Phnom Penh

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Chris here (for a change of writing) . The first part of Christmas day was spent on a bus between Kampot and Phnom Penh rattling along - local bus taking 5 hours. Unfortunately on arrival at our hotel I found my card holder and phone, which didn't work anyway, had gone missing and so the rest of the day was spent on the internet phone which is so unbelievably bad, trying to cancel credit cards. Lots of being put on hold and whats and pardons and I cant hear yous. Steve & Carol were also trying to get the mobliles working which also resulted in lots of tearing out of hair andrepeated dropped out calls. Can you imagine talking to an Indian call centre via Cambodian internet phone? It was one of the most frustrating things we have done. In the end the very helpful hotel staff got involved in the debarcle and started to make some calls on our behalf. Not that it solved anything with the phones either. 3 said phone Camshin, Camshin said ring 3 - which kept dropping out after long times on hold and going through various departments. Gave up for the evening.
Thank god for Ankhor beer and a nice sunset and food to calm the nerves.

The next day saw a very scary trip to the police station to report the theft. Quite an experience for police corruption. The police were not going to help unless I paid them a bribe of $25 - he laughed when I asked for a receipt amd the taxi driver nearly choked.
Further mobile phone frustration and lots of frustrating phone calls later a second hand phone and a Cambodian sim card were the order of the day. Finally in touch with home even though no business calls. So far over a day in PP and we have seen nothing, while deciding what to do next we discovered that the hotel was booked the next night and so a change of plan was required. Rather than move we decided to head for Siem reap the next day, booked a bus and also hotel as apparently at this time of year everywhere booked. We spent the last of the afternoon in PP going to Genocide Museum, Russian market and Watt Phnom where we saw an elephant and monkeys. Luckilly Carol had found a hotel with a pool for Siem Reap - looking forward to that, sounds like heaven.

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