The Adventures of Blake and Erin: March 2009

The four of us at the airport...'the beginning!'

Here are the first few sights from our trip to Cambodia. We started out in the city of Phenom Pehn and then travelled by car to a city called Siem Reap. It's really quite difficult to wrap up our experience in a post, but it was like a completely different world! I have never seen poverty like this before and the various smells, (sometimes good and often not good) were a little hard to adjust to initially.

Below: This was the car ride where we travelled to Siem Reap. We often had to wait for random cows and waterbuffalo to cross the road. I also saw a few scooters drive by with a few dead pigs hanging off the back. Apparently that was not something to freak out about, but I certainly was trying to find my camera...but I didn't get it in time.

Safety is the highest priority! It was quite normal to see 3,4 even 5 people on the little scooters. We found it quite unbelievable as we watched a scooter whiz by with 4 people and a baby on it. It was a little much for our Canadian brains to handle.

Below: Jenny and Jordie in the tuk-tuk

Below: Attempting to cross the street. Normally something I wouldn't take a picture of, but crossing the street in Cambodia is a little different. There really aren't traffic lights the same as other countries and vehicles don't really seem to stop for pedestrians. The key is to simply walk out into traffic and the cars and scooters just zoom around you. I was pretty freaked out the first time...ok I never got comfortable. Complete chaos, but it just seemed to work.

Below: People gather in the park for evening exercises.

Happy baby at the park

National Museum

visiting an alligator park

Making New Friends- this was a family we met while buying fruit. There is a lot of poverty in Cambodia- we were encouraged to take children home with us on a few different occasions.

These next few pictures are from the killing fields near Phnom Pehn. During the years 1974-1979, nearly 17 000 civilians were tortured, murdered and buried in mass graves under the Khmer Rouge regime. These mass graves are now termed 'the killing fields.' They were dug up in recent years and 8000 of the skulls were placed in a memorial building as a reminder of the atrocious brutality of the former regime.

Below: This memorial stands in the middle of the fields and houses 8000 skulls of those brutally murdered during the genocide.

8000 skulls

Below: If you look closely you can see holes and chips in the skulls.

Cambodian Sunsets

Riding in the tuk-tuk

Jenny and an elephant

Blake and I at the East Gate of the ancient Temples.

Ta Prohm- ancient jungle temple built in the late 12th and early 13th Centuries. The trees have left this temple in ruins.

Jenny tree

Huge tree roots!

You may notice that where we are standing is where a scene from Tomb Raider was filmed.

Temple 2- Can't remember the name, but I do remember after tromping all over the grounds someone casually mentioned that poisonous snakes live in this temple. Yikes! Would not have walked so confidently...ok let's face it...probably wouldn't have even gone in.