Other trips


Other trips can be accessed by clicking the following links:

2014
Germany, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Copenhagen

2015
Hawaii, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Nepal, India and England

2016
Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania, Greece, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Ethiopia, Kenya, S. Africa, Zimbabwe, UAE and Denmark

2017
Panama, Colombia, Ecuador (inc. Galapagos), Peru, Bolivia, Chile (inc. Easter Island), Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Mexico.

2018
France (Paris and Lourdes), Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Spain, Andorra, Morocco (Tangier), Portugal and the Netherlands (Amsterdam).

2019
New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, Great Britain, Antarctica, Patagonia and Paraguay.


Wednesday, January 15, 2014

10/19: Phnom Penh's Central Market - top 10 sights in Phnom Penh


After visiting some of Phnom Penh's most harrowing sights, S-21 aka Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and The Killing Fields, the previous couple of days, it was a pleasant change indeed to visit one of the city's landmark buildings, the art deco Psar Thmel or Central Market.  

According to one of the travel books I read, the huge domed hall resembles a Babylonian ziggurat.  I just googled :ziggurat" and discovered it meant massive structures built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau having theform of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels. My/our new word for the day!!  Some even claim the Central Market's dome as one of the biggest in the world.  In any event, we thought it was beautiful and loved wandering around the array of stalls selling jewelry, clothing and curios.

We walked to the market from our hotel because they were both pretty close to each other.  In hindsight certainly, that was a pretty scary walk as there we were pedestrians in a capital city trying to navigate our way across major roads and intersections with NO traffic lights or police officers to say when it even MIGHT be safe to cross.  Don't forget too that there were motorcycles and tuk tuks all going both directions in the SAME lanes on every street.  We just had to wait until there were cars trying to cross where we wanted to go because cars coming from another direction would certainly never stop for pedestrians!

We ended up going to the Market twice that day as we obviously wanted a little more excitement in our lives or, just possibly, because I wanted to buy more of the ultra thin cotton pants I had seen the first time!  Glad we had taken out travel insurance before we left.














There was also a huge fish market at the Central Market as you can see above and below.





Beauty above and beast below!




Saw this sign, Nina, and thought of you!

Our best meals the whole trip were at The Aroma Restaurant just down the street from our Silver River Hotel.  I had the  chicken stuffed with spinach and cheese and the most scrumptious mashed potatoes and veggies on the side.  Hadn't had mashed potatoes the whole trip so my standards may have been a little low but even so, these were positively mouth watering.  What I'd give right about now to go back to Phnom Penh if only for another stuffed chicken meal from this restaurant!


Steven loved his chicken, veggie and rice dish but even he said after trying my chicken that he'd have that the next time.  Only cost us $9.75 for both meals including beer for Steven.  We ended up going back twice more to The Aroma when we returned from a few days in Kampot  just so we could both have "my" chicken meal again as it was that good.





Friday, January 10, 2014

10/18: The Killing Fields in Phnom Penh

I know it's been too long since my last post but I've been busy with the hubub of Christmas, planning our next three month adventure in Central and Eastern Europe, Turkey, Israel and Jordan.  In addition, it was unsettling for me writing the last post on the Genocide Museum AND knowing that the subject of this post would be tough slogging as well.  Seeing the pictures again of The Killing Fields brings back distressing memories of visiting the site, the horrors of Cambodia's civil war and man's seemingly never ending inhumanity toward our fellow man.  Having said that though, I know both Steven and I are and were glad we visited Choueng Ek, aka The Killing Fields, so we could understand, if only slightly, what went on in that period of Cambodia's history.


John, our wonderful tuk tuk driver/guide our whole time in Phnom Penh, stopped to buy us surgical face masks on our out to Choueng Ek, aka The Killing Fields, located 15kms SW of the capital.

John told us, while driving on Preah Monivang Blvd., the busiest street in Phnom Penh, to make sure we held onto our backpacks in the tuk tuk and not leave them on the floor as we normally did because they could be grabbed by someone passing by on one of the very present bikes or motorcycles

 
It was the first time we had needed them in Phnom Penh but it soon became apparent that John had made a good decision as you'll see from the very dusty road below!



Still amazing to me to see what a motorcycle could carry!


Not sure how comfortable these people were in the back of the trucks!

Choueng Ek was chosen as a Killing Field by Pol Pot's regime because it had been used as a graveyard by the Chinese and was away from the capital.  You can see part of the longan orchard that had been on this ground.  Some of Pol Pots's slogans: "Better to kill an innocent by mistake than to spare an enemy by mistake."  "To kill you is no gain; to lose you is no loss."

Between 1975 and 1978 about 20,000 men, women, children and infants who had been detained and tortured at S-21 were transported to the extermination camp of Choueng Ek.  There were more than 200 other killing fields throughout Cambodia.  Many of them are not accessible because they are deep in the jungle and/or surrounded still by landmines.

Beauty in the middle of such horror.

The sign on the Memorial Stupa below.

More than 8000 skulls, arranged by sex and age, are visible behind the clear glass panels of the 17 level high Memorial Stupa, which was erected in 1988 by the Cambodian government. The first 10 levels were used for skulls alone and levels 11-17 were used for the larger bones: arms, jaws and legs.

The numbers above and below in many of the pictures refer to the audio guides we used.



The edges of the palm leaves above were so sharp they were used to cut prisoners' throats.  The prisoners were beaten and hacked to death with whatever was readily available: machetes, axes, car axels, hoes, etc but not bullets because they were too expensive.  There are few of the tools still visible because the locals needed them and the wood from the physical structures after the war for their own homes.


After heavy flooding, fragments of bones, teeth and articles of clothing still to this day come up to the surface.

 






The Killing Tree:  Babies' legs were held and their bodies were swung against this tree; their blood and brain matter were found on the bark.


The last sounds prisoners heard were those of the generators, political songs and political slogans.


A final view of the Memorial Stupa with the national flag.  One of the last signs we saw reminded us that "tragically it can happen again so remember your past as you look to the future."

Back in Phnom Penh: common to see stray dogs everywhere throughout the country but this was the first time we'd seen dalmatians.

Dinner in what came to be our favorite restaurant in Phnom Penh.


The lobby of the Silver River Hotel where we stayed in Phnom Penh: a decided step up from our normal hostel stay!