A big dream and a big world: Cambodia

Hi guys! :)

As I already wrote in my last post, we have continued our trip and are now in Cambodia. But let me start at the beginning.

On December 10th we boarded a bus to get from Saigon to Phnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia. We had done some research about the boarder crossing previously and had found out that quite often, travellers have some issues getting through (like for example having to pay more for the Cambodian Visa than it actually costs, etc.). We wanted to avoid that and found a bus company called "Giant Ibis" that is supposed to be the best one and get you safely through the boarder.

We left Saigon right on time and drove about 2hours to the boarder. During the drive, a guy from the bus company handed out the visa forms which we had to fill out and give back to him along with our passports and 35$. When we arrived at the boarder, we were a bit confused because the guy still didn't give us our passports back. And you need your passport to cross a boarder, right? But he looked like he knew what he was doing, so we trusted him. He told us to get off the bus and go into a plain, empty hangar. At the one end of it, we saw the Vietnamese boarder counters. Our guide told us to wait there and walked to a counter. He handed the passports (it was a big pile because we were like 20-30 people on the bus) over to an official behind a counter. Then we just waited. In a huge empty hangar with no passports in front of a boarder... after like 30 minutes, our guide started calling names and one by one, we were allowed to go through the boarder. Ufff, made it through the Vietnamese side of the boarder, now we only had the Cambodian one to go.

We got on the bus and before we reached the Cambodian side of the boarder, we made a stop at a restaurant, literally in no-mans-land. :D after the lunch break, we continued our way to the Cambodian boarder. Again, we got off the bus and this time, our guide handed us back our passports. The visa was already done and glued in, so we only had to walk up, give our finger prints, and walk through, easy-peasy. :)

Even if we were confused at first, we were glad that we booked a bus with this company because in the end, everything went very smoothly and we didn't have any problems.

We drove for another 4 hours and reached Phnom Penh around 5:30pm. We walked a good half hour to our hostel, the Billabong Hostel. We were pretty tired, so we made a picnic on the floor of the dorm (we've done that a lot lately ;D) and went to bed.

On our first day in Phnom Penh, we walked around the streets near our hostel. We found an amazing bakery and a huge market and bought some stuff. In the evening, we went to a small cinema. We had read online that this cinema offered sofas on which you could lie down and watch multiple movies on one day for only 3,50$! The cinema was actually super small, but very cozy. We watched "Bridget Jones' Baby" and "Snowden" and had a great time. :) As it was already 11pm when the movies were over, we decided to take a tuktuk back to our hostel. Our first tuktuk ride!! Pretty cool :D

On the second day in Cambodia's capitol, we rented a tuktuk for the day and went to the killing fields Choung Ek. (If you don't already know: Cambodia has a really dark history. In the late 80s, the Khmer Rouge, a radical communist group under the lead of Pol Pot had taken over the country. They believed that all the intellectuals and people who lived in the cities were traitors and worked with western forces. Within a few years, they had murdered over 3million out of 8 million Cambodians. Similar to the concentration camps in Germany, the Khmer Rouge had set up camps where they brutally killed thousands of people. )

I had actually never heard of this horrendous genocide before and was shocked when I learned about all the atrocities that had happened here only about 40 years ago...

One of the so-called "killing fields" was transformed into a museum, so that people could come and learn about Cambodia's history. When we entered the museum, we got an audio guide that explained everything to us. We walked around the site and listened to the audio guide's explanations. The whole area was covered with grass-covered, large holes in the ground. The mass graves that had been dug out. One grave contained 450 corpses, another one soldiers that had been beheaded and a third one children and women. But those weren't the only mass graves. Many others had been dug out and a lot more had been left untouched to let the victims rest in peace.

I was shattered... Again, I couldn't believe how people could remorselessly murder and torture so many other human beings... other than that, I couldn't believe that all of this had happened only 40years ago and that I had never even heard of it before coming here.

After we had finished our visit at the museum, our tuktuk driver brought us to the S21-museum, also called Tuol Sleng museum. That was a former prison where the Khmer Rouge had held and tortured many innocent civilians before bringing them to the killing fields. The prison was set up in a former school building and again we got an audio guide that led us through the different buildings and explained what had happened here. To me, that museum was even harder to visit because you could actually see the small and cold cells where the prisoners were held and dark stains on the floor (probably blood). They had also put up images of all the prisoners (among them women and children), the instruments used for torture, handcuffs, etc. It was just oppressive and almost unbearable to walk through the corridors knowing what kind of brutal things had happened here...

After finishing the audio guide tour, we left the museum and went back to our hostel.

On the next morning, a bus from Giant Ibis picked us up at 8:30am to go to Sihanoukville.

The drive was about 5 hours long, not bad after our endless bus rides in Vietnam! :)

We arrived in Sihanoukville in the afternoon and went straight to our hostel. After taking a short break, we walked along the Main Street and organized tickets to go to the island Koh Rong Sanloem by speedboat for the next day. Then we walked in the other direction where we found an actual supermarket! (It was a real one, not like the tiny shops that seem to be everywhere in Asia. They're usually just one room and don't have a lot of variety.) so we were really happy that we found this one and bought lots of food for our stay on the island. (We had booked a hostel with a kitchen, so we wanted to use the chance and cook as much as we could.) we had so many heavy bags and the way back was pretty long, so we rented a tuktuk to bring us back to the hostel.

We went to an Italian restaurant called "Olive&Olive" for dinner that night. Sofie and I both had a pizza. It was the biggest pizza I have ever seen and it was so good!!!!

The next day, we went to the harbour of Sihanoukville and boarded the speedboat that brought us to M'Pai Bay on Koh Rong Sanloem. After stopping at another beach on the island, we arrived in M'Pai Bay. It was a small, very cute bay with a little fishing village in its center.

After spending the first night in a hostel we didn't really like, we switched accommodations and rented a small wooden bungalow closer to the beach. We spent our days realxing on the pier or on the beach, drinking freshly made fruit shakes, and just enjoying the tranquil and amazing atmosphere here. What a paradise!!! <3

In the evenings, we always went to a restaurant called "The Fishing Hook" on the pier. It was absolutely amazing because they had an all-you-can-eat buffet with different vegetarian dishes every night. The food was just too good and we ate way too much! :D

The best thing about the buffet though was that they always give out the leftovers to locals or "hungry backpackers", so no food is wasted. So cool!!!!

We spent 4 nights here in M'Pai Bay, but we also wanted to see the other beach, Saracen Bay. So on the fifth day, we packed up all of our belongings and took a boat there. The ride was pretty shaky, as a storm had hit the island the other night, but we arrived safely at Saracen Bay. We hadn't booked an accommodation yet, so we walked along the beach and asked the different hotels about availability and prices for the next few days. To our dismay, most of the bungalows were super expensive... Luckily, we found a hostel with dorm beds that was affordable.

We had originally planned to spend a few nights here, but we just didn't like it as much as M'Pai Bay. Saracen bay was basically just a really long beach with many expensive bungalows and restaurants along the beachfront. There weren't any shops, and there were very few locals. It was clear that this was a tourist destination for people who just wanted to spend some time at the beach... we didn't like the atmosphere at all, so we decided to go back to M'Pai Bay on the next day. We bought tickets for a boat ride which also included a snorkel trip on the way.

So on the next day, we ate breakfast and relaxed on the beach until it was time for the boat/snorkel trip at 3pm. The boat didn't stop at a pier, but just anchored close to the beach. We had to lift up our backpacks and wade through the water to get to it. Luckily, everything was still dry when we got onto the boat. (We couldn't imagine what we would have done if all of our belongings fell into the water. The thought was just too horrible XD)

We picked up a lot of other tourists along the beach. Every time a new person boarded the boat, the whole boat tilted to one side. It was super scary!! (Because again the thought of all of our stuff falling into the water haunted us...)

When we finally got everybody on the boat (it was pretty full!) we drove to the snorkeling spot. We got fins, masks, and snorkels and had one hour to explore the riff along the shore. The corals were huge!!! Again, I was struck by their diversity, so beautiful!! Additionally, I spotted several fish and scary-looking sea urgents. Amazing!

Everybody got back on the boat and we continued our way to M'Pai Bay. When we arrived at the pier and left the boat, we almost felt like coming home. We had missed the local village and the beautiful bay! :)

We went back to the same accommodation we stayed at before, but this time we slept in a dorm right on the beach rather than a bungalow. When we opened the door, we were literally right on the bach and could overlook the bay.

We stayed in M'Pai Bay for another three nights. Like before, we just sunbathed on the pier, read, listened to music, drank fresh smoothies, and enjoyed life. In the evenings we couldn't resist the incredible buffet at "The Fishing Hook". :D

On our last night, we waited until it was 10pm and went to a beach a little further outside of the village because we wanted to see the glowing plankton. We went into the water and couldn't see anything at first, but then we moved our legs and there they were: tiny little glowing spots moving around in the water. They looked like little stars. I don't know why they are glowing in the dark, but it just looked fascinating! I have never seen anything like it before. Additionally, the sky was really clear and we could see hundreds of stars. It was truly a magical moment and a perfect ending to our stay on this beautiful island. :)

Today, we enjoyed one last breakfast at "the fishing hook" and went back to Sihanoukville by speedboat.

Tomorrow we'll go back to Phnom Penh where we will stay in a nice apartment we booked on Airbnb for Christmas. On the 25th we'll continue our itinerary to Siem Reap where we'll visit the famous temples of Angkor wat. I can't wait!! :)

I hope all of you are doing well and that you have a blessed and joyful Christmas!

Lots of love,

Annette <3