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After a long, sleepless night (spent sitting in a duvet cover with our possessions at the bottom of the bag for fear of being robbed while we slept!) we crossed the border into Cambodia and arrived into Phnom Penh.
The taxi driver who picked us up from the bus kept trying to get us to go to hostels that were clearly giving him commission, but were far too disgusting to stay in. We eventually got him to drop us off at the hostel we wanted to stay in. So once again our bags were discarded in a dorm and we hopped into a Tuk Tuk and headed to the killing fields. On route our driver was flying along over potholes when suddenly my flip flop flew off my foot and out of the tuk tuk. Our driver kindly turned back and risked his life running into a stream of crazy tuk tuks, moped and vans to retriever the flip flop, after much hysterical laughing from ourselves and passersby we were on our way again.
The museum informed us all about the Pol Pot's regime, the Khmer Rouge and the genocide that had occurred only 40 years ago. Its baffling to that that some of the older generation lived through this horrific regime. The human bones and victims' pictures were a stark reminder that this isn't some twisted story, but happened to real people. After the somberness of the killing fields we decided to rent mopeds and did a tour of the local villages where children came out running and waving as we went past.
Phnom Penh didn't capture our attention, in fact we found it intimidating and dirty. Looking back I think we didn't give it the chance it deserved, but at the time we were happy to move on. So after only a few hours in the city we decided to hop on a night bus and head to Siem Reap. After a bit of a heated argument with the bus operator over our tickets we were glad to be saying goodbye to this city and ready for another sleepless night.
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