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Published: August 7th 2007
The bus to Cambodias capital city Phnom Penh from Battambang was uneventful except for the persistent beeping of the driver (70 time in 1 minute...yes, we counted!) and some strange squeaking noises which we later learned were some poor live birds in a bag a woman had smuggled onto the bus and hid under her seat! The journey was hot, in fact very hot, despite being sat at the back of an air con bus, we realised that we were also on top of the engine, this combined with the vinyl seats made our backsides sweatier than the average bus journey and when Neil took off his flip flops (thongs for the Aussies!) he burnt his feet on the very hot floor. Almost as hard to take was the Cambodian karaoke which blared through the bus at full blast!
Arriving into Phnom Penh near to the Olympic Stadium (even though Cambodia has never held and probably will never hold the Olympics in the near future), it became clear that Phnom Penh was less of a city but more of a big town and a hot and humid one at that! We stayed in a Nice guesthouse, conveniently located 45 minutes
Cows on the road
they are blooming everywhere...beep beeeep!walk from the riverside and 20 minutes walk to everywhere else! But for $8 we got an immaculate room with marble floors, air con, tv, fridge and hot shower. The owner however, did have an annoying habit of turning the power off to our room everytime we left, so that when we returned to our windowless room it was like a sauna and our fridge contents were spoiled. Neil had strong words with the owner and this silliness soon stopped, only to be replaced by city-wide power cuts which sometimes meant sitting in a pitch black room, sometimes for three hours!
We found a great supermarket chain called Lucky Market which sold all sorts of luxuries such as Mars Bars for 20p, Stolichnaya vodka for 4 quid and even McVities choccie biccies! We also found the Psar Thmey market, this is a market which is located in an art deco 1970's building (see the pics) and sells everything from fake designer goods to fruit and veg. On leaving the market we passed some cows on the road, which of course is an everyday occurance in other capital cities! We soon began to realise how annoying Cambodian moto drivers could
Neil and Ben at Phnom Penh riverside
very touristy...a little too touristy for us. be. A moto is a Cambodian form of transport which involves a guy on a very old motorbike carrying up to 3 people on an adpated seat which is big enough for Westerner's bums. Some observations follow about Cambodian moto drivers:
1. They lurk in vast numbers around major tourist attractions, markets, shopping centres and transportation hubs like vultures around a dead body.
2. They ask you if 'you wan' moto?' or 'you wan' some-sin'?'
3. When you say 'no, thank you' (the thank you gets dropped eventually when you realise that they don't take no for an answer). They stalk you down the street for at least 200m until they block your path and you get annoyed with them. At this point you either have to walk around their blockade and suffer more 'you wan' some-sin'?' or you use Donna's tactic and you push them off their bike whilst smiling sweetly!
4. Moto drivers run mafia-cartel type operations which involves private price agreements between themselves for how much they will rip off tourists by. This cartel like behaviour was more prevalent in Sihanoukville than anywhere else as you will read in our next blog.
5. A normal A
Foreign Correspondent's Club after a gruelling day
very spensive but with 2 for 1 drinks in happy hour we were persuaded..! After all Ben is an editor so isn't that Correspondenty? to B journey in Phnom Penh should not cost more than US$1. However, we have overheard other tourists paying up to $8 for similar journeys. Without wanting to be disrespectful, these have usually been Americans or non-backpacker tourists. This behavoiur will not only outprice budget travellers but eventually outprice the locals.Over the last 5 years we have already seen this happern to loads of transport in Thailand and this is a major issue for us! Neil, however, did manage to find a cheap transport option to take us to the sights of Phnom Penh, for 4 people in a tuk-tuk it cost $11 for the whole day. Long live the King, our driver 'Elvis' whisked us off to the Killing Fields, located about 12km south of our guesthouse.
On entering the Killing Fields, we soon realised the day would be depressing, upsetting but educational at the same time. It is unknown how many people the Khmer Rouge killed in it's genocide in the '70's, however it is thought to be between 1 and 5 million and nothing made this more vivid than the tower temple of skulls or walking around the fields where people were bludgeoned to death in
Bus to Phnom Penh
with chickens clucking under seats we sat above the engine at the back. We soon learnt what it was like to feel like being roasted alive! vast numbers (to save bullets). Look at the pictures we took to give you an idea of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. As a quick rest from the Killing Fields we visited the Russian market where yet more fake designer goods and fruit were being sold. Elvis then took us to the S21 prison.
This prison was originally a school but was turned into a branch of the Khmer Rouge called S21 who were responsible for the torturing and killing. Again, this was very depressing and very difficult to take in, especially seiing the pictures of people who were kept in the prison and who were eventually ktortured and killed. We aren't going to write too much about the khmer Rouge but you can watch the film 'The Killing Fields' or read some of the books written to get an idea of what happened during this dark era of Cambodian history. An era which has shaped how the Cambodians are today.
After the experiences of the day we needed a stiff drink or 7, so we got dressed up and went to the Foreign Correspondent's Club (better known as the FCC) at the riverside. It was very
Psar Thmey art deco market building
Ugly..but a paint job could work wonders! posh and a type of place which is usually out of our league, but it was half priced drinks in their long afternoon 'happy hour'. Cheapo backpackers or what?
The riverside area of Phnom Penh has obviously been way overhyped. The Lonely Planet's incorrect rantings again have not done much to help this either as the drinks and food are overpriced compared to the rest of Phnom Penh. Example. chicken curry at the riverside's costs $12-16 on average whilst the rest of Phnom Penh costs $2-3.
Walking around late at night in the capital was a strange experience because there is little street lighting, so walking places seems a little daunting at first, but once you get used to it, you realise its relatively safe. We did find it strange that most bars shut at 10-11pm, however we did manage to find a Karaoke/brothel kinda place selling jugs of Angkor for $2. It gave us lots of entertainment watching Cambodian hostesses dressed glamourously in long evening gowns entertaining Cambodian men. Note that most of these late night venues seemed to be for Cambodians only, however we gatecrashed this place a few nights and they didn't seem to mind
Inside Psar Thmey market
A little bit more attractive. too much.
What is unusual and unique to Cambodia from the rest of asia is the groups of Cambodians that hang around in the streets late at night. They range in age from 18-40 and play strange games which resemble 'Red Rover' or 'British Bulldog' but also seem to double as a mating ritual. We suspected this because wherever these games were being played there was a man sitting not 10 feet away who had huge boxes of condoms, anxiously looking at the group to be finished with their game so they could buy his quality 'Buddy' latex contraceptives. Sure enough 15 minutes later there was a huge queue for Condom-man! We often watched these games late at night because our guesthouse manager regularly locked us out of the guesthouse because we came in after 10pm and so we had to almost kick the door down to wake the receptionist so he could let us in. With no shame, he did this in his undies!
This pretty much covers everything we did and observed in Phnom Penh and after spending 10 days there we hopped on a bus to Cambodias premiere tourist beach destination of Sihanoukville.
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