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We met a guy called Tony who was working in a bar in Siem Reap. He was an ex UN soldier who was visiting his father in law. His father in law is a New Zealander called Graham. Graham lives in a village just next to Angkor and does expensive tours for tourists. Tourists fly in to be shown round by Graham. He is an ex soldier who made his way to Thailand and became a monk for several years and then intrepidly set off into Cambodia eventually settling in angkor. He has been there since the end of the eighties or early nineties. So he has seen alot of the troubles there. We were lucky to have met Tony who introduced us to Graham. He has been walking round Angkor for years and has his own ideas of what the buildings are and meant to the Khmers.

Cambodia story part II.

Jonnytelak
2005-12-25 14:40:48

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me..."the only people out after 9.30 at night are tourists and muggers"..hmmm...not very reassuring. I Was there for about 6days in all and 5 people from my guesthouse were mugged at gunpoint whilst i was there. All at night except for one daytime robbery, but we think he might have bullshitted us because he was one of the only people not to get mugged. And just wanted to join in.

We decided that it was becoming like a tourist attraction to get mugged. Although obviously not a pleasant one!

No one was hurt, but the advice is never take out at night anything that you don't want to lose. Never argue just hand over what you have. A pointed story told by an ex-pat there was that a man was being mugged on the doorstep of his hostel in the center of town. A friend saw he was being mugged and went down to his rescue. he jumped on the back of the gunman...BANG...the gun goes off and the man who was being mugged gets killed. Don't be a hero!

So the hostel also does visa's. I order my Vietnam Visa from them. Price depends on how quick you want it. I went for the $48... 5 day wait one!

The next day i went to the killing fields of Choeung Ek..out side the guesthouse are motorcycle taxi guys who will take you anywhere. For about $4 and a half hour ride you get to the killing fields. Not much really to see but the memorial stupa there houses many thousands of skulls, of the people that were killed in the surrounding mass graves. which are are just empty holes in the ground now.

Probably half an hour there maximum..then on to Tuol Sleng museum back in town. It was a high school turned into a detention and torture camp by the Khmer Rouge. If you didn't die here from torture you would be taken to the killing fields and bludgeoned to death there.
A truly horrific place to visit, photos adorn the cells where the torture took place of victims in mangled states. and the metal framed beds with implements of torture are there in front of you.
Part of the museum houses more of the monstrous torture devices with pictures and diagrams of how they were used. A sad and upsetting place.

There are also several "firing ranges" that you can go to. I went to the 'cheap' one. It was about half an hours ride away towards the international airport. In fact VERY close to the airport.
We were facing the flight path of landing aircraft. And when a plane came in to land we had to stop firing in case of stray bullets !!

A good fun thing to do though..ak47's..m16's...45's ....m60's.....anti tank guns...rocket launchers..grenades..just about anything.

Well, eventually my visa had come through.and we were ready to go on to Vietnam. Darren, a Canadian, had set off a couple of days before to get to the vietnamese border. But he was back after one day. The taxi driver had taken him to the the border crossing, but there are TWO border crossings. One for foriegners and one for locals. He took darren to the locals one. and then speedily set off. By the time Darren had found out what was going on it was too late. So he had to pay nearly double the taxi fare to get back. There was no way to the right crossing from there. he had been scammed .

We cruelly laughed alot and he joined in although he was furious. so went with us the next day to the RIGHT border crossing. $6 each and a few hours ride.