This morning we visited a village outside of Kampong Cham.
Some of the children followed us as we walked through the village. They would take turns holding our hands.
Each family had their own rice paddy field.
Rice paddy fields
We visited one village family who supplemented their income by making beaded necklaces, bracelets, sewing small bags, carving wooden utensils. They also let us visit their home upstairs.
The family busy working.We purchased one of their necklaces.Her sewing machine was foot-pedal operated.The family kitchen.Living area was also the bedroom with a mosquito net.glass clothing case with another mattress A separate room for the grown daughters.
In the village was the local store or as our guide called it, “7 Eleven”!
The store’s goodsMore from the storeIn these reused bottles was gas for the motorbikes that they sold.
There also was a traveling market going through the village.
Traveling Market
We visited the Twin Holy mountains, “Phnom Pros and Phnom Srey”. They really are hills but because the area around it is so flat they seem like mountains. We were told the story of the local folklore about how the hills got their names. It was said that a mountain-building competition was organized between men and women to determine who of the two should propose marriage. One mountain was made by men, and the other by women. They had a day to build their hill and whoever built the highest hill would become the winner. The loser would be the one to ask the for the opposite side’s hand in marriage. The competition would end when the Sirius Star rose which was very early in the morning. The women had placed a lantern high so that when the men saw the light, they mistook it for Sirius and stopped working. So the women won. Their mountain is taller and named Phnom Srei (Women’s Hill). The man’s mountain was called Phnom Pros (Men’s Hill). Thus the men still had to ask the woman’s parents for permission to marry.
Phnom Srey (woman hill) and Phnom Pros (man hill) both have pagodas on them but the Phnom Pros was more ostentatious.
In between the two hills was another killing field by the Khmer Rouge. Thousands were massacred here. Phnom Pros from 1975-1979 was used as a detention place for torturing Cambodian people in the Kampong Cham province.
The temple was used as a detention center during the Khmer Rouge.
We spent our time at Phnom Pros. Here we visited the Temple and the Buddha Garden.
Outside of the temple that was used as a detention center.
Steps up the hill to Phnom Pros.
Buddha Garden
The library was located at the base of the hill. The library had four smiling faces.
Library
There were many Macaques monkeys running around. We were told to leave our water bottles on the bus because they would steal them and you don’t want a chance of a scratch or bite.
As we left the hills we saw statues in roundabouts as we were heading back to the riverboat.
1979 liberation from Pal Port
This afternoon we had free time so we walked over to the Pagoda and walked all through the grounds. There were some lavish stupas and we also saw the decorated dragon boat that they use for the Dragon Boat Festival.
Afterward we walked into the local market and looked around.
This evening was the Captain’s Cocktail Party that included a farewell toast because this was our last night on the Viking Saigon. It was hard to believe that we would be disembarking tomorrow.
When we arrived we got off the riverboat and walked into town. As we walked along the road we passed many stupas. A stupa was a place of burial and there were many of various sizes and colors as we went by.
We also passed by a school and the students were interested in us just as much as we were with what they were doing.
In town we got on a tuk-tuk for a ride that was sometimes bumpy, to the Oknha Tey weaving village and it was also known as Silk Island.
Our tuk-tuk and our adorable driver! She didn’t realize we could hear her singing as she drove along!
We saw the silkworms and the process it took to raise cocoons and make silk by using traditional worms. It was a very interesting process.
The silkworms with mulberry leaves
The silkworms lay their eggs in the mulberry trees. The silkworms lived in man-made habitats.
The worms eat a lot of mulberry leaves for a little over a month.
Minea showing us mulberry leaves and its fruit.
Then they begin making a silk fiber to wrap around themselves making a cocoon.
The workers unwrapped the silk fibers from the cocoons by boiling them to loosen the thread.
Raw silk
The threads were then wrapped onto a large spindle. They used natural dyes for most of their silk threads.
Each family had their own foot pedal loom in their home. These villagers also were farmers and fishermen.
The weavers sat at handmade wooden looms. We watched them weave some intricate patterns.
44 rods, peacock design
Below was a quick video showing the process of weaving.
Also, we had time for shopping to help the local economy! I think our group did a great job helping their finances.
One of the village stores.
Back on the riverboat we watched a local take his horses into the river to cool them off and he also washed himself at the same time!
The road that just stopped!
The road just ends.
Late this afternoon we attended a lecture and the topic was “Life at the Mekong River”.
Mammals in Cambodia
Today wasn’t as busy so we enjoyed some time in the afternoon to sit up on the sky deck and read.
We met our Cambodian guide, Minea. She had a great sense of humor and was very informative.
Tony, our program director, and Minea, our Cambodian guide
When we got off the riverboat we were met by cyclos and their drivers. We each rode in a cyclo through the city where our first stop was the Royal Palace.
The traffic as we traveled on the cyclo was busy and sometimes scary.
Walking up to the Royal Palace
One of the entrance gates to the Royal Palace
The Buddhist monks were walking from their school as we were walking up to the palace entrance.
The monks leaving school.
The Royal Palace was a complex of buildings and many of the buildings did not allow photos inside. One of those buildings was the King’s residence. The flag wasn’t flying so he wasn’t there.
Map of the Royal Palace
Our entry ticket
Strict entrance requirementsThis woman had to purchase these huge drawstring pants because she had on shorts!Wrapping the pants around her.
The Silver Pagoda or Temple of the Emerald Buddha was located in the Royal Palace. In 1962 it was rebuilt out of concrete and Italian marble. It was formerly made from wood. It was one of the few buildings that wasn’t destroyed during the Khmer Rouge regime. The Khmer Rouge regime lasted for four years, 1975-1979 and took the power away from the Cambodian people. We learned more about what happened during that time period this afternoon.
Silver Pagoda
It was called the Silver Pagoda because of its floor which was covered with 5000 tiles but when we went in most were covered for protection. No photos were allowed inside.
Throne Hall, used for official ceremoniesImpressive gardens and palm tree
On the Royal Palace grounds was a mini model of Angkor Wat. We visited it later on in our trip. Our guide told us this was a great model to see the full depth of Angkor Wat.
The funeral stupa of King Suramant was located on the grounds as were other deceased royalty. A stupa was a monument that housed the ashes of the person.
Stupa of King Suramant
Walls around the complex contained a mural that depicted the Indian epic poem called Ramayana, or Reamker in Cambodia. The story was too long to retell here. Feel free to look it up online because it was interesting to read about. The mural was created in 1900 and parts had been restored.
Restored panelRestored panelnot completely restoredNo restoration had begun
Have you ever seen a cannonball tree? We did at the Royal Palace. A cannonball tree’s flowers and fruits grow directly from the tree’s trunk. Their name cannonball came from their brown and round fruits.
Cannonball treeCannonball fruit and flower
Each of our cyclo drivers picked us up and took us to the National Museum which was made out of red sandstone. It was the largest museum of cultural history and the finest collection of Khmer sculptures.
The museum suffered a lot of damage during the Khmer Rouge regime. The Australian government and other patrons helped undertake a major remodeling during the 1990s. The Cambodians want to maintain the exhibits in the museum and one was the largest collections of Khmer artifacts in the world.
Near the Royal Palace was the Wat Ounalom. It was one of five original monastries in Phonm Penh. It was damaged during the Khmer Rouge period but had been restored. It was established in 1443 and consisted of 44 structures.
Wat Ounalom
Our cyclos took us back to the boat around lunch time. We saw some more interesting sights as we headed back.
Markets selling wares/food along the road.His business was located in his wagon and he relaxed in his hammock!The truck bed was also his flower/plant shop!
After lunch we had a somber visit to the Tuol Sleng Detention Center Memorial. In 1975 Tuol Svey Prey High School was taken over by Pol Pot’s security forces and it was turned into a prison and was known as S-21 (Security Prison 21). It was the largest center for detention and torture in Cambodia and the most famous.
Pol Pot was the dictator who ruled Cambodia from 1975-1979 and his regime, Khmer Rouge, was responsible for the killing of between 1.5 and 3 million people. They created 189 prisons.
Between 1975 and 1978 over 20,000 people from S-21 were taken to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. The Khmer Rouge kept meticulous records of their torture. Each prisoner was photographed when they arrived to S-21 and sometimes after they were tortured! The museum had these photos displayed.
Only 7 prisoners were alive when Phnom Penh was liberated by the Vietnamese army. Two of those survivors, Chum Mey and Bou Meng were still alive and they were at S-21 promoting their first-hand accounts of their prison time!
Our last stop was to one of the Killing Fields, Choeung Ek Genocidal Center.
It was here that the Khmer Rouge regime killed thousands of people.
The memorial with glass sides houses skulls froj victims.There were 5,000 skulls placed in thes memorial of executed victims.
We purchased a lotus flower to place in the memorial urn.
They saved bullets by doing it in the fields and most were hit in the back of the head or swords were used and the victims were then mass buried in shallow graves. We walked through the memorial.
At least 20,000 Cambodians were killed here! Our guide explained that the tree with all the bracelets was where the Khmer Rouge killed small children by beating them against the tree. She visited here on a school field trip and she was very emotional telling us about what happened at this tree.
It was a somber ride back to our riverboat and everyone needed time to process the atrocities of what we heard and saw this afternoon. We were warned it would be an emotional excursion.
We ended the evening on a high with a performance by Cambodian children of traditional folk dances. The youngest performer was four years old. He was a monkey!
