This morning, after I finished breakfast, the lady at the guesthouse asked me if I had heard the news. I told her I hadn't. I generally haven't been following the news here like I normally do back in Melbourne. I hate that feeling when you get up, do your thing and all of a sudden you realise you've been going about your day without hearing some important news. I could tell this wasn't good when she started. She told me a few hundred people died from a bridge stampede in Phnom Penh. She told me to check the internet about it. It is still public holiday these past two days, but the end of the Water Festival was last night. As I read about it on the net, so it happened that, as she said, a rumour started on the bridge on Diamond Island that it was unstable and so everyone went into panic, causing a stampede, with people jumping off the bridge or being injured or trampled to death on the bridge. The first thing that came to mind was that I hoped no one I knew was caught up in it, because I know a colleague from work was heading there for the celebrations and then all the other volunteers are based in Phnom Penh, although luckily I know quite a lot of them travelled out for the festival.
So far, it's ok. I have heard from most people, but just my work colleage I hope she is ok. There will be a national day of mourning on Thursday. Prime Minister said apparently this is the country's darkest hour since the Khmer Rouge regime in the 70's.
I actually took the night bus on Friday night down south to a quiet town called Kampot just for two days. On the second day, we went on a day tour to Bokor National Park to see the abandoned French hill station of Bokor. We were told tigers are in the area. Parts of the drive up was so rocky. It reminded me of the great Ocean Road, but without the ocean, instead the mountains. There is a casino and Catholic church, which bear scars of the fighting that occurred here between the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese in the 70's. It was hard to imagine what the buildings looked like before they were ruined and worn down like this. I would like to see pictures of what they looked like. They are building a 5 star resort in the area at the moment. The movie Çity of Ghosts was filmed here. Then we went to see the Popokvil Falls which were beautiful. After that, we did a trek through the forest. I was a little scared while doing this, if we were to be confronted by a tiger, or step on a snake or step on a landmine (highly unlikely, but they were planted around in areas like this, so possible). Well, snakes we did see, two of them but both were on a branch so that was fine. The main annoyance on the trip was having to go to the toilet in the bushes for the day. Hmmm..wasn't fun at all.
So I took the night bus back that night to arrive back in Siem Reap yesterday morning. I really could have stayed longer and gone to the beach with the other volunteers, but felt I needed to get back to start organising things for New York. I probably haven't been exploring out of Siem Reap as much as I could for this reason. I can't believe I will be heading to New York next Sunday evening.
It's 3pm here now. Still feeling quite sad about the incident in Phnom Penh. I plan to head there next weekend, to spend 2 days there and because that is where I will be flying out from.
Start back at work tomorrow, so hopefully will hear that everyone in the office is ok.
