Our first few days in Cambodia.

Our first few days in Cambodia
After a long night and day in planes and airports, we finally arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We were all tired, but glad to be here. We took a taxi to go to our hotel and went straight to bed!
First a little bit of geography about Cambodia (for those who are not sure where it is!): Cambodia is in southeast Asia, with Vietnam to the east, Laos to the north and Thailand to the west. There are plains in the centre of the country, and mountains in the north and west. The capital is Phnom Penh, where we currently are.
The next day, we started our adventures with a walk around the city and a visit to the royal palace.
The first impression of the city is how crazy the traffic is!! Crossing the road is an adventure: you hold on to your lucky cricket and start walking when the cars and motorbikes go around you without slowing down much!!! The first few times are a bit scary, but we got used to it!
The royal palace is huge and beautiful: Temples, mural painting, statues... there are a lot to see.
The rest of the day was spent walking around the city to soak into the Cambodian way of life. This is so good to have the freedom to do what we want without having to stick to a schedule.
We, of course, ate Cambodian food: we really enjoyed fried rice and noddles with all kinds of meat and vegetables. So far, we love the food!
Monday being my birthday, we were lucky to stubble upon a cake shop, with delicious cakes, so we indulge ourselves.
We finished this first day, by having an hour-long cruise on the river Mekong at sunset. It was a great way to finish the day.
For our second day, we decided to do a bit of history learning, and we went to the killing fields. We were not quite sure if it was good for the kids, but we thought that they need to learn about history to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
For those who don’t know the recent history of Cambodia, here is a quick version of it: in 1976, Pol Pot seize power in Cambodia. His army was made of poor peasants, often pretty young, uneducated and living in very poor condition, Pol Pot promised them riches and a better life. His ideology was a very extreme version of communism, and he decided to kill anyone who might be against him: educated people, city people, people wearing glasses or with hands too soft… They were sent either to work in the countryside or to be killed. Many died in the countryside as they had no food and not training on how to grow food. An estimated of 3 million people were killed under the rein of Pol Pot who was overthrown in 1979 when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and put an end to his reign.
The killing fields were the places where prisoners were sent to be executed: men, women and children. Even babies were killed as they didn’t want to leave anyone who could seek revenge. The ways of killing were horrible. The bodies were then thrown into big holes with hundred of other bodies. While we were visiting the killing fields, we had an audio guide with explanation and stories of survivors. It was heart breaking. I cried several times during the visit. It is insane what human can do to each other.
We didn’t let the kids listen to all the stories as they were too hard to listen too, but we wanted then to know about the history and especially how it all started.
As it was a hard morning, we went for a fun afternoon: we find a huge and fun water park, with massive slides, pool and water games. It was a good balance to the heaviness of the morning. The kids loooooooved it!
Today (our third day), we visited the Cambodian museum, with a lot of statues dated from the 6th century up to more recent one, writing carved in stones, and lots of artifacts dated from many centuries ago. I wish there were a bit more explanation as it was sometime hard to know what the statues or object were, but it was still interesting to visit.
We are now all writing about our experiences, and we hope you will enjoy reading about it!
Mel

Before the travel started, I had a lot of feelings. Feelings I'm still not sure I understand but have worked a few things out. I was scared, scared about leaving our house to people we don't know (this is my home we're talking about, a big thing for me). I was worried about things that may or may never happen on our trip.
I'm not sure I ever felt excitement, I think it was squished down under all the other feelings. Close to go time, I'm not sure I was feeling anything.
Now that we have landed in our first destination and I have spent some time away with my family, there is some excitement, and a lot of worry has lifted.
4.1.2025. First plane.
Planes f****ing suck. Flight companies f***ing suck. We had to fly south (Melbourne) to then go north (Hong Kong), past our destination. Only to fly south to Cambodia.
5.1.2025. Landed in Cambodia.
Was happy to be on the ground. Saw very little of the country as we hopped a taxi straight to our hotel to sleep.
6.1.2025. Mel's birthday. It was stated very clearly that we would be in a different country for Mel's birthday, and it worked out that way (because Mel organises everything).
First impressions of Phnom Penh? Busy, smelly, dirty and completely foreign to me.
The people seem friendly, the tuk tuk drivers are a bit pushy but that's their job I suppose.
After a short walk, we found somewhere for breakfast. Followed by a visit to the royal palace, which is something to see. A rest was needed and then lunch found. Followed by cake for Mel's birthday.
We walked along the river front and was pestered into taking a ride on “party” boat. Lots of lights and loud music. Was pretty fun.
7.1.2025. This morning, we rode in our first tuk tuk. Very exciting and scary. If you know Cambodian traffic you know what I mean. Our destination? The Killing fields. Where we learnt of Pol Pot and his regime. Saw mass graves, bones, skulls, teeth and scraps of clothing. We learnt of things carried out by members of the group the Khmer Rouge through a headset as we walked around the site. Some truly chilling things, things you wouldn't believe people could do to others. I understood perfectly my feelings this morning. Sadness, revulsion, confusion and utter disbelief.
After that we felt something nicer was in need, and Andrew had been annoying us about it since he learnt of it. So we went to the water park! Lots of fun, once we finally convinced the kids to ride the bigger slides. Emma did not want to ride anything! I did!! After seeing me trying things Mel had a crack and soon after Andrew was into it. Emma took a lot longer but eventually she had a go. Turns out she loves slides; she thanked me later for helping her release her dragon spirit.
Another rest and then dinner at a local night market.
8.1.2025. We visited the museum. Fascinating. We spent the whole morning walking through it looking at relics and artifacts. Then fed some goldfish in the small lakes inside.
To be continued. Later.
Kev

I just want to tell you what has happened so far. On Monday it my mum’s birthday so we had cake. Obviously. Then we went to the Royal Palace. In the Palace we saw beautiful paintings. After that we went on a night boat and saw gorgeous lights. On Tuesday we went to the Killing Field where lots of people died. The whole idea was from this man called Pol Pot. He killed people who did not like him, and he also killed people who wear glasses. Which is sad. But to brighten our day, we went to the water park. We also went on our very first tuktuk. On Wednesday we went to a museum, there where loads and loads of sculptures, paintings and metal displays.
Emma (8 years old)

It is me Andrew, I’m back! I am in Cambodia its quite different here (p.s I got to watch a lot of tv on the airplane). The airport is way bigger than Townsville’s and they have these three wheeled cars called tuktuks that we pay for and the owners of them will drive me places. Its faster than walking. Theres lots of different foods here like noodles and rice, its actually pretty good. The people here are not very good drivers: the speed limit is sixty but nobody respects it, they go as fast as they want unless there’s a police around.
On the first day it was my mum’s birthday so they, my mum, decided what we do: we walked around for a bit then we went to the royal palace, walked around the place looking at stuff and taking pictures. They had lots of gold and jewels. The palace and the garden where huge and had lots of gargoyles things on the roof. When we were done with the palace we went out for something sweet: I got an Oreo cake then we went back to the hotel.
On the second day we went to a really big water park that had huge slides and it was so fun it had forty meter long sidles. I went on it about twenty times I didn’t have enough time to do any more but I would have done a million times more. My dad did this superfast one and hurt himself and the line was really long on every ride so I couldn’t do that many. Anyway it was very fun.
On the third day we went to a museum it had a lot of sculptures, metal art works, statues and paintings, they had statues of gods and people, there was also some animals to.
They were big rocks that had a lot of ancient writing on it. The place had a pond and me and my sister were feeding the fish. There was about thirty huge gold fish swarming me. It was crazy.
Next few days coming soon.
Andrew (9 years old)Læs mere