Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville shananigans

Hello there. So since I last blogged we got the bus from Saigon to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. We had heard alot of stories about some of these borders being really corrupt and dangerous but it went really smoothly and we got our Cambodian Visa relatively quickly on the border. So when we got to Phnom Penh, as soon as we stepped off the bus we were absolutely hounded my tuk tuk drivers wanting us to go to their hotel but after we got away from that mob we found a pretty sweet place for $6. Phnom Penh was quite a cool city really and we enjoyed it but after being in Saigon for 9 days and then going to another bit city, a capitol city, we were quite looking forward to getting away fromt the city life.

One thing that was great about Phnom Penh was the great street food. There was a kind of street food court not far from our hotel where you could get a really interesting and tasty meal for about 50p, it was great. Although one time I ordered a wonton with noodles meal and ended up getting this horrible soup with all sorts of parts of an animals body, it was disgusting. But other that that all the street food was really good!

Also there was thing amazing place in Phnom Penh where you could pay 2000 riel (about 30p) to play pro evolution soccer, it was so cool! So Jay and I had a few games there, which was good because I was starting to get withdrawl symptoms!

We went on a really good night out there too. We started at a place called a Khmer bar. Its a place where it's pretty much all Cambodian guys drinking beer which can be a tad intimidating but the guys are really cool on the most part and like to cheers about every minute haha! These places are great because you can have really cheep beer and and also try some different food. When we were there the waiter suggested we try the 'hot fried duck' so we went for it. It was really good but like alot of the meat here its from all over the duck so there were some quite interesting bits! From there we went to few bars on the riverfront and off the this club called 'Heart of Darkness' which was awesome. It was funny though because on the door it had signs that said 'no guns and no grenades' which was rather dissapointing because I really wanted to bring my grenade ha! Really good night though!

Another day we went on a tiring walk around Phnom Penh and saw all the sights and museums there is to see there. It was a really goo day, we saw a few buddhist 'wats' but the incredible things we saw was the S-21 torture camp museum and the Killing fields, they were incredible. First we got a tuk tuk to the killing fields, here we got a guide who explained everything which was really good but even with explantions it was so hard to comprehend what went on there. There is a monument there that has almost 9000 skulls, some of them are absolutley battered, some have drill holes, some bullet holes, it really was some crazy stuff. Still there are so many bodies not dug up and because of the rain in the monsoon seasons in the last few years you walk around and there are small bones and teath coming up from the ground, its crazy. Some of the stuff the Khmer Rouge did here was unbelievable and hard to even comprehend, for example, they used to kill babies by taking them by their feet and swinging them into trees, some truly disgusting stuff. The craziest thing for my that how recent it was, less than 30 years ago. They said there that on average about 100 people were bing killed here a day during the Khmer Rouge's reign. After the killing fields we went to the S-21 torture camp museum which is where the Cambodian people were tortured before being taken to the Killing fields to die. I had read about this place that it is so silent because what your seeing there is so horrifying that noone can speak, I thought that might be a bit of an exageration but it was totally true. There we saw cells people were kept in, pictures of thousands of Cambodians tortured here (before and after torture), torture methods used etc. It was an incredible experience.

After this we took the 4 hour bus to Sihanoukville. This place had been amazing, one of my favourite places so far. Its definately the best beach place we've been, the water is amazing. Its an absolute beach bar kind of place, with really cheap beer (most happy 'hours' were 7am to 11pm, more like a happy day!) and really good food right on the beach. The only bad thing is that the weather hasn't been that great, we're leaving tomorrow after 4 nights but I think if the weather had been a bit better we would have stayed for alot longer. Yesterday was really good though, we got some bicycles and rode along the coast in search for the this restaurant we had heard about where there are snakes and crocodiles everywhere, even under your table while you eat. We found it and it was really cool, after our meal we walked around to look at all the snakes, at one point this Indo-chinese cobra shot up and spat at us and we both jumped, it was funny! After that we biked downtown and went to the market and then back to the beach. That night we went out for halloween, started on a bunch of beach bars drinking buckets of whiskey and coke and beer. These bars are great, they've got people tossing fire sticks, great music and one place even undercharged us and gave us a good bye shot of vodka, good times! Later we went to a club and partied till sunrise.

One thing thats been really confusing in Cambodia is that they use two currencies here, US dollar and Cambodia riel. You might pay in dollars, which is what you get from the ATM's and get back half combodian riel and half dollars for your change. It takes time to work out if your being screwed on not, which is quite worrying after a few beers at the beach bars! But I think we've got the hang of it now. So we've just booked the bus to Siem Reap for tomorrow morning which I'm dreading a bit because its a 11-12 hour jouney starting at 7am, but at the same time Í cant wait to see Angkor Wat. Speak to you soon. x

---

---

---