2 Days in Phnom Penh

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Well its been a while since I've written one of these so my creative writing skills are a bit rusty. Anyways just spent the last 2 days in the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. I'll start with how I got here. So I flew from the Gold Coast to Kuala Lumper airport in Malaysia. Flew with AirAsia for pretty cheap i.e. no frills whatsoever. The lack of entertainment and food was easily replaced with 2 pre flight beers and phernergans...sufficient to send me to sleep for about 95% of the 8.5 hour flight. AirAsia flies into the low cost carrier terminal so that means you get to walk about 1km from the plane to the terminal. The terminal itself wasn't too bad, free wifi and I was tired enough to sleep on the floor for a bit. Just before getting on connecting flight to Phnom Penh grabbed some vegetarian chow mein from a noodle stand. Word of advice...eat somewhere else, was rather bland and tasteless given that it cost about $4.

Fast forward 2 hours and I'm in Phnom Penh. Airport is easy to figure out whats going on so go to get visa on arrival. I don't have a passport size photo with me so I'm fined an extra $3 on top of the visa fee. Immigration is quick to clear and then I'm outside with about a million different people yelling taxi/tuk tuk at you. I opt for the cheaper tuk tuk option. Tuk tuk rides are different here to those in Latin America. The roads are chaotic with cars, motorbikes, tuk tuks and pushbikes fighting for room. How no one seems to crash is beyond me. Once I make it to the hostel and get myself checked in decide its time to be the tourist. Need to go to the Vietnamese embassy first though to sort out my visa for when I go there. After the embassy the tuk tuk driver takes me to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The place used to be a school until the Khmer Rouge took power and "evacuated" the urban areas to force everyone to work in the fields. Tuol Sleng, known as S-21, was used to house political prisoners such as intellectuals, dissidents etc. And by house I mean torture and brutalise before killing them. The place was pretty chilling and there are photos of all the victims displayed...so many of them look like teenagers. You can walk around the building looking into the different rooms which still have some of the beds and torture implements in them...along with photos of corpses that were found when the Vietnamese ousted Pol Pot's government. The place is ironically rather peaceful given the bustle of Phnom Penh and its hard to imagine what took place in there. The cramped brick and wood cells are shockingly small. All in all its a pretty depressing place to visit.

After the museum decided I would go back to the hostel before doing something else. Was a scenic drive through the city passing the Royal Palace which is quite magnificant building. There are many other beautiful buildings as well but also a lot of run down tenement buildings. Not much of France's influence remains at all in terms of architecture. There are some rather wide boulevards though spanning the city. Once I got back to the hostel I went for a long walk to find some lunch. There's so many different cuisines to choose from but I found a nice vegetarian cafe to get a wrap and a salad. After walking back to the hostel I ended up having a nap...until the next day! Turns out jet lag does exist even when you cross only a few time zones.

So next day I got the same tuk tuk driver as day before (I promised him I'd get him to take me to the killing fields and hire him out for the half day) and we made our way to the killing fields via the Vietnamese embassy to pick up my passport with visa. The drive out takes about an hour; its only 17km but traffic is slow and the roads not in great condition. On the drive I realise why so many people in the city wear surgical masks...its soooo bloody dusty! The drive takes you through some of the outer parts of the city before arriving. $6 entry fee and you get an audio tour with it. This place was disturbing to say the least. First there is a big shrine (a stupa the Cambodians call it) dedicated to the thousands of people who were executed here. Its 17 stories high and contains the remains of around 8000 people that have been found in mass graves at the site. The audio tour is excellent and very informative, you walk around and there are signs with a number on which you enter to hear about that part. Basically once Phnom Penh was emptied of people this place was one of the places political prisoners were taken after their tortured confession to be executed. It used to be an ethnic Chinese graveyard and some graves remain but during the Khmer Rouge a truck a month at first would come with prisoners who would be executed the same night. The number of trucks soon rose to nearly everyday. Bullets were expensive so people were usually hacked or beaten to death then dumped in a mass grave. The amount of mass graves is sickening...you can tell where they are from the square depressions in the ground. Some graves have been excavated, others haven't. During the wet season bones and clothes still come to the surface. It really is a sombre place and a must visit if you come to Cambodia.

Back in Phnom Penh I had some lunch and relaxed for the afternoon before heading out for dinner. I went for pizza at a place that supposedly used cannabis as a topping but there was none on mine 😞. Pizza was okay either way though. Decided I'd finish the night by getting a massage...massages bloody hurt, the guy who gave me mine didn't loook like he could inflict that much pain! Felt completely relaxed and loosened up afterwards though.

This afternoon I'm heading off on a bus to Battambang near the border with Thailand for 3 days. Will post again soon!

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