Bangkok was like a Canadian reunion, before heading to Cambodia it was shock after shock, first day back and I get a message on facebook, im in Bangkok as well, be at your place in 10. Mr John Murphy the Irish langer, the last person in the world I expected to see and fresh from Melbourne cup arrived for a few days stop on his way back to Ireland. For those of you that don’t know John was the first person I met when I started travelling and lived together for 2months in Vancouver, he’d met my brother in Australia and now we would have our final stand in Bangkok. In true Murphy style we hit the pub, checked out the bars, Kao Sahn Rd and spent time just catching up. Next night out sitting in the street having a drink and someone is standing there with there givin me the finger??? Nate, another one of the first people I met in Vancouver and who also did the snow season in Whistler with me, this is getting way random. My mate Brad arrives next day so we went for a beer and bought some ridiculous looking sunglasses, just when I thought things couldn’t get any more random, sitting at the same stand the next night and Joel that worked with me in Whistler is standing right there pointing at me, holy crap!!  We reminisce of good times spent in Whistler and caught up – this is the definition of a small world peoples. The boys went home about 3 and I kept on going with a group of Swedish girls I had met, and went with them to help finish off their bottles of drink before they left the next day, I'm a nice guy. About 5:30am as we are making our way back to the bar we get approached by this guy, “Hello, I am director of a movie we are filming here today and would like to know if you want to be in it, just have to sign these forms and there is free food and drinks in the cast area”, heck yeah, don’t know what the name of it was, we were still pretty drunk, but will find out soon for everyone.

The road to Cambodia was anything but grand, 150km of dirt in a dodgy bus which took about 7hrs, bumpy as all crap dodging cars, bikes, pigs, and cows the whole way, great looking countryside but full 3^rd world type poverty. Between Thailand and Cambodia there is a 500m long section that is classed as nothing land filled with Casino’s, so technically for those 5mins I was not in any country in the world. We arrived in Siem Reap, meaning “Defeat of the Thai”, the second capital of Cambodia renamed when the Cambodians defeated the invading Thai and home to the world famous Angkor Wat temples and ruins, one of the new seven wonders of the world. The site is stunning with temples and structures on par with the Incas of South America, the king at the time was well liked and respected achieving the construction of 47 different temples, towers, pools, lakes and walls in 49 years with the main structures being the Bayon Temple and Angkor Wat. The Bayon temple comprises of 54 individual towers with each tower containing the four different faces of Buddha and perfectly aligning with N/E/S/W, the Cambodian people believe if you can live by these four values then you will be well liked and have friends where ever you go. The show stopper though is Angkor Wat and this is how it goes, the city is built upon a huge man made island which has a mote about 100m wide dug entirely by hand stretching around the city leaving only two points of entry over the giant carved stone bridges. Once you cross the main bridge and through the arch it really feels like you are walking into an ancient kingdom, the main temple consists of five towers all perfectly symmetrical with the centre tower representing the centre of the world and used to contain a gold plate to signify it. Around the walls of the centre tower the entire history, religion and beliefs of the Khmer (Cambodian) people is carved into massive big murals separated into three levels,  heaven-earth-hell,  ill let the pictures do the talking. After Angkor we were off to the site of the Tomb Raider movie, the temple Ta Prohm which the king of this era (1186) built in dedication to his mother and would spend 1 day each week there meditating. The temple hasn’t been restored so all the giant trees are still left entwined through the temple walls and roofs, looks like some sort of aliens eating the buildings, the pictures are amazing. 

After the ruins we hit the floating markets, an entire city floating amongst the reeds and the weeds in the creek ways, not a flash place by any means, very third world, but interesting enough they grow all their own fish, snakes and crocodiles in floating pens to eat, trade and make money. As our boat was flying down the river we were chased by swarms of small boats with children trying to sell food and drinks, the parents would race up beside ours and they would jump over to our boat then jump back, fearless!!. Coming back from the floating markets Brad and I nearly got into a crash when out tuk tuk driver didn’t see someone on a bike and hit the skids, I think we were about an inch off from smashing the poor kid. We stopped in at a local orphanage to learn about how it all works, play with the children, see how the live and give them some presents to brighten up there day. The orphanage has around 70 kids and does very good work teaching them English, origami, computers and Microsoft Office, and providing them with meals, and bikes for the older kids to get to secondary school.

Leaving the city of temples we go to see what small town life in Cambodia is like in a place called Kompong Cham on the banks of the mighty Mekong River, the people here are extremely friendly ad just to see a white people their faces light up while trying to speak English to you. I head out to see the monkey temples or Phnom Pros and Phnom Srei, as soon as I get out of the tuk tuk monkeys are everywhere like white on rice, the girls decide to buy a drink and this is when we find out the monkey know their sh*t, as soon as the can cracks monkeys come at her from everywhere like a swarm of bees. Fearing annihilation at the hands of 5000 monkeys she drops the can on the ground and all the monkeys come over knocking it over, picking it up and sucking the sweet sugary juice out. Heading back to the hotel we stop at another old temple to see the sunset and also see young children and orphans being taught how to do the traditional Khmer dances before grabbing some of the best market food ever for dinner.

Brad, myself and the rest of the crew were about to join the likes of Paris and Nicole with our own version of The Simple Life called “Cambodian Homestay”. On the way there we made a hairy little road stop to dine on the fine Cambodian delicacy of “fried funnel web spiders” holy crap this took a bit of self discipline, it was about as big as my hand and hairy as a wookie – in it goes!! Check the pics they’ll make your stomach squirm. Surprisingly it didn’t taste that bad, like eating prawns with the shells still on, another thing to add to the list of weird crap I’ve eaten. Our homestay was a nice little wooden shack with hammocks in the middle of nowhere, smack bang next to nowhere just on the other side of nowhere and a rice field. Not much there except cows, banana trees, and the big esky we brought full of beer, you all know how the rest of the night went.

Out of the jungle and onto the beach in Sihanoukville, a funky little town on the beach, lots of cafes, bars and restaurants setup on the beach, even had a few cows stroll by. Went out to the islands stopping on the way to do some snorkelling in the shallows reefs, with very little marine life Brad and I tried to perfect our simultaneous back flips from the boat. We arrived at deserted bamboo island for a treat, fresh cooked fish on the beach while we run around like crazy digging up small crabs to eat along with it, I even got to sit back and relax for the rest of the day fishing from the boat using a plastic water bottle with line wrapped around it and a bolt for a sinker.

Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia and home of the former Khmer Rouge and mass genocide claiming around 3 million innocent lives. We came here to learn more about what happened here and see the graphic reminder of Cambodia’s tragic recent history. First we went to Tuol Sleng, a former school which was taken by the Khmer Rouge and transformed into a torture and detention centre (security prison 21 or S21), with many of the shackles, weapons, torture methods, skulls and prisoner photos still on display it leaves a very twisted feeling in your gut to see the evidence of what went on here not so long ago. Things such has pulling the women’s nipples of with pliers then putting scorpions on the wound or cutting the men’s backs and stomachs before rubbing salt and chillies in them and sewing them back up, horrible horrible stuff. Next off to the Choeung Ek killing fields where around 17,000 people who had been detained at Tuol Sleng were transported to be executed between 1975 and 1978, they weren’t even shot because they didn’t want to waste bullets, they were just stabbed with bamboo and kicked into the holes. As you walk around this area looking at the excavated mass graves you find yourself walking on old bones and clothes while reading plaques explaining the history of the place, there is even a tree there called the baby tree where newborns were killed by holding their legs and swinging them at the tree, very graphic and disgusting stuff. As bad as this place is it really needs to be seen to understand what happened here and learn about it, I recommend it to everyone, the more people learn the more that can be done to ensure it never happens again.

Thats it for Cambodia, it is truly an amazing country with some magnificent and tragic history, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself  here and hope you all get to experience it someday, now its off to Vietnam!!