Happy birthday to me!

We wrapped things up at our little hut on the hill and grabbed a saengthaew to Lonely Beach, where we waited at the Treehouse restaurant for another truck to cart us to the other side of the island to Long Beach. After a few hours crammed into the back of the truck like sardines, 10 other farang and the two of us arrived at the new Treehouse resort. So cool! For $5 a night, we had a stilted hut with a balcony overlooking the ocean in the only isolated part of Koh Chang left. We spent the next 4 days, including my 25th birthday, reading classic novels, eating thai food, drinking beers, and swinging on treeswings. It was lovely, and a perfect way to relax and get back into the backpacker vibe after living in the lap of luxury with the fam!




Once we had recovered from an overdose of serenity, we hopped on the ferry and headed to Trat, where we took a minivan to the Cambodian border. We were screwed out of less money than expected for the visa, but were still bribed to pay 30% more than it should have cost. That border crossing is notorious for screwing over tourists!

Because we arrived in the afternoon, there were no more buses leaving for Phnom Penh, so we had to spend the night in the shady border town of Koh Krong. To get there, we had to hop on the back of a motorcycle for 15km. Both of us, one motorcycle, 2 backpacks, and one driver. It made for an interesting journey and surprisingly we were not injured! We bunked up at the Apex hotel, and enjoyed having hot water, cable tv, and ac/ It was a good thing that we got a nice room too, because there was a torrential downpour for most of the afternoon! In the evening we ventured over to Bob's Bar for magical chicken parm and english sausages with mash and veg. MMMMmmm.

In the morning we hopped on a VIP AC bus to Phnom Penh, napping and reading until our arrival at 2pm. We found a hotel right by the river, with the same amenities as the night before but lacking a window. We threw our bags down and took a moto to the UK Embassy where we were informed that Oli needed a new passport and could not just get pages added in, as his was almost full. Awesome. We decided to take care of it in Vietnam, then headed over to the backpacker slum for some awesome sandwiches and to be comforted in the fact that we went for nicer accommodation than usual- the $2 rooms in this neck of the woods were not anything you would put your worst enemy in! We headed back to our hotel, watched tv and napped, then headed over to Happy Herb's pizza for some yummy pizza minus the happy herbs, and then retired for the night.

The next morning we rose early, took a moto to the Vietnam embassy to drop off our visa applications, then wandered over to the Russian Market to peruse the stalls and knock off clothing. We then walked up to the S-21 genocide museum. Over 17,000 men, women and children were imprisoned there during the Khmer Rouge reign. The history of Pol Pot and the atrocities that his underlings caused it horrendous, and worth a much closer look than I could describe. The genocide museum is in the former high school that was occupied in 1975 by the "revolution"and became a prison for intellectuals, nonconformists, "enemies" of the revolution, and anyone in their families. Cruel torture and barbaric living conditions were prevalent for 4 years, and the prison was a sort of holding place before the victims were moved over to the killing fields. The museum contained the original jail-like structures, the torture beds, and photos of many of the former inmates. Almost every single person who was jailed there was put to death.

After S-21, we had a quick lunch before hopping in a tuktuk to the killing fields. About 15km south of Phnom Penh, the fields once contained a sort of holding cell where the prisoners were kept blindfolded and handcuffed before they were led one by one to the edge of hundreds of mass graves, bashed over the head with one of many cruel weapons, then had their throats slashed and their bodies thrown in on top of hundreds of other lost souls. The small children were taken care of in a different way- taken by the feet and slammed into a tree until dead. The idea was that all children, regardless of age, must be taken care of to ensure no revenge or retaliation attempts once grown.

Pol Pot had a grand communist plan to form the nation into a self sufficient agricultural based country, with a huge export of rice as their only priority. He wanted to exterminate all city people and focus on the villagers, enforcing almost slavelike labor and abolishing hospitals, schools, money, and personal property. Though the reign of the Khmer Rouge lasted only 4 years, until Vietnam envaded and took over, they killed hundreds of thousands of people, and every single person living here not over the age of 30 was affected in some way during that cruel time.



After the killing fields, we had a somber drive back to the Vietnam Embassy to pick up our visas, then met up with Oli's old roomie Andy for a few drinks and dinner. Andy was on his way out of town after volunteering for an orphanage down south, and as he told us about it we realized that we really wanted to go help. He gave us all the information, and we formulated a plan to do a bit of time down south and enter by the southern border to Vietnam in a week or so.

This morning we woke up and visited the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, then headed to a real genuine supermarket and drooled over all the cheeses and other imports. We had lunch at fatboy subs- YUM, and now are killing time in an internet cafe until our 2pm bus to Takeo. Love to all, we will update again soon! :)