Cambodia

I will mostly let the photos tell the story. And what a story! Our excursion started with a bus ride to Wat Krom (Wat means a Buddhist Temple). This was the entry to the Pagoda, the entire Temple area is called a Pagoda with a Temple, living quarters and Buddhas inside.

This was the Temple. Inside the ceiling was painted with various religious scenes and there was a Buddha.

In the courtyard there were several Buddhas representing various important images. All were explained in great detail. I remember none of it. But they were pretty.

Then we went to the Independence Beach. It was a long sandy beach with a few huts. There were a few swimmers. Like maybe 10. The huts had nothing in them except a certain amount of places to sit in the shade. Most chairs were in the sun as in the photo.

There was a nice long pier which was fun to get a good view of the area. But it was very hot and humid. So we only stayed out on the pier for a few minutes. Again it was a beautiful beach with nothing to do but swim and sunbath (as in get burned in minutes). This beach was made somewhat famous because Jacqueline Kennedy walked the beach in 1967. Obviously the Khmer Rouge took charge of Cambodia in the 1970’s and made a real mess of things. I remember the news reports from then and our guide told many stories about how terrible those times were. Enough!

Our last stop during the excursion was at the small fishing village of Tumnob Rolok. Yes, this was the worst photo I took. But I had to show it. Everywhere the locals just throw their trash on the ground and in the water. There are a few “houses” on the right and the fishing boats are just past the clothes lines. Once they catch fish they filet them and dry them on large screens out in the sun before selling them. With flies everywhere. The entire area smells of trash and fish. Nothing ever seems to get repaired as the photo shows. And the electrical wires are just sort of hanging down on the left side. We touched nothing!

Back to the ship and shower.

After dinner we went to the Traditional Cambodian Dance Troupe show in the theater on board. It was so completely different from the traditional Thailand Dance from a couple nights earlier. This was very slow moving with very enhanced hand and foot gestures. The ladies heads never moved. And the musicians sat cross legged on the hard floor for the entire performance. We did enjoy it even though we didn’t really understand the story of the hand movements.

The second day in Cambodia we planned on taking the shuttle bus into the market in Sihanoukville. Until we went to breakfast and talked with several passengers and even crew who had done that on our first day in Cambodia. They all agreed it was horrible. So we stayed on the sip and walked the deck 2 walking path around the ship. We did just less than 3 miles.