Cambodia: Phnom Penh // A sobering history.

Over Christmas, a good friend asked me about the history of Cambodia and what we had experienced on our brief trip this summer. In total honesty, I had been holding back on this post for fear of being disrespectful or not feeling qualified to talk on the subject. It's certainly an extremely harrowing subject.

However,  having spent time in Cambodia and Phnom Penh in August, it's clear that the Cambodian view is that people should speak about this subject and educate others as to prevent new generations creating the same situation again. So here is my post about the Tuol Sleng Genocide prison (S21) and Killing Fields in Phnom Penh.

Let me be clear, I am certainly no expert and a google search with tell you more about the terrible genocide and forced labour regime that wiped out an estimated 25 percent of the Cambodian population in just four years. However, whilst in Phnom Penh, we were privileged enough to visit two of the sites that commemorate the sufferings and tragedies of those years.

Both the prison (a former high school) and the killing fields make for grim visiting. The air of oppression is tangible and much of the sites have been left the same. In the prison, there is still blood staining the cramped prison cells and rusty, broken beds, chains and torture devices in the torture rooms. The names and photos of every one of the poor souls tortured and killed in the place aline the walls of the prison, forcing you to stare into their eyes and wonder about their last months, weeks and moments. There are collections of their clothes and personal details and the only survivors sit in the courtyard of the prison, now peaceful, hoping to tell their stories and prevent further atrocities.

However awful the prison is, it is nothing compared to the experience of visiting the killing fields. The blistering heat, the stench from the nearby rivers, endless, huge pits dug in the ground with clothing, teeth and bone fragments sticking out of the ground. Worst of all,  the killing tree. The sign will explain its purpose. This is not a place for the feint hearted but it is an important place and the experience of standing on the edge of one of those pits, the sound of a generator and Khmer Rouge chanting blaring in my ears will be one that sticks with me for a long time.

Croatia: Dubrovnik // Exploring King's landing...

As it's only 4 weeks until we fly away on our Asian adventure, I thought i'd better try and catch up on the posts about our incredible trip to Croatia.

Both Steve and I are pretty huge Game of thrones geeks, we just love it. Therefore, it will come as no surprise that exploring historic Dubrovnik was high on our priorities. The magnificent, historic old town of Dubrovnik is where they film all the scenes set in  Kings Landing (we even saw some filming while we were there! We couldn't get photos - boo!).

So, when the second day of our trip was overcast and looked a little bit miserable, we set off to explore/act out all our favourite scenes! Fortunately, we did show some self-restraint and did not join the hordes of tourists wearing Game of Thrones t-shirts.

A Game of Thrones tour was one of our tingly options. Ultimately, we decided to save that voucher for something even more exciting in Cambodia this summer and decided to go it alone on our own self-directed GoT tour...

 

Croatia: Dubrovnik // Arriving in paradise

In all truthfulness, I had fallen in love with Croatia before I had even set foot in the country.

As much as I love travelling and visiting new places, I am not a good flyer. That is, I love the experience of flying but the experience does not love me - something Steve can and will (frequently) testify to. On this trip though, I woke from the plane-induced snooze just in time to gaze out of the window as the plane flew over the hundreds of Croatian islands. These islands looked so perfect, floating in turquoise blue oceans. As we landed in Dubrovnik, I had already turned to Steve and started to plan a trip back to the islands.

Back to this trip though... We were picked up from the airport by the our apartment owner's father. After communicating in broken english for a while, we left him to hum along to the radio and stared at more incredible views out of the car window. This country in stunning, seriously. Every time the car turned the corner, there was a new spectacular view. It reminded us both of Cape Town a little and the twists and turns of Camps Bay.

The best I could do out of the car window. 

We quickly dumped our stuff in our little-but-lovely apartment and rushed out to explore more of the city. We wandered down to the Old Port and grabbed lunch at a wonderful cafe on the harbour - I don't even know the name of the place but we went back to the cafe nearly every day for a drink or lunch. The strawberry juice was delicious and the seafood as fresh as they come! The waiters all wore striped t-shirts and had impeccable manners. 

A word of warning though, it seems to be Croatian culture to share everything when it comes to food. We ordered a few things, thinking we were ordering tapas-like dishes. They all came out in buckets - way too much for two people to eat. We were so stuffed we skipped dinner later and just made our way to the atmospheric Old town walls for drinks.