PASSPORT TO CAMBODIA - phnom penh city

the royal palace

The palace has always been a popular tourist attraction in Phnom Penh. Visitors are able to wander around the Silver Pagoda compound and the central compound containing the Throne Hall and Chan Chhaya Pavilion. The King's living area, which actually takes up half of the total palace ground area, including Khemarin Palace, Villa Kantha Bopha, Serey Mongkol Pavilion, royal gardens, and a number of other buildings and pavilions, is closed to the public.

 the palace.

 palace exterior

 

silver pagoda

 a trickshaw driver taking a break

 

 

national museum

 

finally we say goodbye to cambodia. here seen with rith and his car that took care of us the whole trip.

cambodia is a place which would haunt you in your dreams and i hope i make a trip next time setting new destinations near the beach side and more temples.

so the real budget for the whole trip.( for ME)

flight tickets from kochi - kl -siemreap - phnompenh -kl - kochi - 283$

accomodation and breakfast 5n 6d - 48$

travel in cambodia - 60$

lunch/dinner/drinks etc - 72$

tickets/tips -60$

thats it folks..CAMBODIA....see ya next time with another destination!!

for any queries contact me :P

surajgnair@gmail.com

The killing fields Choeung Ek

"Pol Pot  and many other founders of the Khmer Rouge  were well-educated students who had lived in France . In 1968, they formed the Khmer Rouge  On April 17, 1975, two years after the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam, Phnom Penh fell to Khmer Rouge troops and U.S.-supported government forces surrendered"

after visiting the genocide museum, rith our cab driver took us to the killing fields of choeung ek which is one among many of those in cambodia..but the most famous one.

 the entrance to the killing fields..

 khmer children playing around.

 at  the main building.

Those being killed were often hit over the head with clubs in a bid to save bullets. there is a audio guided tour  which  gives you in depth knowledge about the killings been done here.

the skulls in cambodia exhibited in glass shelves.

 the bands -lucky bands or bhudist bands tied over the mass grave by visiting tourists.

 the mass grave where people were killed and buried

the tree where they killed small children by beating them against this tree.

the whole trip would give you a chill down your spine with the audio humming in your ears. we could feel innocent men, women and children crying for help, with pain, been killed.

moving on i remembered the bhudist prayer and recited it before leaving this so called killing field.

"Let us pray that all living beings realize that they are all brothers and sisters, all nourished from the same source of life"

Genocide Museum - Tol seung prison

the first thing we did after having break fast was to head to tol seung prison. we can hire a guide who will give us an idea, i mean pretty good info on the khmr regime and the torture that the people underwent in this prison - once a high school.

the high school

i would suggest you people to hire a guide, no fixed charge. you can give what ever you want at the end of the tour.
tickets are around 4 dollars . there are 14 tombstones outside the school in respect of the last 14 people who died there.they were found dead when the vietnam and cambodian army took over phnom penh. they are unknown people who as per our guide where the soldiers of Polpot whom he killed accusing of double crossing.

 this symbol can be seen on all doors. it says dont laugh..sounds funny...no one would leave  this compound with a smile..if you are human you will shed a drop of tear in this school of torture.

 the 10 rules the prisoners had to follow.

the last 14 victims who were found and buried here.

photos of all victims are show cased here. polpot had a photographer just for photographing his victims.around 17000 photos are here in this gallery. men,women children all of cambodian, vietnam, indian, pakistani and western orgins. there were some tourists too who were not spared..

a close up of a woman prisoner. it is assumed that this lady might be a khmer rouge cadre as her hair is cut short. the women soldiers had thier hair shortned. later she might have been accused of doublecrossing or whatever and tortured .

the torturing bed. here the prisoner was tied and tortured till he admited that he was CIA spy. the men who tortured were also in fear that if the prisoner dint admit he was the spy they would be in the torture bed. that was the way polpot administrated . his agenda was 'better to kill an innocent than let a guilty person go free'.

all the prisoners friends, his relatives were searched down and killed.

a torturing method drawn by Van nath - a survivor . van nath died in 2010.

 with Chum mey the oldest survivor of the remaining 3. his book is for sale for 10 dollars. he gets a small amount as pension from the government. he sits here all the day and goes back home..this is been his routine for the past 12 years.

Imtiaz with Bou meng one of the 3 survivors.

dont visit this place as if you are on a picnic. this place demands respect and much more than that. we have only heard of hitler, mao, stalin who have killed millions but such a place exsists in south east asia and our generation should know about the killing happened during 1977 - 80.

Phnom penh

after 3 nights at siem reap, after having a wonderful time visiting the temples we decided to take the temple break and started to plan on phnom penh. siem reap to phnom penh is a long journey. takes about 6 hours. there are buses but many of the travellers have suggested to travel on day time rather than take the night bus. coz the roads are scary and narrow and a lot of accidents happen.

travelling in a bus during day time tat too for about 6 - 8 hours...nah!!!!!
we were thinking of other options when our guide sprang up with the idea of going with our driver who is goin home .luckily he is a married guy and visits his wife once in a month kinda!!! so we grabbed the chance and paid him 60 dollars.

by bus it would be a mere 30 dollars..but this one was luxury. a Lexus SUV and he promised to take us around phnom pneh for the rest of the day..
so deal fixed.

 on the way we stopped to take some photographs....children having fun in the pond

 this young lady is selling steamed rice cakes with jaggery...yummmy it is!!!

our driver and a very good friend Rith ( in the middle)

the national monument at phnom penh
so we reached phnom penh in 6 hours , had a city tour, dined at a good restuarant and back to hotel.

floating village tonle sap lake

Floating village
Chong Khneas is the name of famous floating village at the edge of the lake. It locates at Southern part of Siem Reap town about 15 Km, and takes only 30 minutes by vehicles to the boat dock where there are always boats waiting for visitors. The boat trip through the floating village takes approximately two hours. You will explore the different of Khmer, Muslim and Vietnamese floating households and the floating markets, fisheries, clinics, schools, basketball course, pigsty and other boatloads of tourists.

i have heard of scams in here..but of course you need to pay 20 dollar per person..but if you have a trust worthy guide with you.then all is fine..i never encountered any prblem..the village is worth seeing.

 the boat station / jetty

 a boy selling something ...i dont know whats in the box

 thats our guide in the middle

a floating school

 there are lots of floating shops and you can stop them and buy which is something cool.

 a typical house

The boat trip usually  stops: one at a touristy floating 'fish and bird exhibition' with a souvenir and snack shop..this pic was taken from the top of the snack shop.

dont know much about the other stop :P

and finally The Lake is the largest fresh water in South East Asia !!

temples Angkor wat

ANGKOR WAT

Angkor wat temple is the main temple in the angkor site which is probably the biggest temple in the worlds with hundreds of small temples .the temple is  used by bhudists today even though it is a vishnu temple.

400 sq.kms !!! thats what this temple streches to..whoa!!!

many ancient statues have been decapitated and their heads sold to private collectors ..says our guide

a private agency runs the tourism in angkor wat and they say he is even richer than the king .

and one last thing ..ankor wat temple was painted!!! but only few traces can be seen today.

 at sunset

 waiting for the sun to set :P

the reflection is so damn beautiful.

 all kinds of photo experiments :P

inside the temple..when light falls at around 5 pm.the temple  turns golden

the temple is huge ..and u can just run faster to see it all in a hours time...or you can come in the morning and be there till evening...yet this temple is bigger to see all in a day..perhaps a week..tahts waht my fellow travellers said :P

temples - bayon

bayon temple is a must visit when you plan the temple trip. one of the ancient temples built by king jayaraman, this temple has about 20 odd faces.

the entrance to temple has been modified by  the archeolgical survey by providing wooden walkways.

it is generally accepted that the four faces on each of the towers are images of King Jayavarman VII, which means the omnipresence of the king. And it also symbolizes the four smiling face as charming smile, sad smile, glad smile and beautiful smile. There are about 200 faces.

Bayon is known for its huge stone faces of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, with one facing outward and keeping watch at each compass point. The curious smiling image, thought by many to be a portrait of Jayavarman himself, has been dubbed by some the "Mona Lisa of Southeast Asia." There are 51 smaller towers surrounding Bayon, each with four faces of its own

 Since the Bayon Temple was constructed in stages over a span of many years, it appears to be somewhat of an architectural jumble. When seen from a distance, at first it can seem like a rather formless jumble of stone, but on the inside, there is a maze of galleries, towers and passageways on the three different levels.

 the faces all have the same strange smile and closed eyes, pehaps in the meditation pose :P

Temple gate- angkor thom

AngkorThom

The gate to the city of ankor that is what i understood about angkor thom. you can see the 3 faced vishnu statue along the road. each side of the road you can see statues of gods and demons. according to hindu culture to get the nectar of immortality gods and demons agreed to join hands  for once to churn the ocean. for this they approach the snake king and he agrees to be the string. so the demons pull the tail and the gods pull the head...

that is what is figured here in angkor thom.

a close up of god :P

rajeev helping the demons in churning the nectar :P

close up of the gate.

 there are children everywhere...selling magnets. i got to know that government is trying to stop  the begging business which is something serious. we would give this little girl a dollar  and the moment we leave, a guy would come out from the woods and take it from her...or she would run to some guy who would be waiting for the money.

 a woman selling soveniers

imtiaz with kids selling postcards and magnets.

we passed  through the gates of angkor once the captial of khmer empire and our next destination - BAYON