Blogs from Cambodia, Asia - page 847

In mid-December we caught an early morning bus from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville on the coast of Southern Cambodia. Gerry decided to buy a baquette filled with cold meat from a street vendor at the bus station - big mistake! 24 hours later, full scale diarrhoea! Fortunately no sickness, and after a day he was eating as well as ever. Sihanoukville is a bit shabby and is spread out across a number of beaches. We stayed in the Mealy Chenda Guesthouse above Victory Beach with a lovely view out to sea, particularly at sunset. They do a wicked barbequeue evening where you cook you're own food on a charcoal stove on your table. The sunsets on the beach are also worth beholding. The sun sets around 6pm, after which we would head for a great little ... read more

over land from Bangkok to Siem Reap ... read more

We took the bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh (the capital of Cambodia), the guidebook said it would take about 8 or 9 hours. After about 5 hours we came to what we thought was a provincial town. When we asked if we were stopping for a break we were promptly informed that we were in the centre of Phnom Penh! It was not at all what we were expecting, normally in capital cities there are high rise office blocks and millions of people and heavy car traffic, here it was relatively quiet with wide boulevards and old French colonial architecture. We stayed at a lovely clean little place called Cozyna Hotel overlooking the river Tonle Sap. There are lots of great little cafes and restaurants along here, including the Foreign Correspondents Club, which quickly ... read more

Cambodia has been interesting to say the least. Our first experience of Cambodia was the border. Apparently unless you have a guide to bribe the officier behind the desk to stamp your passport, you can not get out of Vietnam. We waited for a good couple of hours in the 40 plus heat, not impressed. After a bumpy bus ride we made it to the capital, phnom penh. The next day we headed off to the Killing Fields, a very sobering experience. Approximately 2 million cambodians were executed in the late 1970's by the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot. We also visited the S-21 prison where thousands of people were held and tortured before their deaths. The pictures on display of these poor people left a lasting impression on us. We found it unbelievable that ... read more

Three weeks were spent in Cambodia, visiting the Temples of Angkor, Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville.... read more