TravelStream™ news feed for member mcverry on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/mcverry en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 30 Nov 2008 05:25:02 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227927600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227927600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227927600/tpod.html Sun, 30 Nov 2008 05:25:02 -0500 Stew & Catherine's Travels

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Bangkok, Thailand

Feeling better today. Woke up and went downstairs, took the gamble with a bit of breakfast; it stayed down. Spent the next couple of hours doing exactly the same thing as we've been doing for the last two days; checking the internet for any news, checking airline sites for any news (our airline, Etihad, don't even mention the Bangkok problem on their site; if you try to check flight status it just reads "information not available"), and phoning airlines. Again, no joy. Etihad won't even take our details in case there is a reason for which they might need to contact us.It's been widely publicised that the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the TAT, is offering free hotels to stranded tourists. We ring them. They give us two other numbers to ring. We try the first number; nobody speaks English. We try the second number; we get given a third number. We try the third number; it's the Thai Telecom operator. We phone the TAT again. We get another number. We try this number; there are no rooms available.Again I waste time trying to get through to Etihad. They literally could not be less use. We've spent nearly twenty quid on Skype phone calls in the last two days. Skype is cheap. That's a lot of phone calls. Thank God for Skype; it'd be more like 100 quid without it.I decide to go to the Etihad office. I've practiced a lot of reasons for which myself and Catherine should be put on a flight ASAP. (I've got patients coming to see me from Wednesday, I'm Best Man at a wedding on friday (the entire reason we booked the flights for the date we were supposed to fly), Catherine's not well). I'll be patient and calm. I'll try not to hurt or kill anybody and I'll try not to get arrested.Traffic is busy, being Bangkok. I need to clear my mind as I am a very angry man at this stage, so I walk the four miles or so there through the midday heat of Bangkok. I finally got to the point that Google Maps had indicated the office to be in. No sign. I ask in a local travel agent; the staff all start talking amongst themselves in Thai, and then the man I was speaking to tells me that the office is far away and I need to get a taxi. They start talking amongst themselves again.I reached across the desk and picked up two pencils. I inserted one into each of my nostrils. I cocked my neck back and was about to slam my face down onto the desk, instantly ending my frustration and my life at once, when he spoke to me again to tell me that he had been mistaken. He walked onto the street with me and indicated where I should walk to.Forty five minutes later, having walked the same route three times, I realised for certain that he was wrong. Again I asked. Most people had no idea, but gave a standard "you need a taxi" answer. Problem is, unless you speak Thai or know of a landmark near to your destination, the Bangkok cabbies don't have a clue either. Eventually I found someone confident that they knew where I wanted to go; I jumped on the Skytrain (not as glamorous as it sounds, like the underground on stilts) and twenty minutes later I located the holy grail.The office, on the eleventh floor, was full. I took a numbered ticket and joined the queue. I refused to be dissuaded by the lady telling me I should come back tomorrow, as I would be waiting for up to three hours. I told her it had taken me three hours to find the office, and I was happy to wait.Less than two hours later I got to sit at a desk with a lady from Etihad. I was pretty nervous; I don't like making people uncomfortable and I hate seeing self-important people talking about "their rights". I realise that Etihad have very limited options. But I do need to get home. What's the best way to play it?I gave the lady our flight details and passports."There's only two of you?" she asked. Odd question, I thought. She stood up and left her desk. She returned five or six minutes later."I will check you in now, there is a flight tonight but it is a secret" she said, holding her finger to her mouth in a "ssshhhh...." gesture. I wasn't sure if she was joking, if she had suddenly become demented, or if maybe I was still in the queue and had dropped off to sleep.What to do? We NEED to get home. But we don't know about Annie; she's with Cathay Pacific. We don't want to leave her here on her own. I texted her, she said to get the flights, so I did. We need to be at the Radisson hotel to check in, tomorrow at 6pm.I left the office elated. I found it difficult to believe what had just happened. The next-door tower block had a Cathay Pacific sign outside it. I phoned Annie and asked her to come and meet me. This was going to take a long time; it was now rush hour.Annie left the hotel to come and meet me immediately. Two and a half hours later she arrived. We pleaded her cause over and over, but the lady had little to offer. She understood Annie's plight, and went as far as to give Annie her personal email address and mobile number, she was very helpful indeed. Finally we left with tickets in two days for Annie departing from Phuket, a fourteen hour drive south of Bangkok.We were just leaving Cathay Pacific when Etihad phoned me."The flight is now tonight, you need to be at the Radisson at 10pm". It was now 7.45.We raced back to the hotel (the traffic was lighter now; we'd been at Cathay for about an hour and a half) and hurriedly packed. We made it to the Radisson at 9.30pm. We left Annie there, with the pink laptop (that's why there's a few days of gap prior to this entry; I'd written it, but it's on the laptop and I'm not going to be able to upload it til I get it back.)It was an odd set up. We actually checked in to the flight at the hotel, gave them our luggage, and boarded buses. I joked with a scouser in front of me that he was going to be cold when we arrived in Manchester, as he was in shorts and a T-shirt. He too had been phoned and had to go immediately to the airport, with no time to even change his clothes."I'm not bothered mate" he told me, "nobody knows I've got a flight home, I'm going to see my mate in London for five days, work don't know."Three hours later we arrived at the small military airport. It was chaos. There was a "queue" (it wasn't ordered; just a crowd really) of about 300-400 people. That was just to get in to the terminal. It was 1am.It was pretty mad in there. There were policeman standing on podiums in the middle of the crowd yelling through megaphones. We were going to be there for hours. And we were. At about 8am the flight took off. We'd been on our feet all night. But we were going home.Twenty minutes before we arrived in Abu Dhabi to change planes they announced that none of our luggage had been loaded on to the plane. Good luck to the scouser, getting to London in his shorts and T-shirt. But nobody was annoyed; we were all so glad to be going home.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227582000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227582000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227582000/tpod.html Thu, 27 Nov 2008 11:02:25 -0500 Stew & Catherine's Travels

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Bangkok, Thailand

We booked the hotel that we're staying in with Annie last time we were in Bangkok, about six weeks ago. We'd seen its reviews on tripadvisor.com and had walked over to reserve a room. It's a nice mid-sized hotel, 40 rooms in all, in a residential area about 5 minutes walk from Khao San Road (where we'd stayed last time). It's friendly, comfortable and clean. We're in a large "Superior Room", the three of us, with a double and a single bed. The hotel overlooks a canal and immediately opposite the hotel entrance a dodgy looking "bridge" made of wood and concrete joists crosses the water. Signs in the hotel advise against using the bridge, but most ignore them. The signs weren't there when we came here to reserve our room six weeks ago. I wonder if anyone's fallen in since? Landing in the rancid canal water would be a fate worse than, and probably followed by, death.Catherine was feeling a little ropey this evening, so myself and Annie went out to do a bit of shopping on Khao San Road. Like Blackpool on steroids, this place is, as I described last time we were here, full of freaks, dropouts and winos. Men in the street try to entice you to see "Ping Pong Show", others hold boards advertising "Strong Cocktail 50 Baht - we do not check ID". I wonder how many people can honestly say that they've walked down here accompanied by their mother-in-law?I was buying a T-shirt from a Thai lady who looked perplexed and asked whether I was with Annie. "Mother-in-law" I answered. I think the latter part of this sentence was lost on her."Ahhh, you look same" she replied. We don't. But why protest?Annie received a crash course in haggling and took to it like a duck to water. Catherine and I were concerned that she may feel guilty to haggle from people who realistically weren't making a great deal of cash. But no, she operated with a calculated stoney coldness.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227495600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227495600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227495600/tpod.html Thu, 27 Nov 2008 11:01:06 -0500 Stew & Catherine's Travels

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Bangkok, Thailand

We decided to go to Bangkok a day earlier than initially planned. There's a lot going on there, and with Annie's flight leaving about 5pm on Thursday it still gives her only two full days in the city.We booked a speedboat back to the mainland, Unfortunately there was no slow boat from Koh Mak so Annie had to endure the same again.There were far less people on this boat, maybe only eight of us. This clearly made the boat much lighter. The driver clearly enjoyed driving at speed, and we passed another similar boat half way. We were going much faster. The jumping of the boat on the crest of each wave, and its crashing back down on the sea hadn't been a big problem before. But this guy was fast. When we jumped of the end of a wave the boat rocked a little, leaning over to the left or right side before landing. This was a bit worrying. On a few occasions we land anged to one side and the engines cut out. Ordinarily I would probably have felt sea sick but, fortunately or unfortunately, I was distracted by the copious soiling that had occurred in my undergarments.The driver slowed down for the second half of the trip, maybe even he was feeling a little uneasy. On our arrival back on the mainland we caught a bus almost immediately to Bangkok. Five hours later we were there.On our arrival to Bangkok we had quite a bit of difficulty getting a cab; there were plenty around but none would take us where we wanted to go. This was a bit of a mystery to us. We eventually got one.When we arrived in the area of our hotel the cabbie had to drop us off a few hundred metres early as the road in front had been blocked off with a wall of car tyres, about three deep and six or seven high. There were security guards at the side of the wall who let us pass without any question. We walked through a large roundabout that had been entirely shut off, past a demonstration of some sort, and up a large dual carriageway. Twenty minutes later we were at the hotel.We asked at the hotel and were told that we'd passed an anti-government protest. We looked at the foreign office website; it recommended avoiding several areas of Bangkok. As it turned out, these areas were the roundabout and dual carriageway we'd just walked down.Kyle and Stephanie were in Bangkok, but just about to leave. We met with them for literally five minutes before they had to go for their bus. They told us that during the three hour bus ride they'd taken to get to Bangkok the bus had managed to collect four punctures. Seems we may have given them our curse.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227409200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227409200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227409200/tpod.html Thu, 27 Nov 2008 10:59:00 -0500 Stew & Catherine's Travels

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Koh Mak, Thailand

You may have noticed, if you have a lot of time on your hands, that I've become fairly slack when it comes to keeping the blogski updated. Or maybe not. Before, I at least wrote it every few days and uploaded it whenever I got the chance. Of late though I'm falling a good few days behind without even writing it. This is because, as carefully planned in advance by Catherine, since Annie arrived the trip has become more of a holiday.Anyway, today was much like yesterday, and the day before. We sat in the sun, did a bit of snorkelling, had some food, a few beers, and took it easy. Doesn't really make for much of a read I suppose. Sorry about that.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227236400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227236400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227236400/tpod.html Thu, 27 Nov 2008 10:56:10 -0500 Stew & Catherine's Travels

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Koh Mak, Thailand

When we went to bed last night we weren't decided if we'd hang around Koh Chang for a few days, or head to Koh Mak in the morning as originally intended - the boat over to Koh Mak was going to be much more expensive than we'd anticipated and we weren't sure that it was worth it. Our rodent friend had made our minds up for us pretty swiftly. The early boat had already gone when we arrived at the ticket office, so the only boat left for us to catch was the 11am speedboat. Annie isn't a big fan of speedboats following an incident in the past. But Catherine isn't a big fan of rats, and so Annie decided it was for the greater good.The boat left pretty much bang on time. It held about twenty people, we sat at the very front. It reached some pretty impressive speeds during the course of the rocky journey as the nose of the boat, where we were sitting, lifter up and crashed down on the water with every wave. One hour later we arrived on Koh Mak.We hadn't reserved accommodation, but had been told of a place with some free rooms, and so we headed there. Koh Mak is a tiny island, about 5km across, with only one or two roads throughout. We arrived at the Cococape resort and, having eyed pretty much every free room in the place, settled on a two-storey wooden hut, built on stilts on the hills overlooking the bay.This place is decent. They have what in modern parlance is termed a split-level infinity pool. They also have a bay of calm, clear, warm sea, and a reasonable bar and restaurant. And the whole place is so friendly and so laid back. It's not a big, maybe twenty or twenty-five rooms in all, but there's so much space that it's almost like you've got the place to yourself.I'm not really one for this type of holiday. I find it difficult lying around doing nothing, but it's about 30℃ at present and the sun's out, and when it's about 4℃ in a thick drizzle under a pea-soup fog at home I'd best not complain about being here or I'm likely to get lynched when I get back. Anyway, after all this travelling it's pretty nice to do nothing for a while.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227150000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227150000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227150000/tpod.html Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:01:48 -0500 Stew & Catherine's Travels

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Koh Mak, Thailand

We woke around 7am and got ready to leave. The taxi was booked for 9am to take us to the town of Pol Pei, on the Cambodia-Thailand border. There were a few options available, but for three people it wasn't much more expensive to get a taxi than it was to get the bus, but the bus took much longer. There's a long-standing rumour amongst travellers that airlines pay the Cambodian government a yearly amount, and in return they fail to improve this road, as a good quality road would be a disincentive to fly. Personally, I think that travellers are whingeing as they can't afford the air fare, and that more likely reasons are that 1) Cambodia is one of the poorest countries on Earth, and that particular road isn't a priority and 2) relations with the Thais aren't exactly good, so why improve the road leading there?Three hours later we'd passed a road that was actually better than most in India, and we were at the border. We walked across, entered Thailand and weighed up our options. There was a cab that had come from Koh Chang, the island next to our destination of Koh Mak, and was about to return. For a reasonable fee, we jumped in.Three hours later we had arrived at the small port of Ngop Laem and a 45 minute ferry trip later we were on Koh Chang. We would have to spend the night here as there were no onward ferries to our destination of Koh Mak til the morning.We started out looking for accomodation. We quickly learnt that this place was busy and expensive. And being busy, when we did find somewhere with free rooms there was no question of bargaining over prices. Most of the cheaper places we saw were horrendous.We settled for "Apple Bungalows". They use the word "bungalow" liberally in this part of the world. It essentially means a hotel where the rooms open into the outdoors, rather than into a corridor. It was 600Baht (£10) per room per night. We checked in to two rooms and went for some well needed dinner before going for an early night. Amazing how tiring sitting in a cab all day can be.At 1am Catherine woke me up."What's that noise?" she asked. There was a noise of rustling plastic in the corner of the room, where she'd left a pack of biscuits in a plastic bag."It's just the fan blowing a plastic bag, that's all." I tried to calm her with, not really believing it but far more interested in carrying on kipping. The problem was that as we spoke the noise stopped."The bag just moved" Catherine added, a little panicked, and immediately ending any plans that I had of getting my head back down in the next hour or so.We turned on the light and sat in the bed, weighing up what it could be that made this noise, and what "we" were going about it. I was looking at the offending corner of the room when the sight of a large rat made me jump. I placated Catherine by reporting that I'd just seen a small mouse, gesturing it to be a size about half that of the behemoth I'd just witnessed. The rat itself wasn't an enormous problem; I'd just have to pick up the plastic bag and throw it outside. But if it bit me, which it might if I picked up a bag that it was inside, then I was in real trouble.Catherine did the decent thing and left to spend the rest of the night in her mum's room. She urged me to join her, but sharing a bed with my wife and my mother-in-law would be weird beyond weird and not a direction that I think any of us wanted this holiday to head in.I sat there looking at this plastic bag, wondering what to do. I took a photo of it so that I could zoom in on the picture and see what the black shape I could make out inside the bag was. There was no movement with the flash, so I threw a book at it. Again no movement, so I figured it had gone. How it might have left I don't know as it had been on a table in a corner on the opposite side of the room to the crack under the door which was the only obvious rodent entry/exit point, and I had barely taken my eyes off the table.Anyway, I opened the door, went to the bag and swung it out of the "bungalow". Nothing. It had gone. I warily turned over the rest of the bags in the room to make sure it wasn't still in hiding, then I tried to get back to sleep.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227063600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227063600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1227063600/tpod.html Sat, 22 Nov 2008 00:22:35 -0500 Stew & Catherine's Travels

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Siem Reap, Cambodia

Yesterday and today were also spent templing. Four to six hours of templing a day. Kyle and Stephanie arrived in Siem Reap and we caught up with them. But it's safe to say that after three days of temples, temples, temples, I've had my fill of temples.I've also had my fill of Temples of Nantwich, the agency that we've let our house through. They promised us that they had loads of landlords abroad and that they'd keep in regular email contact with us; not a problem, they're used to it. After unsuccessfully trying to phone us a few times when we were in India they took to phoning my mum at home several times a week to discuss matters involving the house; we'd only given them her number for dire emergencies. We eceived no emails.When we finally got through to them that they should email us, Catherine received an email with a query after they'd eventually got tenants in (they promised us it'd take a few weeks, it took several months), so we replied within a day. A week later, the same question arrived from a different member of their staff in my email inbox. I replied. A week later they thanked me for my reply. The problem is, to the tenant it looks likewe're the slack ones, not Temples. They also insisted that my mum arranged and paid for an electrical survey of the house before they let it out. She did this, but they also billed us for it from the rent we received; ie they've already taken the money from us. I've been waiting for over a week for them to reply to my email. They are, in a word, CRAP.So in comparison, the temples of Angkor are a dream. I'm glad I saw them.Tonight we say goodbye to Kyle and Stephanie; tomorrow we head over the border to Thailand and on to some islands for a few days of chilling out before going to Bangkok. We met them at the Dead Fish, a bar/restaurant that was essentially a medium-sized, high-roofed warehouse, which had been filled with about 15 platforms all at different heights; there were no floors as such, just a series of wooden surfaces, each large enough to seat about 10-12 people, all at different levels, connected by a network of ladders. It looked a bit like I imagine a 3D version of Jet Set Willie would look✳.Walking to the toilet was not as straightforward as it might have been. It involved walking around and over a pit containing 25 crocodiles of various sizes. It seems they used to be native to the Mekong Delta but have been killed off completely in that area. Normally I would have pity for such a species, but a lot of people live in the Mekong Delta, they're already up against it with a lot of malaria in the region. If I lived there, I'd want rid of the crocs too. Anyway, this bar took a few and "looks after" them. It obviously draws the crowds. For US 50 cents you get a bowl of fish which you can feed to them. It's good fun, but it's frightening how quickly these lifeless buggers bolt into action once the scran is served up.A few beers and we said our goodbyes. It must be a month since we met the Oz-mericans, and we've spent most days with them since. It's almost weird how we didn't tire of each other's company at all in that time. Obviously I can't speak for them, but tire of the company of Catherine and Stew? Please...✳Jet Set Willie is a ZX Spectrum computer platform game from the 1980's. I trust you knew that.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1226890800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1226890800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1226890800/tpod.html Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:15:59 -0500 Stew & Catherine's Travels

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Siem Reap, Cambodia

Everyone who comes to Siem Reap comes here for one reason; Angkor Wat and all the surrounding temples. And so we were here, doing the same. The temples are a real lifeline for Cambodia and pull in about 2 million foreign tourists a year, bringing in a lot of cash and creating a lot of work. As was the case with Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, the tourist crowd was very different here; a lot of very pricey hotels, a lot of older, wealthier folk; not just the backpackers.There's really not that much point in describing all the temples, and impressive thought they are they start to blend into one at the end of the day. At least for an uncultured idiot such as myself. They all date from between 11th and 16th century, and many of them are still in pretty good nick. The central area just outside Siem Reap is about 10km by 8km and home to about 50-60 temples. More temples are found outside this area, extending for some 40km. Maybe more. It's a lot of temples, it really is.We were given a booklet at the hotel with selected itineraries of which temples to see, so decided to stick to it. We saw about five before finishing at Angkor Wat, the biggie, for sunset - like the booklet said. To be honest, I thought it less impressive than some of the others we saw today, but then what do I know?Angkor Wat is big business. As a result, lots of things are named after it, from pubs to hotels to other tourist type things. One of the two most popular beers here is called Angkor. Its pronounced as you would say "anchor". This is a problem, as the other one of the two most popular beers is called Anchor. This is, predictably, pronounced as you would say "anchor". Either one was just trying to steal the other's market share (in which case, good job) or someone needs sacking. So sad that after a day of seeing the temples of Angkor this is what I bring home.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1226804400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1226804400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1226804400/tpod.html Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:03:06 -0500 Stew & Catherine's Travels

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Siem Reap, Cambodia

The minibus was due to pick us up to take us to the bus to Siem Reap at 12 noon. It was forty minutes late but we were relieved to see it arrive at all. We got to the bus, a "two-storey luxury coach" to fins that it was, to our surprise, the same bus as they'd shown photos of when we bought the tickets. Only the pictures had probably been taken some twenty years previous. It was banged up and dented on the outside, and had duct tape covering large cracks on the windscreen. But it was comfortable and only about half full. I managed to get the seat next to the emergency exit, so had about two metres of leg room.We left at 1pm. The bus went at a good speed and it was a comfortable ride, especially considering the general condition of Cambodia's roads. The only downside was the six or so TVs in the bus playing what looked like Cambodia's answer to The Chuckle Brothers for pretty much the whole trip, with the sound coming irritatingly loud through the bus's speakers. But other than this it was fine, and I even managed to catch up with some of this blog.In fact we arrived 30 minutes EARLY. Unheard of. We checked into the hotel we'd booked (now that Catherine's mum's with us we've made sure that everything's booked in advance, nothing is left to chance) and headed to its restaurant on the top floor, where we had probably the best Indian meal we've ever had outside India.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1226718000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1226718000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcverry/1/1226718000/tpod.html Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:00:14 -0500 Stew & Catherine's Travels

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Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Having lounged around in the apartment this morning, we decided we'd best leave the house and so went to S-21, which is around the corner from where we were staying. Catherine wasn't feeling too good and didn't really fancy it anyway, so I went with Annie (Catherine's mum). Tuol Sleng, or S-21, was previously a secondary school in a residential district of Phnom Penh. Under the Khmer Rouge, during Pol Pot's regime, its function was switched and it became a prison (Security Prison 21; S-21). Between 1975 and 1979 around 20,000 people went through its gates. They were tortured there, usually for between one and four months, before being killed. At any one time there were between 1,000 and 1,500 people held here, yet when the Vietnamese liberated Phnom Penh in 1979, only seven prisoners were still alive.The museum (as it is now) pulled no punches. The classrooms on the ground floor each contained a picture of the same room when the Vietnamese arrived. Almost all showed a body shackled to the bed; you could identify the bed on each photo as being the same one that's still there, in the same room.The first and second floor classrooms had been divided into cells, divisions made by bricks on the first floor and wood on the second. The empty cells had a footprint about the size of a single bed, the divisions were about seven feet tall.Other classrooms had been cleared and contained mugshots of the prisoners as they arrived at the prison; some were about three or four years old. There were pictures of people after torture and after being killed. Pictures of the captors showed many of them to be only 13 or 14 years old. The prison detailed that after a year or two of being captors many of these were turned on by their own, and ended up being detained, tortured and killed by their own.The museum went on to describe Pol Pot's vision. He believed there was no use in academia, and that everyone should farm in order for the country to prosper. The capital, Phnom Penh, was evacuated and it people forced to live in the country. Any members of the previous government, doctors, teachers, students, monk, anyone with any education whatsoever, even anyone who wore glasses, was taken as prisoner. The vast majority by-passed prison and were taken directly to the killing fields. Pol Pot believed it to be better to wrongly arrest ten people than to let one "enemy" go free. Between one and three million died or were killed, of a population of eight million at the start of the regime.So this is why 50% of Cambodia's population is under 25, why the policemen here look like they should still be at school. It's incredible that they could even begin to build a country after this; so many people were killed and almost nobody amongst those left had any kind of education or skill outside of farming. Where they started I don't know. How do you establish schools, colleges and Universities let alone a currency? But despite ongoing corruption the country looks, to an outsider, to be doing well.
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