Cambodia - Ruins and dark history

After the extravagance of Singapore, it was time for our trip to Cambodia.

Similar to our trip in Laos, we decided to split the journey between two destinations: Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. However, as you will read later, it wasn’t a good decision this time.

Siem Reap

Even if you have never heard about Siem Reap before, chances are you know about Angkor Wat – the biggest temple complex in the world and close to Siem Reap.

Siem Reap is a lovely little city with many cafes, bars, restaurants, and things to explore.

We probably had the best apartment ever in Siem Reap. It was one of the few times you booked an Airbnb, and it’s authentic.

Our hosts lived in the same house, so we chatted frequently and learned a lot about Cambodia, the people, and the country’s history.

Elephant Sanctuary

One of the most expectational experiences was our visit to the Kulen Elephant Forest.

It’s a sanctuary for elephants, mostly from Angkor Wat. The elephants spend most of their lives working in temples and transporting tourists.

We spent almost the entire day with our guide, learning how to prepare meals, how the elephants live in the forest, and what it takes to run a sanctuary.

Angkor Wat

The next thing on our to-do list? Well, being so close to the biggest temple complex in the world, there isn’t another option, right? Welcome to Angkor:

You can’t imagine how big the temple complex is without visiting it. We spent multiple (entire) days there, and we barely scratched the surface.

It’s an immensely massive area with countless temples, not just the main temple you probably know from a postcard or some documentation.

Here is an example of one of the lesser-known temples far away from the main complex:

This sums up our trip to Siem Reap. It was time to move on to the next location: Phnom Penh.

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia and has played a huge role in the country’s devastating recent history.

At least from my perspective, it’s a terrible place.

It might not be a fair comparison, but I got so much joy from Siem Reap and the things we’ve explored there that the capital completely underwhelmed me.

Having a terrible apartment and little to nothing to explore made things worse for me—at least I had plenty of time to get some much-needed work done.

However, we still visited two places:

The Royal Palace

Cambodia is an elective monarchy. As with all kings, you need a colossal palace for your family and yourself (that’s how it works, right?).

Well, I can’t tell if it’s huge, honestly. Despite paying some sweet tourist price, there is little to nothing to see inside as most things aren’t open to the public.

Here are a couple of shots I made:

Killing Fields

I added “History” to the headline for a reason. Cambodia’s recent history is marked by one of the biggest genocides after WWII.

I’m not here to give you a history lesson, but if you are interested in it, you might want to read a bit about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Almost a third of the entire country was murdered.

I wasn’t even sure if it is OK to include photos about it, but I decided that if you can visit a place as a tourist, it’s OK to share it with others and let them know about what happened between 1975 and 1979 in Cambodia: