A Day Around Phnom Penh

We have been in Phnom Penh for 2 days doing the tourist sights. Phnom Penh is a hell hole. Being the capital of Cambodia, it is packed wil people living there trying to make a dollar or two. It is en exact copy of Point Road in Durban, South Africa. Full of guns, drugs and prostitution. With the rich being super rich and the poor just dying.
We stayed at The Royal Highness Hotel, don't be fooled, there was nothing Royal about it! The room was average, for Cambodia, aircon, TV with a clear reception, a first! The sheets had cigarette holes all over and the pilow looked a bit faulty also, the bathroom was permanently wet due to the fact that there was a leak in one of the pipes and god knows who and why they decided to put the plug points in the bathroom just above the bath? Not the safest place to put it, I would think? Out side our door was a hallway with a huge hole in the roof and the place was dark and very quiet.
So, after a shower and a catch up on the news we head off for dinner. Not to far as we were told it is not a safe town and someone was killed the month before. We ate 50m down the road and went straight back to the safety of our room, well not as safe as one would like as the door knob was about to fall off.
We wanted to stay as short a time as possible in this mad town so we set off early in the morning to see the sights it had to offer. After pushing and rejecting hundereds of tuck tuck drivers requests to take us around, we made it by foot to the National Museum. Now I know where all the heads from all the temples have gone to! Not the most interesting of museums, but had to be done. At least now we could picture the stuatues at Anchor Wat, with a head.
Next we hired a tuck tuck to go see the Killing Fields but not before stoping off at Tuol Sleng Museum 'The Museum Of Genocide'. What a very very sad place, this used to be a school untill Saloth Sarhe, AKA, Pol Pot, converted it to a detention center. The stuff that went on here was truly disturbing. This son of satan did some sick things to the people of Cambodia. Beaten, tortured, raped and killed here. Is general idea was to return Cambodia to Year Zero. He had all banks, schools, hospitals, monisteries, etc destroyed and had all educated people killed. He wanted Cambodians to start from scratch, work the land and that was it! Those who were against him were killed. He even seperated famalies and if you cried or showed sadness, you were killed. This was one sick bastard. In three or four years he had killed of about one seventh of the nation but studies show it could be close to one sixth. He was worse than Hitler.
So after this very depressing tour, we went to Choeung Ek, commonly known as The Killing Fields. Another depressing tour. This is where truck loads of people were brought in and clubed on the back of their heads and thrown into mass graves, some dead, some alive. Then the Khmer Rouge threw DDT on the bodies for two reasons, one was to stop the smell of rotting bodies and the other was to kill the people that were not yet dead. There is a tree in the field of mass graves called The Magic Tree, this tree held a large speaker which made a noise louder than the screams of those who were being killed so other prisoners would not get scared. There is also a tall monument erected there to remember those who were so viciously murdered, it is filled with the bones ans sculls of those who were murdered and found in these mass graves.
Following that, we then went to the Russian Market. Almost everything is a copy of an original, DVD's, clothes, shoes, tools, watches, etc etc. Linda had lunch here, $2 for a chicken noodle dish and 1L water, that is dirt cheap. There is so much to buy here and costs nothing, only problem is I am not all that keen on carrying the stuff all over South East Asia for the next 2 and a half months.
Now was time to head back to the hotel as a storm was brewing. On the way back, it had rained a bit while we were on the tuck tuck, but closer to the hotel it has pissed down, the roads had now become rivers maybe half a meter to one meter deep in places. How the hell do the roads handel the rain when it rains for 4-5 days? I would not like to be there when it does..
So back to the hotel to wait for the rain to clear.
It didn't take long before the rain cleared and the sun came out and the humidity was killer. We took a stroll along the river, which was closed off due to renovation of the promonade. Anyway, a cozy coffee at a bakery and made our way back.
Now, so far on our travels, Linda had been called a liar, Linda takes it a whole new level this time. On the way back I sugested to Linda to buy a book as she had finnished her old one. So along the way there are hundereds of kidds selling genuine fake books. We found a old lady selling books and Linda bought one from her. So walking down the street, a small girl with books comes to us and tells us to buy a book, Linda says sorry, she has already bought one. The girl, not giving up, tells us to buy another one and Linda, trying to be ever so pollite says sorry again and no thank you. Bad move Linda, sorry was not the answer the little girl was looking for. The girl then says to Linda, if you say sorry then that means you are stingy, therefore you are stingy. Hahahaha.... Linda gets caught again, to sum it up in the Cambodian children's eyes, Linda is a stingy liar! Poor Linda, she is trying to help them all the time and I am the one whose patience has run out with them. Four words I use always, No Thank You, By, look angry and keep walking.
Oh well, you live and you learn!
Dinner was close to the hotel, very interesting the way they prepare the food. I ordered pork fried noodles and linda a green curry with rice. While waiting for the food, I noticed the waitress run across the road to the food stands where the locals eat. Thinking nothing of it, we carried on with our drink. A few minutes later I see her run back into the resturant with a bag, which appears to have food. Two minutes later our food comes to the table. My fried noodles was brought to me as noodle soup so I tell her I ordered fried noodles. She runs back to sort it out. Then Linda's curry arrives one minute later with my fried noodles. Mmmm..... I think how it all worked was, she took our order, ran to the food stall, ordered the stuff, ran back and put it in a plate. My noodle soup was drained and then put on a plate and called fried noodle with prk. I think I could be right.
Tomorrow we leave for Sihanoukville, Cambodia. This is a costal town in the South of Cambodia.

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