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A country mode of transport and the History of the Khmer Rouge regime

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The next day was a difficult day for many of the visitors as we knew we were in for a sobering time to see the "killing fields" of the terrible internal war that was the Cambodian tragedy of the Khmer Rouge regime.... but before we saw that, we were in for a treat with a convoyed trip by Brahmin cow powered cart rides along a dirt road....!  The Cambodian country folk are used to making transportation out of almost any opportune moment. As tourists, we were presented with a rather unusual form of transport - being transported on a thinly veiled cushioned cart being propelled by two Brahmin cows and a cart master. We were loaded two at a time on to a cart, ladies first then the man. Once assembled the convoy of 16 or so carts started to to traverse the route, with the cart master making various cow-like noises in an attempt to relay the route in cow-talk. I'm not sure who was having more fun.... the tourists on the carts or the locals laughing at how stupid ...
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A Buddhist Temple visit and a unique Khmer Village

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Our next adventure transitioned to visiting a Buddhist temple for a water blessing. Up 392 steps to get to the temple and much heat, revealed a wonderful temple with a couple of young monks aged 16 and 25. The younger monk entered the monastery at age 12 and the older monk when he was 18. The area was covered in wonderful frescoes and statues.  The monks performed an amazing chanted water blessing ceremony in which for 15 minutes they chanted rhythmically in a language called "palo" that is reserved only for monks to use. There was intermittent water "flicking" with what appeared to be a sort of wicker bush.  At the end of the ceremony they offered a red bracelet as a memento for a donation to the monastery. It is incredible to see how the Buddhist culture is fully supported by the local communities and the government. A truly culturally intensive way of life.  We continued on our journey in the afternoon to visit one of two villages that were not c...
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The Cambodian Royal Palace

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The Royal Palace in Cambodia is one of the most ancient of Royal Palaces in South East Asia, built in the 1487. It consists of a a series of smaller palaces (4) around a central palace and a specific place of residence where the current King lives when he is in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The blue flag flies high when the King is in residence... and he was in residence during our visit! The Palace gardens where just amazing, the decorations inside the palace were intricate and mostly gold (real gold) and some silver (real silver). One of the palaces was called the Silver Palace - this palace was named so due to the abolition of currency in around 1978; let me explain.... apparently, Pol Pot came to power around this time and decided to abolish any form of currency. As a result there was a whole country with literally silver coins as currency that was no longer valid. The King of the time decided to collect all the now useless sliver coins and re-fashioned them into a series of ...
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Amazing Cambodia - Christmas Extraordinaire

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Amazing Cambodia! We arrived in Cambodia on a very pleasant Silk Air flight from Singapore on Christmas Day.... We even had the "Special" Christmas lunch on board the flight! And it was a decent attempt at a roast turkey dinner... turkey, 'sort of roast potatoes', broccoli and carrots and a sponge pudding with a red chocolate 'snowflake' button on top.  The snowflake seemed a bit strange for a lunch created in a tropical environment where clearly there was never going to be any snow unless a world wide ice age took place during my lifetime! We had a rather interesting trip to the B&B that we stayed in.... We land in Cambodia and need to grab a Cambodian tourist visa first. The whole process is actually extremely well organized even though no one can actually speak the same language. Everything is done on a 'line of sight' process - meaning: 1. hand over passport to someone behind a glass screen, who asks you what kind of visa and then af...
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