"Cambodia, chill out loud!"

After two months traveling together, now again alone in Cambodia. Nearly three weeks in this country. However, traveling makes you tired after a while, chilling out at nice (party) hostels one of my priorities in Cambodia, with beautiful beaches and great hostels. Furthermore, Cambodia has cultural highlights such as Angkor Wat and on the other side an unknown horrible history of the killing fields.  

My first five days I spend in Siem Reap, this city is famous for the biggest temple complex in the world; Angkor Wat. In total I saw twenty temples in three days, impressive to see the sunrise and the architecture of the temples. I loved Siem Reap, also because the hostel was a great place. On St. Patrick day they organized a huge pool party, and all nights there was something going on. The pub street made the night complete, which resulted in quite drunk nights out. Chill out loud! 

Via Battambang I arrived in Phnom Penh, the capital of the country. During a one day tour I visited with some other backpackers the historical killing fields. Horrible history in fact, because between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge regime committed genocide all over the country. In total three million Cambodians (of a total population of eight million) were killed, because of the ideologies of the regime. The aim of the regime was to establish an agricultural communistic state, so all high educated people were killed on a horrible way. Babies and women were killed without “medelijden". Remaining in Phnom Penh are the killing fields, there are still bones which are stuck out of the earth. Awful to hear see the remaining and hear the stories about the killing.  

In the meantime I arranged a new volunteer project, called Care for Poor and Orphaned Children (CPOC). This was a total new experience for me. When I arrived I met the thirteen children who were living there. They had a great time, playing with the volunteers who took good care for them. During the daytime they got English lessons, provided by the volunteers. The children were very thankful and glad we could practice English with them. Another project, where I was involved in, was to build new school few kilometers away. In the early morning all the men left to work on the land and create a new place. In return all volunteers could stay at CPOC and got twice a day a meal. However, in the beginning I felt a bit lost, because it was not clear what I could do at CPOC. There were more volunteers than children, which made it difficult to help. I really liked the children and the school, but I could not attribute that much to the school.  

My next destination was the city Kampot, itself a quite boring city, but the hostel made this place great. The hostel was located at the riverside, with a lot of “attributen” in the river, such as a swing into the water and an eight meter high stair to jump in the river. With Dennis I got stuck in this place for four nights! Surrounded by a lot of other backpackers we played some great drinking games during the night. Chill the bill! 

Last but not least, the island Koh Rong! A two hour ferry ride brought me to this remote island. The beaches were still untouched and tourism was not that much developed yet. One day we walked with a group to the other side of the island, towards Long Beach. After a hike of almost four hours and being lost in the density jungle, we found the tent camp on the beach. All hippies together, some people were there already for six weeks, sleeping in a tent without electricity, water and toilets. I slept in a tent on the beach, a wonderful experience to be on a beach which was almost abandoned. The beach was beautiful, with white and crystal clear blue water. Good place to relax, before heading towards the craziness of Bangkok.