Phum Sala Kânsêng

Shortly after the Christmas and New Year holidays, Harry packed his car and headed back up to Glasgow. It was quite an emotional farewell as 10 days later we were heading off on our trip and whilst we had plans to meet up with Harry and at some point Richard, the reality of not seeing our children for at least 3 months hit home.

Cue the tears.

Fast forward to the beginning of April and we were waiting impatiently for Harry and his partner, Lisa, to arrive at our hotel in Phnom Penn, the capital city of Cambodia. After their earthquake troubled flight into Bangkok, they had enjoyed a few days in northern Thailand and like us, had take a short flight into Cambodia and were now en route, via tuk tuk, to meet us.

Naturally, we had had plenty of messages and video calls with Harry and Lisa since we left the UK but seeing them in person again was special and we began a completely different phase of our trip. For starters, we stayed in the swishest hotel. Huge rooms, an incredible pool area, delicious breakfasts, a proper gym and wonderful staff were all hidden behind an extravagant entrance, on a very busy street , just behind The Royal Palace.

All of the facilities were put to very good use over our 3 night stay and the location was ideal for some sightseeing, a sunset cruise on the Mekong River with unlimited beer and a couple of super riverside restaurants. Great, indulgent fun but the flipside of enjoying all of this in Cambodia was that for the 2nd time on this trip, we visited the sights that explained a country’s recent, horrendous genocide.

As in Rwanda, we both had a vague awareness of what had happened in Cambodia in the 1970’s and the names Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge were familiar enough but the why, how, and what were certainly not the detail that we understood. A visit to the school that in 1976, was converted to the prison of torture and death, Prison S-21, put all of that right with a captivating story telling audio tour.

Over 17,000 prisoners were held in this converted school building at some point during the three years, eight months and twenty days of the Pol Pot regime. This was a time period we heard repeated 4 or 5 times on different Cambodian tours. Only 12 came out of S-21 alive. The prison has been maintained in almost the same condition in which it was found and it was incredibly humbling, therefore, to have seen the cell of 1 of the survivors and then to find him sat at the entrance of the museum signing copies of his personal account of his time in the prison. He survived because he could fix a typewriter that was used in the meticulous record keeping that detailed every victim entering the prison. An incredible visit.

This was followed by a trip to The Killing Fields. Through film and stories we had imagined this to be a single place in Cambodia. In fact, the plural ‘Fields’, refers to each of the 300 places where almost one quarter of Cambodia’s population were murdered. The site that we visited just outside Phnom Penn was eerily quiet as the many tourists wandered around in shock and silence. Amongst the entirely indiscriminate reasons for the killings, having soft hands, wearing glasses or being able to read were often cited.

We also had no idea that it was the Vietnamese who brought Pol Pot’s regime to an end, or that following this, the Americans and many other western nations supported the Khmer Rouge against the communist Vietnamese or that it wasn’t until the late 1990’s and Pol Pot’s death, that the Khmer Rouge ceased to exist. A fascinating history lesson for us all and with these events being before the days of rolling news channels, maybe our ignorance can be excused. Or maybe not?

Linked to these terrible events is the ongoing issue of clearing land mines in Cambodia and our visit to the APOPO organisation in Siem Reap to learn about the land mine clearing rats was brilliant. Having booked an early morning tour, it was quite incredible that on that morning, a BBC News story popped up about Ronin, one of the rats, who had just made it into the The Guinness Book of Records for having sniffed out 107 land mines.

On our visit, we learned about the extent of international cooperation across many different parts of the world to clear land mines and how both dogs and Giant African Pouch Rats are used to sniff out unexploded ordinance and also to detect tuberculosis. Frightening statistics, incredibly dedicated people and wonderful to handle one of the working rats.

Siem Reap provided us with another superb hotel albeit at the 2nd attempt but a quick transfer and we were able to use our new base for 3 visits to the some of the 11th century temples and cities that are everywhere around the world famous Angkor Wat. We saw the temple featured in the Lara Croft Tomb Raider film where weird sponge trees grow out of the walls, the partially restored city of Angkor Thom and saw both sunset and sunrise over Angkor Wat itself.

Apologies for the brief history lessons above but our short time with Harry and Lisa was also very much about messing around in hotel pools, playing too many games of Yahtzee, Rumikub, Pass the Pigs and Dobble and indulging in great Cambodia food and drink.

The week was topped off with Harry’s 26th birthday celebrations marked by both the hotel staff and at the end of the highly entertaining Cambodian Phare Circus performance. Those of you who visited our campsite in France, will recall that Harry has always loved a circus!

And then, the family time was over and just as this story began, there were more tears yesterday as Harry and Lisa headed off on a 36 hour journey back to England (and Scotland) with work beckoning.

For us, it has been another couple of days of poolside leisure as I recover from a tummy bug and then we are off into the Cardamon Mountains for the Cambodian New Year celebrations.Read more