Cambodia - Darkland of beauty and sadness

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Dawn broke over the Mekong on our final day in Vietnam and our first in Cambodia. We left the comfort of the Victoria Hotel and boarded our own little powerboat for the journey upstream and into Cambodia. The passport office on the shore of the giant brown river was very funny and it felt like we were going to be interrogated, but instead were set upon by a bunch of cheeky local kids who gave us back massages for a dollar a piece. The scenery was excellent but quite foreboding seeing the poor people on the river looking at our nice little boat as it sped past. Anyway, bye bye Vietnam, its been superb.

Phnom Penh is a strange town. It has hanging over it the cloud of knowledge that everyone has when they go there that a mere 30 years ago it was emptied and a huge number of its inhabitants killed in unimaginable ways. Its also a lot poorer than Vietnam and also suffers the kind of inequality that is not on the surface in the communist countries we have been in till now. There are beggars a plenty on the side of roads down which huge Toyota Landcruisers trundle. Over our two days we visited the beautiful Royal Palace, which was surprisingly intact given the country's past and lunched at the very cool FCC - Foreign Correspondents Club.

Then there was the trip to the Killing Fields and to Teul Seng (S21), the Khmer Rouge prison and processing centre. Needless to say this was not a jolly day and John did not stand in anything funny. The site of the killing fields is something truly upsetting, and the lack of money in the country is such that the rains at this time of year were bringing the clothes and bones of the legions of dead to the surface along the paths we walked - this was no National Trust site. After paying our respects at the memorial we went to S21 and the horrors were further demonstrated with various photo displays and the cells themselves.

Phnom Penh is getting better though. The economy is picking up and more tourists are coming and we left feeling like the town, which could be pleasant enough with some more money in it would be ok.

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