Phnom Penh

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As the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh is the usual SE Asian mix of rich, poor, plenty of mopeds and a decent nightlife. From what I saw, there are two main sections to the city which have become known as Riverside and Lakeside. John and Ceira had previously stayed in the Grand View guest house (Lakeside) and said it was comfortable enough. Andy and I dumped our stuff and went for a walk, leaving the other two to sleep; they were heading off for a couple of days trekking early the next morning.
The lake is pretty cool, lined with pretty much identical bars extending slightly out onto the water, it's mostly covered in foliage through which paths have been cut. You can hop onboard a tiny canoe style boat with a local kid and they'll take you round. After a couple of beers by the lake we took a moto to nearby Riverside. There's the usual, extremely colourful food markets as well as Central Market where you can buy almost anything. After half and hour or so of propping ourselves at a bar that had three times as many stunning barstaff as customers, I thought I heard a car backfire outside. Turns out it was a gunshot. The owner of the bar translated the policeman's inquiries and explained how a tuktuk had hit an expensive people carrier. The passenger of the tuktuk had been shot in the back of the leg by one of the bodyguards. None of the locals looked too surprised by the evenings happenings and normal service was resumed within half an hour.
The main purpose of our visit to Phnom Penh was to view a couple of the sites used by the Khmer Rouge to imprison, torture and murder thousands of Cambodians during the late 70's. We visited S-21, a museum which was once the largest prison used for torture, before its inhabitants were taken to the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek. The Killing Fields were pretty horrendous; human remains litter the paths you walk along. The tuktuk journeys to and from these sites were also very interesting; for some reason I remember laughing when I saw a guy getting his haircut next door to one of many hammer smiths. The blokes are all busy hammering iron and spot welding without goggles. We fitted in a game of poker and the standard of play was pretty shocking, needless to say we walked away empty handed!
That night we met a couple of lads from north London, we shared stories and talked about football. As big as Phnom Penh is, we agreed that it was used as a stop off for the majority of travellers. Most people do as we did, see the sights for a day or two and move on. Having booked a bus up to Siem Reap we were now looking forward to the Temples of Angkor.

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