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Published: March 19th 2015
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As the days spent journeying to the next place have increased and the relaxing days doing very little have decreased, I have found myself with precious little time to update this blog (poor excuse but it's the one I'm going with). This said, I have decided to write about Cambodia as one big post as we only went to 4 main places in the 2 week period.
We arrived in Phnom Penh in the early evening from HCMC, so our first night was spent at a hostel recommended to us by a friend in Vietnam. The Mad Monkey hostel was a great way to kick start our Cambodia tour with great, albeit pricey, cambodian Khmer food. There was a bar with reasonably priced drinks so the evening was spent eating, drinking and meeting people. The next day we headed out for the Pol pot genocide museum, having already decided to split the atrocity sites over 2 days to prevent being overwhelmed by them. In hindsight, they were both not as brutal as we expected from hearing others speak of them and were definitely better done in a single day. The museum itself was a sobering experience, with blood of the
thousands of tortured victims still staining the floor and cells with chains still intact, but the atmosphere was definitely spoilt by the hundreds of Chinese tourist filling the rooms, talking loudly and barging you out the way to take photos (Such a terribly british complaint, I know). The best feature was the film shown of the seven survivors talking to the surviving prison guards, asking how they could do this to their fellow countryman. It featured anger, tears and guilty consciences which kept me glued to it for well over an hour! The actual killing fields outside of Phnom penh were definitely worth a visit, though they had been almost totally cleared so were basically just holes in the ground in a field. However, the audio guide was great ad gave a good overall view of what it was like been taken there and then bashed in the head with an axe to save bullets! The monument of 15000 skulls was an image not easily forgotten as well.
Despite these two unforgettable visits, Phnom Penh as a capital city was underwhelming. there were the usual temple to go and visit But we knew we still had Angkor Wat to
come so were less than bothered about visiting them. A bit dirty and quiet in the evening, save hooker street and a few bars, so we moved to a cheaper hostel for our last night and then headed out for sihanoukville in the morning. During our time at mad monkey we did manage one eventful night out, but nothing to compare to Vietnam.
Sihanoukville was only a 4 hour trip away so we arrived very sharply and decided to skip the usual touristy Serendipity beach. Instead, we hopped in a tuk tuk, who naturally took the piss when it came to the price agreed, and headed to a quieter and nicer beach called Otres 1. Once there, we found a cheaper and slightly horrible hostel that was nevertheless right on the beach and proceeded to camp out there for 4 nights. We did nothing but lie on the beach, eat the local Khmer food, drink the local beer and watch the 6nations. It was incredible. I vowed I would learn how to make Khmer amok and lok lak when I got home it was that tasty. The third day was spent touring the surrounding islands and doing our first
bit of snorkelling for the trip. It was nothing special as the water was murky and the masks were rubbish, but I enjoyed the attempt though! That night, the decision was made to move on and so our next port of call was the isle of Koh Rong.
The cheaper slow ferry got us to the island for just after midday, so we knew that finding a place to sleep one the cheap would be a challenge. With that in mind, we basically ran as far as we could from the pier and then started looking. With the luck of the Irish from Declan, we found a guesthouse in the process of being built so the guy gave us a very cheap deal on a room that turned out to be ensuite (well we were shitting in a toilet behind a shower curtain but still technically ensuite!) and so booked that for the duration. That night we partied hard in the bars completely run by westerners which served nothing but beers, BBQ and spirits. Needless to say, we lay on the beach and did sweet FA all day the next day! But with picture perfect white sand beaches and
the bluest water that was all we were going to do anyway. Feeling slightly adventurous on day number 3, we undertook a jungle hike to the beach called Long beach, unquestionably the best one the island had to offer. After sweating my entire body weight out in 35 degree heat and scaling some rocks twice my height we made it to long beach. It was entirely worth the trek! Beautiful white sand so fine it squeaked underfoot and warm, sky blue water that was not filled with rubbish was so refreshing. A week spent there camping would definitely not have been a wasted week! However, after one more day there fishing and snorkelling on a tour it was time to leave Koh Rong and head back to Sihanoukville for our bus to Siem Reap. This bus journey was possibly the worst one of the trip so far!
The bus left Deep into Asian time ( Dec and my way of describing the consistently poor standard of timekeeping every service had offered so far). It was scheduled to leave at half 6 but we left at quarter to 8. The bus had beds, which was a surprise, but the roads
were just dirt tracks so sleep was notion so far into fantasy world J.K Rowling was writing its sequel. We arrived 3 and a half hours late, but the bus did get us to Siem Reap so we were thankful. We knew that it was going to be a quick visit in the town as we were running out of time to do both Thailand and Malaysia properly. So the first day was spent exploring the town, which turned out to be my favourite of Cambodia. Some of the streets would have look at home in any southern Spanish town and the weather was scorching hot all day and evening. We visited the temples at Angkor Wat, with the largest being,whilst beautiful and fascinating, the busiest and dirtiest of all the ones we visited that day. We saw 6 temples in total and the smaller ones were awe inspiring structures and had amazing views of the surrounding jungle. the scale of them was beyond belief and none of the photos I took came close to doing them justice. My favourite by a clear country mile was the Tomb Raider temple, which had not been restored so was the original ruin.
It had gigantic white trees growing over the walls and ancient symbols carving into that walls so old even my gran wouldn't be able to translate them. Overall a fascinating day and a very good one to finish Cambodia on. Just time for a beer on pub street and to organise meeting Hamler the next day in Bangkok. The bus ride in the morning was smooth and uneventful, just like the border crossing. Cambodia finished!
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