A week ago, I took a mini vacation and traveled down to Phnom Penh, Cambodia to visit an old friend, Aurora Sandell who is now the Service Coordinator for CWEF in our Cambodia office. It was a great chance to catch up, get out of China and see what our other offices are doing. She took me around the city, specifically stopping at the Killing Fields and S-21. This is where thousands of Cambodians were killed by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970's. A tragic ruling of the Communist Party at the time, shocking to have stood on the grounds of so many murders.
Then we picked up the mood and traveled to Siem Reap, Cambodia where the famous Angkor Wat is. We got up at 4:30 am and were touring the temples that make up the grounds of Angkor Wat by 5:15 am. It was so cool to see something so historic, so massive and wonder how they built such large temples without modern day construction equipment. We walked around Bayon, the temple with hundreds of faces carved into its rocks. Then Ta Prohm, the place where Tomb Raider was filmed with its gigantic trees and roots weaving in and out of the rock. Then the famous Angkor Wat, the largest of the temples and also shown on the Cambodian flag. It truly was an amazing experience to walk around one of the wonders of the world and take in how large and historic this piece of earth is.
After Siem Reap, we flew to Saigon or Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam. Here we toured the War Remnants Museum and were once again reminded of the horrors of war and how awful people can treat other human beings. Saigon was as crazy as you might have heard. Motorbikes zooming past in every direction, people selling fake accessories on the street and of course, delicious Vietnamese food at every corner. I thought I could handle crazy traffic coming from China, but Saigon's traffic even threw me for a loop.
After Saigon, we flew to Phu Quoc Island, off the coast of Vietnam. This is a small island not yet bombarded with tourism. The island is actually only 15 km away from Cambodia, but is currently owned by Vietnam. In a few years, this place will be filled with resorts and fine restaurants but for the time being, it was a nice and affordable getaway for Aurora and I.
We hopped on a ferry that took us back to Vietnam where we crossed the border back into Cambodia and traveled back to Phnom Penh where we started the whole adventure. It was a great trip, exhausting but adventurous nonetheless!
