Wow... lots of stuff has happened, and I have been SO bad about writing about it! First of all, we are having a BLAST. So much fun, so many beautiful places and fun things to do. Casey and I are in Phuket, Thailand right now... taking a few days of down time before heading off for a scuba diving liveaboard in the Similan Islands next week (CANT WAIT!). After selling our bike in Saigon we set off on a whole new journey, and kind of a sad one, to Cambodia.
Cambodia is one of the countries I was the most excited to visit. After going there I have mixed feelings about it. The history is devastating, and Casey and I did our best to get informed on the horrible events of the Khmer Rouge, which we were shocked to realize happened only a few decades ago. I knew a little bit about the Khmer Rouge before visitng Phnom Penh, but had no clue how recent and BRUTAL it was. I read a bit about the Khmer Regime on the long busride from Saigon to Phnom Penh... for those of you who dont know, the Khmer Rouge was a political movement (or if you have any brains in your head you may also consider it a genocide) to return Cambodia to a rural agrarian society, with no dependencies on the West. The leaders, called the Pol Pot Regime, after the head man named Pol Pot, thought that Cambodia was too dependent on imported goods, and was getting abused by the big business of the West... they envisioned a Cambodia that grew enough food to feed the people, and was completelty isolated from the outside world. Forgive me if I am messing any of the history up, but it seems like what started out as an effort to unify the country into a utopic agrarian state went completely sour when the regime started offing anyone who had anything to say about it. The regime relocated people out of the cities to work in the fields, performing backbreaking labor all day with little or no food or water. Anyone with a formal education, that could speak a foreign language, or even wore glasses was taken away, either to a prison camp where they were tortured, or to a killing field where they were executed, nice guys, eh?
Casey and I visited the Cheoung Elk Killing field, outside of Phnom Penh. There is a beautiful grassy field, with large shady trees and birds chirping. It is very peaceful and beautiful until you realize that tens of thousands of innocent Cambodians were beheaded and buried in mass graves right beneath your feet. As you walk you can actually see unearthed bones as the Cambodian government has not yet completed excavating the sight. The mass graves are intact, you can walk right up to them, and the "killing trees" still stand, where babies were brutally murdered, it is absolutely horrible. The regime was very open about not leaving any babies alive, as when they grew up they could attempt to seek revenge on the regime, so naturally couldn't be allowed to survive. In the center of the field is a stupa, or monument which houses over 8,000 skulls that were uncovered at the sight. Standing before a tower of human skulls is an absolutley chilling experience, not one that I care to repeat, but it did a great job at showing us how terrible the Khmer Rouge was.
Because were masochistic Casey and I rode away from the Killing Fields, and headed to Tuol Sleng Prison, where victims of the Khmer Rouge were tortured, sometimes for months, before being transported to the Killing Fields. I thought the Killing Field was terrible, it was nothing compared to the prison. The Khmer Regime took photographs of every prisoner that passed through Tuol Sleng, one of them alive when they arrived, and one of them dead after months of torture. All of these photos are on display inside of the prison cells, stark black and white photographs of THOUSANDS of faces staring out at us. The eeriest place I have ever been. In the ninety degree heat Casey and I both had chills. I'm sorry if this is too gruesome, there is just no other way to describe it.
Casey and I stayed in Phnom Penh only a couple of days, but it had a huge impact on me. We next headed to Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat. Casey came down with a lovely case of food poisoning (poor guy) so it wasn't our favorite part of the trip, but Casey was a trooper and we visited the temples anyway. Angkor Wat is pretty incredible, huge stone temples in the middle of the jungle, Casey was even up for riding bikes around the complex, climibing up the the long staircases under the hot Cambodian sun. I felt just like Lara Croft (my idol, duh). After a few days of chilling we decided to hop a flight to Malaysia, and MAN am I glad we did!
Malaysia is my favorite place we've been so far (sorry Thailand, I love you, but Malaysia wins). We had heard of an island called Pulau Tioman off the East coast of peninsular Malaysia, and it sounded WONDERFUL, so we headed straight there. We caught a small plane from Kuala Lumpur, seating about 20 people... a bit of a bumpy ride, but we landed on a single lane airstrip along the beach on a jungle covered island fringed by turquoise reef... welcome to Tioman! Casey and I hopped off the plane, where plenty of moto-taxis were waiting, but opted instead to hike the 7km across the island, on a trail through the jungle, to the beach town of Juara, heaven on Earth. The sun was beating down on us, our bags were heavy and we were sweating our asses off... I can't lie, the hike was intense. We saw plenty of insects, lizards, leaches, and even a few monkeys. About 3 hours of sticky jungle later we emerged on a long sandy beach, with calm blue water and very few people. We dropped our bags and jumped in the water, SO refreshing! We found ourselves a quaint little beach hut, and passed the next seven days with long beach walks, scuba diving, snorkelling and lots of cribbage (oh yeah and SAILING, don't forget to ask captain Casey about our sailing adventure :) I absolutely loved it on Tioman.
We knew we couldn't stay in Tioman forever, so we headed back to the mainland with lots of bugbites and some pretty rockin tans, and made our way to Phuket, where we are now. Phuket is pretty awesome, but for very different reasons. We're staying in Phuket town, which is pretty dull actually, but its only a quick motorcycle ride away from some of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen (nothing beats Tioman though, sorry Phuket). Of course we've got ourselves a motorcycle, and were having lots of fun riding from beach to beach, exploring dirt roads into the jungle and squeezing in some serious chill out time with a beer and a heaping plate of pad thai. We're really excited for Chip and Diane to visit us in Thailand next week... finding some great spots for the four of us to explore. This is a very abbreviated account of the past month, I'll have to tell you guys all of the random stories and adventures when we get back home! Love you guys, see you soon!
