Phnom Penh

We assumed that on our arrival in the capital city at 1am in the morning that we wouldn’t be greeted by the usual crowd, however it seems tuk tuk drivers and hotel touts don’t get early nights. Having shunned a few of them we had enough space to confirm where we thought we were and decide we were easily in walking distance. With so many tuk tuk drivers around you have to keep your guard up to ensure you don’t get conned into paying over the odds for services but this time we had to avoid being conned by a westerner. Worse still she was English. She came over to us and tried to claim we were miles from the centre of town and that it would benefit all three of us if we shared a tuk tuk. We weren’t having any of it as I had followed our route into town on the map and knew where we were, and we were especially pleased to have passed on her offer when we heard her later trying to negotiate with a driver to take her for just two dollars. Effectively she had considerably less money than she needed and wasn’t going to tell us this until she had already had us pay the majority of her transport costs to her hotel.

We set off into the night following the river south towards our hotel located on Street 136. The street layout in Phnom Penh appears at first to be logical as it’s a fairly simple grid system with each road numbered, however we got off the bus on Street 108 and had reached our hotel just four roads later. The numbers it turns out barely follow a pattern and for all we knew Street 137 may not have been next to us but may well have been on the other side of town.

Shortly, having passed a number of restaurants and bars still in full swing, we arrived at the Europe Guesthouse to find the storm we had been driving through all night had presented us with a problem. Despite following us all the way from Sihanoukville it appeared that all the rain water had been dropped in a perfect square outside our hotel resulting in an impassable six inch deep flood preventing us actually reaching the doors. Apparently my suggestion of taking off our shoes and wading through it was not an option so instead we just stood there for a minute. Obviously standing anywhere and looking confused makes you a prime target for a tuk tuk driver and almost immediately one appeared asking us where we needed to go. His eyes lit up when we explained we needed to travel all of 3 metres as he instantly offered us dry passage for the extortionate price of one dollar. Having negotiated down to a still-extortionate 50 cents we took longer loading our bags than actually reaching the door but at least Linz’s nice clean trainers remained sparkly white. The hotel room itself was very basic as it didn't even have a window but the bed was comfortable and having been on the bus for five hours and then having to deal with floods, not quite on the same scale to those recently experienced in Queensland, a nice bed was what we needed.

Our first day in the capital would be the first time in Cambodia where we really started to learn about the tragedies caused by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970’s. We left the hotel and found ourselves a local tuk tuk syndicate who we negotiated a driver out of to take us to the Killing Fields located out of town. Over the few years where the country was ruled by the Khmer Rouge, lead by Pol Pot, millions of innocent Cambodians were brutally murdered in an attempt to literally kill off any chance of revolution against the government. Those killed included any supporters of the previous leadership, the military and anyone deemed intelligent including students, teachers and doctors. The Killing Fields, which now houses a monument of remembrance and a museum, was the site where thousands of adults and children were murdered and buried. Other than the monument, which accommodates 8000 human skulls excavated from the burial pits on the site, there is little to show in the way of evidence of the atrocities. There is also little to report as the main feature, for want of a better word, is just the realisation of what happened there.

We easily found a tuk tuk outside the fields to take us back to town despite what our original tuk tuk driver said, who was purely trying to make a bigger sale, and headed off to our next site. Unfortunately you will have to wait for some more light hearted blogging as our next stop was the Khmer Rouge prison referred to as S-21. This former primary school was turned into a holding prison for Cambodians deemed as a risk to the government and would eventually, due to overcrowding, be the last stop for prisoners before heading to the Killing Fields. The atmosphere while walking through the rooms, each featuring graphic photographs from the days when the prison was in use, was quite disturbing. Given the government’s intentions of dumbing down the country it made sense to put the school to new use, and we both found it eerie how easy it was to imagine children running round the halls as it looked so similar schools we would see back home. We left and found a new tuk tuk driver to move on.

One of the cell blocks at S-21

That's it for heavy reading in this update, from now on you can sit back and enjoy more bright and breezy blogging including tales of unrelenting heat, successful shopping trips and even an elephant. Our next stop, on what had already been a busy day, was the Grand Palace in the heart of town whose main feature was the Silver Pagoda. We researched our trip here in advance so had both worn shorts which cover our knees and tops which covered our shoulders so we were allowed entry. This was more of an issue of Linz as short-shorts and vests are not so much my thing. This was the first attraction we had ever really had to queue for and having to stand in the burning sun was hard enough, but standing opposite a fridge full of chilled drinks but with no one there to accept our money for them made it agonising. I often find myself comparing attractions to each other and I felt the Grand Palace was mainly competing with Beijing’s Forbidden City as both were built as cities-within-cities enclosed by thick walls and housing a number of religious buildings. Similar to the Forbidden City the Palace was full of tourists however I found it considerably easier to ignore the groups here as the building was so much more impressive. The Silver Pagoda being a particular highlight as it included a large emerald Buddha, as well as a life-sized Buddha encrusted with just under 9000 diamonds and the floor itself was constructed using approximately 8000 silver tiles which is where the building gets its name. Although I would like to say the pagoda was the biggest highlight I must also point out the delights of the ice cream stall and the Cornetto which followed our trip there. This was most certainly not our only essential ice cream stop of the day.

Not enjoying the heat but definitely enjoying a break from the tourist crowds

Following the palace, which incidentally was full of people who hadn’t planned ahead and were having to wear ridiculous Silver Pagoda branded T-shirts to cover their shoulders, we stopped for lunch before embarking on a walking tour of central Phnom Penh. Having passed through various districts of the city we came across a market we browsed for well over an hour. I’m not sure if it could really be described as a market as it was indoors and built on eight floors including escalators and a food court, so maybe shopping centre would be more appropriate. However, I’ve settled on calling it a market as the shops, although indoors, were more like stalls which all sold the same things, every sale was based on negotiation and all the stall owners did everything they could to get you in their shop. Following this modern-day market we headed for a more traditional market targeted at your everyday Cambodian selling bits and bobs and a lot of fish.

Despite having done more so far on this day than we had during our entire stay so far in Cambodia, we continued on and headed for a peak to the north of the town centre where we could get a good view of the city. On our way we passed locals playing football which was most amazing for the fact that they had about five matches going on simultaneously in a small area and despite each of them overlapping, and no kits to be seen , everyone playing new exactly who to pass to. The hill, which it turned out we were meant to pay to enter, didn't have the view of the city we thought it did, however it was crawling with monkeys which easily offered enough entertainment to justify the walk through the heat. Finally we decided to call it a day and found the river to walk along back to our hotel.

This was the best action-shot I could manage

On our way back, having stopped at KFC for a the biggest iced drink they had, we found a tourist office were we could look into visiting the wildlife sanctuary, located quite a long way out of town, on the following day. The office was closed however we were approached by a tuk tuk driver who said he often did tours to the sanctuary and offered us his services. Usually we would rather go through a company however Curly, not his original Cambodian name, spoke excellent English and seemed like a good lad so we accepted and he even offered us a complimentary ride back to the hotel. Oh, and we saw an elephant on the way back. See, I knew the elephant story was worth reading through all the hard hitting genocide parts of the blog.

We were up early the next day to meet Curly outside the hotel and start the hour and a half journey to the sanctuary. On the way we stopped for breakfast, which included buying Curly a sandwich, and once again just outside to sanctuary to buy luminous ponchos on his suggestion and it looked like it was going to rain. On arrival at the sanctuary we met our guide for the day who would take us on a private tour round the site. The place is more than just a zoo as, in addition to standard zoo animals, it also takes in a lot of injured and rescued animals including a three legged elephant. Despite the presence of tigers, crocodiles, leopards and countless monkeys our favourite by far was a gibbon who had, to use the wording of our guide, “lost his wife” about a year ago. Consequently he is now the loneliest animal you’ve ever seen but who gets so happy when people come to visit him. He offered his hand to us to hold through his cage and when we obliged he was desperate not to let go as he didn't want us to leave. Aw...

Me and my new little friend



A different gibbon who tried to steal the camera and then, having failed, tried to wee on us



We had an excellent time at the park, where it didn't rain, but left earlier than we thought meaning we could have some time to relax, following our efforts the previous day, when we returned to the hotel. Unfortunately on the return trip Curly exhibited some of the deceptive tendencies of tuk tuk drivers we’ve had in the past. Firstly he had to stop for petrol and asked us to pay for some of it and then suggested we add an extra five dollars to the agreed price as a tip. We had already planned to give him an extra five dollars but by requesting the tip he cut it to just two dollars which we had already parted with anyway at the petrol station. In addition to this he dropped us off at his friend’s roadside stall where he said we could book a bus to or next town. We decided it was probably best not to buy tickets from a stall which looked like it would fall over at any slight breeze.

Later that evening, having booked our bus from a shop with walls, we went for dinner and then visited the night market we had first seen on arrival in town two days earlier. The dinner, although good, could not match the amazing spring rolls I had had the night before but still offered a good curry. The food so far in Cambodia has beaten that of Vietnam and China as they seem to make a bigger deal of their famous dishes including particularly tasty beef lok lak and coconut curries. The night market offered Linz another chance to buy a cheap watch, which would be broken soon after purchase, and both of us the chance to witness some truly horrific Cambodian singing from a lady who appeared to have been paid to sing up on a stage overlooking the market. Some one better have been fired for that error.

Our bus to the town of Battambang was leaving early the next day so we were up shortly after sunrise to find the hotel doors still locked and the staff still asleep. With the bus leaving dangerously soon we resorted to loudly shuffling our bags and talking between ourselves rather than physically waking either of the men sleeping in the reception. Finally one of them woke up and we could check out only to find the bus was late and we ended up hanging around for about half an hour. We had opted, quite accidentally, for the cheap bus where we were the only non-Cambodians onboard for the five hour trip. The main difference on these buses when compared to the tourist buses, other than the rarity of westerners, is that they stop for every single waving hand on the side of the road, despite the number of people already on board, which adds quite a lot of time to the trip. I wasn’t bothered this time as I had recently purchased Football Manager on my iPod so I was in a world of my own.