Cambodia
14th of July I flew to Cambodia to visit a friend in Siem Reap and to explore Phnom Penh. This is the first of several post on my visit to Cambodia plus a little history.
Cambodia is an amazing country considering that it tore itself apart in the middle 1970’s. Over 1.7 million people killed by the Khmer Rouge - some estimate as high as 3 million killed! In many areas of the country people were rounded up and executed for speaking a foreign language, wearing glasses, scavenging for food, and even crying for dead loved ones. Former businessmen and bureaucrats were hunted down and killed along with their entire families; the Khmer Rouge feared that they held beliefs that could lead them to oppose their regime. A few Khmer Rouge loyalists were even killed for failing to find enough 'counter-revolutionaries' to execute. Most of the educated Cambodians – teachers, doctors - were either executed or fled the country.
Now 30 years later Cambodia is a booming S.E. Asian country. Everywhere you look new buildings going up – condos, giant office buildings, resorts, spas, new roads, etc. It has a “wild west” atmosphere! Driving on the roads is an adventure where the “rules of the road” are “there are NO rules of the road”..........
Phnom Penh is just over 1 hour by air from Bangkok. View of rice fields and the Gulf of Thailand in the distance just after leaving Bangkok..
Phnom Penh or P.P. for short is built along the confluence of 3 rivers - Mekong - Tonle Sap & the Bassac Rivers. A typical "long tail boat" used for fishing and to live aboard.
There is a new "board walk" built along the riverfront which is a center of activity for locals & tourists....
Thanks to the past French rule there are lots of great bakeries and French Bread!
Boats along the river...
Street scenes and my hotel - not bad on the river for $23.00 per night!
Now off to Siem Reap on the Mekong Express for 4 nights!
Cambodia is an amazing country considering that it tore itself apart in the middle 1970’s. Over 1.7 million people killed by the Khmer Rouge - some estimate as high as 3 million killed! In many areas of the country people were rounded up and executed for speaking a foreign language, wearing glasses, scavenging for food, and even crying for dead loved ones. Former businessmen and bureaucrats were hunted down and killed along with their entire families; the Khmer Rouge feared that they held beliefs that could lead them to oppose their regime. A few Khmer Rouge loyalists were even killed for failing to find enough 'counter-revolutionaries' to execute. Most of the educated Cambodians – teachers, doctors - were either executed or fled the country.
Now 30 years later Cambodia is a booming S.E. Asian country. Everywhere you look new buildings going up – condos, giant office buildings, resorts, spas, new roads, etc. It has a “wild west” atmosphere! Driving on the roads is an adventure where the “rules of the road” are “there are NO rules of the road”..........
Phnom Penh is just over 1 hour by air from Bangkok. View of rice fields and the Gulf of Thailand in the distance just after leaving Bangkok..
Phnom Penh or P.P. for short is built along the confluence of 3 rivers - Mekong - Tonle Sap & the Bassac Rivers. A typical "long tail boat" used for fishing and to live aboard.
There is a new "board walk" built along the riverfront which is a center of activity for locals & tourists....
Thanks to the past French rule there are lots of great bakeries and French Bread!
Boats along the river...
Street scenes and my hotel - not bad on the river for $23.00 per night!
Now off to Siem Reap on the Mekong Express for 4 nights!
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