Cambodia Day 5

Today we reach Siem Reap in the late afternoon. I like this town better than Phnom Penh :) More treeesss..hahahha. We stayed at skyway hotel, but then we realize this place is a bit outskirt from town. So, we've been skimming to move out eventhough we placed a booking for few days in the hotel.

In the evening, we plan to go over to Angkor Wat to watch the sunset. Apparently, the ticket can still be used the next day if you buy it during the evening to watch sunset. Hence, it cost US20 to enter the place. Its a breathtaking place. Feels like I'm in Jungle Book cartoon, at some point I felt like I was in Aztec. If ever I come back to Cambodia, I will be back fro Angkor Wat with a good camera to take more shots of the ruins. Its beautiful beyond description. Just magnificent and..well, just be there to see it yourself. HOw on earth did they built this temple? The effort to carve on every single stone that makes up the temple.

Doesn't this look like where the Monkey King from Jungle Book lives?

That's me, doing the tourist thing. But its Angkor Wat, so am willing to take a pic that says 'I was here'. haha

Love this spot in the main temple ruins. Nice place to catch the sun set along with that statue

The place did not look that yellow like it is in this picture, by adding a flash it creates this effect. :) my new discovery for someone who know nuts bout photography.

Its another part of the lovely spot that I like.

Finally, the group photo. The sun has officially set in. Its time to head back home for dinner! :)

Cambodia Day 3 & 4

After yesterday's trip, it's just all purely pleasant places to visit today. So after breakfast, we started off to the National Museum. It is a lovely place with lovely architecture. Rather similar to buildings you see in Thailand.

This is the front view of the national museum.

This is the middle section of the museum, there is a lovely garden there
Here is another angle of the garden. They are lots of stone artifacts inside this museum. Besides that, lots of stone carvings of Buddha from historical site. They are also bronze and silver accessories displayeed here. After the museum we zoom off for a drink. We requested for a place where Cambodian normally hang out.
I call this 'yam cha' place cambodian style. There are no chairs but 'hammocks' (i think that's wrongly spelt) hanging at each poles. Then, there is a table in the middle. The coke here is definitely way cheaper from the tourist area.

Next destination is the Royal Palace. Here are some pictures of the place.

We went to the Japanese bridge, which is nothing great. Just an ordinary concrete bridge.Hahahha. However, what lies after the bridge are seafood restaurant which cost a bomb to eat there. So, we decided to head back to areas near our hotel for dinner instead. Oo, then we went for the massage. after much bargaining, Jia Xin manage to pull the price down to US 5 per person :) It's the Cambodian massage with oil. Very very nice...after such a long lonnngg dayyyy!

Day 4 is basically spent in Central Market, so its a shopping day. Hardly tried any food there coz the locals really charged us with a high price. In this market, they have lots of silver goods, jewelry, spectacles, clothes, bags and any other items you can find. I find it not cheap to shop in Cambodia. After that, we head over to the Russian Market. This place reminds me of the Jatujak market in Bangkok. Except, it is not as huge as the one in Bangkok i think. In the evening, Malina's Cambodian friend brought us to dinner, in the centre of the town. This is the first time I felt that this place has more development in it. It reminds me a bit of Ipoh town. The food in this restaurant is way way better! The best food within this 4 days in Phnom Penh. The food is still slightly sweeter than what I normally expect from curry and tom yam. They have something that is similar to our otak otak, but I cant' remember what it is called..aaargghh. The night was spent listening to Billy Page, singer songwriter performing at the next door cafe. Actually got a copy of his cd, very country rock feel to it. It is our last night here in Phnom Penh. the next day we will be travelling by bus to Siem Reap. A 6 hour journey!

Cambodia Day 2

It is a beautiful morning today, that is the front view from the hotel from the balcony. That's the Mekong river, but the smell ain't so great :P
That's a view of the hotel from below. The street is already buzzling with cars, tuk-tuk, motor and etc. Today as planned from yesterday night, we will be heading to the Tuol Sleng Museum. This place used to be a school but it is transformed into a prison for interrogation and torture place, during the Pol Pot regime, also known as S21. This place gives me the creeps when the tuk-tuk first stopped at the entrance.
It gets even more eerie when I stepped around the area of this picture above. This is the Block A, where prisoners are held for interrogation, facing lashes and electric shocks. Classrooms are transformed into interrogation cells. On the walls, they are pictures of people that were found dead (either from starvation or torture) in the room after the end of Pol Pot Regime. Nobody knows what goes inside this place until the regime ended. People just know that nobody ever comes out after they enter the place. Just right in front of the Block A there is the security of regulations, explaining how each prisoners should behave and the punishment they will receive if they disobey.
This is the information board describing Block A.

This is how each classroom looks like. There we have a guide explaining about the room. Here is one of the signboard in front of the graves commemorating the victims.

Next, we move on to Block B. This area is not as eerie as the Block A area. This building has been wrapped with electric barb wire to avoid prisoners from jumping down to commit suicide. Each classroom is transform into tiny cells to hold the prisoners.

There is basically nothing in this small cell except for a tiny hole for the guards to provide water. According to the guide, the prisoners are only fed twice a day and they are not allowed to do their business without the permission of the guards. If they did, they will have to eat up their own shit/pee.

As we move on to Block C, this block exhibits a lot of prisoner's pictures when they are taken into the place. There are also pictures of how Phnom Penh looked like after and before the ruling of Khmer Rouge.

The two pictures above are just some of the torture device used for interrogation.

The trip to Tuol Sleng Museum was a very disturbing experience to me. This is my first time entering a post-war site, a place where genocide happens. The amount of people that are being killed, pictures of women, children and men that have been murdered without rational reasons...they all haunt me for a few days. Such cruelty done to humans are just very sad. It took me a while until today, before I can blog about this place that I have been. Its just very sad...I do not know how to describe it but it is for you to experience it. Pictures above may just be pictures, it does not really describe the feeling of being there and stories shared by the Cambodian guide. War is horrible. Maybe peace be with those souls that have died innocently.

As for our next destination, it is the Killing Fields of Chong Ek. This is the place where mass graves are being found. It is located about 12km (or 20 km, cant remember) from town, rather outskirt. The prisoners from S21 are being transported here to be killed.

This place looks like an empty ground. The first view you will see is this memorial stupa. From the top of this building till the bottom holds many human skulls of the victims dug out from the mass grave found in this area.

Some of the skulls has a crack on the head (beaten to death by bambook stick) and some with bullet holes.

These are the clothings and others that belongs to the victims.

This is how the excavated graves looks like. This place feels very peaceful now and they are lots of butterflies hovering around the grave.

This tree is what they call the Magic Tree. I don't know what so magical about it. It is said that on this tree is used as a tool to hang a microphone which make sound louder to avoid the moans of victims while they are being executed. After these two places. We head back home. Tired, emotions all hair wired for me. I cant sleep for that night. Beer to relax for the night.

Finally, it is dinner time after such a disturbing trip. This is a Malaysian restaurant that serves halal food. What's more, it is the cheapest place among the rest. One meal cost US1. This guy called Weni can speak Malay, and it has became our hang out place for the past few days in Phnom Penh.

Cambodia Day 1

The journey begins with this post, day 1, flying off to cambodia. This is my first time travelling there. It all begins with our mastermind Dr. Yeoh, my Monash lecturer who have a paper to presents at a conference in Phnom Penh. Hence, he decided to include the rest of us from Monash and from previous Bangkok trip into this trip.
So from the left, we have Malina, Shazana, Kerry, Jia Xin, me,Ben, Dawn and Sarah. And of course, Dr Yeoh, the one who took this picture :) There we are at the LCCT. Posing a bit before we take off from our country.


That's our first dinner in Cambodia and also in conjunction of Shazana's birthday. Below, our birthday girl is about to give a little speech. Hmm, next let me go through on what we have for dinner that day.








Firstly, there is the tom yam, which tasted sweet, not spicy and not very aromatic. Nothing like Thai Tom Yam at all despite how similar it looks. Then there was the curry chicken, which also tasted similar like the tom yam, but this one has coconut milk in it. Then there was the fried squid with pepper (whole bunch of it on the stem).

Frankly, I do not enjoy the Cambodian/Khmer dishes very much. Maybe I am used to hot, spicy, aromatic and not sweet dishes. Almost all the dishes or Khmer dish is sweet. (P/S: this is a comment given after I have return to Malaysia from the trip)

Below is a picture of the kids from the streets selling books. He is just one of them selling tourist books and others. There also a lot of street kids who will come to you asking for money. It can get quite annoying when you are being surrounded at times. They are all along the street of our hotel.

Did not really have a picture of our Paragon Hotel. Its a very cozy place compared to the ones in Bangkok, actually above my expectation. On the first day, we did not really do much. Just stroll along the streets near our hotel, cake house and etc. Ooo, and also tried their local beer, Angkor draft. Taste smooth and somehow, I felt that it had some peanut flavor in it. Hahaha...its just me :)

Music on Fridays

Cant imagine a world without music. Every Friday seems to be a routine lately. We have been jamming for the scout's project. Kingsley called up to ask me and jocy to participate in it. Every session I seems to be exposed to a new type of genre. The last few times was oldies, rock and roll, and some latin stuff (bossa nova, beguine, cha cha, tango and etc.).



This time its old time scouting favourites ranging from evergreen songs, 1920s an 1930s songs, broadway feel songs, campfire songs and etc. Its a lil project for the scouts. Its cool that so many generation of scouts are working together in this thingie.

Above we have our chief commander, uncle Kwai Chung, followed by Kingsley and Justin (who retreated recently due to school stuff). Picture below is our lady guitarist, Miss jocy!

And then me on the keyboards :)

That's what' s up for these few Fridays, till then ..signing off!

I happen to glance above...

Sometimes when we are so drifted with the traffic and even life, things looks grey and gloomy and dusty. The soul feels weary and tired...

Somehow, if we happen to take a step behind and sit down on a quiet spot. And somehow, we happens to glance above or look beyond the horizons.....

We are not trapped after all.....

Life is as wide as the sky.......

It changes like the weather , from stormy, cloudy, sunny and so forth...

It's just the way things are :)

Hahaha, enough of Lilowism and I am just publishing what came across my mind when I happen to glance above when I took these picture :P

Cheers!

The Future Cook

Here's a story of our budding cook in our bloodline: Tadaaaaa! Presenting Ms. Wong Sy Yun or affectionately known as Yuar :)

Here's an image of her at work, cooking with love and patience (despite having taken some medication yesterday night). What she's frying on the hot plate is the Honey german sausage...

And oh no.........that's not all she can cook. Anyone can easilly fry two pieces of sausages. Below you will witness her work of art :

DISH 1: 'Chiabatta with Tuna and Bologna'

I think that's how you spell it. I've been hearing the word 'Sha-Bat-tah' the whole way since I arrive at her home. The tuna filling is well made and its sandwiched between cheese and slices of chicken bologna :)





Dish 2: Yuar's Caesar Salad


Its ingredient includes hard boiled eggs, black pepper bologna, lettuce, cruton and the dressing (Starbuck's style )





Dish 3: Little Squares

This is made from tiny jacob cheese crackers, with a tinge of creativity :) basically is tuna with crackers and cucumber.




Well, that was breakfast! A marvelous one :)


Signing off, Lilow reporting from Cheras..ahhahhahaha Will be back with more news on 'The Future Cook'