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Published: April 3rd 2007
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I have got incredibly lazy and my blog has kind of suffered as a result so I am sorry in advance that this is going to be a bit of a mammoth entry.
Onarrival in Phnom Penh I headed to the Lakeside to try and find a hostel that Cat had recommended - but no-one had heard of it but I kept thinking that they were lying to me because they wanted me to stay at their hostel (however I got it wrong and they were actually telling the truth - whoops!) I stayed at the lazy fish which is right on the waterfront with beautiful views over the lake and a free pool table so I got in a bit of practice!
Phnom Penh was quite nice, not as developed as Vietnam but more so than Laos which was a nice mix, I spent the first day wondering around and visiting some of the attraction like the grand palace as well as an air conditioned shopping centre because it was soo hot. That night I managed to meet up with Andy from the mekong delta tour so i had a friend! We thought that the other guy
from the tour would have been in PP that night too but he had overstayed his Vietnam visa and they wouldnt let him leave! Day two in PP and Andy and I did the tourist attraction day. We hired a tuktuk man for the day to take us around who was a bit of a legend and has really good english although i dont know if i would believe all of the stories that he was telling. Our first stop was the shooting range where i shot a hand gun and Andy shot an AK47. The range was on a militry base so i think we were the beer money for that night. Next stop was the killing fields which wasnt quite what i was expecting, i thought that it was a big field with nothing there but it was only about 1 acre with lots of big pits and a building in the centre that they had filled with skull of all of the people who had been killed there - pretty horrific. After that we went to the Toul Sleng Prison or also known as S21. It used to be a school so it is even more chilling
to think of the atrocities that went on there, the main exhibits are just endless boards of the photos of everyone who was killed there. Some of them are so young and you can see the fear in their eyes, some of them look really defiant and some just have a dead look in their eyes already - really sad. There was also a room with the stories of some of the people who had worked for the prison and thought that they were safe becase they were on the 'right' side but were also killed. Pol Pot the man in charge wanted everyone to be stupid and peasants so that they would follow him without question so he killed anyone who he perceived to have any intelligence or be of any threat. In the room with the photos of the main leaders the photos have all been written all over and Pol Pots isnt there anymore. it was a depressing day but this was the history of Cambodia and is so recent, our tuk tuk driver had family members who were killed by the Kymer Rouge and he was a baby when it was happenning. Almost worse as well
is that the Vietnamese took so long before they came in to stop it because they were involved in the Vietnam War.
I left PP the next day to head up Siem Reap which was a dairly painless bus journey, arriving by lunchtime so I headed to Angkor Wat that afternoon to see the sunset from the top of Mount Phousi - it was slightly disappointing because it was a bit cloudy but i met up with Brad again so we chatted on the way down. i had bought a 3 day pass for Angkor because the lonely planet says that it is sacrilege to only spend a day there, however i can honestly say that after my full day there i was thoroughly templed out. The day started ay 5.30am when I got up to go and see the sunrise at Angkor Wat which again seemed a little dissappointing but it did mean that i was there to explore before it got too hot. I also climbed the really steep steps at the top of Angkor which didnt seem so bad on the way up but coming back down was pretty terrifying. When i got to the bottom
i walked round the corner and there was some stairs that they had built - doh! Next stop was Bayon which is the temple with all of the big faces and one of my favourites. In the same complex were lots of others that i wondered around but I preferred the ones where no one else was and had trees growing out of them. The best one for being overgrown is the 'Tomb Raider' Temple, i.e. the one used in the film Tomb Raider. This was my favourite despite the masses of Japanese tourists. I found I had to sit and wait a lot for the Japanese to leave so that I could get a photos without them being everywhere - they are not very good at getting out of the way when they see you taking a photo! It was quite nice though because it was so hot (42 degrees) that i would just find a spot in the shade and soak up my surroundings. I was so hot and tired that I ended up going home about 3.30 in the afternoon. The next day I decided to skip the sunrise and have a fewmore hours in bed and
visited a few more different temples but after a while they really do start to look the same - maybe it is different if you are there with someone else though. I ended up spending a couple of hours in a hammock at one of the cafes and then headed home. I went back for the sunset though with a couple who turned up at the hotel who I had first met on the mekong delta tour. it was a bit more fun with other people especially at the end when Tom kept on running away from the guards who were trying to get us to leave the grounds after the sun had gone down. it was really beautiful because it was full moon and a clear night so Tom wanted to get the perfect photo!
That evening I bumped into Robin again (he had finally managed to leave Vietnam) and the next day I was off to Koh Tao.
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