A country fighting to find it's feet... literally.

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Our last night in Sihanoukville was eventful ... Finding ourselves starving in a beachfront bar, the owner left his otherwise deserted pub and drove us down town to eat. He dropped us off and waited outside while we finished our dinner, what great service! The cambodian restaurant was deserted apart from us and the entire family of the owner who seemed fascinated by the "barang" and all sat around and watch us eat our beef with pineapple!!... I doubt we will ever again have service like it! Several plates of nibbles were brought out and our beer glass was rarely empty! However freaky it was to have 16 people watch you eat, we won't forget their friendliness or great food in a hurry.

We felt a bit guilty about the bar owner outside so the least we could do was go back to his bar for a drink. There was also a party rocking next door and no sooner than we had cracked open two Beer Lao than there was a deafening clap of thunder outside... what followed was the biggest electrical storm I have ever seen, with us sheltering from the monsoon outside in a straw beach hut, safe as houses! Anyway it blew out the electricity but thankfully the beer still flowed so we had to camp it out there for a few hours, I suppose we could have been in worse places! There were even a few hammocks upstairs (I had been disappointed in the dearth of hammocks I had seen up until this point!) where you could kip later on!

Next day we took the bus to Phomh Penh (PP). Much to our disappointment we found we couldn't ride on the roof of the train there as recommended as the condition of the tracks meant that they have had to shut it down over a year ago.

PP is a great city and it didn't take us long to love it. Getting off the bus was my one and only experience of what Westlife must go through on tour! We arrived to see swarms and swarms of tuktuk drivers and hotel owners scrambling up at the windows. Getting off the bus was fun, there must have been 50 of them shouting and jostling to try and get your attention. It was hilarious! Our sole intention was to make the internet cafe across the street to find out where our new recruit Bugsy was staying but we even had 3 of them follow us there and sit outside in wait!

Met up with Tomas, Blath, Ann and Lucinda next day in the salubrious surroundings of the historic 'Foreign Correspondants Club'. A little outside our backpacker budget but bursting with character and well worth a visit if anyone ever passes through PP sometime. Martin was the unfortunate first one of us to fall to the scurge of 'Delhi Belly' so that knocked him out of action for the day. We were sympathetic knowing that it is only a matter of time before the Big D comes knocking on our own door!

I had finished the book we bought on the beach the day before ("Stay Alive My Son" by Pin Yathay which is well worth a read) in an attempt to teach myself about the suffering this country had been put through during the reign of Pol Pot and the Khymer Rouge from 1975 to 1979 but nothing could have prepared me for our afternoon in the Killing Fields and S-21.

PP a city steeped in history. But while New York has had enough going for it before and after 9/11 to be known for reasons other than notorierty, PP joins Auchwitz as a place that will be forever synonymous with mass-genocide. We'd heard snippets of what happened during the regime of the Khymer Rouge but in truth I knew no more of the detail than I did of Jack The Ripper, Chernobyl or the former Yugoslavia. Pol Pot wiped out 3 million of his own people in 4 years particularly anyone from the city or with an education. We saw some gruesome sights and the closest experience I can describe it to is that of visiting the concentration camps in Germany. No-one smiles and I just didn't feel right taking any pictures that day, it certainly knocked the wind out of our sails for a while. However it is well worth seeing to understand what the Cambodians have been through and it makes you admire them all the more. Their friendliness and cheerfulness always shines through despite having so little.

Particularly heart-wreching was seeing a little boy on the beach in Sihanoukville with two metal legs tripoding his way down the beach with his crutches, on his back a football strip bearing the name 'Ronaldinho' no doubt, as with many boys his age an idol but for him an idol he may never hope to emulate due to the injuries visited upon him by landmines, the most indiscriminatory and cowardly weapon ever shat into civlisation by mad scientists.

Phomh Penh is well worth a visit as there is plenty to see and do, it is pretty small and manageable so possible to get the hang of in no time, it also isn't as suffocating and polluted as Bangkok. Driving here is an experience, their method of crossing the road makes your heart miss a few beats everytime they do it, by edging across the oncoming traffic and blowing the horn, traffic lights just don't exist!

In fact they love their horns over here. The bus journey to Siem Reap next day was not one I will remember with fond memories! The driver blew his horn at everything on the road to let them know he was coming up behind them, strange at first but works quite well actually - not one person veered out in front of us for the entire journey!! The travel agent had also greatly exaggerated the much heralded air conditioning on the bus so we sat sweating for 5 hours, a sleep might have numbed the pain but the driver kindly put paid to that with his beeps! To make it worse we had a video of some Cambodian stand-up comedian at eardrum bursting volume to the hilarity of everyone else on the bus and my bloody Ipod was still not working!!

Angkor Wat at Siam Reap is rightfully Cambodia's proudest achivement. It appears everywhere from the national flag to the national beer to guest house, pub and restaurant names all over the country. By Saturday we had comfortably lost 2 stone each and we were going through t-shirts everyday like there was no tomorrow. Imagine our delight to see the AC jeep pull up to take us on our tour! Needless to say they are amazing and there is no way a man of my limited literary capabilities could do it justice in type. There cannot be too many man-made places in the world as awesome, making the fact that they were abandoned to the jungle for 3-400 years all the more amazing, during this time the trees took over and wrapped themselves around the stone temples making them even more mysterious. For anyone planning a trip to this corner of the world they are well worth adding to your itinery. The photos will probably not do it justice and I might even sit through the film 'Tomb Raider' sometime to see how Angelina got on when she visited as Lara Croft!

Last night we even missed the second half of Chelsea - Man Utd to go to a traditional dance show! Well worth it, so I suppose we should thank the girls for coaxing us out! After we had some great craic on the brilliantly named Pub Street when we found somewhere with a Cambodian cabaret act singing all the classics from Lionel Richie to the Cranberries to Stevie Wonder! There were also some awful dancemoves (not just from the middle aged Belgians on a work trip - Bourkey the 'lunge dance' has now made it to Cambodia!). It didn't end there either, we moved on to the only available nightclub which happened to be a dance club where they were rocking along to a heavy metal version of 'We wish you a merry Christmas' and 'Jingle Bells'!

UPDATE:
Just had to update this entry for the past couple of days which we spent doing very little actually in Siem Reap actually. We waved goodbye to the 4 visitors as they were off for an overnight trip to Preah Vihear - a temple set on the side of a sheer cliff on the Thai border.

I suppose we should feel guilty for spending too days lounging around by the pool and sipping pineapple milkshakes instead of sightseeing but it was just what the doctor ordered after all that temple viewing!

Tomas, Lucinda, Blath and Ann came back yesterday so we had one last night out last night and what a night it was. Best night out so far (and consequently worst hangover so far today!). Angkor What? was our first stop, and who should we meet but the bloody Belgians again! This pub is famous to all backpackers coming through SR and you can leave your message on the wall for future visitors. Of course the only fitting tribute would be to leave a message higher than anyone else and we almost had only to be foiled by a Belgian Arsene Wenger lookalike. However Tomas came to the rescue (with the aid of a table and a wonky chair) and the Irish won the day... What we didn't win however was the "How many famous people come from your country competition" against the Belgians. We would come up with a Bono only to be hit us back with a Jean-Claude Van Damme or a Kim Clisters. Before we started we were super confident we could beat them - Belgium for God's sake, much much to my horror they were kicking our ass until at the last second we thought of a few actors (Brosnan, Farrell and Neeson saved the day). Anyway it was a lesson to us. If we cannot comfortably beat the likes of Belguim at this game, what hope do we have against a decent country! They were good craic though.

Across the road then to the Funky Buddha which we decided was a fitting place to celebrate Lucinda's birthday early. Absolute mayhem fuelled by Vodka and pineapple juice, I am sure the photos tell the story better than I. First all-nighter of the trip and God only knows how the lads made their 8am flight! Absolutely brilliant few days had in their company so more than a little sad to wave them off this morning.

The only other news from Siem Reap is that I have shaved my head and decided to become a Buddhist monk....

Lao tomorrow, hope it is half as good as Cambodia. We are missing a lot of this country due to the timetable but I would like to come back some day again. The people are so good-natured and friendly we could learn a lot from them - great two weeks here.

Onwards and upwards then,

Enda

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Photos

Monks:
Big fans of Angkor Wat

Poised
Young girl on the lookout for potential water-purchasers

Martin Brennan
Who knows where he'll pop up next?

Cambodian Cuisine
And like Snow White I fell for the old 'poisoned apple' trick...

"Find your own shade"
Cheeky fecker...

Not long to go
For this aimable old Cambodian I would imagine

God we stink
Anyone got a powerhose handy?

I love a root I do...
And there's that black vest again...

Convert
Enda turns to the One True Faith

Not Durka-Durkastan!
Bandwagon jumper