10 for one dollar

Culture Of Cambodia




















Street Kids- we were told not to give the children who were selling things money or buy anything from them because it keeps them on the streets. It was very difficult when they came up to you and started to beg and not leave you alone. I found it difficult not to photographs them but I tried not to encourage them to beg. These pictures above are of my tour group being told "10 for one dollar" by two street kids. the girl on the furthest left was so persistent she followed us for about 10 minutes repeating "one for one dollar" "no thank you" "10 for one dollar?" She ended up trying to get on our mini bus smacking at the doors as they closed.

The People

So i have been traveling for 3 months around south east Asia and the U.S.A and thought I would have the time to write this blog but when ever i was on the internet it was contacting home so I didn't keep up with myself. So I'm going to catch you up on the best and most exciting moments of my trip. from the beautiful scenery to my favorite nights out starting from the beginning.


Cambodia was our first stop with our travel tour group through STA Travel Indo China trip. Me Ellie and Bean all set off to meet our group of 15 to be confronted by all lads, we suddenly looked at each other with a bit of panic thinking this was going to be quite different then we imagined (us being the only 3 girls,) we where relived when Niki, Lottie and Puja (three other girls joining us) sat next to us at the table made things feel a little more even. So we where all ready to head of to our exciting adventure to Cambodia...We crossed the border and where smacked in the face with a bit of a culture shock, it was so different from what we were used to, the place suddenly looked a lot poorer and everyone seemed t stare at us a lot.We saw a lot in Cambodia and crammed a lot of culture in a short amount of time.

• Land mine museum- A guy who was bought up as a kid solider who made and planted land mines everywhere during the Civil, now spends his life dismantling them for free (seeing as the government charges thousands of dollars to do one.) He's now disarmed well over a million with a very low budget and the museum is there to support land mine victims.
  
• Children's hospital benefit- a Cellist speaking and playing to raise money for the kids and to bring awareness to the massive need for people to give blood.
  
  
  
  
  
• Angkor Wat- Temples, We saw A LOT of temples, very interesting. I soooo wanted to do a fashion shoot at them but whilst having a tour guide taking you around in what can only be described as unbearable heat! it was a little difficult to organize. I would go back just for those backdrops to have in my photographs. They where all so rustic and interesting.
  
  One of the buildings even had what looked like Picture Framed doors. Each Temple was so complex and beautiful; I would have Loved to stay there longer if it wasn't so hot! What was strange about this day was when we were there everyone stared at us, in a kind way, often laughed at us, a lot of people took photos of us which felt very strange I have never really been a minority in the fact that I stick out so much that I amuse people or that I was that different they wanted a picture with me. kind of felt like being famous or constantly analysed well I guess that's really the same thing

Some of the most spectacular scenes I have ever seen were the Temples that had been crushed by these enormous trees. They shot tomb raider 3 in these, not surprising seeing how out of this world it looked.

• Angkor Wat?- A Bar called" Angkor WAT?" sold buckets (yes buckets full of whiskey), It gave us a chance to get to know the tour group and write all over the walls- leave our mark in Cambodia.

• 
  
  
• Eating Bugs- Spiders, cock roaches, Beatles I couldn't bare the roach but I tried the others tasted like... Chinese sea
  weed Its so deep fried you can't really taste it and that was fine by me.
  
  
• The Killing Fields- the history of Cambodia is so upsetting, It was very difficult to digest. I'm going to honest and say I had know idea of anything that went on over there before this trip which saddens me because it was only 30 years ago and I don't understand how things could have been that bad and I had never herd about any of it. If you don't know anything about it like me basically (this is very brief) In 1975 a horrific and tragic era of Cambodian history began in the reign of the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot Led them. He killed half the population, 3 million people. Pol Pot declared that history would begin again in Cambodia. The first year of revolution was now the first year of history. First he killed the educated and Old then he began to get power mad turning children against there parents and convinced everyone was out to destroy him, he and the Khmer Rouge tortured and killed millions of people in the prison and at the killing fields. It was devastating seeing the blood splattered walls in the prison and skulls displayed at the killing fields, what bought it home was our tour guides father had been killed and he was speaking so openly about it. You really saw first hand that this travesty had affected everyone here.

• Floods- The monsoon flood which happened in the space of 20 minutes. Dirty water to our knees which we trekked through so that we could get to our hotel after our coach abandoned us, not only where a lot of people pointing and laughing at us what we didn't realize was that the water disappears in a matter of hours so if we weren't so impatient we wouldn't have risked infection, disease or frankly embarrassing ourselves every time something brushed our leg and we screamed loosing a shoe in the dark smelly water.
  
• Bamboo Island- Beautiful Island In Cambodia, We took a boat trip to Bamboo Island where we got seriously burnt but we snorkelled, swam, all got to know each other really well and had a picnic on the white sands.
  
  This is our tour group:-
  Niki, Bean, Me, Simon, Jesper,Erin (tour leader), Matt Clark, Chris, Lottie,Puja and Jack (Ellie's taking the pic)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  • Cambodian Beach Party- The night we were burnt, we drank to kill the pain. Ellie was very funny that night she was full of gangsta poses, chasing lady boys, skinny dipping (kind of) and telling people to "not touch my soldiers"