Phnom Penh

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Phnom Phenn 15 march - 18th march

After a relatively painless and actually comfortable bus ride and border crossing we arrived in PP at around 9pm not much over the 6 hour advertised journey time (what a refreshing change!). It seems crazy that the best bus service in Vietnam is actually the one that takes you out of the country. I will try to find the name of the operator and post it up.

Travel note: Visa prices at this crossing are clearly displayed at $20 and there is no nonsense with greedy guards trying to extort extra cash as they do on the other side at the Thai/Cambodia crossings heading in further north towards Siem Reap. Currency can also be changed with local ladies but watch the rates you get!

We hired a pleasant tuk tuk driver who spoke good english and headed for the riverside where most of the hotels, bars and restaurants are sited. Apart from trying to palm us off on one hotel which was a farmers mile from the river, our driver came through and found us digs for $20, close to the river and a few yards away from Rory's Irish bar which was vital for me due to St Patricks day being just around the corner. As he seemed a decent kind of chap, we loosely agreed to use him for our site seeing trips around the city.
A short walk to the riverside found us at a restaurant where I tried beef lok lak, a nicely spiced but creamy meat dish with rice fries and a fried egg on top for about $3.50. As everywhere, drink prices vary from place to place. Our immediate reaction was that it was more expensive than Vietnam for food. Sometimes 4000 riel - $1 US for a beer cheaper off the beaten track. One thing we did notice was that things seem to close down early, this was the riverfront, supposedly the tourist area yet the bar next door closed at 10.30pm and there was little going in..even though here in Cambodia there is no curfew.

A fairly decent nights sleep was shattered at 0630 the next morning by a guy below our window who appeared to be chopping meat on a wooden block. On closer inspection by Anna whose eyesight is much better than mine, it transpired that he was actually using a meat cleaver to chop pieces of red towel or cloth into little pieces!! Anna tried unsuccessfully to reason with him but in the end I had to shout wildly and wave my fists in a psychotic manner to discourage him from his mysterious and annoying pastime. Can you believe that? I mean why on earth would you be chopping towels at that time in the morning and why on earth not just use a pair of scissors!!!!!!

16 March - as we'd been so rudely awakened and were not in the mood for site seeing we postponed our trip and opted for a bit of exploring on foot. The first thing that hit us was the heat - stifling!! Near the river front is the impressive Royal Palace (see photo's) but a short walk takes you away from the glorious wide boulevards to busy and quite shabby streets. This is no worse than many cities in the South East Asia and I suppose has its own charm, but the piles of rubbish and stinking vegetable waste that seems to be waiting collection, can get up your nose. As usual with Anna the market was a must see, but unimpressed and sweating profusely ,I quickly lost interest and headed for a bar. My usual time for commencement of beer drinking is 4pm but I must confess that of late it has been getting earlier! Happy hour beers in Rory's were a god send at $1 for ice cold draught Angkhor beer. We found a busy restaurant on the riverside which served local and western dishes and after a good old nosh up went upstairs to watch a documentary about the recent and tragic history of Cambodia. This was good value and informative, though the whole Khmer Rouge story is one that left me feeling low and confused about the cruelty of mankind.

!7 March- again awoken at dawn by the ludicrous towel chopper who after being berated fiercely from above, simply moved his chopping block out of my line of sight under his canopy, and carried on with his inexplicable pursuit. Unable to physically get to him as he was in somekind of compound in a labyrinth of alleyways behind the hotel, I was left complaining stupidly to the receptionist who either didn't understand or didn't care. She was probably part of the local towel choppers union!!

“Site seeing” around Phnom Phenn - I am not sure why I subscribed to the seemingly essential tour of The Killing Fields and the S21 genocide museum. Morbid curiosity perhaps but even before we set off I said to Anna that I really was not looking forward to it and should maybe give it a miss. I have read enough about it and watched the movie etc but nevertheless still found myself in the tuk tuk heading for these gruesome spectacles. What I saw left me depressed and annoyed with myself. I should not have gone. I have no intention of describing either the “Fields” or the prison but still find it stupifying that thousands of severed skulls are displayed to this day and have not at least been interned in the same area as the other remains of these poor souls. The memorial stupa itself is I suppose sufficently poignant but if the display is designed to get a message across, I do not understand the message, surely photographs, accounts of survivors or those who uncovered these horrors would be sufficient to let the world know what happened. Tourists wondering freely over mass grave sites where bones and clothing still lay scattered around is an obscene concept.
A horrific day that left me with so many questions and no answers. It seemed totally bizarre to see these horrors then ride back in comfort past the palace and other grandiose buildings, moaning about the heat and dreaming about air conditioning!!

Anna: I agree with Dave it is all rather confusing and also quite grotesque to walk around a huge glass cabinet full of shelves and shelves of skulls...and also quite emotional. The idea is that this is a constant reminder, that all Khmers come to see and pay their respects to the victims of the Khmer Rouge, and therefore in turn this will never happen again. The really horrifying truth is that after the Holocaust, we could never believe that such an atrocity would occur again, but it did, 30 years later, and it lasted for almost 4 years. I am however pleased that we went, a very thought provoking experience.

Dave: This was of course St Patricks day, a grim anniversary of my mother's death combined with the grim experience above left me desperate for a drink. So, I drank into blissful ignorance and all was well with the world!!!

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Photos

Butcher at work
Check out the marigolds!

Dried fish and prawns
The smell was horrendous

Cold guinness
Dave turns into a gibbering wreck!!!

Delivery motorbike
Just a small load of steel...?!!!!

Bank robbing?
or just trying to escape the fumes!