Body clock woke me up early again at about 7:30AM...not sure why it keeps doing that, but today was worth it. Decided to find us another guest house since we were in a room just big enough to hold 2 beds and found a place right across the street. Met a tuk-tuk driver, Soran who said he could take us to shoot AK-47s and M-16s like we had heard about so I told him we'd talk to him after breakfast. Made the move to the new room and had some food on the patio overlooking the river making a plan for the day....shooting range, doctor for Mike and the Killing Fields. We met up with Soran, negotiated a price for the day and were off. First stop, the doctor who was closed so then Soran said we should hit the range first...I think he gets a commission. We got out there and were given a menu of weapons and prices....We went with the AK-47 and M-16 and shared a magazing for each. These weapons have massive amounts of power and I was surprised at the small recoil. Anyways, what a rush and I think Soran took note of it. We made our way out of the range to the Killing Fields when he mentioned his friend could let us shoot bigger weapons. We were intrigued so we told him to call his friend and we'd talk to him.
We wandered around the Killing Fields for about an hour and it was very gloomy. Crazy how Cambodia has such highs and lows, but from what I've read its going to be like this the rest of the way. For those who don't know, Cambodia went through a serious period of genocide in the late 70's where at one point up to 300 people were being killed daily by the Pol Pot regime for no real reason. Even crazier to think this could happen in modern times. The Killing Fields have been declared a national museum and as you wander around you can feel what happened in the air. On one side you could even hear children playing at a nearby school and on the back wall you could see the farmers tending to their crops...amazing that these horrendous acts could take place without anyone raising suspicion. Anyways, we left the fields and met up with Soran's friend who took us out of town about 50km to an army base to have some real fun.
This base was full of tanks and in the back of our Land Cruiser they loaded us up with semi-automatic weapons, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, grenades...who knows what else. We got out to the middle of nowhere and had a chance to play with them. I went with the rocket launcher and grenade...great choices! Never experienced anything like this before. The rocket launcher was so intense once you put it on your shoulder...pulled the trigger and saw nothing but smoke before seeing an explosion in the distance. The grenade was even scarier b/c once the pin was pulled and I released my grip I had 6 seconds to get the hell away. I tossed it into a pond and saw water shoot up at least 30 feet in the air. This by far has been the coolest thing I have done on the trip and will never forget it. Never thought that in my life I would be able to fire a rocket launcher, but I guess you can do it for the right price in Cambodia...looking forward to seeing what else this place has to offer!!
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