Cambodia - Phnom Penh

---

Right, our time in Vietnam was done for and it was time to take in some culture in Cambodia. Before we left we had heard mixed reports on the place, some said that it could be easily skipped and reconmended a flight back to Thailand. While others said it was their highlight of the SE Asia trip.

With plenty of time on our hands and some not wanting to miss out on places like The Killing Fields and the temples of Angkor we headed into Cambodia not really sure what to expect.

We arrived in the capitol city Phnom Penh early in the morning and were plesently surprised to find a big city with clean wide streets and lots of very friendly locals. For some reason they use 2 kinds of currency, US dollars and Cambodian Reil, so you tended to had over dollar and get change in reil, took a bit of getting used to but even in dollars things seemed cheap enough. We decided to waste no time and head to the Killing Fields with a lad from Chile that we meet on the bus from Vietnam.

I didn't quite know how to react at the Killing Fields, you walk into a single room with lots of information put up all over the walls and then you walk outside around an area no bigger than 2 football piches, the entire area is filled with big creaters which turned out to be mass graves. The largest of which contained over 450 bodies. Even around the walking areas you can easily see fragments of human bone and clothing protruding from the ground. In the centre of the field is a monument built that contains all the skulls they've found.

On the way back we went to one of the prisons that was used to hold and interrogate prisonors, it was a converted school and is pretty much left excatly how it was discovered, with some very graphic photos on the cell walls of the torture that happened there.

That night we were in a bar in town and got chatting to the owner, who's English was near perfect, he invited us to play football for his team the following day. An offer which could not be turned down as we were pretty much gagging to play football after going 3 months cold turky. The standard is not great but the heat is a killer, I only played 45 minutes and I could feel the aches and paines for the 5 following days.

The following day we went to watch the semi-final of the Cambodian FA cup equilivant, it was free to get in and the gme finished 4-2, so was well worth the trip.

We then went to a beach in the south of Cambodia, but for the 4 days we were there I had a nasty throat infection for all of them so didn't really make the most of it. The water was clear but the beach was small and there was no waves, so there wasn't a lot to do. The food and drink was really cheap, free in some cases. just a shame I was ill and couldn't really enjoy it.

It was back to Phnom Penh before heading to the Temples of Angkor to vist one of the natural wonders of the world.

---

Photos

Phnom Penh
The main street in Phnom Penh

Killing Fields
Mass graves everywhere and even bones sticking out the worn paths around the field

S21 Prison
Some of the single cells. They were just put up in the old classrooms of the school.

Chivas Shack FC
Some of the referree's decisons were questionable at best, I was trying to get my point across. He wasn't interest.
The socks are a kids socks, they're all I could find!

Presidents cup - Semi Final
4-2 and one chap scored two free kicks, one was an absolute peach.