Days 30-34 Cambodia - final thoughts

We’re falling behind a little in our blogging duties. As we pen this, we are sat on a plane – but it’s a flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Da Nang, both in Vietnam. However, the distance does give us a little time to think about what we saw in Cambodia, and try to answer some of the questions we’ve raised in previous blog posts.

A stop at the beach – another kind of chill
After the laid back-ness of Kampot, we jumped on a new Stray bus and headed for our next destination – Rabbit Island, or Koh Tonsay. We were only here for a night, but it was nice to chill out in a different way to how we’d relaxed in Kampot. Instead of wandering a colonial town in search of pastries or a new sight to see, we instead reclined on the beach for some classic holiday-making.

Free sun loungers and a cooler of beer. What's not to like?

Jon enjoyed some volleyball with the others on the Stray tour, and Georgia plugged in her iPod and drifted off into an afternoon haze. Needless to say, both of us were sunburnt by the time the sun went down!

The evening saw us enjoy a seafood BBQ, and discovering the fluorescent plankton that float in the sea (they only show up when you move your hand through the water, and they’re INCREDIBLE). That night, we struggled to sleep in our bungalow with no fan or AC, and a rather mediocre mosquito net protecting us from the bugs outside (including a scorpion!)

This is the master bedroom (note the pretty, but ultimately ineffective, mosquito net)

... and this is the en suite. The blue bucket of water serves as both the flush and a very refreshing shower!

The next morning, we stumbled back on to our bus to try desperately to grab some hours of sleep while we headed to Phnom Penh, the capital city and our final destination in Cambodia. As we tried (and failed) to snooze, we reflected that we’d seen yet another style of tourism in Cambodia. And still we were wondering – was all this just for the western tourists, or did the Cambodians (or Khmer, as they are also known) enjoy this sort of thing to?

Where do the Khmer go on holiday?
In Sihanoukville, Kampot and Koh Tonsay, we’ve seen different styles of holidaymaking that all seem to cater to western tourists. But in Sihanoukville, with its seedy feel and questionable activities on offer, there had been plenty of Cambodian revellers smoking, drinking and partying alongside the westerners. Had Cambodians created this just for backpackers despite the negative effects on their country (fuelling the sex trade, child exploitation and drug dealing)? Are these things actually part of Cambodian culture that tourists are just tapping into?

The answer, we believe, might lie in something that Coco told us when we were talking about Cambodian politics – and more specifically, the fact that the current prime minister used to be in the Khmer Rouge. “In Cambodia,” he said, “people right now are concerned with two things. Having enough to eat and having a place to sleep.” It seems that, even thirty years after the genocide, life for the average Cambodian is still pretty basic. Perhaps the reason that all the tourist attractions seem geared to westerners is because they’re the only people interested in those things right now – everyone else is just trying to survive.

What’s the culture?
It might also explain why we've found it harder to get a sense of Cambodian culture than we found it in India. During our stay in Phnom Penh, we saw a cultural dance show with young Cambodians displaying various traditional dances. It was great, and reminded us of the circus we saw in Siem Reap.



Many of the dances were farming-themed, depicted life for the average Cambodian



Others were more... inventive.

Both organisations were demonstrative of someone making a concerted effort to preserve and promote Cambodian culture, but they were striking in their isolation. It’s been quite unlike India, where the culture seems to bleed through everything they do – even dinner.

Is it because Cambodia is a country in which the most educated and creative people were killed in their millions less than forty years ago? Maybe Cambodia is still trying to rebuild and figure out what its culture is. Or maybe we see more Western culture because that’s what Cambodians wants for themselves.

One of the other things we saw in Phnom Penh was the Aeon mall. It was just a shopping mall, but after weeks of local markets and small shops the mall felt the epitome of luxury. We even treated ourselves to watching Guardians of the Galaxy 2 in the cinema, complete with moving seats, smoke and bubble machines (yet still cheaper than the cinema back home!) The mall was filled with young, wealthy Cambodians, and in that setting it’s not hard to believe that after everything the country has been through, simply enjoying a Krispy Kreme donut and watching a movie at the local mall is infinitely preferable to going back to the way things were before.

Onwards and upwards

It’s been a fascinating experience travelling through Cambodia. Though some parts of it haven’t been what we were expecting (temples and coastal resorts to name a few), we’ve met some of the friendliest locals you could ever hope to meet, and come to understand the history of this place and how it’s affected the people. On our way to Phnom Penh we stopped off at Choung Ek killing fields and Tuol Seng prison, two museums talking about the Khmer Rouge’s atrocities. Both were extremely hard going, but absolutely essential to helping make sense of what happened to this country.

Friendship bracelets left on the fence marking the edge of a mass grave

At Choung Ek they've chosen not to excavate all the mass graves. You can see the ones they've left untouched beyond this fence.

 

Some of the graves remain waterlogged after the rainy season; after every rainy season, the attendants at Choung Ek (and farmers all over Cambodia) are still uncovering bone fragments from mass graves.

We’ve also learned something about ourselves and how we travel. The backpacking scene, which we thought we would find preferable to the package tour we did in India, hasn’t turned out to be entirely what we were looking for. The people have been great, but sometimes we’ve felt that we’ve not been able to immerse ourselves in places like we did in India.

Next up – Vietnam. We’re looking forward to comparing it to what we've seen so far! For now, we'd both just like to say a big thank you to everyone who's reading the blog - it's been lovely to share our adventures with you. If there's anything anyone wants to know about that we haven't talked about, feel free to ask us and we'll try to respond!

J&g xx

Today being played by two of the CUTEST puppies we met on Koh Tonsay