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Published: July 23rd 2012
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Time to move again, south across Cambodia. We were sold the "express bus" by the agent, who said it should take 5 hours and wouldn't stop to pick anyone up in that time. a couple of dollars more than the regular bus that took 6 hours. Another early start for the bus, but we were picked up from our hotel and taken out to the bus station, and all seemed well. Until we set off and as soon as we turned out of the bus station stopped to pick up some locals at the side of the road. That was the start of an 8 hour journey with about 20 stops to pick up and drop off locals, including an old lady who spent the whole journey spitting in a bag! Lovely! We went down a several mile stretch of road works outside of Phnom Pehn...by road works i mean they were building the road and the cars were on a mud track next to it! We arrived quite late and again had to get a tuk tuk from the out of town bus station. What an introduction to Phnom Penh traffic, where Siam reap had only motorbikes and tuk tuks
to worry about, Phnom Penh has it all! Seems to be a rule of biggest vehicle is in charge and the rest must get out of their way, pedestrians being at the bottom of the pile! No real footpaths in Phnomn Penh, they use them to park bikes, and will just reverse them into you if you don't get out the way! Checked into our hotel which thankfully we had prebooked, we asked to see the room which didn't seem to go down well, but we were just glad to be stationary again. There was a sign on the room door saying the hotel accepted no responsibility for valuables which were not left at reception, so we took everything down to give them, which they looked somewhat confused about, but gave us a receipt and seemed to just leave them behind the counter. We went out to find some food and stumbled across a restaurant completely packed with locals and so we went in, landed at the deep end with dishes to choose from including frogs and Eels, but managed to find some nice cheap food, and a jug of beer (which they put ice in..) which only cost about
$3. Spent the next day just wandering around Phnom Penh, we had a couple of things to sort out and thought we would just have a nice chilled day. Managed to find somewhere quickly to do our Vietnam Visas (for this we obviously had to get our passports from the desk..this becomes important later!!) and then headed off looking for somewhere to book a killing fields tour and the boat to get to Vietnam. After several miles walking, and lots of people who didn't really speak english and didn't really try to help, we stumbled apon a tourist advice centre (which is not in the guide books!) and finally found a nice helpful person, not trying to sell us anything who advised us where to go to book the boat and that it would be best to get a Tuk Tuk and how much it would cost. We went to the boat dock and made a deal and planned to go back the next day with some money to get the tickets. We then went for a wander around the most amazing market! under a huge dome, and built around a centre hallway of bright coloured jewelry stands. (Leslie would
have been in heaven!) It sold everything from the usual clothing and scarfs, to electronics, toiletries and finally a big food area, with live fish in bowls and huge lobsters! We then headed back to the hotel, where we planned to ask the owner for some advice regarding the killing fields trip, we thought they may have some Tuk tuk drivers linked to them like in Siem Reap. the first thing he did as we approached was to throw our valuables down on the desk and say that we had to keep them from now on. We said we hadn't come for them but ok, and then asked for his help regarding the killing fields. He then made no effort to understand what i was saying and flatly ignored us, in the end we had to just walk away...getting the feeling that for some reason this hotel doesn't like us! Went out to the river front on the night and had the most fantastic food in an Indian restaurant. Thali trays with the most beautiful selection of food laid out like school dinners! We then planned on heading to one of the bars we had seen earlier in the day,
with drinks offers and free pool tables, but when we got there it turned out they were "hostess bars" all with little scantily clad Cambodian girls to wait on you, and we gave them a swerve! We got a tuk tuk home after a quite drink in the "cavern bar" and asked him if he would pick us up at 9 and take us to the killing fields and the boat dock, we agreed a price and headed to bed. The next day we went to the Cheung Ek (the killing fields) its an incredibly moving place, and confusing in its beauty and peacefulness. We were given a free audio tour and so walked around this peaceful orchard being told about all the atrocities which happened there. As well as the memorial monument which houses the skulls and clothing of all the remains they have found, as you walk around the graves you see pieces of cloth and bone coming out of the ground, which are apparently brought out with the rain. It really gave me a better idea of what the Cambodians had been through and how recently! I had commented a few days before that you don't see
many older people in Cambodia, and I now understand why. We asked the Tuk Tuk driver to take us to the ferry dock so we could buy our tickets, he then stopped about 10 mins walk away by a closed road and said he couldn't get any closer, then told us we in fact owed him $20 not the agreed $13 and as we had no change and were near no stalls we had little choice but to pay him..starting to get pretty fed up by the constant scamming in Cambodia and I think we are both feeling ready to move on. On the evening we had headed for the restaurant over the road, which appeared to be run by the hotel, it had been really lively the few nights before and they had some cheap beer offers and nice looking food. We ordered our food and had a jug of beer (rejecting the ice on this occasion!) and when we finished this, someone came over and asked if we wanted more, we said yes could we have another jug, and also a bottle of water. He then said no...he appeared to be saying we could only have a glass
of beer, so we asked for this and some water and he said no again and just walked off. It appeared we had been cut off! we were then ignored for 15 minutes whilst all the Cambodians around us got more and more beer flowing, and we could not even get water! Now we were really getting the feeling the hotel didn't like us being there! Moving on to Vietnam tomorrow and can't wait! Cambodia is a beautiful country and the people are largely very poor, so you understand them trying to cash in on tourists. However the constantly saying no to people and then being followed by them still demanding you "buy something", the dodgy transport systems and the blatant two tier pricing - tourists price, local price starts to get you down! Especially in Phnom Penh where there was real contempt towards tourists in some places! Roll on Vietnam!
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