Phomn Penh

I arrived at the bus station in Phomn Penh at around 6pm and it was already quite dark. I'd met two English guys and three Swedish guys on the bus so we decided to find a place all together, which was a good thing because as soon as we got off the bus were practically mobbbed by guys going "tuk tuk, tuk tuk please". It was absolutely mad but we grabbed two tuk tuks (or rather the drivers grabbed us) and the one the Swedish lads had got insisted on taking them to his guest house so we just followed. Ended up at the Lakeside which is the real backpacker area of Phomn Penh and our guest house was called the 'Smile Lakeside' down a fairly dingy looking alley. It wasn't just on the lakeside, it was actually built over the lake. There was water beneath my room! The six of us sat out on the wooden deck for dinner and I was slightly put-off when they asked if I wanted my burger 'happy'. Oh yes, it was one of those places! I declined. The guest house's tuk tuk driver, Chang, drank a couple of beers with us and then passed out in a hammock which was hilarious.

I woke up insanely early the next morning so had breakfast with a lovely German lady who was also staying at Smile. She was 58 years old and stays here every time she comes to Phomn Penh. She's been travelling on and off ever since she was 18 so it was really fascinating to talk to her. The rest of the day was spent with Chang and the three Swedish guys (who's names I actually never caught and then was too embarrassed to ask as we'd been hanging around together too long!) around Phomn Penh. First we went to a shooting range because the guys wanted to fire some guns. There are lots of these rangers around run by the army so we turned up and they brought us a 'menu' of all the stuff we could use. It was insane. You could shoot anything from Colt 45.'s, AK47's, tommy guns, machine guns, RPG's, hand grenades, even a grenade launcher if you had $350 to spare. There are rumours you can buy a cow and blow it up, but thankfully that wasn't on the menu so how true it is I'm not sure. The guys opted for the AK's, but at $40 a go I was happy to just watch. Though 'happy' might be an overstatement as I was distinctly edgy the whole time. Too many weapons around for my liking! But I did get a photo of me with the AK. From there we started the proper tour where we were going to visit two of the most notorious places in Cambodia's history: the Killing Fields and the S21 Prison. We'd been warned they weren't nice but I think it was important to go and see them to understand some of this country's history. I'm glad I did it, but once is enough. I'm not sure I can put into words what these places were like but I'll try. Don't read the next paragraph if you don't want to know!

We headed out of the city to Choeung Ek (the 'Killing Fields') where thousands of people were executed under Pol Pot's communist regime between 1975-1979. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect but once I arrived through the main gates I saw a lovely Buddhist-style tower (the stupa) which I thought was really pretty, until I got closer and realised that there were hundreds of human skulls stored on the shelves staring out at me. These were the victims that had been exhumed from about ninety of the hundred and twenty mass graves in the early 1980s. But walking around you soon realise that the burials weren't limited to just the mass graves. There are bones just everywhere along with scraps of cloth - clothing remains. At one point I looked down and saw some remains just poking out of the ground. Quite disturbing and very very sad. I sort of wished I hadn't taken osteology at uni as I could have perhaps pretended they were just animal bone, but they were definitely human. It's been estimated that 1.7 million people (approximately one fifth of Cambodia's 1975 population) were either murdered, or died of malnutrition and disease under the Khmer Rouge. Anyone who was considered intelligent: doctors, lawyers, teachers, political opposition, even anyone who wore glasses (as that was a sign of cleverness apparently) and their families were imprisoned and killed. And one of the worst parts is that once they were ousted in 1979 the USA put a trade embargo on Cambodia as they would only recognise the Khmer Rouge as the official leaders of the country and gave them Cambodia's seat on the UN. How ridiculous! I have to say, between here and Saigon my opinion of the USA has gone down hill. From there it was even more depressing as we went to Tuol Sleng, also know as the S.21 Prison where the majority of the people executed at Choeung Ek were imprisoned and tortured. Again, not a very nice experience. All the cells were still there and some still had (I think) bloodstains on the floor. I can't think what else they'd be. Certainly not paint. >< There were hundreds of photographs of all the prisoners, including really young children, and they came with this statistic: of the 20,000 people known to have been held captive here only seven survived. Owch. I took some photos while walking around but I there are some I just cannot put online. I was so glad to leave to get back to the hostel for food.

All four of us needed some cheering up afterwards! Luckily Chang was quite funny. He's taken people around a lot so knew what we'd be like. I tried to chill out on the lakeside that afternoon but it was so humid. Just sitting there felt like I was melting. That evening the Swedish guys and me went to the Night Market. I got some food but I only picked at it as I wasn't particularly hungry. There were two little street kids hanging around and they were just about to be chased away by one of the stall owners so I gave them the rest of my food. Better them to have it than it to go to waste. They were so sweet! We ended up having a drink outside one of the cafes on the Riverside (the posher tourist area) and the funniest little boy selling books came to chat to us. His English was fantastic and he was really smart. He got one of the Swedish guys to buy a book off him and challenged another to a game of 'rock, paper, scissors'. If the Swedish guy won, the boy'd buy him a cake but if the boy won the guy had to buy him a cake. Well, it was the fastest game I've ever seen. The boy won in under ten seconds (best out of three) so he got a huge slice of chocolate cake. It was very funny. We watched 'Flags of our Fathers' back at the hostel later that night, which was a good movie but I was distracted by the gecko on the tv (it wanted to be in the film!) and the rat running across the walls!

I was up quite early the next morning to have a quick look around the city before I got my bus to Siem Reap. I visited the Wat Phomh temple (where there was an elephant!) and the nightmare that was Central Market. Ended up getting a motorbike taxi back to the hostel as I'd ended up walking miles! My bus was at 12.30pm and I thought I'd booked on the tourist bus... I was wrong. Ended up on the local bus and, apart from one Japanese man who used to live in Cambodia (he was an anthropologist from Kyoto University) I was the only foreigner on there! It wasn't the most comfortable of journeys - no air con, bumpy roads and it took almost seven hours. It kept stopping to drop people off and pick them up from the roadside. I arrived in Siem Reap in the dark and amazingly was not mobbed by tuk tuk drivers, possibly because I arrived on the local bus. Found one who knew where the hostel I wanted to stay at was thank goodness and, even though I had to swap tuk tuk's halfway there for some unknown reason, I did get to where I wanted to be!!