Angkor What?

Cambodia is a country I knew very little about... in fact other than the genocide of the Pol Pot regime and something about a big old temple called Angkor Wat I knew nothing. From the second we crossed the boarder from Vietnam into Cambodia I loved it. The difference was so apparent, the people look different, the food is different (and amazing by the way), the houses are different and the poverty is unbelievable - yet the people are so friendly and so open to talk.

Our week was a real mix of emotions, the day spent at Angkor Wat began at 4:30am to ensure we made it in time for sunrise; it was amazing to arrive in pitch black and gradually watch the temple appear before our eyes, and boy is it spectacular! We here so much and see so many films and pictures of Rome and the pyramids, yet Angkor Wat is probably even more amazing, the scale and richness of the Angkorian period is in such contrast to the way Cambodians live today - the main temple (the one you will have seen if you've ever seen a picture) was stunning and our guide gave us huge amounts of information concerning the history and development of this old capital, however for me it was the temple used as the backdrop for the Lara Croft Tomb Raider movie that was the most impressive - the trees left to grow through the walls of the buildings and the faded green colour give it a mysterious feel which transports you back in time to the 12th century, to a time when Cambodia was the dominant force in south east Asia and London was a mere 50,000 population town still in the dark ages!

It was the visit to Tual Sleng and the killing fields though which has left the biggest impact for me - Toul Sleng, now the genocide museum, once the Khmer Rouge S21prison and before that a school, and the killing fields are still very much kept how they were, nothing fake here. The blood is still on the walls of the classrooms come prison cells and when you walk through the killing fields there are still bones poking through the ground beneath your feet and clothes of the dead still scattered on the ground. To say it was moving is an understatement. This is such recent history, its my lifetime and everyone alive in Cambodia today is and has been affected. Half the Cambodian population died at the hands of Pol Pot. Liang, our guide for the day spent 12 years living in a refugee camp - it was amazing to hear her speak first hand about when and why they escaped the regime and how people like her were only allowed back in the country in 1993 for the elections. There is a monument at the killing fields which holds the skulls and bones of the people excavated from the mass graves, its so awkward looking at layers and layers of skulls and realising that each was an ordinary Cambodian killed at the hands of another Cambodian. There is a tree at the killing fields which was used by the Khmer Rouge to beat young children to death in order to save bullets - the scale of the evil is just unreal and you come away with so many questions: What would bring a man to the point where he could do this to his own people? Who was Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge and why were they ever allowed to get into such a position of power? Why did the world not intervene sooner? At Toul Sleng as well the cruelty was just pure evil - I walked upstairs to the top floor and being in the stairwell reminded me of our stairwell at school and all I could hear in my head was the voices of happy children running up and down to their lessons and at home time - suddenly and abruptly stopped by the sounds of toture and pure evil. The scale of the evil is overwhelming and at both places you can physically feel it in the air, yet our guide Liang through all her personal suffering seems to have moved on and when you meet Cambodians there seems to be a real peace and hope about them. Their resilience is amazing The impression you get of the people is that they are very calm and peaceful - even with the immense poverty there are a lot of smiling faces - Its a very humbling experience.

Leaving Cambodia was hard, I desperately wanted to stay longer, see more and learn more, the only consolation was our method of transport from Siem Reap to the Thai boarder... the back of a 4x4 sitting on top of our rucksacks being thrown about by the pot holes and covered in dust from the road. But what an amazing way to see the countryside and the way of life for so many Cambodians today - Every second felt like an adventure, a truly amazing journey!