Phnom Penh

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The bus to the border was fine, but once we got over to Cambodia, the road went from potholey tarmac to dirt, tnen back to tarmac and kept changing until we neared the capital Phnom Penh. The dirt churned up by the traffic got into the air con, which made the air inside the bus very dusty.

The Cambodian visa costs 20 US dollars on the border, but for some reason the buses make you pay 25, but I couldn't be arsed to argue. About 8 hours after I had left Ho Chi Minh, I found myself in the centre of Phnom Penh. I'd heard of a place called 'Number 9 Guesthouse' by the lake in Phnom Penh's backpacker ghetto, and hopped in a tuk-tuk (a motorbike with a home-made trailer) and headed for the lake. As I was meeting Paul the next morning, I got a double room with a fan and toilet, all for 4 bucks a night, bargain! Everyone in Cambodia uses dollars, often over their own currency (the Riel) and it even comes out of cash machines.

The guesthouse has wooden deckiong over the lake, and has a huge TV with the most comfy chairs in the world, a 24 hour bar, and a 24 hour kitchen, which was awesome and put to full use. England were playing in a friendly football match that morning, so I didn't get to bed till very late, and about 8ish I was woken by Paul banging on the door. I didn't mind though, and it was great to see a familiar face again (hi Paul 😉 ).

Paul set about planning the next few days and I tried to get an extra hours kip in before lunch. We decided to not waste any time and head straight out into the city, where we took a tuk-tuk to the S-21 prison, which was the largest detention and torture centre in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime. The prison was a converted school, the classrooms had been turned into prison cells and many of the cells had been left untouched, showing the conditions the prisoners had to endure. There were also many torture devices on display that were used on the prisoners. In some parts of the prisons, there were rows and rows of photos of the prisoners on display. On upper levels of the prison, there was barbed wire around the windows and gaps in the walls to prevent the prisoners from committing suicide by jumping to their death. As with the War Remnants museum, this place serves as a reminder of how cruel the human race can be. What I found most strange were the pictures of a man smiling with a red cross through it dotted around the prison, because this is the last place on earth that you would find anyone wanting to smile or laugh whilst walking around the grounds.

After failing to negotiate a , to have a look at the grand palace and some of the monuments and statues in the city centre. It then started pouring down, and so we took shelter under a large tree and luckily the rain stopped and we decided to try to find the central market, as we had read that it was a good place to grab dinner if you were after authentic Cambodian cuisine. We found a market, not sure whether it was the one we intended to find, but it was certainly authentic, with no other tourists about. The ground was like a swamp after the rain though, and I managed to lose my well-worn flip-flops in the mud. We decided against eating at the market, and headed back to the lakeside, and to our guesthouse.

A quiet night was planned because we were both shattered, but we got roped into playing killer pool with a barman from another bar down the way, and a load of locals, until the early hours of the morning. Paul won the first killer match, and I was useless, as always when it comes to killer pool on travels.

The next day we went to shoot some rifles and a handgun, even though I'd already shot a few guns in Vietnam. We shot the M-16 assault rifle and the Colt .45. I was up first, this time shooting at a proper target, although the shooting range was indoors and had really bad lighting. Because I am against guns, I decided to show my disapproval by shooting only to the left and the right of the target, and not at it. The fact that I didn't hit the target with a single round had nothing to do with my accuracy. As I'm sure those of you that were in Uni halls with me, I am lethal with a gas-powered BB gun (at point blank range).

Paul, of course, shot the target about 8 or 9 times, and got to take his home with him. My intact target was left behind, and will not be making the scrapbook.

We also went to the Killing Fields whilst in Phnom Penh. These were where the prisoners of the S-21 prison, and other prisons across Cambodia were sent to be executed. Because ammunition was expensive, many prisoners were bludgeoned to death. Around the fields, mass graves have been discovered and in the centre of the Killing Fields is a tower filled with sculls from the victims that were killed.

That evening we met a scouser, like Paul and had a few beers at the bars on the lakeside with him. We then met up with a few of the guys we had played pool with the previous night, and headed into town. The bars on the riverfront were pretty dead, and so we headed to the Heart of Darkness, a popular bar in Phnom Penh. The bar was really busy, but sadly it was populated with old western men chasing young Cambodian females. We were also asked to leave a booth because a Cambodian guy with a load of bodyguards wanted to sit down. We had heard that this is where the Cambodian princes or equivalent sometimes hang out, and judging by his protection he was quite important in Cambodia.

The next day, on immense hangovers, we caught the bus to the south coast, to Sihanoukville.

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