Phnom Penh

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The guy who sold me the tickets had told me that there was one place left on the minivan, and he was right in a way - there were only 3 of us with tickets on the minivan that would take 25 as I would find out later... The other two on the minivan were a couple from Australia and were good company as we traveled the extremely dusty road under construction across 5 ferry crossings. It was probably just as well that the road was under construction in that it had been flattened since some of the stories of huge potholes I had heard were made, but the dust was quite choking at times. At one of the crossings - I think the forth maybe - our bus wouldn't start so we gave it a push start. It took a while to do this and we missed one rotation of the ferry. When we got to the paved road to Phnom Penh our driver signaled another minivan, told us he was going to head to Sihanoukville now and we should get into the other bus. Since our bus was so dusty and dirty by now I thought this might be cool - but I was a little wrong about that one. We had been going for many hours and I didn't think it could be that much further to Phnom Penh. After a short time in the new bus it became apparent that the driver wasn't taking it above about 35 milesperhour. Since the road was now so good this was a shame and a little frustrating. After a longer time he had stopped for a few people and picked them up also it became apparent that he was a taxi service for that road. No one spoke much English so we weren't able to find out any information about these things. A few hours later it was beginning to get dark and we had a minibus full of people - I counted 25 but imagined that that wouldn't be any sort of record in this part of the world.
We arrived in Phnom Penh at dusk and I caught a glimpse of two English teachers who I had met in Nepal. I got off the bus most relieved, looked unsuccessfully for them for a short while, and jumped on a cyclo to number 10 guesthouse lakeside - recommended by Tam and Ben. The cyclo driver insisted that I check out the "same same but different" guesthouse first, but I held out for number 10 and got a nice room. The guesthouse was cool - many people swilling around drinking, playing pool, watching bootleg movies and smoking the local weed. I met some nice people and it was a nice place to hang out at when I wasn't out in the city.
My first day in Phnom Penh was spent walking around town. I wanted to see the river and also the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. I couldn't get to the river where I was looking since the Asiatic Tourism Conference was going on and the armed guards stopped me so I gave up on that idea for a while. The Royal Palace and SP were closed for lunch when I got there so I sat at the entrance to wait for 50 minutes. I got a little meditation in which was pretty cool actually and the time passed in no time. The Royal Palace and SP were pretty cool the Emerald Buddha being the highlight and it didn't take me too long to get through the place. At the end I bumped into Nicki and Simone - the two English teachers and chatted for a while. After the Palace I walked down the riverside - which was a little north of where I was looking for it before and saw where the boats leave for Siem Reap - my next destination.
The next day I met up with 3 American Girls at Breakfast who had recently finished their Peace Corp stationment in Malawi (Africa) and they were planning to do the genocide tourism tour thingy which is going to the Killing Fields and then S21 the torture facility (a converted children痴 school). That sounded like something I should do since I was in Phnom Penh so they were nice enough to allow me to join them and we set out together.
We got into a sedan outside the guesthouse and it was perfect for the four of us. Then we drove to a nearby guesthouse and our driver asked us to move to a minivan. None of us really fancied that since the more people we had the less tailored to our needs the transport would be so we told him that we would stay with the taxi. It wasn't cheap by local standards so we felt justified in doing this. After some discussions it was decided this was ok and we continued to the Killing fields. We looked around them for a while - many mass graves and a memorial Stupa containing very visibly the skulls found sorted by age. It was quite surreal to think of what went on there; there were some pretty horrific scenes.
We headed on to S21 where the predeath torturing was performed and got a tour guide there who told us all about how it was at the converted children痴 school for 4 years. I think Cambodia lost about a third of its population during those four years.
After the genocide tour we got dropped off downtown at the large central market and the girls did some shopping and I bought some mangoes that were delicious. We then went to the port to get tickets for them to go to Siem Reap the next day. We bargained the price of the speedboat (which is highly recommended over the road trip) down from $25 to $18 and then we spent the evening having a few drinks at the Heart of Darkness - a popular nightspot where we did a little dancing.
The next day the price of the speedboat was advertised on the wall of the guesthouse for $18 down from $25 so it looks like our haggle had had a ripple effect on the whole guesthouse. I decided to head back to the port and get a better price. Before I did that I met another American girl and two Germans at breakfast and they were heading to the Water Park for the day. I joined them and we had a blast on the water slides and other water amusements in the middle of Phnom Penh. It was $5 to get in since it was a weekend and they must be making a killing at that price since there was a maximum of about 20 people in there all day... only $3 for a weekday visit. Mind you even though it was roasting hot it was winter, so maybe it gets busier in the summer. After the waterpark we went out for a very nice dinner at a restaurant staffed by previously homeless children and run by an Austrian which was great. The Germans told me some riddles that teased my brain for a while.
The next day I went to the port to get a deal on my speedboat to Siem Reap with my Dutch market tactics - "the guesthouse I am staying at sells tickets for $18 so I came here to get a cheaper ticket" even though the price was $25 at the port that day. They argued a little, but eventually offered me $13. I told them that that was an unlucky number for me, so was able to get them down to $12 as long as I didn't tell anyone. I was glad to be avoiding the bus trip.

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