Nicolekiss - Travel & Lifestyle Blogger

Here are the 6 MUST KNOW MUST DO things in PP Cambodia. Don't leave the "bloody" country without experiencing any of these. (pardon the pun)

1. Wash your hair

Go for a hair wash. Dirt cheap to the core as you can never find another cheaper place in South East Asia to wash and massage your scalp at a cheaper rate. Say USD 2 per wash. Head massage and blow dry services included.

Stuart waiting for me outside the saloon

I got my hair washed for USD 1 at this saloon as they were having a promotion. Lucky me.

Washed my hair twice in three days. -.-

2. Avoid Cyclo

Unless you think you have a lot of money and don't mind going for a joy ride.

These cyclos have little to nil knowledge of the roads in PP and can speak as much English as you can in Cambodian language. Tell them if you want to get to the post office, they'll nod their heads and bring you circling round town till you shout stop.

3. Bus and Tuk-tuk drivers are inseparable

Want to know where all the tuk-tuk drivers disappear suddenly at certain hours of the day in P.P., look them up at the bus stops and agency centres. They'll be harassing the rich incomer from Siem Reap at the bus entrance.

4. Markets are everything

Cheap food, drinks, vege, silver wears, meat, artifacts, gold, etc. It's all about the markets, you find markets everywhere anytime around P.P., as though they're there 24/7. Everything here deals in local Riel. They do accept USD but they'll still return change in riels.

bloody hell, I finished all my ripped off Riels in Siem Reap cause I was trying so hard to get rid of them thinking Cambodia deals mainly in USD.

Get your dose of duck fetus egg if you haven't try it already. Their sugar cane drink is only 500 riel. Don't get rip off k? Pretend you're Cambodian if you look anything like them, just don't talk.

5. Airport Tax

Don't bloody spend every single cent and forget about the bloody airport tax like I almost did which cost me a bloody USD25.

Thank god I resisted buying that really nice dress in the market.

6. Fake Lonely Planets

One of the best buys ever. like EVER!

You'll find a lot of these in Siem Reap, but you can get it cheaper in P.P. One Cambodia Lonely Planet is around USD 5 (Siem Reap was USD7), thicker books like USA is between USD7-9. Pretty good photocopy skills, almost like the real thing, some have color pages too! Albeit poor visuals on the maps.

Support local tourism. Support I shall. I got 4 :D (at a more expensive rate in Siem Reap T_T) Let's see, there're Australia, China, Philippines and Japan. Woo hoo! Now you know where I'll be heading off this year.

All the latest editions, my China LP states that it's published on May 2008 when I bought it in April. o.O

Wrote by Nicole

This is a depressing post. I thought long and hard before posting this because as the last stop of my Indo-China trip, I was quite hesitated to blog about this tragic history that sent Cambodia 50 years behind time just 30 years ago.

This is a school. A high school.

It looks no different like every other high school around.

With normal classrooms, playground and staircase.

Or is it?

Year 1975, the Khmer Rouge Regime began.

Cambodians were not prepared what was about to become of them. In the next three years, close to 1/5 population in Cambodia were murdered, slaughtered, perished and eliminated. The biggest massacre every to happen in history, worse than Hitler's time; a total of 1.7 million lives were taken.

And this school was turned into a prison, called the S21; or Genocide S21.

Politicians were captured, tortured and interrogated, and murdered.

In the school, you can still see blood stains on the walls and ceilings in some the classrooms.

This is the stain from this victim who got his stomach punctured while he was alive.

Women were captured and photographed in still form while their kids and husbands were being slaughtered outside.

Wife of ambassador and a tear

Kids were captured because they were either somehow related to politicians, or there was simply no reason at all.

These lives were taken without a thought, with no mercy. And no life was taken before torturing interrogations took place. These included pulling their penis with metal grip, pouring acid up their noses, twitching nipples out, slicing skin, whipping, extreme kicking and punching and hitting of canes till the skull burst.

Skull burst due to over-hitting

Acid from nose

Look at this photo carefully, the kid had his skin pierced through when they pinned the tag to him.

It was inhuman.

A school, transformed into cells.

Feeding only one meal a day, many starved to death during their imprisonment here. It was the "least" cruel way to die.

There was no shower, you eat, shit, pee, and sleep inside a cell just enough to stand and move about.

They wired the corridors, because there was once a girl who managed to run out of cell and jumped from fourth floor and die. The Pol Pot (leading commander, Politician Potential) got angry and decided to wire the place so no one could commit suicide.

During the last year of the regime, the Genocide alone killed over 300 people on a daily basis.

And this was just the introduction of what it was like during the Khmer Rouge regime.

The country haunts me. Cambodia, in my opinion, was a sad, depressing, tragic place that disturbed me gravely during my visit there. I couldn't bring myself to feel happy, to smile; in fact, I was full of tears, anger and a whole mixture of feelings.

I spent three days in Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia (pronounced as "Nom Pen") studying the history of Cambodia, and understanding the state it was now. Of why it is still so behind time, why there are people on this earth still crave for true freedom and unable to live out their past.

I read this book called "Stay Alive, My Son" during my stay in Phnom Penh, a true story about a survivor who lived through the period, losing over 30 members of his family, including his son and wife. I finished the book over night, and cringed the night after, unable to sleep.

Wondering why? Asking why? There simply was no answer.

I visited the killing fields, a place where they bring people here to die. Mass lives burials were carried out up to few times a month.

Studying some of the skulled they dug up after the regime, you'll find skulls with holes and felt the pain of how it was like to die there, in that state.

Most times, bamboo sticks were used to save the cost of bullets.

Cracked by bamboo stick

Collections upon collections of skulls were arranged according to different age group.

Skulls of victims age 15-20

In 1988, they built a memorial dedicated to these victims. I was only 4 years old.

It's the famous tower of skulls, storing all the memories of the past, to remind Cambodia and the rest of the world. And to dedicate a place to these victims for them to rest in peace.

I could write the longest post ever about this piece of history, and it took me a really long time wondering how I should begin. I was simply lost of words.

There are a lot more to just photos, sometimes it's better to not say it, and simply experience it, hear it, understand it. This is the reason I travel, why I rather go out and see than to sit home and read. And I want to travel more, to learn about the many whats and whys.

I left Cambodia, ending my Indo-China trip knowing a bit more about the world, and a little less about myself.

To the Cambodians who died during the Khmer Rouge Regime. May your souls rest in peace.

Wrote by Nicole

Lara Croft steps aside, I am the new mean tomb raiding machine!

Raiding the Tomb (or pretend to)

First a litttle introduction. This is Ta Prohm.

One of the most beautiful temple-monastery in Angkor, simply because when it was uncovered, it was almost completely swallowed by the jungle. Its layout's splendor and complexity increased ten folds by its partly collapsed state.

"The plant takes hold of in a crevice somewhere in the superstructure of a building, usually where the bird had deposited the seed, and extends roots downwards to the soil." Quoted from Ancient Angkor.

As centuries passed, the roots gradually become so thick they wedge open the blocks. Eventually, these trees becomes part of the ruin, they support at the same time hold the power to destroy this magnificence infrastructure.

And this is where Angelina Jolie (aka Lara Croft) picked a Jasmine flower before falling through the soil into Pinewood Studio.

Tomb Raider Tree

I decided instead destroying the nature by killing a Jasmine flower, I'll blend in with nature; be ONE with Ta Prohm.

Tree Hugger. We are ONE.

The monastery ruin is fulled of trees grown so magnificently throughout the centuries, you'd be awed by their sheer sizes.

Or even by the size of ONE of their roots,

Or the body of the tree,

Raiding a ~~tomb~~ ruin is not easy, it takes more than one person's effort. Unlike Lara Croft, we are just mere mortals you see.

OK fine! You caught me red handed, guilty as charged! I wasn't ALONE! I was with someone at the ruin!

Guys, meet my partner in crime.

Nicole.

Miraculously an awesome blogger and a wonderful travel partner, Nicole and I clicked easily like bread and butter; chocolate to ice creams.

I also have to declare, Ta Prohm is a GREAT place to play hide and seek at, I kid you not.

It took forever for Nicole to find me.

What?! You don't believe me?!

You said there's one more person?!!

No really?! There was only us!!!! Just the two of us!!!

.....

Oh shut it!!

Fine, I admit defeat, there was ONE MORE person.

Meet our friend, a low profile traveller whose name does not wished to be mentioned in this blog.

Seriously, you have to be shameless enough to take this picture. Avoiding stares from tourists around the place queuing to take photo with the tree.

Our acquaintance went something like this.

"Hi, Nicole, meet Nicole. You can also call me Nicole"

"Oh hi Nicole, it's nice to meet you. Ta Prohm is absolutely gorgeous isn't it?!"

"OMGOMGOMG, I'm totally like... agree with you! We so like... HAVE~~~ to take photos together yea"

"Oh yes, what a splendid idea. *clap hands tipping with joy* It must be fate that brought us together in such a magical mysterious place. It's destined that we declare each other as sisters."

"Yo sis!! Sisterhood forever gurl!"

"Yes, indeed, we shall lend a hand whenever one of us is in need."

"......"

There you go. My two lovely friends from Cambodia.

And we continue to run around Ta Prohm, playing spy and and detective on rocks and crevices.

Hidden tigress

Around the temple, you find lots of code marked stones lying in sequence on the ground.

These are stones that belonged to the ruin, but collapsed replaced by the trees.

I call them, homeless stones.

Okay FINALLY, there IS ONE MORE scene from the Tomb Raider movie that I bet most (like 99%) of the tourists to Angkor have not been able to locate.

How do I know? Because I tracked the place down and NOT a SINGLE SOUL was there!

Remember the scene where the bad guys broke into the "Tomb" by puling down a polystyrene gate?

Iain Glen acting as the evil Manfred Powell

Is it NOT at Bayon, despite popular belief.

Bayon

It IS at Angkor Thom where Bayon is in.

Though it is NOT the south gate of Angkor Thom.

Where? Not the east entrance of Angkor Thom, but the exact East Gate of Angkor Thom.

It was when I finished Ta Prohm that I realised I have not spotted this particular gate, because it was not exposed to the public.

Hence I cycled 3km back to Angkor Thom to find the infamous mysterious East Gate.

Tracing through the map, I landed myself in some dirt track road that took me into the depths of the jungle. God knows where I was heading to.

And the creepy part? There wasn't anyone in sight.

The unbearable part? Cycling on dirt track road with a town bike is a PAIN in the ASS!!!!!!!!

Ouch ouch ouch.

15 mins later. I finally found him!!!!

The Face

Woohoo!!! I just cam-whored single handedly with the East Gate. OMGOMGOMG I stood on the exact ground where Iain Glen once laid. o.O *faint*

A long way in, but it was all worth it!!

Lonesome town bike.

I know the photo is slanted, I couldn't find a flat 0-gradient rock to fix it on. But don't you think it's more artistic this way? :D

Mission accomplished.

As the evening drew closer, I cycled out of the Northern Gate and 18KM straight towards the east end of Angkor big circuit to catch sunset at Pre Rup temple, said to offer one of the best sunset sight.

18KM on a cycle!!!! This was like chasing the sun before it falls down!! Seriously, I was cursing most of the way!!!

When I reached Pre Rup, there was already a crowd.