Adventures in a Tuk Tuk - Phnom Penh

You only turn 27 once, so what better way to mark the occasion than to take a 6 hour bus ride from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh? It wasn't actually that bad, just a little smelly and crowded. We left around 7am and made it to PP in time to find a guest house, look around the town a little and secure a tuk tuk driver for the rest of our time here. He's actually a friend of our driver in Siem Reap so he was waiting for us at the bus stop when we got here - such a relief because if we hadn't had a driver lined up we would have been mauled by the mass of them waiting for us as the bus door opened.

Our first full day in Phnom Penh we spent at the Killing Fields. It's an area outside of town, originally a Chinese cemetery, that was one of the many mass grave sites used by the Khmer Rouge to execute hundreds of thousands of Cambodian citizens. Next we visited the S-21 prison, formerly a high school, where Pol Pot held and tortured his prisoners before he sent them to the Killing Fields to die. A tragic and sobering part of history but I’m glad I got to see it.

Since we've been in Cambodia we've had rain, rain and more rain. When we got within 1 km of the Killing Fields we came upon a van full of Japanese tourists stuck in the mud. Everyone was helping push and covered in mud. In the city of PP itself cars and vans are outnumbered 5 to 1 by motorbikes, bicycles, and tuk tuks, which are cheaper to own and more practical in muddy situations. I've been amazed how many people can ride on a motorcycle at the same time - a family of 4 seems to do it pretty comfortably here - with no helmets and no safety harnesses for little ones. The traffic is crazy and riding around here definitely counts as an extreme sport. We saw one collision - a car hit a motorcycle, throwing the rider, and drove off without even slowing down. Miraculously neither the rider nor his bike seemed to be hurt but he was definitely angry and we were stunned.

Day 2 we spent touring the Royal Palace and National Museum. Both were beautiful sites. To enter the Palace grounds (home of the King of Cambodia - mostly a figurehead who apparently doesn’t really spend much time in PP, preferring to reside in China) you have to be dressed properly, meaning, legs have to be covered at least to the knee and shoulders must be covered, no sleeveless shirts. Garron and I both had on rather long shorts and they let us in but gave the Italian couple behind us a really hard time.

The morning of our final day in PP we spent poolside at the Hotel Cambodiana. For $8 non-guests can enjoy their beautiful pool which looks out over the river behind the hotel. A lovely way to spend a morning. (Everything is in U.S. dollars by the way, it’s the unofficial currency. It’s what the ATMs give you and it’s what everyone expects to be paid in. No coins though - you get change in Cambodian Riel which are about 4200 to the dollar.)

Next we fly to Hanoi on Vietnam Air - procuring the tickets (they don’t issue e-tickets, don’t have a website and don’t mail tickets to addresses in Cambodia) was an adventure in itself!

---

Part of trip: Summer Travels 2006

---