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Published: June 13th 2009
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Phnom Penh
Sunset over the city Our border crossing from Vietnam to Cambodia was possibly the smoothest part of our journey to date. Having decided to get a coach from HCM City to the Cambodian capital city of Phnom Penh, we were driven to the border in a 52 seater coach containing only 10 people (including ourselves). The Cambodian transport company even gave us bottled water for the journey and cold towels to refresh ourselves with throughout the journey. We kept waiting for the coach to stop and collect more people as had been the norm in Vietnam but no, we just continued with the coach virtually empty. As we approached the border our driver collected all our passports and sorted out our visas so that we did not have the hassle of doing this at the border...and not for some rip off fee either!! This meant that all we had to do at the border was to get off the bus, go through passport control whilst all of our passports were stamped and wait for our names to be called to receive our passports back. Slight embarrassment as they call your surname and also mispronounce them too so when they kept shouting for “Hayley” to come
Phnom Penh
Tuk tuk anyone? forward we took no notice at all!!
First impressions of Cambodia...the landscape was very different to what we had seen in Vietnam. As we crossed the border almost immediately it seemed that the land became very barren and sparce and unfortunately appearing to have litter and rubbish on every road (we forget how fortunate we are to have our rubbish collected and landfill sites!!) As I was reminded this is still a third world country and for all the tourism that appears to be taking place it still lacks basic infrastructures. Of course there was also the immediate language difficulty as once again we moved from recognising the letters of our alphabet to the Cambodian khmer script (similar to Thai/Arabic) and I was also struck by how similar in appearance the people looked to Indians encountered at the start of our journey..very dark skin compared to the fair Vietnamese.
Having taken the car ferry across the Mekong River (the road bridge was supposed to have been built almost 4 years previously) we arrived in Phnom Penh to the most intense humid heat - not forgetting the almost inevitable moped madness again(though not quite as bad as Vietnam)Our guesthouse was quite
a way out and when we inquired about hiring pushbikes we are treated as if we are mad..needless to say there are none for hire anywhere near us. So, for our time here we are reliant on our own steam or the infamous tuk tuks...these ones moving up a notch from Vietnam as no longer are they powered by a pushbike but now have a moped on the front!
I don’t know what I expected from Phnom Penh but I was not prepared for the full on begging and hassle as you walked by the riverfront. Every few steps we were greeted by beggars, land mine victims, the homeless....as real as it was it was very difficult to have it thrust under your nose every few steps. There was also a tremendous amount of building work being undertaken so at almost each block there were hordings and diggers and roads closed for building work etc..a bit too full on for me along with the constant hassle from tuk tuk drivers too. I began to long almost instantly for a bit of peace and quite or a nice beach to relax on and I think both of us agreed our time
here would be swift indeed, taking in the major sites before moving on. We walked up to Wat Phnom temple on a hill to get a view of the city and fed the million and one monkeys in the grounds outside. We went to the Grand Palace but on realising that I was not covered up (wearing vest top) I had a brainwave of using our zip off trouser legs to cover my arms up. One guard found it very amusing but his grumpy mate was having none of it. He was not even letting women in who had shawls over themselves and was directing everyone to go and BUY a t shirt from a stall at the entrance (run by them!!!) I was not amused in the slightest...many places will lend you a shawl to go into religious places or you can hire clothing but not having to buy clothing!! I’m afraid this was just adding to my negative feeling towards Phnom Penh!
There was some solace from the madness when we found an amazing rooftop bar ( Chow) totally out of keeping with the city...more like a boutique hotel bar where we were able to sip a glass
of Chardonnay and watch the sunset over the city....bliss. Also, weirdly John recognised an old school friend here .... he walked past and John was convinced it was him and yes turns out you can leave London but there is always some connection just around the corner wherever you are in the world.
One of our most disturbing journeys in Phnom Penh was to the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum (S21). We got up really early to avoid the intense heat so, at 7.15am we entered what can only be described as seeing the human race at its worse...the Khmer Rouge madness. How one human being can inflict torture onto another in such barbaric ways beggars belief. The whole place had such an eerie feel to it and if ever a place was haunted this would be it. The photographs could not capture the horrors that the Cambodian people must have gone through and no doubt still relive to this day.
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Richard and Helen
Richard and Helen
Coach
Hey, your trip sounds amazing. I'm doing a similar one in a few days and wanted to ask what coach company you took from Vietnam to Cambodia?