After a week in Cambodia it was time to cross the border into Vietnam. The roads in Cambodia are of varying quality, mostly bad being fondly refered to as ‘rock and roll’ out here. The roads are slightly wider than your average single carriage way British road, but not wide enough for the wild over taking manoeuvres favoured out here! Scooters tend to stick to the dirt paths on the side of the road.

While driving through a town in the middle of nowhere in Cambodia I noticed this working elephant, not used in the tourism trade but still to do hard manual work.

Many of these long straight roads were built by the Americans, but are still often deceptively bumpy.

We arrived at the Cambodian and Vietnamese border, which is really just a raised through rice fields with a couple of shacks and a road block. Various passport and visa checking went on, a nod to the border guards and we were off within half an hour or so.

Very quickly after crossing the border into Vietnam the signs of a more developed country became apparent, better roads, more electricity pylons and large scale infrastructure projects. The men digging the roads up in Vietnam were wearing high vis clothing and using modern machinery. Of course the endless rice fields continue to dominate the landscape, the still reflective water only occasionally being disturbed by wildlife.

The rice harvest in Vietnam happens around two months before Cambodia, due to the irrigation systems they have in place here, where as typically Cambodians have to rely heavily on the rain to harvest.

This evening we were to stay in the countryside in the Mekong Delta jungle surrounded by banana trees, lime and mint plants. We crossed this bamboo bridge into the village as dusk set in.

Passing by a local family they happily gathered around eating their dinner and offered us rice wine. Rice wine is very strong and is somewhat of an acquired taste, but is perfectly drinkable. All sorts of insects are added to it to enhance the flavour.

This was the outside of the huts I spent the night in, I had one of the best nights sleep in ages here protected by a large pink mosquito net, this area now being in the Mekong Delta where malaria is still present. It was almost silent except for the buzzing of insets outside, a pleasant escape after the noisy intense Pnomn Penhn.

An early start and a long drive to Sihanoukville, a beach resort on the Cambodian coast. I really didn’t know what to expect from here, I had been told it is very beautiful. The road were pretty good on the way, long and straight and overtaking manoeuvres were pretty sketchy, often best not to look!

On route we stopped off at a roadside shrine site which was also home to hundreds of monkeys.

On arrival we were met with this wall of people, a few honks from the car and we were through.

The following day we went on a boat tour around a few of the local islands and had a BBQ on the beach. The weather wasn’t so great, raining a couple of times through-out the day. However the cool rain drops were a nice way to cool down in the 30+ degrees heat…

To be honest it wasn’t the best boat tour, but it was nice to see a few islands without bungalows on them yet.

Whilst we were out on a boat tour the rain really kicked in heavily, the captain at the back of the ship wasn’t bothered and just kept steering the truck engines home. These things make a hell of a racket and don’t propel the boat particularly fast! The engines seem very similar here to the ones in Thailand, I wonder if there is a specific type of engine they look for.

The main beach itself feels like of a paradise gone wrong, infiltrated by happy hours, glow paint, pizza menus and American jocks taking their gap year. The local women patrol the beach demanding to rip any hair on your body out with thread, massage your sandy back or failing that paint your nails some vile blue colour. The foot massages are actually pretty pleasant, but be careful not to refuse on vendor and accept the offer of another, I never heard the end of that one.

The nightlife is loud and goes on late, interspersed by bag snatching and shots depending on the state of the tourist. It was good fun, but I was glad not to be staying any longer.

One of the many delights/horrors of Cambodia is the street food. You can an assortment of insects and other strange creepy crawlies to snack on. This was one of the selections on the way into Phnom Penh.

There are BBQs everywhere and almost everything looks amazing.

Locals playing chess in the street outside a monastery

Many men in Cambodia will be a monk at least once in their life, obviously spiritual reasons being the main driver, but also as it is a way to get an education without having to pay. With many of the people still coming from small village farms this is invaluable. Monks are treated with the upmost respect and you often see people praying to them in the street.

This was the view from the rooftop of our hotel, the next day we headed to the coast.

It’s pretty hard to write anything meaningful about a place where such awful things happened, but I will ry and write a little, some might want to skip the writing in the post. S-21 was the interrogation centre for the Pol Pot regime where political prisoners and anyone suspected have having an education would be brought and tortured until they confessed and gave names of other people to be questioned. Prior to Pol Pot the buildings were a school and now serve as a grim reminder of the country’s past. People would be judged if they were educated through how worn their hands were, how dark their skin, simple confession from other people and various other means.

These were the ‘VIP’ rooms where the previous governments’ members would be interrogated in various in-human ways with the pictures on the wall on the left showing the state of the room when journalists finally entered the buildings and found the disc

After the prisoners were interrogated they were driven to various killing fields around the country, we then drove to visit one of these. The prisoners would be moved in the night blindfolded to avoid detection and loud political propaganda would be payed through speakers to hide their screams. The prisoners would be marched to mass graves were they would be executed with a blunt objects, for they were not ‘worthy’ of bullets. They were piled in into graves and chemicals poured onto the bodies to hide the smell.

Local people leave bangles here for the spirits of the children who were killed against this tree.

I had never really been presented with death in such a stark way before. These skulls form part of a shrine to remember the people who were slaughtered here, with fresh bones, teeth and clothes still appearing through the ground when it rains heavily. Many of the bodies have still not been exhumed.

Cambodia seems to be a nation that has suffered so terribly yet there is a sense of hope amongst the people and having been put through the cleansing of the educated, so it is now a real priority for the common person now and many children here speak very good English at a very young age.

It has been hard writing this post, and I hope I have remember what our tour guide told me correctly. It was a very sobering experience, and a warning to all what people in power can do.

Sunrise from the rooftop of the hotel we stayed in looking out over the bay.

We all went out into the countryside around Siem Reap to visit a few small villages and the rice fields. Again just a quick post as we are about to leave.