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Published: October 25th 2007
The bus journey to Phnom penh was ok...only 6 hours! I met an English girl on the bus who I ended up travelling with through Cambodia.
Anyway we arraived in Phnom Penh and headed to the Lakeside which I was told was the best place to go. There had been loads of rain before we arrived so the lake had flooded a load of the hostels, including the one we stayed at. We arrived quite late so we caught a moped to the riverside where a load of restaurants are. We met an Ausie couple...they seem to be everywhere! and ended up spending the evening with them on the beers. After the night out we sat by the bar on the lakeside watching the rats scuttle about...nice!
The following morning we decided to move to the riverside which was alot nicer. Me and Kylie both wanted to do the S21 and Killing fields so we paid this guy to drive us to both for about $7 which was nothing considering we were gone for around 6 hours!
I'd read abit about the killing fields and S21 so kinda knew abit about it but we stayed to watch the video at the
S21 buliding which used to be a school. It was basically used as an interrogation/torture centre for anyone "Apposed" to the Kymer Rouge regime. Basically anyone who ended up there was murdered...some really horrible pictures in some of the rooms where they still have the original beds/shakles that are actually in the pictures!
After we drove to the killing fields where alot of the prisoners from the S21 centre were taken to be executed. Theres a massive shrine there with thousands of skulls that were excavated from mass graves, these shelves containing the skulls rise right to the top of the building and are all in age order ranging from kids to pensioners...not nice! You can actually see where they were bludgened or shot in the head.
Anyway.....after all of that killing/death etc we decided to finsih the day with a wonder around the palace. Kylie wanted to do it more than me as I dont really appreciate stuff like that....all the palaces look the same! It was still nice to have a look around because it was a nice day etc :o)
We left Phnom Pehn the following day because there wasn't really alot to do there. We caught
another bus to Siem Rep where we stayed in this really nice hotel that had been recommended. We got up at 4.30 am, along with the thousands of Japs, to go to the Angkor Wat sunrise which was cool. We spend around 6 hours lookinga round some of the different temples. After the third they all kinda seem the same so we ended up leaving at around 11am and going back to bed!
The Angkor wat was all we wanted to do there anyway so we caught another bus the following morning to the Thai border. the bus we caught from Siem Reap was unbeleivable! Basically there was not enough seats for everyone! A couple of people had to sit on plastic chairs! The luggage was basically loaded in with everyone i.e. down the aisles and under seats etc....no leg room whatsoever! Had to endure 6 hours of this down a dirt track to the thai border! Once we cross the border the bus was alot better and the roads were tarmac so had a good sleep the remainder of the way. A 14 hour journey in all!
When we arrived in Bangkok we checked into the same hostel I
stayed at previously which is really good. In the morning I decided to head to the Singapore airlines and change my flights! I'm no longer going to Shanghai!...I've had an absolutly amazing time since I've come away but the heat/travelling and way of life here has finally caught up with me!!! I am flying to Singapore tomorrow the 26th Oct arriving into Heathrow at 5:50am Sat 27th Oct! so after some sleep I should be out for some beers in Leighton in the evening!!
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