city and headed north up to Siem Reap. The 6 hour trip was not the horror that we were warned against and gave us a good chance to see the Cambodian countryside – very basic wooden bungalows, chickens running free, little kids rocking in hammocks, and water buffalo staked in the front yard like America’s dogs.
This clay stove in the front yard was ubiquitus. We watched them build a few out of glistening wet clay to try in the sun.

The people are still very much recovering from the mass genocide engineered by the Khmer Rouge(1975-1979). Anyone who was suspected of being educated (ie. they wore glasses or spoke a second language) was shot outright and thousands more died in forced labor camps – 2 million of the 9 million Cambodians were exterminated. I don’t think I saw 1 person over the age of 50…half of the population now is under the age of 15.

The Khmer Rouge were eventually overthrown by the Vietnamese, but continued to reek havoc on the Cambodian people (funded by, in part, Americans!) into the 1990’s. Pol Pot and his croonies were never prosecuted for their crimes – Brother Number 3 was only recently (last week) arrested in Phnom Penh with his wife. Chilling.

An article about the arrest:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/12/asia/cambo.php?WT.mc_id=rssasia

The first night in Siem Reap we visited the floating village just out of town at the edge of Tonle Sap Lake. Thousands of people live and work in floating houses – when the water is high in the lake, they live along the edge. When the water is low, the move their whole village 1 mile away, following the water.

grocery store/floating house




fishing off the boat (they had some of the coolest boats ever - all hand-built out of wood).
house boats!