Submitted by Mark Bacchetta on the 2013 winter session program in Cambodia and Vietnam sponsored by the Department of Entomology & Wildlife Ecology…
This week started with my study abroad having our first full day in Cambodia, specifically in the capital city of Phnom Penh. It was also our first day of formal class, consisting of a five hour class session in the meeting room at the hotel where I watched 2 videos about the Cambodian Genocide in the 1970’s, which most people to this day do not know about even though it was so recent. Other than class, I had the day to myself. This meant meeting up with my friends and riding in the back of Cambodia’s version of a taxi around the city. We stopped at the market, the Royal Palace, and the Mekong River.
Our next day, January 8th, was partnered with the Royal University of Phnom Penh’s students! We went out with their communication majors. These students described to us their student life, as well as took us on a tour of the city and their favorite spots in it. I went to The Spoon (restaurant), a riverboat on the Mekong, the Royal Palace, as well as the Central Market. It was extremely interesting to know how their life was!
January 9 was the saddest day of the tour. I visited S-21 and the Killing Fields, which are the prison and execution fields from the Cambodian Genocide. There, we talked with a survivor from the prison (one of the seven to survive out of the 20,000 to enter). He described to us how he was tortured because of the paranoia that surrounded the regime at that time when they thought innocent people had connections with the CIA. The killing fields were even more somber as mass graves were shown, the tree where babies were killed was described, and a memorial to the victims appeared. It was a 6 story tower with skulls on each floor.
January 10 was equally amazing as I went to a place in Phnom Tameo called “Free the Bears”. There we cleaned the bear enclosures, made bear food, played with deer, bird watched, as well as visited all the other cages of animals which included gibbons, leopards, tigers, lions, birds, and deer. It was easily my favorite day so far! January 11 was another free day, so I walked around the city with my friends again and visited more markets. Lots of items were bought that day!
The next day was spent on a bus for half the day on the way to Kompong Chung. There, we only spent one night at the hotel, because our activity was spent biking around the small town. Our tour guide took us across the Mekong River on our bicycles on a bridge made of bamboo It was extremely fun on the island where we ended up! We watched the sunset from the bamboo bridge in the middle of the Mekong. Finally, today was spent on the bus again, but this time we traveled up to the mountains! I was able to see a rubber tree plantation, coffee plantation, and a waterfall! It was incredible to see a huge mountain in Cambodia, which I thought was all flat.