The good, the bad and the ugly

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Hi all!
We have just spent three days at the beach in Sihanouk Ville and are now back in Phnom Penh waiting to head to Siem Reap to the temples.

We really enjoyed Phnom Penh, very interesting but heartbreaking. We visited S21, the Tuol Sleng Prison, about a ten to fifteen minute ride from the centre of town in a tuk tuk (of course). This was the place that the prisoners of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were kept and tortured prior to being taken to the Killing Fields, men, women and some children were kept here.
The Khmer Rouge were very systematic in their administration of the prison, taking photos of each person and allocating them a number, they also took photographs of some of the people that they tortured or killed. There are hundreds of photos of these people on boards in the prison that you walk past. It is an unusual feeling not bearing to look but then not able to draw your eyes away, not stopping for too long on each face lest the reality of the life of that person creeps in. It was a very emotional and often tearful trip.
The prison remains much like it was, the beautiful huge frangipani trees mask for a moment the terror that occurred there, but once inside you see the steel beds and shackles, the tiny cells, discarded clothing and the photograph boards.

We aimed again to take the children just to the courtyard but after we had both walked through the children asked to look at the photo boards so Mitchy walked them through. The children have been amazing in the way that they have accepted the information and the way in which they have questioned what happened and why. I don't know that there is any perspective for them or for us on what happened here, just a hope that we learn from it and that Cambodia has a peaceful future.

Despite their recent history here are some amazing things happening in Cambodia that we were also able to experience.
We ate at ‘Friends’ in Phnom Penh which is a restaurant set up to train young people from the streets in food preparation and service. It is a really nice place which serves absolutely delicious tapas (so good we had to buy the book!). The fried prawn wontons ordered by Olivia were the pick of the night! Grace had the lime meringue pie which was also a winner. The restaurant was as good as any that we had been to anywhere else.

Friends also has a shop and nail bar next door and another restaurant called Romdeng also in the centre of the city.

Prior to leaving Tassie we saw a show on Cambodia which had a piece on the Cambodian Childrens Fund. This was set up by Scott Neeson, an Australian guy who had been working very successfully in the film industry in America but took a trip to Cambodia, went home and sold up to move to Phnom Penh to help the ‘tip children’. These children literally live at the tip, either with family or by themselves.

In the show he said that one year he was going to the Academy Awards in his porsche, the next he was on the tip with lice in his hair.
We contacted the CCF and were allowed to visit (something they don’t usually do on short notice) and were so impressed with what the fund does. Please have a look at the website and maybe consider a donation:


There are also some amazing people like the guy selling the books on the boulevard in Phnom Penh who wore two below knee prosthesis and looked like he lived a very hard life. We said no thank you to the books but he said “boy, boy” to Mac and then rustled through a package of postcards looking for a particular card gave it to Mac as a gift. On the way back past him we gave Mac some reil (Cambodian money) to give to this guy but he politely declined.

We also took in the Palace and the Silver Pagoda which is part of the tourist trail and worth a look. The Silver Pagoda has a floor of 500 silver tiles but unfortunately most of them have carpet over them and the rest are gaffa taped together, it would be amazing to see in its entirety.

The bus trip down south to Sihanouk Ville took four hours mostly through the countryside, with red edged roads reminding us of traveling through Africa.

Sihonouk Ville is the beach resort area, very popular with backpackers. It is a four hour bus trip, a test in survival, not for the driving or the traffic but the Cambodian karaoke hits video that is played for the entirety of the trip. Really bad Western hits with Western women circa 1985 walking dreamily across the screen, you haven’t heard music until you have heard Robbie Williams ’Better Man’ sung by a Cambodian woman in Khmer.
The children coped well but we were all glad to hear that there was "only seven 'kilograms' to go to Sihanouk Ville".

Sihonouk is a real paradise, well, paradise with a bit/lot of rubbish, but once you work out where to go it is fantastic.
We spent each day at the beach, Mitchy and I in the deck chairs under a beach umbrella and the kids riding inner tubes in the beautiful tropical water. It was fairly tough, eating and drinking from the Small but Sweet beach bar (Mitchy found 50cent beers, you can imagine!) and sampling some of the beach sellers wares, freshly cut (in front of you) fruit salad, bbq squid and lobster. You can also get a manicure, pedicure, massage or hair removal, all while lying on your deck chair!


We ate at the Bayon Restaurant at the top of the lane to Occheuteal Beach every night. The kids ate pizza, which was delicious (they have however been great about the Cambodian food) and Mitchy fell in love with the chicken with peppercorns which we ate each visit, it was absolutely delicious! The staff were great with the kids which meant Mitchy and I could actually finish a conversation (well nearly!)
We were sad to leave and definitely could have spent more time there.


We have now surpassed our three word Vietnamese vocabulary (hello, thank you and most importantly, goat) and have a repertoire of four expressions, hello, goodbye, please and thank you. Having said that, I realized after a day that when I thought I had been saying ‘thank you’ I had actually been saying ‘please thank you’. There has generally been someone who speaks some English wherever we have been. The most common things we hear are definitely ‘hello, tuk tuk!” and “one, two, three, four, you got four childrens, two girl, two boy velly nice“.
More from Siem Reap…


Observations
Pyjamas for Cambodians are not just for sleeping but also going to the market, walking through town and swimming. Bathers are not required, a full set of clothes will do just as well for swimming. You do not need to get off a ladder to reposition it, just use it as an extension of your legs. Any place is okay for a wedding marquee, cars and bikes will just ride around it. While the house/business numbers on the streets are not in numerical order it is actually quite easy to get around. It is okay to sell petrol in old coke bottles.
Saving $1 per ticket on a bus trip might mean that the company is saving on rubbish bags and toilet paper!

Tourist tid bits:

Phnom Penh
The Fancy Guesthouse: Number one on Trip Advisor with very good reason! $25 USD for a very clean room with two double beds, fits all six of us. Walking distance to the river side, close to Friends and around the corner from a big market .
The owner is a really friendly, helpful guy with a huge smile


Spicy Green Mango: clothes store, one block back from the river side, Street 178 very cool clothes for women and kids.

Friends Restaurant: great food, drinks and service and what an inspirational place. A little more expensive than other options for eating but worth every cent

Sinan Café: Opposite Friends, really cheap, great tasting food, $12 for all of us to eat an evening meal. Great bacon and eggs and warm potato salad if you are after a Western meal but also yummy Khmer food.

Cambodian Childrens Fund: Make an appointment ahead of coming to Cambodia if you want to visit to be sure that you can visit. The place is great and the kids are gorgeous. If you are able to donate to a fund this place is definitely doing amazing things.

Sihanoukville

Bayon Restaurant
At the top of the laneway to Occheuteal Beach. The peppercorn chicken is a must and if you prefer beef then the beef peppercorn is a must! The ginger beef is also great as is the pizza!

Small but Sweet Beach Hut at Occheuteal Beach
This is where we ate at the beach. Food was good, beer was 50cents, tubes were 50cents and you did not have to pay for seats.

Otreos Beach : We were advised that this was a good beach to go to, it was a bit out of town along a really bumpy track and we preferred Occheuteal anyway.

Mekong Express: Bus service to Siem Reap, Phnom Penh, Sihonouk Ville and Ho Chi Minh. Clean buses, toilet on board, snack at commencement of the trip, commentary at intervals throughout the trip.

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Photos

S21
Tourture/holding cells

Comments

[Michele]

What an adventure!
What a wonderful adventure. I was chilled to the bone one minute to think of the atrocities that have taken place there and drooling the next - the food sounds incredible! I obviously bounce back quickly! Have fun, looking forward to the next update (and feeling slightly smug that I have successfully accessed my first blog, baby steps!) Michele x

[Karina Baigrie]

Great reading so far.
Hi there, I am really enjoying your blog so far and will definitely take notes on the good, the bad and the ugly! Just a quick question. What brand were the bags you showed earlier in your preparation blog? Some look like wheeled backpacks? If so, did you find this handy to have wheels as well as the backpack capacity? Would love to hear your opinion since you have been there and done that and we are in the planning. Thanks.

[6 go mad in asia]

Backpacks
Hi, Apologies for the slow reply. The backkpacks were from the Kathmandu store in Australia. As it turned out we only used the wheeled option, they were always pretty heavy. I would say that you could carry them and that was to be our intention but not for long distances. Happy planning! Deb and family