Killing Fields
The madness of Phnom Pehn city with the main market looming in the distanceSunday, April 29, 2007
Us inside Angkor Wat
S21 prison In Phnom Penh, it is estimated that 14,000 ''enemies of the state'' were brought here for tortune and forced confessions. Only 7 were freed. Sickly, this was a former school.
One of the cells, the photo on the wall was taken by the Vietnamese when they invaded and depicts what they found.
Inside the killing fields
Looking inside the tower of skulls made from the bodies found in the mass graves at the killing fields. Many were also women and children.
Us at the gates of Bayon, Angkor temples complex
Matt doing his best jungle book King Louis impression
Angkor Wat digger especially for Hallam
Matt is not tired of monkeying around!
Bas relief of the Churning of the Sea, inside Angkor Wat. This is a Hindu story of Gods and Demons co-operating to obtain the elixir of life. As it happens, the Gods double crossed the Demons.
Local folk snoozing on the boat from Battambang to Siem Reap in Cambodia. Vicki can just be seen squeezed in second from left. A hot 7 hour river trip.
En route from Battambang to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Stilted villages line much of the river, making progress all the slower.
Our vessel, en route Battambang to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We had just stopped for a brief lunch break. Note the litter just hurled into the waterway by the less than environmentally friendly locals. Their littering is shocking, though in fairness they no doubt have more pressing matters to think about.
A floating church. For the time being, at least.
Angkor Wat, Cambodia. A well deserved wonder of the world and the biggest religeous building on the planet.
We happily hitched a ride from a kind Thai fellow in order to reach the Thai - Cambodia border at Daun Lem.
Welcome to Cambodia, the border town being a suitably dusty dump of a place. We had just enjoyed a bartering session with the bent Cambodian immigration officials over the price of the visa. He wanted 2000 baht. We paid 1600. Fair deal.
The astonishing sight of millions of bats flying out of their cave at dusk, near Battambang, Cambodia. They stream out like this for about 2 hours, apparently.
Bats near Battambang.
Bats near Battambang, with the flat Cambodian plains streching away into the distance. A very large amount of the land seen here remains dangerously covered in land mines, so not a place for independent trekking. This area of north western Cambodia also remains a popular hangout for Khymer Rouge war criminals.Sunday, April 22, 2007
The Batu Caves, near Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia.
Around the Lake Gardens in a very hot Kuala Lumpar. The Sky Tower and the Petronas Towers behind.
We stayed in the quite wonderful Colisium Hotel in Kuala Lumpar. Built in the 1920's, it has been a hang out for expats forever and these days the downstairs bar is well occupied by friendly though ageing Malaysians all with a story to tell about their time in England. In the blue, Eugene studied at the Bar in Lincoln's Inn in the mid 70's before taking to spending his days regailing others with his adventures whilst studying at the Bar, Lincoln's Inn in the mid 70's. Larger than life Parrl loved Buckinghamshire whilst stationed there with the RAF and now is able to handily split his time between trading Medicines from Europe and winning on the GG's at the Colisium bar. Our British passports secured us plenty of free beer from these super friendly chaps.
En route by train to Thailand. We went on a bit of a rail mission from Kuala Lumpar to Chantaburi in Thailand, via Penang and Bangkok. This involved spend two days on the train and a while on the bus, all easily passed with the English language newspapers available from Malaysia.
The final leg on the bus from Bangkok to Chantaburi.
Whilst visiting the Maritime Museum in Malaka, housed inside this mock up of an old Portuguese ship, we discovered a film crew making a Pakistani movie, Pirates of the Carribbean style. High health and saftey standards meant that we had to leg it past the flying stunt men sometime after the director shouted cut.
The Supreme Court in Kuala Lumpur. Built by the Brits to lock up the pesty locals.
The view from the imaginatively named Sky Tower in Kuala Lumpur. It's eerm, the fifth highest tower in the world. Maybe.
The Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur. The purging of the local environment for more and more oil is evidently a source of considerable national pride. They are kind of big.
The Batu Caves, a short way outside Kuala Lumpar, a massive Hindu shrine and temple area. In some enormous caves. So important is this site that only one huge tacky tourist shop blasting out the best of Bollywood pop was permitted inside the cave itself, creating a particularly serene atmosphere.
Singapore skyline. After taking 10 weeks to get from Dili across Indonesia we rather enjoyed the functionality of the place. We spent four days failing to see either a single piece of litter or a single policeman. They're watching, of course ...
From Singapore we took the bus north into Malaysia and to Malaka. Having followed the old spice trade across Indonesia we thought it apt to pull into this bastion of colonial power. It's a pleasant enough place to visit. Colourful local transport in Chinatown.
Someone decided to paint the buildings built in the colonial days red. This may be related to Kodak and the profusion of Korean tourists.
A digger with a name. Built in England, circa 1930. Malaka, Malaysia.
Couln't help but feel a certain familiarity with the Malaysian flag. The spot where this picture was taken was just beside the site at which Malaysian Independence was declared. It is now less than patriotically commemorated by a huge shopping mall a la Singapore after the Malaysian Government somewhat suprisingly annouced that the site was of "no historical significance''.Thursday, April 05, 2007
Here's us being published in the venerable Banjarmasin Post on the 24th March. We were snapped unawares and it was with much suprise that we discovered ourselves in print. The caption with the picture read something like, "Banjarmasin is known as being a dirty and noisy city but it still has some things of interest for the visitor. Two foreign tourists enjoying the riverbank." Odd.Wednesday, April 04, 2007
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