Cambodia Trip: Day 4, 8-12-2008 (Baray)

On the first day of our voluntary work,we helped to build a road for the villagers. We had a few lorries of sand and soil for our road. Our job was to put the soil on the muddy road and flatten it. For some parts of the road, it was quite easy as the earth below was firm and strong. But for some parts of the roads that were near the pond, it was muddy and unstable. No matter how much soil we put it and how hard we hit to flatten it, the soil kept on sinking. As we result, every time the Cambodian modified lorry passed by, it left two deep lines on the road. Since that was not something in our control, we had to be contented with what we had achieved. At nigh, it was time for English lesson. To our surprise, the villagers who came were from various age groups. Some were pre school students while there were also adults. Luckily, Serene was quick to react. She managed to entertain the class while learning some simple English. The response from the crowd was good and they clearly enjoy themselves. It was a rough and tiring day for all of us. However, we had learned a lot of things and helped the villagers. This was the important thing.

Cambodia Trip: Day 3, 7-12-2008 (Phnom Penh – Baray)

We left for Baray from Phnom Penh in the morning. The ride was an unforgettable experience. All the luggages were stacked at the back seats. Me, Sherri and Swee Leong who sat behind were constantly under the threat of falling luggage. A few times some of the luggage fell and hit our heads. At long last, we reached Baray Khmer Village Homestay. As it was our first day at Baray, we enjoyed ourselves before starting our work on the next day. We went for a horse ride in the village. It was fun and enjoyable. We also visited factory where they produced all the souvenirs to be sold in the city. The factory was opened by Auntie Esther and it gave job opportunities for the villagers. At night, we watched the performance by the locals. They performed some of their traditional dances and we were also invited to dance together. After the all the entertainments, we went to sleep so that we could get enough rest for tomorrow.

Cambodia Trip: Day 2, 6-12-2008 (Phnom Penh)

For the second day, we had a new tour guide, whom I had forgotten name. First, we went to visit the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The museum is a former high school that was changed to a prison by the Khmer rouge. This place really gave me an impact on foolishness and cruelty of human. I also realised that I actually had very little knowledge regarding the history of Cambodia even though it is very near to my country. I was ashamed of myself for being so ignorant of the sufferings of the people in Cambodia. In the museum, I learned a lot about Pol Pot and the Khmer rouge because the tour guide was very good in explaining things to us. She also stated that many of the high ranking people in Khmer rouge is still hiding in the jungle near Thai border. The Cambodian government is still trying to catch them. As for the normal Khmer rouge soldiers, they are not punished and still lives among the Cambodians. I want to quote some of her words ,' Cambodia is a Buddhist country. We forgive people for their wrong doings. We want to catch the high ranking Khmer rouge not because we want to punish them, but rather to find out exactly why they did those horrible things.' Later, we went to visit the killing fields where they uncovered the death bodies of the victims that were killed by the Khmer rouge. In the afternoon, we visited the royal palace. I noticed that all the tourist went inside using the side door as the main door will only be open when important people came to visit. The royal palace is a beautiful place. As Cambodia is a Buddhist country that is heavily influenced by Hinduism, we could see many statues of Buddha and also paintings of Ramayana story on the walls. In this day, I learned more about the history of Cambodia and also enjoyed myself in the royal palace.

Cambodia Trip : Day 1, 5-12-2008 (NTU – Phnom Penh)

We departed from NTU at 4am in the morning to Changi airport. After a two hours plane flight, we arrived at the Kingdom of Cambodia. Auntie Esther was there to welcome us. She introduced our tour guide for that day, 'Pixels' (I dunno how it spell but the pronunciation is something like this). He is a third year uni student studying tourism coming from Baray, the place we were going to offer our help. He brought us to go shopping in the Russian market and central market. As I sucked at bargaining, I didn't get a lot of good deals. It is fun to see how my fellow team mates bargained. The sellers charged us a higher price as it was evident that we were tourist and all us were wearing the same LDP shirt, marking us as 'water fish'. But if you are good at bargain, you should be able to lower the price by 30 to 50 percent. After shopping, we went for a boat ride on Mekong river. It was an enjoyable boat ride. We were watching the sunset on the boat while eating our dinner. My impression of Phnom Penh is that it is a city of contrast. The basic facilities there such as condition of the road, lamp post, buildings are worse than my home town, which is just a small town in Perak, Malaysia. However, as this is the capital city, I can see a lot of high tech gadgets being sold here. I even saw a advertisement showing that Macbook Air was sold in the shop. My feeling is that even though Phnom Penh the capital city and is full of shops, the basic facilities there fail to reflect the status of the city. This I think is the responsibility of the government of Cambodia.