16/03/11 to 09/04/11 Cambodia - Phnom Penh to Koh Kong to Sihanoukville to Kratie to Siem Reap

Cruising by tuk tuk round Phnom Penh, Cambodia's recently reformed capital, is often like been driven through a thousand years of street, where there is a contrast between the highly familiar and the truly exceptional; RangeRover sports' pull up at traffic lights alongside ox carts carrying livestock to market, mopeds being driven by mere 10 year olds, taxi's speed through the streets stopping occasionally to empty themselves of 5 or 6 orange robed monks, perfectly manicured tree lined boulevards play host to plodding elephants and their owners and finally, we have unfortunately witnessed, seafood restaurants proudly displaying their catches of the day in huge fish tanks, before becoming scenes of mass murder, as staff net your desired fish/frog dinner and then proceed to pound its head off the pavement in readiness for the frying pan, all this in full public view and seemingly normal!

One algebraic difficulty for me here is that the Cambodian rIel, the US dollar and the Thai Baht (in places), are legal tender. We have been struggling to mentally exchange baht to riel, riel to US dollar, US dollar to Vietnamese dong and then dong to the faltering British pound. Not ideal when you only just scraped a C grade in GCSE Maths!

A fleeting few days in Phnom Penh dealt us days of two emotional extremes. Our trip to Wat Phnom, a local pagoda set on the 'only hill in town' was bizarrely surreal, as it was home to groups of wild, cavorting monkeys with insatiable appetites for fizzy drinks and junk food. It was also the scene of Micki's quote of the month, ''ahhhh look at that tiny monkey, its soooo cute'', she foolishly stated, ''errrrrr, no Michelle, thats a dog!'', I corrected.

Buoyed by the monkey business we headed to the Psar Thmei (central market) for some retail therapy of the 'genuine fake' variety, purchasing 2 pair of Roy Ban's and 2 very temperamental Casio watches. The latter, proving to be a real humdinger of an allergy protagonist on Micki's wrist for which, she is now nursing. The day reached its zenith when, by sheer luck, we found the best Khmer street food in all of Phnom Penh, all for $4.50, with beers, which kept us going back for 3 nights.

On the complete contrary, the following day proved to be a real emotional roller coaster, a day imponderables. Visiting Cambodia without learning about its tragic, yet very recent past, would have been unforgivable. Our quest for the facts led us to Tuoul Sleng Prison or S21, a former school, until Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge got hold of it in 1975, turning it into a torture camp/execution prison for detainees with any known education. It is believed over 17000 people were tortured at S21 before being transported to was what our next stop, Choeung Ek (The Killing Fields). More gruesomely at The Killing Fields, prisoners of all ages, were bludgeoned to death to save bullets before being thrown into pre-dug pits, in excess of 100 a day. Not surprising then that there motto was, 'to cleanse we must kill the root itself to prevent retribution', meaning all babies had to be killed as well as adults.This continued until 1979 when the heroic Vietnamese army rocked into Phnom Penh. Chilling!

Eager to explore untouched Cambodia, we headed to the province Krong Koh Kong, which is set in the Koh Kong Conservation Corridor, for 4 days of jungle, waterfalls, thundering rapids and the monumental afternoon monsoon rains. The area is renowned for its gargantuan mangrove forest (Pream wildlife sanctuary) which could stop a tsunami in its tracks and for its diverse wildlife. More impressive however, is the provinces fabled Cardamom mountain range, a vast area of untamed and unchartered jungle that is also one of only 2 sites in Asia that connect a mountain summit to the sea.

With the help of a local guide we organised a trek deep into the jungle canopy and the cardamom mountains, in what was a real highlight for us. A long tailed boat collected us from a riverside village before puncturing its way into the depths of jungle where Asian tigers, wild elephants, leopards and Siamese crocodiles all roam. Fortunately, our own encounter with the wildlife was limited to the sound of millions of insects reverberating through the jungle canopy and hundreds of persistent leeches. We had been pre warned, so donning hiking boots and knee high ski socks (a real head turner!) we were certain of avoiding them altogether. What they didn't tell us was that these leeches are persistent little critters. Travelling like a child's 'toy slinky' they attach themselves to your feet and helically hoist themselves up your leg, sucking your blood through socks and clothing, even penetrating the aerating holes in our shoes. Stopping for lunch at a boulder strewn river proved eventful as we had to systematically prize each leech off with a pair of pliers, ruining in the process, any semblance of romanticism depicted by our picturesque setting. Nice eh! Ironically, our guide wore flip flops for the duration and just picked the leeches off as he went, rolling them in his fingers as if a minor hindrance. He also proved to be an expert tree climber, as he though nothing of climbing 40 ft up trees during our trek to collect jack fruit for his family. Nutter.

After our physical exerts in Koh Kong we hit Cambodia's premier beach destination of Sihanoukville, which, shamefully has become a cross between Magaluf, Benidorm and Ko Samui with a splash of Cambodian culture thrown in. British expats pound the beach PR'ing for local bars whilst local orphans who are, heart wrenchingly, completely self reliant, sell fireworks or raid trash bins to collect bottles/cans for pittance. The poverty is vast in cambodia on the whole and together with the amount of child orphans, Khmer rouge victims, and disabled beggars or sellers it's often enough to bring a hot shame to any healthy face. Bypassing the Brit friendly Occheutal beach we found scarce solace, sanctuary and sublime sustenance (in the form of Lok Lak & Khmer curries) at Otres beach, where we happily lazed away four full days.

Rejuvenated, we bused 12 hours north to Kratie. A small developing town set parallel to the Mekong river, in which we pleasantly only encountered a handful of other tourists during our 4 day stay. Our trip here was solely based on our quest to see the rarest and most endangered dolphin in the world, the Irrawaddy dolphin, which, is known to live in a section of the Mekong, about 15 km north near the tiny village of Kampi. However, our stay here gave us much more than that amazing spectacle proved to be. It enabled us to see the real Cambodia, at its most rural, most simple, most beautiful and most welcoming best.

We set off for Kampi on our ubiquitous asian bikes that, are reminiscent of my mother's Sturmey Archer 3 geared bicycle, including its trademark, a handy wicker basket. Its a bike that all ages ride, a bike thats 'one size fits all' and a bike that sits you so bolt upright, it would correct even the harshest of postural irregularities.

Passing through the village of Phnom Sombok depicted life at its modern day simplest. Houses each with their own rustic charm, sit high on stilts to avoid flooding, giving the appearance they had been born upwards from the earth itself. Built haphazardly from bamboo, vines, dried banana leaf, corrugated iron, tarpaulin and with even the odd beer box blocking the gaps. They housed the extended families of farmers, market sellers and local businessmen who, despite their poverty and hard grafting labour, wore sky wide smiles, laughed, joked and constantly hollered Hello, how are you? each time we past. Travelling by bike really is the way to see and interact with the locals. The roads are mere single lane dirt tracks in places where malnourished buffalo and cows grazed at the roadside, children bathed in the adjacent river as if it were the Ganges and women stand over hot coals steaming sticky rice in banana leaf.

Our final week was spent in the bustling city of Siem Reap, where every other word reads Angkor Wat and where competition for the tourist dollar is cordial, but also creatively emphatic. Our first proper night out for months was centred down Siem's aptly named Pub St, in which we got stuck right into and then literally crawled out of after fully disgracing ourselves. The following day was a right-off with 2 stinking hangovers from the depths of hell that, set us back a day or two, but as always, well worth it!

Heeding the historical hype, we headed at 5am, on bikes, with the hoarding masses, to the exquisite temples of Angkor, to catch sunrise over the Khmer mecca that is, Angkor Wat. Built between 800 - 1100 AD the temples were built by a race centuries ahead of their time in terms of science, design and building capabilities. Left for over 300 years to the encroaching jungle and rediscovered by the french in 1876, a lot of the temples are in a state of ruin but this takes nothing away from their mesmerising, incomprehensible beauty. A couple of days temple hopping around Angkor Wat, Ta Phrom, Bayon, Angker Thom, Preah Khan and finally the immense, Beng Melea was awesome and superlatives will never do them justice, but the photos just might. Still, well worth the hype and a must see destination of jaw dropping magnitude.

Next stop, Burma (Myanmar) and corruption.