Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh: shopping, shopping and more shopping

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Early start with a pick up at 7:45am to get the bus to Phnom Penh. I think because I had booked it a few days in advance (rather than just one) I managed to get what I would deem a 'locals' seat. Number three, right at the front. Also the one position where I would likely go flying through the front window in the event of an accident. Lucky me!
Most of the trip I spent with my eyes closed (not always sleeping though) or reading so as to avoid watching the road and the rapid overtaking on blind corners and the cars coming head on. Did watch the drivers speedo though, and he never seemed to get above 60km/h so even if we had been in an accident it wouldn't have been high speed! Arrived into Phnom Penh at about 1:30pm, grabbed a tuk tuk to my hostel and checked in (very very basic room, but cheap) before grabbing some lunch and heading south to the Russian Markets where I spent about two hours doing some final shopping. Then it was back to completely re-sort my bag. It had been out in something wet under the bus on the morning trip and when I checked it I had pulled everything out to work out what was wet and try to start drying it. So when I got back from the Russian Markets it was time to re-pack what was dry into the sections of my bag that was dry, along with use the fans to dry both my bag and some of my clothes. Equally unfortunate was the fact that the water it had been sitting it was rather smelly. My bag reeked, but there wasn't much I could do about that. A few of my tops that smelt particularly bag and which I wasn't attached to I turfed, the rest of the things I rotated in front of the fan for the next hour or so. When it got dark I headed off to the night markets for another final spot of shopping and some dinner. Like in Siem Reap, there were lots of Khmers having picnic and most of the places didn't have an English menu. I could have struggled my way through pointing and sign language, but opted for a close restaurant to grab some food at instead. Back at the hostel ended up having a beer with some other solo travelers and sharing some stories before I headed to bed for my early flight to KL. Unfortunately I had two of the noisiest roommates, so despite me going to bed at midnight, they made a hell of a lot of noise at 2am.

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