Thursday 7 July 2011
Blog before pics
Hey guys, just letting you know that we have a new blog that was posted before the pics so make sure to check it out!!
Tiger Tail Mustaches
Since we last wrote to you we have returned to Canada but we want to get you up to speed on what our last couple of days were like.
June 24
We headed out to go on the Flight of the Gibbon which is zip lining through the jungle. The zip lines were originally set up for New Zealand researchers and our now a tourist attraction and consisted of 22 platforms the longest being 800 meters.
We were picked up right from the hotel and were taken on an hour long drive to the zip line head quarters. Once there we made a quick trip to a waterfall, something that tours love to add on! (a trip to a waterfall) without informing the customer. After the waterfall we were suited up in our harness and started the zip lining. There was 1 family and 2 other couples that were in our group and our leader was Mr. Cash (hilarious man!). The family was from the Ukraine, 1 couple from Australia and 1 couple from England.
We zip lined all morning in many positions including the superman where you are attached by your back and you run and dive off the platform. It was pretty sweet, one of the highlights of the trip.
June 25
This was our last day in Chiang Mai and we spent the morning sleeping. Around lunch time we booked a taxi and went to the Tiger Kingdom. This was also a highlight of the trip as we got to hug and touch 2 yr old tigers. A few photos were snatched compromising the tiger's tail. See below.
Later that day we went to the mall and did our favourite activity of the trip - shopping.
June 26
We flew from Chiang Mai to Koh Samui that day. When we arrived we got ferry tickets to Koh Phangan and took the ferry there. We stayed at Same Same guesthouse and sauntered down to the bar in the guesthouse for some refreshing cocktails. We were bombarded by a stag from New Zealand and met a couple of Amsterdam which resulted in attending a beach party which resulted in bad hangovers! The beach party was very fun and included dancing in the ocean. June 27th we woke up in the afternoon and decided that a beach day was in order. We hung out on the beach and got sun burnt.
June 28
We packed up our bags and headed to Koh Tao. Koh Tao was originally a divers only island, you literally had to have booked a diving excursion to be allowed on the island but now it is open to everyone. We did not have a hotel booked so we just walked off the ferry and settled in at one of the hotels along the beach. It turned out to be a beautiful hotel and we really enjoyed our stay there. June 29 we booked a snorkeling trip for a full day. Remember those sun burns from earlier - they don't even come close to what happened at snorkeling. We started out snorkeling at 8:30 and went until 4:30. Our first stop showed us a black tipped shark, our next stop was quieter and all we really remember is being stung by plankton. Our third stop we found Nemo - clown fish in anemonies and our fourth stop we seen a HUGE school of fish (approx. 1 million) and our guide later told us that that was only about half of what is normally there. It looked like you could walk on them there were so many!
When we returned to the island we decided to go out for some Mexican food. This was easily the best food we ate the entire trip it was absolutely fantastic!
June 30
We once again packed our bags and headed to Bangkok via ferry and bus. We left at 10:15 am and arrived in Bangkok at 8:30 pm. Then the craziest thing happened (on the bus), we ran into the Amsterdam couple from the beach party...what a coincidence! When we got to Bangkok we grabbed a pink taxi to our hotel and ordered room service. Shortly after our food arrived the power went out - also a common occurrence in Cambodia and Thailand.
July 1
Happy Canada Day! This day we decided to take the sky train to a city center and found out that a Madame Tussauds wax museum was in the center. We quickly bought tickets and toured it. We got a good shot with Johnny Depp and George Clooney, and then a bit of a fight with Opera. Needless to say it was very good!
Later that night we went to the restaurant Cabbages and Condoms. It is a restaurant that supports the prevention and education of HIV/AIDS in Thailand. Much of the decor is information and education about the use of condoms. We bought some souvenirs from their gift shop and headed out for a few drinks. It was our last night in Bangkok.
July 2
Our last day! We checked out of the hotel and headed to the Chatuchak Market. This market is the biggest in Thailand and sees about 200,000 people daily! We bought some last minute treasures and had our last sweat mustache! After the market things escalated quickly and resulted in the consumption of a lot of fast food for both Kelly and Maria. We had McDonalds for a mid day snack.......
We headed to the airport early that night and ended up getting onto an earlier flight! This was good as we didn't have much to do in the Bangkok airport.
July 3
We arrived in Seoul Korea and had 3 hours to kill which we did by looking for Subway and ending up in another terminal requiring us to be escorted back by a security man! Hehe. In the end we did find Subway and boarded the plane for our 13 hour flight to Toronto.
Kelly had a scare on the flight when she was startled awake by a small child grabbing her foot!
It was nice to be by the exit window as we then had no-one in front of us and easy access to the washrooms.
We arrived in Toronto and had a 9 hour stop over which went by super quickly. It was so nice to be on Canadian soil!!!!!! We had some lunch, slept on the airport floor and boarded our last flight to Winnipeg!
When we arrived in Winnipeg our family and boyfriends were there to meet us and we were overcome with joy.
Thanks to those who followed our blog! This trip was a mixture of emotion and challenges but definitely worth it! We hope you enjoy the pictures we have added and look forward to telling you more stories in person.
Kelly and Maria
Travelers Abroad.
June 24
We headed out to go on the Flight of the Gibbon which is zip lining through the jungle. The zip lines were originally set up for New Zealand researchers and our now a tourist attraction and consisted of 22 platforms the longest being 800 meters.
We were picked up right from the hotel and were taken on an hour long drive to the zip line head quarters. Once there we made a quick trip to a waterfall, something that tours love to add on! (a trip to a waterfall) without informing the customer. After the waterfall we were suited up in our harness and started the zip lining. There was 1 family and 2 other couples that were in our group and our leader was Mr. Cash (hilarious man!). The family was from the Ukraine, 1 couple from Australia and 1 couple from England.
We zip lined all morning in many positions including the superman where you are attached by your back and you run and dive off the platform. It was pretty sweet, one of the highlights of the trip.
June 25
This was our last day in Chiang Mai and we spent the morning sleeping. Around lunch time we booked a taxi and went to the Tiger Kingdom. This was also a highlight of the trip as we got to hug and touch 2 yr old tigers. A few photos were snatched compromising the tiger's tail. See below.
Later that day we went to the mall and did our favourite activity of the trip - shopping.
June 26
We flew from Chiang Mai to Koh Samui that day. When we arrived we got ferry tickets to Koh Phangan and took the ferry there. We stayed at Same Same guesthouse and sauntered down to the bar in the guesthouse for some refreshing cocktails. We were bombarded by a stag from New Zealand and met a couple of Amsterdam which resulted in attending a beach party which resulted in bad hangovers! The beach party was very fun and included dancing in the ocean. June 27th we woke up in the afternoon and decided that a beach day was in order. We hung out on the beach and got sun burnt.
June 28
We packed up our bags and headed to Koh Tao. Koh Tao was originally a divers only island, you literally had to have booked a diving excursion to be allowed on the island but now it is open to everyone. We did not have a hotel booked so we just walked off the ferry and settled in at one of the hotels along the beach. It turned out to be a beautiful hotel and we really enjoyed our stay there. June 29 we booked a snorkeling trip for a full day. Remember those sun burns from earlier - they don't even come close to what happened at snorkeling. We started out snorkeling at 8:30 and went until 4:30. Our first stop showed us a black tipped shark, our next stop was quieter and all we really remember is being stung by plankton. Our third stop we found Nemo - clown fish in anemonies and our fourth stop we seen a HUGE school of fish (approx. 1 million) and our guide later told us that that was only about half of what is normally there. It looked like you could walk on them there were so many!
When we returned to the island we decided to go out for some Mexican food. This was easily the best food we ate the entire trip it was absolutely fantastic!
June 30
We once again packed our bags and headed to Bangkok via ferry and bus. We left at 10:15 am and arrived in Bangkok at 8:30 pm. Then the craziest thing happened (on the bus), we ran into the Amsterdam couple from the beach party...what a coincidence! When we got to Bangkok we grabbed a pink taxi to our hotel and ordered room service. Shortly after our food arrived the power went out - also a common occurrence in Cambodia and Thailand.
July 1
Happy Canada Day! This day we decided to take the sky train to a city center and found out that a Madame Tussauds wax museum was in the center. We quickly bought tickets and toured it. We got a good shot with Johnny Depp and George Clooney, and then a bit of a fight with Opera. Needless to say it was very good!
Later that night we went to the restaurant Cabbages and Condoms. It is a restaurant that supports the prevention and education of HIV/AIDS in Thailand. Much of the decor is information and education about the use of condoms. We bought some souvenirs from their gift shop and headed out for a few drinks. It was our last night in Bangkok.
July 2
Our last day! We checked out of the hotel and headed to the Chatuchak Market. This market is the biggest in Thailand and sees about 200,000 people daily! We bought some last minute treasures and had our last sweat mustache! After the market things escalated quickly and resulted in the consumption of a lot of fast food for both Kelly and Maria. We had McDonalds for a mid day snack.......
We headed to the airport early that night and ended up getting onto an earlier flight! This was good as we didn't have much to do in the Bangkok airport.
July 3
We arrived in Seoul Korea and had 3 hours to kill which we did by looking for Subway and ending up in another terminal requiring us to be escorted back by a security man! Hehe. In the end we did find Subway and boarded the plane for our 13 hour flight to Toronto.
Kelly had a scare on the flight when she was startled awake by a small child grabbing her foot!
It was nice to be by the exit window as we then had no-one in front of us and easy access to the washrooms.
We arrived in Toronto and had a 9 hour stop over which went by super quickly. It was so nice to be on Canadian soil!!!!!! We had some lunch, slept on the airport floor and boarded our last flight to Winnipeg!
When we arrived in Winnipeg our family and boyfriends were there to meet us and we were overcome with joy.
Thanks to those who followed our blog! This trip was a mixture of emotion and challenges but definitely worth it! We hope you enjoy the pictures we have added and look forward to telling you more stories in person.
Kelly and Maria
Travelers Abroad.
Thursday 23 June 2011
If you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain.
Howdy,
It has been a very long time since we blogged and so much has happened. We ended our last blog with the last weekend we spent in Phnom Penh. We finished up our volunteering on June 17th but not without a ton of extra help at the orphanage. The orphanage accepted 17 more high school student volunteers so we were really out of work! It was ok though, as it was nice to interact with other people. The students came from an international school in Japan.
Sat June 18th we boarded the bus to Siem Reap. The bus ride was scheduled to be 5 hours but ended up being 7, regardless though it gave us a great chance to see the beautiful countryside of Cambodia. We stayed at the most "fabulous" resort in Siem Reap called the Golden Banana. It is a gay friendly establishment so the staff and other guests were wonderful!!!! Everyone was looking at us like we were a couple...we let it slide. We had a villa instead of a room complete with our own balcony overlooking the waterfall pool. We were so sad to leave but we took a momento back - Golden Banana pants just like the staff wore. While in Siem Reap we ventured to the obvious location - Angkor Wat and surrounding temples. We decided to go on the big tour as that was the reason we were there. We hired a tour guide named Lucky and a tuk-tuk driver named Naga for the 3 days of touring. They were both fantastic as well!
The temples were breathtaking to say the least. There is way too much information to share on this blog about each one but the gist is that all - pretty much - started out as Hindu temples, then Buddhist, then Hindu and now a mix of both. Something interesting yet horrible to find out was that the Khmer Rouge inhabited Angkor Wat during the civil war in the 70s and there are several bullet holes in the temples due to target practice. Our favourite temple was Pre Rup. Pre Rup is by far in the worst shape of them all but is in the jungle so the scenary around it is stunning. We also visited the "Tomb Raider" temple where Laura Croft Tomb Raider was filmed. The trees/roots that surround and engulf the temples make it a beautiful sight.
Our last day at Siem Reap was started by going to Angkor Wat to see the sun rise. We left the hotel at 5am and arrived at the temples around 530am. It was cloudy so we didn't see much but it was super cool to be able to at the temples that early. It gave them a sort of mystical feel as opposed to a tourist attraction alone.
The rest of the time in Siem Reap was spent visiting a floating village and floating market. We took a tuk-tuk about 30 mins out of the city to the river, rented a boat and went to the floating market. The second we stepped off of the boat to enter the market we were greeted by a huge pit of CROCODILES! It was a crocodile farm and something that we have noticed is that crocodile leather is huge her, however illegal to bring back to Canada. This means, unfortunatley, Kelly cannot acquire a "croc paw" keychain (she of course cleverly coined this term). We also visited the night market, which is WAY better in Siem Reap than Phnom Penh. At the night market we got a pedicure, manicure and massages for a whopping $8. To finish off our last night in Siem Reap we decided to do a fish massage. A fish massage is where you put your feet into a big pool filled with fish and they eat your dead skin. It was not relaxing what-so-ever. Fortunately for the $2 charge we also got a free beverage (beer).
We boarded the plane on June 22nd to come to Chiang Mai, Thailand. We had a stop over in Bangkok and then headed on our way to Chiang Mai. If you ever travel to southeast Asia take Bangkok Airways any where you can. They are fantastic! We had two 1 hour flights and on each we got a full meal - delicious meal I might add and countless amounts of drink offered. Also, we had four people solving our luggage mystery as only 1 of our 3 bags showed up at first. They all stood around with walkie talkies and sorted it out greatly. We headed to our hotel, the Royal Princess and were luckily upgraded to a better hotel room. The Royal Princess is located in the heart of the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar - a huge night market (one of the biggest tourist attractions in Chiang Mai) which allows for convient access to many items however this has been quite hard on the wallet!
Today, June 23, we went on an all day trekking excursion. We started out with visiting a butterfly and orchid farm. Next we took a drive to the Maesa Elephant Camp. Here we got to ride elephants for about 30 minutes and hug and kiss them. It was so sweet! After that, we walked a short distance to a zipline with a cage. Only 2 people at a time could fit in the cage and that is how we crossed the river. We then had lunch, Pad Thai cooked in banana leaves which was great. After lunch we trekked for an hour in the jungle to reach a waterfall. We spent about 20 mins at the waterfall swimming around and getting stared at as we were the only brave ones to take on the water falling. It has quite a bit of pressure under it, you have to hold onto your bathing suit as it would rip it off you, close call for Maria....... It was beautiful, definitly the highlight of the day. We then trekked back about an hour and this took us to our next destination which was white water rafting. Maria had the smellest life jacket in existance and Kelly's helmet was a big snug/didn't fit her at all. We definitly will white water raft again, it was awesome, and hopefully look for some more exciting rafting. We had a short ride on a traditional bamboo raft...probably not going to be doing that again. We had ice cream and then headed to the Hill Tribe Village. Here we met some locals and had a short tour. We also learned a bit about the religion and Susan you will be pleased to learn that they still have animism. It was the end of our day so we headed back to the city and had a gourmet supper of Subway. It was delicious and very much needed. There are several chain restaruants around our hotel including McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Subway and Starbucks.
Our day ended with making a quick trip to the hospital. No worries anyone, and no it wasn't Kelly! Maria has acquired a wonderful face rash so we thought it was a good idea to check it out. We went to the hospital and had a doctor that we are sure was about 20 years old and the asian version of Graham Trott. The diagnosis given was that it is an allergic reaction to a bug that I squished and secreted acid that caused a rash like look. All is well though, I have a topical medication to put on for a week and should be good to go!
That is all for now, tomorrow we are heading out on the Flight of the Gibbon which includes ziplining through the jungle. Stay tuned for more details,
Kally and Maury - thats how Lucky said our names! Maury, Maury, Maury!
Travelers abroad.
It has been a very long time since we blogged and so much has happened. We ended our last blog with the last weekend we spent in Phnom Penh. We finished up our volunteering on June 17th but not without a ton of extra help at the orphanage. The orphanage accepted 17 more high school student volunteers so we were really out of work! It was ok though, as it was nice to interact with other people. The students came from an international school in Japan.
Sat June 18th we boarded the bus to Siem Reap. The bus ride was scheduled to be 5 hours but ended up being 7, regardless though it gave us a great chance to see the beautiful countryside of Cambodia. We stayed at the most "fabulous" resort in Siem Reap called the Golden Banana. It is a gay friendly establishment so the staff and other guests were wonderful!!!! Everyone was looking at us like we were a couple...we let it slide. We had a villa instead of a room complete with our own balcony overlooking the waterfall pool. We were so sad to leave but we took a momento back - Golden Banana pants just like the staff wore. While in Siem Reap we ventured to the obvious location - Angkor Wat and surrounding temples. We decided to go on the big tour as that was the reason we were there. We hired a tour guide named Lucky and a tuk-tuk driver named Naga for the 3 days of touring. They were both fantastic as well!
The temples were breathtaking to say the least. There is way too much information to share on this blog about each one but the gist is that all - pretty much - started out as Hindu temples, then Buddhist, then Hindu and now a mix of both. Something interesting yet horrible to find out was that the Khmer Rouge inhabited Angkor Wat during the civil war in the 70s and there are several bullet holes in the temples due to target practice. Our favourite temple was Pre Rup. Pre Rup is by far in the worst shape of them all but is in the jungle so the scenary around it is stunning. We also visited the "Tomb Raider" temple where Laura Croft Tomb Raider was filmed. The trees/roots that surround and engulf the temples make it a beautiful sight.
Our last day at Siem Reap was started by going to Angkor Wat to see the sun rise. We left the hotel at 5am and arrived at the temples around 530am. It was cloudy so we didn't see much but it was super cool to be able to at the temples that early. It gave them a sort of mystical feel as opposed to a tourist attraction alone.
The rest of the time in Siem Reap was spent visiting a floating village and floating market. We took a tuk-tuk about 30 mins out of the city to the river, rented a boat and went to the floating market. The second we stepped off of the boat to enter the market we were greeted by a huge pit of CROCODILES! It was a crocodile farm and something that we have noticed is that crocodile leather is huge her, however illegal to bring back to Canada. This means, unfortunatley, Kelly cannot acquire a "croc paw" keychain (she of course cleverly coined this term). We also visited the night market, which is WAY better in Siem Reap than Phnom Penh. At the night market we got a pedicure, manicure and massages for a whopping $8. To finish off our last night in Siem Reap we decided to do a fish massage. A fish massage is where you put your feet into a big pool filled with fish and they eat your dead skin. It was not relaxing what-so-ever. Fortunately for the $2 charge we also got a free beverage (beer).
We boarded the plane on June 22nd to come to Chiang Mai, Thailand. We had a stop over in Bangkok and then headed on our way to Chiang Mai. If you ever travel to southeast Asia take Bangkok Airways any where you can. They are fantastic! We had two 1 hour flights and on each we got a full meal - delicious meal I might add and countless amounts of drink offered. Also, we had four people solving our luggage mystery as only 1 of our 3 bags showed up at first. They all stood around with walkie talkies and sorted it out greatly. We headed to our hotel, the Royal Princess and were luckily upgraded to a better hotel room. The Royal Princess is located in the heart of the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar - a huge night market (one of the biggest tourist attractions in Chiang Mai) which allows for convient access to many items however this has been quite hard on the wallet!
Today, June 23, we went on an all day trekking excursion. We started out with visiting a butterfly and orchid farm. Next we took a drive to the Maesa Elephant Camp. Here we got to ride elephants for about 30 minutes and hug and kiss them. It was so sweet! After that, we walked a short distance to a zipline with a cage. Only 2 people at a time could fit in the cage and that is how we crossed the river. We then had lunch, Pad Thai cooked in banana leaves which was great. After lunch we trekked for an hour in the jungle to reach a waterfall. We spent about 20 mins at the waterfall swimming around and getting stared at as we were the only brave ones to take on the water falling. It has quite a bit of pressure under it, you have to hold onto your bathing suit as it would rip it off you, close call for Maria....... It was beautiful, definitly the highlight of the day. We then trekked back about an hour and this took us to our next destination which was white water rafting. Maria had the smellest life jacket in existance and Kelly's helmet was a big snug/didn't fit her at all. We definitly will white water raft again, it was awesome, and hopefully look for some more exciting rafting. We had a short ride on a traditional bamboo raft...probably not going to be doing that again. We had ice cream and then headed to the Hill Tribe Village. Here we met some locals and had a short tour. We also learned a bit about the religion and Susan you will be pleased to learn that they still have animism. It was the end of our day so we headed back to the city and had a gourmet supper of Subway. It was delicious and very much needed. There are several chain restaruants around our hotel including McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Subway and Starbucks.
Our day ended with making a quick trip to the hospital. No worries anyone, and no it wasn't Kelly! Maria has acquired a wonderful face rash so we thought it was a good idea to check it out. We went to the hospital and had a doctor that we are sure was about 20 years old and the asian version of Graham Trott. The diagnosis given was that it is an allergic reaction to a bug that I squished and secreted acid that caused a rash like look. All is well though, I have a topical medication to put on for a week and should be good to go!
That is all for now, tomorrow we are heading out on the Flight of the Gibbon which includes ziplining through the jungle. Stay tuned for more details,
Kally and Maury - thats how Lucky said our names! Maury, Maury, Maury!
Travelers abroad.
Sunday 12 June 2011
Holiday in Cambodia
Hey all!
We have spent the last 2 days seeing the sights of Phnom Penh AKA Cambodia. We started our day on Saturday with going to the Royal Palace/Silver Pagoda and the National Museum. The Royal Palace was beautiful but there was a lot of restricted area - I guess you have to do that when you live in a place that is also a tourist attraction. Inside we were not allowed to take pictures which is too bad for you! lol. There was a lot of red and gold and many many Buddha statues. We then moved onto the Silver Pagoda which was cool as the floor is made of silver, again though it was mainly covered in carpet so you couldn't see the floor unless you looked at the edges of the floor. Regardless, it was still beautiful. Something that we learned very quickly was that Cambodia equals intricate design and detail - it is all so breathtaking.
Another thing that is breath taking is the fumes....NOBODY walks here as it is too hot so that equals a lot of vehicles (motos mainly) and A LOT of exhaust.
We then went to the National Musuem where there were many statues and archives that were of Hindu Gods and Goddesses. Maria loved it but it sure put her knowledge to the test and it must be admitted that she has forgotten quite a bit....depressing! The statues and archives were very cool to see and dated back to pre-Angkorian periods. Shiva and Vishnu were the main depictions that we saw and they were pretty sweet, it must be said!
Lunch was next on the agenda and we ate at Happy Herb Pizza. No worries the herbs were mainly oregano. We seem to be eating a lot of pizza here, but its super good. Different sauce type, its sweeter as everything is including ketchup, but very good.
We spent the rest of the day at markets including the Central Market and the night market. The night market was really cool and very full. We got to see a live band/karaoke thing - there were several pre determined people to perform and it was really funny!
Sunday we decided to have a depressing but necessay day and chose to go to the Genocide Museum and the Killing fields. It's undescribable what happened during the Khmer Rouge regime and needless to say there were quite a few tears and just a general terrible feeling. We watched a documentary of a families experience under the Khmer Rouge rule. It was good to hear an actual story as your senses are overloaded and its hard to imagine what happened. The documentary helped us to get a better understanding and appreciation but it was very emotional.
We then headed to the Killing Fields and again were confronted with more emotion and awe. The largest mass grave that they found held 450 people and these graves - the majority- are quite small. In total 2 million people died during the reign. We took pictures but when we went through them again we realized that we will not be looking at them often.
That's all for tonight, enjoy the pictures and don't be judging our sweaty mustaches!
Kelly and Maria
Travelers Abroad.
We have spent the last 2 days seeing the sights of Phnom Penh AKA Cambodia. We started our day on Saturday with going to the Royal Palace/Silver Pagoda and the National Museum. The Royal Palace was beautiful but there was a lot of restricted area - I guess you have to do that when you live in a place that is also a tourist attraction. Inside we were not allowed to take pictures which is too bad for you! lol. There was a lot of red and gold and many many Buddha statues. We then moved onto the Silver Pagoda which was cool as the floor is made of silver, again though it was mainly covered in carpet so you couldn't see the floor unless you looked at the edges of the floor. Regardless, it was still beautiful. Something that we learned very quickly was that Cambodia equals intricate design and detail - it is all so breathtaking.
Another thing that is breath taking is the fumes....NOBODY walks here as it is too hot so that equals a lot of vehicles (motos mainly) and A LOT of exhaust.
We then went to the National Musuem where there were many statues and archives that were of Hindu Gods and Goddesses. Maria loved it but it sure put her knowledge to the test and it must be admitted that she has forgotten quite a bit....depressing! The statues and archives were very cool to see and dated back to pre-Angkorian periods. Shiva and Vishnu were the main depictions that we saw and they were pretty sweet, it must be said!
Lunch was next on the agenda and we ate at Happy Herb Pizza. No worries the herbs were mainly oregano. We seem to be eating a lot of pizza here, but its super good. Different sauce type, its sweeter as everything is including ketchup, but very good.
We spent the rest of the day at markets including the Central Market and the night market. The night market was really cool and very full. We got to see a live band/karaoke thing - there were several pre determined people to perform and it was really funny!
Sunday we decided to have a depressing but necessay day and chose to go to the Genocide Museum and the Killing fields. It's undescribable what happened during the Khmer Rouge regime and needless to say there were quite a few tears and just a general terrible feeling. We watched a documentary of a families experience under the Khmer Rouge rule. It was good to hear an actual story as your senses are overloaded and its hard to imagine what happened. The documentary helped us to get a better understanding and appreciation but it was very emotional.
We then headed to the Killing Fields and again were confronted with more emotion and awe. The largest mass grave that they found held 450 people and these graves - the majority- are quite small. In total 2 million people died during the reign. We took pictures but when we went through them again we realized that we will not be looking at them often.
That's all for tonight, enjoy the pictures and don't be judging our sweaty mustaches!
Kelly and Maria
Travelers Abroad.
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