Holiday in Cambodia

We had a great couple days in Phnom Penh. The people are lovely and very hospitable. We made friends with a couple other travellers from our boat and had a few drinks that night at the backpackers before hitting the clubs. The clubs were a lot of fun – not what I had expected from a Cambodian club (not sure what I had expected though). We all got pretty boozed and danced and mucked around, was good fun.

The next morning nursing a nice hangover, the boys decided it would be a good idea to try their hand at the shooting range. I’ll let Joel tell this part of the story…

Joel: Our tuk tuk drivers took us about 30 mins out of the city to the “mountains” through a guarded security check point and to what looked like a small military outpost. We were greeted by 2 soldiers who brought out an assortment of small arms, all of which looked like they had been used during the 70’s. The weapons included 2xM79 grenade launchers, M16, M60 machine gun, AK-47 and an ancient looking RPG-2 rocket launcher.

With the small arms and ammunition loaded into the back of the minivan we headed to the “shooting range” which was just an open field against a small mountain range.
First up was the RPG, with the rocket head loaded our friend took aim, pulled the trigger and… nothing the soldier pulled the head out fiddled with it and gave the thumbs up. Again the trigger was pulled and nothing happened, at this point all who were on looking took a good 10 steps back, as it has been known for these rockets to explode in the tube. The soldier pulled the rocket out again, this time pulling it apart and fiddling with it some more. He reloaded the rocket, our friend took aim and pulled the trigger… BANG, the rocket launched in a big cloud of smoke and 2 seconds later hit the side of the mountains with another bang, echoing all along the range. It was awesome! Pretty sure I got a stiffy…

After the RPG I had a go of the M60 and M16, the M60 is a fully automatic machine gun although this one kept jamming every 3-4 rounds. The M16 worked flawlessly and I was able to successfully destroy a bunch of coconuts. All in all a good days shooting.

Renée: At night we enjoyed dinner with some locals. We ate all different local cuisine (spider included… I could not go there!), and went through about 20 jugs of beer between 5 of us! All of this cost us a total of $10 each!
Was my first time on the beer and I did quite well keeping up with the boys… just! The locals kept calling D.I.O (down in one), and they’d strategically wait until the waitress had come around and topped up your glass. They don’t seem to know the meaning of social drinking, it’s either stay sober or get highly inebriated with them!

We visited Tuol Sleng genocide museum and Choeung Ek, the Killing Fields. It was very sad and disturbing to learn about what happened to the Khmer people during the Democratic Kampuchea era when Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge took over. The senior leaders are yet to be brought to justice so these places are a way to expose the truth and I guess bring a type of a social justice to the people.

Yesterday we caught another long bus ride to Siem Reap. 6 hours with a screaming baby and screechy Cambodian karaoke (we’re not winning at this bus travel thing haha). Poor Joel felt very sick and miserable the whole way here and was very happy to arrive and find a place to rest. We plan to have a lazy day today, maybe hire some pushbikes and go for a cycle around town before visiting Angkor Wat over the next couple days.

Til then,

Renée

Ps. I had thought my blogs would get shorter as they continued but it seems the longer between posts the more I have to say.. I guess it is me telling the story after all and we all know what that is like! :-P
Sorry all – hope you will continue to read x