Pictures From My Cambodia Honeymoon

I went to Cambodia for my honeymoon. I got a LOT more pictures but I haven’t had the time to sort through them yet. So here are some selected pictures..

Enjoy.

Fine handwork and carvings from the Artisan centers, I actually bought one of them. Made of out sandstone, my sculpture of the Angkor Wat statues weighed more than 5kg and its in my office right now.

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Boat ride down the floating village.

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And the famous Angkor Wat, surrounded by a massive moat which apparently used to be filled with crocodiles.

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The Elephant Terrace near Angkor Wat.

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The infamous “Tomb Raider Temple” minus Angelina Jolie.

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The holding cells at the Tol Sleung museum (S-21 Prison) where a rather large and beautiful school was transformed into a place of horror during Pol Pot’s regime with the Khmer Rouge. People were captured and tortured for o apparent reason, after which they were usually executed in the Killing Fields.

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Skulls of genocide victims on display at the killing fields. People were told to dig graves, after which they were decapitated and buried. Some graves found contained the bodies of children too, so you can see how insane things were in the 1970’s (not too long ago) here.

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One picture from taking a boat ride down the Mekong river.

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One thing I loved about Cambodia is that they are proud of their culture and legacy, and they turn dark moments in their history to the driving force of their economy. Lots of Buddhist / Hindu influence here and the Cambodians love to talk about it.

In Malaysia however we try to cover-up or change our history, which is as much influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism as Cambodia was. But the government isn’t proud of the fact, so they change the history books, placing less and less emphasis on the pre-Islamic times.

Last I heard from my cousin, they are probably going to remove the name “Parameswara” (founder of Malacca and an important figure) from the history books since it’s a very Indian-sounding name and probably not suitable for our altered version of actual events.

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7 Comments »

2008-10-10 14:18:50

Changing Parameswara’s name? What the heck… that’s his name. If people don’t know about him, how the heck the government want to explain about how Mr. Parameswara a.k.a Sultan Megat Iskandar Shah ran away from Majapahit (betul ke? I’ve forgotten about it).

 
Comment by Kok Choon Subscribed to comments via email
2008-10-10 16:17:55

oh boy… You went to Cambodia for the honey moon! Nice pictures, any souvenir for us??

Is Angkor Wat big or what?

 
Comment by olie
2008-10-11 01:22:20

Nice picture. I wish if I could visit Cambodia too :)

 
Comment by catzer
2008-10-12 17:45:09

wow…what are nice place..My sister also being there for her honeymoon..I think i will follow your step there. :P

Anyway, i would like to invite you to society site for Internet marketer here:

http://iemalaysia.ning.com

Come and join us..:D

 
Comment by Raji
2008-10-13 07:27:32

Wow!! Looks like a great place to visit!!

 
Comment by cambodia traveler
2008-10-17 08:29:07

So nice, I’m glad that we all like Cambodia’s culture and legacy too, all photos are sweet, except for the skulls of genocide victims, wish you guys had a happy journey there!
Cheers,

 
Comment by eyeman
2008-10-17 20:10:30

i hope i will manage to reach cambodia too. Hope i can go to many countries..

 
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