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My 5 hour trip to Phnom Penh, started at 9.30am. I travelled there with a Rachel, a girl I had met at my guest house in Siem Reap. This was fun and we chatted to alot of the other travellers. I had bought cheese crackers for the journey. They looked really nice on the box...................yuk they were gross, like cheesy custard creams,
We stopped off at a place for food along the way, however Rach and I were that long deciding what to eat that no sooner had the food arrived when one of our fellow bus group, coming running out to tell us the bus was leaving. Reluctant to leave all this yummy curry and noodles we got the restaurant staff to quickly make us a HUGE take out box full of it, which more to our fellow travellers disgust we scoffed the lot on the rest of the journey.
Rachel knew a place where we could stay in PhnomPenh for $2 nigh (a quid). Great I thought cheap and nice........................boy was this a hostel or what hahaha. For the quid a night we got a toilet that never worked, sheets that smelt of piss and BED BUGS!!!
However the owner was lovely with a big leafy deck that looked out on to the river and it was really central The first night Rach and I went out and got pretty drunk on very strong cocktails for a quid!
Phnom Penh is a huge city and it does have that capital city feel to it, it has a few shops there as oopposed to tthe shacks and market stalls that were in Siem Reape.
It then started to rain cats and dogs, so we decided to carry on our drinking on the deck of our hostel. There we ate and watched sex in the city the movie, while some of the lads smoked something herbal........ all good fun though and fantastic atmosphere.
In the morning Rach was due to leave, she had tried to change her flight so we could go down to the beach together, but it was going to cost silly money, so off she went to the airport to catch her flight to Bangkok. I however went to the Killing Fields. I like most people knew of the terrible atrocities that occurred in this country under Pol Pots regime, however nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. Here is a mass grave of skulls, which made me feel really sick, I took a photograph like all tourists do, however I could not help but think how wrong it is to have this grave as some tourist attraction. It does not feel the same as posing to have your photo taken say under the IIffle Tower or somewhere, these are peoples remains who were tortured and suffered at the hands of this evil man and his army. I did not get even half way round the genocide museum, before I left as it really was just too harrowing. Reading something text book is one thing but actually seeing the results in front of you is another.
Anyway after that ordeal, I went to the Russian market which was great fun, it sold everything from scarfs to guns!!
I done a bit of a haggling there which I enjoyed and ended up spending a fortune on old tat that I probably will never wear once I get back to London...but that is what holidays are for ah!
That evening, I just stayed in my hostel, I ate at the restaurant and me and this German guy ended up watching the Life of Brian on the deck with a thunderstorm outside, it was a good evening another world away from anywhere I had been or anything I had done.
My heart warmed to Cambodia greatly over time. It is a beautiful country and it still as a huge amount of it's original charm. I feel sad though as in 10 years or so I think the tourist influence i and it's desire to get with the western way is going to be so great it is just going to be become like another holiday resort. The Cambodian people are friendly and warm.Most of them have very little and work all the hours they can. I chatted to a girl (about 19) who was at English school she awoke at 6am to school, she stayed tthere until4pm, then went to work until 2am.
You are often see the kids here scavenging for food, alot of them have no shoes on but they are happy
The next day I checked out and boarded my bus for the 4 hour trip to Sihanouk Ville, the beach area of Cambodia. I had a crazy American man to chat too who was asking all the Cambodians on the bus were they Buddha's while downing a couple of cans of lager.....he was proper nuts, but great! hahaha. It rained for the entire journey getting heavy with thunder and lightening as we approached the beach.................
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